Jane and the Damned (26 page)

“Good morning.” She left the room. Thank God Cassandra was safe from his advances. She ran up the stairs, tore off her wet and dirty men‧s clothes, hid them beneath a loose floorboard in her bedchamber, and then changed quickly into shift and petticoats as though she had recently risen from her bed. Not a moment too soon. She heard Cassandra outside and her tentative tap at the door.

“Jane? May I enter?”

“Of course. I‧m up.”

Her sister, fully dressed and wrapped in a large shawl, ran across the room to the bed, kicked off her shoes and snuggled under the coverlet. “Ooh, I‧m so cold, Jane, but it doesn‧t seem to affect you. I wish we could have fires in our bedchambers, but we have to be careful of our use of coal. Captain Garonne does not know whether he can help us get any more.”

“I pray you will not ask the captain for help. He is our enemy,” Jane said.

Cassandra frowned. “You smell strange.”

Sure enough, she reeked of bacon and animal fat. “Yes, I woke early and went to the kitchen to make sure the meat in the larder was still fresh.”

Cassandra gave her an odd look. “We have no meat.”

“Then it must be the rushlight. I think I held it too close to my hair.” For someone who was Damned her ability to tell lies was quite dreadful.

“Will you visit your friend Miss Venning again today? How does she do, poor thing? She must miss her brother dreadfully.”

Jane thought of Clarissa
en sanglant
prowling around the mortals in the church. “Oh, she bears up remarkably well.” She hesitated. “Cassandra, I must confide in you. Pray do not tell Mama or Papa, for it will only distress them. Garonne has told me that in London a tribunal has been set up to try those who are against the French and that they will put to death any they consider guilty.”

“The guillotine!” Cassandra covered her mouth.

“Indeed, and as in France, tribunals will be set up in other cities and towns—here, for instance—and as you know, this revolutionary French government has no great love for the church.”

“What shall we do?” Cassandra was almost as pale as Jane. “And Papa—he will not be safe. Oh, I do wish we could leave this place!”

“I too. Our only hope is that the French will be driven out.”

“Garonne told you of this? Then it must be true, although we have heard all sorts of wild rumors. But there is something else—what is it?”

Jane poured water from the ewer on the washstand into the bowl. It gushed out with a thin layer of ice. She splashed it onto her face and attempted to raise a lather with the tablet of soap. “Garonne asked me to become his mistress. He said he could protect us against a tribunal and thinks, because we have accepted his gifts of food and tea, that already I am inclined to accept his offer.”

“Oh, Jane!” Cassandra burst into loud sobs, huddled beneath the bedclothes.

Jane took the few steps between them and hugged her fiercely, making Cassandra squeal with alarm. She lessened her grip and held her sister, who wept as though her heart were broken, the
pent-up tears of the past few days, of the last year, all the sorrow rushing out of her like blood. After a while Jane pulled the ribbon from Cassandra‧s hair and reached for her hairbrush. She drew it through the waves of Cassandra‧s rich brown hair, darker than her own, knowing this would soothe her sister.

Cassandra quieted, her sobs turning to the occasional sniffle, and blew her nose on the sheet. “Oh, I beg your pardon,” she muttered, mortified. “These are your sheets.”

“I would rather have you than anyone else in the world blow their nose on my sheets,” Jane replied, which made her sister give a weak giggle.

“What shall we do?” Cassandra asked.

Jane continued to brush her hair in slow, regular strokes. “We must impress upon Mama and Papa that we should accept no more favors from him or allow him to escort us anywhere. I did not tell you this before, but the evening we were at Sydney Gardens his uncle the general suggested I should sell myself for a pass to leave the city. He suggested other women had done as much.”

“Good God! I pity any woman who would do so. But—but you cannot stay in the house.” Cassandra took the ribbon from Jane and tied her hair up again. “Not after this.”

Jane‧s breath caught. It was what she wanted, to be with the Damned, to no longer have to lie to her family. But if she left this house, would it break the last, weakening tie with her family?

“You must go downstairs and warm yourself. Yes, I know my hands are colder than yours, but I‧m not yet dressed. We shall ask our mother for advice.”

When Jane arrived downstairs, she found Cassandra and her mother in the morning room, sitting close to the fire, their needlework on their laps and the remains of breakfast on the table. They looked up as she entered.

“What is this, Jane? What have you done to upset poor Captain Garonne?” her mother inquired.

“Poor Captain Garonne? Surely, ma‧am, you are mistaken.” She glanced at Cassandra, who now seemed to be intent only on her embroidery. “The truth of the matter, ma‧am, however much Cassandra may have tried to protect your feelings, is that he asked that I become his mistress and I refused him.”

“I am sure you are mistaken, Jane. Why, I saw him this morning and he was quite civil, although I could see he was distressed. When I questioned him he said you and he had fallen out, and he was disappointed since you were such good friends.”

“Good friends, ma‧am! I assure you I have never given him the slightest encouragement. Besides, we do not talk of a proposal of marriage.”

“Cassandra and I think you are mistaken.”

“No, I do not think so, ma‧am,” Cassandra said in a small, defeated voice. “How could any woman be mistaken by what the captain suggested to Jane? Pray do not attempt to put a good face on it, ma‧am, it will not do.”

Her mother laid her sewing aside. “My dear, we should not rush to hasty conclusions. We have thought Garonne to be very gentlemanly and generous, but perhaps we have been mistaken. You must take great care not to be alone with him anymore, Jane.”

Jane sighed. “Does Papa know of this?”

Cassandra looked up. “Papa is out. I expect he will not be back until later.”

“I see.” Jane crossed to the window. A light layer of frost lay on the panes in fantastic, curling patterns. When she pressed her fingertip against them, they did not melt and she did not wince at the cold. She heard the small popping sound of a needle penetrating fabric, the whisper of thread pulled through, the crackle of
the fire—small familiar sounds, or rather, the sounds she would barely have heard in her former existence, a time when the two women sewing were dearer to her than anything in the world.

She turned back and regarded her mother and sister with the dispassionate gaze of a stranger: a middle-aged woman, worn down by the demands of a large family and never having quite enough money; a young woman with the lines of disappointment already showing on her face.

They‧re tired and I am part of their burden.

“Ma‧am, Cassandra. You know that several days ago Miss Venning offered me the position of companion and I have delayed the decision in deference to my own family‧s needs.” They both looked up from their sewing.

“I have never intended that a daughter of mine should leave to go into service,” Mrs. Austen said. “Frankly, I was surprised at the offer.”

“It is a very genteel, superior sort of position, ma‧am. I would not be a servant.”

“Consider how the poor thing lost her brother, ma‧am. She is all alone in the world,” Cassandra said. “And you would come to visit us, Jane, would you not?”

“Of course.”

“I think it might be for the better,” Mrs. Austen said. “She does seem quite a superior sort of young lady.”

Jane had hoped they would agree, but she was saddened by her mother‧s ready approval. On the other hand, if her mother and sister had begged she stay, she could only guess at their motivation.

“I shall write Papa a note. I think it best I leave as soon as possible.”

As she left, Cassandra rose and accompanied her. “You have not been the same since your illness.”

“I‧m well enough, now.” Jane walked ahead of her down the passage to her uncle‧s study. She heard the coldness in her voice and hated herself for it. This was Cassandra, her beloved sister.

“I thought you harbored a tendresse for Mr. Venning.”

“He was a very pleasant young gentleman.” Jane opened the study door. To her annoyance, Cassandra followed.

“Brr, it‧s cold in here. A pity indeed that he was persuaded to act so rashly against the French.”

Jane sat at the desk and chose a small piece of paper. Aware that Cassandra lurked nearby and might well read over her shoulder, she penned a brief note to her father, explaining that she had gone to stay at Miss Venning‧s house as her companion. It was the last note she might ever write to him, one that might be passed around, analyzed, pondered over. Would he finally tell her mother and sister the truth when she was gone and lost to them?

Tears rose to her eyes. She brushed them away, fearing she would weep and howl as Cassandra had done before breakfast.

She folded and sealed the note. Cassandra followed her up the stairs and into her bedchamber like a woebegone puppy, offering to help her pack. Jane was touched and felt tears rise again, but she needed to get Cassandra out of the way so she could pack her men‧s clothes. Finally, she hit upon the idea of asking to borrow Cassandra‧s gray pelisse, since Miss Venning was in mourning for her brother.

“Of course!” Cassandra darted out of the room, giving Jane a chance to pull her men‧s clothing from its hiding place and fold it at the bottom of her trunk.

Cassandra returned, the gray pelisse folded in her arms. “You will come back, won‧t you, Jane?” Cassandra asked in a small voice. She smoothed the sleeves of the pelisse.

“I assure you, I shall be a frequent visitor; in fact I shall be
here so often you will beg me to leave. And in between visits I shall bombard you with so many notes that our footman‧s shoe leather will be thoroughly ruined.”

Cassandra laid the pelisse in the trunk. “Mama and I are both worried about your lack of appetite and how thin you are. Will you not take some breakfast before you leave?”

“I believe some lingering effects from my illness are common still. My appetite will return, I am sure. Cassandra, I shall be perfectly well. Come, smile for me. That long face does not suit you.”

“No, it is more than that.” Cassandra took a pair of stockings from Jane and folded them more neatly than she ever would. “I feel you still have a part of you missing. I miss my sister, my most beloved sister. When will you come back to me, Jane?”

Jane took her sister‧s hands. Fear, worry, deep sadness, bewilderment. She knew she should look deep into her sister‧s eyes and tell her to stop worrying and assure her that everything would be well. And Cassandra, her eyes soft and dazed, would agree with her.

But she could not do it. She could not bear to deceive her sister further, but neither could she tell her the truth and see Cassandra‧s repulsion and shame.

Cassandra, however, saved them both by assuming a resolutely cheerful air that made Jane love her all the more for her fine show of courage. “Do you have everything? Well, then. We shall send the footman to carry your box. Pray do not let him linger at Miss Venning‧s house. Poor thing, I expect she longs to leave Bath as much as we do. Where does the family come from?”

“Surrey, I believe,” Jane said vaguely. She accompanied her sister downstairs and gave her an affectionate kiss farewell, holding her tightly as Cassandra‧s confusion and sadness overwhelmed her. “I love you so much, Cassandra.”

Cassandra giggled. “You will be a mile away, Jane. Do not be such a sentimental creature.”

Jane wanted to pick up her skirts and run down the street of elegantly proportioned houses, past the lounging French soldiers who eyed her with lust and contempt, run home to her own kind. But she walked with eyes modestly downcast, a gentlewoman accompanied by her servant, ignoring the swirl of scents and emotions that swirled around the street. Her façade would have to be maintained only a short while longer, and there was a sweet pleasure in the delay and anticipation. Each step brought her closer to the house in Queens Square and those who waited for her there—the community of the Damned to which she now belonged.

She would not think of Cassandra‧s brave cheerfulness at her departure or the grief her sister would inevitably experience as she waited all her life for Jane to return.

As usual, since it was so early in the day, it took some time for the footman to answer the door. “They‧re all asleep, ma‧am,” he said, scratching his head beneath the powdered wig.

“It doesn‧t matter.” Jane dismissed the manservant from Paragon Place who had carried her box and walked into the quiet house that was now her home.

“So you‧ve come to us.” Clarissa, wearing an elegant, filmy gown, ran downstairs and embraced her. “You have left them. Have we not told you this is what you should do? I am so glad. Now you are truly one of us.”

“Another one, miss?”