Cassandra quieted, her sobs turning to the occasional sniffle, and blew her nose on the sheet. “Oh, I beg your pardon,” she muttered, mortified. “These are your sheets.”
“I would rather have you than anyone else in the world blow their nose on my sheets,” Jane replied, which made her sister give a weak giggle.
“What shall we do?” Cassandra asked.
Jane continued to brush her hair in slow, regular strokes. “We must impress upon Mama and Papa that we should accept no more favors from him or allow him to escort us anywhere. I did not tell you this before, but the evening we were at Sydney Gardens his uncle the general suggested I should sell myself for a pass to leave the city. He suggested other women had done as much.”
“Good God! I pity any woman who would do so. But—but you cannot stay in the house.” Cassandra took the ribbon from Jane and tied her hair up again. “Not after this.”
Jane‧s breath caught. It was what she wanted, to be with the Damned, to no longer have to lie to her family. But if she left this house, would it break the last, weakening tie with her family?
“You must go downstairs and warm yourself. Yes, I know my hands are colder than yours, but I‧m not yet dressed. We shall ask our mother for advice.”
When Jane arrived downstairs, she found Cassandra and her mother in the morning room, sitting close to the fire, their needlework on their laps and the remains of breakfast on the table. They looked up as she entered.
“What is this, Jane? What have you done to upset poor Captain Garonne?” her mother inquired.
“Poor Captain Garonne? Surely, ma‧am, you are mistaken.” She glanced at Cassandra, who now seemed to be intent only on her embroidery. “The truth of the matter, ma‧am, however much Cassandra may have tried to protect your feelings, is that he asked that I become his mistress and I refused him.”
“I am sure you are mistaken, Jane. Why, I saw him this morning and he was quite civil, although I could see he was distressed. When I questioned him he said you and he had fallen out, and he was disappointed since you were such good friends.”
“Good friends, ma‧am! I assure you I have never given him the slightest encouragement. Besides, we do not talk of a proposal of marriage.”
“Cassandra and I think you are mistaken.”
“No, I do not think so, ma‧am,” Cassandra said in a small, defeated voice. “How could any woman be mistaken by what the captain suggested to Jane? Pray do not attempt to put a good face on it, ma‧am, it will not do.”
Her mother laid her sewing aside. “My dear, we should not rush to hasty conclusions. We have thought Garonne to be very gentlemanly and generous, but perhaps we have been mistaken. You must take great care not to be alone with him anymore, Jane.”
Jane sighed. “Does Papa know of this?”
Cassandra looked up. “Papa is out. I expect he will not be back until later.”
“I see.” Jane crossed to the window. A light layer of frost lay on the panes in fantastic, curling patterns. When she pressed her fingertip against them, they did not melt and she did not wince at the cold. She heard the small popping sound of a needle penetrating fabric, the whisper of thread pulled through, the crackle of the fire—small familiar sounds, or rather, the sounds she would barely have heard in her former existence, a time when the two women sewing were dearer to her than anything in the world.
She turned back and regarded her mother and sister with the dispassionate gaze of a stranger: a middle-aged woman, worn down by the demands of a large family and never having quite enough money; a young woman with the lines of disappointment already showing on her face.
They‧re tired and I am part of their burden.
“Ma‧am, Cassandra. You know that several days ago Miss Venning offered me the position of companion and I have delayed the decision in deference to my own family‧s needs.” They both looked up from their sewing.
“I have never intended that a daughter of mine should leave to go into service,” Mrs. Austen said. “Frankly, I was surprised at the offer.”
“It is a very genteel, superior sort of position, ma‧am. I would not be a servant.”
“Consider how the poor thing lost her brother, ma‧am. She is all alone in the world,” Cassandra said. “And you would come to visit us, Jane, would you not?”
“Of course.”
“I think it might be for the better,” Mrs. Austen said. “She does seem quite a superior sort of young lady.”
Jane had hoped they would agree, but she was saddened by her mother‧s ready approval. On the other hand, if her mother and sister had begged she stay, she could only guess at their motivation.
“I shall write Papa a note. I think it best I leave as soon as possible.”
As she left, Cassandra rose and accompanied her. “You have not been the same since your illness.”
“I‧m well enough, now.” Jane walked ahead of her down the passage to her uncle‧s study. She heard the coldness in her voice and hated herself for it. This was Cassandra, her beloved sister.
“I thought you harbored a tendresse for Mr. Venning.”
“He was a very pleasant young gentleman.” Jane opened the study door. To her annoyance, Cassandra followed.
“Brr, it‧s cold in here. A pity indeed that he was persuaded to act so rashly against the French.”
Jane sat at the desk and chose a small piece of paper. Aware that Cassandra lurked nearby and might well read over her shoulder, she penned a brief note to her father, explaining that she had gone to stay at Miss Venning‧s house as her companion. It was the last note she might ever write to him, one that might be passed around, analyzed, pondered over. Would he finally tell her mother and sister the truth when she was gone and lost to them?
Tears rose to her eyes. She brushed them away, fearing she would weep and howl as Cassandra had done before breakfast.
She folded and sealed the note. Cassandra followed her up the stairs and into her bedchamber like a woebegone puppy, offering to help her pack. Jane was touched and felt tears rise again, but she needed to get Cassandra out of the way so she could pack her men‧s clothes. Finally, she hit upon the idea of asking to borrow Cassandra‧s gray pelisse, since Miss Venning was in mourning for her brother.
“Of course!” Cassandra darted out of the room, giving Jane a chance to pull her men‧s clothing from its hiding place and fold it at the bottom of her trunk.
Cassandra returned, the gray pelisse folded in her arms. “You will come back, won‧t you, Jane?” Cassandra asked in a small voice. She smoothed the sleeves of the pelisse.
“I assure you, I shall be a frequent visitor; in fact I shall be here so often you will beg me to leave. And in between visits I shall bombard you with so many notes that our footman‧s shoe leather will be thoroughly ruined.”
Cassandra laid the pelisse in the trunk. “Mama and I are both worried about your lack of appetite and how thin you are. Will you not take some breakfast before you leave?”
“I believe some lingering effects from my illness are common still. My appetite will return, I am sure. Cassandra, I shall be perfectly well. Come, smile for me. That long face does not suit you.”
“No, it is more than that.” Cassandra took a pair of stockings from Jane and folded them more neatly than she ever would. “I feel you still have a part of you missing. I miss my sister, my most beloved sister. When will you come back to me, Jane?”
Jane took her sister‧s hands. Fear, worry, deep sadness, bewilderment. She knew she should look deep into her sister‧s eyes and tell her to stop worrying and assure her that everything would be well. And Cassandra, her eyes soft and dazed, would agree with her.
But she could not do it. She could not bear to deceive her sister further, but neither could she tell her the truth and see Cassandra‧s repulsion and shame.
Cassandra, however, saved them both by assuming a resolutely cheerful air that made Jane love her all the more for her fine show of courage. “Do you have every
thing? Well, then. We shall send the footman to carry your box. Pray do not let him linger at Miss Venning‧s house. Poor thing, I expect she longs to leave Bath as much as we do. Where does the family come from?”
“Surrey, I believe,” Jane said vaguely. She accompanied her sister downstairs and gave her an affectionate kiss farewell, holding her tightly as Cassandra‧s confusion and sadness overwhelmed her. “I love you so much, Cassandra.”
Cassandra giggled. “You will be a mile away, Jane. Do not be such a sentimental creature.”
Jane wanted to pick up her skirts and run down the street of elegantly proportioned houses, past the lounging French soldiers who eyed her with lust and contempt, run home to her own kind. But she walked with eyes modestly downcast, a gentlewoman accompanied by her servant, ignoring the swirl of scents and emotions that swirled around the street. Her façade would have to be maintained only a short while longer, and there was a sweet pleasure in the delay and anticipation. Each step brought her closer to the house in Queens Square and those who waited for her there—the community of the Damned to which she now belonged.
She would not think of Cassandra‧s brave cheerfulness at her departure or the grief her sister would inevitably experience as she waited all her life for Jane to return.
As usual, since it was so early in the day, it took some time for the footman to answer the door. “They‧re all asleep, ma‧am,” he said, scratching his head beneath the powdered wig.
“It doesn‧t matter.” Jane dismissed the manservant from Paragon Place who had carried her box and walked into the quiet house that was now her home.
“So you‧ve come to us.” Clarissa, wearing an elegant, filmy gown, ran downstairs and embraced her. “You have left them. Have we not told you this is what you should do? I am so glad. Now you are truly one of us.”
Chapter 16
“Another one, miss?”
Jane, her mouth full, nodded eagerly as Mr. Jacques Brown the cook placed another delectable profiterole onto her plate.
Whatever else she had expected with her arrival at Queens Square, it was not to end up in the kitchen being fed treats by the staff.
Clarissa, after her enthusiastic welcome, had yawned and apologized, and retired to her room. Every other one of the Damned was asleep, or taking whatever sort of rest they required after the long night. With some timidity she had tried to announce her arrival to Luke, who had sent a distinctly grumpy reply into her mind that he would be available later in the day. Disconcerted, reluctant to stay in the dining room (gloomy and with gossiping footmen cleaning the furniture), and equally reluctant to view the squalid aftermath of the usual drawingroom debauchery, she had wandered into the kitchen in search of company and sustenance. It might not be the sort of sustenance she really wanted, but Mr. Brown was so pleased to feed someone who appreciated his cooking that his enthusiasm was quite as satisfying as his pastries.
“A little apple tart, next?” Mr. Brown dipped a spoon into a bowl of clotted cream, rich and heavy. “Very nice, miss, with cream. You will like it.”
“Thank you. I‧m sure I will.” She held her plate out yet again.
A couple of men, Jack and another she did not recognize, and a woman came down to the kitchen as she finished her slice of tart. From their careful gait—she imagined their descent of the steep kitchen stairs must have been exceedingly cautious—and their satisfied, sleepy smiles, she gathered they had entertained in the drawing room.
Her offer to revive them was met with bright smiles and Mr. Brown grumbled as he drew them off glasses of ale and set the visitors to toasting bread on the kitchen fire. She bit into her finger and dripped a little blood into each glass.
“You will burn your toast,” Mr. Brown chided them—for they watched her bloodletting with avid, greedy eyes. “Thank the lady now, if you please.”
Footfalls pattered down the stairs, and Ann entered the kitchen. “Your bedchamber is ready for you, Miss Jane.”
She wasn‧t ready to sleep, but she thought she might as well get some rest. Her plate scraped clean, she followed Ann upstairs—right up to the top of the house, where normally servants would sleep. But servants’ bedchambers would not be as richly appointed as this, with a curtained bed, expensive mahogany furniture decorated with a tasteful ivory inlay, and a fire lit in the small fireplace. Her box of possessions, looking distinctly shabby, stood on the intricately patterned carpet.
“Where do you sleep, Ann?” Then, seeing a knowing smile spread over the girl‧s face, she added, “Don‧t any of the servants sleep in?”
“Mr. Brown has a room off the kitchen, and I generally sleep with Miss Clarissa. She likes to have me close to hand. All the others come in by the day or by the night. It‧s best that way, for when we move.”
“A move is planned? Where to?”
“Oh, yes. Sometime, that is, but I don‧t know where or when. They don‧t usually tell me until the same day. It‧s their way, for they are used to not staying in one place for too long.” She bent to unfasten Jane‧s box. “I can help you unpack, miss. Why, what‧s this writing?”
“Nothing!” Jane snatched the manuscript from her hands. Cassandra must have slipped it into the box when Jane wasn‧t looking.
“You wrote all that, miss?”
“Yes. It‧s a novel.”
“Goodness.” Ann bent over the box. “They‧re not much for reading although George has a few books. He‧s next door to you, miss. You may want to lock your door. Or not.” She giggled and pulled out one of Jane‧s gowns. “This needs ironing. Is this your best?”
“I‧m afraid so.” Her best gown, the same muslin she had worn when she had been created, looked sadly drab.
“Miss Clarissa will lend you hers. She has lots of gowns.” Ann made a face as she shook out one of Jane‧s morning gowns, a striped cotton. “If there‧s cloth to be had in the town, I daresay you‧ll order some new ones.”
“I regret I can‧t afford it.”
“Mr. Luke will pay.”
“Oh.”
“It‧s what a Bearleader does.” Ann rummaged in the box again. “Or a protector.”
“Where does he sleep?”
“Oh, he doesn‧t, miss. Not much. Neither he nor Mr. William. They‧re old, you see. They usually rest a little after they dine, but they don‧t go to bed like others.”
Jane, aware that she clutched her abandoned manuscript to her chest, walked the few paces over to the dressing table and laid it down carefully. “Could you bring me a pen and ink, when you‧ve finished with my clothes?”
“Certainly, miss. I‧ll darn these stockings for you too.”
Ann left with her arms full of clothes, and Jane paced the small room and peered out of the window at the gray day and the stark, bare trees of Queens Square. The surrounding elegant, beautifully proportioned houses that on a sunny day would appear the color of Mr. Brown‧s clotted cream today looked merely drab and brownish. She lay on the bed, wondering if she could sleep, but was too restless. And hungry, but she could wait until nightfall.
A footman brought her pen and ink, and she drew a chair up to a small folding table and gritted her teeth. She would write. She had to write.
But this was dreadful stuff. Why, her sentences barely made sense—they were clumsy and ugly but she could not see how to improve them. She turned the page and read on until she realized she had lost the narrative thread entirely. Was it her or was it what she had written?
She considered. Maybe she was thinking like one of the Damned, contemplating eternity and the knowledge that nothing needed to make sense; that there was no form or structure because life continued, whatever sort of pattern you attempted to apply. She thought back over the events of the last several days.
She had been created.
She came to Bath.
The French took the city.
She fell in love with Luke—no, that was nonsense, particularly falling in love with Luke. If she had not become one of the Damned, she would
not have come to Bath. If Margaret had not come to Bath, Luke and the others would not have come here. There were no connections, no patterns. She might as well argue that the French invaded England because Jane Austen attended an assembly in a country town.
As for Luke, he would not allow her to read his mind or give any sign that her regard was returned, although he would flirt with any pretty woman, she suspected—and then there was his earlier attachment to Margaret. Well, she had all eternity to sigh over him, a thought that did not appeal overmuch.
Better to think that there was this brief day to get through, after which the others would awake, and they would dine and dance, and possibly kill some Frenchmen.
“So you are here.”
Jane whirled around. Margaret stood in the doorway of the room. Despite the earliness of the hour she appeared elegant in a morning gown of a soft blue, her hair held with a matching fillet. A subtle perfume wafted from her. She had completely recovered her strength and beauty, her red hair striking against her white skin, a far cry from the frail, half-dead creature Jane had met in the Pump Room.
“Will you not come in?” Jane asked, but Margaret had already entered and sunk gracefully onto the bed.
“What is it that you do?” Margaret asked.
“I‧m writing.” Jane tapped her manuscript into a neat pile, and tied the ribbon around it—how like Cassandra to replace the workaday string with one of her own ribbons. As she knotted the ribbon, a faint scent, a memory of her sister, arose.
“I did not mean that. I mean, why are you in this house? Why have you joined us?”
“I thought it was time,” Jane said.
“I see.” Margaret toyed with a lock of her hair that had fallen over one shoulder, like a streak of blood on her skin. “It is usual for the company of the house to decide among themselves who shall live with them. I am surprised Luke or William has not told you this. You see, not everyone wants you here.”
“You mean you do not.”
“I was not consulted. Neither was William, to whom you can only be an embarrassment.”
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