Cassandra opened the door, stepped into the dimly lit hall, and, as she did so, caught an indistinct figure shrink suddenly into the shadows. “Oh!” she cried out in alarm.
“Excuse me, m’m.” The figure stepped forward and bobbed. “Only me, m’m.”
“Good heavens, Dinah! You gave me quite a turn.”
“Just at m’ dusting, m’m. No rest for the wicked.”
Dusting the keyhole? “Most conscientious,” she said, smiling. Was it a trick of the lamp, or, for once, did the maid look almost abashed? “But please, do not work too hard. Good night, Dinah.”
“’Night, m’m.”
Cassandra turned away. She felt thoroughly weary, and the vicarage stairs now loomed before her, steep as an alpine peak. Slowly, carefully, she scaled them. By the time she got to her room, she was almost breathless. Shutting the door firmly on the horrors of the evening, she fell onto her bed.
Thoughts of such mundanities as changing into her nightclothes or attending to her toilet were stillborn. Cassandra’s mind was full. Her brain was pounding. Her whole being was consumed with involuntary, recovered sensation: the sea air on her cheeks; the pretty tinkle that shop doorbell made when one opened it; the shock—that piercing, scorching, quicksilver flash—when her gloved hand chanced to touch that of a stranger. And that warm, melting sense of homecoming when she looked up and into his eyes.
* * *
“MISS AUSTEN? MISS AUSTEN!” Dinah’s voice came as though from the end of a very long tunnel. “Oh God save us, don’t tell me she’s gone and died on us. That’s all we need!” In a moment of blessed relief, a cool hand touched her forehead before it was whipped away again, sharply. “She’s on fire! Can you hear me, Miss Austen? You stay there now. I’ll get help. Miss Isabella?” The dark room fell silent once more.
Now roused to something like consciousness, Cassandra felt agony all over her person: Head, throat, limbs all throbbed and burned; her mouth had, unaccountably, been filled with sharp objects; lungs were in combat with air. And yet that was as nothing to the pain in her psyche. Was this it: the thing she dreaded above all? Oh, she had never feared death—indeed, had often felt impatient for its protracted arrival. What, she might ask it, took you so long?—but when it came, it must come to her in her own bed. To die when away visiting—inflicting such inconvenience, suffering those final indignities in a foreign house; denied a last gaze upon her own bedroom walls, or a silent farewell to her beloved home soil—that was the worst fate of all.
As she struggled to sit up, another thought struck with a force that sent her back deep into the pillow: She could not, she must not go now. Her work was not done.
“Cassandra? My dear, can you speak to me? Tell me, what are your symptoms?”
She thought she replied—“I must confess to feeling a little under the weather, Isabella”—but they did not seem to hear.
“It’s a fever, madam. Feel her. A raging fever. I’ll call the doctor at once.”
“No, Dinah!” Isabella was sharp. “We will not have the doctor.”
Cassandra tried to speak. “But I have plenty of money. Do not worry about that, Isabella. Oddly enough, I have ended up rather well off in my old age. That is the unexpected benefit of outliving one’s loved ones. I have profited most shamefully by my longevity. So please, do not consider the cost of it. I insist I will pay.”
“Listen to her. She’s got the deliriums. She must be in terrible danger. She’s as old as them hills. Please, Miss Isabella. I’ll run and get him now. We don’t want her pegging out here.”
Cassandra tried again—“I am only sorry that I may not be much help in the house, just today”—but no one acknowledged her.
“No,” Isabella talked over her. “We cannot and we will not have the doctor, and that is the end of it. It is simply unthinkable! I shall nurse her myself. Let us not waste any more time in discussion. Fetch the laudanum, Dinah, the tartar, cold water, and flannels. Then go up to the big house and beg for some ice. They should have plenty at this time of year.”
Though the voice was unmistakably that of Isabella, the commanding tone and active efficiency were quite unexpected, as was the hostility to professional medicine. Had not she been most complimentary about their doctor before? Cassandra wanted to open her eyes just to confirm the identity of this confident individual, but that did not seem to be possible, right at that moment.
“Do accept my apologies for causing all this inconvenience. I am sure I will be perfectly restored after a few hours’ sleep.”
“Try and hush now, Cassandra. You will hurt your throat with that moaning. Now I am going to undress you and get you under the covers.”
The first of the many indignities!
“Do not struggle, dear. You will exhaust yourself further. It is only me, Isabella. There we are. That must feel better now, does it not? I am just going to slip your nightgown over your head.”
The arms that pulled back the bedding, plumped up the pillows, and were now tenderly laying her upon them were careful, expert, and strong. Cassandra wanted to think more about this, to reassess her hostess in the light of this revelation. But then her mouth was opened, laudanum dropped on her tongue, and all thoughts were lost.
* * *
LIKE A TEMPEST, THE ILLNESS raged through her. For several days Cassandra battled and raved at it. This would not take her. She must prevail. All sense of time was lost as she took on each symptom and summoned some sort of strength to beat it away.
There was the odd false release, when the illness lulled and her body could rally. Then she might see Dinah in the doorway—gimlet eyes set in a face hard with resentment—or Caroline wringing her hands, unsure what to do. And Pyramus, always Pyramus: standing guard at her bedside and willing her well.
The darkest hour came when her sister-in-law, Mary, appeared. Then Jane’s voice came through to her, from another sickroom in another, more terrible time: “She is to attend me? I can admit now to having harbored faint hopes of recovery. But if Mary is coming, I must face it: Death cannot be far behind.”
“I pity you, Cassandra. I must say I pity you,” Mary was saying. “It is a maxim of mine that one must mind never to fall ill when one is visiting—the height of bad manners—and I am proud to say that I have never once had the misfortune to break it.”
Cassandra decided that she was too frail to respond.
“Of course there was the one occasion when I was staying with your brother in London and brought down with the face-ache. Oh, the pain! One can know no true discomfort until one has suffered that. But I had taken my own maid and—how lucky I was, then—a dear, caring husband. But you, all alone…”
A weak sun filtered between the thin curtains. Cassandra had lost track of the days but could sense that, while she had lain there and done nothing, spring had been striding ahead.
“It must be misery, aware as you must be of the terrible impact you are having. The house was already at sixes and sevens. I must say…”
For the first time she felt a confidence that she would be up and about soon, and able to drink up that brisk, fresh air.