Miss Austen - Gill Hornby Page 0,103

is done. Was the hope to inspire some sense of regret?

Their peace was disturbed.

“I am at the very end of my tether, and hanging on by no more than my fingernails.” Mary Austen appeared on the threshold. Anna, taller and lovelier than her stepmother but sharing the same cross demeanor, stood hangdog beside her.

“Good afternoon, Mary.” Jane slipped her page under the blotter and looked up. “What is it now?”

“I have reason to believe that your niece, my stepdaughter, is about to embark on another engagement! And this time with Ben Lefroy, of all people.”

The aunts offered cautious congratulation, and Anna returned an equally cautious smile. It was true that, as a match, Mr. Lefroy was less than ideal, but he was at least better than the last one.

“Of course obviously one does not want her to end up an old maid, but it is hard to have faith in her after what she has put us through. Honestly, I believe she does it only to vex us.”

It was Cassy’s belief that Anna was simply desperate to leave home and would do anything in her powers to effect it. Poor child, there was only ever one means of escape. She certainly did not have the air of a young woman in love. In fact she was a study in misery.

Mary bustled into the middle of the room and, as was her wont—her mind buzzing like a bluebottle from one unpleasantness to the next—alighted upon a new subject: “Each time I visit, I am struck by the same thought: Your brother Edward could have done so much better for you, had he so wished. Does it not peeve you, living here, when he has so many better properties in his gift? You have been too good-natured, and he has exploited that. It is my long experience that the undemanding single woman never gets her due.”

“And it is mine”—Jane rose—“that the demanding gets nothing at all. Truly, Mary, do not worry yourself on our account. We are as comfortable as can be, and endlessly grateful. Can I offer you a cool drink?”

“Certainly not. It is very cold in here.” Mary shivered theatrically. “Very cold and extremely dark.”

“Perhaps you are sickening, Sister?” Martha asked, worried.

“I never sicken. There must be a draft. Is there a draft? I fancy there is a draft. You should call out Edward’s man to make him take a look.”

“We would never trouble him for such a thing,” Martha replied. “And when work does need doing, then well: We can pay for it ourselves now. Jane is, after all, a very rich woman!”

Jane’s new “wealth” was much talked about in Chawton that summer, and dear Martha went to great lengths to drop it into any conversation. Since the week they moved in here, Jane had, as her sister had hoped, returned to her manuscripts. First she revised Elinor and Marianne, which became Sense and Sensibility, and—oh, joy!—found a publisher and had sold really quite well. At the urging of the household, First Impressions was next to receive her attentions. With its new title of Pride and Prejudice, that was doing even better. It was the fashionable novel of 1813, and its anonymous author at the top of her tree. She was set to make more than a staggering one hundred wonderful pounds. They all fell on the reviews as they came out, exclaimed at the sales as they heard them. Jane was toiling, with enormous pleasure and absolute satisfaction, on something quite new: the adventures of a young heroine, rich in morals and low in income. There was nothing anyone could do to burst her bubble of delight. Nevertheless, Mary must try.

“Rich? Oh, Martha, you are so sweet and so foolish. Jane has had a little windfall this year, and we are all very pleased for her. But, as I was saying to Austen only last evening, popularity is no measure of quality—or longevity, indeed. Novels are a fad, nothing more, nothing less. Austen says so, and who can know better than him? When I think of his poetry—oh, well, there I shall stop, for I do not wish to offend. Please bear in mind, my dears, that this wealth is, most likely, no more than a onetime occurrence and spread over a lifetime of seven years and thirty, what does it amount to? More or less, nothing.”

Again the bluebottle took flight, landing this time on Anna. “Now then. To return to more pressing matters, I have brought Anna