Miss Austen - Gill Hornby Page 0,71
brother, she is spoiled then for any other hero I could create for her. For how, with such an example in her own background, could she fall in love on dry land? No man could match him.”
“Aha!” Charles bounded over and knelt at her feet. “So that is why I return to find that you are still yet to be settled. Tell me, truthfully now.” He took her hand. “Is it as I fear? That you despair of finding a man who could match me?”
“I certainly despair of finding one so adept at playing the fool.” Jane batted him away. “But Charles, it is Cassy who betrays you. She has a new suitor, and is now far too grand to give thought to a subject as dreary as her dear sailor brother.”
Mrs. Austen sat up, giving a round chuckle.
Cassy dropped her needle and looked up again in horror. “Jane!”
“Oh, I am sorry. I have spoken in error. Ignore me, Charles. Cassy has, after all, no suitors. And I would particularly like to point out that she has no suitors who go by the name of Hobday. Specifically, Mr. Henry Hobday—”
“—who happens to be both exceedingly agreeable and heir to a Derbyshire estate,” joined in their mother.
“No, indeed. She has bewitched no gentleman who could answer to that description. No man at all.”
Cassy, blushing, was silent and resentful. She enjoyed these family jokes only when she herself was not the butt of them.
“You are making your sister uncomfortable, Jane,” Mr. Austen reproved. “And I must add that I have seen no evidence of this romance of which you speak.”
“That, Papa, is because it is a very deep secret. So deep that it is known only by all of Dawlish.”
“And Sidmouth?”
“Yes, you are right, Mother. I have heard there to be pockets of Sidmouth in which people talk of little else.”
“Oh, enough. Please,” Cassy begged. “You see, Charles, that Jane has become no less outrageous since your last visit. Her love of fiction has spread from the page and into our lives. I am sad to report that now she routinely spouts nonsense. We can no longer believe a word that comes out of her mouth.”
Charles, although he had been enjoying himself hugely, was never anything other than kind. He knew that it was the moment for a change of conversation, and with a captain’s skill he steered it away. He entertained them all with stories from his ship and descriptions of faraway places.
And the sun set on a parlor that was all familial contentment. Cassy, recovered now and calm, looked about her with love. Her father asked learned questions and basked in the detail of the son’s answers. Her mother rocked gently and smiled at her own thoughts. Cassy hoped that they were not straying into the district of Derbyshire, although she feared it most likely they were. And Jane? Jane looked happier and more alive than she had for months. Here in this room was all that her sister needed: good conversation in which she felt no inhibition; time and space to write, with an intelligent audience to listen; her family around her, with whom she could be her own self. These were the conditions upon which her happiness, or her equilibrium at least, depended. Were they altogether too much for a single woman to ask? Just these small things. She required nothing more.
* * *
IT DID NOT TAKE LONG for Charles to lose patience with Dawlish. As Jane had predicted, this gentle village did not offer enough distractions to detain him. He was a young man of great energy, who had been away at sea and had little hope of this peace lasting. He craved a summer of society: fashionable crowds; no doubt, too, fashionable ladies of his own age and regular assemblies at which he might meet them. With that in mind, the Austens agreed to remove themselves to Teignmouth forthwith.
The prospect brought Cassy enormous relief. Of course she had no craving for fashion or society, nor was this place too tame for her tastes—quite the opposite. For her, here lurked danger, and she had become almost desperate in her wish to escape it. She had feigned headaches, avoided calls, retreated to darkened rooms, and ignored the entreaties of her mother for as long as could possibly be tolerated. Her behavior was attracting attention, and all of it negative. For once Jane was left in peace to act as she pleased. Mrs. Austen had shifted her focus of