The Mysterious Death of Miss Jane Austen (12 page)

By now I was quite unable to speak. I was going to lose everything.
Everything
. I began to tremble and my eyes would not focus. Elizabeth’s face became a blur of eyes and lips. I could hear sounds from the courtyard below: the scrape of spades shifting snow from the cobbles; the voice of a dairymaid calling to the men as she tramped across to the kitchen. It seemed impossible that outside this room, everything was normal; nothing had changed.

I don’t know how long we sat there in silence. When Elizabeth spoke again, I detected a change in her voice. “I want you gone by the end of January,” she said. “I would send you away this instant, but that would require an explanation. I shall tell my husband that the spectacles have not improved your eyes, that you are finding book work too taxing and must seek a position that does not require much reading. No doubt you will find work of some sort. I will furnish you with letters if you need them.”

These words were spoken very quickly and quietly, but to me, their significance was profound.
She’s going to lie to Edward about the reason for getting rid of me. Why would she do that if she
were
innocent?

I don’t remember the words I used as I left Elizabeth’s parlor. Neither do I remember walking back to the schoolroom, nor the conversation I had with Fanny when I got there. I know that I attempted to teach her some French irregular verbs. I can still recall her voice as she recited them, struggling with the unpredictable endings. And I stood with my back to her, my eyes hot with tears, contemplating the hurt I was about to cause this child with the ending I had brought about.

I felt utterly wretched. My attempt to protect Fanny had backfired on both of us. Elizabeth’s parting words had given me reason to believe I was right about what had been going on and if that were the case, it would have been difficult to remain at Godmersham even if she had not dismissed me. But I could not be
certain
I was right. I could not rule out the awful possibility that I had I sacrificed Fanny’s happiness and my own future for a baseless case built on whispers and shadows.

I ached with regret for my arrogance. What a fool I had been to try to take on a man like Henry: a man who had made a fortune from his ability to manipulate rich and powerful men. I wondered if Elizabeth really believed I had been planning to blackmail him. Then it occurred to me that I could have tried to outmaneuver her with the very thing she had accused me of: I could have threatened to go to Edward and tell him what I suspected. But I had no reason to think he would believe me. The way he looked at her, his whole demeanor toward her, spoke of his devotion. Yes, I had seen him look at other women with admiring eyes, but I sensed that, in Edward’s case, looking was all it amounted to. I think he loved Elizabeth as a starving dog loves a butcher: she was more than he ever expected, more than he thought he deserved. He was a parson’s son and she was a baronet’s daughter—and unlike Henry, I don’t think he ever forgot that.

At lunchtime that day Fanny was given the same excuse Elizabeth had already given to her husband: that my eyes were beginning to fail me again and I could no longer continue as governess at Godmersham. Fanny came running into the schoolroom, tears streaming down her face, begging me to tell her it wasn’t true.

“Please don’t go!” She wrapped her arms around me, squeezing so tight I nearly lost my balance. I dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief still damp with my own tears. “Your eyes can’t be
that
bad,” she pleaded, when her sobbing subsided. “You were sewing yesterday, weren’t you? What’s the difference between that and reading books?”

I made up some story about the letters on a printed page making my eyes go out of focus. I said that there was no knowing if they would get better and it was not fair on her to be without instruction while I waited for what could be many months for my sight to recover. She believed me, of course, and her solicitude made me cry more bitter tears. She came knocking on my door early the next morning, full of a plan to keep me at Godmersham.

“You can work in the dairy!” she announced. “You don’t need good eyesight to churn butter!”

I didn’t want to tell her any more lies. I couldn’t allow her to go on hoping like this. I told her as gently as I could that I would not be accepted by the servants if I tried to live among them, because I was educated and they were not. “How would you feel,” I asked her, “if you were a dairymaid and someone came to work alongside you who could speak French and wanted to talk about books you couldn’t even read?”

“I would feel very stupid, I suppose,” she replied. “And I would probably be envious.”

“Exactly. So do you see now why I can’t stay?”

She gave me a long, sorrowful look, then a little nod. “But who will teach me? All my other governesses have been either horrible or hopeless!”

I could give no answer to this. She didn’t ask where I would go when I left her. She promised to write to me even if I could not see well enough to write back.
Write
back?
Her words mocked me. In her innocence it never occurred to her that I had nowhere to go. How on earth was I going to find another position before the month was out? My nightmares were peopled with beggars and streetwalkers; I saw myself ragged and dirty with holes in my boots, huddling in some alleyway as snow drifted around my feet. I had no idea how to go about finding employment. The only certainty was that I would never be able to work as a governess again: Elizabeth’s letter of reference, left in the schoolroom a few hours after my dismissal, made it clear to any prospective employer that the only work I was fit for was that which did not involve reading, writing, or close work of any kind.

As that long, dreadful week wore on and the old year gave way to the new, another specter rose up before me. I had not received a letter from Jane for three weeks. Usually she wrote once a fortnight. I had no reason to suspect Elizabeth of telling Jane what she had not told her own husband, yet I feared that somehow she had found out. Could Henry have told her, I wondered. I could just imagine him relating what had happened in the library: painting me as a waspish creature always ready to see the worst in people, a foolish woman who had been tripped up by a family joke. And I could picture Jane listening to him, saying nothing, because he was effectively making her choose between himself and me. There was no doubt in my mind of the result: he was, as Elizabeth had so smugly pointed out, Jane’s favorite brother.

I tortured myself with this idea for many days and it came as something of a shock when Fanny brought a letter to me on the sixth day of January. “Shall I read it to you?” she asked. “It’s from Aunt Jane—I recognize her writing.”

I sat down suddenly, my limbs weak with a mixture of hope and terror. I wanted to read it myself, whatever it may contain—indeed I was afraid of what it might say—and yet I had to keep up the pretense about my eyesight for Fanny’s sake. I sat there, paralyzed, for a moment, at a loss for what to do.

“I wrote and told her you were leaving.” Fanny settled herself in a chair next to me and broke the seal on the letter. “I thought you probably wouldn’t be able to write to her yourself.”

The tender concern this act displayed moved me greatly. I swallowed hard, determined not to upset Fanny all over again. “That was very kind of you,” I murmured. Whatever was in the letter, Fanny was going to have to hear it.

“‘My dearest
Anne
’”—she arched her eyebrows—“‘I was so alarmed to receive Fanny’s letter. As you will probably have to have this one read aloud to you, I will keep it brief and to the point. I am terribly sorry to hear about your eyes. I suppose that you were so overjoyed at the prospect of being able to read again after six long weeks of abstinence that you have overtaxed yourself. It is to be hoped that your sight will eventually improve, but I quite understand that it would not be fair on Fanny for her to have to go without her lessons for the time that it may take for you to recover. In the meantime, I am most concerned about what you will do and where you will go. Perhaps you have already found some employment and I am being overanxious—but if not, may I offer a suggestion? The
Times
has a list of situations vacant: employment of a respectable nature for both men and women. I know that Edward takes the paper and I’m sure that Fanny would oblige by reading this particular page aloud to you—’”

“Oh yes, of course I will!” Fanny broke off with a sweet, earnest smile. I pressed my lips together, struggling to contain my emotion.

“‘I realize, of course, that you will be limited as to the nature of the employment you are now able to engage in,’” Fanny read on. “‘But having cast my eyes over this column many times in the past, I believe you may find something suitable therein. I only wish that I could offer you a place with us here in Bath, but our own situation does not improve: we are to move to a smaller house very soon and we cannot even accommodate poor Martha any longer—she is to move to separate lodgings until we can settle on somewhere less expensive than Bath to call home.’”

“Oh! They are moving again—I didn’t know that,” Fanny broke in. “Sorry—there are just a few lines more: ‘Please let me know, via Fanny if necessary, where you will be going when you leave Godmersham. I shall send her my new address as soon as I have it and I cherish the hope that we will find a way of continuing to correspond, despite your predicament. Your letters mean so much to me; I can hardly bear the thought of their ceasing. I remain, dearest Anne, your most affectionate friend J. Austen.”

A wave of relief swept through me. She did not know what had taken place at Christmas: the warmth of her letter made that quite plain. “
Your
most
affectionate
friend
.” Her words fanned an ember of yearning inside me. I felt that I could bear the ordeal that lay ahead, knowing that she still cared for me.

“I’m going to fetch the paper this minute!” Fanny jumped out of her chair and bounded toward the door. “It’s not that I want you to find another job”—she glanced back at me, shamefaced—“but Mama says I shall have a new pony to console me when you’ve gone.”

***

I was pessimistic about the chances of finding anything in
The
Times
that Elizabeth’s reference would not debar me from. But after weeding out all the advertisements for governesses, secretaries, and clerks, Fanny came up with a species of employment I had never heard of before:

“‘Companion required for elderly lady in Yorkshire. Must be well-educated, convivial, and strong of body…’ That’s you!” She thrust the newspaper up to my face. “Can you see it? It says you have to send a letter of application with a reference to Mrs. Raike of The Bourne, Doncaster.”

I could see the advertisement quite clearly, though I had to make a pretense that it was difficult to decipher. “But wouldn’t she want me to read to her?” I said. “She would find me a pretty useless companion in that case.”

“Just because she’s old doesn’t mean she is blind!” Fanny replied. “It says ‘well-educated and convivial’—that means good company, doesn’t it?—so what she wants is a clever person she can talk to. And ‘strong of body’ probably means she’s a bit doddery on her legs, like old Mrs. Owens the blacksmith’s mother. She’ll probably want you to carry her about like he does when she gets tired.”

I had to smile at this image she conjured of me heaving the poor old lady out of her chair and striding through the village carrying her like a baby, as the well-muscled Mr. Owens was frequently seen doing. “I may be tall,” I said to her, “but I fear I’m not as strong as all that. Do you really think I should apply?”

“Of course you should! And anyway”—she swished the paper against the arm of the chair as if she was swatting a fly—“it’s the only job in here that doesn’t need someone with good eyesight.” She stood before me, hands on hips, like a mother chiding a willful child. “I’ll get my writing things. You can dictate the letter to me and I’ll make sure it goes off tomorrow.”

It was a great surprise when the old lady responded by return of post. Fanny had been uncannily accurate in her assessment: Mrs. Raike was far more interested in the aptitude I had professed for discussing and debating a wide variety of subjects than my ability to read to her. She expressed the wish that I should commence my new employment at the earliest opportunity.

I went to see Elizabeth to ask if she would release me before the end of the month. I dreaded entering the parlor, certain that she would not let me leave without delivering a brace of parting insults. But I was in luck, for Edward was sitting beside her. I had not spoken to him since the news of my departure had reached him and he was full of concern for my “predicament,” as he called it. Listening to his kind words I felt fraudulent and ashamed, as I felt with Fanny. But I could not help noticing Elizabeth’s face during the exchange between her husband and myself. She looked as if she had bitten into an apple and found a worm. I don’t know if it was Edward’s praise for my achievements with Fanny or his wish that I should continue my friendship with his sister that discomfited her most; I think that if she could have, she would have had me ejected from the house that very instant. As it was, we agreed that I should leave on the seventeenth of January—two weeks earlier than her original deadline.

***

Only Fanny and Sackree were there to see me off on that raw, dark morning. Elizabeth had avoided me completely during my last few days at Godmersham and Edward was away, visiting the estate in Hampshire. I had heard no mention of Henry from either Fanny or the servants. I wondered if he was biding his time, waiting until I was out of the way before resuming his intimacy with Elizabeth. For Fanny’s sake I hoped he would stay away, but I sensed that this was probably beyond him. I hoped, therefore, that he would at least conduct himself with more discretion.

The horses’ breath plumed like smoke in the frosty air. I shivered when the footman took my trunk. Fanny took my gloved hands in hers and rubbed them hard. Sackree punched me on the shoulder and told me I had better get used to such weather, going so far up north to live among people she clearly regarded as little better than savages.

“Let’s hope they’ll fatten you up a bit with all them Yorkshire puddings,” she whispered in my ear. “Men like something to grab hold of—’specially on frosty nights—and there’ll be plenty o’ them where you’re going!” I’m sure she meant there would be many cold evenings, not an overabundance of lecherous males, but her words made me smile all the same. She was a curmudgeonly old thing, but she had my best interests at heart; how could she know that a man’s arms were certainly not something I would crave however chilly the bed?

The footman opened the door and I gave Fanny a last, long hug. “I
will
see you again,” I said. “Aunt Jane will make sure we all meet—not here, perhaps, but
somewhere
—so you mustn’t cry, do you hear?” I was saying this to myself as much as to Fanny, fervently hoping for it to be true. The footman cleared his throat, impatient to be off and not willing to suffer the cold for the sake of a mere employee—or
former
employee, as I had now become. The faces faded into the darkness. The last image I had was of Sackree pulling the child to her, comforting her as she had always done. And there was some comfort for me in seeing it. Sackree had cared for Fanny from the time she was born and for her mother before her. Whoever replaces me, I thought, Fanny will always have her nurse.