With her work there done, her standards met, Dinah departed. But before Cassandra could begin to reflect on the horrors she had heard—that a man so fond of his dogs could mete out such treatment to his daughter!—Isabella herself sank down beside her with a sigh. Oh, Isabella! What had the poor woman been through? “Are you all right, my dear?” Cassandra laid a hand on the younger woman’s knee.
“I suppose so.” Isabella fiddled with a tassel on a pillow. “It is just that I do not seem to know which way to turn. I was wrapping the china that is to go off to my brother, but then I took to wondering if there was not something else I should do…” She looked around her, helpless.
“But surely,” said Cassandra, “your sisters are helping you now?”
“Well, Elizabeth is so busy at her nursery—”
Cassandra held up her hand. “Yes. I do understand.” It was always the same. No matter how big the family, the mantle of caregiver-organizer-helpmeet is only ever laid upon one. “It is as if Nature can only throw up one capable person to support each generation. In my family that has always been me.”
Isabella was a picture of misery. “Then we are equals in our misfortune.”
“Not at all!” exclaimed Cassandra. “Our fortune is to have families who need us. It is our duty, our pleasure. Our very worth!”
“Oh, Cassandra. I fear you have always been so much more useful than I will ever be.”
Cassandra had not been many hours in the vicarage, but she had been there long enough to assess the domestic skills of her hostess. So it was hard to argue, and almost impossible to control her desire to promote competence and order, to combat this depressing inefficiency. In kind and encouraging terms, she dispatched Isabella back to the china cupboard to finish what had been started, and Isabella, sighing heavily, did as she was told.
Cassandra sat still and listened until the footsteps diminished and the door shut on the offices. Seizing the moment, she fastened her needle into the fabric, struggled out of the sofa, and moved toward the corner.
Miss Austen was not used to intruding upon the privacy of others. Her heart hammered at her ribs. The unfamiliar discomfort of guilt was enough to halt her in her tracks. For a moment she simply stared at the bureau. This delicate piece of walnut, with a lid that folded out into a table and three drawers below, had been Eliza’s only private corner in these big, busy rooms. Fulwar, of course, had his gracious study, which no one would ever dare enter without permission. Did he keep any secrets in there? His own, perhaps, but he would hardly be chosen as the guardian of others. Eliza, though—the excellent Eliza—was a woman of boundless sympathy. They all knew they could trust her with any sort of confidence.
How many words of advice had been dispatched from that desktop? How many most personal matters had been read about there? It was impossible, now she studied that small piece of furniture, to imagine it could contain all Eliza knew … She began to doubt the course of her own actions; she almost determined to stop at that moment, to find a more decorous approach to the problem, one that she could take with her head held high. And then she collected herself. This was Austen business: Family always trumped all.
Both she and Jane had once written many intimate letters to this vicarage. They could still be there. Cassandra was the executor of her sister’s estate: the keeper of her flame; the protector of her legacy. In the time that was left to her, she was determined to find and destroy any evidence that might compromise Jane’s reputation. It was simply imperative that those letters did not fall into the wrong hands.
Emboldened, she stepped forward and pulled down the lid. She saw only ink and paper, a pen. She shut it and opened the first drawer: locks of baby hair, first teeth, a handful of childish sketches. Footsteps approached. She pulled out the next one: laundry lists, menus, membership details for the circulating library. Someone was crossing the hall. The last held just records of charities and village good works. All of it orderly, neatly arranged; none of it that which Cassandra hoped she might find. She closed it as Fred crossed the threshold. “I was just stretching my poor legs.”
Fred nodded, uninterested. He had not come to see her but to check his own handiwork. The fire, which had started out so disappointing, was disappointing still. He assessed it with some degree of professional satisfaction, as if disappointment itself were the one true ambition, and, with a limp bow, left Cassandra alone with the chill.
She returned to the sofa, gathering her work and her wits about her. She must not despair. After all, what had Isabella said over breakfast? That they had not been able to touch any of Eliza’s possessions from the day she had died. Everything could still be here somewhere: She just needed more information before continuing her search.
There was not long to wait. Within minutes Isabella was back with her. “I have done it. I have finished most of the china. Well”—she twisted her hands in her lap—“some of the china. I have packed all the sauceboats—every single one.”
Cassandra had lived all her life with or around the country clergy. She was well aware how many sauceboats the average parsonage might hope to accumulate, and the answer was: few. “Ah. Well, that is indeed something.” This was rather like dealing with the children in the Godmersham nursery. “So that leaves only the dinner plates, the dessert plates, the bowls, all the dishes…?”
“And the tea and coffee sets and so on,” Isabella added, her shoulders sinking. “There is so much of all that, I thought it might wait for another day?” She paused, as if Cassandra—of all people—might endorse such procrastination. Then she confessed: “The truth is that I find, now I have arrived at the moment, it pains me to part with it.” Tears came to her eyes. “I have used this service every day of my life. It suddenly seemed so”—she sniffed—“so significant. And I know you must think me pathetic—I see myself as pathetic—I can hardly bear to think I will not see it again.”
Cassandra reached out her hand and grasped Isabella’s. Oh, the power of small things when the larger ones—the home or the family—proved fragile! She remembered Miss Murden polishing her little blue shepherdess, and Jane clutching her writing box, not wanting to let go.
“I do know, Isabella. Leave that till last and now, do sit and chat for a while. I have been feeling so guilty lounging here while you have been laboring. Is there nothing I can do for you that involves more sitting, less lifting? Anything in your father’s office, for example?” Though she did not want to be in his office at all.
“That is all in order, as far as I know. For the past year Papa was making his arrangements, and of course he had his curate to help him. Such a conscientious young man, so thorough in his work.” She looked wistful. “It is most useful to have a curate, Cassandra, is it not? Indeed, now I think of that too, I have never lived without a curate around.” The pallor returned. “I suppose I shall have to get used to it now.”
Cassandra again was all sympathy. For the family—and most especially for its single women—to leave a vicarage was to be cast out of Eden. There were only trial and privation ahead.
“And of course Papa had due warning. He knew the end was coming. Poor Mama just left us. It was the work of a moment.”