spinster aunt. The invaluable treasure. This, after all, must be her purpose; this, God’s design all along. She would prove indispensable.
A new and cold sense of calm came over Cassy as she splashed her face with water, adjusted her cap, and returned to her duties.
10
Kintbury, March 1840
“From this time Captain Wentworth and Anne Elliot were repeatedly in the same circle.”
It was Caroline who was reading this evening. Determined not to be ill, Cassandra had still to admit to being not quite well enough. Though she had made plans—to help in the house; to visit Elizabeth Fowle and insist she commit to a new house with poor Isabella—she had, in fact, been unable to be useful all day.
“Whether former feelings were to be renewed must be brought to the proof; former times must undoubtedly be brought to the recollection of each…”
Isabella and Caroline had been working together clearing the bedrooms, and Cassandra had deemed it unsafe to read through the letters: Anyone could walk in at any time. The afternoon she had passed on the sofa, in an unfamiliar idleness. She had not even made progress with her patchwork; her fingers were too stiff and swollen to sew.
“They had no conversation together, no intercourse but what the commonest civility required. Once so much to each other! Now nothing!”
The one blessing was that Mary had been unable to join them, foiled by the twin curses of her mysterious foot and her legendary busyness. So at least the household had been perfectly peaceful.
“Now they were as strangers; nay, worse than strangers, for they could never become acquainted. It was a perpetual estrangement.”
“Oh!” Isabella burst out. “Poor Anne! I do feel for her most awfully.”
Caroline stopped, for the tenth time that evening. A newcomer to listening, or certainly a newcomer to listening with any sort of enjoyment, Isabella was a most participatory audience. It was as if she were at the circus rather than listening to a novel. She was unable to sit still: one moment half out of her seat with excitement, the next slumping back in despair. Every few lines she exclaimed at what had just happened and wondered out loud what might come next.
“Will they ever be united? I think they will soon be united. Oh, will they be united? What will become of Anne if they are not?”
Caroline demurred and continued: “When he talked, she heard the same voice and discerned the same mind—”
“I must say,” cut in Isabella, “that your sister understood affairs of the heart better than anyone else I ever heard. Do tell me, Cassandra. Did she know love herself?”
“No, my dear, I fear not. Though it was never a matter of particular sadness to her.” Cassandra smiled. How she loved the chance to talk of her Jane. “She could always enjoy the company of the heroes of her novels, but in life she never had the good fortune to meet a man who was worthy—”
“Forgive me, Aunt Cass, but I think you are mistaken!” exclaimed Caroline. “Surely, there was once a gentleman!”
Cassandra felt suddenly uneasy. What was this new, alternative history? She issued the line she had perfected and honed: “I can assure you, my sister never once formed any sort of attachment of the strength to disturb the surface of her contented existence.”
“But,” Caroline went on, with mounting excitement, “I am talking of the gentleman you both met at the seaside. You told me the story yourself, Aunt.” She turned to Isabella: “It truly is the stuff of romance,” then back to Cassandra: “I recounted this all to my brother James-Edward, only recently. Do you not remember? Oh, dear Aunt Cass, I do believe I have never before seen you quite so confused.”
“And pale!” added Isabella, coming over to her side. “Perhaps you should go up and rest? You have not been yourself these past two days.”
Cassandra’s head was spinning. She felt weak. She had no recollection of saying any such thing, ever, to any—and at once her mind flooded with the recollection of the whole sorry scene: the one moment of weakness and deceit in a lifetime of honesty and iron self-control. For the sake of her dignity she had simply chosen to forget. “I must say I do not know what on earth you are talking about, Caroline. What is this fancy you have got in your head?”
“Only one you put in there! Well, if you really do not remember”—Caroline glanced sideways at her aunt—“then let me tell the story.”
“Indeed,” Cassandra replied, outwardly