“Indeed,” agreed Jenny, mindful that Eliza must be thinking of her own cruelly-shortened marriage. “But how many women must marry a man they do not love, to secure financial protection and have the children they desire? That is my objection to the way of the world. I cannot imagine how unhappy such a situation must be, and yet it takes place every day. If a man I did not love…”
She stopped, feeling the blood come into her cheeks. Eliza swiftly took her hand.
“For many women, rather older than you are, it is a better choice than remaining single. And when there are few available men, they must shift for themselves. Why, even my dear late mama was obliged to travel all the way to India to find a husband. And of course she did meet my father, and my most excellent godfather.”
Eliza stroked Jenny’s hand while she talked. In the candlelight the pallor of her face showed yellow; the shadow of her lashes lay upon her cheeks. “When I was young,” she went on, “I felt like you do. I hated – hated – the notion that a woman’s life, body and soul, can be exchanged for money. I considered it another form of Indian trade, as much as that in silks or spices.”
Jenny’s heart filled with compassion for the brave husband-seeker of forty years ago, and for the young Eliza, appalled that her mother had been driven to embark on such a journey. “Oh, Eliza!” she exclaimed with true sympathy.
“Yet when I was only one year older than you are now, I was myself married.” Eliza released Jenny’s hand and drew her hand over her eyes. Her voice was not far above a whisper. “I had money of my own, and I used it to attract the kind of gentleman I sought. I realized what you too have understood, that women are dependent upon marriage for social status, which we cannot achieve for ourselves.”
Jenny pictured Eliza’s introduction to her French aristocrat. Even in their first glance at each other, beneath the undoubted attraction there must also have been the understanding that a bargain was being made. His title was to be bestowed only on a woman who could bring him a fortune, and her fortune was to be bestowed only on a man who could give her a title.
“Dear Eliza,” she said softly, “ I am greatly indebted to you for these confidences. I shall remember your words for ever.”
Eliza lifted her eyelids, and Jenny saw that her eyes were full of tears. “Money conquers love, Jenny,” she said. “It is never the other way around.”
Elizabeth
After the departure of Henry and Eliza, life at the Rectory settled back into its routine. The only man in the house apart from Papa was Dick, who had served the family as manservant, ostler, coachman and gardener since before Jenny was born. The schoolboys had not yet returned from the long summer vacation. Papa fulfilled his church duties and worked in his study, emerging only in the afternoon, his whiskers brushed, to preside over the three o’clock dinner table. And even if Dick had had time to talk, he would not have said anything. He was the most taciturn man Jenny had ever met.
“Do you not feel the want of male company when all our brothers are from home?” she asked Cass. “At Deane Parsonage there are only Martha and Mary, and at Manydown House there are three girls.”
“Three girls and their brother,” corrected Cass.
“Harris Bigg?” retorted Jenny. “Why, he is only thirteen. Cannot you provide me with any grown-up men?”
“Sadly, no,” confessed Cassandra. “The only family in this district with more brothers than sisters is our own. But I believe you know that already.”
They had just arrived home from a morning spent with the Lloyds. It was a blustery September day, with restless clouds and an air of impending showers. Cassandra had been quiet during their visit. Jenny suspected she was thinking of Tom, whom she was to meet again in a few days’ time at their brother Edward’s house in Kent.
“Make haste, girls!” Mama came out of the dining room. “Company is expected within the hour, you know.”
“Who is coming?” asked Jenny.
Mama looked from one to the other of her daughters, exasperated by their blank looks. “I told you only yesterday that the Biggs are taking a late dinner with us.”
“No, you did—”
“We must have forgotten, Mama,” soothed Cass, suppressing her sister. “Are all the Biggs coming?”
“No, we expect Mr and Mrs Bigg and Elizabeth. Now, hurry yourselves!”
“You were lamenting a shortage of gentlemen, Jenny,” whispered Cass as they started up the stairs, “but this evening we are to have the pleasure of Mr Bigg’s company.”
“And of his dull wit and sharp appetite,” whispered Jenny. Then, louder, to her mother, “But you know, Mama, it does not signify what we do to improve our appearance, for Elizabeth Bigg is far prettier than the two of us put together.”
Mama, halfway to the kitchen, gave Jenny an impatient look. “That may be so, but at least tidy your hair, child. And the skirt of your white gown has not seen a brush these half-dozen outings. Do not bother Kitty, she has enough to do.”
“I shall see to Jenny’s skirt, ma’am,” offered Cass. “Your daughters’ beauty may be surpassed by Elizabeth Bigg’s, but you need have no fear that the cleanliness of their dresses will be.”
In the bedroom Jenny pinned up her hair anew, while Cass tried her best to remove several days’ dust from the hem of her sister’s best muslin.
“Such a fuss, and it is only the Biggs,” complained Jenny. “Mama does not need to impress a family who have been here a thousand times before, and are the most amiable and easily satisfied of guests anyway. The dining table is spread as extravagantly as if the King himself were visiting.”
“We must forgive our mother,” said Cass. “She loves acting as hostess, and when Eliza arrived so unexpectedly, there was no chance to preside over the preparations such a visit normally demands.” A thought struck her, and she gazed at Jenny with widened eyes. “Do you think the other Elizabeth, Edward’s Elizabeth, is fussing as much over my visit to Godmersham?”
“Edward’s Elizabeth!” echoed Jenny with affectionate contempt. “She has so many servants she will scarcely notice any disruption you and Tom make to her household.”
“I must confess,” said Cass, spreading Jenny’s gown on the bed, “I would rather that were the case than to be fêted like royalty.”
“Elizabeth Bigg will wear any attentions Mama cares to give her as becomingly as she wears everything else,” said Jenny. “And confess it, Cass, she is such an amiable friend you would rather be in her company than anyone else’s.”
Smiling, Cass began to unpin her own hair. “Almost anyone else’s, Jenny.”
Jenny returned the smile. “Oh, very well. One Tom Fowle is equal to a hundred Elizabeth Biggs, however delightful every one of them would be.”
Cass did not reply. She dipped her head; her face was hidden by her loosened hair. When she did speak it was on a different subject. “How is Lady Susan progressing?”
“Oh, I have abandoned her.”
“No! Why?”
Jenny pondered, looking at her reflection in the glass. Her hair looked particularly well today, she thought. Deep brown, with a high sheen like the horse chestnuts Papa’s boys gathered in the autumn. In Jenny’s opinion Elizabeth Bigg’s famous blonde curls were no more beautiful than her own brown ones. Or Cass’s, for that matter.
“I decided the story was too frivolous,” she told her sister. “I am thinking of writing something much truer to life. A reflection of ourselves.” She bent nearer the mirror, arranging wisps at her temples. “A perfect reflection of ourselves.”
“Have you begun it?” asked Cassandra. “What is its title?”
“So many questions!”
“But you always tell me what you are writing.”
“I shall tell you when I have something to tell,” said Jenny. She smoothed her skirt. It did look better. “Thank you for doing this, Cass,” she said. “Now, are you ready? Let us go down and join Mama, or she will complain that waiting for us is bad for her nerves.”
“Jenny, have a care,” admonished Cassandra. “She does suffer with her nerves.”
“Yes, when she remembers to.”
Elizabeth Bigg was handed from her carriage by her corpulent father, followed by the bright-eyed Mrs Bigg, a woman whose elegance of figure belied the number of children she had borne. As ever when Jenny saw Elizabeth after a short separation, she detected in her countenance something of her cousin Eliza’s looks. The same small mouth and large eyes; the same confident air. Slim and girlish, with light colouring, Elizabeth Bigg was neither so exotic nor so elegant as Eliza. But she possessed an air of sweet artlessness which Eliza could never, with all her skill, have achieved.
“Why, Jenny, who dressed your hair?” were Elizabeth’s first words. “May I borrow her? Or has she returned to her post in the Queen’s bedchamber already?”
Elizabeth’s company was always pleasant. She and her younger sisters, Catherine and Alethea, were all in their twenties, all attractive, and near enough neighbours of the Austens and Lloyds for all seven girls to regard one another as solid friends. The Biggs’ house, Manydown, was a carriage ride away, but Cass and Jenny had paid them enough visits – the Biggs were great givers of balls – to have long abandoned any need to stand on ceremony in their presence.
Jenny embraced Elizabeth with real affection, skewing the fashionably high crown of her friend’s bonnet. “You know I dress my own hair, Elizabeth, so do not tease me.”
“How can I stop myself?” asked Elizabeth “Teasing my dearest friends is my favourite pastime.”
Mama greeted her guests with handshakes and curtseys. “The Reverend is gone to Winchester on church business, but he will return before dinner,” she explained as Kitty took their cloaks. “He will be delighted to see you all.”
“And to speak to Mr Bigg about the war, I have no doubt,” suggested Mrs Bigg.
“Oh, the war!” cried Mama, opening the door to an immaculately cleaned and tidied drawing-room. “The old men discuss it while the young men do it. I always say the same applies to women, though the subject is marriage!”
“My dear Mrs Austen,” said Mrs Bigg in admiration, “you really should write some of your clever thoughts down.”
“Oh, I am not the writer in this family,” replied Mama, “though I do occasionally like to try my hand (an awkward hand, I confess) at poetry. It is my eldest son, James, who most likes to compose, and Jenny has written little entertainments for the family too. Come in, come in, and sit down. Kitty, bring the tray.”
Elizabeth took Jenny’s arm as they followed their elders. “Little entertainments for the family,” she murmured. “I hazard that you would not wish your literary efforts to be so described!”
“It is my punishment for having lived a mere eighteen years, I fear.”
“How are you, Elizabeth?” asked Cass warmly. “We have not seen you these three months.”
“Perfectly well. But I cannot say the same for this poor bonnet, which I must take off before it is crushed flat. There!”
Installed in a comfortable chair, with the new hairstyle revealed by the bonnet’s removal duly admired, Elizabeth resumed. “I have been travelling. And what pleasures it has afforded me! You must try it, my dear Cass. And Jenny, too. How splendid it would be to go about the country together!”
Both sisters laughed, loud enough to incur a frown from Mama, who was ever hopeful of elegant visits rich in intellectual and artistic stimulation. “I am happy that you are enjoying yourselves, my dears,” she said archly.
Elizabeth knew her friends’ mama well. She bowed her graceful head. “I was recommending your daughters try travelling, ma’am. They find the notion extremely comic, though I consider it an excellent way of educating the female mind.”
“Travelling?” repeated Mama, surprised “I am a great traveller, to be sure, at least I was in my youth. But do you mean travelling abroad, Miss Elizabeth?”
Mrs Bigg entered the conversation, her hand reassuringly placed upon Mama’s arm. “No, no, my dear. Elizabeth has been to Plymouth this summer, and to the very tip of Cornwall, a place called Land’s End. She was struck by its wildness and beauty.”
“Indeed I was,” Elizabeth informed Mama. “There is no need to travel to the Swiss mountains, when we have such cliffs and crags here in England. And Plymouth was full of enchanting people, all bent on a summer of gaiety. If I attended one ball, I must have attended twenty.”
“Twenty balls!” exclaimed Cassandra. “Was anyone of our acquaintance there?”
Elizabeth paused, suddenly self-conscious. She looked at her hands, which lay in her lap, remembered that she carried a fan, opened it and began to fan herself. “Mr Harwood was there, for some of the time.”
“Mr John Harwood?” asked Cass.
“The very same.”
“Such near neighbours, at Deane House,” said her mother, with a significant look at Mama, “and yet Elizabeth seems to have seen more of Mr Harwood in Plymouth than we did in the whole of last year.”
“It is not what you think,” protested Elizabeth, her voice weary but her eyes bright.
Mama, though doubtless interested to hear more of Elizabeth’s Plymouth adventure, could not neglect her duties as hostess. She rose to dispense wine and sweetmeats. Cassandra took advantage of this diversion to say, matter-of-factly, “Speaking of travelling, I am soon to make a visit to my brother Edward’s house, Godmersham Park.”
“Are you going there alone, Miss Cassandra?” asked Mr Bigg, whose part in such a feminine conversation had hitherto been negligible. Daughters travelling alone, however, was a subject on which he felt qualified to speak. “My Elizabeth did not go to Plymouth alone.”
“Although I am over twenty-one, and perfectly capable of conducting myself in public unchaperoned,” cut in Elizabeth.
“But you are unmarried, my dear,” her mother reminded her gently.
Elizabeth’s fan went up another inch. She did not reply.
“She was accompanied by her aunt,” her father informed Mama. “A woman of very good sense.”
“She had her personal maid too, of course,” added Mrs Bigg. “With eleven dresses and jackets, and six bonnets packed, and all the shawls and shoes and things a young lady needs, as well as a heavy jewel-box, the services of a footman would not have gone amiss either, but we were unable to spare one.”
Jenny felt their neighbour’s want of taste, and could look at neither Elizabeth nor Cass. How long would it be before she was able to pass over such moments with the ease of her sister?
“Cassandra shall not be travelling alone either, Mr Bigg,” Mama assured him. “She is to be accompanied to Kent by her eldest brother, James, who will spend a few days on business in London.”
“I see,” said Mr Bigg. Satisfied that propriety had not been compromised, he settled to the dish of sugared fruits at his elbow.
Elizabeth might have a heavy jewel-box and a lady’s maid, but Mama’s elder daughter was engaged to be married. Jenny knew it was unrealistic to suppose that her mother would miss this chance to remind Mrs Bigg of her own daughters’ deficiency in this respect. She waited for Mama’s voice to recount to Mr Bigg the remaining arrangements, and sure enough, it came.
“While in London, James is to meet Mr Tom Fowle, to whom Cassandra is engaged, and bring him back to Godmersham.”
Elizabeth was delighted. “A tryst! How romantic! Whose scheme was this?”
Her fan back in her lap, her wine glass at her lips, she looked pointedly at Jenny. “Did it come from the imagination of our own storyteller?”
“Actually, it did not,” said Jenny.
“It was nothing to do with Jenny at all,” Mama assured Elizabeth. “The family in Kent has long expected a visit from Cassandra, and Tom has some business in London later this month. When my husband heard about this, he immediately suggested that Tom be invited to Godmersham too. Tom is Edward’s particular friend, you know.”
“Am I to understand, then,” said Elizabeth,
mockseriously, “that the schemer of the family is the Reverend? Dear me, we cannot have him invading the province of ladies!”
“Indeed we cannot,” laughed Cass. “Though I am grateful for his intervention, and for my brother Edward’s hospitality.”
“Shall they give a ball, do you think, while you are there?” asked Elizabeth eagerly.
“A ball has been discussed, Miss Elizabeth,” Mama told her. “And if one is held,” she added, turning to Cass, “you may be sure that you and Tom will be asked to lead the opening dance.”
The thought of this responsibility silenced Cass, but Jenny seized an opportunity she had long awaited. “Elizabeth, are you and your sisters planning to attend the ball tomorrow, at the Basingstoke Assembly Rooms?”
Elizabeth looked expectantly at her mama. “What do you say, ma’am?”
“I do not see why not,” replied Mrs Bigg, sending a glance in Mr Bigg’s direction. “If my husband does not object.”
“I have never objected to your, or the girls’ pursuit of enjoyment,” he returned swiftly. “Indeed, I know not why you exert yourself to ask the question. My daughters must be the most tireless dancers that ever lived.”
“May Cass and I go, Mama?” asked Jenny.
Mama hesitated. She did not mind the girls going to balls; what she found more problematical was the convention that unmarried girls be chaperoned, this task usually falling to their mother. She considered her nervous disposition adversely affected by public balls, though she would occasionally appear, resplendently attired, at a private one.
Jenny saw by the quick movement of her eyes that Mrs Bigg, without waiting for Mama’s agreement, had begun to make plans. “Do not be concerned about a chaperone, Mrs Austen,” she said. “I can perform that duty for all the girls. Might your daughters be delivered to Manydown, so that I can take them on from there?”
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