Extract from chapter 20

1843: Old Letters

Join Cassandra Austen in Portsdown Lodge as she helps her brother, Frank, to sort through Martha's possessions.

When the formalites were over and the houseguests had gone, Frank handed his sister a box full of letters.

‘I thought you might like to decide what to with these. They were written long before we were married, but they meant a lot to Martha. You were closer to her then than I, so you have my blessing to distribute them as you wish.’

Photo: on display at Jane Austen's Museum, Chawton

Cassandra recognised the box as one of Frank’s creations. He was very adept at woodturning and carving and Cassandra imagined he had made it for Martha as a gift. Inside were dozens of letters, stacked neatly together, all addressed to Martha at various residences around the country. Some were from Cassandra, which she remembered writing, and she was transported straight back to Steventon Rectory and Sydney Place when she had thoughtfully written out her news. Like a series of flashbacks in her mind she relived the anxiety of Martha moving to Ibthorpe, the sorrow of Mr Austen’s death, the desperate search for something to live when her father had died and the many, many trivial tales she had written from Godmersham.

Photo: 8 College Street, Winchester.

Tied in a black ribbon, set on its own, was the correspondence Cassandra had written from Winchester, and the strength left Cassandra’s body. She read the words of false cheerfulness, wanting to believe that Jane was going to get well again and tiredness overwhelmed her.

‘Who else, these days, would want to read these?’ Cassandra asked herself. They seemed so foolish now, after what had happened. ‘Desperate,’ Cassandra spoke out loud.

She knew she was not being rational, but after all these years she did not care, and she threw the letters, including the ribbon into the fire. She and Edward had done a similar thing when their mother had died, destroying all of the black sealed letters they had come across, not wanting to scar the future by clinging on to them. It had helped then as some kind of cleansing ritual, and Cassandra felt the same effect now. There was no room for more bad news in her life and the past was the past. Reliving every memory was not going to bring anyone back.

Author's own photo

Cassandra settled down before the fire and sorted Martha’s letters from the box into piles. Some were from her sisters, so she put them to one side to hand over to their families. The ones from herself contained nothing of interest that she felt especially important, so they went into the fire too.

Photo: letter of Jane Austen on display at Jane Austen's House, Chawton

She left the bundle of Jane’s letters until last. By the flickering fire and the amber light of the candles, she read them one by one. She had not read anything from Jane for a long time, but it made no difference; her sister was back inside her head like she had never left. Her wit was sharp and her sarcasm was rife. Cassandra had thought little of it in the days they were growing up, but seen in the cold light of day, Jane’s sardonic humour could easily be misconstrued as catiness. At times she sounded heartless and unkind.

Cassandra stared into space. Some of the comments were about herself, with Jane passing on some opinion or other to her friend when Cassandra had been away. Would Martha have thought these opinions cruel, she wondered, when she read them for the first time, or would she have laughed?

‘Laughed, most probably,’ Cassandra said out loud again. But she would not take any more chances with those who did not understand Jane as well as they did. In one large scoop, the entire set of Jane’s letters went into the fire.