by Lucy Worsley
Anna turned away and stared at the floor. Then she seemed to make a special effort. Turning back, she smoothed Fanny’s own hair with the brush. It was a soothing feeling.
‘No. Nothing. I’m sure my uncle Edward will be very kind,’ she said. ‘But it gets boring having to be grateful the whole time.’
It was awkward. Things had never been this awkward between them before. Fanny’s heart bled inside her. It ached for her proud, poor cousin.
‘Oh, Anna!’ she said all in a rush, putting her hand on Anna’s shoulder. ‘Are you really sure, absolutely really sure, that he’s the right man for you? You seem so … different from each other,’ Fanny added. ‘And it’s for life, you know, not just for a dancing season.’
Anna shoved Fanny away, almost brutally.
‘Oh yes,’ she said sourly. ‘He’s poor. There’s no getting away from that. There’s no getting away from the fact that he’s thirty years old, and doesn’t have a parish, and wouldn’t be good enough for a Miss Austen of Godmersham.’
‘That’s not what I meant,’ said Fanny, in some desperation. But it was too late.
Anna’s voice was rising in pitch, and her words were punctuated by ragged little gasps.
‘But, Fanny,’ she continued, throwing down the hairbrush, ‘he’s good enough for me. He’s going to take me away from horrible Steventon, and my horrible stepmother, and my horrible life there, and that must be enough. Now go and take your pity somewhere else.’
With that Anna flounced up from the dressing stool, threw herself into the bed and pulled the blanket round her shoulders, staring at the wall, as if having taken a vow to say nothing more.
There was a sharp squall of rain against the windowpane as Fanny blew out the candle and crept slowly in the dark to the bed.
She sat down on the edge of it and let her slippers fall off her feet. She took in a breath, ready to say that of course she didn’t mean to criticise, of course she understood Anna’s situation.
But once again her mind filled with the thought of Mr Terry’s tufty old-man eyebrows, and the hairs she’d seen poking out of his nostrils. Anna was only just sixteen! She would have to spend so much of her life with him!
Fanny reached down for her slippers, straightening them, lining them up ready for the morning.
She looked over at Anna’s stiff shoulder.
There was a long pause. Fanny’s eyes strayed back to the dark shape of her shoes. No, she just couldn’t find the words.
Eventually, a tear slipped silently out of Fanny’s eye, and down her cheek. It was a long time before she got properly into the bed, and even longer before she could get off to sleep.
Chapter 22
The breakfast table, Godmersham Park
When Fanny opened her eyes, she saw that Anna was up already and sitting by the window. She was looking moodily out at the park, twisting, always twisting her hair.
Fanny brought over a shawl, her favourite one in pink and green. She did not like to lend it to anyone.
‘Here,’ she said. ‘It’s chilly.’
Anna stared at her blankly and said nothing.
Fanny turned away, the shawl awkward in her hands. She once again felt tears prick.
But then she felt something different in her stomach, something hot and roiling.
Was it anger?
Yes, it was. There was no need for Anna to be so hostile. Fanny wrapped her shawl around her own shoulders and stalked right out of the bedroom. Anna was so difficult. So ‘damnably difficult’, as Fanny’s brother Edward might say.
Where could Fanny go, dressed as she was only in her nightgown?
She went upstairs to see Louie, and was rewarded by the brightening of the little girl’s face, and a ‘good morning’ from Mrs Sackree. Perhaps I should come up here more often, Fanny thought. Poor Mrs Sackree looked tired.
It could be pleasant and calm in the nursery in the early morning like this, with baby Cassie sleeping all splayed out across her cot, as if she had been poured there out of a jug.
Fanny went to pull the cord to raise the blind, and as she did so, she spotted Anna again, now mooching about by herself in the wet grass below. She must be getting her slippers soaked.
Breakfast was just as stiff as dinner had been. Fanny’s eyes switched nervously between Mr Terry, who was getting crumbs down his front, and Anna, who was still wan and withdrawn.
She felt marginally better when Aunt Jane gave her a nod and straightened her poker-like back.
‘Bear up,’ Aunt Jane was saying.
The post arrived, which only reminded Fanny of the excitement in the old days when Mr Terry was just a lovely distant prospect on the horizon, and everyone was hoping that Uncle James would write agreeing to let Anna marry him.
The letter that Pemberton now presented to Fanny’s father looked dull, probably a bill that would put him into a rage. But then Fanny noticed that her father had lifted his gaze from the paper, and was staring vacantly at the dripping trees outside.
‘What is it, Papa?’ she ventured to ask. ‘Is it bad news?’
‘Well,’ he said, coming back to himself and giving Fanny a private grin. ‘It’s sad, but we’ll survive. It’s news of that Mr Drummer, whom you ladies like so much. He’s to be tried, very soon, Mr Fortescue tells me. Of course, because the value of what he stole was forty shillings – who knew that a piece of women’s frippery like lace could cost so much, heh, Mrs Austen? – his sentence might be transportation. To the colony of Australia. Sounds like an open-and-shut case.’
‘Papa!’ Fanny said, dismayed. ‘No! There must be some mistake.’
But her father wasn’t listening.
‘He won’t be able to come back here even if he avoids getting sent to Australia,’ he continued. ‘We couldn’t have a parson who’d been charged with a crime.’
‘Uncle Edward!’
It was Anna, on her feet. Fanny sighed. Of course, Anna had already been in a bad mood, and now her uncle had said the very thing to get her going.
‘You said he stole,’ Anna panted out, furious. ‘Well, there’s no evidence of that, nothing! And a citizen is innocent until proved guilty! You, a magistrate, of all people should know that!’
In her passion, she hurled her napkin down on the floor and stood there, staring at her uncle.
In the silence that followed, Fanny’s father’s hand crept back to the letter, as if he needed to read it again and reassure himself of the facts.
But to Fanny’s surprise, Mr Terry’s fluting voice cut in.
‘My dear Miss Austen,’ he began, faltering, but then regaining confidence. ‘My dear Miss Austen, I must counsel you not to contradict your uncle. Of course, he knows best what the facts may be, and of course the full force of the law must be felt against malefactors.’
‘What’s a malefactor?’ asked Marianne, innocently.
Fanny noticed Aunt Jane’s shoulders move a tiny bit, almost as if she were swallowing a laugh.
‘A malefactor,’ said Mr Terry, ‘is a bad person, a person beneath the notice of the Miss Austens, and it is really quite distressing and wrong for young ladies to concern themselves with such people.’
‘Distressing and wrong?’ cried Anna. ‘What about justice? And honour? And what about this young man to whom some great evil has been done, of which my uncle will not take the trouble to find out?’
She had thrown back her head, and her hair had come undone. She really did look magnificent, Fanny thought. One might say that her eyes flashed. Almost like a heroine’s.
Fanny noticed that Lizzie was watching Anna and Mr Terry very hard. So was Marianne. Their eyes were flicking between the two as if between the players in a game of shuttlecock. There was something she’d never felt before in that room, a real uncomfortable feeling of tension.
Mr Terry slowly stood up from the table and pompously placed the tips of his fingers upon its surface.
‘I shall withdraw,’ he said with ostentatious calmness, ‘while Miss A
nna Austen takes the time to control herself, and to recover her composure.’ And he made his way towards the door in an unusually smooth version of his stumbling walk. The effect was a little spoilt by his having to turn the doorknob twice before he caught the trick of opening it.
‘What’s …’ began Louie.
But her mother gave her a sharp smack.
‘Not now,’ Elizabeth said shortly. ‘Anna, Anna, it’ll be all right.’
‘It won’t be all right,’ Anna said crossly, ‘because none of you care.’ With that she too flounced out, this time slamming the door as hard as she could, so that its frame shook.
Fanny’s father sighed.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘she didn’t stay to hear one piece of good news. A benefactor has paid for Mr Drummer to move out of the common ward and into the gaoler’s house. So at least he is comfortable and getting proper food.’
‘Papa!’ said Lizzie. ‘Was it you? That was kind.’
‘No, no,’ he said quickly. ‘It wasn’t me. I must admit, although I wouldn’t say it in front of my niece, that perhaps I didn’t pay as much attention as I should to the young man’s predicament. Ten children, you know! All the harvest ruined in this rain. Not to mention my wife’s dressmaker’s bills. And no one pays me a penny for my work as a magistrate. Lord knows this system we have isn’t quite fair. Now, for Heaven’s sake, do stop crying, Marianne. No one is going to Australia.’
‘You mean, no one is going to Australia yet.’
It was Aunt Jane, speaking drily as usual from her corner behind a barricade of jam jars.
Fanny’s father looked hard at his sister.
‘That’s right, Jane,’ he said evenly. ‘I wonder what kind friend the young man may possess, to help him out so significantly? I thought he had no friends. It’s a mystery.’
Once again Fanny felt that something strange was in the room, something unspoken, some kind of tussle of wills.
But of course, Aunt Jane couldn’t have paid to get Mr Drummer into better accommodation, especially after she’d paid for Anna’s stagecoach fare to Godmersham just a few weeks ago. She was an old maid. She had hardly any money.
Aunt Jane had no resources, nor did Anna, nor did Fanny herself. But she could at least do one thing.
She must find the right time to speak to Anna, and apologise, and try to console her, and to do everything she could to make it better. If only Anna would let herself be consoled.
Chapter 23
Chilham Castle, near Canterbury
And then, to cap it all, Fanny remembered with dismay, this was the very evening of the Chilham Ball.
Fanny had been looking forward to it – a ball at a real castle! – oh, for ages, even before she’d known that Anna would be staying at Godmersham and would be able to come along as well. She also had a new dress, a deep rose pink, much more exciting than the white she’d worn for her debut at the Star Inn.
But now everything was perplexing. She and Anna were still supposed to go to the ball, yet so too was Mr Terry. Fanny could not begin to imagine having a good time.
She dressed for the ball alone. Anna had secretly sloped off and got ready during teatime. Then she’d taken herself to the library, to sit there mutely with Mr Terry, each of them turning over the pages of books. Fanny knew that Mr Terry had no need to get changed himself, for he had just the one suit of clothes.
It was all so very different, Fanny felt as she descended the stairs, from the time when she and Anna had floated down on a cloud of nerves to attend their first ball back in the very early spring.
Yet when Fanny heard the dull crunch of the carriage wheels on the gravel – both carriages, for her father and mother and Mr Terry and Aunt Jane were all to be accommodated – her spirits nevertheless lifted.
It would still be a ball, after all. There was something cheerful about the very word.
Perhaps Fanny herself might meet someone perfect, someone suitable in every way. Then her duty would be done, and she could just stop worrying. The task, the decision, would be out of her hands.
On her way across the hall, Fanny mentally reviewed her partners from her last ball. Several of them were acceptable, from the point of view of her parents at least.
But none of them had Mr Drummer’s diffident smile, his way of asking a question as if he really wanted to know what she thought, that special look in his eyes he used to have just for her.
It was still chilly outdoors, so Fanny skipped quickly across the forecourt, and with a jump she was in the foremost of the two carriages. Empty. Yes, she was first in, and the rest must be following.
Now she could hear running feet on the gravel – it must be Anna. To Fanny’s surprise, Anna was bounding towards the vehicle, saying something to the coachman, and then banging her way in and slamming the door. Smartly and swiftly, almost before Anna had sat down, the carriage moved off.
Fanny’s mouth dropped open.
‘But, Anna!’ she said, forgetting for a second that they weren’t on speaking terms. ‘What about everyone else? Where’s Mr Terry?’
‘Oh, he must come with my uncle and aunts,’ Anna said. ‘I really can’t face another minute with him.’
For a moment, Fanny wasn’t quite sure what to do with her face. It seemed to be passing through a whole number of expressions all by itself.
There was a pause.
Then, at the same instant, they both burst out laughing.
‘Oh, Fanny,’ Anna sighed as the convulsions subsided. ‘He’s just a bit … well … you know. In the library just now, he was blowing his nose so loudly.’
Fanny glowed inside. All at once they were back in accord, as if they’d never stopped being cousins who loved and understood each other. Spontaneously she reached out and took Anna’s hand. Anna gripped it tight.
‘Anna, you’ve got to do something about him,’ Fanny said.
‘Yes, I know,’ Anna said, decisively, as if it were all absolutely agreed between them, and there was no need to argue or even to talk about it any more.
Fanny’s feet practically soared up the steps to the gatehouse of Chilham Castle. Everything was going to be all right! Anna was going to break it off. And perhaps tonight she might find, they both might find, the perfect husband.
As soon as she and Anna stepped on to the drawbridge, illuminated with blazing torches, Fanny knew that she was going to dance better than she’d ever danced before.
There were crowds of dancers flooding through the castle’s grim gateway, ladies with late roses plaited into their hair, gentlemen in velvet coats, officers in their red jackets. The scent of the damp gardens down below in the old moat hung heavy in the air.
The ballroom was the ancient dark-panelled hall of the castle, and Fanny and Anna took their places at once for the country dance, standing side by side. And opposite them stood a couple of perfectly serviceable gentlemen to dance with! It had been easy! Fanny had got herself to this point with hardly a twinge of that horrible fear of being stranded partnerless.
It was Anna, of course, who’d beckoned to Lord Smedley and his friend as soon as they’d entered the ballroom, and the haughty lord had obediently followed her instructions. Now it was Lord Smedley who bowed down dutifully before Fanny. The wild lord! Tame at her command!
It was unprecedented. Fanny fleetingly remembered her fear and dismay at the first dance of the season. But now she could curtsy, and twirl her fan, and clap to the beat with abandon. Anna was happy; she was happy. Even Lord Smedley no longer seemed proud and distant and terrifying. Throughout their dance together he kept giving her little winks. Perhaps he was human after all.
At the end of the dance, she and Lord Smedley were panting and hot. They stood near the open door to the courtyard, and Fanny wafted her fan in his face for him. She felt that all the other young ladies in the room, and their mamas, must be looking at her, and wondering what she was saying.
But curiously, she didn’t seem to mind.
‘Do you remember,’
she asked slyly, ‘how you wouldn’t dance with us, Anna and me, way back in the spring?’
He laughed, but had the grace to look uneasy.
‘I do!’ he said. ‘That was before I knew you. I was rude,’ he admitted, looking at his shoes, ‘but it was because you and your cousin looked so uncomfortable. You looked like you’d be terrible partners, no conversation, just waiting to be dragged around like sacks of flour. And look at you now, Miss Austen! You are quite the accomplished flirt.’
Fanny smacked his arm with her fan, half pleased, half shocked.
‘I apologise,’ he said formally, placing his hand on his heart. ‘You are certainly not a flirt, although I refuse to rule out the possibility for your cousin. But really, Miss Austen, you are the prettiest young lady here tonight.’
Fanny found that her neck had somehow arched itself up like a swan’s. She was pleased and proud, although she tried to look reproving.
She could tell, somehow, that Lord Smedley wasn’t really flirting with her. He was teasing her, joking with her, almost like someone who might become a friend.
‘I’ll tell you what it is,’ he said, even more confidentially. ‘All the gentlemen know that you’re taken. You and that parson Drummer have an understanding, haven’t you? Makes you safe to dance with.’
‘What in Heaven do you mean?’
Aghast, Fanny felt that her neck, swanlike a second ago, must now be stained with an ugly blush. She was mortified to learn that her and Mr Drummer’s names had been linked. She had been too bold. She had taken things for granted.
‘Oh no,’ he said, seeing her dismay. ‘Oh no, I don’t mean to suggest anything improper. It’s just that as a man you notice such a thing. Or, I mean to say …’
He looked out into the courtyard as if in search of clarity, but found it not. He shrugged, and looked down at her through those eyelashes, thick as a girl’s.
It was almost as if he was considering whether to take the risk of speaking honestly to her. That was, it seemed, against the rules of a ball.
‘Or, I mean to say, a fellow can dance with you, without the fear of being forced by that mother of yours to offer you his hand!’