The Austen Girls

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The Austen Girls Page 5

by Lucy Worsley


  ‘All because he wouldn’t ask you to dance,’ she now said scornfully. ‘It’s easy to mock him and do him down. I happen to like his company.’

  ‘Oh, but Anna,’ Fanny said, at last giving up fiddling with the things on the dressing table and turning squarely to face her cousin. ‘I truly don’t think he’s kind, or generous. I don’t think he’d treat you as you deserve to be treated. I would rather you married almost anyone else but him.’

  ‘What, even a clergyman?’ said Anna. Her face was now turned away, but Fanny could see that Anna’s hands were plucking brutally at the blanket which covered the bed.

  ‘Why yes, even a clergyman. Or especially a clergyman. They are … you know …’ Fanny tailed off miserably.

  ‘Yes, clergymen,’ said Anna bitterly. ‘They’re the sort of men who are supposed to marry a girl like me.’

  She said no more, but lay there looking at the wall.

  Silence fell.

  No nightingales tonight, Fanny thought, hearing the stillness of the woods outside. There really were so few people living in this part of Hampshire. So few potential husbands.

  She sighed and blew out the candle, then slipped into bed beside Anna. The silence grew longer and longer, as Fanny couldn’t think what to say next. Anna, and Lord Smedley, and the disappointing Mr Terry from that afternoon’s tea party all seemed to whir round inside her head, like the dancers at a ball.

  When would the music stop? Who would be facing whom when it did?

  Chapter 10

  The breakfast table, Godmersham Park

  Fanny sighed loudly as she wiped Louie’s howling face. She was back at home in Kent, while Anna had remained behind in Hampshire. Everything seemed particularly miserable and ordinary at Godmersham, and now Fanny’s sister had somehow managed to smear herself all over with porridge.

  Their father, though, was happily slurping up a glass of Madeira at the same time as devouring his ham. The noise around the table was almost intolerable, but he barely noticed.

  Fanny saw, rather than heard, the door opening, and the footman entering with the post. She saw her mother had spotted this too, straightening up and brightening.

  This was the day that the fashion magazines arrived, and Fanny looked forward to reading them with Aunt Jane. It was something they always did quietly together. They generally had to wait for a couple of days, though, while Elizabeth carried them around with her, loudly complaining that she had no time to read them.

  But to Fanny’s surprise, the footman kept coming, round the table, still holding something, and holding it out to her. A letter!

  Well, this was a nice surprise, on yet another dreary day of face-wiping. No one ever wrote to Fanny, except her aunts and uncles on her birthday.

  And now she recognised Anna’s bold hand. It was extremely rare to get a letter from Anna, because postage was expensive and Anna’s pocket money did not go far. Fanny really wanted to save her letter till later when she’d be by herself. But her father had a curious knack of noticing things when she didn’t want him to.

  ‘What scrape has young Anna got herself into this time?’

  Fanny thought fast. Sometimes Anna wrote things in her letters which weren’t fit for the family breakfast table. Sometimes she said things that were particularly unfit for her aunt Elizabeth and uncle Edward’s ears, complaints about the blissful, wasteful life at Godmersham. Fanny occasionally wished that her and her cousin’s roles were reversed. Anna seemed so sure that to be a Miss Austen of Godmersham was better than a Miss Austen of Steventon. Anna didn’t realise that a Miss Austen of Godmersham was expected to do boring and pointless things too.

  She must equivocate.

  ‘You know how bad her handwriting is, Papa!’ she said. ‘It will take me ages to puzzle it out.’

  He was pouring coffee now, and telling Marianne that she couldn’t have any, she was too young, and … after that Fanny lost track of her family because Anna’s letter had leaped up and grabbed her by the throat.

  Dearest Fanny! Dear, dear, dearest Fanny! it began.

  This was a bit over the top, even for Anna.

  I am the happiest girl alive. And the unhappiest. Fanny, I know you think I didn’t listen, but I have taken your advice. Today Mr Michael Terry asked me to be his wife, and I accepted. But my parents – I really and truly HATE them, by the way – have refused their consent. I simply don’t accept this. I consider myself engaged to him, and we love each other most sincerely. Fanny! He kissed me! It was very strange and glorious. I want to tell you all about it. Now wish me luck, dear Fanny, because I have a battle ahead – making THEM agree.

  It was Marianne who noticed that Fanny was sitting rigid, her eyes still on the paper.

  ‘Well, Fanny?’ she said. ‘What’s going on at Steventon? Is Anna engaged? Has she beaten you?’

  Fanny slowly raised her eyes from the paper.

  ‘Well … yes,’ she said.

  ‘What nonsense, Fanny,’ said their mother. ‘Don’t make jokes about such a serious business. I wish you girls would take it more to heart – it’s not a game.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Fanny, louder and more firmly. ‘Yes, it’s true. That was a lucky guess, Marianne. Anna is … engaged!’

  Very little made Fanny’s father and mother simultaneously put down their occupations and turn to her with their full attention.

  ‘No!’ said Edward.

  ‘Yes?’ asked Elizabeth limply.

  Fanny saw at once that her mother was disappointed that Fanny herself wasn’t the first Miss Austen to have accepted a proposal. Fanny had been excited on Anna’s behalf, although a bit confused and worried by what Anna meant about her ‘advice’. But now she realised that there was another emotion swilling around inside her as well. Was it jealousy? Anna had won the race. Anna had won the prize of being the first Miss Austen to be engaged.

  Yes, Mr Terry was only a clergyman, but at least he was a husband. Oh, why had Fanny wasted so much time at the balls she’d attended, by dancing again and again with Mr Drummer? She had to try harder!

  She met Aunt Jane’s gaze across the table, and winced. It was so unfortunate that Aunt Jane should be looking at her at such a moment. She knew that her aunt would read the shameful, hurt reaction on her face.

  ‘No,’ Edward said more loudly. ‘That’s nonsense. Who is the man? My brother James doesn’t know any eligible bachelors, buried away in the countryside. The only place Anna could meet a man worth marrying is here at Godmersham. And you’ve only just come back from Hampshire, Fanny, and she wasn’t engaged then! There’s been no time.’

  ‘Fanny,’ Aunt Jane now asked seriously. ‘Do Anna’s parents approve of this match?’

  It was, of course, a difficult question to answer. How much of Anna’s private business should she give away? Fanny saw that Marianne, for one, was all agog. But Marianne wasn’t really old enough for such things.

  ‘Well, no,’ Fanny said reluctantly, before deciding that there was no choice but to reveal all. ‘Anna says that they do not approve. He really has no money at all, and Aunt Mary wants Anna to marry someone with at least a bit. I imagine they are all in uproar at the rectory.’

  It was all too easy to picture the scene. Doors being slammed, Anna throwing herself on to her bed in fits of tears and saying that her stepmother, Mary, wasn’t her real mother, and didn’t really love her.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Aunt Jane. ‘I suspect, Elizabeth, that the man in question must be one of your dreaded clergymen.’

  ‘He is,’ Fanny said. ‘I’ve met him, of course, he came to tea. He was all right, I mean, there wasn’t anything particularly wrong with him. But I wasn’t expecting …’

  ‘I don’t dislike all clergymen,’ cut in Elizabeth. ‘What a thing to say, Jane! There are some very good livings to be had in the church, and I wouldn’t object to a dean or a bishop for Anna. Then she could live in a palace! But so many of them, unfortunately, are so miserably poor.’

  Now there was the v
iolent scraping of a chair being pushed back, right off the edge of the carpet and on to the boards of the floor.

  Fanny had rarely seen her father so deeply moved. Abandoning his plate, he was stalking back and forth, his hands behind his back.

  ‘I must write at once to James,’ he said, ‘and tell him that this, that this … cannot be allowed to stand. Oh, what is the dratted thing called? You know, a miss … a missa …’

  ‘A mésalliance,’ said Aunt Jane, quietly. ‘But really, you must consider poor Anna. She must be dreadfully upset if she has got herself into a situation like this. What if she’s in love? It can happen, you know. Even with clergymen.’

  ‘Love?’ said Marianne doubtfully. The word ‘love’ was never mentioned in any of the Godmersham discussions about marriage.

  ‘Well, at least that Mr Drummer is safely out of the way,’ said Elizabeth smartly. ‘He was far too young and single and penniless for my liking.’

  Marianne had been following the conversation intently.

  ‘What’s happened to Mr Drummer?’ she now asked. ‘We only heard him preach about three times, and then he disappeared.’

  Fanny sensed the grown-ups exchanging glances, and knew at once that something had happened while she was in Hampshire. Something they didn’t want to talk about. But the grown-ups had also neglected to prepare what to say about it to the children.

  She drew herself up in silent resentment. Sometimes the grown-ups considered her as one of them, sometimes they didn’t.

  But Fanny said nothing, because she wanted Marianne to think that like the rest of the adults, she did know what had happened to Mr Drummer.

  ‘Mr Drummer,’ said Aunt Jane delicately, when it became clear that no one else was going to speak, ‘has been the subject of a most unfortunate accusation. He has been accused of stealing. But we need to know all the facts before we decide what we think.’

  Fanny frowned. Really? ‘Her’ Mr Drummer, as she privately thought of him? Dominic? Surely he wasn’t a thief. There must be some mistake.

  ‘Oh fiddlesticks, Jane,’ said Elizabeth, with some fire. She too rose up from her chair.

  Fanny observed how her aunt Jane went on quietly eating her toast. She didn’t appear to be at all frightened. That’s the way, Fanny thought, to deal with wrath.

  ‘He was far too young, too dreamy, no connections, nothing to recommend him at all! It’s good riddance. Of course he did it. He wanted some decent clothes! Mr Austen!’

  Appealed to in an argument, Edward always tried to make peace. ‘Well, well, my dears, let’s see, shall we? We really did know very little about the fellow, Jane, and I’m not even sure where you got him from when you rustled him up out of nowhere.’

  ‘I like Mr Drummer,’ said Jane, unfolding her paper. ‘He’s not a ninny, unlike so many of the ballroom creepers with whom poor Fanny has to go out dancing. And I shall do him the honour of treating him as if, like all citizens of this country, he is to be considered innocent until proven guilty before the law.’

  ‘But what about Anna?’ cried Fanny, feeling that the adults were getting diverted from the more pressing business. Mr Drummer wasn’t relevant to the vital subject of marriage and husbands. Of course not. ‘Shall I write at once to Anna and tell her to come here?’

  ‘No, you shall not,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Oh, do be quiet for once, Marianne!’

  Marianne had started to agree with Fanny. Of course, they wanted to see their cousin Anna at this great crisis of her life.

  ‘No, no, she shall not come here,’ Elizabeth insisted. ‘Let Mr Drummer remain where he belongs, which is well away from this house, and let Uncle James do what he hardly ever manages to do, mainly because he can’t get a word in edgeways, and tell her for once that she … CAN’T!’

  With that Elizabeth swept up her magazines, undid Louie’s little hands from her skirt and flounced out of the door, pausing oddly before she closed it.

  Despite the drama, Fanny half laughed.

  She realised that her mother had been on the point of slamming the door – until, that is, she’d realised that that’s exactly what Anna would have done herself.

  Elizabeth closed it ever so, ever so quietly instead.

  Chapter 11

  Aunt Jane’s bedroom, Godmersham Park

  After breakfast, Fanny wandered along the corridor, hardly knowing where to go. The window at the end revealed that the wind was chasing patches of watery sunlight across the grass in the park outside. The seasons were changing, summer was coming. Anna engaged! Anna married! Fanny’s mind kept slipping from one thing to another. Her best friend was moving on and leaving her behind.

  She could hear, from her sisters’ distant shrieks, that they were upstairs in the nursery. Lice had been discovered in the hair of their brother George, and the girls were enjoying watching Mrs Sackree combing them out.

  Eventually Fanny remembered what she was supposed to be doing, which was listening to the little girls reading. She marched up to the nursery, extracted her pupils and took them back to the library. Soon, the familiar halting drone from Moral Tales for Young People started up, and Fanny’s mind wandered off again. Where would Anna and Mr Terry live, if her father did allow her to marry?

  She wracked her brains to remember what Mr Terry had actually been like. There was little to go on. She remembered his stoop, his black clothes, and his long silences.

  There seemed nothing good about him at all, except for the fact that he was a full-grown, single man with all his faculties. Was that why Anna had accepted him? Was it worth it, just to get a husband?

  ‘Fan!’

  Marianne had almost shouted her name. Fanny detached her eyes from the chestnut tree beginning to bud outside the window, and forced them back indoors. She looked at the books, the fire, the daffodils in their vase upon the table, almost with wonder. Nothing had changed, and yet everything had changed. Anna was engaged to be married.

  ‘Oh, that’s enough for now,’ she said, vaguely. Lizzie clapped her hands in delight, and the two girls went running back upstairs.

  ‘Are the lice out? Can we see them? How big are they?’

  She heard the yells fading as they galloped upwards.

  Fanny sighed. What was she supposed to do? Write to congratulate Anna? Anna had promised that she’d be married by Christmas, and it looked like she was going to be as good as her word.

  As Fanny prowled through the hall, the mansion all around her was living its many lives, ticking, turning, throbbing with its business. She could hear her mother in the housekeeper’s room as usual, planning the day’s menu in a torrent of castigation and complaint. No point in asking her.

  In the silver room, the maids were hard at work on the forks and spoons. Fanny knew that every one of them would be terrifically excited by the thought of Anna’s engagement and utterly in favour of a quick wedding.

  She wondered where her father was; probably out on farm business. She half-smiled at the memory of his almost comic anger as he tried to remember the word ‘mésalliance’ …

  Aunt Jane. Of course, Aunt Jane.

  Fanny climbed the stairs, running, until she remembered that she was now a grown-up young lady with a cousin who was already engaged.

  But in the passage she speeded up once more. There was the small rug which provided such a satisfying skid if you leaped on to it. She only became demure once more when she reached her aunt’s door.

  She tapped.

  Silence within.

  She tapped again, a little louder.

  ‘Yes, Fanny?’

  Aunt Jane really was uncanny in her ability to deduce what was going on out of her sight.

  Fanny stepped inside. Although there was a view of the luxuriant chestnut leaves outside, the room was small, much smaller than the other bedrooms. But Fanny had heard her aunt saying that she preferred it that way. As usual, Aunt Jane wasn’t looking out at the bright green beyond her window. Her long angular figure was bent over her desk.

&nb
sp; ‘How did you know it was me?’ Fanny asked.

  Aunt Jane finally threw down her pen and rubbed at her back.

  ‘Oh, your mother would have banged at the door. Your father would have marched straight in. The younger girls would have run off after knocking just once, they are far too impatient to wait for an answer, and as for the boys, well, the boys never come here because I have frightened them away.’

  Fanny knew that if her younger brothers teased their aunt too much and annoyed her, Aunt Jane would pretend to be a witch who could put a spell on them that would make their breeches mysteriously fall down in public.

  Aunt Jane, still rubbing her back but more slowly, was looking closely at Fanny.

  ‘Come here, Fanny,’ she was saying. ‘Come and sit down here. What is it? Is it Anna?’

  All of a sudden, at the unexpected sympathy, Fanny found her eyes full of hot and shameful tears.

  ‘I’m not going to put a spell on you,’ her aunt said, confidentially. ‘You are quite my favourite niece. Apart from Anna, of course. Let’s talk about Anna. It’s confusing, isn’t it?’

  ‘Aunt Jane,’ said Fanny, giving up trying to hide her swimming eyes and getting out her handkerchief. ‘I do love Anna.’

  ‘I know you do,’ said her aunt. ‘I can see when you two are together that you’re just like my own sister and I.’

  Aunt Cassandra, as all the Godmersham children knew, was a softer touch than Aunt Jane, good for gifts of sugar candy and shillings. Sparing with punishments, she was always ready to indulge in a game of dressing up or shuttlecocks when she came to visit. Fanny sometimes felt that she alone of all the children appreciated the person of great kindness who lay behind Aunt Jane’s more forbidding manner.

  ‘Well, do you think she’s right to … to … jump at this man? Just because she’s desperate? That must be what’s happened, don’t you think? If she really liked anyone, it would be Lord Smedley. But that, um, was never going to work.’

  ‘I really don’t know,’ her aunt said simply. That was the thing about Aunt Jane; she never lied to you, not even to make you feel better.

 

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