“That coach was too much for you.” Isabella talked loudly as if to an imbecile, while untying the ribbon around Cassandra’s chin. “All that way in this cold weather.” Her bonnet was removed. From where she was standing, Cassandra could see into the study where the shelves had been emptied. Which books were gone? They had had the whole set of Jane’s. Who had them now?
“And she’s come alone then, I can’t help but notice.” Dinah was behind her, loosening off her cloak.
The furniture still in place looked abject, humiliated, like slaves in the marketplace.
“Perhaps her maid is away?”
“Which leaves who looking after ’er, may I ask?” Dinah flung cloak and hat over her arm. “Me and whose army?”
A vicarage without a vicar was always a sorrowful sight. Cassandra had borne witness to it more often than most, yet it still affected her every time. The Fowles had lived in this house for three generations. It had been handed on, father to son—all good clergymen, all blessed with fine wives—but that chain was now broken. Isabella’s father was dead, and her brothers had refused it. No doubt they had their reasons, and—to squander all that family heritage—Cassandra sincerely hoped they were good ones.
Church tradition allowed the relicts of the family two months to vacate the house for the next incumbent. And, although it was not anywhere written, Church tradition seemed somehow always to rely on the vicarage women to effect it. Poor Isabella. The task she had before her was bleak, miserable, arduous: just two months to clear the place that had been their home for ninety-nine years! Of course she had to start on it at once. But still, the Reverend Fulwar Craven Fowle had been dead but a few weeks. Cassandra had come as soon as she could. She was shocked to see that the work was already this far advanced.
To think that journey—so tiring, so uncomfortable, so shamefully expensive—might not have been worth it! To think that for which she had come might already be gone!
Cassandra felt nauseated and dizzy. Kindly Isabella smoothed down her hair—she must look disheveled—and led her through the hall.
The Kintbury drawing room was a thing of simple beauty: a perfect cube with walls of deep yellow that caught and held the setting sun. Each of its windows, on two sides, looked out over water: You could stand and watch the fishermen on the river or barges glide along the canal to east and west. Ordinarily it was one of Cassandra’s favorite places. It satisfied her soul. But on that day she approached it with nervous trepidation, consumed with a dread of what she might find.
She need not have worried. Even as she entered, before setting a sensible shoe on the needlepoint carpet, she felt herself safe. The atmosphere here was one of calm and repose. The air was quite undisturbed. And all the furniture was here, just as it had always been. So she had not come too late! Her knees almost buckled with the relief. She turned back to Isabella, her voice and authority returned to her at once.
“Now, perhaps I may repair myself before we dine?”
* * *
CASSANDRA HAD OFTEN privately observed that when the gentleman of the house died, fine dining died with him. It was a thesis that evening’s dinner was determined to prove. Their mutton was just that: mutton, with no sauce, potatoes, or pudding, its only companion a cabbage that had loitered too long in the ground. She smiled as she compared it with the meals she once enjoyed there. Isabella’s father was always a man of high standards and immoderate reactions. If Dinah had dared serve him something like this, he would have made his displeasure known.
But they were two ladies, so they politely thanked their Lord, with some effort cut their mutton, and chewed with a dogged determination. The only other sound was the loud ticking of the clock. Silence at that particular dinner table was another unwelcome innovation, one that Cassandra was finding more tough than the meat.
“I see from the labels on everything that you are already well ahead in dividing up all the effects.” Cassandra eyed the decanter, which was empty for the first time in its history. She tilted her head and read that Mr. Charles Fowle had already claimed ownership. It could look forward to a busy future with him.
“The will was read last week, and my brothers were able to make their decisions.” Isabella betrayed no emotion as she said this. Her face was turned down; those bright eyes studied her plate.
Cassandra, though, could not help but be more forthcoming. “And your brothers are to have all the goods and chattels?” She could hear the sharpness in her own voice and was at once all regret: She was well aware of being too sharp for some tastes, and did try to blunt her own tongue. But really, this business was too vexing. The Fowles were like the Austens in so many ways: both large families, blessed with sons and daughters, and by a great good fortune that seemed only to run down the male line.
“My father did leave some novels to my sister Elizabeth.” Isabella gestured at the bookcase which had one blank and dusty shelf. “Particular favorites, which they read together.”
Cassandra lit up. “Ah!” At last they had struck upon her favorite conversation. She asked teasingly: “And they were by whom, may I ask?”
“By whom?” Isabella seemed at once baffled by the question, as if books were books and their authors of no matter. “Why, Sir Walter Scott, I do believe.”
Cassandra gripped her fork and stifled all natural expression. Sir Walter Scott. Sir Walter Scott! Why must it always be him? How she wished that just once, she too could let fly with an immoderate reaction. Instead she sat silently brooding—on the injustices of fame; the travails of true genius; the realization—and this came to her quite spontaneously—that she had never particularly warmed to Isabella’s sister Elizabeth. And then her thoughts were suddenly interrupted. What was this? Isabella had at last found she had something to say.
“It is my opinion that his books are very…” There was a pause while she looked around her, searching for the bon mot. “… very … very…” And then, as if by a miracle, it came to her: “long.” She drew breath to continue. Having thus broached the unlikely territory of literary discussion, she was somehow emboldened to journey yet further therein. “There are many, many words in them,” she carried on, with some bitterness. “They seem to take up too much of everybody’s time.”
Cassandra was generally used to a higher level of discourse, but still she could only agree. In other company she might have argued that he was a fine poet and joked that his work as a reviewer was quite unsurpassed, but could sense that this was not quite the forum. “And what about you, Isabella? Do you like novels? What are your particular favorites?”
“Novels? Me?” Isabella was back to being baffled. “Favorites? No. None at all.”
The debate was over. Cassandra surrendered. Dinah bustled in and slapped down a compote, and they supped in a silence broken only by the continued ticking of that clock.
* * *
“DO TAKE MAMA’S PLACE,” said Isabella when dinner was over. Cassandra accepted at once, as the chair happened to be nearest the fire.
The evening in the drawing room yawned before them, the latest challenge in a challenging day. Pyramus padded in and stretched out on the carpet: It had always been one of those houses of which dogs had the freedom. Cassandra did not mind this dog in particular, but did not quite approve of the practice in general. She tucked in her feet, opened her valise, and took out her work. How useful it was to sew, to fuss about with a needle, to keep your eyes on the stitch. It was always her armor in difficult situations, the activity itself a diversion from the awkwardness of the company. She often wondered how men managed, without something similar. Although it did seem that they were so less often stuck for words.