“MISS AUSTEN.” THE VOICE came from behind her. “Forgive me.” She turned. “I did not know you were there.”
Cassandra managed a smile but stayed where she was on the vicarage doorstep. She would dearly like to be more effusive—she felt the distant, familiar stirrings of effusiveness somewhere deep down—but was simply too tired to move. Her old bones had been shaken apart by the coach ride from her home in Chawton, and the chill wind off the river was piercing her joints. She stood by her bags and watched Isabella approach.
“I had to go up to the vestry,” Isabella called as she came down from the churchyard. She had always cut a small, colorless figure, and was now, of course—poor dear—in unhelpful, ill-fitting black. “There are still duties…” Against a backdrop of green bank dotted with primrose, she moved like a shadow. “So many duties to perform.” The only distinguishing feature about her person was the hound by her side. And while her voice was all apology, her step was remarkably unhurried. Even Pyramus, now advancing across the gravel, was a study in reluctance with a drag on his paws.
Cassandra suspected that she was not welcome, and if that was so, could only blame herself. A single woman should never outlive her usefulness. It was simple bad manners. She had come uninvited; Isabella was in difficulties: It was all rather awkward but quite understandable. Still, she once might have hoped for some enthusiasm from a dog.
“My dear, it is so kind of you to let me visit.” She embraced Isabella, who was all cool politeness, and fussed over Pyramus, though she much preferred cats.
“But has nobody come to you? Did you not ring?”
Of course Cassandra had rung. She had arrived with great commotion and business in a post chaise so that nobody could miss her. The coachman had rung and then rung again. She had seen people, plenty of them: a steady traffic of laborers balanced on carts coming back from the fields and a group of boys, wet to the knees, with a newt in a bucket. She longed to speak to them—she was rather fond of newts, and even fonder of boys in that fever of innocent passion—but they did not seem to see her. And the house had stayed silent, though that difficult maid—What was her name? Cassandra’s memory, always prodigious, was beginning to fray, if just at the edges—must know perfectly well she was there.
“I came at a bad moment. Oh, Isabella”—Cassandra held her arms and looked into her face—“how are you?”
“It has been difficult, Cassandra.” Isabella’s eyes reddened. “Really most difficult.” She struggled, but then composed herself. “But how does the old place seem to you now? Have you been looking around?”
“Exactly as it has always been. Dear, dear Kintbury…”
The vicarage had been a landmark—familiar, ofttimes sad, always beloved—in Cassandra’s life for forty-five years. A white, three-story building with a friendly face set east toward the ancient village; garden falling on one side down to the banks of the Kennet, rising on the other to the squat Norman church. It stood testament to everything that she valued: family and function, the simple, honest, good life. She rated this happy piece of English domestic architecture over anything grander—Godmersham, Stoneleigh, Pemberley, even. That said, she dearly would like to be inside it—by the fire, in a chair, getting warm. “Shall we—?”
“Of course. Where is everybody? Let me take that.” Isabella reached for the small black valise in Cassandra’s hand.
“Thank you. I can manage it.” Cassandra clutched the bag to her. “But my trunk—”
“Trunk? Ah.” Though Isabella’s face remained pale and blank of expression, her piercing blue eyes flashed bright with intelligence. “I am sure it is my fault. I have had so much on my mind.” One eyebrow arced. “And your letter arrived only yesterday—was that not odd?”
Not odd at all; indeed, it was entirely deliberate. Cassandra had never before been so discourteous as to arrive without proper notice but, on this occasion, had simply had no choice. So she gave a vague smile.
In the absence of any explanation, Isabella went on: “I did not grasp quite how long you are staying. Do you plan to be with us a while?”
Isabella’s displeasure at her arrival was now perfectly plain. Beneath that mild, quiet exterior there was, perhaps, a stronger character than had previously been witnessed. Nevertheless Cassandra would stay here as long as was necessary. She was determined not to leave until her work here was done. She muttered about possibly traveling farther on to a nephew, affecting an uncharacteristic indecisiveness brought on by advancing age.
“Fred will bring in your trunk. Please.” Isabella signaled toward the door, which opened at once from the inside. “Ah, you are there, Dinah.”
There. Dinah. She must remember that. She might be needing Dinah.
“Miss Austen is with us.”
Dinah squeezed out a negligible bob.
“Shall we go in?”
CASSANDRA HAD FIRST CROSSED this threshold as a young woman. She was tall then, and slim; many were kind enough to say handsome. Was time playing its tricks, or had she worn her best blue? A crowd of family had assembled to greet her; the servants—excited, admiring—jostled behind. She had stood still and thrilled at it—the power of her position! The force of that moment!
Oh, she still looked in the glass when she had to. She knew she would not be called slim now, but spare. Her spine, once a strict perpendicular, was kinked and shortening; her face so gaunt that her once-proud nose—the Leigh nose, the stamp of a distant aristocracy—more like the beak of a common crow. And the people who loved her then were gone now—as she herself was gone, almost. Those receiving her today—poor Isabella; difficult Dinah; Fred, who now passed through the vestibule, grunting and dragging her trunk—of course knew the facts of her history, but had no sense of the truth of it. For whoever looked at an elderly lady and saw the young heroine she once was?
They moved through to the wide wood-paneled hall. Cassandra followed them meekly, but once there was suddenly seized with alarm. She made for the generous stone fireplace, clung on for support, and looked with horror at the scene around her.
She could hear Dinah mutter: “Lord save us. She’s turned up and lost ’er senses. As if we don’t have enough on our plate.”
And Isabella whisper: “Perhaps it is more sorrow or sentiment that affects her. After all, this must be the last time that she will ever come here.”
Cassandra knew better than to acknowledge them. It was one of those conversations conducted as though she could not hear it, in which the young so often indulge around the old. But as if she could be overcome by sorrow or sentiment, when for decades they had been her constant companions. No. It was not the fact that this was the last visit—she gasped for air, her hands shook—it was the fear that she had left it too late. The house was already in a chaos of removals.
“My dear, are you sure you are quite well?” Isabella, softening, took her elbow, giving her something to lean on.
A portrait of the Fowles’ benefactor, Lord Craven, had hung above that fireplace ever since she could remember. Now it was gone from the wall.
“That coach was too much for you.” Isabella talked loudly as if to an imbecile, while untying the ribbon around Cassandra’s chin. “All that way in this cold weather.” Her bonnet was removed. From where she was standing, Cassandra could see into the study where the shelves had been emptied. Which books were gone? They had had the whole set of Jane’s. Who had them now?
“And she’s come alone then, I can’t help but notice.” Dinah was behind her, loosening off her cloak.
The furniture still in place looked abject, humiliated, like slaves in the marketplace.
“Perhaps her maid is away?”
“Which leaves who looking after ’er, may I ask?” Dinah flung cloak and hat over her arm. “Me and whose army?”
A vicarage without a vicar was always a sorrowful sight. Cassandra had borne witness to it more often than most, yet it still affected her every time. The Fowles had lived in this house for three generations. It had been handed on, father to son—all good clergymen, all blessed with fine wives—but that chain was now broken. Isabella’s father was dead, and her brothers had refused it. No doubt they had their reasons, and—to squander all that family heritage—Cassandra sincerely hoped they were good ones.
Church tradition allowed the relicts of the family two months to vacate the house for the next incumbent. And, although it was not anywhere written, Church tradition seemed somehow always to rely on the vicarage women to effect it. Poor Isabella. The task she had before her was bleak, miserable, arduous: just two months to clear the place that had been their home for ninety-nine years! Of course she had to start on it at once. But still, the Reverend Fulwar Craven Fowle had been dead but a few weeks. Cassandra had come as soon as she could. She was shocked to see that the work was already this far advanced.
To think that journey—so tiring, so uncomfortable, so shamefully expensive—might not have been worth it! To think that for which she had come might already be gone!
Cassandra felt nauseated and dizzy. Kindly Isabella smoothed down her hair—she must look disheveled—and led her through the hall.
The Kintbury drawing room was a thing of simple beauty: a perfect cube with walls of deep yellow that caught and held the setting sun. Each of its windows, on two sides, looked out over water: You could stand and watch the fishermen on the river or barges glide along the canal to east and west. Ordinarily it was one of Cassandra’s favorite places. It satisfied her soul. But on that day she approached it with nervous trepidation, consumed with a dread of what she might find.
She need not have worried. Even as she entered, before setting a sensible shoe on the needlepoint carpet, she felt herself safe. The atmosphere here was one of calm and repose. The air was quite undisturbed. And all the furniture was here, just as it had always been. So she had not come too late! Her knees almost buckled with the relief. She turned back to Isabella, her voice and authority returned to her at once.
“Now, perhaps I may repair myself before we dine?”
CASSANDRA HAD OFTEN privately observed that when the gentleman of the house died, fine dining died with him. It was a thesis that evening’s dinner was determined to prove. Their mutton was just that: mutton, with no sauce, potatoes, or pudding, its only companion a cabbage that had loitered too long in the ground. She smiled as she compared it with the meals she once enjoyed there. Isabella’s father was always a man of high standards and immoderate reactions. If Dinah had dared serve him something like this, he would have made his displeasure known.
But they were two ladies, so they politely thanked their Lord, with some effort cut their mutton, and chewed with a dogged determination. The only other sound was the loud ticking of the clock. Silence at that particular dinner table was another unwelcome innovation, one that Cassandra was finding more tough than the meat.
“I see from the labels on everything that you are already well ahead in dividing up all the effects.” Cassandra eyed the decanter, which was empty for the first time in its history. She tilted her head and read that Mr. Charles Fowle had already claimed ownership. It could look forward to a busy future with him.
“The will was read last week, and my brothers were able to make their decisions.” Isabella betrayed no emotion as she said this. Her face was turned down; those bright eyes studied her plate.
Cassandra, though, could not help but be more forthcoming. “And your brothers are to have all the goods and chattels?” She could hear the sharpness in her own voice and was at once all regret: She was well aware of being too sharp for some tastes, and did try to blunt her own tongue. But really, this business was too vexing. The Fowles were like the Austens in so many ways: both large families, blessed with sons and daughters, and by a great good fortune that seemed only to run down the male line.
“My father did leave some novels to my sister Elizabeth.” Isabella gestured at the bookcase which had one blank and dusty shelf. “Particular favorites, which they read together.”
Cassandra lit up. “Ah!” At last they had struck upon her favorite conversation. She asked teasingly: “And they were by whom, may I ask?”
“By whom?” Isabella seemed at once baffled by the question, as if books were books and their authors of no matter. “Why, Sir Walter Scott, I do believe.”
Cassandra gripped her fork and stifled all natural expression. Sir Walter Scott. Sir Walter Scott! Why must it always be him? How she wished that just once, she too could let fly with an immoderate reaction. Instead she sat silently brooding—on the injustices of fame; the travails of true genius; the realization—and this came to her quite spontaneously—that she had never particularly warmed to Isabella’s sister Elizabeth. And then her thoughts were suddenly interrupted. What was this? Isabella had at last found she had something to say.
“It is my opinion that his books are very…” There was a pause while she looked around her, searching for the bon mot. “… very … very…” And then, as if by a miracle, it came to her: “long.” She drew breath to continue. Having thus broached the unlikely territory of literary discussion, she was somehow emboldened to journey yet further therein. “There are many, many words in them,” she carried on, with some bitterness. “They seem to take up too much of everybody’s time.”
Cassandra was generally used to a higher level of discourse, but still she could only agree. In other company she might have argued that he was a fine poet and joked that his work as a reviewer was quite unsurpassed, but could sense that this was not quite the forum. “And what about you, Isabella? Do you like novels? What are your particular favorites?”
“Novels? Me?” Isabella was back to being baffled. “Favorites? No. None at all.”
The debate was over. Cassandra surrendered. Dinah bustled in and slapped down a compote, and they supped in a silence broken only by the continued ticking of that clock.
“DO TAKE MAMA’S PLACE,” said Isabella when dinner was over. Cassandra accepted at once, as the chair happened to be nearest the fire.
The evening in the drawing room yawned before them, the latest challenge in a challenging day. Pyramus padded in and stretched out on the carpet: It had always been one of those houses of which dogs had the freedom. Cassandra did not mind this dog in particular, but did not quite approve of the practice in general. She tucked in her feet, opened her valise, and took out her work. How useful it was to sew, to fuss about with a needle, to keep your eyes on the stitch. It was always her armor in difficult situations, the activity itself a diversion from the awkwardness of the company. She often wondered how men managed, without something similar. Although it did seem that they were so less often stuck for words.
She had only brought her patchwork with her. Her eyes were no longer good enough for anything finer by lamplight. “Do you not have work, Isabella dear?” She slotted the paper behind the shape of sprigged cotton and started to stitch around. “Nothing with which you are busy?”
Isabella, staring into the fire, shook her head. “I was never terribly good at that sort of thing.”
Cassandra, who could patchwork with her eyes closed, looked up with some surprise. What an odd little creature Isabella was. She had known Isabella since birth—how the years blurred and fell away—and yet, she realized, she did not know her at all. She studied the woman before her: Her figure was neat, though ill served by her mourning; her features could pass as delicate, had sorrow not robbed them of prettiness. Isabella had neither the beauty of her mother nor the intellect of her father—though those arresting blue eyes were certainly his. And even after forty years of acquaintance, any sense of character or personality still seemed elusive. Cassandra could hardly stay here in the vicarage without establishing some sort of relationship, but it was as if she were in the dark, feeling around a thick blank wall in search of a secret doorway. It was hard to find a way in.
And then inspiration struck her: “I hope death was kind to your father when it finally came for him?”
For what else do the newly bereaved want to discuss but The End?
Isabella sighed. “It was clear about ten days before that his time was coming. He had a seizure after dinner, and when Dinah went in the next morning, he was too weak to rise…”
The lock had been sprung. The door to conversation now opened.
“The pain that afflicted him, with which he lived so bravely, was finally…”
Cassandra worked on, listening to stories of ice baths and poultices, and suddenly felt much more at home.
“On the fifth day, his spirits were so low that we were able to admit the doctor—”
“The doctor was not consulted before?” This smacked of negligence!
Isabella sighed. “Mr. Lidderdale is a fine surgeon, and we are lucky to have him. He is popular with everyone—everyone, that is, except Papa. My father had doubts on the very idea of a doctor in the village. He worried it could encourage illness in those who could least afford to be ill. But then, when he himself was past objecting…”
Cassandra reflected that dying must indeed have been a torment to the good reverend: to have to lie there mute and have his irascible demands ignored.
“… and I, of course, was so grateful to have Mr. Lidderdale there with me. Oh! The relief that I was no longer alone—”
“But your sisters, Isabella,” Cassandra interrupted. “Surely they both took their turns?”
“Well, Elizabeth is now so busy with her work with the babies in the village. And of course they must not suffer. We do not see much of her here.”
Elizabeth! Frankly, Cassandra expected no better. “But Mary-Jane? She lives just across the churchyard.”
“Mary-Jane of course has her own establishment to concern her.”
Ah, the tyranny of the married woman! thought Cassandra—even one now a childless widow.
“Then they should be grateful to you for shouldering that burden alone.”
“I did not mind it.” Isabella shrugged. “And did not mind it at all, once the doctor was with me. It is such an odd time, when someone is dying but you cannot tell when. Mr. Lidderdale says deaths are like births in that regard.”
Cassandra had had much experience of both and well knew their trials. She had run out of thread, and reached into her bag for a new length.
“… and then, just before the end, he said he was hungry, and I remembered we had a good raised pork pie. He does like a pork pie. And this one had an egg in the middle. He is quite unusually fond of an egg—”
“Fulwar was after pork pie even on his own deathbed?” Cassandra threaded her needle and shook her head: He really was the stuff of legend.
“Not my father! Mr. Lidderdale. Mr. Lidderdale is often hungry, even hungrier than Papa. He is not a tall man, but broad in the shoulder, and he does work so very hard.” For a moment her eyes caught the dance of the firelight. “Where was I? So, yes, there we were, sitting one on each side. He could not decide if he would prefer beer or tea. We were discussing it. The meals get so confused when one stays up all night. And he suddenly grasped my father’s hand and said, ‘Oh, Isabella!’ Those were his words. ‘Oh, Isabella.’ And I knew that was it. It was over. Never again would I sit by his side.”
Cassandra had already heard reports of Isabella’s distress at Fulwar’s passing. According to the family, she had been brave during his illness but quite beside herself when it came to the end. Even after the funeral she had had to be put to her bed. The evidence was still there—the tears in her eyes—but Cassandra found it a little surprising. Of course all parents should be mourned: That was the duty of all offspring. But were they all to be missed in the same way?
She began to pack away her work. Isabella’s newfound loquacity had quite seen off the evening. At last it was an hour at which they could respectably retire.
Isabella went first up the shallow oak staircase, holding the lamp for Cassandra, who took the steps slowly, one at a time. She had to stop for a rest on the half-landing and caught the draft coming in through the curtain at the north-facing window. What a trial it was going to be, staying in a bigger, higher house when she was so used to her cottage in Chawton. Might her progress be swift so that she did not have to stay here too long.
They made their way down the corridor. The door to Isabella’s mother’s chamber was ajar, and Cassandra glimpsed just enough to assure herself that it too had not yet been cleared: That was most promising. They passed what she still thought of as Tom’s room—what a relief not be put in there!—and at last came to the end. Cassandra knew this room. It had been for many years the only home to poor Miss Murden, that friendless, captious burden on the family. “All Contents Herein to Go to the Workhouse” said the sign pinned outside it. Any hopes Cassandra might have once had for her own comfort were adjusted at once.
Isabella ushered her in, lit the lamp by the bedside, and bade her good night. The significance of being put in here was not lost on Cassandra. It was chilly and unaired, the furniture basic. There was water in the washstand, but that too was cold. She passed a hand over the bedcover; there was no brick or bottle in there to warm it, and thought: There we are, then. I am their friendless burden now.
Her trunk stood unopened, but she would not yet unpack it. There was a flicker of life in her yet: No time like the present. She would begin her search for the letters. Cassandra moved back to the door, waited for the footsteps to fade and the house to fall silent, opened it, and slid back to the landing. Through the shadows she crept toward Isabella’s mother’s room; she had almost gained the threshold when a voice came from behind her.
“Can I help you, Miss Austen?” Dinah, lit from below by a weak tallow candle, stood at the foot of the stairs to the attic. “Lost are we, m’m?”
“Oh, Dinah. I am sorry.” Cassandra put on a show of confusion. “How strange. I cannot remember why I came out here.”
“It’s tiredness, I’m sure of it. Best get to bed, m’m. Over that way, we are.” Dinah watched her, unsmiling. “That’s it. Good night then, Miss Austen.” And stayed in position until Cassandra was back in her room.