Her eyes moved back to the top of the page. She began it again. And this time her emotions were quite other and completely beyond her control. She felt tears course down her cheeks, her neck, over her hands onto the paper and did nothing to stop them. She could hear her sobs—choking, gulping sobs—pierce the air but did not try to arrest them. Instead she let her misery take flight, swell, fill, press into the walls of this mean little chamber they had thought good enough to put her in.
“How dare she?!” she cried.
Now she felt none of that passive self-pity.
“How dare she?!”
She was not revisiting her grief.
“HOW DARE SHE?!”
This was outrage, pure outrage that consumed and possessed her. How dare Mary peddle this hideous calumny? How could she—even she—write something so vile?
From the moment that the news had been broken to her—badly, insensitively, not as she would have liked or deserved, but no matter—Cassandra had identified that as the occasion to which she must rise. She could remember it—clear as a bell—all these years later. Listening to Mr. and Mrs. James Austen, asking for details, accepting their sympathies—her back ramrod straight, her voice calm and quiet—and thinking that this was the thing by which she would be defined from here on. She would have no other opportunity. Her future was to be denied her. She would have no marriage to succeed in, no vicarage to run, no children to raise. This was to be the test of Miss—forever, eternally Miss—Cassandra Austen. And by God—that God who had in His wisdom chosen to try and destroy her—she would pass it.
And pass it she had. Cassandra’s grief had been noble; her countenance quite simply remarkable. She had borne it with a fortitude that had astonished them all. They had talked of it, written about it, discussed their admiration of her openly and incessantly: In the face of the most appalling tragedy, she had shown a strength that placed her squarely in the upper echelons of strong women. That was her truth.
Yet Mary—who was with her then, who was there throughout all that misery—had somehow concocted another truth entirely. How wide had she spread it? How far had it reached? And Cassandra saw now, understood for the first time, the immensity of the task she had lately set herself: How impossible it was to control the narrative of one family’s history.
Well, there was at least one small thing she could do. She picked up the letter again, and—with as much violence as one old lady could bring to bear upon one old piece of paper—ripped it to shreds.
9
Steventon, May 1797
The next few weeks were, presumably, clement—it was that time of year when the mornings were bright and the evenings lengthening—but, in truth, Cassy had no sense of the weather. She lived under an immovable shroud of her own darkness. Oh, she carried on. Of course she carried on! Not once did she falter in that immediate resolution to remain dignified for everybody, to always appear strong.
In the mornings she worked in the house with a frenzied determination; she sat with her embroidery in the circle around the fireside in the evenings. She and Jane still spent the afternoons in their dressing room. Work on her trousseau was abandoned, those lovingly sewn items packed away, carefully: Another, luckier bride might, perhaps, one day have use for them. For Cassy there would be nothing but black from here on.
All her free time was now spent on letters of condolence. Her post was quite overwhelming, more even than when she was newly engaged. Conscientious as ever, she committed to reply promptly to every one. Meanwhile, Jane still wrote. She was finishing First Impressions, and reviewing an earlier composition, Elinor and Marianne—all for Cassy’s own entertainment. She listened, even smiled, sometimes. But she could no longer laugh.
One such afternoon, perhaps a month after the collapse of her world, Cassy opened a letter and let out a gasp.
“What is it, dearest?” Jane jumped and ran to her. Her nerves, too, had been shattered to pieces by the news of Tom’s death. It would be a long time before either sister—so recently cheerful, untouched by tragedy—could find it within her to trust fortune again.
“This, from Eliza.” Cassy’s hand shook as she passed Jane the paper. “Tom’s will has been read.”
Jane took in the message and then looked at her sister. A young lady did not need a strong grasp of arithmetic to interpret the figure there on the page, and these two intelligent daughters of the parsonage understood it at once.
“One thousand pounds!”
“One thousand pounds.”
“Oh, how he loved you!”
“What a good and kind man.”
“Then good Lord Craven did pay Tom most handsomely for his short service. That must be on your account, dearest. Because he was soon to be married.”
“I think not,” said Cassy quietly. “It appears that Tom did not mention me to his patron.” Her throat tightened. “Or so I have been told.”
“Told by whom?” Jane demanded.
Cassy looked to her lap.
“Mary!” Jane set off on a furious pace about the room. “Well. She was most conscientious in her duties indeed, that she felt she must include even that manner of detail.”
“Please.” Cassy raised her hand to put a halt to Jane’s raging. “Let us not pick over it. It is not helpful.” Tom’s omission was certainly hurtful. But in the great scheme of her agonies, she found it provoked but a moderate pain.
Jane quietened and sat again. “So. One thousand pounds. It is still not very much—is it?—for a gentleman of nine-and-twenty and a sound education.”
“I fear life treated him ill.” Cassy winced as that hideous vision revisited her: Tom sick and dying; his young body slipping below the surface of the water; falling alone, unheard and unwitnessed, to that foreign seabed. She hid her hands under her skirts to conceal their shaking and looked out of the window. “But I shall be sure to always be grateful. I am now covered, at least, for any emergency that might strike.”
“Indeed. And yet…”
They sat, each in silent computation, both achieving the same, irrefutable, result. One thousand pounds, over a long life, used carefully, keeping enough in reserve to ward against calamity, came to this: Cassy could put her own pennies in the poor box, and trim her own caps.
Jane saw that she was shivering, wrapped a shawl round her shoulders, and tucked it tight. It was not, though, the cold that affected her, nor, just at that moment, the loss of her Tom. Rather it was the knowledge of her own vulnerability: the years she faced alone with minimal protection.
Of course Jane understood that. “Oh, Cass. What is to become of us? How do you think we will make it through, when Papa is gone and we have to leave Steventon?”
Cassy fixed on her brave face. “You will be established long before then, dearest.”
“I will not.” Jane’s voice was low. “I know that is not going to happen.”
“What about this Mr. Blackall, who is soon to be delivered to the county for your delectation? Everyone has high hopes of the match. He may well turn out to be perfect.”
“I very much doubt it. I could never, anyway, think of leaving you now.”
“That is silly. It is time for you to start making an effort, and not discount every man at first sight. And I shall survive—in great style, thanks to my one thousand pounds! Please look to your own future. There is no need to worry about me.”