Cassandra's Sister (17 page)

It was madness even to consider such a thing, but for a long time after that day, Jane wondered about the curse on the oaken seat. Had the village boy been right? Had
she
, by her refusal to mark the wood with her initials, brought this calamity upon her beloved sister?

She told herself that every village had a wooden seat; every village had its own nonsensical beliefs; every village had a large boy who wielded power over little girls. But then her conviction that God could not forsake so devout a servant as Cassandra would descend again. And if Tom's death was not God's will, whose was it?

Though spring continued its transformation of the landscape outside the Rectory, the days inside the house were dark. Cassandra wept and prayed by turns. Papa was so dejected that it was twenty-four hours before he summoned the will to write a letter of condolence to the Reverend and Mrs Fowle. Mama, tormented as much by her daughter's loss of prospects as by her own heartfelt grief, kept to her room.

None of the brothers were at home, and the schoolboys, as subdued by the death of “Miss Cassandra's” fiancé as if she had been their own sister, went about their business on tiptoe and forwent their garden games. For them, Jane suspected, it was an unwelcome reminder that the safe surroundings of the Reverend Austen's school, which Tom and his brother had once enjoyed, were temporary. They, like Tom, would soon face the dangers of the world. Meanwhile James, who had so recently experienced a sudden bereavement himself, visited daily with a new passage marked in his Bible, in the hope that the simple words of faith would comfort his sister.

Jane was familiar with the helplessness of bystanders at a tragedy. She had felt it keenly when Jean Capot de Feuillide had died, alone and so far from his loved ones. When Anne had passed from life to death as swiftly as the guillotine blade travels, by her own fireside in the presence of her husband, Jane's sense of superfluity had increased. But upon the death of Tom, her helplessness took on a life of its own. It filled the room where Cassandra lay. It spread to the sitting-room, where Jane had so recently written exchanges between those two most attractive of characters, Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy. She remembered how she had read them aloud to her sister, and been rewarded with Cassandra's intelligent appreciation. “They
must
marry!” she had exclaimed. “How could they ever be satisfied with anyone else?”

First Impressions
had now joined
Elinor and Marianne
in the bottom of a box in the wardrobe. Jane had set her winter boots upon the lid, partly to disguise the existence of the box, partly as a gesture of finality. How could she indulge herself by making up stories about non-existent people, however witty, beautiful, clever, long-suffering and heroic, when her dear sister's world – the
real
world – had collapsed so irrevocably? Writing fiction was the pastime of a trivial nature, a mere childish game. The death of her sister's hopes would be the death of childhood. From now on she would be an adult and face life as it should be faced, with the stoicism she had seen from Eliza and James in their bereavements, and would soon see from Cassandra in hers.

For three days Jane sat at the window of the sitting-room, pretending to work or read, and thinking, thinking…

Cassandra lay on the bed in the next room, with the connecting door open so that she could alert Jane if she needed her. She ate almost nothing, barring Kitty from the room and allowing only Jane to bring her soup. After two or three mouthfuls she would lay down the spoon and gesture for her to take the bowl away. At night, she slept so fitfully that Jane offered to spend the nights in the sitting-room, in the hope of giving her more repose. But Cassandra had clung to her and begged her not to leave.

On the fourth day Jane awoke before her sister. It was early; the silvery light of a May morning crept around the curtains and the birds were in full song. Jane swallowed the lump which rose in her throat every morning when she remembered that Tom would never see another dawn. She slid out of bed and put on her house-robe as quietly as she could; but before she had found her slippers she heard Cassandra's voice.

“Are you there, Jane?”

Jane's heart swelled with compassion for the tear-streaked face on the pillow, and the small hand reaching for hers. “Would you like some breakfast?” she asked, without much hope of success.

Cassandra let go of Jane's hand and propped herself up on her elbows. “Would you open the curtains, please?” She squinted at the light as it poured in. Then she sat up and raised her arms towards the window, her expression calm. “I think I
would
like breakfast, dearest. Would you bring it yourself?”

“Do you feel different this morning?” asked Jane. Unsure how to put a question she did not truly understand the meaning of, she hesitated, and tried again. “Has something changed?”

“Something has
passed
,” said Cassandra simply. “Tom is dead, and has taken my love with him to his grave. But this morning I know I shall not die; I shall go on in this world, secure in the knowledge that he loves me and is waiting for me to join him in the next world. When I do, however many years hence, we shall rejoice because we shall be together at last.”

Cassandra's eyes shone with love, though for Tom or for God, Jane could not tell. A terrible peace had descended upon her sister, terrible because, at that moment, Jane knew Cassandra would never give herself to another man. She was Tom's widow, though they had never been married, and she would remain his faithful companion for the rest of her days.

Jane embraced her. Neither spoke for a long time. Jane fought against the memory of the letter-burning, when it had been she herself in need of comfort. Cassandra's loss was so much worse; how could she, Jane, be so self-centered as to make any comparison? Yet the memory
did
rise, and lay in Jane's breast until Cassandra broke the embrace.

To Jane's unutterable relief, the smile she had thought never to see again glimmered in her sister's eyes. “Breakfast?” she reminded her. “I would like to eat it at the work-table, like we always used to. Will you fetch my robe for me? We can get dressed later.”

Jane fingered Cassandra's mourning gown, which lay, neatly folded, on the lid of the chest at the foot of the bed. “How long do you intend to wear black, Cass? If Tom had been your husband, it would be a year. But is there another rule for a fiancé?”

“I shall order several more black gowns,” said Cassandra, beginning to undo her braid. “I shall never wear colours again.”

Jane was shocked into saying the sort of thing that she would have despised, had it come from the lips of Madam Lefroy or Mrs Bigg. “But what will people say?”

“I care not what people say,” returned Cass. “
You
may have as many white and printed gowns as you wish, Jane, and go into society whenever the opportunity presents itself. But I shall not, and that is the end of it.”

Jane knew better than to protest further. Unwilling to distress her sister, she went to get the breakfast. But as she climbed the stairs with the tray she felt convinced that her sister's avowal of lifelong mourning was extreme. Eliza was back in her social round, rejecting present suitors and wearing gifts from previous ones. James was married again, less than two years after Anne had died. Jane did not expect
this
of her sister – she understood the profundity of feeling which had made Cassandra turn her face against marriage – but it was tragic for a lovely young woman to resign herself to black clothes for ever.

Self-centered though it might be, Jane feared for her own future. If Cass would not go with her into society, who would? And even if she could persuade her sister to do so, what would be a stranger's perception of these two young women, the younger prettily dressed and on the look-out for partners, the elder in black and refusing to dance? Would Jane ever enjoy a ball again? By the time she set the tray down on the work-table she was convinced that a life of no writing
and
no parties stretched before her to the grave.

Cassandra ate with more relish than Jane herself could muster. Seeing that her sister was unwilling to speak, Cass tried to draw her on an irresistible subject. “What has the delightful Elizabeth Bennet been doing lately?”

“Nothing.”

“Why not? Is she ill?”

“No, she is deplorably healthy for a character in a book,” said Jane. “Her mama will never have any scares about her, not that Mrs Bennet would care anyway, as her favourite is the youngest sister, Lydia. But I have not written any more of
First Impressions
since … we received the news.”

“Then you must start again immediately.”

“I am never going to write any more of that or any other book,” said Jane, looking down at her hands, which were clasped uncomfortably in her lap. She had no wish to witness her sister's bewilderment.

But Cass was not bewildered. Her tone was as near to vexed as Jane had ever heard it. “Have you made this resolution because of
my
resolution, about the mourning clothes?” she demanded strictly, as if she were testing a Sunday-school child.

“Of course not,” Jane protested, looking up. “I hid the manuscript on the day we heard the news, and decided never to look at it again. In a world where a young man can die so pointlessly I feel a fool to be making up stories.”

“A fool? A
fool
?” repeated Cassandra. “I
insist
that you take out the manuscript and put it back on the desk where it belongs!” She waved her bread and butter about in her agitation. “You are not a fool, Jane, you are a writer of rare gifts, who is capable of giving great joy. And it is precisely
because
things like Tom's death happen that the world
needs
literature. It needs art, and music, and plays.”

Jane shook her head, unsure whether to be flattered by or contemptuous of her sister's words. “But novels are frivolous, are they not?”

“God would not see them as frivolous. He has given you this gift and He does not expect His bounty to go unused. You must finish this book and send it to a publisher, and show the world your talent. Do you not see? My disappointment in love
must not
be yours in literature.”

As Cassandra said this the tension which had racked Jane's limbs relented. She untangled her hands. An idea had occurred to her.

“All right, Cass, let us strike a bargain. If I go on with
First Impressions
, might you be persuaded out of mourning in, say … a year?”

Cassandra's expression hovered on the edge of dismay. But then her shoulders eased themselves. Her neck lengthened, her chin tilted, and she suddenly looked to Jane like the Cassandra she had always known, a beloved inspiration for her own attempts to acquire beauty, grace and good humour. “You sly thing!” she cried. “You see, you will always outwit everyone, just like Elizabeth Bennet!”

Then she dropped the remains of her bread and butter, put her hands over her face and began to sob so bone-shakingly that Jane was unable to soothe her. Despairingly, as Mama's night-capped head and worried expression appeared round the door, Jane wondered if, despite her sister's brave words, Cassandra's heart was not broken beyond repair.

T
he marriage register at Steventon Church was a heavy book in leather covers. It lay open at the present date of 1797 on its sloping table in the registry, with a thick silk ribbon marking the place. Each entry was written neatly, followed by the man's and woman's signatures, or, in the case of illiterate parishioners, a cross.

Jane had lingered after the service. She stood before the altar, observing how the morning sunshine brightened the east window and splashed its splendour on the stones beneath her feet.
Tom
, she thought,
Thomas Lefroy, if you are in church this morning, are you thinking of me, or only of your prayers?

Quickly, she went into the registry and laid aside the ribbon. She turned the register's pages until she found the place she sought. It was still there, then. Papa had not torn it out, as he had threatened.

Jenny's eyes filled with tears. Years ago, when she was sixteen, she had turned to a blank page near the back of the register and written in her own imaginary marriage entry. It had been a little girl's game. Her father had laughed when he saw it, especially since she had experimented with several different husbands.

She looked at the husbands' names. With a stab she noticed that one of them, a Mr Fitzwilliam, was the name she had used for Mr Darcy's first name in
First Impressions
. How strange that this fictitious Fitzwilliam was so potent in her imagination that he had appeared, then been forgotten, then appeared again.

Her tears dried; interest had overcome them. She ran her finger down the other made-up names. They were evidently supposed to be gentlemen, of varying grandeur, some with three or even four names. They came from all over England, from London to the north country and back again. None from Ireland, she noted. Then, right at the bottom of the page, when she had perhaps been tiring of the game, she had written a simple name, like that of a farm labourer, next to her own.
That is what made Papa laugh
, she told herself.
What a nonsensical girl I was!