Miss Austen - Gill Hornby Page 0,36
a solid day’s labor, only to find that while I slept my foot had become most horribly afflicted.”
“Your foot?” Cassandra moved to the patient, examined her, but could find no obvious external symptoms. “How strange.”
“Well, indeed. As you know, I have always been unusually lucky in the foot department. Mrs. Bunbury suffers with hers most particularly. Never stops moaning, to the extent that it is hard to find sympathy. One does value bravery in others, above all. And of course, though I am no stranger to suffering, my feet are among the best parts of me. I had no idea of the agony they can cause one, till now.” She lifted a limb, gasped, and fell back. “The upshot of it—and this distresses me greatly—is that I cannot do anything but lie here today. Nevertheless, while suffering, I have come up with a table of tasks that the rest of you might accomplish, under my guidance.” She passed the paper to Cassandra, made herself yet more comfortable on the sofa, and added: “Oh, and please tell Dinah we shall, after all, be staying for dinner. I know that none of you would want me to hurry home in this sorry state.”
* * *
THE DAY DID, AT LEAST, pass quickly. The house was moved further toward some sort of order. And Mary’s mysterious condition kept her downstairs and away from the letters. It also forced her away from the dinner table. She took her meal on the sofa, while the three mild-mannered women dined contentedly alone.
It was with some reluctance that they rose and moved through to the drawing room. Caroline—the most hardened by battle with her mother—led the way; Cassandra brought up the rear. At the doorway, she thought to thank Dinah.
“Yes, m’m.” Dinah nodded, heaping plates on a tray. “And how passed your morning? I ’ope you found a pleasant welcome from Mrs. Dexter?”
“Very pleasant, yes, thank you,” Cassandra replied properly. “I was interested to see her—er—fascinating house at last.”
Dinah put down her tray and came close to Miss Austen. “You didn’t say anything did you, m’m? Nothing to suggest we might think of going there?”
Cassandra had always been the kindest of employers. A certain warmth, a dash of intimacy between servant and mistress were, over time, unavoidable and also, managed correctly, promoted efficiency. However, insubordination at this level was not only outrageous—astonishing!—but bound to create difficulties. It must be stamped out at once.
“Thank you for your interest, Dinah. Naturally I could not disclose that which was said in a private conversation. We would like tea, now, please, by the fire.”
* * *
CASSANDRA WATCHED THE TWO cousins busy themselves with pouring and serving, and was struck—and touched—by the familial connection between them. Isabella and Caroline were close in age, and similar in build—trim-enough figures, average sort of height. There was nothing in the appearance of either woman to which an onlooker could reasonably object.
And yet they shared the same destiny—or rather, the lack of one: a spinsterhood spent in long-suffering service to parent and siblings. Not that there was anything wrong with spinsterhood—far from it! But when the spinster herself was so reluctant about it as these two women were: Well, that was a shame.
Isabella, she suspected, was, in some measure, the victim of parental neglect. Fulwar and Eliza had put considerable energy into their eldest daughter Mary-Jane’s match, and when the only candidate insisted on removing her to India, were conspicuously brave in containing their grief. By contrast, the prospects of their younger daughters, who had the virtue of being much easier characters, were not blessed with such keen attention.
With Caroline, she knew and had been its witness, the problem was one of maternal control. Though Mary herself had benefited enormously from the institution of marriage, she held no similar ambitions for her offspring. She liked, at all times, to have Caroline beside her, and found no pleasures in wider society.
Still, Cassandra had often wondered that neither Isabella nor Caroline had found suitors of their own. After all, many a more unattractive woman was married; plenty of less sympathetic women had children. Yet somehow these two had failed to provoke Life into noticing them. It had simply just passed them by.
Were she to work on their likenesses—Had anyone ever done so? Neither had the sort of personal power that inspired others to cause their likenesses to be taken—Cassandra would use only charcoal for Isabella. With the exception of those bright blue eyes, and the pale brown hair that