Cassandra's Sister (19 page)

“Are you sure, Papa?” Jane wondered who had told her father this, and on what authority.

“Quite sure. I shall wait until Messrs Cadell request it. Then they will be much more likely to accept it for publication.”

“Very well.” Jane once more gathered the manuscript into her arms. “And you will inform me the instant you hear anything?”

“Of course. I shall write today. I predict we shall hear by the time a fortnight has passed.”

“Thank you, Papa.”

A fortnight seemed to Jane a very long time. Every day she went to the post office herself, only leaving Kitty to collect the letters when circumstances decreed. Kitty's habit was to leave the letters on a silver tray on a table just inside the front door, weighting the pile against windy weather by a small, solid glass globe Frank had brought home from one of his voyages. After her search for a letter bearing the Cadell seal, Jane would replace the paperweight and walk away, her brain already busy with the following day's collection and inspection. And a little more than a week after Papa had sent his letter, the reply from the publishers appeared on the silver tray.

Her heartbeat quickening, Jane turned the letter over and over. She knew her father would be working on his sermon, but she knocked on the study door nevertheless.

“Please read it, Papa,” she begged, holding out the letter to him. “Read it now.”

Papa broke the seal and read aloud, “
Sir, we thank you for your proposal but regret we must decline your offer of a manuscript for publication. We remain your humble servants, etc., etc
.”

“May I see the letter?” asked Jane. She felt hot and cold at the same time. Disappointed, yet relieved. “It was written by a clerk, was it not?”

“I fear it was,” said Papa. “I am sorry, my dear. But we can try another publisher. Mr John Murray, I understand, is a competent one.”

“Please do not write to him, Papa,” requested Jane. “I do not mind in the least if none of my stories ever finds a publisher.”

“But Jane…”

“I am in earnest,” insisted Jane. “The world will be no different for the lack of
First Impressions
, you know. Thank you for trying, but it is of no consequence to me.”

Upstairs, she opened the cupboard door, took her boots off the lid of the box and put
First Impressions
at the bottom, under
Elinor and Marianne
.

Foolish, foolish girl
, she reprimanded herself.
Regard this blow to your vanity as a reminder that parental pride, not objective judgement, was in operation here. Do not let yourself be fooled by it again
.

M
arriage might be in the air, but so was its natural successor, childbirth. Everybody, it seemed to Jane, was having babies. The confinements of several Steventon women kept Mama and Cassandra busy visiting, and Jane was put to use helping to mend, sort, replace and augment the stocks of baby clothes and blankets to be lent to needy parishioners. Meanwhile James and Mary's first child was expected, and in Kent, five-year-old Fanny was soon to be presented with an addition to her collection of three younger brothers.

We pray
, wrote sister-in-law Elizabeth to Cassandra,
for a sister for Fanny this time. It would make Edward and me very happy if she were to forge with her sister as close a tie as you, my dear Cass, have forged with Jane. I have long been persuaded that sisterly friendship is selfless, noble and affectionate beyond all other
.

“Selfless, noble and affectionate!” cried Jane, picking up her basket and scissors. Cass was reading her letter in the garden, where she and Jane were gathering lavender for scent-bags. “To be sure, I sometimes wonder if having all these babies is weakening Elizabeth's brain.”

“Jane! I sincerely hope you do not speak so harshly of
me
when I am not in your presence. In my opinion, Elizabeth's sentiment is rather beautiful.”

It was now over a year since Tom's death, and, true to her bargain with Jane, Cass had removed her deep mourning. Of her two new gowns, however, one was plain dove grey and the other a colour Jane described to herself as “fieldmouse”. Her hopes of ever seeing her sister clad in white sprigged muslin, with her bright beauty framed by a straw hat trimmed with pink ribbons – always a favourite summer combination – had vanished.

“Then I take back my unkind words,” said Jane lightly, “and you will forgive me, as you always do. But, you know, I greatly look forward to seeing Fanny next week. She seems to me an uncommonly intelligent child.”

“She is,” agreed Cass with a mild smile, “and a lucky one. Her father is rich, her mother is accomplished and well-connected, she is pretty, and she is musical. ”

“And she may soon have the opportunity of experiencing
sisterly friendship
!” added Jane. “What further delights could we wish upon our niece?”

Cassandra put Elizabeth's letter in the pocket of her apron. Jane knew that her sister was watching her stoop and cut and lay the lavender sprays in the basket, but she did not return her look.

“Jane, is something amiss?” asked Cassandra. “I fear you are not well. Let us go and sit in the shade, and I shall ask Kitty to bring some cordial for you.”

Jane straightened up to face Cass, but she did not put her basket down. “I am perfectly well,” she said. “I merely feel…” She looked around the garden, as if it would provide the words to describe the restlessness in her heart. “I feel … left behind, somehow.”

“Left behind?” Cassandra was puzzled. “But you are to accompany us to Kent.”

Jane hurried to explain. “No, not literally left behind. I mean that I want to do things.” She thought for a moment. “I suppose what I want is my own Fitzwilliam Darcy, complete with blazing intelligence, strict morals, a handsome figure and a country seat, so that I can be mistress of my own house and family.”

Cass did not speak. The small frown had appeared. From long experience she waited for her sister to frame her thoughts, and share them without further prompting.

“It is all these new babies, Cass, which are disturbing my peace,” complained Jane. “Do you remember how excited we were when Fanny and Anna were born, and we first became aunts? But by the end of this year we shall be aunts
seven times over
, and that figure can only increase. Why, Frank and Charles are not even married yet, but when they are, we shall be aunts to yet
more
children.”

“And one day you shall be mother to your own, too,” said Cassandra.

“I hope so,” said Jane gently. Then, after a pause, “Does it not pain you, dearest, that
you
will never have a child?”

“No,” replied Cassandra decisively. She pressed her lips together, to stop herself betraying even the smallest tremble, before she spoke again. “My children were buried with Tom. I have mourned them already.”

Jane could not bear to hurt her sister by voicing her deepest anxiety. Since that dreadful day when the news from the West Indies had come, had not her own prospects of marriage and motherhood materially diminished? She and Cass had each loved only one man, now torn away from them by death and distance. Cass had decided not to look for another love, and Jane, after two years without a word, had accepted that Tom Lefroy was lost to her. Was she indeed left behind, doomed to spinsterhood by association? Would she for ever be one of the Misses Austen, invited out of politeness and seated next to the Samuel Blackalls and John Lyfords of this world?

She fell back on flippancy. “Twenty-two and ready for marriage!” she cried. “Young lady for sale! Roll up, roll up! What will you wager, pretty miss, on your sister's prospects? A bright new sixpence?”

“Oh, stop that,” said Cassandra, going back to her cutting. “We are going to Godmersham next week, where there are always parties. And did you know that Mama is plotting to take you to Bath? If you do not meet a suitable gentleman in that notorious marriage-market, it will be because there is not one there who deserves you.”

But Jane's spirits refused to revive. “I detest Bath, and I do not want to be ‘deserved',” she said frostily. “I want to be loved by a man who understands the world and is prepared to laugh at it. In fact, not like Mr Darcy at all, who never laughs at anything. Is that too much to ask?”

“No, not at all,” said Cass, mystified by Jane's bitter tone. “You have every cause to be optimistic. Observe the happy ending to Eliza's search.”

“Eliza and Henry?” exclaimed Jane, clapping her hand to her forehead. “What comedy! What charm! Anything can happen to anyone, and not only in novels!”

Cassandra did not smile. “I remain convinced that you need that cordial. You are overwrought.”

“Perhaps I am.” Jane put her basket down abruptly and gathered her skirt. “If anyone is looking for me, I shall be lying down. I feel a sick headache coming on.” She turned to go into the house, then back to her sister, who stood nonplussed beside the lavender bed. “Oh, and if I should die, you may write upon my tombstone, ‘Here lies one whose youthful cynicism disgusted her family, but whose pretty stories delighted them.'”

“Jane, dear… ” began Cass, very concerned.

“No more, Cass. Leave me be.”

Cass did not dissent. She left her sister alone, and Jane lay on the bed with her feelings too tightly strung for sleep. Refusing dinner, she slipped out of the kitchen door and cried for a quarter of an hour among the shadows of the larches at the bottom of the garden. Then she joined Mama and Cass at Friday evensong.

Papa prayed for the family's safe journey into Kent, as well as for his ailing parishioners and the health of the King. Cass slid Jane a sideways glance as she took her place in the family pew, and twitched a small smile. Whether or not she understood Jane's reasons for her outburst was not certain. But she bore no ill will, and Jane was absolved.

The whole family was going to Godmersham. Mindful of her sister's words, Jane packed her white dresses with as light a heart as she could, and included her writing materials. Her mornings would be free of chores. In the afternoons there would be outings, and the evenings would be passed pleasantly in company. She would begin to write again, she was sure.

Elizabeth's swollen figure betrayed the nearness of her time. Jane kissed her with real feeling, struck by how thin her face had become. She did not resemble very closely the peach-fleshed young matron who had admired Canterbury Cathedral with them only three years before. Jane knew she should not confuse fact and fiction, but she wondered whether, once engaged in producing the heirs to the Darcy fortune, that other radiant Elizabeth would lose her sparkle so soon.

A little girl stood shyly by the door, holding tightly to her nurse's hand. Her smaller brother held the woman's other hand. Both children were dressed “for company”, their eyes bright with excitement at the promise of sweets and treats which Grandpapa and Grandmama's visits always brought.

“Fanny, Edward!” cried their mother, holding out her hands. “That will be all, Susanna,” she instructed the nursemaid. “You may collect the children in half an hour.”

Fanny was bolder than three-year-old Edward. At her grandmama's smiling invitation she climbed upon the sofa and settled at her side, her feet dangling some inches above the floor. She smoothed her skirt. “I have a new dress,” she announced.

“So I see,” said Mama. “And has your hair been curled? How grown-up you look.”

“Her hair curls naturally,” said Elizabeth, her arms around little Edward. “Just like her aunts'.”

“I am going to be a writer, like Aunt Jane,” was Fanny's next announcement.

Her father guffawed. “Then you had better make the most of Aunt Jane's visit, and find out how to do it. Though since you are still learning your letters, I predict we shall wait some time for your first manuscript.”

Fanny, only half-understanding, joined in the laughter. Jane watched her fondly. What a dear child she was. She did not have Anna's thoughtful air, nor her little-womanish daintiness, but she was, as Cassandra had said, a happy child – secure in the admiration of her parents, strong-willed enough to try her nurse, but possessed of enough charm to compensate for this in the eyes of her elders. In Anna, Jane saw herself as a child; in Fanny, she saw the child she wished she had been.

“Aunt Jane shall help me with my letters,” said Fanny, enjoying the attention, “and Aunt Cassandra shall help me with my needlework.”

There was more laughter. “But what if Aunt Jane's stitches are smaller and neater than mine?” asked Cass playfully. “Could Aunt Cassandra not be the teacher of letters?”

“No, indeed,” said Fanny gravely. “I want Aunt Jane.”

“Come, Fanny,” said Elizabeth, holding out her hand. “Will you and Edward show Grandpapa your wooden animals? He can tell you the names of them all.”

Fanny ran to the chest where the Noah's Ark lived, pursued by the shorter legs of her brother. The company's attention diverted, Jane whispered to her sister, “So I am the lady of letters, and you are the seamstress. The bluestocking and the blind woman. I trust you are as gratified as I am?”

Hot day followed hot day. “My heart goes out to Elizabeth,” remarked Cass on a particularly humid afternoon, when their sister-in-law had retired to her apartment with an ice-pack on her forehead. “Mama says she is carrying a boy, for certain, all in front and none at the sides. But to be carrying a baby of either sex, in any position, in this weather must be trying.”

Boy or not, the baby's kicking would sometimes disturb the loose silk robe Elizabeth wore. This amused Edward, who joked that the baby must indeed be a boy, eager to make his way into the world before the grouse shooting season started.

Jane thought she had never seen her brother look so well. Tall like all the Austen brothers, his serene countenance spoke of a man at home in his setting, at one with the world. He had prepared a busy itinerary for his guests. They made excellent use of the barouche, calling on Edward and Elizabeth's friends, and also visited Margate and Whitstable, where little Edward was introduced to oysters. His expression upon tasting them amused everyone in the party except Fanny, who put a sisterly arm around his shoulders and scolded her papa for laughing.