When the carriage stopped, the figure in black, who proved to be the housekeeper, greeted us, apologizing that sudden business had prevented Mr. Knight from being here to welcome us personally. He would be home for dinner and looked forward to seeing us then. Captain Austen and his wife would be there, as well as Miss Austen, Miss Lloyd, and Mrs. Austen, along with a few select neighbors; something in her tone hinted that this was all slightly unusual, and all in honor of us. Dinner would be served promptly, as every night, at 6:30. She hoped this was not too early for people of fashion such as ourselves; with an amused look, Liam assured her it wasn’t.
While telling us these things, she’d led us through a stone entryway and into a large room. As my eyes adjusted to the dimness, I saw dark-paneled walls enlivened by a few mounted antlers, an unlit fireplace big enough to stand in, and a massive, graceless staircase. The smells were of old wood and dampness, and it was cold enough to see my breath. I shivered. I felt I had once more traveled back in time; this room could not have looked much different in the reign of Elizabeth. We stood still for a moment, stunned into silence, before the housekeeper, while giving us a brief history of the house, led us on, along a badly lit corridor, up a short flight of stairs, around a corner, down a shorter flight of stairs, around another corner, and finally into a room on a more human scale than the entry hall.
The walls were paneled in dark wood here too, and latticed windows with bumpy glass looked out on a gentle hill that ended in a coppiced wood. One end of a long table was laid with cold meat, bread, and wine. Did we want tea? There was only one answer to this question, I knew by now. Waiting for it to arrive, I looked out the window again and saw it had started to snow.
IT SNOWED ALL AFTERNOON, ON AND OFF, ENOUGH TO DUST THE rooflines and bare trees and palings and grass stubble. Despite taking more care than usual as I thought of all the new people I would meet, I was done dressing well before 6:30 and unsure what to do next. I dismissed North and paced in the bedroom I’d been given, looking out my window and wondering if I dared wander around the house, or if I would get lost, ending up somewhere I should not be: the kitchens, say. So I was delighted when a maid showed up with a message from my fellow houseguest Mrs. Frank Austen, wife of the sea captain: she was in the second-best parlor, and would be honored to meet me before dinner, if I wished it.
Would the maid be so kind as to lead me to the second-best parlor? She would: to a pleasant room with faded pink tapestries and a modern-style Rumford stove.
“Miss Ravenswood, forgive me for taking the liberty.” A plump woman with tired eyes and a lace cap put down her sewing, rose from a chair near the window, and came forward to greet me, stretching out her hands. “I was most eager to meet you, and I knew it would be a crush at dinner. The excitement of a new arrival in such a small village, in the winter no less, cannot be overstated. And I have been a great deal at home, of course.”
“I understand you have a new arrival of your own, madam. I give you joy of that.”
Smiling, Mrs. Austen lifted a finger to her lips and led me back to where she had been. A sleeping infant not more than a few weeks old, wrapped as tightly as a chrysalis, lay in a small basket beside her chair.
“Herbert-Grey,” she said. “I find him perfection, but perhaps I cannot be objective.” Her complacent look contradicted her qualification.
“He is beautiful.” I leaned over to see him more closely as we sat down on either side of the basket. Mrs. Frank Austen, like Mrs. Tilson, was one of those prodigies of fertility that the era abounded in; at thirty-one, she had been married nine years and Herbert-Grey was her sixth child; she would have five more, dying soon after the eleventh, in 1823. It staggered the imagination. “Is there anything more miraculous? That new-baby smell, those perfect little ears!” I sensed my best chance at winning her over lay through her children. “But how are you faring, madam? It is not easy to be a mother so many times over.”
I touched the bump on my arm, now hardly the memory of a bump, where the hormonal injection had gone in, and reflected that freedom from unwanted pregnancy was not just a lifesaver and a convenience; it put an unbridgeable divide between me and the women of 1815. This realization made me sad, despite my not having the slightest wish for children of my own.
“Never better, I thank you. I am feeling very well. Quite an old hand by now.”
“Will you have a wet nurse, or . . .” I paused to think how to phrase it delicately. “In the Indies, it is common to—But what is the custom these days, in England? I am most curious.”
She widened her eyes, but answered without hesitation. “Indeed. I feed him myself. Things were different in the age of our parents, but to consign your own darling little one to an unknown . . . woman, of unknown habits . . . it is not to be thought of.” She looked at me more closely. “But I should not talk of such things to unmarried ladies, Miss Ravenswood. You will forgive me.”
“It is I who raised the subject, madam. You must forgive me, then.”
“But perhaps you will be married yourself soon,” she went on dreamily, and I gave her a sharp glance, wondering if this was just a general good wish, or based on something she’d heard. Would Henry be so indiscreet? Would his sister? How awkward it would be then, when I finally said no. My mind returned to the long engagement. I had intended to discuss this with Liam yesterday as a serious possibility: if it might be dared, how it might be managed, the opportunities it would afford for getting closer to the sisters, and for what we had come to do. Instead, our conversation had quickly veered off course, into topics we should never have touched on. I retraced how this had happened, and considered once again the possibility of sexual jealousy: Liam’s, toward Henry Austen. But it was impossible. I’d thrown myself at him last night, and—I needed to stop thinking about this.
“You grew up in the Indies, then? Captain Austen tells me it is a most beautiful land, but barbarous.”
“He is right,” I said, and we began to talk about Jamaica.
IN THE DRAWING ROOM BEFORE DINNER, I DISCOVERED THAT LIAM had gone to call on Cassandra that afternoon, and had already met Martha Lloyd and Mrs. Austen; he introduced them to me with an air of thinly veiled triumph. Apparently, Jane had given him a letter to give to Cassandra that last night we had visited Hans Place, so he had walked to the cottage despite knowing he would see her that evening at dinner. This was all vastly polite and Mr. Knightley–like: the short period of time between his arriving in Chawton and paying a visit; doing her this honor despite the status gap between a wealthy gentleman and an impecunious spinster; that it had been snowing.
“Why did you not say you were planning to go, William?” I asked in mock indignation, which was actually not mock. “I would have very much liked to have come as well.” Staying at home made me appear, by contrast, cold, lazy, and indifferent to the people I most needed to impress.
“The idea came to me only after luncheon, and I did not know where to find you in this enormous house,” he said, making Martha Lloyd laugh. Her eyes were dark and prominent; they sized me up shrewdly from under her lace cap of spinsterhood.