Miss Austen - Gill Hornby Page 0,110

weak laughter. Mary and Jane were each enjoying the company of the other.

“This is a pretty sight,” said Cassy, much pleased.

“We were remembering when we were young,” replied Mary. “When you were at Steventon, and we were at Ibthorpe. Oh, we did have such fun then. Before I was married.”

Jane agreed. “I have been so very fortunate in my family, and my friends. If I live to be an old woman, I am sure I would wish then to have died now: blessed in that tenderness, and before I survived either you all, or your affections.” She touched Mary’s hand. “You have always been a kind sister to me, Mary. Why do you not rest now, and let Cass take her turn?”

Cassy waited until they were alone, before speaking: “That was touching, to see you two so cheerful together.”

“She is being really most pleasant, genuinely so,” Jane admitted.

“Mary is a very good nurse, like her sisters.” Cassy tucked in the blankets and made the bed tidy.

“It is not so much that, and she is no equal to you, dearest, or Martha.” Jane sank a bit deeper, her face white as her pillow. “Disaster often brings out the best in her. It is success that disturbs her good nature.”

* * *

DURING THE COURSE OF THE NEXT eight hours and forty, Jane was more asleep than awake. Her looks altered, and she started upon the process of slowly falling away. On the Thursday evening of 17 July, there came some sort of attack: a faintness, an oppression; the sign of the end.

“Tell me what you are feeling. What is it now, my love?” Cassy held a cool sponge to her face, blotted the papery skin. “What can I do for you? Anything. Do you want anything?”

“Nothing but Death.” Jane’s eyes were closed, her suffering immense but her words still intelligible. “God grant me patience. Pray for me, Cass. Oh, pray for me, dearest. Pray for me, please.”

Throughout the following night—their last one together—Cassy sat with her sister’s head in her lap, stroking her, whispering comfort. Until just before dawn, when she lost her.

And, grateful to be alone, thankful there was no other to share in this most private of moments, Cassy performed her last services. She placed the dear corpse back on the bed, closed each eye and kissed it, and then stood, in deep contemplation at the enormity of that which she had witnessed. Jane had been the sun of her life, the gilder of every pleasure, the soother of any sorrow. Not a thought had one ever concealed from the other. Cassy fell to her knees, and prayed fervently for the deliverance of this most precious of souls. Such a sister, such a friend, as could never be surpassed.

It was as if she had lost a part of herself.

28

Kintbury, April 1840

“MY ’EAD DOESN’T ’ALF HURT,” Dinah grumbled from her comfortable billet on the drawing-room sofa.

“I can believe it.” Isabella laughed. “Mine, too, is throbbing quite horribly. It is nothing to do with your injuries of yesterday, I can assure you of that. It is because we drank far too much wine.” She gave a comical moan, and clutched at her forehead. “That was a bright idea of yours, Cassandra, to liberate those few bottles from Papa’s cellar, but I fear we are now good for nothing.”

“The morning after is never easy, my dear.” Cassandra smiled. “We must just remember the fun of the evening before.”

The three women had spent it together in the spirit of happy celebration after the momentous events of the day. They finished Persuasion, drank slightly too much of Fulwar’s excellent claret, and talked, far too late, of the future.

All was set fair. Isabella was convinced now that love should prevail, and love’s enemies must simply get used to it. There was no better man than her John, and that he had waited so long for her was the proof of his worth. She would make an excellent doctor’s wife—on that they were all agreed. And Dinah expressed every ambition to be an excellent doctor’s wife’s excellent maid—but on that, Cassandra chose to reserve judgment. She did, though, hope it might prove to be true, as well as know it to be none of her business.

And now it was time for her to leave.

She sat in Eliza’s old armchair—cloak already on, bonnet tied around her chin, precious valise at her feet—and waited for the sound of her coach. There was, in the pit of her stomach, that