Jane Austen: Blood Persuasion (25 page)

Chapter 24

O
utside a donkey brayed.

Jane groaned and pushed her head beneath the pillow. She didn’t want to wake just yet; she wanted to return to that wonderful oblivion and peace, and soon enough Cassandra would wake and chatter like a magpie and the day would begin.

But why was Cassandra making that strange squeaking sound? And the warm heaviness at her feet—one of the cats must be visiting from the kitchen. “Go away,” she said sleepily.

But the creature snuffed and huffed and squeaked again and lurched up the bed, and something warm and wet and smelly brought her to a full awakening.

She opened her eyes to meet the bulbous gaze of Jacques the pug busily licking her face in bright sunlight in the bedchamber at Chawton.

“Good Lord! You’re awake, Jane!”

She blinked and turned to see her brother James at her bedside, papers spilling from his hand onto the floor. “Thank God. How do you do, my dear?” But he bounded to his feet and bellowed down the stairs, “Ma’am, Cassandra, Martha, Anna, Edward, Henry, she is awake!”

“I most certainly am now, you shout so loud,” she said, trying to make sense of why she was here and feeling so weak and strange.

But the rest of the family came thundering up the stairs to embrace her with cries of joy and tears and overwhelm her with their presence, filling every available space in the bedchamber, until Martha very sensibly suggested that possibly Jane, after lying in a swoon for so long, would tire easily and told everyone to depart.

“How long have I been here?” Jane asked. She clung to Martha’s arm, her legs weak, as she got out of bed.

“Four days. We feared you would not awake. We have prayed.”

“Is that why my brothers are here?” Moving from bed to chair had exhausted her.

“We thought you were dying. And . . .” Martha washed Jane’s face as tenderly as she might an infant’s. “Edward has some business at the Great House now his tenants are gone.”

“His tenants?” Jane repeated. She closed her eyes as Martha brushed her hair.

“Oh, yes, just a day or so ago. The village was quite surprised. Come, drink some of this wine and water, my dear.”

“I am sorry. I feel so very stupid. I cannot remember anything.” She let Martha help her back into bed.

The next couple of days passed in a blur of sleeping and awakening to find her mother or sister or Martha at the bedside and urging her to take some tea, or wine, or soup. Quite often they cried; Jane wasn’t sure why, for she became stronger and knew she recovered, but she wept too and knew something terrible had happened.

But they also talked of goings-on in the village; how one of Mr. Papillon’s pigs had escaped and devoured Goody Walters’s vegetables, and she had chased the greedy animal through the village with a spade, threatening to butcher it. And Mr. Prowting and his daughter had returned from London where she had had a dress made there almost as fine as the one Jane had worn on her return. “But much more modestly cut,” Cassandra had added. “I have sewn in a panel at the neckline for you, Jane. I think it is quite pretty.”

“Thank you,” Jane said, wondering which gown Cassandra spoke of, for she owned no gowns that could possibly be described as fine or cut in an indecent fashion.

Her family didn’t mention a piece of news that must have had the village agog: that the younger Miss Austen, wearing a gown with virtually no bodice, had been brought back from the Great House on a cart, near to death.

On the afternoon of the third day of her recovery she opened her eyes to find the bedchamber full of her brothers engaged in a lively literary discussion.

“No one will like this heroine,” James declared. “She’s wicked and unwomanly. What Jane needs to write is a good, virtuous girl, the sort of girl we can admire. This Fanny . . .” he shook his head.

“My Fanny?” Jane said. “Fanny Price?”

“Yes! And the Crawfords—are they really brother and sister?—this book will be a scandal,” Edward said.

“But this,” Henry said. He ruffled through the papers. “I have never read anything of this nature in my life. How did you do this, Jane?
‘She sat in a blaze of oppressive heat, in a cloud of moving dust, and her eyes could only wander from the walls, marked by her father’s head, to the table cut and notched by her brothers, where stood the tea-board never thoroughly cleaned, the cups and saucers wiped in streaks, the milk a mixture of motes floating in thin blue, and the bread and butter growing every minute more greasy than even Rebecca’s hands had first produced it.’ ”
He frowned and said to his brothers, “Do you not see? It is as though Fanny’s thoughts transform the objects, or they become her thoughts; they explain her feelings.”

“I don’t know,” Jane said, but her eyes filled with tears. “I don’t even remember writing that.”

“Now, come, Jane.” James handed her a handkerchief. “We don’t mean to hurt your feelings, but we could not resist reading your new novel. But it is rather . . . shocking. This scene near the beginning with the gate . . . well, it is not the sort of thing a lady should be expected to write.”

“Aunt Jane, I have brought you some tea.” Anna squeezed into the bedchamber, a cup and saucer in her hand. “And Papa, Aunt Cassandra says that your sister is not strong enough for your teasing and noise and you and my uncles are all to go downstairs.”

When her father and uncles had gone downstairs, Anna reached into her pocket. “Aunt, when the men brought you from the Great House, they brought also this letter.”

“Thank you, my dear.” The tea was wonderful, hot and soothing; she didn’t think she had ever drunk anything so delicious in her life.

But she had.

And the letter held a scent as powerful and evocative as the details of that slovenly house in—yes, it was in Portsmouth, she remembered now. The Prices’ house. She feared her teeth might become sensitive, although she couldn’t understand why that might happen, but no sudden toothache or discomfort erupted.

“I have a secret.” Anna leaned forward. “I shall be a writer, too.”

“It should keep you out of trouble,” Jane said.

“Should it? I don’t think it kept you out of trouble.”

“Beloved, impudent girl.” She leaned to kiss her niece. All she felt was the touch of her lips on Anna’s smooth skin; she received no startling embarrassing revelations, or thoughts she would regret discovering. “I should read this letter alone, my dear.”

When Anna had gone back downstairs, Jane laid the tea aside and broke the seal on the letter. She unfolded it and began to read.

At first she wept as she read and remembered, and then a few sentences later she laughed for sheer joy. She folded the letter carefully and slid it beneath the sheets; then, for the first time without assistance from Cassandra or Martha, she got out of bed.

She put on a dressing gown and stockings and slippers, and, finally, her spinster’s cap, her hair twisted up beneath it. She took a deep breath and turned to the small mirror on the dressing table the two sisters shared.

She smiled at her reflection and then gathered up the sheaf of papers that constituted her latest novel. She would put it aside for a while, for she knew this was unlike anything else she was likely to write, and she would have some work to do.

Moving slowly, for she was still not back to her former strength, she made her way downstairs to the dining room and her writing slope. There was work to be done in the time she had left.

Chapter 25

Reading, Berks, 1839

“T
here’s a gentleman to see you, Mrs. Lefroy.”

Anna looked up from her writing desk. “I told you I should not be disturbed, Sally. What gentleman?”

Her maid held out a card. “He’s in the parlor, ma’am.”

“There isn’t a fire there. Will you show him in here?” She looked at the card that now bore Sally’s greasy thumbprint. “Please bring us some tea.”

Mr. Luke Venning.

The name certainly sounded familiar. Had not Aunt Jane had a suitor of that name? She vaguely remembered a ball at the Great House in Chawton when she had been quite young, sixteen or so, and her aunt Cassandra whispering that maybe tonight dear Jane would receive an offer. She, Anna, had been fairly scandalized that a woman of her aunt’s age—some years younger than she herself was now—might consider love or matrimony. Nothing had ever come of it, though. But what an odd spring that had been!

“Mr. Venning, ma’am.” Her maid showed in a gentleman.

Anna stood and curtsied, and then, abandoning vanity, grabbed her spectacles from the desk.

The gentleman bowed. “Maybe you don’t recognize me, Miss Anna. I beg your pardon, Mrs. Lefroy.”

He was exceptionally handsome, lithe, not tall, but well made and graceful. A little too pale, perhaps, but his gray eyes sparked with life.

“Yes,” she said and sat down abruptly. “Yes, I do recognize you. Will you not sit down?” Then, foolishly, “You haven’t changed a bit.”

He smiled. “Well, that is to be expected. You know what I am?”

“Yes, of course I do. You’re one of the—the Damned. Only naturally we delicate ladies are not expected to know that word, let alone recognize you.”

“Indeed. Society has become sadly polite.”

“I trust you are well, Mr. Venning? Oh, that’s ridiculous. Of course you are well.”

“I am very well, thank you. And you?”

“Oh, well enough. I have become a sort of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet combined with six daughters to marry off. I am a writer now, like my aunt Jane. I even tried to finish her last book,
Sanditon
—I suppose you have read her books?”

“Indeed, yes. She read
Sanditon
aloud to me; it made me laugh.”

“Oh! Do you know how she intended to continue it?” She leaned forward eagerly, the writer in her on full alert, before she realized that Aunt Jane couldn’t possibly have read this aloud to Mr. Venning. He and his companions had left Chawton long before. What was he about?

“I have some explaining to do,” Mr. Venning said, but at that moment Sally came in with the tea tray and a swish of petticoats Anna was fairly sure was directed at him—her hands were also reasonably clean, which made Anna very suspicious.

“Please don’t eat my maid!” she burst out when the girl had left. “She’s all I can afford and not much use as it is.”

“I have dined today, ma’am,” he said with gravity but a twinkle in his eye.

“That was a very odd time in 1810,” Anna said. She poured tea, the homely, familiar gesture giving her a certainty from which she could venture into dangerous areas. “There is so much I don’t remember. Occasionally I dream about . . . about one of the gentlemen who I believe stayed at Prowtings for a time.”

“Duval?”

“Yes. Please don’t tell me what happened. Sometimes it’s best not to know.”

“Very well. I shall say only that your aunt Jane saved you from ruin and destruction at great cost to herself.” He sipped his tea. How odd to be drinking tea in her study with one of the Damned!

“I owe her much,” Anna said.

“And I, too.” He reached into his coat and withdrew a packet wrapped in a scrap of faded silk. “These are letters we wrote to each other. You should have them. I am going to the Americas shortly and who knows what may happen there.”

She stared at him and reached for the letters, but drew her hand back, alarmed at what she might discover. He laid them on the sofa next to her.

“When Aunt Jane was ill—it was around the time you left Chawton—she received a letter. Was it from you?”

He nodded and reached for the bundle of letters. He unwrapped the silk and handed one to her. She remembered giving that letter to her aunt, who sat pale and handsome in bed, having apparently returned from the brink of death.

She unfolded it, her hands trembling.

“William was her Creator and mine,” he said. “Raphael was his brother and fledgling and somewhat in love with Jane.”

Beloved Jane,

I have deceived you greatly except about that which is most important—my eternal love for you. Yes, you took the cure that Raphael invented at William’s request, made as he lay dying. He said he had failed you before and would not fail you again, for he made a bargain with you that you should not become one of the Damned.

This was the only way. I regret that I had to deceive you so, for I feared that you would refuse the cure for love of me. I trust this is not merely arrogance on my part.

Forgive me, dearest Jane.

I shall love you forever as much as you wish and however you wish. It is your decision, but know that I yearn for you and will do so for all eternity.

Luke

“And what happened then?” Anna asked. “She—she began a liaison with you?”

“We were sworn Consorts,” Luke replied. “It is a form of marriage among us. She sent me a reply to the address I included in that letter, and we remained lovers. I don’t like what she did with
Mansfield
Park,
however—I suspect that in her first draft, which she wrote at the Great House, Fanny was one of the Damned.”

“Impossible!” Anna cried.

He shrugged. “It is so. She sent me my letters when she lay dying at Winchester; I did not see her, but I stood vigil outside that house on College Street and I knew the exact moment her soul fled. I hope she knew I was nearby.”

“I miss her so much,” Anna said.

“I, too.” He stood. “Sadly, eternity for my beloved Jane was only seven more years. You may do what you wish with the letters, Miss Anna. I wish you all health and happiness.”

“Thank you,” she said, dazed and troubled. On a sudden impulse, she stood and kissed his cheek. “Thank you, and I wish you well.”

After he had left, she sat and stared at the bundle of letters for some time before ordering a fresh pot of tea—an extravagant gesture for a widow with six daughters, but she suspected she would need the sustenance—and began to read.

Halfway through she poured herself an even more extravagant glass of brandy, normally reserved for medicinal uses only.

Two hours later she scribbled a frantic letter to her aunt Cassandra and sent it and the letters to Chawton.

Chawton Cottage, a week later

T
he two women sat on the sofa in the drawing room, the bundle of letters between them.

“I always wondered about those visits to London,” Aunt Cassandra said. “She’d come back looking very bright-eyed, not like someone who’d been poring over proofs day after day. I daresay your uncle Frank knew, too.”

“And she never mentioned anything to you?” Anna said.

“Jane was very good at keeping secrets.” Aunt Cassandra’s mouth snapped shut in a firm line.

So was Aunt Cassandra, Anna decided. “Well, Aunt, since you have many of Jane’s letters, would you like these, too?”

“I’m not sure. What will happen to them after I die? I wouldn’t want these letters falling into the wrong hands, and in her letters to us she was often quite rude about people we knew. After all, Jane’s books are still being read. I hear they’re quite popular. What if people wanted to know more about her, as if she were someone like Sir Walter Scott?”

Cassandra reached for the bundle of letters. “There was something I wanted to ask you about, my dear, since you have experience of married life. I marked them with a slip of paper . . . ah, yes, here they are. What does this particular phrase mean? And this?”

Anna’s cheeks heated. “Oh. That’s, um, something married people do, Aunt.”

“I thought so. And of course everyone knows how depraved the Damned are.” Cassandra stood and hobbled to the sideboard. “Let’s have a glass of wine.”

Oddly enough, Aunt Cassandra seemed quite proud of her younger sister’s scandalous activities. She waved away Anna’s offer of help with the decanter, although her fingers were knobbed and frail with age, and poured them both a glass of wine.

“Don’t you think the world might want to know that she found love, as her heroines did?” Anna asked.

“Her heroines were mostly silly girls,” Cassandra said. “Except for Anne Elliot who had the sense to marry a sailor.”

“But so did Mrs. Price. Do you know, Aunt Cassandra, Mr. Venning told me she originally wrote Fanny to be a vampire?”

“Oh, nonsense. I always wondered about the Crawfords, though.” She placed her glass on the table. “Thank you for coming to see me, my dear. Next time, bring the children.”

A
fter Anna had left, Cassandra sat alone in the growing darkness. At her age it was more than likely that she’d fall asleep, and she should really call for the maid to light the lamp. But for the moment the darkness was friendly and comforting.

She looked at the bundle of letters, those surprising, joyful, indecent letters.

Why couldn’t you have told me, Jane? You were the sun of my life, the gilder of every pleasure, the soother of every sorrow; I had not a thought concealed from you, but you concealed this from me.

Cassandra rose, bracing herself for the creaks and odd aches and pains that accompanied every movement these days; really, had it not been for the matter of her immortal soul, Jane had been a fool to settle for this rather than eternal youth and beauty. Once she had danced all night and walked for miles, talking and laughing with Jane. Now crossing the drawing room was a great and painful undertaking.

She poured herself another glass of wine and with great care made her way back to the sofa and grasped the bundle of letters. Then the next few steps to the fireplace.

She set the wineglass on the mantelpiece and threw the bundle onto the fire, reaching for the poker to encourage the glowing fire into a blaze.

She raised the glass in a toast, the flames reflected in the deep red of the wine. “To Jane, my dearest Jane, who found true love after all.”