“Will you read us some of what you have written, Aunt?” begged Anna. “We laughed to die when you were reading about Elizabeth and Mr. Collins!”
“The work I have in hand may disappoint you, then; it is quite different. And I think it may be a little dull for …” She nodded at Caroline.
“Then tell us a story, Aunt Jane. Just made up for me, like your fairy tales,” Caroline implored.
“But fairy tales may not amuse a young lady like Anna. I have the two of you to please equally.”
“Oh, I always loved your fairy tales, Aunt Jane, and I do still. Please tell one—if you are not too tired from your writing.”
“Very well. Only let us have our cold meat, first, it is time,” said Jane, and summoned a maid, who shortly brought in plates of cold pie, salad from the garden, and sweet-cake, and placed them on the sideboard with the elderberry cordial. Caroline was bid to send Tyger out, and she let go the animal, which made a bee-line for the window, and after surveying the sunny scene without, jumped down into the shrubbery and was away.
When they had eaten, Jane asked Caroline what story she wanted told. “Fairies again? Command me.”
“Oh, make a story about a cat!”
“Your cat? Tyger? Or a constellation of cats?”
“A constellation!”
“But I don’t want to hear about cats—I want to hear more about Fanny, and acting and all,” complained Anna.
Jane sipped her cordial thoughtfully, before she spoke.
“Once there lived a terrible old cat named Mrs. Norris.”
“Was she a tortoise-shell cat, like Tyger?”
“Why yes, I rather think she was. A fierce, brindled creature, with jowls and a face like a monkey.”
“My Tyger has a face like a pansy, I think.”
“Well, Mrs. Norris was a stout cat, with short legs, and a propensity to direct all the household. She considered herself as the lady in charge, and gave orders very firmly, whether needful or not.”
“Was she as dictatorial as Lady Catherine de Bourgh?” asked Anna.
“Quite different. She had not so much money, or rank. She was a clergyman’s widow, but she did like to interfere, quite as much as Lady Catherine, and her prejudice, and her faulty judgment, made her a penance to all around. She was particularly unkind to a poor little kitten—we may call her Fanny, like my heroine.”
“And what sort of kitten was Fanny?” Caroline inquired breathlessly. “Did she have brown hair, like me?”
“She was a little grey kitten, with soft, light eyes. Mrs. Norris was harsh to her, very. She would not let her play with the other cats, but kept her down, reminding her that she was not a pure bred; she would not let her have anything nice, not even to sit by the fire. Which is very cruel when you think how cold it is in Northamptonshire in winter, and how cats admire a good fire.”
“The story is set in Northamptonshire, then? Not in a castle, I suppose,” asked Anna, regretfully.
“No, but a very grand house, with a park five miles round. I shall call it Mans-cat Park.”
“Oh! Is it like the Great House here at Chawton?”
“Very. And at Mans-cat Park, Mrs. Norris managed to get everything good for herself.”
“What sort of things?”
“Oh, anything that was going. Cheese, and plants, but most of all, green baize.”
“Green baize? What on earth was that for? It is ugly stuff,” commented Anna. “My stepmother cuts it out for the poor to wear.”
“This particular baize was intended for curtains, in the theatre. I suppose she thought the baize would come in useful, later, to line her sleeping-basket.”
“Did she act—Mrs. Norris?” asked Caroline.
“No; it was the younger cats that were to act. The play was to be Puss-cats’ Vows. And they wanted poor little Fanny to exhibit, but she was too modest, and shy. Mrs. Norris bullied her, and kept her working away making the costumes for all the other cats to wear.”
Anna and Caroline were in fits of laughter.
“Costumes, for cats? Live cats?”
“I used to dress up my kitty in doll’s clothes!”
“Certainly; one gentleman cat was to wear a cloak of pink silk, and that took a good deal of sewing, which is quite difficult for cats to achieve, with only their teeth and paws, for they cannot hold a needle. The sewing did not distress Fanny, so much as seeing the improper way the other cats behaved. Or hearing, I should say. You know what cats are; you have heard them caterwauling at night.”
“Yes, and then they have kittens,” said Caroline wisely.
“Yes; shocking, is not it? It would be improper to tell you of all their ways, but Mrs. Norris encouraged them in their behavior, and it was indeed a cat-astrophe.”
Caroline choked with giggles, but Anna wanted to know what happened to Fanny.
“Oh, Fanny grew from a kitten into a cat and in due course became lady of the whole concern.”
“And Mrs. Norris?”
“She was put right out, with the feral cats and vermin, but I believe she did take all the green baize with her, so at least she is sleeping warm of a night.”
Caroline was thinking about the story.
“Why was Mrs. Norris so very bad, do you think?”
“That’s the question. What makes some cats bad and others good? But I think it was, in her case, that in her litter were two especially beautiful cats, and Mrs. Norris felt quite inferior. So she spent the rest of her life attending to her own importance. Such things do happen, in nature. We all like to be important.”
“What happened to the beautiful ones?” Caroline wanted to know.
“Those two cats were always excessively lazy, and they never altered. One had long lustrous silky fur, but spent her life lying on the sofa. The other was poor, with an enormous litter to keep, but you will be glad to know that they all lived happily ever after. And now I think it is Anna’s turn to tell a story.”
Anna rose and spun around the room restlessly.
“I shall tell you one about a heroine who is fathoms deep in love,” she said.
“Fathoms? I hope it is a sincere love, otherwise such a commonplace expression as that will kill it entirely. And why do I suspect that this story is to be based on life?”
“It is, Aunt Jane … I have been wanting to consult you.…” Anna stopped spinning, flushed, and looked at her little sister.
“Offers have been flowing in, I collect?” asked Jane archly.
“Well … I had better tell you when we are alone.…”
“I am quite grown up enough to hear, Anna,” exclaimed Caroline indignantly. “Indeed, I know all about Mr. Benjamin Lefroy being in love with you, and you refusing Mr. Terry, and then there’s the older richer one but you won’t tell me his name.”
“Quite enough to puzzle a young lady, I should say, or for a three-volume novel. Have you ascertained, out of all this assemblage, which gentleman you love best?”
“Yes, I believe I have,” murmured Anna, looking down.
“I hope he will be the richest one,” said Caroline.
“I hope we will not be dancing at your wedding too soon,” said Jane kindly. “At twenty, you need not be in a hurry, Anna, and I trust you will make no choice, until you are tolerably well acquainted with your own heart.”
This kind of talking bored Caroline, and she begged for a story about another mean cat.
“Do you suppose that I have an endless supply of mean cats up my sleeve?”
“No, but will you tell us about Lady Catherine again?”
“Why, you have heard it already.”
“Oh, but make her a cat.”
“Well: to please you, then, I would suppose her to be another tortoise-shell, with strongly marked features and an inordinately proud tail, but she is no relation to Mrs. Norris; she is a Kent cat.”
“Does she live at Godmersham, where my cousins live when they are not at the Great House?”
“She has a very f
ine mansion-hutch of her own, and all the cat families round there are martyrs to her interference.”
“I do like your wicked cats best, Aunt Jane. What cat will you tell us about next?”
“Now, Caroline, that is more than enough of cats,” said Jane firmly. “I know you love them, but I prefer to have my stories be about men and women.”
“That is too bad,” said Caroline wistfully, “I was going to give you Tyger as a present, if only you could love him.”
“Then he would have the honour and the merit of being Jane Austen’s Cat,” said Anna, “but I do not think Aunt Jane would like it.”
“The honour and merit are nearly the same,” said Jane dryly, “but I cannot keep your cat on any account. I am very sorry.”
“Please, will you tell about the people who will be in your next book?” asked Anna. “Do you know them yet?
“Oh, yes. There is a Mr. Woodhouse, who likes to sit by a warm fire in the hottest days in July, just as an old cat might, Caroline; and a silly kitten of a girl named Harriet, who collects pencil stubs belonging to the sleek cat she is in love with; and there is a Miss Bates, who never once stops mewing …”
“Will there be lovers in the novel?” Anna asked eagerly.
“Indeed, yes, for what is a novel without lovers in it?”
“And it all ends happily?” urged Caroline.
“Certainly.”
“Aunt Jane’s stories always end happily, fairy ones, and cat ones, and real ones alike,” Anna observed with complacence.
“Those are the laws of literary composition, Anna,” Jane answered, amused. “You would feel it a take-in, to read three volumes and find as the pages were compressing to their end, that the right people did not marry, and the wrong people did. I have been thinking of that a good deal, of late.”
“And must all stories end in a wedding?”
“The best sort do.”
“Aunt Jane, why did you never have a wedding, yourself?” asked Caroline.
Anna was shocked. “Caroline! You are too old to be asking such questions.”
“But why? I know Aunt Cassandra was going to be married once, but the gentleman died of a fever, in the West Indies. She told us about it herself. Why may I not know about Aunt Jane?”
Anna stood. “Caroline, you are in disgrace. How can you talk to your aunt so unfeelingly, when she is so kind to you. Go out into the garden and play with your cat, if you cannot speak in a proper manner.”
“I didn’t mean anything, Anna,” the child pleaded.
“Never mind, Anna,” Jane said gently, “it is no matter, Caroline means no harm. It is very natural to want to know about people.”
“But it is not right to ask such questions,” said Anna, still looking angrily at her little half-sister.
“The subject need not be prohibited,” said Jane cheerfully. “Do not forget that your brother has even suggested the Prince Regent as a husband for me.”
Anna had to smile. “Yes, in his poem. I remember. ‘And indeed if the Princess should lose her dear life, / You might have a good chance of becoming his wife.’ ”
“Now to me, that would be a tragical fate,” said Jane. “I do not like the man, and cannot approve his treatment of his wife. Better be single than married to such a person, however high and mighty.”
The girls were quiet, thinking this over, but Anna, after a moment, said, “Aunt Jane, I thought I was in love with Mr. Terry, and now I believe I really am in love with Ben. It is so easy to love, for me! It makes me worry. What if one marries the wrong man? How does one know? Your heroines all fall in love, but I do not believe one of them is as perplexed as I am.”
“When you truly love,” Jane advised, “it will become clear.”
“Will it? How do you know …” Anna stopped.
Jane considered her nieces, both gazing at her across the shining mahogany dining-table, littered with the remains of their cake. She sat straight-backed in her hard chair, a woman still handsome, but in middle life, with lines forming in the fine skin by her candid hazel eyes, lightly circled with tiredness.
“I will tell you one more story,” she said reluctantly, “concerning Love. Yes, a cat story, Caroline.”
“What sort of cat?” asked Caroline, bouncing.
“A long, thin sort of cat, I think, with darkish fur. She came from a good litter that lived in the countryside, and was very merry, though she tended to be over satiric, and to laugh at her fellow beings.”
“I did not know cats laughed.”
“She is speaking metaphorically, Caroline. Now hush.”
“Yes—and like any other young female cat, this cat—I shall call her Susan—had several admirers among cats of the other sex, but never quite settled on any.”
“What happened to the admirers?” asked Anna, anxiously.
“One suitor was warned off because of Susan’s lack of fortune; another talked of engaging himself to her, but never did; several others she ran away from before they had a chance to propose, because she saw she could not like them.”
“And did she never marry, in the end?”
There was a thoughtful pause, as Jane looked out the window, at the bright summer green of the little Hampshire garden, the soft breeze lightly ruffling the shrubbery. When she resumed, her voice was low.
“One summer, she and her family went on a tour of the seaside, to a place on the south coast.”
“Oh! Was it pretty? Were there bathing-machines? Did they sell cockles on the pier?”
“Yes, all of that. A fine open sea, and the town had reddish-brown cliffs that cats could leap up with ease.”
Caroline was charmed. “Was it a town we know, Aunt Jane?”
“No; I do not think you have ever been to Catmouth. Well, it was there, at the seaside, Susan met a cat who was handsome, clever, and good.”
“What was his profession?” asked Anna.
“He was a clergyman,” said Jane, with a little sigh.
“Cats can’t be Christians,” pointed out Caroline logically.
“This cat was, if it is not heresy to say so,” said Jane. “Well, they were there for a month, and had walks together, never to be forgotten; a visit that was only too short, yet long enough to prove that they had interests in common, and could not fail to be a happy couple together, if only …”
“If only, what?” asked Caroline. “Did they not marry?”
“He was obliged to go back to his parish duties, but not without earnest invitations from Susan, her mother, and her sister, to visit them at their home; invitations which he as earnestly promised to fulfil.”
“And he did not?” cried Anna.
“Susan went home,” Jane continued, “and letters followed; it was not thought wrong for them to correspond, and her mother knew it. The date was fixed for him to visit them for a week in the autumn, at their lodgings at Bath … for he lived in the North Country. But the date passed; and then a letter came, from his rector, who had known of his proposed trip, and saying that he had died, quite suddenly, of a short illness.”
The girls sat aghast.
“Aunt Jane, that is so like what happened to Aunt Cassandra,” Anna whispered.
“No,” said Jane, “Cassandra was engaged to Mr. Fowle. That did not happen in this story.”
“That is a sad story,” said Caroline meditatively. “So the cat ended up an old maid.”
“I am sure she had many other chances,” cried Anna.
“Other proposals? Yes,” said Jane. “But Susan knew she should never meet another cat that she cared for as well; and she made up her mind not to marry.”
“And was she happy?” asked Anna anxiously.
“Yes; after a time, she was, quite happy, and wished for no change. But she never would give advice to young ladies, that would not be productive of happiness. She would not counsel waiting, and the prudence that girls are so often taught to practice as a duty, once they know their own heart, and that the one they love is their own.”
Anna looked at Jane feelingly, as if she could not thank her enough, but did not say anything.
Caroline jumped up to look out the window. “Oh, here is cousin Fanny,” she exclaimed, “coming in at the gate.”
A young woman of Anna’s age, slighter, more serious and not as pretty, entered. “Aunt Jane,” she said after the usual greeting, “I am come to ask you to walk back to the Great House with me. You ought not to be sitting inside this lovely day; it is quite beautiful in the meadows. The Queen Anne’s lace in the pasture is quite a picture, and the wild summer roses in the hedgerows too.”
“That is a very kind invitation, of a sort that I cannot resist,” said Jane cordially. “Anna, Caroline, will you come?”
“Oh, yes,” they said, and ran away to get their bonnets.
Fanny looked after Anna. “Has she said anything more about marrying Ben Lefroy?” she asked with a frown. “Very foolish thing.”
“I confess they would seem an oddly matched couple. She, so lively and fond of company, he so inward and quiet. I do not know how it would do.”
“Foolish indeed! I can never forget, none of us can, how she engaged herself at sixteen without a by-your-leave, to that Mr. Terry. Anna is so unsteady.”
“Young ladies cannot all be as sober as you, my sensible Fanny,” said Jane. “But there, my dear, the headship of a family has fallen heavily upon you, and made you wise beyond your years.”
“Anna lost her mother, too, so I do not know why it did not have that effect on her,” said Fanny disapprovingly. “She does not seem to understand how very important the question of marriage is. She does not think. I am sure I look for open scandal from her, one day to the next.”
“And you? Is your heart quite fancy free?” asked Jane gently. “Is not Mr. Plumptre in the ascendant any longer?”
“Oh, no—no. He is not … there is somebody else … I cannot talk about it yet …”
Fanny blushed to such a degree that Jane laughed. “I see. Well, I am sure you will open your heart in time. I expect to see you settled within a twelvemonth, and I will visit you, wherever you are.”
“Oh, that can never be. My sisters are far too young to leave them, and my father needs me. Anna will be married before I am—doubtless very precipitately.”
Jane Austen Made Me Do It Page 28
