AM I MAKING THIS ALL SOUND LIKE A RURAL IDYLL? IT WAS NOT.
The farming was fun, but something of a disaster. Only the cold frames saved us. The garden struggled because of abnormally low temperatures due to volcanic ash in the upper atmosphere after an enormous eruption in the Dutch East Indies the year before. There would be crop failure and famine in much of Western Europe and North America in the years following. If we’d actually had to live on what we produced, as many people did, our diet would have been inadequate at best, but having money, we could send Mrs. Smith to market days and often did, as well as count on the arrival of steady deliveries of coffee, wine, and other luxuries, which we shared with our friends at the cottage as much as they would allow.
We got more chairs, and invited them over often on those cold evenings. Even old Mrs. Austen, who seldom went anywhere, often came, Ivy Cottage was so close. Gathered around the big, primitive hearth in the front room, firelight flickering as we laughed and told stories and read aloud, I felt at those moments I could not wish for anything more. If not for a few nagging worries, it might have been Arcadia after all.
CHAPTER 14
APRIL 3
Chawton
I’D BEEN STRUCK BY THE CHANGE IN JANE WHEN SHE RETURNED from London near the end of the year: by her weight loss and the strange hyperpigmentation, the bronzing. And then there was her back, which seemed to continue to trouble her.
In the first weeks after our move to Ivy Cottage, we saw her a lot. She and the others came by many evenings, and I continued my habit of visiting in the early afternoon, joined not by Mary-Jane anymore but by Liam. His idea of seeking their advice on gardening and animal husbandry was a good one, for there was no end of things to ask about, yet the visits took on a different tone with him there. A gentleman is a disruptive element in a household of ladies, and they did not seem at first to know what to do about him, earnest though he was in his questions about farming. That particular flirtatious focus he’d shown toward Jane in London was less visible now, pinned as he was under the watchful gaze of Cassandra, Martha, and Mrs. Austen, yet I still had the feeling of something between them, which was less a matter of words than of silences, more of glances than of laughter.
Then, toward late March, Jane began to stay home when the others came over, and to be absent when we stopped by; she was “resting,” they explained. One afternoon, the third time in a row we had failed to see her, Martha had said as we left: “Jane will be excessively sorry not to have seen you.” Commonplace words, and her edge of irony made me doubt everything she said. But she paused and added: “Come back this evening, for tea, if you like. I hope she will feel better then.”
WHEN WE SET OFF FOR A SECOND TIME THAT DAY TOWARD THEIR cottage, the wind had risen; clouds were sailing across a dark blue sky in which the first stars were showing up.
“Do you think she’s writing?” Liam asked. “Is it her way of not wasting time on us?”
“She doesn’t have much to waste.”
“True.” The night sky was something I had never gotten used to here. I stared at it as I breathed in the cool air, which smelled of damp earth and new leaves. It was early April; early September was the Opportunity of Return. That is, assuming it still existed. And, if not, what then? I sneaked a sideways look at Liam, who was gazing up at the sky too, with an expression that struck me as wistful, and I had a sudden picture of the little boy he might have been: smart but already gloomy, earnest but lacking the armor needed to survive. That would have to come later. “Or she doesn’t like us anymore.”
“She likes you, Liam, I know she does.”
“Oh, but she likes you better.”
We exchanged a conspiratorial smile. Maybe it will be all right after all, I thought, not sure even at that moment quite what I meant by “it.”
“I AM VERY GLAD TO SEE YOU ONCE MORE.”
Jane was unusually serious as she greeted us, giving her hand first to me, then to Liam. She had stood up when we came in, rising from one of the mismatched pink chairs near the fireplace and walking to the middle of the room. Too few steps to be sure, but I thought she limped. And was that a walking stick by the chair she had just vacated?
“Have you been unwell?” Liam asked her in a low tone, leading her back to her chair and sitting down in its counterpart. “You can tell me. You must, you know.” On our walk over I’d urged him to try to assess her health, but I had not expected him to act quite this fast. “Have you any pains or aches?” he went on, so softly I strained to hear the words. “Night sweats?”
“Sickness is a dangerous indulgence at my time of life.” Her voice was just as quiet. “I am feeling much better.”
She’s the stoic type, I thought. Or she’s lying; maybe even to herself.
“What about this?” He held up the stick. “Is it you using this, or your mother?”
I looked away to find the eyes of Martha, the only other person in the room, on me. “He has been put straight to work, has he not?” she said. “How we do abuse his good nature.”
“He is happy to be of use.” We took a few steps farther away from the two at the fire as I asked in a lower tone, “Has she been ill, really?”
Martha looked sad. “She does not like to complain, but she is worse. In another person, you would hardly notice, but she has always been such a great walker. And now she is not.” Her eyes followed mine back to the conversation at the fireplace. “Perhaps it is just age. None of us are becoming younger.” Her tone suggested she didn’t believe this; at fifty, she was ten years older than Jane and showed no sign of slowing down.
“Does she have trouble walking? Or is it that she tires easily?”
“She says her joints pain her. And she does not have the stamina she did. She wanted to call on you, one day last week, and we set out, but had to turn back. You know that is not far.”
“Indeed, no.” As I was thinking what to ask next, Mrs. Austen and Cassandra appeared. Both greeted me and turned, more eagerly, to Liam.
“I have been waiting for Dr. Ravenswood to listen to my cough,” Mrs. Austen said. “It is worse since the morning.”
“And I have been at pains to convince my mother that the doctor is here for tea, and does not want to hear about people’s ailments,” Cassandra added. Neither Liam nor Jane could have been happy to have been interrupted, but they did not show it; he surrendered his chair to Mrs. Austen and insisted he was ready to listen to her cough at any moment with complete delight.
As Mrs. Austen began coughing experimentally, Jane rose, made Liam take her chair, and joined us, saying to me: “Your brother cannot help it. He brings out the valetudinarian in everyone. Even my mother.”