Cassandra's Sister (9 page)

“Oh, thank you, thank you,” repeated Cass. “Thank you both.”

“Come, try it on,” urged James.

Anne helped Cass set the shawl around her shoulders. Cass, pink with pleasure, paraded in the restricted space. “Is it not fine stuff?” she asked, swishing it as she walked. “I can hardly feel it. It is the very best Indian silk. James, you have spent much too much money on me, you know.”

Jenny's delight in the gift was tempered by her brother's words. It was true that she and Cass never asked for anything. It was the responsibility of other people to notice their needs and supply them, because they had no money of their own.

It was a timely reminder. Feeling ungrateful and ungenerous, and aware that such feelings would never have occurred to Cassandra, Jenny wondered if anyone would remember when
she
was twenty-one and was going visiting, or collecting her trousseau, that an expensive Indian shawl might be welcome in
her
wardrobe.

How satisfying it must be
, she thought,
to have some money, however little, that one has earned oneself!

“And you shall wear it at Godmersham?” Anne was asking Cass.

“Of course! I am impatient already to show it to Tom.”

“You look very well in it, my dear,” observed Mama proudly. “If Tom's company makes you as radiant in Kent as you are at this moment, the entire county will flock there to marvel at your beauty. I could not wish for a lovelier daughter.”

Anne laughed uneasily. “Are you forgetting Jenny is here?”

“How could I?” Mama looked at Jenny approvingly. “My Jenny has her own beauty.”

Jenny decided to take advantage of the public situation and her mother's mellow mood. “When shall
I
visit Kent, Mama?”

Mama paused before she said, “When Cassandra and Tom are married, perhaps.”

“But that could be years!” exclaimed Jenny unthinkingly. “I mean, that is…”

“Yes, it could,” said Mama. “So in the meantime you must await an invitation from Edward and Elizabeth. It is not for us to make their arrangements for them.”

Nobody reminded her that the arrangement for Cassandra to meet Tom at Godmersham had been made by the Reverend. “But, Mama,” continued Jenny, “I so wish I could go alone, now I am grown up.”

“You are not nineteen yet,” said Mama reasonably. “You have plenty of time for parading yourself at Godmersham or any other place. Anne, could I trouble you for a glass of water? I think I shall take a powder; my stomach is weak today. But you know, Jenny, the place I would most like to take you to is not Kent, but Bath. The liveliness of that city never diminishes, however many times one goes there. But Papa does nothing about arranging it.”

Jenny had no wish to visit the city of Bath. One brief stay there had convinced her that if “liveliness” meant hot, smelly rooms full of painted women vying with one another to capture the most foppish of the men, she would happily trade them for the “dullness” of Steventon. She disliked cards, rich food made her queasy, and whenever she returned from going about the Bath streets she had to dry her stockings.

“It never stops raining in Bath,” she said crossly. “And the puddles are the deepest and dirtiest in the kingdom. James hates it too, do you not, James?”

“It is not my favourite place, I confess.” James's approach to differences of opinion between his mother and sisters was always diplomatic. “But it has some advantages, not least the number of balls held there. And do not deny you like balls, Jenny.”

“There you are, miss!” cried Mama. “And even if you do not go to Bath or Kent, we have plenty of balls nearer home for you to attend. The Biggs will hold a Christmas ball at Manydown this year, as they always do.”

“Christmas! Mama, it is only September.”

“Christmas will come soon enough,” said Mama. “Which reminds me, I must pick those last raspberries tomorrow, before the birds have them all, and Travers and I can make jam. You can help us, Jenny, while Cass is away.”

Anne brought the glass of water; Mama's weak stomach was placated; James read from a book of sermons; they played with Anna before she went to bed. Walking home in the calm, cooling air, with the scents of berry bushes, grass and horse-manure all around, Jenny sensed her sister's pensive mood and took her arm.

“What shall I do for five weeks without you, Cass?” she asked softly.

“Survive perfectly well, you little goose.”

Jenny was quite prepared to spill her feelings in letters, but letters were no substitute for the security of her sister's presence and her good advice. The puzzle of William Heathcote had not seemed so complicated to Cass. She had concluded something entirely reasonable and communicated it to Jenny in well-chosen words, soothing her sister's fevered emotions.

My sensibility
, thought Jenny,
and Cassandra's sense
.

While Cass was making ready for bed, Jenny sat at the writing desk. Under the blotter lay the manuscript she had been so secretive about. “A reflection of ourselves,” she had told Cassandra. In her mind she had the story of two sisters, whose different dispositions led them into interesting situations. She even had their names, the prettiest she knew. But not until this moment had it been clear which of them was which, and why they were so different. Now, she knew.

Taking the pen, she dipped it into the ink and wrote upon a fresh sheet:
Elinor – sense. Marianne – sensibility
. Satisfied, she laid down the pen. Tomorrow she would start
Elinor and Marianne
in earnest.

A
s Mama had forecast, Christmas came soon enough. Jenny's nineteenth birthday was followed by a yuletide season so cold that Steventon Rectory became Cassandra and Jenny's prison. The sisters were overjoyed that both Henry and Frank, their naval officer brother, had obtained leave for Christmas. But the snow was too deep for the carriage to get to Manydown House for the Biggs' traditional Christmas ball, and neither the sisters nor their brothers could go.

It was partly this disappointment which prompted Mama and Papa to procure a spring invitation from Edward and Elizabeth in Kent. But Jenny was not to stay there alone; she was to be accompanied by Cassandra and Henry.
Patience
,
Jenny
, she told herself.
Only two more years until you are of age
.

Much as she had looked forward to the Biggs' ball, Jenny's enthusiasm had been dampened by the possibility that William Heathcote would be there. Elizabeth Bigg had kept the neighbourhood on tenterhooks for the past few months by maintaining a ladylike silence on the subject of the handsome clergyman. To Jenny, Cass, Martha and Mary she had confided, with tears, that now he had taken orders and had obtained a living even further away than Winchester. Moreover, her father was not sure that he was a wealthy enough suitor for her.

“But he is the son of a baronet!” Mary had protested.

“That is true, my dear Mary, but he is the
younger
son. He will inherit neither the title nor the land. And he may have forgotten all about me by now,” Elizabeth had added pathetically, beginning to weep again. “I have not seen him for so long, I sometimes wonder if I should even hope that he will ever declare his intentions, whether to me or to my father.”

“Meanwhile,” Martha had suggested, “you have other suitors, do you not?”

“Oh, yes. There is always the devoted John Harwood. I suppose I had better not absolutely spurn his attentions, because he definitely
will
inherit. Though less, of course, than Mr Heathcote's elder brother.”

Jenny had had to rein in her indignation at this guileless cruelty. Kind and pleasant as her friend was, and however much in love with William Heathcote she declared herself to be, Jenny understood that any girl endowed with beauty such as Elizabeth's liked to count her suitors in units of more than one, and would never marry a penniless man.

But the thought of meeting Mr Heathcote again worried Jenny nevertheless. No note of apology had ever come. Would he regret his conduct and be embarrassed when he saw her? Or worse, would he simply have forgotten he had ever danced with Miss Austen of Steventon?

When the snow put paid to the ball Jenny's nerves settled. But then Edward and Elizabeth invited the sisters for a visit which was to include a week spent with Eliza in London. If Mr Heathcote was indeed acquainted with their cousin he might very well visit her while Henry, whom he also knew, was in London too. After so many months without a word, Jenny might have to meet him again under the scrutiny of Eliza, Cass, Henry and half of London society. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Bigg and her scrupulous father would be many miles away in Hampshire.

Cassandra knew her sister well. “You must not think they are sending me as chaperone, you know,” she said gently, watching Jenny put the manuscript of
Elinor and Marianne
, which Cassandra still had not been permitted to read, into the bottom of the heaviest trunk. “Our sister-in-law Elizabeth will chaperone both of us.”

“Elizabeth will do no such thing,” replied Jenny. “She will not accompany us to Orchard Street, that is for certain. Henry has been recruited for that duty.” She began to rearrange the trunk's contents, the better to hide the string-bound pile of papers.

“Henry will not object to it,” observed Cass. “You know how much he enjoys going into London society. And Eliza's house is always full of people ready to admire a young man in uniform.”

“Exactly,” said Jenny, with feeling, “yet Mama will not allow me to go there, or even to Godmersham, with Henry alone. Someday you shall be free of me, Cass. Though I shall expect a warm welcome in the household of the Reverend and Mrs Tom Fowle whenever I decide to visit.”

Cassandra was quiet for a few moments. When she spoke there was strain in her voice. “Do you think I
wish
to be free of you?”

“Why, Cass!” cried Jenny in dismay, sitting back on her heels. “I only meant that someday you shall be married, and no longer living here. You know no one loves you as well as I do! We shall be the very best of friends for ever!”

Cass, unable to suppress sudden tears, went into the bedroom and closed the door. Jenny did not follow her; she knew her sister wanted to unravel her thoughts by herself. But it was rare to see Cassandra in distress. Could the length of her engagement, now almost three years, be less bearable than she advertised to the world?

Jenny wished she had not spoken. Why had she not seen that this visit to Kent would be for Cass a poignant reminder of last September's visit with Tom? She decided she must make it up to her sister. She had meant it from her heart when she said that no one loved Cass as well as she did; Tom's was surely a different kind of love. She went to the bedroom door. No sound came from within.

“May I bring you anything?” she called softly, without opening the door.

Cass's voice sounded the same as usual. “No, thank you, dear. But you might tell Mama that I shall not be taking dinner today. I have no appetite.”

Jenny nibbled her thumbnail. It seemed she had been summarily dismissed. But, fired with a new determination to consider her sister's feelings, she went to deliver the message.

“Oh, Lord!” were Mama's words. “She is not going to be ill, is she, when everything is planned for tomorrow? Does she look feverish?”

“Not in the least,” Jenny replied. “She merely has no appetite, and wishes to spend a quiet evening before a long journey.”

Mama, though she would never
wish
any of her family to be ill, dearly loved to have an invalid on her hands. “We shall see how she is in the morning,” she declared. “She shall not travel if I consider her unfit to do so.”

Henry, lolling in an armchair, exchanged a secret smile with Jenny. “If Cass has to stay at home, may I still take my other sister on the visit she has looked forward to for so long?”

“Certainly not,” returned Mama. “I would not trust
you
to take care of the strapping of a trunk, let alone the chaperoning of a nineteen-year-old girl.”

“Unfair!” protested Henry.

“Perfectly fair,” retorted Mama.

When her mother had gone to see about the dinner, Jenny took the rare chance of a private conversation with Henry. There were things, important to her if not to him, that she had long wished to ask him about.

“Henry, do you remember William Heathcote?” she began. “He has been hunting, he says, with you and Edward. I believe he lives at a place called Hursley Park, which is … I do not know where it is.”

The words came out so hard upon each other that Jenny was not sure her brother had understood. But after a moment's thought he turned to her. His countenance, normally so open, was inscrutable. “Yes, I know Heathcote.”

“He is a suitor of Elizabeth Bigg.”

“Ah. Along with half the county, I would wager.”

He shifted in his seat, adjusting his waistcoat. Then he fell to a careful inspection of his boots.

“Cass and I met him at the Assembly Rooms last September,” Jenny told him. “He said he knew Eliza. I wondered if you had met him at Orchard Street.”

“As proof that he truly
does
know Eliza?” asked Henry.

Jenny was startled at the sharpness of his tone. “No, I do not think so. I suppose I want to know your impression of him, that is all.”

“And of his suitability for you, Jenny Wren?”

Childhood resentment flooded back, exacerbated by her intense affection for Henry. “Do not call me Jenny Wren,” she told him frostily. “My name is
Jane
. I merely want to know what you think Mr Heathcote is like.”

“Has he committed some offence, that he requires a character witness in order to please you?”

“Not at all. I shall tell you what happened, since it is no secret. He was very attentive to me. He asked me for two dances. But then he saw Elizabeth Bigg.” She watched while Henry dusted the knees of his breeches. “However, I dare say I am asking the wrong person. Men do not concern themselves with such things.”