Jane Austen Society of Australia
Writing Competition 2000 winner
A Personal Collection
Topic: A short story, with a Jane Austen theme.
It took Cassandra longer than ten
minutes to walk home from the rectory nowadays. Exertion led quickly to fatigue, with
those persistent headaches following close behind. Her progress must remain steady but
slow.
Further along the road, she glanced out from under her black satin
bonnet at a small girl aged six or seven, hunting for berries in the brambles beside the
road. Each knew the other by sight. The child’s father had employment on the estate
owned by Edward Austen Knight. When the girl caught sight of the squire’s sister, she
clutched her booty to her thin chest and ran. Cassandra walked on. She no longer took the
same interest in Chawton’s village families as she had in years gone by; she knew she
and Jane had taught the girl’s mother to read, but her own family had taken over her
thoughts long since.
She was relieved to reach home. Chawton cottage stood opposite the
junction of three roads. Many times each day carriages rumbled past, confirming that life
outside continued apace, but she felt no curiosity about strangers. Inside those red brick
walls she had her memories of her mother and of Martha who had married brother Frank, but
most often her thoughts were of Jane. It was her piano still standing in the drawing room;
her patchwork quilt in place upstairs. The sitting room door still squeaked as it had when
Jane sat at her desk, ready to slide her writing under the blotter should callers arrive.
All was arranged just as it had been.
Soon after Cassandra’s return she was aware of a coach on the road
outside her front door. She continued to set the kettle on to boil as the carriage
approached. She heard a voice calling on his team to ‘whoa there,’ hoof beats
slowing to a walk and then to a halt. A passenger must intend to alight outside her home.
She caught the sound of a gentleman’s voice bidding the coachman a cheerful farewell
and something in his tone caused her to leave the fire in order to open the outside door.
She saw the approaching figure of a very tall gentleman of advanced years. He was
remarkably well looking.
‘Henry! I had no notion of your being on our road today! Is all
well in Colchester, or have you come from London?’
‘My dear sister, let me look at you! I hope you are well?’
‘As you see, I have no cause for complaint,’ she replied
briskly. She led the way inside, back ramrod straight, before Henry could bestow a salute
on her own still handsome profile in full view of any onlookers. Once the door was closed,
she received his greeting composedly and pecked his cheek in response.
‘I had begun to make tea before the coach halted. Where will you
sit? I won’t be long in joining you.’
‘I shall sit by the fire and talk to you while you make tea.’
Henry was familiar with the ways practised at the cottage. He had been a regular visitor
while their mother was still alive; he had even had the living at Chawton for a short
time. He no longer came so often, as he continued to change livings, such as from
Steventon to Farnham in Surrey and most recently to Colchester.
Cassandra would have preferred a minute or more to gather her thoughts
before Henry came to the purpose of his visit. She knew his sudden enthusiasms and schemes
and, contrary to what Jane’s attitude had been, found little to recommend in them. It
was not that she did not feel the impact of his charm: no woman unless she were blind and
deaf could be unaffected by his smile or manner. Rather, she regretted the many
disappointed hopes and unfulfilled promises left in Henry’s wake. Neither a military
nor a banking career had prospered. His ordination had provided him with means, but his
sermons were altogether too clever and airy for Cassandra’s taste. Unlike Jane, she
had always preferred brother Edward’s steady qualities; he offered solid and tangible
security, such as this cottage itself.
Henry folded his long length into one of the upright sitting room
chairs with self-assured grace. Really, Cassandra thought, a man with such a history had
no call to appear so free of care and full of ease. Did he never feel the consequences of
his own precipitate actions? She said nothing, but attended to the kettle. It would be
some minutes more before it came to the boil.
‘Come, sit down Cass, so we can talk.’ While she bristled at
his instruction, she complied.
‘I left Colchester four days ago and spent some time in Town. I
met some old friends while I was there.’
‘Oh, yes? And were any of the family in company with you?’
‘No, I did not meet any at the Club or with Cumberland’s
set!’
Cassandra was unsurprised. Henry had always enjoyed the company of many
with whom she had nothing in common.
Henry bent forward to turn his hands upward in a gesture of appeal to
his sister.
‘I did have a meeting with Richard Bentley while I was in London,
and...’ ‘Mr Bentley! Does he wish for a further edition of dear Jane’s
novels?’ Cassandra listened most carefully now.
‘No, not exactly that. As before, he accepts that we have no
journals of hers, nor any other likeness of her face. He did not ask for anything. I
sought him out.’
‘But why, Henry?’
‘One of my acquaintances told me I might find something of
interest in the latest issue of the Edinburgh Review. I obtained a copy and found an
article by Thomas Macaulay about Fanny Burney, Mme d’Arblay. She was ever a favourite
of our Jane’s, do you recall?’
Cassandra sniffed. ‘What, pray, does Fanny Burney have to do with
Jane’s publisher?’
‘It is this. In his article, Mr Macaulay mentions our sister in
the most glowing terms. He likens her skill to Shakespeare’s! I do believe Jane would
have so enjoyed his commendation!’
‘I fail to perceive a link between these
…compliments…and Mr Bentley.’
Henry sat back in his chair. ‘Do you not?’
Cassandra shook her head firmly, making no allowance for the
unmistakeable signs of another headache. She also had an uncomfortable presentiment. Her
impetuous brother was about to embark upon yet another of his well-intentioned but
unpropitious schemes.
He was in full flight now. ‘With such a celebrated critic as
Thomas Macaulay expressing the highest praise for Jane’s work, there will be renewed
interest in it and in anything of hers not previously published! If we could but furnish
Mr Bentley with something of Jane’s now, he would pay well in order to take advantage
of current attention.’
‘But there is nothing…only what she wrote when she was very
young, or small fragments...we have always known this.’
Her brother leaned forward again and gripped both her hands with his
own.
‘I know there is nothing more ready for publication, Cass, but I
believe the public interest in her as an authoress will be such that her letters will find
eager readers!’
Cassandra pulled her hands from Henry’s grasp. She drew in her
breath and lifted her head high. She felt the pressure building behind her temples.
‘Dear Jane never wanted her private life to be the object of the
idle curiosity of strangers! She never intended her correspondence with me or anybody else
to be made public.’
Henry studied her. Despite her words, he was hoping to detect the
presence of doubt or indecision in her face. He could see none, although he noticed she
was even paler than usual. He plunged on. He talked of a discerning readership hungry for
more of their late sister’s writing. He allowed that some editing would be required
before the letters could be released to the publisher, but undertook to share in that duty
with Cassandra, who sat straight backed, conceding nothing to the throbbing pain in her
head. She waited until Henry had at last ceased to catalogue the advantages of his
proposition. In defiance of her aching skull she stood, shook out her black skirts and
turned back to the kettle, where steam was billowing from its spout. She lifted it off the
hob and began to make a brew for her silver teapot.
When she had finished her preparations, she did not resume her seat,
but moved across to the writing desk. Resting a hand that trembled slightly on its
mahogany surface, she spoke again.
‘Henry, you told me what you wrote to Mr Bentley more than ten
years ago. You advised him that our sister would not have wished to be publicly exhibited
under any circumstances. We both know it to be true. Jane’s private life is not for
publication. She would not wish it, so I do not wish it.’
Henry looked across the room at the set mask of her white face, then he
glanced away. ‘If only I still had some of her letters to me and Eliza, I’d
–’ He fell silent as Cassandra slowly shook her head.
Next day, she sat at the table an hour after Henry’s departure.
She had just laid many closely written sheets of paper there. She began to look over
Jane’s letters. Sighs followed smiles as she re-read passages in which her sister had
freely expressed her opinions of their social circle – aunts, nieces, neighbours and
their mother among them. Cassandra rose from the table and left the room to return with a
serviceable pair of scissors. She began to remove Jane’s most trenchant views of the
family from the collection. She stoked the fire with these inflammatory passages; large
piles of letters consisting of particularly barbed comments followed suit. The
much-reduced remainder, suitably edited, she preserved for a deserving few, such as nieces
Fanny and Anna.
The task required Cassandra’s full attention for many hours over
days at a time. Finally it was all but complete. With head throbbing, she ascended the
stairs slowly to their bedroom – hers and Jane’s – to remove one last thick
packet of letters from between the leaves of a volume of Crabbe’s poems. She sat down
to read these most private letters one final time. Her eyes were stinging as she revisited
the course of Jane’s dearest hopes and heartbreaks. She folded these letters together
carefully, took them downstairs and out into the yard; she drew in the air in deep breaths
once out of doors.
It was a windy overcast day. Garden rubbish was smouldering in a fire
at the far end of the yard close by the orchard. Cassandra took up a stick to expose the
red embers at the base of the fire and quickly thrust the entire packet she was carrying
on top. She stood back and watched smoke curl upwards in the grey sky.
Presently Cassandra made her way back inside, leaning against the
strong wind. The pain in her head was intense and she allowed herself to rest until it was
time for tea.
Outside, the same small girl from Chawton village emerged from behind one of the beech
trees bordering the orchard. She used the stick by the fire to poke curiously at what was
at the fire’s base. She pushed the blackened paper packet to the outer fringes of the
fire. A gust of wind caught the remains of the outer layer and scattered its ashes about.
Yellowed sheets of tightly wadded paper fluttered free of the charred packet and the girl
swooped upon them, exclaiming as she chased and caught her quarry between gusts. She
stared at the rows of unfamiliar spidery characters covering each closely written page.
What might her mother make of them? After a moment she pressed her prize tightly against
her worn bodice and set off home.
Ruth Williamson
Other winners:
2nd prize ~ Marjorie Jones ~ Jane Austen's Cat
FEEDBACK: info@jasa.net.au
28 June 2003
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