“… and even Lydia was too much fatigued to utter more than the occasional exclamation of ‘Lord, how tired I am!’ accompanied by a violent yawn…”
But at that moment there came a sharp knock on the door.
“No!” Cassy moaned. “I knew that would happen. Who is this come to ruin our fun? Dispatch them immediately. Say we are most terribly busy!”
Jane, laughing, jumped up and opened it.
Mary Austen was there on the threshold, four-square and determined. Behind her—wearing the gray, grave countenance of a reluctant executioner—lurked James.
8
Kintbury, March 1840
CASSANDRA FELT A LITTLE UNWELL the next morning—her limbs were heavy; she was shivery with cold—but she knew well enough to disregard it. She went down to breakfast and found she was alone: Isabella, too, she was told, was under the weather. Long experience taught her that—physically—each of them was perfectly well. There was no doubt of it. They were merely suffering the symptoms of a deeper malaise that was sadly incurable: Mary Austen would be here for the day.
With a sigh, Cassandra settled herself at table, with ham, eggs, and only Dinah for company. Sipping her tea, she thought of all the things she must do and had not yet even tried to accomplish. There should be at least a few hours of freedom due to her before the visitors arrived.
“Thank you, Dinah.” She watched as the maid poured some more for her. “I was thinking that I might call on Mrs. Dexter after breakfast.”
“You’re going there?” Dinah thumped down the teapot. “Well, if it pleases you.” She turned back to the sideboard, muttering audibly: “Each to her own.”
“I am troubled, Dinah, by this issue of where Miss Isabella might now live. It surely makes sense that she should be with her sister. But there seems to be some sort of stalemate?”
“Is that what you call it? It may not be my business to say so—”
It was not, though Cassandra had early on established that Dinah’s position in the household with just the one mistress was now something beyond that of the ordinary servant.
“—but Mrs. Dexter has been no sort of friend to Miss Isabella lately. That I can tell you.”
Cassandra sighed once again. She and her siblings were, to one another, a source of constant love and cheerful support. It was such a sadness to find other families so differently arranged.
“But surely, if Miss Isabella and Mrs. Dexter were to live together, spend more time with each other, they would find they had more in common than not?”
Dinah shot her a pitying look—not dissimilar to that which Jane might shoot when Cassandra was too optimistic about the redemption of others—gave a sniff of derision, and withdrew the jam.
“Thank you, yes, I am sure I had finished with it.” That was a little regrettable. She had been looking forward, keenly, to jam. “And what about you, Dinah? Has a new position been found for you yet?”
“I’m staying with Miss Isabella,” she replied firmly. “We’ve been together too long to change now.”
“Ah. And you can both go to Mrs. Dexter’s?”
“I’m not going there.”
“So you would prefer it if instead Miss Isabella and her other sister, Miss Elizabeth, took a place in the village?”
“No.” And then, grudgingly: “But at least she’s behaved a bit better than her.”
“Well.” Cassandra folded her napkin and rose from the table. “It seems to me that those are the only two options.”
“If you say so.” Dinah removed everything tempting from the table—“You know best, m’m”—and left the room.
Perhaps it was just Dinah—the overmighty Dinah—who was obstructing all progress in this matter. But what- or whoever might be the impediment, it was imperative that the matter was now resolved. For Cassandra knew from experience that, for the spinster on a limited income—most spinsters, therefore, at least of her own acquaintance—these moments of transition were the moments of danger. They could arrive without warning, lift the roof from your head, remove the table at which you once sat every evening. And even, if you were careless or simply unlucky, pluck the food straight out of your mouth. This was the peril inherent in every single situation. It took quick thinking, courage, sometimes something as low and unseemly as cunning, in order to simply survive.
The trick was to find some pattern in the chaos, trace the path to your own destiny, grope your way forward. Cassandra had been forced to realize that early, although, looking back, she must admit that even she had taken her time, and the occasional wrong turn. But poor Isabella had been cosseted and protected by family life and the family home until now—and this was her forty-first year! She clearly had never developed an idea of, or instinct for, her own comfort.
Yes, this needed resolving. Miss Austen would see to it today.
* * *
MARY-JANE DEXTER’S COTTAGE—a long, low, and ancient affair—sat beyond the flint wall on the other side of the church. It was one of the nearest houses to the vicarage, and Cassandra marveled that two sisters such as Isabella and Mary-Jane could be so physically close and yet so effectively distant. She went through the front garden gate, approached, knocked and—yet again—found herself waiting for entry.
At last a deep voice came out through the doorframe: “Who goes there?” Mary-Jane had spent much of her married life out in India. The experience had left her with a certain distrust.
“Mrs. Dexter, dear, it is I, Miss Austen,” she called back, feeling a little absurd. “Come to call on you.”
There was a pause. Bolts were drawn, locks were turned, and with a loud creak—as if it had not done so for decades—the oak door yielded and Cassandra was in.
“Forgive me.” The two women embraced. Mary-Jane stuck her head out, scouted the churchyard and cottages for threats and insurgencies, then pushed Cassandra through to the hall. “One cannot be too careful.” There was a great deal of rebolting, relocking. “You should not have come alone, Cassandra. It can be dangerous around here, you do know.”
“Oh?” Cassandra was surprised. “To my eyes Kintbury seems peaceful enough.”
“With respect, you were not witness to the riots ten years ago.”
“No, I was not. And I gather they were most unsettling, but lasted only a day or two, I understand?”
“It seems longer when you live with unrest, I can tell you. I have seen some things in my day.” Mary-Jane, a short, wide woman with a square, ruddy face and no-nonsense hairstyle, was dressed—well, Cassandra was not qualified to assess it. Suffice to say, she was prepared for conditions and climate not previously known to West Berkshire. “I sleep with my late husband’s gun under my pillow now.” She tilted her chin with defiance. “And—so help me—I will not hesitate to discharge it, if needs must.”
They moved into the parlor, and once her eyes were accustomed to the gloom, Cassandra took in her surroundings. Miss Austen was not a well-traveled woman. She had never been farther east than Kent—had certainly never been as far as Bengal. And standing in Mary-Jane’s quaint Tudor dwelling, she was amused to discover that she now did not need to: much of Bengal having, conveniently, come here.