Let me start with the eldest. It has been decreed, by the Austen ladies, that your dear sister Martha shall marry my dear brother Frank. Yes, I know as well as you do that there are problems inherent in this arrangement. He is much Martha’s junior, far away at sea and years off being wed—all mere inconveniences, according to the plotters. There is also the small matter that Frank has never, as far as I am aware, expressed any opinion on Martha. That bothers me less, as who could fail to love such a kind and intelligent woman? I should marry her myself if I could. But putting all that aside, the marriage will happen, or so I have been firmly informed. And on Frank’s next shore leave—poor lamb, he cannot know what is about to hit him!—he too will be apprised of his own situation. I do hope he has the sense to comply.
But more immediately, the scheme to attach your sister Mary to my brother James is progressing at full pelt. Mary has been staying with us for a week, at my mother’s instigation, so that James cannot avoid her when he comes here. And, whether by coincidence or design, he happens to visit us every day! Mrs. Austen is in paroxysms of excitement and, for once, I do not think it is a case of her imagination getting the better of her. For all the time that James is conversing with us, he is studying Mary discreetly. His eyes follow her about; when she leaves, his gaze lingers on the door. It is not yet love, as far as I can gauge it—do not hope for that—but it is a profound interest. He is assessing her, considering her, in that slow and serious way of his.
I must warn you that there are other young ladies in the county who have their sights on him. Is it not interesting that a widower in indifferent humor should have so much choice, when your cheerful sisters have so little? But do not worry. My mother has decided that your Mary shall triumph and, as we well know, when Mrs. Austen has decided then the fates must abandon their designs and bend to her shape. And for all our sakes—not least that poor motherless child of his—James must marry again soon.
Tomorrow night, we are all to go to the Basingstoke Assembly—Martha is joining us!—and I have a feeling that, there, the situation may reach its conclusion. And if so, I shall be as delighted as my whole family. For I shall have had my revenge on you then, Eliza: you will have my own darling sister, but I shall have one of yours!
As ever,
J. Austen.
The Assembly Rooms were humming, the dance floor was filling, and over by the wall, the four ladies—Cassy and Jane, Martha and Mary Lloyd—stood alone in a cloud of anxiety.
“There. I knew it. I feared this would happen.” Mary Lloyd dropped, with a dejected thump, onto a chair. With a little more grace, the other three took their seats beside her. “He has not looked at me, not once, since the moment of our arrival.”
All relevant feminine eyes searched the crowds to find the figure of James Austen. He was over on the far side with his back to them, in animated conversation with friends—as if they alone were the party; as if there were no others at all in the room.
“I am sure he is merely greeting the Terrys,” Cassy was swift to reassure her.
“It is not entirely unreasonable of James to be sociable,” Jane cut in briskly, “at what is, after all, a social event.” She flicked open her fan. The evening was only beginning, but Cassy could see that Jane’s patience had already worn dangerously thin.
Martha patted Mary’s knee—the pat of a kindly, consoling, concerned elder sister.
Mary remained unconsoled. “I should never have got my hopes up,” she moaned. “Why would a man like James look at me? Oh, Cassy,” she sighed dramatically. “Would that I were as handsome and elegant as you.”
Martha looked down at her hands. Jane raised an eyebrow.
“I have never seen you look as elegant as you look this evening,” said Cassy warmly. The ladies had spent hours on Mary’s preparations. A new paste had been purchased from the apothecary, the very latest method for concealing the smallpox scars with which she was so horribly afflicted. Its application had proved a little trying. “I would go so far as to say that you are glowing.” In fact the paste was now starting to flake in a manner that was rather alarming. Cassy worried that the heat of the room might be having an adverse effect.
“And that pale blue does become you so,” Martha added. “I wish I could alight on a color that served my complexion so well. I fear this pink might be a mistake.”
Mary, encouraged, smoothed her own muslin with quiet satisfaction, but issued no compliment in return.
The band struck up a cotillion, and the dancers arranged themselves. Jane stood up. “Well, I, for one, do not intend to spend the whole evening staring at the back of my brother. Come, let us take to the floor.”
Cassy longed to dance, but was torn. Mary was clearly not quite in the mood, and she felt more than a little responsible. But before there was time to decide, the door opened. A new party blew from the night into the brightly lit hall. And she turned and saw there, on the threshold, a new—much discussed, deeply dreaded—threat to the evening. Cassy’s heart fell with a thud.
She leaped up and blocked Mary’s vision. “Instead, why do we not take a turn about the room?”
But it was too late. “No! She has come!” Mary wailed, her neck flushed and mottled. “Cassy, you said she was out of the country! That is it. I am sunk.”
“Nonsense,” Cassy retorted firmly. She pulled Mary out of her chair, and signaled to the others that they too must help her. “There is no evidence whatsoever that James has even noticed Miss Harrison. He has never before mentioned her to me.”
The ladies began what was hoped to be a dignified parade through the hall, the Lloyd sisters in front, the Austens, arms linked, following behind. Cassy sighed heavily.
Jane leaned in and dropped her voice to a whisper. “This scheme of yours, Cassy, to bring Mary into our family … You are quite convinced it is sound?”
“Why, of course!” Cassy replied. “Mama believes—”
“Oh, Mama!” Jane interrupted. “Do not talk of Mama. She merely favors marriage in general. She cannot help herself. But what of you, Cass? What of us, indeed? Do we truly want Mary as our future sister?”
“Jane!” Cassy laughed. “The Lloyds are our greatest friends, are they not? And the sisters of Eliza. We will be all of one clan. There never was a more perfect arrangement.”
They sidestepped the dancers, and were forced back into the wall.
“I would say that Martha is our great friend, certainly,” said Jane. “And Eliza, of course. But Mary … would you not say Mary is of a more difficult nature?”
“Oh, Jane. Why must you be always the pessimist? Any character flaws on display at the moment are due entirely, in my view, to the fragility of her confidence. Once settled, Mary will bloom. Mama and I are in one accord on it. My only concern now”—they had reached the top of the room, and Cassy looked about her—“is that this evening is shaping into a perfect disaster. I must salvage it. Where is James?”
She studied the dance floor. James was on it, in partnership with Miss Harrison—now smiling, now laughing, his poor widower’s spirits seemingly banished. She glanced over at Mary, and watched as a tear—ill advised and regrettable—cut a livid, red path down a white pasty cheek.