Miss Austen - Gill Hornby Page 0,29

Mr. Austen? We both used the very same phrase.”

Jane’s face lit up with amusement. Cassy—who had not witnessed any discussion of a draft—was surprised to see how gratified her brother was by this support. He followed it up with a discourse on the music that evening: “I am quite sure it is an improvement on the last time I was here.”

“Why, how right you are again!” Mary seemed quite taken aback by the force of this insight. “I do not believe I even noticed until you said so. I am quite staggered it did not strike me at once. But it is—to be sure—a vast improvement on the last assembly. I could not agree more.”

Jane gave a loud snort. James’s mood expanded yet further. “And how pleasant it is to be agreed with, Miss Lloyd. As soon as we arrived, I struck up a conversation with young Terry about this season’s hunting. I merely said I hoped for better than last year, as to my mind last year was quite dull. So imagine my surprise when I found that we were in something of a dispute. Mr. Terry has memories of a blistering campaign against the fauna of Hampshire that I simply cannot recognize. So forceful was he I began even to doubt myself!”

“Oh, but it is your memory that is the correct one, sir!” Mary insisted. “Of course, I know nothing of hunting, but I have listened attentively to all your conversations on the subject. Well, all those I have been lucky enough to hear. And your reports were certainly of a general disappointment. I do hope,” she added earnestly, “that you enjoy better sport this year.”

* * *

“WELL, I MUST CONGRATULATE YOU, my dear sister,” Jane whispered to Cassy as they returned to the ballroom. “Victory is yours.”

“Do you think so?” For some reason, Cassy was suffering from a momentary loss of faith in her own plan.

“Oh, very much so.” Jane chuckled. “Mary played her best hand. We need no longer worry about her lack of a fortune, or flaking complexion. For a gentleman like our brother, there is no greater proof of superiority—in charm, wisdom, and intelligence—than agreement with his every word.”

Dancing resumed, and this time James led Mary onto the floor, and at last the other ladies were free to enjoy themselves—while keeping their eyes on the situation, like anxious aunts over a debutante charge. As the couple danced again—and again—they began to relax, began even to feel something like confidence.

The crowd was thinning by the time Mary finally came back to them. She was flushed now: flushed with exertion; flushed with her own natural high color since the paste had dropped and scattered all over the dance floor. And, on top of that, flushed with success.

“Well,” Martha cooed at her, patting her hair back. “You have a conquest there, Mary. Of that there is no doubt.”

“Oh, Martha.” Mary flicked her hand away. “I shall take wisdom from Cassy if I have to—she is betrothed. But you, my poor sister? What could you possibly know?”

7

Kintbury, March 1840

CASSANDRA HAD CHOSEN TO forget, and did not enjoy being reminded, that she had once been so energetic in her promotion of Mary Lloyd’s cause. Jane, of course, had foreseen the inherent problems right from the beginning: She could not—would not—trust a girl who was so dismissive of her sister, and never did share Cassy’s trust in the wisdom of their mother’s many plans. From the most tender age, she had a seer’s talent for the analysis of character and the prediction of disasters. She was, indeed, something of the Cassandra of legend. It was their joke that the name should rightly be hers.

Jane’s letter was unhelpful; Cassandra must remove it. For on becoming Mary Austen, Mary Lloyd had rewritten her own history. And in her version, it had always been a love match for James: unconquerable, inevitable. Were she to read this evidence of plotting and conniving, unpleasantness would surely follow.

Cassandra folded it up, rose, lifted the corner of the mattress under which she would hide it, when there was a quick rap at the door.

“She’s ’ere.” It was Dinah, flicking her head, rolling her eyes, and then remembering herself. “Sorry.” She bobbed, adding: “M’m.”

Cassandra looked up in horror. Caught red-handed in her room—surrounded by papers to which she had no right! She started to gather them all up, hurriedly, while Dinah stood there and watched her.

“Best leave all that for now, m’m. Miss Fowle needs you, most urgent,