by Nancy Moser
We hear commotion below and rush to the door and down the stairs. Eliza is one who acts first and explains later.
She is already out the door, her bonnet and cape in place. She gives orders to our servant, John, as well as our father and the coachman she has hired, as to where to put her trunks. Hastings runs a stick over the spokes of the carriage wheel. Again and again. I wish he would stop.
As we approach, Eliza gives us her attention, her face beaming as if all is well and her exit is a planned event, bittersweet in the parting, but acceptable to all.
“Dear Aunt,” she says to Mother, kissing both her cheeks in the way of the French. “I am so appreciative of your kind hospitality. Indeed, there is no other place in which I feel so at home than here at Steventon.”
“Then why do you leave?” asks Mother.
Eliza blinks as if the question surprises. “I must get back to London.”
“But why?”
Eliza pauses a minuscule moment, then turns to her son. “Get in now, Hastings. Yes, you may take the stick with you if you promise not to prod and poke. Up, up, now.”
Eliza embraces Cassandra, my father, and then me, cooing sweet nothings that mean nothing. When it’s my turn I ask what no one has dared to ask. “Does James know you’re leaving? Have you spoken with him?” I hope the stress upon the one word invokes the depth of the question.
Our eyes meet, but Eliza quickly looks away. “I will write. You know I always do.” She steps into the coach. “I will write to you all. I promise.” She kisses her glove and blows us her farewell. “Ta ta, ma belle famille.”
Unable to do anything else, we offer our own waves as the coach makes its way down the lane toward London.
And away from James.
As we disperse toward the house, Mother sidles up to Father. “You must send word to James. Today he must send a post to London, perhaps with a verse of love, cajoling her to answer in the affirmative.”
Father shakes his head. “But I have work—”
Mother pulls the sleeve of his waistcoat. “Our work is to make a good match for our children. Eliza’s riches . . .”
“Are untenable,” says Father, crossing the threshold of our home. “The war between us and France is not over. Any claim Eliza has on her husband’s estate lies in unsympathetic and greedy hands.”
We enter the front room and Cassandra moves a book from a chair so Mother can sit.
She ignores the offer. “Eliza has her mother’s fortune. Your sister did quite well traveling to India to marry Eliza’s father.”
Father waves away her talk of money. Although it concerns Mother, to the rest of us the match of Eliza and James is a union of family, not fortunes.
Cassandra touches Mother’s arm, again offering the chair. With a sigh, she sits and removes a handkerchief from her sleeve, needing it for the comfort of nervous hands, not tears. Mother does not weep easily or often.
“Surely Eliza will not reject two of my sons. Surely not,” she says.
As Father pats her on the shoulder, giving her soft words of comfort, Cassandra and I slip away. It’s easier than facing the truth that our Eliza—though fresh and vibrant and dear—will not be held captive to our mother’s sense of convention.
*****
James will marry today. My new sister-in-law is Mary Lloyd, a family friend from Ibthorpe, just fourteen miles from Steventon. Until today, she lived there with her widowed mother and sister, Martha. It’s snowing today—which it’s wont to do in January—but I cannot help but feel the snow is a metaphor for the match. Cold. Smothering.
I’m being unkind to a friend—though, if truth be told, I’ve always felt more attachment to Mary’s sister, Martha, than to Mary herself. There is something tight about Mary. Although she seems joyful on this day—greeting friends and family as she accepts their good wishes—when she is off the public stage, when she thinks no one is looking, I see her eyes narrow and her lips draw tight as if to make measure of what pleases her. And what does not.
Being petty, I also notice that her skin—through no fault of her own—does not fit the ideal of smooth ivory, being marked with the residue of the smallpox suffered as a child. I can forgive her that, as I predict I will forgive her other things as she takes hold of the lives of my brother and sweet niece. Hold, and control. For as I’ve known her as a friend, I’ve seen how she likes—alas needs—to direct the details of a moment. Will James acquiesce? Or will he fight for his right to be master of his own domain?
I hear someone mention Eliza’s name within the new couple’s hearing and I quickly search for their reaction. They exchange a look . . . . Mary’s look pierces and challenges. James’s look cowers and makes apologies. I hope Mary’s reaction to our cousin will fade with time. I fear otherwise.
James makes quick amends and drapes his arm across the shoulders of his new wife. But Mary shrugs his arm away as if implying she is very capable of standing on her own.
Oh dear. If one does not embrace the thought of touch on one’s wedding day . . . even I know what is expected.
Unable to bear James’s embarrassment, I seek little Anna. I see her, our little princess who will be four in just months, standing next to Cassandra, as if my sister were her preferred choice of mother.
I shall miss that little girl. For until Cassandra and I are married and have our own children, she has filled a place in our hearts. To have her wrenched away, albeit through a happy event, makes my heart ache from the loss. If only my Tom would come back and save me from my emptiness. If only he would give me reason to hope for a child of my own.
It’s time to leave the church and we bundle ourselves against the snow and cold. But when the door is opened we see the snow has stopped. The sun is shining and a bevy of “Ahs” dance between the guests.
“’Tis a good sign,” someone says.
Such is my hope.
*****
Cassandra and I get into our bed and face each other. By winter habit we draw our knees toward our chests and tuck our nightdresses around our cold feet. Once settled, I offer a subject that has been dogging me throughout the day.
“I don’t understand men,” I say, knowing it’s a subject sure to elicit discussion.
“’Tis too broad a statement, Jane,” says Cassandra.
I begin again. “Do you think James and Mary love each other?”
“They’ve known each other their entire lives.”
“Knowing is not loving. I know the baker. It does not mean I love him. Nor would I want to marry him.”
“I’m sure all in all, he is relieved.”
As am I. The baker—portly from eating too much of his own goods—would not be a catch.
“But James . . . Eliza rejects him and within days, if not hours, he pursues Mary?”
“Mother is pleased.”
“I believe Mother is behind it.”
In the moonlight I see Cassandra shrug. And she’s right. If not for the discretionary interference of concerned relatives and friends, how would any match be made? I heard Mother tell Mary she was exactly the daughter-in-law she would have chosen. I mustn’t take her words as a slap against our Eliza, but as the loving gesture of a mother-in-law welcoming a new member to the family. My own disappointment as to the choice is neither warranted nor welcomed.
Of course, I also heard Mother tell Mary, “I look forward to you being a real comfort to me in my old age, when Cassandra is gone into Shropshire with her Tom Fowle, and Jane—the Lord knows where.” I was hurt by that. Does she not believe in my match with Tom Lefroy? Does she not believe that I will marry—at all?
I get back to the subject at hand. “But if James loved Eliza, how could he . . . so quickly . . . ?”
“He needs a mother for Anna. He needs a wife for his household.”
Although we Austens are a practical family, and although I know my sister’s explanation to be true, it eschews the loftier motivations I long for in my own life.
Cassandra adjusts her pillow beneath her cheek. “I will love but once.”
Ah. There. The romance I long for. “In your case it’s all that’s necessary. Your Tom . . . you’re very blessed to be so in love. You with him, and he with you. It’s an ideal that’s not always grasped or even available.”
She slides her hand beneath the covers and finds mine. “Both our Toms are far away—in distance but not in heart.”
I nod, knowing her formal engagement entitles her to more expansive hope than I can claim. In my heart Tom Lefroy and I are engaged. Does that count?
“We must sleep,” she says.
And dream.
Three
I sit by the window for the light. Embroidering white on white is always difficult, but what other colour befits a bride? I work on a handkerchief for my sister to carry on her wedding day. I will put her new initials—CF—on its corner. It will have the honour of wiping away her tears of joy upon that happy day.
The day will soon be here. Any day now. It’s late spring and we expect Tom Fowle home from the West Indies. He has been gone over a year, and he and Cassandra have been engaged nearly four. What a conscientious man her Tom is, to be so diligent in his quest to earn a comfortable living. Toward that end, it’s not every man who would accept a chaplaincy on a ship and go off to distant lands. It’s his hope that Lord Craven (his mother’s cousin who tendered the invitation for Tom to accompany him) will reward him with a living once he is home. Yes indeed, Tom is a good man. He will be a good provider for Cassandra and their children.
I’m sorry to see my sister go. One by one my siblings have left me here in the rectory. Eight children, every one but me on the path toward living their own lives. James, now married to Mary and a rector of his own church in nearby Deane; George, unwell in the mind and sent away. Lucky Edward, adopted at age twelve by a wealthy childless couple in Kent . . . .
Although Father was wary of that arrangement, Mother had pushed for it. She was the planner of our futures. That the Knight family found Edward amiable, of good character and like temperament, and that they were willing to make him theirs in all ways, appeared to be the hand of Providence. Edward’s adoptive father died three years ago, and Edward has inherited great estates at Godmersham and Chawton. Mother’s quest on behalf of her son has been amply rewarded, monetarily and otherwise, for Edward and his wife, Elizabeth, have three children with the promise of many more. Children are the true riches of one’s life.
Next down the Austen ladder is my dearest Henry. Why does one’s heart bond with another, especially when the two temperaments are so vastly left to right? Only God knows. But Henry will always own my heart. He is in the army now, a captain and paymaster, helping to fight the war with France. I’m not sure the position suits him, but at least it’s a position. Like James, he is a scholar and once talked of becoming a rector. I am proud that he received his master’s degree from Oxford.
After Cassandra became the first female sibling, Francis—Frank—was born, just one year before me. Always an adventurous spirit, he joined a frigate at age fourteen and is rising in the naval ranks as a lieutenant in the East Indies. He is a strict man, a wise man. I’m sure he is good to those under him, albeit stern. Charles—the youngest and two years younger than myself—is also in the navy as a midshipman in Portsmouth.
But the once-bursting rectory was not strictly kept for Austens. For in addition to Father’s ministerial duties at the church were the pupils my father taught and boarded here at the rectory. The audible residue of their ever-present clomping toward their garret rooms still rings in my ears.
Yet they too are now gone, a closed chapter in my family’s busy life. Perhaps with fewer mouths to feed due to my brothers’ departures, Father found a lesser need for the extra income. Boys. So many boys. My whole life has been full of boys with all their bounding, noisy ways.
Life is not busy nor bounding nor noisy now. Although Cassandra and I were offered any bedrooms in the near-empty house, we chose to continue our habit of sharing a room. Our one luxury is making the adjoining space a sitting room. It’s like having our own home within the home. The two windows afford a commendable view of the garden, the fireplace warms us, and the dark brown patterned carpet conjures the feeling of solid ground beneath our lives. That the walls are only cheaply papered doesn’t matter. My sister and I don’t require much. Just enough. And here, we have everything we need to sew, read, draw, and write.
As the only girls amid the cacophony of boys, we are bonded in a way that is most pleasing—and sustaining. We complement each other and see no need for separate lodgings. I’ve been told our mother once said, “If Cassandra’s head was going to be cut off, Jane would have hers cut off too.” In our childhood, when Mother was busy with the boys, Cassandra became far more than a sister to me. She was a mother. I continue to love her in both her positions, as well as the many we have added since then: confidante, advisor, sounding board. She is the only one to hear what is truly upon my heart. Somehow, she loves me still.
I do hope her Tom will retain a position close by. Although I enjoy the entertainment of my sister’s letters when we are apart on various family visits, there is nothing more enjoyable than a face-to-face tête-à-tête that allows the full breadth of expression and nuance. The other advantage of face-to-face encounters is that once said, our words are gone, evaporated in the air between us, never to be retrieved and held against us. The meanderings of the heart and mind are fickle and are often wont to be withdrawn or amended.
Cassandra comes in the room, but I continue working, not desperate to hide my work. She knows what I’m making for her—yet one more thing I cannot keep secret from her. I display the handkerchief for her approval. “See, I’m nearly—”
My words are abandoned as I see her face. She is as white as my work. Her arms are down, but I see a letter in her hand, held by a mere corner, its fate in danger.
“What is it?” I ask, even as my instincts warn me not to know.
“He’s dead,” she says.
“Who is dead?”
Through effort her arm rises and I retrieve the letter. My eyes skim across the words, then return to the beginning to read them again, hoping to have missed some key word that will change black to white, dark to light.
The dark is unchangeable. Tom Fowle is dead. Three months dead in the West Indies, of fever. To have his anticipated homecoming usurped by this tragic news . . .
I turn to Cassandra to console her, my arms drawing her into a—
She steps away.
I study her for an indication of how I can help. Her eyes are locked into the space between us, never still, surely skirting over her thoughts as mine had skirted over the awful words. Her breathing is pronounced, her chin and lower lip in motion as they fight to find their natural condition. I await the sobs that are her due.
“Please leave me,” she finally says.
I want to speak, to offer a thousand words of condolence, to let my own sorrow and pain loose. But I cannot if she does not wish it. Or need it.
She moves toward the window and stands erect, her back to me. I push my own desires aside and leave our room, pulling the door shut behind me.
I hear our mother on the stairs. She sees me in the hall and calls out, “Where is your sister? I must speak to her about the wedding dinner.”
Mother doesn’t know. Cassandra came to tell me first. How sinful I am to feel a measure of pride in that.
I hurry down the stairs to protect my sister’s pain. “She’s resting,” I say, touching my mother’s shoulder, gently leading her down the stairs.
“There’s no time for rest,” says Mother. “We have plans to follow and decisions
to make.”
Decisions, yes. Plans, no.
In an odd thought, I think of the handkerchief I’m making for Cassandra, the initials I was about to place in its corner: CF.
CA. Alas, CA.
*****
My piano instructor, Master Chard, points to the Haydn sonata and says, “You are letting your left hand become too ponderous. The right hand is the butterfly, the bird. The left is its accompaniment. Try again.”
I do my best, trying to will my left hand to tread lightly—with some success.
Master Chard closes his eyes and nods. It’s a good sign. As he is the assistant organist at Winchester Cathedral, I know his time is precious. For him to travel fourteen miles to teach me . . . I’m grateful Father is willing to pay for the lessons. I take solace that of all my siblings, I’m the only one with musical ability. Without my efforts the Austen household would remain musically silent. It’s the one talent I alone possess, for even my other interest—writing—is shared by both my mother and my brother James. Since I am the lowest of the low, the youngest girl, their talents in that regard take precedence. Mother has always been quite witty in her verse, and James was always talented in writing additions to the family plays we put on as children. He was also the editor of his own publication called The Loiterer. It received accolades in London and beyond. My attempts at writing were simply added to theirs until a few years ago when James ceased his publication and Mother found pursuits of more interest than her verse. I have been only too happy to fill the gap and pursue the Austen pen alone. That Father approves is an encouragement. At the front of one of my notebooks he wrote: “Effusions of Fancy by a Very Young Lady Consisting of Tales in a Style Entirely New.”
My thoughts make me falter. Master Chard frowns. I must concentrate on the music and leave musings of my writing for another time—an impossible notion, all in all. For my mind is never completely free of it. My stories wrap around me like a cozy quilt, and sometimes I long to pull that quilt over my head and pin the blanket shut, allowing me to immerse myself in the world vivid in my mind. At the moment I’m quite enamored with a character called Mr. Darcy, the man I chuse as the foil, flirtation, and fancy of Miss Elizabeth Bennet. That neither one realizes they are divinely suited gives apt opportunity for many delightful encounters and sparrings. Mr. Darcy intrigues me and heartens me, for until I find my own Mr. Darcy, I am content to be his creator. Who would not find pleasure in the creation of so perfect a man?
