Just Jane (6 page)

“My, my. All grown up.”

“In some ways,” says Anne.

She looks at me now, and I read the disapproval in her voice. I see the compassion in her eyes.

Father’s eyes are diverted to the window. “Oh dear. Look at the snow come down.”

Anne stands. “How distressing. I fear I must cut my visit short so I may get back before the roads become impassable.”

“How unfortunate,” says Father, but he gets her coat just the same. “I will tell your driver.”

I hold Anne’s bonnet as she buttons her coat. I brush a bit of melted snow from its brim. “I’m glad you came,” I say.

“I had to see you.” She takes my hand and our eyes speak the rest.

Father returns with feathery snow on his shoulders, lacy flakes balancing precariously on his hair. “Your driver is ready.”

A quick hug, a promise to write, and she is gone.

I wave from the window.

Father comes up behind me and puts a hand on my shoulder. “How nice she should visit. Visits are so important and mean so much.”

As do the absence of visits.

“Well, then,” he says, kissing the top of my head, “I must return to work. Are you busy, Jane? Do you have things to do?”

It’s an odd question and I face him. “I do.”

“Good, good. Keeping busy can be a balm. Yes?”

“Yes, Father.”

As he leaves me and goes back to his office, I know that this will be the only gesture of sympathy I will receive from him. Other than Cassandra, my family has never acknowledged my closeness with Tom Lefroy, has never realized the extent of our commitment.

I laugh out loud. Extent of our commitment? Whatever bond was between us has been utterly and unceremoniously broken.

I put my fingers against the cold glass, touching the snow once removed.
As you have almost touched love, yet remain once removed . . .

I pull my fingers back and let them find warmth in the folds of my dress.

*****

After my visit with Anne, I head toward my room to sulk, to cry, to fume, to forget, to—

“Jane?”

With a sigh, I swing the door to my parents’ room to its full extent. “Yes, Mother?”

She nods to the window. “It’s snowing.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“I don’t like snow.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“It prevents friends from visiting.”

I’m not sure what to say. Surely she heard me downstairs, talking with Anne.

And then I realize that surely she heard me downstairs, talking with Anne. She heard. She knows what transpired.

“Of course, some people don’t possess the manners to visit.” She makes a face. “I have little patience with such people. This family knows what is right, even if others do not.” She looks right at me. “You know what is right, Jane. I am proud of you for that.”

My mind races through her words, wanting her to say them again so I can study them and interpret their true meaning. Does she offer me sympathy? Does she know more than she has let on these three years?

Mother snuggles deeper into her pillow and closes her eyes. “I would like to sleep now. My heart is hurting.”

This was a new symptom in her parade of aches and pains. “Should I get the doctor?”

Mother opens one eye. “No. It will pass.” She opens both eyes and repeats herself. “It
will
pass, Jane.”

I adjust her covers, kiss her forehead, and leave her to sleep.

I hope she’s right.

*****

It will pass, Jane.

I stand once again at a window, watching the snow. But this one is in the sitting room of the bedroom I share with my sister. I should sit. I am weary. But I fear sitting will too easily lead to lying down, which might lead to curling into a ball and clutching my pillow, which will lead to tears and a confinement just as total—and voluntary—as my mother’s.

I will not do that. I cannot.

I cannot wallow. I cannot allow myself the total despair of my character Marianne, grieving for Willoughby. To lose one’s senses in such a way, to display them for all to see? What did Marianne gain from it but more pain and deeper sorrow?

I think of Marianne’s sister Elinor. Her suffering after learning that the man she loves is bound to another is just as great as her sister’s, yet her response is far different. She binds her grief inside, wrapping it tightly around her heart like yarn around a ball. But in her self-constraint and strength, does she risk having the grief pull too tight, strangling her heart and all other possibilities of love?

Which is the better way? Total release or total constraint? Sense or sensibility?

I think of my own sister. When her Tom died she didn’t express her grief. She was
not
Marianne. In many ways I’ve often wished she was—at least to some degree. Cassandra is so controlled and inwards. When I wanted to help I found no way inside her pain, no crack in her regulation to either see her thoughts and feelings nor let my own reach inside. I imagined her pain, but I didn’t share it. And now, with pain of my own . . . Is there a correct way to grieve? A better way?

Suddenly, Marianne begins to speak in my mind, Marianne from the pages of my story. Marianne who has been so intensely spurned by Willoughby and grieves publicly, with great flourish. She does not realize how her sister Elinor has been suffering in silence, holding on to the secret that Lucy Steele is clandestinely engaged to Elinor’s love, Edward—and has sworn Elinor to confidence. To feel such pain without being able to share it . . . as I must hold on to my own pain  . . .

I know what I must do. I rush to the manuscript and pull out the right page, ready to make additions. The sisters begin to talk and I hurry to scribe their words to the paper. Elinor speaks first, a bit peeved at Marianne’s assumption that she does not also feel deeply.

“You do not suppose that I have ever felt much. For four months, Marianne, I have had all this hanging on my mind, without being at liberty to speak of it to a single creature; knowing that it would make you and my mother most unhappy whenever it were explained to you, yet unable to prepare you for it in the least . . . .”

Elinor’s words continue, an outpouring of pent-up frustration and anxiety, finally letting her emotional, indulgent sister realize there are others who suffer too, that indeed, there is another way to suffer.

Marianne was quite subdued. “Oh, Elinor,” she cried, “you have made me hate myself for ever. How barbarous have I been to you! You, who have been my own comfort, who have borne with me in all my misery, who have seemed to be only suffering for me! Is this my gratitude! Is this the only return I can make you? Because your merit cries out upon myself, I have been trying to do it away.”

The sisters embrace, their sense and sensibility finding common ground. The scene continues in my mind and I let it take hold. The words run across the page of their own volition. I am their servant and keep them supplied with fresh ink and page.

A few paragraphs later the words run faster as the existing plot tightens. What if Elinor’s love, Edward, is offered a means to escape his dreadful engagement to Lucy—in fact, is ordered to call it off—yet he declines, for honour’s sake, thus losing his inheritance? At a point he could have been freed to wed Elinor, he
chuses
to marry fickle, feckless Lucy because it’s the right thing to do.

Ah yes. ’Tis a wonderful twist that will make the story better.

I write faster.

And find my own release.

*****

I know it’s extravagant to think about serving an ox cheek for dinner, but the thought of it, and some little dumplings, will make me fancy myself at Godmersham. In happier days . . .

Although the day is brisk, a day when I would normally take solace inside by the fire, my new penchant for walking in the outdoors has made my desire for ox cheek attainable.

All buttoned and tied with coat and bonnet, I head up the lane from the parsonage to the butcher’s. A dusting of snow remains beside the road, and the ground is hard and frozen. Yet the sun shines, teasing me into believing it offers warmth as well as light.

Mrs. Hardy, the butcher’s wife, greets me. “Morning, Miss Jane. How was that chicken you bought Monday?”

“Very tasty,” I say. “Might you have an ox cheek?”

She smiles. “Ox cheek, you say? It’s about time your mother gets past her usual beef and chicken. How is she, by the way?”

“Fine,” I say. For I truly believe she is. And I believe her single-mindedness to be otherwise has contributed to her being tetchy and lethargic. With my added burdens I could allow myself to pout, to cry and carry on, or to take to my bed with many an affliction worthy of death and destruction. But I will not. I cannot. And because of that resolve in my own regard, I find it difficult to tolerate such self-indulgence in others. I remember just the other day, Mother entering her dressing room through crowds of admiring spectators. She received the attention she craved, while I had to contain myself from rolling my eyes.

Mrs. Hardy pulls a hunk of meat from a shelf in back. She holds it up for me. “How be this one?”

“Very fine.” I can already taste the dumplings . . . . To be polite, I ask after her husband.

“He be fine too, though tired. He was up at Ashe yesterday with a whole passel of meat when he heard the news.”

My heart caught in my throat. People knew? Mrs. Hardy knew about Tom and—

“The oldest boy, Tom, is engaged.”

My first thought was that he had announced
our
engagement. Could it be I was the last to know? Perhaps he had gone back to Ireland without seeing me because of pressing business. He was an adult now, and perhaps he didn’t give his Aunt Anne the full reason for his actions. Perhaps he
would
have called, had planned to call and—

“Yes indeed,” continued Mrs. Hardy. “He’s marrying the daughter of Sir Jeffry Paul, who’s some bigwig in Dublin. Her name is Mary. The wedding’s next year. We’re hoping it’s here. We would sure like to provide the meat for that celebration.”

I want to flee but know such an act will cause talk. I say something in response, though I have no idea what. Mrs. Hardy wraps the meat; I pay and am on my way.

Usually news feeds me.

But today . . . it destroys.

I walk faster, head down, shoulders drawn forward as if from the cold, when the truth lies in my desire to be away from all people who could inadvertently add to my pain. I need comfort, not anguish.

And yet I know I will receive no comfort. When Cassandra lost her Tom, our friends and family raffled round to offer their condolences.

As was appropriate.

But now, when I’ve lost my Tom . . . the breaking off of an unofficial and unpublic engagement does not solicit such consolations. I bear my burden alone. I must accept this. I must endure it.

Yet I must also realize that because no one knows the depths of my feelings for Tom (and his for me—truly, truly, I must believe his for me), people are apt to be lax in discretion.

His feelings for me . . .

My pace slows as I realize he has no feelings for me; he marries another.

And yet . . . this is not the first time someone has chosen to marry for reasons other than love. He is an aspiring lawyer, with expectations and responsibilities. Perhaps for his career . . .

“It does not matter.”

I speak the truth to the wind—which has become aggressive. I notice for the first time the sun has hidden its face. Dark clouds gather.

How appropriate. A cold shroud for my grief and my shame.

I stop short. Shame? What do I have to be ashamed of?

A horse with its head over the fenced pasture grunts at me and nods as if to say,
Yes, Jane, shame.

Not shame in my actions of three years ago. They were the delighted flirtations of a young girl trying to draw out the delighted flirtations of a young man. They could be forgiven.

But waiting three years, letting my imagination create something that was not solid and real . . . there is no excuse for that. I wasted those years; they will never be returned to me. I am twenty-three years old—old enough to know better.

Old enough to learn from my mistakes.

“Never again,” I tell the horse.

He nods back at me, sealing the pact.

I hope it is one I can keep.

*****

I love to dance. I come to the ball this evening to do just that. Dance every dance, feel free and young and delighted and delightful. The room is too small and the chairs too few, which in its own way allows for people—since they must stand—to dance.

I feel pretty. Instead of my white satin cap, I wear one of mamalouc. They tell me it’s all the fashion now, worn at the opera. Apparently, it’s very Egyptian, like a fez with a feather. I know Cassandra will want me to describe it, but I hate doing so. I
can
tell her my gown is made very much like my blue one, but with short sleeves, the wrap fuller, the apron come over it, with a band of the same.

I look across the room and see the two Blackstone daughters—I don’t know their individual names, nor care to. I don’t like the Miss Blackstones; indeed, I’m determined not to like them. I look for the Biggs’ sisters, who own my friendship to the highest degree. There. Ah. There are Catherine and Alethea.

I’m not in much demand. People don’t ask me to dance until they cannot help it. At such times one’s circumstance varies without any particular reason.

Or is there a reason? Perhaps they know about Tom—I see his brother George here—or perhaps they even know about Samuel Blackall’s having quite enough of my noninterest. Or perhaps they chuse not to appreciate me because I
have
a keen mind and a clever wit. How more fashionable and convenient it would be to be silent, with a nodding head and smiling, but ever-locked, lips.

I notice one gentleman, an officer of the Cheshire, a very good-looking young man, who smiles at me and seems eager to be introduced. Yet I’m not sure he wants it quite enough to take much trouble in effecting it. We shall see.

As the Bigg sisters come close, I spot out of the corner of my eye Lord Bolton’s eldest son also coming toward me. Considering he dances too ill to be endured, I meet Catherine and Alethea halfway between and take their arms, leading them away from the clumsy Bolton.