Miss Austen - Gill Hornby Page 0,50

under the mattress, felt about, felt again … And soon was searching most frantically through the length of the bedding. Under the pillows. Between the sheets. All over the room. There was nothing. She gasped, clutching at the bedpost to stop herself falling. Import coursed through her.

The letters were gone.

11

Kintbury, April 1840

FOR THREE DAYS CASSANDRA WAS powerless. All she could do was stay in her bedroom and fret at the impossibility of her situation. It was unthinkable that she might ask for any sort of explanation. After all, the letters were not her property. She had no business keeping them. But was their removal simply a matter of innocent housekeeping, or was there a more sinister motive in play?

At last the afternoon came when she felt almost well again. Isabella came in and exclaimed at the sight of her visitor, dressed.

“Well, you are better. Look at you! Quite back to life.” She placed a hand on a forehead and declared it temperate; she examined an eye and announced it was clear.

“Thank you, my dear Isabella. And may I apologize again for all the disruption I have caused you? I am very aware that maintaining my sickroom proved an onerous burden on your already stretched household.”

“Not at all.” Isabella looked around and assessed the state of the chamber. The process did not take her long. “I wish now that we had given you more comfortable quarters. It is I who should say sorry to you. It must not have been pleasant, spending so long in here. We thought— Well, we were wrong.” She ran a finger along the chest top. “And I cannot pretend that much energy has been spent on cleaning while you were ailing. I fear the daily maid has never been known to perform above or beyond.”

Cassandra pondered. So that left her with two possible suspects: Mary, who certainly had been given the opportunity. Oh, why had she begged for that laudanum? It was pure self-indulgence! And Dinah. Difficult Dinah—who knew both what was hidden and where.

“There is no need to sit with me now, Isabella. Why not go off into the village? I am quite sure you have some good work or other to be getting on with.”

“Well, there is some calf’s-foot jelly I must take to the Winterbournes. You will not mind being deserted?”

Indeed, Cassandra would very much welcome it. She insisted. There were things she must do.

* * *

AFTER A SUITABLE HIATUS Cassandra rose and, for the first time in weeks, reentered the world. She stood on the landing, and sensed the particular sort of silence that prevailed only in an empty household. How different it felt, sounded, and smelled with its family away. The personality altered. It sank back into its shell. She wondered how it would behave when the Fowles had left the new man in charge. It was pleasing that Steventon had stayed in her family, and she never had to witness a stranger treating their rectory as his home.

Great progress—if progress was the word—had been made during Cassandra’s absence. The Kintbury vicarage, now half empty, was officially in interregnum. The Fowle paintings were gone, and the blank walls stood, patient, awaiting those of another. There were no curtains on the window at the turn of the stairs. Tom’s room was bare. She moved gingerly toward that of Eliza. Grooves on the floor were the last testament of the bed that stood there for nearly a century. Black marks bore the shape of those samplers. But the settle, that heavy oak settle, was still in its place.

Cassandra’s one hope was that the letters had been put back where they belonged. That would be sensible and quite understandable; indeed, the only possible explanation. She chided herself—foolish old woman!—for thinking that there could possibly be any other. It was even more of a struggle to lift its lid now; the illness had sapped her strength. But she was determined, moreover confident, that effort would be rewarded. And, after some considerable struggle, at last the lid yielded. She was in.

All was exactly how she had left it. The Fowle children’s letters on top, her mother’s still beneath, with those of Martha. She rummaged through the next layers, where Jane’s and her own should be, had they been replaced in a casual, innocent manner … They were not. Now she was worrying, leaning in further, hands delving deeper. Fulwar’s script … Mary’s … two Austen brothers … She threw them to one side. Nearing the bottom,