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Epilogue

Sir Edward Knatchbull arrived at Chawton Great House on the 17th day of March in the year 1838: a date almost perfectly judged to inflict not one, but two evils upon Mary’s grief-stricken family. For it came well before they were ready, while also being twelve years too late.

The visit presented as a harrowing prospect for the young widower, still raw in his sorrow. Ned had begged Cassandra be there to support him and, though diminished in strength and with little to no appetite for any further distress, she could only agree.

Sir Edward had sent no hint of a time of his arrival, so they waited in the library together all morning – one at work on her patchwork; the other too over-wrought to be still. The clock ticked; the sun passed its zenith; the tension came close to unbearable. Having paced long enough, Ned could bear it no more. With a great cry of ‘Dash it!’ and ‘ Devil! ’ he assembled two boys and three guns, and carried them off into the park. So when the carriage finally drew up at the door, at two after noon, it fell to Miss Austen alone to welcome the visitor.

If he was insulted by his lowly reception, Sir Edward was too careful to show it. And if Cassandra had expected an awkward exchange, she was to be more than a little surprised. Once tea had been brought and the weather discussed, he went straight to the heart of the matter.

‘It is gracious of Mr Knight to allow me to come. After all that has passed’ – he looked down at his hands, cleared his throat and collected himself – ‘it would be within his rights to refuse me.’

From all she had heard of Sir Edward, Cassandra knew how much those words must cost. ‘There was no question of that, sir. Such opposition is not in his nature. Moreover, in his mind – in all of our minds – this is still very much the home of your daughter. Mary wished you be made welcome. Indeed, she once longed for this moment – spoke of it sometimes, with hope.’

He bowed his head for some time, rubbed at the black band on his arm. ‘In the days since … since … I am haunted by how little I know of my daughter’s life.’ He looked up, brow furrowed. ‘I do try to imagine … trace her past … but the pictures are blurred and unformed. I lack—’ He stopped and looked utterly lost.

Though she struggled to find sympathy, Cassandra saw his predicament. He had no knowledge of – no reference for – his daughter as wife, as mother – nor even as woman. The Mary he had long ago chosen to cast out of his life had been but a young girl, whose only crime was to fall hopelessly, madly in love.

‘Then come, sir.’ Cassandra rose and extended her hand. ‘Pray, come with me.’

‘So Mary slept here?’ Sir Edward stood, frowning and mournful, in the centre of the Rose Room, and looked around. The soft, pink curtains – framing a pale, wintery sky – still hung in their place. But the dressing table had lately been taken elsewhere and a chintz sofa stood facing the fire, in place of the bed.

‘This was very much the mistress’s chamber,’ Cassandra explained, ‘but it was lately decided it would be better used as a sitting room. Since the sad day, the family has taken to gathering here each afternoon. They say they still feel the fond presence, and find some comfort in that. But, of course, it is a little easier for the children if they do not have to see all her personal things about them.’

‘Indeed,’ the bereft father said gruffly. It seemed that he, too, had a sense of Mary still being there.

‘It has a symmetry for me, one which Lady Knatchbull will, I think, understand, for it was a sitting room once before, in the old days. Indeed, I remember my sister in here, reading Pride and Prejudice to Fanny for the first time!’

Cassandra turned to him, hoping for some expression of recognition. None was returned. She was irked, but hardly surprised.

‘And there’ – Cassandra pointed to the oil on the wall, which he had not yet registered – ‘my nephew has put up her portrait.’

Sir Edward looked up and studied the likeness in silence. Mary – full curls; bright, hazel eyes; sharp chin turned up in confidence – smiled down upon him. ‘Ah.’ He cleared his throat. ‘And that was done when?’

‘I cannot say exactly.’ Cassandra did want to be helpful, but the years skipped about in her memory and she struggled to catch hold. ‘It is certainly recent.’

‘It must be. She looks quite altered from how I remember her …’

Cassandra was mystified. ‘Yet, sir, did you and Mary not meet, only last summer?’

He started at that, and turned away from the picture. ‘Ah, indeed. I forgot for a moment, but you are entirely correct, madam. We did meet, that once. Very briefly.’ It seemed then that he blushed. ‘Little knowing at the time it would be our last opportunity.’ He walked to the window and spoke to the parkland. ‘God’s will be done.’

Silence fell upon the room until, at last, Ned strode in and broke it.

Of course, the meeting was bound to be awkward. Too much had passed and, anyway, God could not have created two men more diverse in their characters. Still, it had been made in good faith, and with a great deal of effort … Cassandra stood back, heart full of hope.

‘Sir Edward!’ Ned crossed the room; shook his father-in-law’s hand in hearty fashion. ‘How passed your journey?’

Cassandra watched on with dismay. So they were on the wrong foot at once. Both men were at fault: each was misjudging the other. Ned – whose grief had been manifest – was now presenting the brave face that, he presumed, his adversary expected. ‘And where did you break it? To my mind, the best table is to be found at the George in East Grinstead.’

In turn, Sir Edward interpreted this display as an absence of feeling, and did not trouble to hide his resentment. ‘So oppressed was I by its sad purpose that I fear, sir, I failed to take notice .’

To her tremendous relief, the day was suddenly saved by the arrival of the six dear children. They came armed with their beauty, good manners – their favourite toys – and within moments, all that had been strange was suddenly natural.

Cassandra sank into the low armchair with the wild-flower sprigs and watched fresh affections spring into life; listened to laughter and prattle – all hope restored. Until, exhausted by their play, Sir Edward came over to join her.

‘I must confess’, he said in a low voice, ‘that I find it quite overwhelming.’

‘Oh, they are lively enough! Some nights I leave here thoroughly worn out. But are they not charming with it?’ Cassandra could not hide her pride. ‘And a credit to their mother, of course.’

‘Oh yes, all that,’ Sir Edward conceded, with no particular grace. ‘But I talk more of their high spirits. How is it that children can have such forgetfulness – such want of recollection – at a time of the most profound sorrow?’

Cassandra turned to him, outraged. He, too, had lost his mother in boyhood, yet he could find no fellow feeling? Though he had failed as a father to Mary, he was being given a second chance with her offspring – and he now dared to find fault with their manner of suffering ? The late Lady Banks had been right: Sir Edward was a man in need of firm guidance.

She realised, then, that it fell to her to put him right. ‘I cannot say,’ Cassandra replied crisply. ‘But is it not a merciful dispensation of Providence that it should be so?’

Suitably humbled, Sir Edward rose, returned to a kneeling position down on the floor and resumed play with a wooden farm. The new baby was sent for, brought in by his nurse and warmly admired.

And so it was that this beautiful, unfortunate family started to settle into its strange and new shape, and take the first, hesitant steps towards a quite different future.

As dusk started to fall, Cassandra made her excuses and took her leave. She yearned for the quiet of her cottage and felt strongly that the two men should dine alone. She was now an elderly lady and would not always be there to bridge the great gulf between them. They must find the way through on their own.

The evening was pleasant, and she dismissed Daniel’s offers and set off on the walk past the sweet, little church where young Mary now lay, close to Cassandra’s own dear mother. It was too late to call on them now, but she would do so on the morrow. So much to report! Such a day!

The hill rose ahead of her; its brow fringed with a red-golden light. She stopped to take a deep breath and saw, at the edge of the field, the thrust of a first daffodil – radiant in a great clump of green. She smiled. So nature was turning once more: taking that which is dead and creating new life from its goodness. Binding the past in with the future.

And, with a strange sense of ease as she had not known for some months, Miss Cassandra Austen resumed her long, slow ascent through the park, to the eternal comfort of home.