Miss Austen - Gill Hornby Page 0,52

fine father is as hale as ever, but even he cannot be Rector in perpetuity. And we two poor, dependent daughters must then be turned out into a world which is unlikely to receive us with the warmest of welcomes. I cannot pretend that the prospect is pleasing.

Forgive me! This began as a letter of great celebration, and then without warning took a horrible turn. I am quite incorrigible. Present me with a clear blue sky and I will find you a cloud. Disregard all the above, and give our love to your little Isabella.

Yours ever,

J. Austen.

“Oh, no!” Jane’s shriek pierced the air of the hills around Steventon. “Please—Cassy! Martha!—stop now. I beg of you. Or I shall die laughing, as we used to say when we were at school. And you will have to carry my poor lifeless body back home.”

“I am sorry,” Cassy protested. “It is true. She looked simply ridiculous.”

“She certainly did.” Jane giggled again. “But have we not analyzed the evening so very minutely as to destroy any memory of enjoyment? I thought it perfectly pleasant while I was there. Now, thanks to you two, all I can see is her thick neck and pink husband, and in retrospect it appears to me perfectly horrid.”

“Very well,” Cassy conceded. “And if you did enjoy it, then I am happy for you. These days I find far more diversion in the analysis than the event.”

“Dear Cass.” Jane took her arm and became serious. “You used to love dances and parties and going out in society.”

“Did I?” She found it hard to remember now. “Then perhaps I am getting too old for it.”

“I am older,” their dear friend Martha put in. “And I find everything amusing while I am with you.”

They crested the hill, stopped to catch a breath, and gazed down upon Steventon.

“Home.” Jane sighed happily. “Now, is that not the sweetest of sights?”

“It is perfect,” Martha agreed. “What is there better than a small country village?” Bright autumn sunlight caught the edge of the steeple. “There goes your father.” Mr. Austen strode briskly down the lane in the direction of the parsonage. “Such an excellent man. I do not know how he manages, both the church and the land, at his age.”

“Papa?” Jane scoffed, a little too violently. “Fit as a flea! So fit as to put most fleas to shame.”

She led the march down the hill.

“And long may he remain so!” Martha plodded behind them. “Still, he will be wanting James to take over ere too long, I dare say.”

Cassy caught something in her tone: as if Martha knew more than they did. “He is not quite as agile as he was, that is true,” she said thoughtfully. “And Mama’s health is not all it should be. I wonder…”

“The weather is turning. We are in for some rain, girls.”

“What is rain to us, Martha?” Jane spun round, hands outstretched, her cloak dancing about her. “Come on! We have at least a whole hour yet before we have to be home.”

But Cassy opted to return alone, and help her mother prepare for their dinner.

* * *

BY THE TIME SHE WAS IN the back door, Cassy was wet through. She took off her cloak and her boots, put them to dry, and made for her room to change. Passing the parlor, she heard the sounds of conversation within. Her brother James and his wife, Mary, were early—there was a surprise! She reached for the doorknob, fully intending to go in and greet them. And then James’s voice drifted through to her.

“So, Father, I am—we are—keen now to advance. As I enter my thirty-sixth year, it is an appropriate time for me to assume greater responsibility and perform to the full my role as a Man of the Church. I hope you agree that my talents are more than equal to the task ahead of me.”

“Oh, my dear boy,” Mr. Austen proclaimed, “I need not assure you of that. You are an exemplary curate to me and you will make an exemplary rector to the parish.”

“Exemplary,” Mary repeated with fervor, adding quietly but urgently: “And then, Austen—the house. Remember: the house.”

“Ah, yes. The house. I—we, that is— It seems, with our growing family—”

“We now have a child.” Mary could not resist any opportunity to mention her triumph in that regard.

“You have two children, my dear,” said Mrs. Austen. “Let us not forget Anna.”

“Yes, of course. I mean to say that we do now have a son.”

“And it occurs to