The Mysterious Death of Miss Jane Austen (8 page)

I nodded my approval, unable to decipher the letters at such close range. Jane took the box from her and bade her go to the kitchen and ask for wine and cheese to sustain us while we played.

“What shall we play?” she asked. “Will it be loo or vingt-et-un?” She pressed the garnet clasp that held the case shut. As she drew out the cards I saw something flutter onto the table. She picked it up and stared at it. I saw the color drain from her face.

“Cook says what kind of cheese?” Fanny marched into the room, hands on hips. “What’s the matter, Aunt Jane? You look all funny.”

“Nothing, Fanny dear,” Jane replied, stuffing the paper into her pocket. “Tell cook that any kind will do. Now run along!”

I turned to her as Fanny left the room, but her face was set like a mask. “Well,” she said briskly, “I think loo would be the easiest for Fanny to play, don’t you? Will you shuffle the pack for me? I’ve never been very good at it, I’m afraid.”

As she passed the cards across the table I saw that her hands were shaking. She would not meet my eye but chattered on about the merits and demerits of loo and piquet and whist, as if she was afraid of leaving any gap for me to fill with a question. Before long Fanny was back and the card game began.

Jane seemed unnaturally bright throughout and the color that had left her cheeks returned in abundance, giving her a rosy glow that fooled Fanny into thinking all was as it should be. I saw, however, that she had drained her glass of wine before the first game was finished and was well into her second as I shuffled the pack once again.

By the fourth game Fanny’s eyelids were beginning to droop. I told her it was time for bed, ignoring her pleas to be allowed to play another round. She kissed her aunt good night and Jane gave her a brittle-looking smile, as if the effort of containing her feelings was becoming too much to bear.

I sat beside Fanny as she settled down on the pillows, bidding her to cease her chatter and try to go to sleep. In the quiet moments that followed I listened to the rain beating on the window and the growl of the waves as they surged against the shingle. I wondered what Jane was doing, all alone downstairs. I stroked Fanny’s head, willing her to close her eyes so I could go to Jane. At length I saw the regular rise and fall of the bedclothes and, moving the candle closer to her shadowed face, saw that the child was indeed asleep.

I tiptoed out of the room and onto the landing. I could hear a low rumble, something quite like the sound of the tide. It was Mrs. Austen, I think, snoring in her sleep. I heard the creak of the back stairs, which I took to be one of the servants on their way to bed, but otherwise all was silent. I hurried down, afraid that Jane too might be bound for her chamber to guard herself from my inquiring eye. But no, there she was, sitting just where I had left her, an empty glass in one hand and the tortoiseshell card case in the other.

“Is she asleep?” I heard the jeweled clasp of the case snap shut.

“I think so,” I replied. Her eyes were downcast. I could not catch them.

“Shall I read to you now, before they all come back?” It was not so much a question as a command. Without looking up she rose from the table and crossed to the bookcase, selecting a large, black-bound volume from the bottom shelf. “I think you should rest your eyes,” she went on. “Sit in that chair by the fire and close them tight.”

I faltered for a moment, uncertain of her motive. Was she secretly hoping I would seize the book, cast it aside, and ask what was in her heart? The set of her chin as she placed the volume on the table did not seem to invite opposition. So I did as she bid me, sinking stiffly into the armchair and tilting my head back until all that I could see was a smoky corner of the ceiling.

“Now close your eyes.”

I did as she asked. I heard the gentle thud of leather on wood as she opened the book. The fire answered with a sudden crackle. Instinctively I moved my legs away from the heat. I wanted to open my eyes, but I dared not.

“Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister,” she began. Her voice, usually so clear and strong, sounded strained. She paused and coughed a little. “Thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes, with one chain of thy neck. How fair is thy love, my sister! How much better is thy love than wine!” She paused again. I waited for her to continue, wondering what text this could be. I heard a little rush of air in the chimney as the wind sighed into it. The coals shivered and settled themselves.

“Well?” she said at last. “Do you recognize it?”

“No,” I admitted, “I do not. Is it John Donne? Or Milton?”

“Neither of those,” she replied, “although I can see why you mistook it for Donne. Have another try.”

I trawled my mind for other likely candidates. It was not Shakespeare, of that I was certain. Who would write of love in such a style? It must be some new poet, I decided, someone that Jane had discovered before me.

“Well?” she repeated.

“I have no clue,” I replied. “You will have to tell me.”

“I shall, by and by. One more question first: if a man were to copy such lines and send them to you, how would you feel?”

My eyes snapped open and I raised my head from the chair. “To me?” I turned toward her with a little snort.

“No looking!” she cried, covering the book with her hands and throwing me a stern glance. “Close your eyes and answer the question!”

“Hmmph. Very well—if you insist. I would suppose him to be in love with me, of course. More than that, actually: I would believe that I had bewitched him.”

“But would you not be offended? Do the lines not suggest that the writer and his subject are lovers already? Listen to the last line again: ‘How fair is thy love, my sister! How much better is thy love than wine!’”

“Well…” I hesitated, thinking it through. “I suppose it
does
convey that meaning, yes. As to whether I would be offended, that would depend, wouldn’t it?”

“On what?”

“On what the man was to me. If he was my husband or my fiancé, I suppose it would be a sweet thing to receive. But if he was a… or I was…” I trailed off, letting my upturned hands convey my meaning. “But do tell, now, Jane! Who is the poet?”

“It is the Bible,” she said. “The Song of Solomon.”

“Really?” I turned to her in blank astonishment. I thought I knew the Good Book as well as most, but I had not realized it contained such lines as these. “Did you choose the passage or did it just fall open at that place?”

“
I
did not choose it,” she replied, “but someone else did; I found it in the card case.” Her face began to swim before me, as if the sea had burst through the door and turned the air to liquid. But I could clearly hear the next words that she said: “I recognize the hand that copied it: it is Henry’s.”

I stared dumbly at her stricken face, the words of the passage echoing through my head.
Thou
hast
ravished
my
heart, my sister… How fair is thy love, my sister
… Now it had a horribly sinister ring. Henry had used words from the Bible to charm a forbidden woman who was, indeed, his sister by marriage. And she had left it in a place where her own daughter might have discovered it. A spasm of recall brought back the postscript of Elizabeth’s letter to Fanny:
Remind
him
to
read
his
Bible
every
day
. Was that some sort of coded message to Henry? Could she really have thought of using her child in that way?

The chinking of glass pierced the black silence. Jane’s hand was on the decanter, shaking violently as she pulled out the stopper. No sooner had she gotten it out than she thrust it back in and slumped forward onto the open book, cradling her head in the crook of her elbow. Instinctively I ran to her, but my hands froze in midair. I stood there like a thing made of stone, afraid to touch her, at a loss for what to say. I gave up a terse, voiceless prayer for the right words to come.

“Jane, please,” I began, “it might not be what you think.” I hesitated, unable to think of any innocent explanation for what she had found in the card case. Jane let out a low moan, like an animal in pain. I cursed Henry, cursed Elizabeth, for bringing her so low, for ruining everything. And then I cursed myself for my selfishness, for thinking even fleetingly of my own happiness when she was wretched.

“It could be nothing,” I tried. “You know what Henry is like, how he loves to perform. Why, only last week he was reading Shakespeare to us all in the library. I expect he copies all manner of texts for evenings of that sort: what if this was something he left lying about the place? Perhaps she found it one evening when she was playing cards and tucked it away without a second thought. Have you considered that?”

I didn’t think I could believe this, but I hoped it might convince her. She raised her head an inch or two from the table and I dropped down beside her so that my eyes were level with hers. I could see that she wanted to grasp this straw that I had cast upon the water, that she was desperate to restore Henry to the cherished place he held in her heart.

“Do you…” she faltered, her lower lip trembling. She bit down on it then tried again: “Do you really think that is possible?” I could not look into her eyes as I replied that yes, it was entirely possible. “But there have been other things, other times when I have thought that all was not… as it
should
be. You have been living in that house for more than a twelvemonth: have you never seen anything that made you… wonder?” She sucked in her breath and I wondered what was coming. “That night of the ball, when I saw you near the stairs… you saw something then, didn’t you?”

The ghost had chased me all the way from Godmersham; it was hovering between us, demanding recognition. I rose to my feet, avoiding Jane’s gaze, for I couldn’t,
wouldn’t
, tell an outright lie. The fire spat out a glowing cinder as a cold draught blew across the room.

“Where is everybody? Have I missed dinner?”

I turned to see Mrs. Austen, her cap slightly awry and a shawl draped over her nightclothes, standing in the doorway with a puzzled look on her face.

***

The next day was Sunday. Fanny and I awoke to the sound of pealing bells competing with the cries of the seagulls. Jane did not come down to breakfast and the first sight I had of her was when the whole household assembled for church.

She looked a little paler than usual, but otherwise, there was nothing amiss with her face. I had heard no sound from her room during the night save the soft tread of Cassandra, back very late from her visit to Miss Fielding. There was no knowing whether Jane had disclosed anything to her sister, but I suspected that she had not; judging by the way she had rallied when her mother appeared at the door, I felt that her relatives were the last people she would wish to know of her discovery.

Elizabeth did not accompany the rest of the family and the servants to church. She kept to her bed, complaining of sickness. Edward said that the fish served at the Johnsons’ dinner table had disagreed with her, but I couldn’t help wondering if she was in the early stages of another pregnancy.

The rain had cleared up, leaving Worthing basking in sunshine once again, and Fanny was cross about having to sit through a service when she might have been on the beach. As soon as it was over she ran to her father, tugging at his arm as we walked through the churchyard. She was clamoring for a final dip in the sea.

“But it’s our last day, Papa!” she grumbled when Edward suggested a walk to Herstmonceaux castle instead. “I don’t want to go for a boring old walk! I can do that at home—but I can’t go in the sea at home, can I?”

“What?” Edward turned to his sisters with a grin. “She has a private stretch of river to swim in any day of the week and yet she pleads to splash about with hordes of unwashed strangers! What an odd little creature she is!”

I watched Jane’s face as she listened to her brother baiting Fanny. He was talking about turning the bathing house into an extra potting shed for the gardeners because it was so little used. Jane stooped to examine a gravestone, letting Edward and Fanny walk on. I wondered if she too had her suspicions about what had been going on in the bathing house of late.

“Uncle Henry will be very cross if you give it to the gardeners, Papa!” Fanny stuck out her bottom lip, determined not to be beaten. My heart missed a beat. Edward’s teasing smile had been replaced by a beady frown.

“Oh! Uncle Henry will be cross, will he?” he said, mocking his daughter’s childish lisp. “Pray, tell us, Fanny, why would that be?”

I glanced at Jane, wondering if she could hear the conversation from where she was standing. Cassandra and Mrs. Austen were smiling at Fanny, waiting for her answer, clearly oblivious of the imminent danger.

“Because he likes to go swimming in the river, of course!” Fanny gave a theatrical sigh. “He took the boys in while you were at the Canterbury races and he goes in on his own nearly every day when he stays with us; I’ve seen him.”

“Seen him?” Edward’s eyebrows shot upward. “I sincerely hope that you have not!”

“Not seen him bathing, silly Papa! I’ve seen him going down the path, the one that leads to the river. And when he comes back his hair’s all wet, so I know that’s where he’s been. Anyway, he told me himself: he says he loves swimming more than anything.”

“Does he indeed?”

I was relieved to see that Edward was smiling again. “More than fishing and shooting? I can’t believe it!”

“It’s true, Papa!” Fanny jabbed her father in the ribs. “Now can I go in the sea? Please!”

Edward grunted his assent with a playful swipe at Fanny’s head. Jane came noiselessly up the path behind us, casting me a brief smile as she caught up with her mother and sister. There was no chance to ask her how she did, for Fanny was in a state of high excitement, tripping over my skirts in her rush to get us all home and off to the beach.

***

The house was very quiet when we returned. A dread feeling overtook me as we entered it, for such was my state of mind after the events of the previous night that I imagined Elizabeth’s sickness was just a pretense, that Henry had ridden to Worthing and slipped into the house while we were all at church.

There was no sign of Elizabeth, or Henry, of course. She appeared a few minutes before we set off for the beach, saying that her sickness had passed and the fresh air would do her good. Edward fussed around her, organizing all manner of comforts, and she spent the day stretched out on a deck chair, shaded by a huge parasol, while he sat at her feet like a slave.

Mrs. Austen fell asleep in the sun with her bonnet over her face and Cassandra took her sketch-pad to the water’s edge to capture a pretty sailboat anchored a little way off. Fanny was asking her father for money for a bathing machine and once he had obliged, she skipped across to where Jane was unfolding a blanket, begging her to go in the sea. Jane looked across at me.

“Oh yes! You’ll come too!” Fanny danced across the sand, seizing my arm and pulling me over to where Jane stood.

“Fanny, you cannot
order
Miss Sharp to go in the sea!”

“It’s all right,” I laughed. “I watched Fanny swimming the other day and I thought I might like to try it.”

“Very well.” Jane smiled. “I hope you will not regret it. They say that the sea is warmer now than in summer, but that is rather like saying Greenland is warmer than the North Pole.” She glanced at her mother, who was snoring open-mouthed beneath her bonnet, revealing the cavernous gaps in her teeth. “I don’t think that Grandmama will mind not being invited; perhaps she will have caught a fish or two by the time we return.”

Female bathers were confined to a small stretch of the water at the westerly end of the beach. The bathing machines were clustered around a little hut behind the ropes that kept curious male eyes at a safe distance. Fanny raced ahead, eager to make the transaction with the attendant without any assistance from me or her aunt.

I glanced at Jane. This was my first opportunity to speak to her without being overheard. But she kept her head down, as if her mind was on nothing more than dodging the tangled heaps of seaweed that lay across our path.

“I’m sorry I could not be of more use to you last night,” I began. “It grieved me to see you go off to bed like that.”

“No,” she said, without looking up, “you helped enormously; you were the voice of sense, the voice of reason.”

This brought me up short. It seemed that she had decided to accept the flimsy explanation I had dreamed up. Her pace quickened as mine slowed. Her very gait conveyed an unwillingness to discuss the matter any further. I stumbled after her, catching up as we reached the bathing machines.

“This is ours!” Fanny cried, stretching out her arm to pat the nose of a chestnut mare with three white socks. “Her name is Clover and she likes sugar lumps, don’t you, Clover?”

Jane and I clambered into the bathing machine while Fanny bribed the horse. Soon we were bumping our way across the beach. Fanny would not sit down. As the wagon lurched into the water she started pulling off her clothes.

“Come on, Aunt Jane! Come on, Miss Sharp! I’ll be in the sea
hours
before you if you don’t hurry up!”

“The sea is not going anywhere,” Jane replied, “and if you insist on stripping off while we’re still moving you are likely to acquire a most inelegant splinter.”

“No, I won’t, for I shan’t sit down.” Fanny grinned, casting off her petticoat with a flourish. “I shall ride into battle standing up, like Boadicea in her chariot!” A moment later she had shed the last stitch of clothing, for those were the days when people still bathed naked in the sea.

“Anna has a black feather down here.” Fanny swept her hand across her thighs. “Aunt Mary forbade her from swimming in our river—that was mean, was it not?”

“I am sure Aunt Mary had her reasons,” I said, glancing at Jane.

“Anna says the baby made her fat and grumpy and jealous.” Fanny grabbed the side of the wagon as the horse came to a sudden halt.

“Fanny! You should not repeat such disrespectful…” Before I could get the sentence out she leaped onto the ledge, lifted the canvas, and jumped into the water.

Jane shrugged at me and kicked off her shoes. “It is a pity about Anna,” she said. “Cass and I had the care of her when her mother died. We adored her, of course, but then James married Mary.” These few words made her feelings quite plain. Jane was on Anna’s side; she did not like this new sister-in-law. I was anxious to know how she now felt about her other sister-in-law, whether she had decided to treat last night’s discovery as a mere misunderstanding. But I dared not ask.

“Will you help me?” She was on her feet, reaching for the buttons of her dress. As I fumbled with the tiny, muslin-covered things I felt ham-fisted. I could hear Fanny calling, urging us to hurry up, but she sounded very far away. A wave came and the wagon shuddered. For a second I clutched Jane to me, fearing we would both lose our balance. My face brushed her neck and I breathed in the scent of her skin and hair. Then the strangest sensation overtook me. Something slid through my belly like warm treacle down a spoon. I had never felt such a thing before. It was dizzying, bewildering, and thrilling, and I sensed that it was wrong; that it was not how I was
supposed
to feel. All I knew in that moment was that I felt connected to Jane in a way that I had never felt connected to anyone before.

Another wave rocked the little wagon. The horse gave a snort and pulled at its harness. I heard the woman talking to it, soft and low, as she might coax a sweetheart. The horse settled itself and the sea became calm. Jane smiled as she unpeeled my hands from her arms. The movement sent her dress slipping to the floor. I found myself staring at the white curves of her shoulders. She bid me turn around and I stood, still as a statue, feeling her breath on the back of my neck as her fingers undid my gown.

“I know that you have something you want to tell me,” she whispered. My skin tingled where she touched it. For a brief moment I thought she had read my mind. “If I seemed ungracious on the beach it was only because there was no time to talk properly. You mustn’t hold anything back out of loyalty to Elizabeth.” She brushed aside a lock of my hair that had fallen in her way and I shivered as if someone had stepped upon my grave. “You are cold,” she said. “Are you sure you want to go in the sea?”

“I’m not cold—honestly,” I replied, pulling my arms out of my sleeves.

She murmured something inaudible and I turned to see that she was pulling her shift over her head. She stood before me, quite unabashed. I suppose she was used to taking off her clothes in front of her sister, but it was the first time that I had seen a woman naked and I fear it must have shown in my eyes.