Page 64 of Searching for Mr Tilney

‘Will you be in for supper?’ she asked. ‘I can leave you something to warm up in the oven, but I’m due over at Larkhall tonight to see Doris. She hasn’t been well, though she’s on the mend, and I promised I’d go before I knew you were coming.’

‘Oh, please don’t worry about me, Mrs Partridge. I haven’t decided exactly what I’m doing yet, but I shall pop out to the shops if I need anything. I’m sorry to hear about your sister … you should have said before … do hurry off to see her.’

‘You’re a very kind girl, I shall go as soon as I know you don’t need anything else.’

‘No, truly, I have all I need.’

‘There’s one other thing, I nearly forgot. Mrs Ashton-Dennis has been having a rare clear out, but I saved you a little box, which used to live on top of the japanned cabinet. She said it’s Georgian, though it could do with being properly cleaned. It’s the one lying next to the poor old parasol, though why that didn’t find its way to the jumble sale, I don’t know.

‘Thank you, Mrs Partridge, I’m so grateful to you.’

‘Well, it’s just a little memento, to remember your time in Bath. Now, I’d better be off … Doris will be fretting. Goodbye, my dear.’

***

The house seemed very quiet when she’d gone, except for the usual creaking of old floorboards, and the ticking of clocks. I had so little time to think about what I was going to do next, but I had to get a message to Harry somehow. I didn’t have his phone number in Bath, but I did know where he lived. I sat down at the desk in front of the window and wrote a note, telling him I was in Bath, and if convenient I wished to see him later on in the evening or some time during the next day for a chat. I added that I would understand if he didn’t want to see me, but I wanted to apologise for all that had happened, and to tell him how sorry I was to hear about his uncle. When I’d finished, I put it in an envelope, and decided I would take it straight away.

My eye fell on the books that Mrs Partridge had left for me and I couldn’t resist picking up the top one, to have a look. It was a very old book with pages that had been cut with a knife, and as I opened it, the very first page showed a picture that made me gasp out loud. There on the frontispiece was a painting of Jane, just as I knew her, dressed in the gown of glossy spotted muslin that she’d described in her journal, and wearing the locket that her Great-Uncle Francis had given her on the gold chain from her cousin Thomas round her neck. It was the girl I knew with her impish looks and intelligent eyes, a half smile suppressing what looked like laughter bubbling up inside. Standing outdoors under a stormy sky, she held a parasol that I immediately recognised as the one I’d read about. The painting, though only in black and white, made every hair on my body stand on end, but it was reassuring to see that all my suspicions were right, after all.

On page thirteen there was a mention of the Austens’ connections in Kent when Jane … had for the first time the delight of going with her parents and her sister into Kent, she would make acquaintance with a number of relations hitherto unknown to her except by name - an epoch of life to a girl of that age, gifted with strong family instincts and quick power of observation. It is due to the correspondence maintained between the Hampshire and the Kentish cousins that various facts relating to the period of Jane Austen’s girlhood were not long ago discovered … it was her custom to write to relations at a distance, thus acting up to a remark she once made to a niece, ‘I like cousins to be cousins, and interested in one another.’

I knew how very much Jane had been interested in her Kentish cousins and in particular the cousin who held a special place in her heart.

I fetched out my locket, and couldn’t help thinking how very much it was like Jane’s locket in the portrait. I unclasped the chain and put it round my neck, thinking how serendipitous it was that of the beautiful jewels I could have chosen, this was the one that I’d wanted.

I wondered where Jane’s painting was now, and what stories it could tell. I knew Great-Uncle Francis had commissioned it, and imagined it still being in Sevenoaks at the Red House where Jane’s cousin might have looked at it and thought about the kiss he’d stolen that day. But, I knew I wasn’t going to find the answers I wanted out of thin air, and besides I had a letter to deliver.

I might have known I would pass through time when I was least expecting it, and as I tried in vain to reach the envelope I’d left on the desk I saw it shrink further and further away until like a dot of black ink it faded into nothing.

Chapter Thirty Three

Cassandra

Bath, Somerset

August 1789

‘I shouldn’t wonder if an engagement isn’t announced very soon,’ says my Aunt Leigh-Perrot after her guests have gone home. ‘Mr Fowle has done very well for himself, I should imagine his parents are delighted.’

‘I could not see any partiality between them,’ says my sister Jane, ‘and I paid particular attention all evening.’

‘I have told you before, Jane, it is very rude to stare,’ my aunt continues, ‘and partiality has nothing to do with it. She has money and he has none … he would be a fool not to take advantage of the situation. She certainly seems to admire him.’

I’ve never felt so distanced from Mr Fowle. We barely had any conversation, but it was difficult, sat as he was on the opposite side of the room with Miss Brooke constantly at his side, demanding all his attention. She was looking particularly beautiful this evening, dressed in the finest fashion, her neat dark head matching his own dark curls - they look made for one another. It has been a trial, but at last it is over, and we are to go home the day after tomorrow, for which I cannot wait.

We are to go to the Pump Rooms this morning, but firstly Jane and I are returning our books to the circulating library in Milsom Street before meeting our parents for one last turn and a cup of sulphurous water that Jane says she is certain does more harm than good. I am feeling in particularly low spirits, though Jane is doing her best to divert me.

The library is full, as usual, and even though we have no intention of borrowing any more books, it is our usual habit to peruse the novels on offer, stopping at the table where pretty trinkets are displayed for the tourists in Bath. Jane is sighing over a patch box, and I would love a new fan, but there are no funds for such luxuries.

‘Oh, look, cousin Thomas is here,’ she cries, and she is off to join him at the bookshelf where he is standing looking earnestly at the pages of a book. I’ve suspected a certain partiality since last summer despite all her protestations to the contrary, all her declaring that she isn’t interested in boys, and I cannot help but smile when I look over at the pair of them, for I think he rather likes her too.

I decide that waiting another ten minutes or so will not hurt, and so I select a novel from the shelf and look for a chair. I am lucky and find one in a quiet corner for the place is full, though for all the noise, and the chatting over every latest scandal, it is obvious the chief pleasure is not in reading. I open my book, but it is not long before I am diverted by a conversation, taking place between two ladies standing not far away who I have not noticed before. One of them is my Aunt Leigh-Perrot. Fortunately she does not see me and I am grateful for the ladies standing in front, shielding me from view.

‘The Brookes are the most delightful family, I must say, even if he is in trade,’ says my aunt in her distinctive booming voice. ‘Though Mrs Brooke is from good stock, she told me she is distantly related to the Percy family of Northumberland so I am quite pleased to have invited them after all.’

‘One has to be so careful before one condescends to the lower orders, I quite agree,’ said the other lady. ‘The daughter is very beautiful, I am told. She will make a great match if they are as wealthy as you say.’

‘Alas, it is not to be. There has been talk of an engagement, and as it can only be the young man who has not left her side since they arrived in Bath, the marriage will not be an auspicious one.’