Miss Austen - Gill Hornby Page 0,34
the ordinary servant.
“—but Mrs. Dexter has been no sort of friend to Miss Isabella lately. That I can tell you.”
Cassandra sighed once again. She and her siblings were, to one another, a source of constant love and cheerful support. It was such a sadness to find other families so differently arranged.
“But surely, if Miss Isabella and Mrs. Dexter were to live together, spend more time with each other, they would find they had more in common than not?”
Dinah shot her a pitying look—not dissimilar to that which Jane might shoot when Cassandra was too optimistic about the redemption of others—gave a sniff of derision, and withdrew the jam.
“Thank you, yes, I am sure I had finished with it.” That was a little regrettable. She had been looking forward, keenly, to jam. “And what about you, Dinah? Has a new position been found for you yet?”
“I’m staying with Miss Isabella,” she replied firmly. “We’ve been together too long to change now.”
“Ah. And you can both go to Mrs. Dexter’s?”
“I’m not going there.”
“So you would prefer it if instead Miss Isabella and her other sister, Miss Elizabeth, took a place in the village?”
“No.” And then, grudgingly: “But at least she’s behaved a bit better than her.”
“Well.” Cassandra folded her napkin and rose from the table. “It seems to me that those are the only two options.”
“If you say so.” Dinah removed everything tempting from the table—“You know best, m’m”—and left the room.
Perhaps it was just Dinah—the overmighty Dinah—who was obstructing all progress in this matter. But what- or whoever might be the impediment, it was imperative that the matter was now resolved. For Cassandra knew from experience that, for the spinster on a limited income—most spinsters, therefore, at least of her own acquaintance—these moments of transition were the moments of danger. They could arrive without warning, lift the roof from your head, remove the table at which you once sat every evening. And even, if you were careless or simply unlucky, pluck the food straight out of your mouth. This was the peril inherent in every single situation. It took quick thinking, courage, sometimes something as low and unseemly as cunning, in order to simply survive.
The trick was to find some pattern in the chaos, trace the path to your own destiny, grope your way forward. Cassandra had been forced to realize that early, although, looking back, she must admit that even she had taken her time, and the occasional wrong turn. But poor Isabella had been cosseted and protected by family life and the family home until now—and this was her forty-first year! She clearly had never developed an idea of, or instinct for, her own comfort.
Yes, this needed resolving. Miss Austen would see to it today.
* * *
MARY-JANE DEXTER’S COTTAGE—a long, low, and ancient affair—sat beyond the flint wall on the other side of the church. It was one of the nearest houses to the vicarage, and Cassandra marveled that two sisters such as Isabella and Mary-Jane could be so physically close and yet so effectively distant. She went through the front garden gate, approached, knocked and—yet again—found herself waiting for entry.
At last a deep voice came out through the doorframe: “Who goes there?” Mary-Jane had spent much of her married life out in India. The experience had left her with a certain distrust.
“Mrs. Dexter, dear, it is I, Miss Austen,” she called back, feeling a little absurd. “Come to call on you.”
There was a pause. Bolts were drawn, locks were turned, and with a loud creak—as if it had not done so for decades—the oak door yielded and Cassandra was in.
“Forgive me.” The two women embraced. Mary-Jane stuck her head out, scouted the churchyard and cottages for threats and insurgencies, then pushed Cassandra through to the hall. “One cannot be too careful.” There was a great deal of rebolting, relocking. “You should not have come alone, Cassandra. It can be dangerous around here, you do know.”
“Oh?” Cassandra was surprised. “To my eyes Kintbury seems peaceful enough.”
“With respect, you were not witness to the riots ten years ago.”
“No, I was not. And I gather they were most unsettling, but lasted only a day or two, I understand?”
“It seems longer when you live with unrest, I can tell you. I have seen some things in my day.” Mary-Jane, a short, wide woman with a square, ruddy face and no-nonsense hairstyle, was dressed—well, Cassandra was not qualified to assess it. Suffice to say, she was prepared for conditions and climate not previously