Cassandra's Sister (20 page)

Elizabeth, who did not join them on their outings, was surrounded every evening by her husband's family, fatigued but high-spirited, each competing with the others to tell her in the most amusing detail of the day's adventures. Edward sat at the head of the table, pouring wine and smiling, and Jane retired at night to her single bedroom – a luxury less welcome than Elizabeth supposed – and stared at the white page. She had written nothing since the letter from Messrs Cadell had come. Think as hard as she might, no inspiration entered her head.

Three weeks passed in this way. The plan was for Jane and her parents to return to Steventon, leaving Cass to be with Elizabeth during and after her confinement. Jane wondered what this “being with” entailed, and how long it would be before she would be asked to perform the same duty for a sister-in-law. It was another indication that Cassandra, at the age of twenty-five, was no longer considered to be a young woman with a young woman's concerns. How quickly this change had occurred, and how irrevocable it seemed.

On their last day they took breakfast on the terrace. Though ten o'clock had not yet struck, the sun beat heavily upon the iron-hard garden. The potted plants upon the parapet hung their heads; the fountain in the middle of the lawn was dry. From the shade of her parasol Jane surveyed the view of Godmersham's grounds.

She did not know when she would see them again. Journeys of greater distance than could be accomplished on foot were gifts to be given, not requested. It would not be until Jane was mistress of her own house, with her own servants and her own carriage, that she would be able to plan her own visits. She would certainly come to Godmersham, and go to see Eliza and Henry in London. But of course she would also learn to appreciate other, as yet unknown, places, associated with the man who was to provide such freedom – her husband.

She pondered on this, and him, as she fixed in her memory the white house and the green park under a bright blue sky. She longed to be at Steventon again. Even without Cass's presence, the upstairs sitting-room would be a haven of peace in a way the pretty bedroom at Godmersham could never be. She craved employment, and there would be plenty to keep her busy at home. Mary's baby was due soon; there would be more village babies, and the usual summer task of fruit and vegetable preserving. Three weeks would have made a great difference to the lettuces and cress she was growing under the kitchen window. They could not be preserved, so Mrs Travers had probably already given most of the crop to the pig. With no family at home, Jane wondered how she and Kitty and Dick had passed the time. She smiled at the prospect of watching Mama find out.

When the time came to be gone, Jane took an affectionate leave of her sister. “Kiss the new baby for me,” she instructed her, “and when you come back to Hampshire you will be just in time to kiss Mary's baby too.”

“Take care,” said Cass, embracing Jane, “and do not neglect your correspondence. I shall look daily for a letter.”

Jane longed to write something light-hearted.
First Impressions
made people laugh, but it also told of serious things. After the catastrophe that had befallen Cassandra, and her own disappointment, it would be refreshing to write a story built upon nothing but a joke.

Her new heroine, she decided, would be as ordinary as she could make her. She would not dash through the book making men fall in love with her, with a serene older sister as a foil. She would be an innocent, an enthusiastic novel-reader who was inclined to believe that the supernatural events of
The Castle of Otranto
or
The Mysteries of Udolpho
might be real. Her discovery that they were not, and her simultaneous discovery of love, would give the story the lightness of touch that Jane sought.

Upon her return from Godmersham she searched the desk drawers for
Lady Catherine
, an adventure story begun when she was sixteen. There was no doubt it was nonsense, but Jane still liked the name. Without the “Lady” it would be very suitable for her ordinary heroine. There were only a few chapters, since she never finished anything in those days. When she read them they made her laugh and cringe by turns.

She looked out of the window for a while. Then she walked round and round the room a few times. At last she picked up the pen and paper, sat down on her window-seat cushion, chewed the end of the pen for a moment, and began to make an outline.

“Jane! Ja–ane!” called Mama up the stairs. “Have you forgotten we are going to the Biggs'? Come along!”

Sighing, Jane went to the top of the stairs. Papa and Mama, who was wearing an uncomfortably new-looking, close-fitting bonnet and her best shawl, waited at the bottom. “Are you sure it is today?” asked Jane.

“Quite sure,” said Mama. “And we shall be late if you do not make haste.”

“I must put on my best white.”

“Yes, you must. Shall I send Kitty up?”

“No, I can manage.”

Jane tidied away her papers, washed her face sketchily, changed her dress and collected her summer shawl and white bonnet, gloves and parasol. Much as she liked the Biggs, she had little enthusiasm for a visit when she had something so much more pressing to attend to. In Kent there had seemed nothing to write about; in Hampshire there was suddenly a great deal, and she was impatient to begin.

Mr and Mrs Bigg were holding an “at home”, an afternoon gathering of about twenty guests. Manydown, though not as grand as Godmersham, was a very pleasant house for such a event. It possessed a fine conservatory, or loggia, as Mrs Bigg preferred to call it, designed in the Italian style and decorated with growing foliage. Even Mama, with her dread of sitting near an open window, was tempted out there by the comfortable furniture, the footmen offering sweetmeats and the warmth of the air.

Everyone present was known to the Austens: John Portal, his parents and his new fiancée; the Lyfords, the Lloyds and the Lefroys. Jane noted the absence of Samuel Blackall with relief, and that of John Harwood with understanding. Elizabeth was not there; she had married William Heathcote and gone to live more than a hundred miles away. Jane had no difficulty in putting herself in John Harwood's shoes. If the Irish Lefroys were ever to invite her to a party, and Tom was not there because he had married someone else, could Jane honestly say she would go?

Martha Lloyd embraced her friend affectionately. “When are you and Cass going to come to us at Ibthorpe?” she demanded. “Mama and I are greatly in need of visitors and gossip now that Mary has gone off to be your sister-in-law.”

“We shall come whenever you care to invite us,” replied Jane warmly.

“And how fares my sister?”

“She is well, if a little heavier than she used to be.”

Martha laughed delightedly. “I must confess to excitement at the prospect of a niece or nephew, you know.”

“Martha, you will not say that when James and Mary are about to have their sixth or seventh child!”

“I suppose that is true,” agreed Martha. Then, taking Jane's arm, she added, “And speaking of sisters-in-law, have you heard that Charles Fowle is engaged to be married? A Miss Townsend, according to Mrs Fowle. If Cass had married Tom, this Miss T. would have been her sister-in-law. Did Mrs Fowle write to your mother?”

“Perhaps, but no letter has arrived,” said Jane a little breathlessly. A sudden thud of her heart had constricted her lungs. Charles Fowle, her childhood friend, fondly destined for her by everyone except herself, had severed those Steventon strings for ever. And in truth, however unwillingly she had endured other peoples' predictions of their union, Jane had always regarded him as available if all else failed. “So finally, Martha,” she continued, “we may put that whole business to rest. Charles Fowle was never interested in marrying me, nor I in marrying him.”

“And when was that ever a hindrance to a betrothal?” asked Martha with an arch look. When Jane did not respond she hurriedly fluttered her fan, looking round the room. “The heat in here is intolerable. Let us go into the garden, where there are ices, so Catherine tells me, and we can discuss the merits of matrimony in peace.”

“Ices!” was all Jane managed to say before she found herself propelled out of the conservatory and across the grass to where Alethea and Catherine Bigg sat beneath an awning, dripping melted ice onto their gowns and giggling.

“Good afternoon, ladies!” trilled Alethea. “See how clever our cook is? These are delicious!”

Jane was determined not to allow Martha's news and the loss of her writing hours to inhibit her enjoyment. She sat down in the shade and accepted an ice from a footman's tray.

Martha sat back contentedly in her chair. “The Bigg family surely gives the best parties in England.”

“Perhaps we do,” agreed Alethea happily, “and since Elizabeth went away the gentlemen who attend them have more time for
us
.”

“Oh, Alethea!” scolded Catherine, though not at all seriously. “If that is the case, we should be in the loggia now, being pleasant to John Lyford.”

“You can go and do that, Catherine, and I shall sit here and eat ices with my friends.”

“How droll you are, Alethea.”

Jane watched this sisterly exchange with recognition, thinking of Elizabeth, who had so often led similar ones. “Catherine, you must miss your sister since she became Mrs Heathcote,” she observed. Saying this name was a test she had set herself, which she passed easily. She did not colour. Her attraction to Elizabeth's husband had disappeared that Christmas-time in this very house, upon the instant that Tom Lefroy had smiled at her.

Catherine shrugged. “A little, but we have each other. You must not compare our situation with your own.”

Jane ate a spoonful of her ice. “Yes, I do miss Cass,” she admitted when she had recovered from the shock of its coldness against her teeth. “But luckily, I am able to create my own companions in her absence.”

“Of course you are!” Catherine clapped her hands ecstatically. “What are you writing now? Do tell us! What is the name of your heroine?”

Jane took a breath to tell her, but the word turned into a laugh. “Why, Catherine, the name of my new heroine is …
Catherine
!”

Catherine grinned with pleasure. “And what happens to her?”

“I have not yet worked it out. But I have a mind to set it in a place I have not used before.”

“Switzerland?” asked Alethea, round-eyed. “In a lonely castle on a rock?”

“Jane does not write novels like the silly ones you read,” admonished Catherine.

“Actually,” began Jane, “this novel will, I think, bear some homage to Alethea's favourite reading, which, by the way, Alethea, I do not consider silly at all.”

“You see?” said Alethea to her sister with triumph.

“Though my setting is not Switzerland,” continued Jane. “I am considering a place much nearer home, since my family are to travel there in a few weeks.”

Martha had heard about this plan, probably from Mary. “Oh, yes! You are all to go to Bath, I gather.”

“Indeed,” said Jane, spooning up some more of her ice. “Are you not envious?”

Alethea and Catherine, who enjoyed their visits to Bath greatly, replied that they were. But Martha knew that Jane had spoken ironically. “I predict that you will enjoy your stay in ‘that infamous watering-hole', as Madam Lefroy calls it, far better than last time,” she said.

“Why?” asked Jane, surprised. “Bath has not changed.”

“But
you
have, Jane. You are not seventeen any more, but a woman of twenty-three, and your distaste for late supper parties and over-subscribed public balls may well have diminished. There is no disputing the potential of Bath as a place of love and intrigue, and therefore highly suitable for a novel's setting. But you may find those very things invaluable in real life.”

Jane was unconvinced. “The people of Bath, then, are to be so fortunate as to witness my next skirmish with the world of husband-seeking, are they?”

“Yes, indeed,” retorted her friend. “And you shall have no Cass to hold your cloak while you enter the fray!”

“What shall you do with your hair?” asked Alethea. She leaned nearer Jane, scrutinizing her curls. “Such pretty hair, but you always wear it so plainly dressed, Jane.”

“What style of pinning up, or trailing down, or heaven-knows-what-else is fashionable in Bath?” Jane asked her. “I suppose it will not do to excite gossip at the Pump Room about my old-fashioned clothes or country hairstyle, interesting though that would be.”

“No, indeed,” agreed Alethea solemnly. “Everyone in Bath is smartly dressed all the time, even in the mornings, are they not, Catherine? When we went there, the three of us and Mama had more than thirty gowns between us, and it still was not enough. I came back with rents in at least five of mine, from dancing.”

“It becomes so crowded,” added Catherine, by way of explanation. “Where shall you be staying?”

“With my uncle and aunt. Mama is looking forward to gathering a large family party in her brother's house.”

“How delightful!” exclaimed Alethea. “Are you not excited?”

Jane was not. Ever since it had first been proposed, her spirits had dipped whenever the visit to Bath was mentioned. She knew she must, for her mother's sake, enter into the life of the fashionable spa town with good grace, however much she longed to be at home tending her vegetables.

“I do not think so,” she told Alethea. “But I suppose if I take
Catherine
with me, I shall enjoy myself in my own way.”

The crowd in the Bath Assembly Rooms was as heedless of ladies' garments as Alethea had described. Each time Jane attended she had to mend a hem, or the fringe of a shawl, the next morning. Her shoes were trodden on, her stockings dirtied; even her favourite fan, a present from her brother Frank, was knocked to the floor one night and trampled by the dancers before she could rescue it.