It will surprise no one who knows me to learn that I am part of a couple of Jane Austen fangroups on Facebook. Various people in those groups kept talking about this book by Gill Hornby, so I requested the audiobook from my library before I could have a chance to forget about it. Then I forgot about it until it became available and I downloaded and started listening to it.
This book is delightful. It centers on Cassandra Austen and her role as steward of her sister’s reputation, while recognizing that Cassandra had a life and passions of her own.
The book jumps back and forth in both time and place, but about half of it takes place in 1840 in Kintbury. Jane has been dead for more than 20 years and Cassandra is 67, an old woman by the standards of the day. Mr. Fowle has just died. He was the vicar of Kintbury and would have been Cassandra’s father-in-law if Cassandra’s fiancé, Tom, had survived his voyage to the Caribbean.
One of Fowle’s spinster daughters, Isabella, was still living with him when he died, and now she has to pack up all the family’s possessions and move out in time for the new vicar to take over. Although Cassandra never got a chance to marry into the family, she did remain close with them, especially since Tom’s sister, Mary, married her brother, James, who likewise inherited the vicarage from Mr. Austen when he retired, effectively kicking Jane and Cassandra out of the only home they had ever known.
While Isabella is both grieving and up to her ears in responsibilities with sorting and packing, Cassandra comes for a visit. It’s a huge inconvenience to Isabella, but Cassandra is on a mission: some of Jane’s letters to Isabella’s mother, Eliza, may still remain somewhere in the house and it is Jane’s responsibility to destroy any letters that might paint Jane in a less-than-flattering light.
Cassandra is thwarted from her mission by a meddling housemaid, but she does eventually manage to make her way through the letters, and each one brings up memories of life with her sister, which is where we get the flashbacks.
The flashbacks start with Cassandra’s own engagement and move through the rest of her life with Jane right up until Jane’s death.
While Cassandra is dealing with all these old memories, she’s also struggling to figure out what to do with poor Isabella, the spinster daughter. Since Cassandra had so much fun living with Jane, their mother, and their good friend, Martha (who later became their sister-in-law) at Chawton cottage without any men to answer to, she becomes obsessed with the idea that Isabella, who can’t afford a place of her own, should move into a house with her two sisters.
But, like every one of Austen’s novels, this one also turns on the main character assuming they know everything, when in fact they know nothing. It’s quite obvious that Isabella has a thing for the local doctor (and he has a thing for her), but her father would never allow it because he didn’t think a doctor was good enough for his daughter. It takes his death, some meddling on the part of Isabella’s own housemaid, and Cassandra just happening to read Jane’s own Persuasion out loud to her for a few nights to persuade Isabella to reconsider the doctor’s proposal.
It’s a delightful book for any Austen fan and I highly recommend it.