Cassandra's Sister

by Veronica Bennett

  “Tom! A name I heartily approve of!” he said, his face consumed by the beautiful smile.

  Jenny lowered her gaze modestly. If she went on looking at him, she was sure that her own smile would break the bounds of her cheeks and leap around the room, rejoicing in its freedom as gleefully as she now rejoiced in Tom Lefroy’s company. “Indeed,” she said. “Thomas is not an unusual name.”

  “Do any of your brothers possess it?”

  “No.”

  “What are their names, then? My aunt has told me, but I confess my ears were more alert to your name than any masculine one. Tell me about them.”

  He was flirting with her. It made her feel like she had often imagined Cassandra felt in the presence of her Tom. Strong, at peace with the world, secure in mind and person.

  “First is James,” she began, “who is a clergyman. He has the living at Deane, the very next village to Steventon. His little daughter lives with us because his wife died eight months ago. In fact, he is here tonight.” Her eyes roamed over the dancers. “There he is, dancing with Miss Catherine Bigg. Next is Edward, who is married and lives in Kent, then Henry, who is at Oxford at present but is soon to rejoin his regiment in the militia. He is also here, though I cannot see him dancing. Then Francis – we call him Frank – and Charles, who are both serving in the navy.”

  He pondered. “That is five brothers,” he said with uncertainty. “Am I to conclude…”

  “Oh, no!” corrected Jenny. “That was remiss of me. Our other brother, George, who is between James and Edward in age, is unwell and must be cared for away from home. He is ever in our thoughts and prayers.”

  “And your father is a clergyman, I understand?”

  “Yes, and he also has a school in the Rectory. Only a few boys, but it sometimes seems as if there are…”

  “…several hundred?” he finished for her. “It must feel a little crowded.” His light eyes were full of the pleasure Jenny knew he could see in her darker ones. She and this most amiable Irishman were understanding each other.

  “Exactly so,” she told him. “But you must live in a large house, Mr Lefroy, which does not have a school in it. Therefore you are surely a stranger to such concerns.”

  “Not at all. My father owns land, but our house is not as large as Ashe. And now you must guess how many brothers I have.”

  “I guess four.”

  “Guess again.”

  “Five?”

  He shook his head. The forelock fell over his brow again. Jenny watched his fingers as he pushed it back. His hands were square-palmed, with broad knuckles like Papa’s. Her heart began to gallop. Would there ever come a day when Papa would invite this man into his study, and close the door behind them, and… Stop, she reprimanded herself.

  “I have no brothers at all.” He sat back in his chair. The expression on his face showed some envy, but there was also an element of apology in it.

  “But you have sisters?” she ventured.

  “Three.”

  “I see.”

  “My mother is confident she can marry them all to suitable husbands.”

  “If she cannot, your aunt will!” Jenny declared, laughing.

  For a moment she thought she had offended him. It was a rather impertinent remark. But his surprise was instantly replaced by delight, and he shouted with laughter, so loudly that the guests seated nearby turned to see what the commotion was.

  “I envy your brothers,” he told her when he had recovered his composure. “None of my sisters ever says anything to make me laugh.” He leaned forward again; his face was only inches from hers. “But truly, I am very, very glad that you are not my sister.”

  Jenny could not reply. This was more than flirtation. He had hinted as plainly as possible what propriety decreed he could not say outright. Her blood rose; she felt hot, and highly conscious that she and Tom Lefroy were being watched by several onlookers.

  “How warm it is in here!” she cried, fanning herself. “Why does someone not open a window?”

  “On a cold night such as this, I suppose it would not be advisable,” he replied reasonably. He looked steadily at her for a minute. Though her face blazed, she no longer felt self-conscious. Indeed, she wanted him to look at her.

  “You have very handsome eyes, Miss Austen,” he said.

  “Thank you.” She was tempted to return the compliment, but stopped herself. Elizabeth Bigg would never tell William Heathcote to his face how good-looking he was, and Jenny could not have had a better teacher in matters of courtship.

  “Have you ever had your portrait taken?” he asked.

  “No. That is, not officially. I sometimes sit for my sister as her model for sketching.”

  “And are her sketches like?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Do you also sketch, Miss Austen?”

  “I do, but I am not very good at it.”

  “What pursuits do you follow during your spare hours, then, if I may enquire?”

  Jenny smiled. It was easy to behave attractively, secure in the knowledge that she was attractive to this man. However she looked, he wanted to look at her. Whatever she said, his attention was chained. “Like all young ladies, I sew, play the pianoforte and sing.” She dipped her head and raised her eyelids as she had seen Elizabeth do. “I am learning French and German, and I improve my mind with serious reading. But unlike other young ladies, I am not at all talented at any of these things.”

  Tom Lefroy’s returning smile was wider even than Jenny’s own. “I refuse to believe you are without talent. My aunt certainly does not think so.”

  “Do you mean your aunt has spilled my secret?”

  His smile faltered. “Oh! I was not aware that…”

  “Do not make yourself anxious that you have betrayed her,” Jenny reassured him, putting up her fan to hide her amusement at his discomfiture. In fact, his lack of guile was recommending him very strongly to her. “It is no secret that I write stories.”

  “My aunt learnt from your mother that you have completed a novel. Is that true?”

  “Do you ever answer questions, Mr Lefroy, or only ask them?”

  “I will tell you on one condition,” he returned, his composure once more intact. “That you cease addressing me as Mr Lefroy, and call me Tom.”

  “In that case, I too have a condition. You must call me Jane before I disclose any more about myself.”

  “Very well, then. I am asking so many questions because I want to find out as much about you as I can in the short time available to us at this ball. I cannot monopolize you for the whole evening, as I am persuaded several other gentlemen would very much like to dance with you, and so you must forgive this catechism I am subjecting you to. Do you forgive it, Miss – I mean, Jane?”

  Jenny laughed “I do, Tom. And, yes, it is true that I have written a novel. A real, three-volume novel.”

  “You are very young to have completed such a feat,” he said admiringly. “It is as much as I, or my sisters for that matter, can do to write a letter.”

  “Writing comes to me as easily as breathing,” said Jenny. “And if I were prevented from writing, just as if I were prevented from breathing, I would die.”

  She had never confessed this to anyone, even Cassandra. After she had said it to Tom Lefroy, she felt as if they had set foot together on territory no one had explored before. Mindful of Cass’s advice about speaking of books in tedious company, she pushed the thought aside and addressed Tom eagerly. “Do you like reading novels?”

  He paused. “I am not familiar with many,” he said carefully. Clearly, he was anxious not to offend her, but was equally anxious not to tell an untruth. “I began Tom Jones, but I must confess I never finished it. In our house novels seem to be the province of ladies.”

  “Diplomatically put!” laughed Jenny. “Ladies read them, and ladies write them. What could be more fitting? Cassandra will be delighted to hear it when I tell her. She is a great reader of novels.”

  “W
hen she is not sketching?” he asked good-humouredly.

  “Indeed. Nor sewing, which she is very good at, or playing the piano and singing, or—”

  “Improving her mind with serious reading?”

  They both laughed. Jenny knew without any doubt whatsoever that this was the happiest she had ever been. As their laughter subsided, Tom inclined his head closer to hers. “Do you tell you sister everything?” he asked.

  “No,” replied Jenny truthfully. “She is my confidante, and I am hers, but we both have things we do not share.”

  “In that case, please do not tell her that we have allowed ourselves to address each other by our first names. I wish it to be between us.”

  He said this with a look of such boyish, and therefore very charming, embarrassment, she could not possibly refuse.

  “Very well, Tom, it is.”

  He took her hand. “And now, Jane, do you hear the music beginning again? Do you want to dance?”

  As they walked to the set, Jenny could feel herself glowing – with pride, with happiness, with the secure knowledge that she was admired. She determined to savour every moment of the evening as if it were her last on earth, in order to relate it all, with the exception of the part she must not disclose, to Cassandra.

  James, Henry and Eliza

  Tom Lefroy was to return to Ireland in two weeks. When he and his young cousin George made the customary visit to Steventon the day after the ball, the call was brief even by duty-driven standards. Jenny barely had the chance to address him; each time she looked at him his attention was elsewhere. But on the way out of the garden gate he turned and ran back, hat in hand, to where she stood on the doorstep.

  “Pray do not forget, Miss Austen, that you are cordially invited to my uncle and aunt’s ball at Ashe next Friday. May I engage you now for the first dance?”

  “Certainly, Mr Lefroy,” she replied, and they smiled at each other.

  Bundling up her skirts in the way she used to when she was a little girl, Jenny climbed the stairs three at a time. Huddled in her shawl, with mittens half-covering her hands, she now wandered about the cold sitting-room, thinking, thinking…

  In the corner of the writing desk was the little pile of cross-stitched pen-wipers Cassandra had made for Edward years ago. Faded now, but still serviceable, they were as much a part of the familiar surroundings of Steventon as the carved chair Jenny now pulled out from under the desk, and the embroidered cushion on which she sat.

  The sight of her sister’s handiwork drove all thought of story-writing from her mind. What flowed from her pen was a letter to Cassandra. A long, long letter. By the time Jenny had finished her hand ached and weariness had begun to overwhelm her. She was also, she noticed, weak from hunger. She had been too nervous to eat breakfast.

  Tiptoeing down to the kitchen, she begged some bread and cold meat from Travers. Then she carried her spoils back upstairs, settled herself upon the bed and gave herself up to the dreams that Mama called “nonsense”. It was not nonsense, though. Jenny preferred to think of it as writing her own story instead of someone else’s.

  She was twenty years old, the very age Cassandra had been when she became engaged to her Tom. Jenny’s own Tom (she could permit herself to think of him as that in dreams) was twenty-three, that perfect age between majority and marriage that she envied Cassandra for possessing. How extraordinary it was, that just as one Tom was leaving for the West Indies, another Tom had appeared from Ireland. Jenny had to concede that the first country was rather less exotic than the latter; but one’s own story was never as exciting as fiction, after all.

  “Nothing can diminish my happiness,” she said aloud, licking her fingers. “I know he likes me. This is what Marianne felt when that scoundrel Willoughby courted her, and Elinor when she fell in love with Edward Ferrars.”

  She sat up. Should she look over the manuscript of Elinor and Marianne? Now it had happened to her, should she revise the passages about falling in love, in case the real feeling was different from the one she had described?

  She lay back, nestling among the pillows, and smiled to herself. No, she would not. Elinor and Marianne was finished and done with. And who was to say she would have leisure enough in future to dwell on the prospects of those fictional sisters anyway? Her own prospects had suddenly begun to diverge radically from the life of an author.

  In church the next day Jenny heard neither Papa’s words nor the congregation’s responses. Her prayers were private. Please, please, God, she asked, watch over Tom Lefroy and keep him safe from harm. Do not separate us in spirit, even when we are separated by distance. And please send me the wit to make him laugh, because I cannot live without seeing his smile again.

  The Lefroys’ ball would be the test of Tom Lefroy’s allegiance. If he remained constant in his pursuit of her, there would be no avoiding the embarrassment of public exposure. If not, she must make certain that neither her words nor her countenance betrayed any attachment to him.

  Monday went by very slowly. By Tuesday morning Jenny was on the point of asking, in desperation, if Mama had any letters for the post, or messages for anyone in the village. Taking them would be an excuse to get out of the house. Despite the cold weather, she could dawdle up the lane without having to hide her ungovernable excitement from anybody. But as she approached the drawing-room the sound of a horse made her open the front door. A footman, his boots and coat thrust hurriedly over his Ashe livery, put a letter into her hand. “Miss Austen? From Mr Lefroy. Good day to you, Miss.”

  Jenny tore the letter open. Tom, in a flowing though not particularly legible hand, repeated his request for the first dance on Friday evening and added that, though they must not risk impropriety or, worse still, his aunt’s all-seeing eyes, he would very much like to dance as many of the other dances with her as he possibly could.

  He signed himself Your friend, T. L. Lefroy, but as Jenny pored eagerly over the words they assumed a deeper meaning. What else could he call himself but her friend? Yet, as everyone knew, friendship was the first step to love. She was sure that he was thinking of declaring his feelings at the ball. From declaration to proposal was another short step, which she could reasonably expect him to take before his return to Ireland. And then…

  She replied in kind – a succinct, friendly, encouraging note – then she wrote a much longer letter to her sister. At the post office she found an equally thick one awaiting her.

  Dearest Jenny, wrote Cassandra, Tom Lefroy is obviously perfect for you. I am wild to meet him, to see if you have indeed caught “a good ’un”, as Lord Portsmouth so quaintly put it. Meanwhile, my Tom has reached Lisbon, from where I have received assurances that he is in good health, not seasick anymore, only sunburned. Write to me immediately after the Lefroys’ ball, will you not?

  Jenny hid this letter, and hoped Cassandra would do the same with those she had received. She took great care not to bring Tom’s name into conversation with Papa or Mama, and especially Henry, whose penetrating intelligence she did not trust to remain insensible of the powerful impression the Irishman had made.

  But keeping such a secret was not easy. A casual reference to the Manydown Christmas ball would burn Jenny’s ears and dry her mouth. She could not even make a suitable reply when Papa remarked one evening how numerous were these Lefroys, adding that he wondered if by the time the Revolution was over England would contain more Frenchmen than France did.

  Tom Lefroy, however, appeared to be less successful than Jenny at affecting nonchalance.

  “What is this we hear from Madam Lefroy?” asked Mama at dinner on Wednesday. “She tells me her ball could see the continuation of an ‘understanding’, as she described it, which exists between you and one of her nephews, whose name I believe is Thomas.”

  Jenny looked at her plate. She felt Papa’s look; she hoped he was smiling.

  “I could neither confirm nor deny Madam Lefroy’s report,” continued Mama, “because I have heard nothing about it from my own daughte
r. She, however, has seen plenty in the demeanour of her nephew to indicate an attachment. What do you say, Miss Jenny?”

  “Peace, my dear,” said Papa to Mama. “Jenny met Mr Lefroy last Friday for the first time. He is surely no more than an acquaintance.”

  Jenny signalled her gratitude by pressing his foot with hers under the table. But Mama was not to be denied.

  “An acquaintance?” she said pointedly. “An acquaintance would not sit out with Jenny for four dances, leaving other young ladies short of a partner. And looking like a man who has lost sixpence and found a sovereign, according to Madam Lefroy’s account.”

  “Which may be questionable,” observed Papa.

  Jenny knew she must speak. “I do like him, Mama,” she said, blushing. “He is very gentlemanly and pleasant.”

  “And handsome, his aunt says,” said Mama, her eyes watching Jenny keenly, alert to any clue.

  “Anyone would say that about their own nephew, however plain he actually was,” declared Papa.

  “He is handsome, Papa,” said Jenny. “But it is not his features which make him so; it is his expression.” She turned to her mother. “You never saw such kind eyes, and so merry a smile.”

  Her parents exchanged looks. “Thank Providence that Henry is not here,” said Papa dryly. “He would not forbear to quiz you more closely than your mama, you may be sure.”

  “So am I to conclude that you have hopes of this Mr Thomas Lefroy?” inquired Mama seriously.

  Jenny nodded, half embarrassed, half relieved.

  “Then we had better get out that pink gown Cassandra had for her first ball at Godmersham,” said Mama. “Kitty can sponge and press it, and as you are a little taller than your sister I shall sew on new trim.” With a glance at her husband, she added, “And I think, Miss Jane, you are old enough now to wear my wedding pearls, which will handsomely set off the pink silk and your brown hair.”

  Steventon, 16 January

  Dearest, dearest Cass,

  Oh, how I wish you were here! When do you intend to return? I am glad of Tom F’s good health, but I must confess to a certain difficulty at present in thinking about any man other than Tom L.