Cassandra was aghast. To deny a father’s dying request? And to what possible end? After all, these women were sisters. There was no closer bond on this earth. “Either appears to me to be the most splendid solution, for which you should be perhaps a little more grateful.”
“‘Grateful’!”
“Indeed. And if you can add to your own comfort the knowledge that you are there in accordance with your dear father’s wish for you, then the outcome can only be a happy one—for everyone concerned.”
“Yes, there is the rub: my dear father’s wish for me. I have no real choice but to comply. But I confess it is not a future to which I can look forward with any enthusiasm. What a pitiful scene we shall make.”
Cassandra sipped at her tea, quite lost for words. It was not the first time that she had heard this assumption: that the divine blessing of a male presence somehow made a household more desirable, superior. But to hear it from a woman who had suffered sticks to the head? Now, that was a novelty indeed! Isabella had clearly not grasped the truth of her own situation: Her sisters were her future; single women have only each other. For many, mutual support was their only means of financial survival, but for most it brought other riches with it: a whole wealth of comfort, companionship, and joy. Isabella must learn this; Cassandra must teach her. It was something else to be accomplished before she left here.
“It will all fall into place, I am sure of it. Now”—Cassandra was bright but firm—“let us read together to take our minds off it all. I am not convinced these long, silent evenings of unemployment are entirely good for you. There are no spirits so low that a good novel cannot raise them.”
“A novel?” Isabella put down her saucer with a rattle. “I believe I already mentioned: I do not enjoy novels.”
“I am not suggesting we drag ourselves through Peveril of the Peak. That is no remedy for anything at all. I was thinking of one of my sister’s. You already know them, I am sure.”
Isabella shook her head, and showed no enthusiasm. “I believe my mother read and enjoyed them. But Papa did not permit them to be read aloud—or not that I remember. He had heard they were not of much interest.” She thought, and added: “But then I never found much of interest in Sir Walter Scott.”
“My dear Isabella.” Cassandra reached down, opened her valise, and brought out the one book that never left her. “Now your father is no longer here to offer guidance and wisdom in all the many matters on which he was so very expert, I think it may be time for you to embark on the development of your own tastes.” She opened it at the beginning. “Of course, I am prejudiced, but I believe you might enjoy this.” It did not now matter that her eyes were old and the lamplight was dim. Cassandra knew every word of it by heart:
“Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire, was a man…”
Isabella sat, studying the flames in the fireplace and listening, but with no outward sign of enjoyment. The Baronetage clearly bored her. She fidgeted, sighing loudly from time to time.
Undeterred, Cassandra went on: “Three girls, the two eldest sixteen and fourteen, was an awful legacy for a mother to bequeath; an awful charge rather, to confide to the authority and guidance of a conceited, silly father…”
Pyramus showed his belly to the fire and let out a snore. But her human listener, Cassandra noticed with some satisfaction, had grown still.
“… she was only Anne…”
Isabella’s eyes were now upon her, she could sense it.
“… her bloom had vanished early…”
It might have been fond imagining, but Cassandra was almost certain that her reluctant little audience was now quite in her grasp. Nevertheless the act of performance was tiring, and there was still much to do before she could rest. After four chapters she put down Persuasion and looked up: The Enemy of the Novel did not seem quite as ferociously hostile as before.
“Are we to stop there? Oh! Well, thank you, Cassandra. To my surprise, I found it rather enjoyable. Anne is a very pleasant sort of person, sensible—quite the right sort of heroine, to my mind. There is not so much drama about her as in other books. I do not appreciate too much drama myself, and fail to understand why it should be so often written about. After all, there is so little drama in life, is there not? Please, before you go up, do reassure me: Does it all turn out well for her? Is there a happy ending in store?”
“My sister did not write desultory novels, Isabella—that was just one aspect of her genius.” Cassandra put the book back in the valise. “But what would constitute a happy ending, in your view?”
“Well, marriage, of course!” Isabella retorted. “What other sort is there?”
Cassandra looked up, raised an eyebrow, and paused. She could now protest and proclaim, saying: Look at me, Isabella! I have known happiness. Without man or marriage, I found a happiness, true and sublime! But who would believe her? She was now an old woman, and such proclamations were really not in her style.
“Ah.” She spoke mildly instead, using the arm of the chair to push herself upright. “Then what a tragedy that the world has so many unmarried women in it, if there is no route to any possible happiness open to them.” She took the hand that Isabella offered, and together they walked through to the foot of the staircase. “Goodnight, my dear. We will pick up Anne’s story tomorrow evening. And I promise all will be revealed before I leave.”
* * *
IN BED—WASHED, CHANGED, her long gray hair plaited—Cassandra leaned back with relief upon the tough bolster and took a minute to luxuriate in the privacy of her bare little room. She was tired from the day, and quite exhausted by Isabella. But there would be little sleep that night: Work must be done.
Cassandra had been relieved, when she went through the settle to see dear Eliza had done most of her work for her: All correspondence had been individually arranged, tied into packets with a pale blue ribbon. On the top were all the letters from Eliza’s many children. Cassandra had rummaged beneath. She came, in passing, across those from her own mother, but was sure there would be nothing in there to detain her. She knew the detail without even looking: expert notes on animal husbandry, helpful tips for confinement, dramatic details of her many minor illnesses. She had leaned in further, hands delving deeper. A huge bundle from Martha—dear Martha!—formed an obstruction. She lifted it out, put it to the side; revealed was a hand that was both immediately familiar and yet hard to place. It was a long moment before the force of the truth hit her: that she was face to face with the evidence of her own happy, girlish self. She shook a little, and sighed. They must be examined at some point, but were not her main quarry. She took them out, and there below—a rich rush of love flooded through her—was the writing of Jane.
She had touched it and gasped. Her sister had been dead for so many years; in Chawton all her effects were cleared long ago. There had been a time when Cassandra—grief raw and still smarting—would stumble across some little trace, and the slow-healing wound would break open. Then, for hours, she could do nothing but cradle and weep over some inanimate object, as she had once cradled and wept over the corpse. But all that had passed. The pain had abated. The practical was here her concern.