His attentions to me last night at the ball left me in no doubt that he entertains a serious attachment to me, though he did not absolutely declare. As for me, I suspected when we sat out at Manydown that I might grow to love him, but now I know, Cass, that I do love him, very dearly. There! I have written it. If you are wondering what to do with this letter when you have read it, here is my recommendation: if I never see Tom again after he quits Ashe on Thursday, burn it and never remind me of it. But if I settle in Ireland as Mrs Tom Lefroy I give you permission to keep it, and let me read it again when we are old ladies (and the Two Toms are old gentlemen).
Did you feel like this when you fell in love? I do not remember your betrayal of any excitement, or joy, though I am sure you must have felt it. You are so expert at hiding your feelings, I am persuaded that even that paragon of patience, Miss Elinor Dashwood, cannot outdo you.
You ask me what I intend to do with Elinor and Marianne; the answer is that I do not know. How does one go about finding out whether one’s work is suitable for publication? So far, having shown the book only to you, and read part of it aloud to Papa and Mama, I have only my family’s unreliable praise to rely on. Furthermore, whenever I finish a story I am impatient to be writing another, rendering the previous one unimportant. So you see I am lost in confusion, and would far rather gain pleasure from writing than money from publishing.
Please, please write to me when you next have leisure to do so, and tell me how a well-bred young lady behaves when she is in love. Each day until Thursday I shall be expecting a visit from him. He must come to take his leave of me on Wednesday evening, must he not, out of common politeness? Will he declare then, do you suppose? Will he ask to see Papa in his study? Oh, Cass! If he does not, quite frankly, I fear I shall die. In which case, my dear sister, I bequeath the fate of our friends Elinor and Marianne to your capable administration.
Meanwhile, I remain your wretched sister, who will spend the next five days loitering near doors and windows, straining to catch sight of my Irish friend coming down the lane. You may picture me, if you care to, and laugh.
With warmest regards,
J. A.
Sunday, Monday and Tuesday passed with no visit. Jenny decided that family matters had kept Tom too busy to call, and she would have to settle for a note. Her head began to ache from the strain of listening for a cantering horse and a knock on the door. On Tuesday night her dreams were filled with visions of Tom Lefroy riding down the Ashe road wearing a footman’s livery with his coat and boots over it.
Wednesday arrived, but Tom Lefroy did not. On Thursday Jenny dressed herself more than usually carefully and sat down with her sewing in the inglenook. Kitty brought the letters at midday; nothing from Ashe. The afternoon passed; no visitors. By bedtime, Jenny’s light-hearted prophecy that if Tom did not declare she would die had darkened into sinful thoughts. She heartily wished herself dead.
If only Papa and Mama, and the entire Lefroy family, even Ben and George, were not aware of her disappointment! She could have borne it better in secret. But at the Ashe ball, Tom’s preference for Jenny had undoubtedly been noticed. The first and the last dance, and several in between, had belonged to him. Between dances, and at supper, they had sat together. And when he had helped her into the carriage at the end of the evening he had brushed her hand with his lips so affectingly that she could not suppress her agitation all the way home. Madam Lefroy, who had been wishing guests goodnight close by, had seen this.
To have her parents pity her was almost more than she could countenance. Their efforts to raise Jenny’s spirits, kindly meant, met with failure. And to make everything worse, at the very moment when she most needed her sister, Cass was not there.
No letter came from Ireland. After two weeks, Jenny ceased to look for one. Each day she rose and stood before the looking-glass, regarding solemnly her pale face and swollen eyelids. She bathed her face in cold water and tried her best to cultivate an inscrutable demeanour. She smiled as she went about the village with pattens over her shoes as usual. If anyone had pressed her, she might have admitted that she was avoiding visiting Ashe or Manydown for the time being, especially since the weather was so inclement. But nobody did.
The name of Tom Lefroy passed Papa’s lips only when he told Jenny that a chance meeting with Reverend Lefroy in Basingstoke High Street had confirmed that Tom had indeed arrived back in Ireland, and was not expected back at Ashe for some time. Mama did not mention him at all. Even James, who had been present at both balls, seemed to have forgotten Tom’s existence, while Henry, the greatest gossip in Hampshire, was back in Petersfield and oblivious to everything.
But Jenny could not forget Tom’s laughter, and the sincerity in his soft Irish voice. How could she discount his bashful efforts to secure the first dance, the note brought by the footman, his interest in her writing, his admiration of her eyes? Given his own choice, even if he was not ready to declare his intentions at the Ashe ball, he would have visited her the next day, written to her again, taken a tender leave of her when he returned to Ireland. In short, he would have wooed her.
She was sure, she was absolutely sure that he had been prevented from pursuing her by outside forces. As the only son in a wealthy family, the responsibility of making an advantageous marriage lay upon Tom Lefroy as much as upon his sisters. Unlike Jenny’s brothers, he was not expected to make his way in the world in order to support a wife and family. He must finance his future by means of a union with another landowning family. Jenny remembered how his family situation was the very first thing he had told her about himself, and his questions to her had been on the subject of her own. Money had been uppermost in his mind even then.
My stupidity is second only to my vanity, Jenny confessed bitterly to herself. How could I have imagined that he might forego his obligations for the daughter of a clergyman? I know Eliza’s words about money conquering love to be true, so why did I let Tom Lefroy’s smile drive them from my head?
She had learnt a hard lesson. In the middle of yet another tearful night, she made the decision to leave real-life love alone for a while and go back to fictional love, over which she had control. As she had confided to Tom during that dizzying first conversation, she could not help writing any more than she could help breathing. And when she was writing, she could not think about Tom’s smile.
January passed. The beech twigs that tapped Jenny’s window became studded with buds, then the bright spring leaves unfurled. Each day she bent over the writing desk. By the time Cassandra came back from Berkshire with a letter from the West Indies in her pocket, and Eliza arrived for her first visit to Steventon since the death of her husband, the bones of a new book lay in the drawer.
“You see, Cass, there are two young men,” explained Jenny, who was kneeling on the bed, clutching one of Cassandra’s petticoats, which she was supposed to be folding. Kitty had gone down to help Mrs Travers, and the bedroom was strewn with unpacked clothes and empty trunks. “One of them is very rich, very grand and proud, and the other is amiable and easily led. The pleasant one falls in love with a girl who has no fortune, and she falls in love with him. But his rich friend persuades him that she does not care for him, and they part.”
Abandoning the petticoat, Jenny jumped off the bed, ran into the sitting-room and sat at the writing desk. Through the doorway, she watched her sister eagerly. “And then, you see, the proud man falls in love with the penniless girl’s equally penniless sister, so deeply that he decides to propose to her. But of course, after the way he has treated her sister…”
“…she refuses him!” concluded Cassandra, laying her best gloves carefully in paper. “My dearest Jenny, that is a delightful idea. And do you have a title for the book yet?”
“Perhaps First Impressions? Because in the end the proud man and the girl who refuses him do marry, having revised their opinions of each other.”
“And do the amiable one and his beloved marry too?”
“Of course! Have you
ever known my stories not to end happily? The world has too much sorrow, without my adding to it in fiction.”
“Am I to keep First Impressions to myself, as nobly as I kept Elinor and Marianne?” asked Cassandra. “Or has your confidence increased sufficiently for Mama and Papa to hear of it?”
Jenny pondered. “Yes, they may,” she said at last. “But Cass, would you refrain from mentioning it until after Eliza is gone?”
Cassandra did not ask why. She understood Jenny’s reluctance to discuss the new book before their cousin. Cassandra herself had often suffered as self-consciously as her sister under Eliza’s enthusiastic scrutiny, complimentary though it always was.
“Of course,” she said. Entering the sitting-room, she paused, looking at her sister carefully. Then, in a tone of great tenderness, she spoke again. “Now, tell me, dearest Jenny. Is there any news from, or about, our Irish friend?”
Jenny hesitated. “No. I no longer hope for any.”
“Then … if you still wish it,” continued Cassandra, her voice still at its most gentle, “should we burn the letters?”
Tears leapt to Jenny’s eyes; she could only nod.
Cass reached into the bottom of her trunk and retrieved a ribbon-tied bundle. Meanwhile, Jenny, blinking and sniffing, separated Cass’s most recent letters from the pile in the writing desk. “Oh, dear!” she exclaimed, in an attempt to cover her confusion, “the one I wrote to you about the Two Toms is especially mortifying. Yours are much more circumspect.”
“Do not punish yourself,” returned her sister. “We are all beyond rational behaviour when we are in love. One day I might ask you to burn the letters I wrote to you when I was staying at Godmersham with my Tom.”
“If you do, I shall disobey, since there is nothing in them to warrant such destruction,” returned Jenny. She rose, and poked the fire so vigorously that a storm of sparks landed in the hearth. “I shall throw your letters on before mine, if you do not mind.”
First to meet its death was Cassandra’s letter about Lord Portsmouth and the “good ’un”. Then Jenny threw her sister’s other letters after it, holding the burning paper down with the poker. The sisters knelt by the fire and watched the letters blacken and twist, and become ashes.
“Now it is your turn,” said Jenny. A sensation surged through her as she said the words, though she could not name it. Loss? Wretchedness? Guilt, that she had committed to paper a premature conviction that she would be cherished for ever by the man she loved?
“Do you want to look at any of them, one last time?” asked Cassandra gently.
“No! Do not torture me!”
“Very well.” Cass untied the ribbon around the letters and dropped the first one into the flames.
Tears splashed down onto Jenny’s gown. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Oh, Cass, I do not know how I shall ever get over this.”
The letter lay in the ashes. Cass took the poker and pushed it nearer the flames. “You will get over it with the help of those who love you.”
“But the agony of not being able to mention him to anyone is unbearable!” wailed Jenny. “I cannot bear never to see him again, yet if he ever comes back into this country, how shall I bear a meeting with him?”
Cassandra took her sister into her arms. “Jenny, your heart may be broken, but at least you do not have the pain of suspecting his attentions were merely frivolous. We both know that he was sincere, and his desertion of you was engineered by other hands.”
Jenny’s tears flowed, wetting Cass’s cheek and neck, but she made no move to wipe them away. At last, when Jenny could speak, it was to observe that the whole affair, however miserable, had at least left her the legacy of the idea for a book. “Tom is like Mr Bingley, the easily led young man in First Impressions,” she told her sister. “And the other one, Mr Darcy, is like Madam Lefroy, seeking to separate a pair of lovers on the pretext that the woman does not return the man’s love. But they are both wrong, Cass!”
Late afternoon became early evening; Kitty came in to light the candles. The shadows darkened and the sky began to show its stars. Cassandra continued silently with her unpacking while Jenny sat beside the hearth, looking into the fire as intently as if she hoped to make the burnt letters magically whole again
“I had better go downstairs, Jenny,” said Cass at length. “I have been up here for hours, and Mama will want me to tell her all the Fowles’ news. And Eliza is here. I ought to speak to her too.”
Jenny nodded. She was calm, but her face felt stiff and her muscles weary. “You go, Cass,” she said. “I shall sleep soon.”
“Very well. Goodnight.”
But as Cassandra opened the door, Eliza appeared at the top of the stairs. She looked odd – not quite distressed, but flustered, with pink cheeks and bright eyes. “May I come in and warm myself?” she asked, darting into the room. “My fingers are freezing.”
Jenny rose from the hearth, confused, knowing her appearance would excite comment. She contemplated running into the bedroom to avoid Eliza’s gaze, but then she saw that there was no need. Her cousin had not looked at her. Refusing Cass’s offer of a chair, Eliza stood gazing into the fire, rubbing her hands.
“Eliza, has something happened?” enquired Cass in her calm way.
Eliza, still lost in thought, did not speak for a moment. But then she reached for the armchair beside the fire, where she cast herself down in an attitude of studied, rather than natural, repose. Jenny placed herself in the darkest corner of the room, where Eliza would scarcely be able to make out her face even if she tried.
“Your brother James,” said Eliza at last, “not half an hour ago, approached me as I sat in the drawing-room – with extremely cold fingers – and asked me to become his wife.”
There was an astonished silence, during which she continued. “When I refused, which I hope you will agree I had no choice about, he picked up his hat and left the house without a word. Do not expect to see him again at Steventon while I remain here. He is too embarrassed to face me, poor man.”
Throughout this speech Eliza had contemplated the view of the starry sky between the open curtains. But now she turned, and Jenny saw strain in her eyes. “Did I do right?” she asked Cass, who had sat down in the other armchair. “I seemed to have no choice, but he looked so crestfallen.”
“Of course you had no choice,” Cassandra assured her. “Surely you do not see yourself as the mistress of Deane Parsonage, scuttling around after Anna and dealing with parishioners?”
“Do you think so?” asked Eliza eagerly. “Truthfully? What do you think, Jenny?”
Jenny was aware that hearing about this latest drama of Eliza’s was making her feel less wretched about her own misfortune. Nothing could not make her forget it, but it had been placed in perspective. How awkward to receive a proposal you did not want, and, having refused the man, know that for ever afterwards he would carry your rejection in his heart! Whatever ignominies women had to suffer, at least refusal was not one of them.
“A sacking apron, such as Anne used to wear to pick the fruit for preserves,” she told Eliza, “would not sit well upon your silk dresses. And you could not make the preserves anyway.”
Eliza’s wan expression softened. “My dears, I knew you would make me feel better. It is not James himself I recoil from. It is, as you rightly say, the life of a clergyman’s wife. I am too spoilt and fond of parties. I believe I told him as much. I believe I told him I could not make him happy, and that I considered us unsuited. But I cannot remember what I said to him. I so hope I did not hurt his feelings unduly.”
“I am sure you did not,” said Cassandra. “And James, you know, is such a busy, practical man, he will not settle for the life of a solitary widower. If he has failed with you, he will succeed with another woman in due course, you may be certain.”
Eliza sighed. “I seem fated to disappoint,” she said, turning again to the view of the sky. “I must tell you, cousins, that this is the second proposal of
marriage I have rejected since Jean died. Am I becoming the stuff of comedy, do you think? A rich widow who sifts her suitors too well, and ends up glad to catch at the old writing-master’s son?”
Jenny’s heart had begun to thud at the memory of Henry hurrying along the pavement outside Eliza’s house. She drew up a chair. “Eliza … if you do not mind, will you tell me when this other proposal took place?”
“Last spring,” replied Eliza. “Shortly before poor Anne died, when you were staying with me at Orchard Street. Oh, what an eventful time that was!”
Cassandra, seeing Jenny’s agitation, was the one to press their cousin to tell more.
“I have no objection to your knowing,” said Eliza, for whom the confession was evidently something of a relief, “because I know my words will not go further than these walls. Especially, they must not come to your mama or Henry.”
“Definitely not,” smiled Cassandra. “He is a worse gossip than any woman!”
For the first time in her life, Jenny saw Eliza blush violently. This was astonishing enough, but Eliza went on to say, “That is not the reason that I do not wish you to speak of this to him.”
After a moment’s pause Cassandra spoke, with incredulity. “Do you mean that you received a proposal from Henry?”
Eliza nodded, still looking out of the window, still very red. “When you were staying at Godmersham he rode up to town on the pretext of some sort of errand, I believe.”
“I remember!” interjected Jenny. “He went to have his hair cut.”
“Oh, I blush to think of it!” confessed Eliza. “He sent me a note, and called before he rode back to Kent. He was with me only for fifteen minutes or so, but in that time he made a very affecting declaration. I must own I was tempted.”
The memory of this scene had touched her. Her hands went to her blazing cheeks; her head dropped.
“What did you say to him?” asked Jenny. “And what did he say to you?”
Cassandra's Sister Page 11
