“Oh, it was not as bad as all that,” retorted Fulwar, who had seen out the disaster marshaling the parishioners of Kintbury through the challenges of Advent. “And the fact that they abandoned ship shows how seriously Lord Craven takes the men’s safety. Errs on the side of caution, I sometimes think.”
Cassy looked over at her fiancé from under her lashes, and studied his calm exterior. Why was Tom himself not protesting at all this? Of course she well knew his temper was remarkably even. It was one of the many ways in which they were well suited. But she had never before noticed that his equilibrium could not be disturbed even when, surely, it should.
Eliza leaned toward her. “Perhaps you find us—the majority of us—a little quiet in the evenings, compared with your own family?”
“Oh, no!” Cassy blushed. Was she wearing her thoughts on her face? “Not at all. It has been most pleasant. Could I perhaps borrow a pin?”
Eliza smiled, passed her workbag, and asked, kindly: “What will they be doing now in Steventon, do you suppose? I hear from my sisters that you are often playing games.”
“Yes,” Cassy could feel her own distress building. She hid herself in her work. “I expect they will be on the charades by now.” Jane was, no doubt, being slightly too clever; her father roaring with laughter at the things she dared say. It was best not to think about it. “Do you not do that here? Of course I quite understand the present difficulties—I mean in happier times?”
“We tend not to,” Eliza replied, dropping her voice further. “My husband does not take kindly to losing. Though some of us do enjoy a hand of patience when we can find the time.”
Mrs. Fowle spoke up. “It is not the sea that worries me as much as the climate and fevers.” She patted Tom’s arm. “One does hear talk of such exotic illnesses out there.”
“Ha! Dear Mother, have you not always worried? And look at us! Look at the four indestructibles you have inflicted on this world.” In fact, Fulwar was of a build completely different from his brothers. He was short and squat and ruddy; the others were taller, yes, but Tom was rather slight. “I would sooner worry about those unruly savages down there before I will worry about our Tom,” Fulwar continued. “And they will not take a moment’s sleep from me in a hurry. I shall tell you for why.”
Cassy steeled herself for what she knew was coming, and tried to focus again on her needle.
“The insurrection that is now upon us, in all four corners of the globe…” He gestured to the corners of the drawing room.
It occurred to Cassy that Fulwar was quite a different person in his own home. Certainly he was not like this with the Austens. Her family had no truck with pomposity or dominance. He would have been teased into submission as soon as he opened his mouth.
“It is of vital importance that our men pick up their weapons…”
Charles and William, quietly hunched over their chessboard, were not quite the men she thought she knew, either. In Steventon they were lively and mischievous; they threw themselves into all games, the louder the better. Here they were permanently subdued.
“The interests of our landowners must be protected…”
And her Tom: Was he not altered in this environment? He must be preoccupied with the voyage. She understood that; they all were. And he was never gregarious, which was clearly a good thing. She looked over at Fulwar. Who would choose a gregarious husband? For the first time, though, she was noticing just how very quiet Tom could be.
“Those rebels must be prevented from getting their hands on that property…”
Cassy did not much care for the direction Fulwar’s argument was taking. Her mind moved to what might be happening back home. Perhaps by now they had started the dancing? Jane playing the piano, the furniture pushed back. She turned again to Eliza. “What about music?” Surely some music was just what was needed. “Do you still get the chance to sing?”
Eliza looked at her with surprise, as if somehow forgetting she was born with a heavenly voice. “Oh, no! I am so tired in the evenings now I have the children. And anyway, we have no instrument here.”
No music. No games. No reading or good conversation! This was the first time that Cassy had ever stayed anywhere without another member of her own family beside her. She had always known that the Austens were remarkable; now it occurred to her that they were simply unique.
“The economy of this great country, the rule of our king, must be defended—yes, to the death, if it comes to it. Death is a small price to pay!”
And she decided that other families must be one of life’s most unfathomable mysteries. It was no use sitting as an outsider and even trying to fathom them. One could have no idea of what it must be like to be in there, on the inside. She would share that thought later in her letter to Jane.
* * *
THE HUNT MET THE NEXT MORNING and, as Cassy left her room to go down to breakfast, the house felt abandoned, as if all the men had suddenly been called up to war. Crossing the landing, she saw the door to Tom’s room open and, on the spur of the moment, without a thought to the propriety of her own actions, she went in.
The bed was unmade; a dirty shaving rag lay, tossed, on the washstand; old soap formed a crust on the inside of the bowl. The strange, particular, not altogether pleasant scent of a man still hung on the air. She looked around at his property: a Bible, old Latin primers, not even one novel. No mementos from school nor from Oxford; one print of hunting was the extent of his intimate effects.
She stood alone, looking around her, and was overcome by a sense of Tom’s otherness. This was a man she had known since a boy! At Steventon he was familiar; yet here, here he was … who was he, exactly? Cassy was no longer sure that she knew.
For the first time she found herself looking beyond their engagement—that match they had made to the satisfaction of all—and gazing into the reality of marriage. She thought of them both, alone in their own vicarage, convenient for Ludlow. Miles from everybody; most particularly, far from Jane. Cassy must surrender her rights to the only world she had ever known: the bedroom she shared with her sister. There would be no more laughing or whispering or endless confiding. She might hardly see Jane in person again—their relationship would have to be conducted through letters from then on. Instead Cassy would have only Tom. And, in the place of all that feminine prettiness, she must look upon a shaving rag, an indifferent hunting print …
Her heart tightened. At home in Steventon there was always talking and laughing. And so many jokes! She herself did not make many; though Cassy might be one of the cleverer Austens—her mother was often kind enough to say so—she was not one of the wittiest. But she laughed with them. Oh, how she loved to laugh with them! And Tom had laughed, too, there. Of course he did: Who could not? But just them, alone? She tried to imagine, but her mind could not conjure it. What would they talk about? Would they play games, enjoy music? Whom would they laugh with? At what?
She was homesick already, and her marriage not yet even begun.
“My dear, you seem deep in thought.” Cassy turned to find Eliza—eyes warm with kindness, resplendent in pregnancy, a child at each hand—and felt some reassurance. Her friend had appeared just at the right moment, as if in a vision, an angel come to tell her that here was the essence of it: the construction of a family; the building of a life together. That was the point of us all.