“And of course, no one can ask a servant to send word,” I said.
“The Chawton House servants can be quite terrifying,” Martha said dryly. “We should not wonder your brother feared to trouble them, on only his first day here.”
“Are you libeling my servants, Miss Lloyd?” Edward Knight asked, appearing next to us. His face was pinker than usual; he looked cheerful and relaxed, country gentry in his element. “You must not give Miss Ravenswood such nonsensical ideas; what if she does not have your sense of humor and takes you seriously?”
“She might perish of cold before she summons the courage to ring and ask for a fire,” Martha murmured, and Edward laughed, then turned to Liam.
“Dr. Ravenswood,” he said in a low tone, “may I impose upon you for a moment? There is something . . .” I could not hear any more; he had taken Liam’s arm and led him off, leaving me in a circle consisting of Cassandra, Martha, and old Mrs. Austen, who was appraising me with a look so thorough it verged on rudeness.
“So you know dear Henry from London, is it?” Her accent was different from her children’s: plummier, old-fashioned. Stooped yet tall, she was an imposing figure despite being largely toothless, with an impression of vitality that belied her age. “I am sorry for ye, being from London. I cannot imagine, to be consigned to such a Bedlam, able to do one’s duty to neither God nor man. How Henry endures it, I cannot say. But he is here quite often—his other bank is in Alton.” I nodded. “Your brother said his health is mending after this recent attack. Can I believe him?”
“He is a doctor, madam,” I said, amused by her frankness. “You must believe him. And how is your health?”
“I am seventy-seven, you know, so I must not expect much. I think Death has forgotten me. I do not know what else to think.”
“Astonishing. Are your people long-lived, as a rule?”
“The Leighs enjoy life. They do not hasten to leave it.” She looked at me with more interest. “Forgive an old lady, your name again?”
“Ravenswood, madam.”
“An unusual one. I do not know I have heard of it. What was your mother?”
“A Massie, of the Derbyshire Massies.”
“I do not know the branch. Have they any connection to those in Norfolk?”
“Perhaps a distant one.”
“Or those of Sussex?”
“I think not, no.”
It was a nightmare version of Jewish geography, minus the playful sense of mutual discovery that usually accompanies that game. I was holding my breath; Mrs. Austen was looking thoughtful. “And where are you from? Not from London originally, to be sure.”
“The doctor and his sister are from Jamaica, Mamma,” said Cassandra, who had been observing us with a little frown. “They are connected with the Hampsons there.”
“Ah. The Hampsons.” I exhaled, impressed that she seemed to immediately know who Cassandra was talking about, though they were cousins of her mother-in-law. If she ever met these distant relatives, and the record is silent on this, it would only have been shortly after her wedding in the 1760s. “The Hampsons,” she repeated. “Then you own property in Jamaica. But you do not live there. No one does.”
“We have sold it and moved away.”
“A happy day for you. Did it go all ill after the end of the slave trade?”
“Mamma! Do not assume they were slaveholders.”
“What can anyone of property there be, else? It is all built on slavery, is it not?” In London everyone we had met, except Mrs. Tilson and her abolitionist friends, avoided the dangerous conversational shoals of slavery as if by instinct.
“Mamma,” Cassandra said again, shaking her head.
“Indeed,” I said. “That is why we surrendered our interests there and came to England.”
A pause followed this. “Surrendered, I see,” Mrs. Austen said, in a tone suggesting she didn’t but was too polite to ask more.
“That was very obliging of you,” Martha said. “It takes the demands of being a Christian to a rigorous extreme indeed.” I inclined my head in acknowledgment, unsure if she was mocking me, or if this was just her usual face.
Martha seemed poised to ask me more, but Cassandra said: “I had the whole story from Mrs. Tilson in town, so I beg you, do not quiz her, Martha. They manumitted their slaves little by little and then sold the land. Wilberforce himself could not ask for more. So—”
The two women exchanged a look, and Martha nodded and smiled at me. “Forgive me, Miss Ravenswood. I have grown too accustomed to saying whatever comes to my mind. It is the privilege of old spinsters, you know, and nearly our only one. But I blame Cassandra; she has been most mysterious on the subject of Edward’s newest guests.” She was studying me as closely as Mrs. Austen had been. “Do you and your brother aim to settle in England?”
“He hopes to find a house to let, in some pretty place, and live quietly. If we can find something to buy, we shall.” They were all looking at me as if not satisfied with this answer, and I wondered if I sounded na?ve. “I realize suitable properties do not come on the market every day.” There was another pause. “You will let me know, however, if you hear of anything nearby?”
The ladies laughed politely, as if I had made a joke, but not a very good one.
CHAPTER 12
DECEMBER 19
Chawton House
I SETTLED INTO LIFE AS A HOUSEGUEST BETTER THAN I’D DARED hope, with my worries about exposing myself through some subtle country-house etiquette blunder proving groundless. Edward Knight was concerned with our comfort, but not smotheringly so, and so were his servants, whom I was careful to tip well and often. I was no longer in charge of managing a household; my main tasks were to show up properly dressed and on time at meals, and to be agreeable to everyone. I could do this.
Sitting around with Mrs. Frank Austen and her children, I also got a lot of shirts made. I’d started to find sewing less boring: there was something satisfying in a perfect row of tiny stitches, in completion. It was even a little erotic, contemplating the work of my hands next to Liam’s skin, though I tried not to think about this.
Days went by when he and I saw each other only at mealtimes, which was good, for despite the debacle at the Angel I remained strangely attracted to him. Not the kind of attraction when you want to see the person; more the kind when you wish to forget about them and can’t. Our bedrooms were in opposite wings of the house, our activities divided by gender. Liam and Captain Frank Austen, a compact man with the Austen nose and the unpretending friendliness of a naval officer out of Persuasion, went hunting a lot, heading out in the morning darkness and not being seen until dinner. Edward never joined them; he was back and forth to Kent and busy even when he was around, out on estate business or holed up with paperwork.