Cassandra's Sister (15 page)

“You see, Cass, there are two young men,” explained Jenny, who was kneeling on the bed, clutching one of Cassandra's petticoats, which she was supposed to be folding. Kitty had gone down to help Mrs Travers, and the bedroom was strewn with unpacked clothes and empty trunks. “One of them is very rich, very grand and proud, and the other is amiable and easily led. The pleasant one falls in love with a girl who has no fortune, and she falls in love with him. But his rich friend persuades him that she does not care for him, and they part.”

Abandoning the petticoat, Jenny jumped off the bed, ran into the sitting-room and sat at the writing desk. Through the doorway, she watched her sister eagerly. “And then, you see, the proud man falls in love with the penniless girl's equally penniless sister, so deeply that he decides to propose to her. But of course, after the way he has treated her sister…”

“…she refuses him!” concluded Cassandra, laying her best gloves carefully in paper. “My dearest Jenny, that is a delightful idea. And do you have a title for the book yet?”

“Perhaps
First Impressions
? Because in the end the proud man and the girl who refuses him
do
marry, having revised their opinions of each other.”

“And do the amiable one and his beloved marry too?”

“Of course! Have you ever known my stories not to end happily? The world has too much sorrow, without my adding to it in fiction.”

“Am I to keep
First Impressions
to myself, as nobly as I kept
Elinor and Marianne
?” asked Cassandra. “Or has your confidence increased sufficiently for Mama and Papa to hear of it?”

Jenny pondered. “Yes, they may,” she said at last. “But Cass, would you refrain from mentioning it until after Eliza is gone?”

Cassandra did not ask why. She understood Jenny's reluctance to discuss the new book before their cousin. Cassandra herself had often suffered as self-consciously as her sister under Eliza's enthusiastic scrutiny, complimentary though it always was.

“Of course,” she said. Entering the sitting-room, she paused, looking at her sister carefully. Then, in a tone of great tenderness, she spoke again. “Now, tell me, dearest Jenny. Is there any news from, or about, our Irish friend?”

Jenny hesitated. “No. I no longer hope for any.”

“Then … if you still wish it,” continued Cassandra, her voice still at its most gentle, “should we burn the letters?”

Tears leapt to Jenny's eyes; she could only nod.

Cass reached into the bottom of her trunk and retrieved a ribbon-tied bundle. Meanwhile, Jenny, blinking and sniffing, separated Cass's most recent letters from the pile in the writing desk. “Oh, dear!” she exclaimed, in an attempt to cover her confusion, “the one I wrote to you about the Two Toms is especially mortifying. Yours are much more circumspect.”

“Do not punish yourself,” returned her sister. “We are all beyond rational behaviour when we are in love. One day I might ask you to burn the letters I wrote to you when I was staying at Godmersham with
my
Tom.”

“If you do, I shall disobey, since there is nothing in them to warrant such destruction,” returned Jenny. She rose, and poked the fire so vigorously that a storm of sparks landed in the hearth. “I shall throw your letters on before mine, if you do not mind.”

First to meet its death was Cassandra's letter about Lord Portsmouth and the “good 'un”. Then Jenny threw her sister's other letters after it, holding the burning paper down with the poker. The sisters knelt by the fire and watched the letters blacken and twist, and become ashes.

“Now it is your turn,” said Jenny. A sensation surged through her as she said the words, though she could not name it. Loss? Wretchedness? Guilt, that she had committed to paper a premature conviction that she would be cherished for ever by the man she loved?

“Do you want to look at any of them, one last time?” asked Cassandra gently.

“No! Do not torture me!”

“Very well.” Cass untied the ribbon around the letters and dropped the first one into the flames.

Tears splashed down onto Jenny's gown. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Oh, Cass, I do not know how I shall ever get over this.”

The letter lay in the ashes. Cass took the poker and pushed it nearer the flames. “You will get over it with the help of those who love you.”

“But the agony of not being able to mention him to anyone is unbearable!” wailed Jenny. “I cannot bear never to see him again, yet if he ever comes back into this country, how shall I bear a meeting with him?”

Cassandra took her sister into her arms. “Jenny, your heart may be broken, but at least you do not have the pain of suspecting his attentions were merely frivolous. We both know that he was sincere, and his desertion of you was engineered by other hands.”

Jenny's tears flowed, wetting Cass's cheek and neck, but she made no move to wipe them away. At last, when Jenny could speak, it was to observe that the whole affair, however miserable, had at least left her the legacy of the idea for a book. “Tom is like Mr Bingley, the easily led young man in
First Impressions
,” she told her sister. “And the other one, Mr Darcy, is like Madam Lefroy, seeking to separate a pair of lovers on the pretext that the woman does not return the man's love. But they are both wrong, Cass!”

Late afternoon became early evening; Kitty came in to light the candles. The shadows darkened and the sky began to show its stars. Cassandra continued silently with her unpacking while Jenny sat beside the hearth, looking into the fire as intently as if she hoped to make the burnt letters magically whole again

“I had better go downstairs, Jenny,” said Cass at length. “I have been up here for hours, and Mama will want me to tell her all the Fowles' news. And Eliza is here. I ought to speak to her too.”

Jenny nodded. She was calm, but her face felt stiff and her muscles weary. “You go, Cass,” she said. “I shall sleep soon.”

“Very well. Goodnight.”

But as Cassandra opened the door, Eliza appeared at the top of the stairs. She looked odd – not quite distressed, but flustered, with pink cheeks and bright eyes. “May I come in and warm myself?” she asked, darting into the room. “My fingers are freezing.”

Jenny rose from the hearth, confused, knowing her appearance would excite comment. She contemplated running into the bedroom to avoid Eliza's gaze, but then she saw that there was no need. Her cousin had not looked at her. Refusing Cass's offer of a chair, Eliza stood gazing into the fire, rubbing her hands.

“Eliza, has something happened?” enquired Cass in her calm way.

Eliza, still lost in thought, did not speak for a moment. But then she reached for the armchair beside the fire, where she cast herself down in an attitude of studied, rather than natural, repose. Jenny placed herself in the darkest corner of the room, where Eliza would scarcely be able to make out her face even if she tried.

“Your brother James,” said Eliza at last, “not half an hour ago, approached me as I sat in the drawing-room – with extremely cold fingers – and asked me to become his wife.”

There was an astonished silence, during which she continued. “When I refused, which I hope you will agree I had no choice about, he picked up his hat and left the house without a word. Do not expect to see him again at Steventon while I remain here. He is too embarrassed to face me, poor man.”

Throughout this speech Eliza had contemplated the view of the starry sky between the open curtains. But now she turned, and Jenny saw strain in her eyes. “Did I do right?” she asked Cass, who had sat down in the other armchair. “I seemed to have no choice, but he looked so crestfallen.”

“Of course you had no choice,” Cassandra assured her. “Surely you do not see yourself as the mistress of Deane Parsonage, scuttling around after Anna and dealing with parishioners?”

“Do you think so?” asked Eliza eagerly. “Truthfully? What do
you
think, Jenny?”

Jenny was aware that hearing about this latest drama of Eliza's was making her feel less wretched about her own misfortune. Nothing could not make her forget it, but it had been placed in perspective. How awkward to receive a proposal you did not want, and, having refused the man, know that for ever afterwards he would carry your rejection in his heart! Whatever ignominies women had to suffer, at least refusal was not one of them.

“A sacking apron, such as Anne used to wear to pick the fruit for preserves,” she told Eliza, “would not sit well upon your silk dresses. And you could not make the preserves anyway.”

Eliza's wan expression softened. “My dears, I knew you would make me feel better. It is not James himself I recoil from. It is, as you rightly say, the life of a clergyman's wife. I am too spoilt and fond of parties. I believe I told him as much. I believe I told him I could not make him happy, and that I considered us unsuited. But I cannot remember
what
I said to him. I so hope I did not hurt his feelings unduly.”

“I am sure you did not,” said Cassandra. “And James, you know, is such a busy, practical man, he will not settle for the life of a solitary widower. If he has failed with you, he will succeed with another woman in due course, you may be certain.”

Eliza sighed. “I seem fated to disappoint,” she said, turning again to the view of the sky. “I must tell you, cousins, that this is the
second
proposal of marriage I have rejected since Jean died. Am I becoming the stuff of comedy, do you think? A rich widow who sifts her suitors too well, and ends up glad to catch at the old writing-master's son?”

Jenny's heart had begun to thud at the memory of Henry hurrying along the pavement outside Eliza's house. She drew up a chair. “Eliza … if you do not mind, will you tell me when this other proposal took place?”

“Last spring,” replied Eliza. “Shortly before poor Anne died, when you were staying with me at Orchard Street. Oh, what an eventful time that was!”

Cassandra, seeing Jenny's agitation, was the one to press their cousin to tell more.

“I have no objection to your knowing,” said Eliza, for whom the confession was evidently something of a relief, “because I know my words will not go further than these walls. Especially, they must not come to your mama or Henry.”

“Definitely not,” smiled Cassandra. “He is a worse gossip than any woman!”

For the first time in her life, Jenny saw Eliza blush violently. This was astonishing enough, but Eliza went on to say, “That is not the reason that I do not wish you to speak of this to him.”

After a moment's pause Cassandra spoke, with incredulity. “Do you mean that you received a proposal from
Henry
?”

Eliza nodded, still looking out of the window, still very red. “When you were staying at Godmersham he rode up to town on the pretext of some sort of errand, I believe.”

“I remember!” interjected Jenny. “He went to have his hair cut.”

“Oh, I blush to think of it!” confessed Eliza. “He sent me a note, and called before he rode back to Kent. He was with me only for fifteen minutes or so, but in that time he made a very affecting declaration. I must own I was tempted.”

The memory of this scene had touched her. Her hands went to her blazing cheeks; her head dropped.

“What did you say to him?” asked Jenny. “And what did he say to
you
?”

“Shush, Jenny,” admonished Cassandra gently. “We cannot presume to ask what passes in a private conversation of such importance.”

“I do not remember my words anyway,” said Eliza, looking up, “any more than I remember my words to James. I suppose I must have said that it was too soon after Jean's death. It was afterwards, when he had gone, that I walked round and round the music-room for over an hour, tormented by the expression of his eyes when he heard my refusal.” She leaned forward in her chair, her beautiful face full of tenderness. “Henry, you see, though he has much to recommend him as a husband, is ten years my junior, and should have the chance to father children. But I am unwilling to risk bearing another child with the same condition as my poor Hastings. I did not say this to your brother, but he must know it all the same.”

Again she broke off, closing her eyes and shaking her head as if to dispel unwelcome thoughts.

“Perhaps,” offered Jenny by way of comfort, “so many reasons
not
to marry him came into your mind, you did not think carefully enough about the reasons
for
marrying him. Perhaps he will conclude this himself, and try again.”

“I do not know if I wish him to,” replied Eliza. “I do not know what to think.”

She was silent for a moment. Then, with her complexion restored to its usual shade and the beginning of a smile on her lips, she put up her hands to tidy the back of her hair. Jenny had seen her do this before, in the company of gentlemen. “At any rate,” she said, “the poor boy must have had a very melancholy ride that evening. And I was so agitated, I slept not a wink, and must have looked wretched at my party the next day.”

“You did not,” Jenny assured her. “Cass and I were there.”

“And of course, Henry was
not
there!” cried Cassandra, remembering. “The day before the party he rushed off to Dover for no reason, assuring us he would come to the party later. But he never did, and he never had any intention of doing so!”

Jenny's heart increased its exertions. She, and she alone, knew that Henry
had
come to Eliza's house that night. Had she maligned him, in assuming his intentions were concerned with finance, when in fact they were concerned with
romance
? Poor Henry, he must have been anxious to see Eliza alone, perhaps to press his suit further, or to offer to make amends for presuming on her affections. But everyone was still up, and instead of enjoying a private conference with Eliza, Henry would be obliged to play the part of the apologetic latecomer, indulged by his sisters, his cousin and the late-staying guests, and possibly even offered a supper of left-overs. Realizing this, his nerve had failed him. But thanks to Jenny's silence, no one would ever know that he had been in London at all.