The Austen Girls Read online

  It occurred to Fanny, with a twinge of dread, that her father would be doing exactly the same thing in an hour’s time. He’d be leading her into the ballroom beneath the eyes of all the gentlefolk of Canterbury.

  Fanny’s skin suddenly felt hot, and she remembered all over again that she was nervous. She could almost sense the pressure of people watching and wondering if she would be chosen by a gentleman. It was more than just a dance. As Anna said, it could, it might, lead to a proposal.

  But how could she possibly find herself a husband and make her parents happy, if she couldn’t even picture what this imaginary man might be like?

  Fanny’s mother, of course, had more to say. ‘We don’t just want the girls married,’ she continued, at volume, ‘we want them married well!’

  At that, there was a ragged cheer from somewhere up above.

  ‘What’s all this hullabaloo?’

  Fanny and her father turned to look back up the staircase. The balustrade above was crowded with little faces.

  It was as if a signal had been given, and a horde of her sisters, and indeed some of her smaller brothers too, all came running down.

  ‘Children!’ Elizabeth was exclaiming. ‘You were all sent to bed hours ago!’

  But there was no stopping them.

  In their nightgowns down came Lizzie, Marianne, even tiny Louie, all of them, Fanny could see, thoroughly overexcited. Mrs Sackree, their nurse, was going to have a long evening of it, she thought.

  ‘An-na! Fan-ny!’ they were chanting, like little savages. ‘Married! Married!’

  ‘Want to see the dresses,’ wailed little Louie, who had delicate feelings, and who’d been left behind by the rest of the stampede.

  ‘Oh, show them, show them,’ Edward said. ‘They’ll be on the market themselves soon enough. Better show them what it’s like.’

  Fanny felt strangely awkward, even though these were only her sisters whom she knew as well as her own fingers and thumbs. She wasn’t used to wearing such a naked-feeling dress with its low neck.

  ‘Ooh, lovely,’ shouted Marianne, ‘lovely dresses, and they’ll dance … like this.’ She spun round and round, as if locked in a partner’s embrace.

  Fanny waited for her mother to explode. But then she realised that both her parents were just watching Marianne. They had what Fanny might almost have called foolish smiles on their faces.

  ‘That’s what it was like, hey, Elizabeth?’ her father said. ‘But the season for wine and roses was all too short, wasn’t it? All too short.’

  And then the moment was over, and Elizabeth was turning away, and scoffing.

  ‘Now, Mr Austen,’ she said severely. ‘No more talk of clergymen. You’ve been picking up ideas from that sister of yours. Fanny should marry money, and Anna … must marry money. Clergymen never have any. And please steer the girls well clear of anyone in trade.’

  ‘It’s true that my sister introduced Mr Drummer into the parish,’ her husband conceded. ‘Lord knows where from, exactly, but he’s a very brainy fellow.’

  ‘Your sister Jane!’ Fanny’s mother snorted. ‘She doesn’t like clergymen enough to marry one and get herself off our hands.’

  The little girls had started whooping again, but their mother’s voice cut through the din. ‘Less of this, if you please!’

  ‘But, Mama,’ said Marianne, flopping her bottom down the stairs one by one, ‘you said yourself that Fanny and Anna must marry –’ she bumped down one step more – ‘and never mind Fanny’s hair or Anna’s temper, they must keep a sharp lookout for a husband.’

  ‘Marianne! I’m so ashamed.’ Elizabeth spoke sharply. ‘What a thing to say.’

  ‘But you said it!’ Marianne’s voice was rising in pitch.

  ‘I may have said it,’ Elizabeth scolded, ‘but it’s not to be repeated. And certainly not in front of the servants! Now, back up to the nursery.’

  ‘To be fair,’ Anna said, ‘you did say it, Aunt Elizabeth, we all heard you. Although I think Fanny’s hair is very nice.’

  A sudden silence.

  Fanny squirmed. As ever, Anna had gone too far. If only she’d remember she wasn’t really a member of the family, and that she didn’t have the right to say pert things like the little girls did.

  The stillness was deafeningly loud.

  Her mother made it clear that Anna had done wrong by simply failing to respond.

  ‘Mrs Sackree!’ Elizabeth was saying instead. ‘Come down this instant and take these wicked girls to bed. And now, for Heaven’s sake, Mr Austen, get these two to the ball and … well, no need for any further discussion.’

  Mr Austen at last succeeded in setting off down the stairs at a stately trot. Once she was on the move, something different from dread, something rather like excitement, finally began to surge into Fanny’s stomach.

  Oh, we’re off at last, she said to herself, here’s the carriage. Our first ball truly has begun.

  Chapter 3

  The Star Inn, Canterbury

  Fanny bounced at least an inch into the air at each bump in the road. Her father always made their coachman, James, drive slightly too fast.

  She sensed rather than saw the passing park as they hurtled through the darkness, towards the town and the Star Inn. She’d have felt the cold of the night, Fanny was sure, if she hadn’t been burning up with elation and alarm combined.

  Gradually she realised that Anna was discoursing authoritatively about something or other.

  ‘Well, Uncle Edward, if I get the chance, I certainly mean to waltz,’ she was saying. ‘I don’t care if the prim-and-proper people round here think it’s indecent. They waltz at Almack’s in London, I’ve read it in the paper, and the Duke of Wellington goes there.’

  Edward Austen was spluttering and protesting, but Fanny could tell that his heart wasn’t in it. He enjoyed hearing his favourite niece insisting she was going to try the scandalous new dance.

  ‘Just don’t dance with clergymen, either of you,’ he said, in the end. ‘And if you do, or if you get involved in any of the newfangled waltzing or suchlike, promise me you won’t tell Mrs Austen.’

  ‘All right!’ said Anna. ‘We won’t tell. Fanny, you’ll waltz too, won’t you? Uncle Edward says we can … as long as we don’t tell Aunt Elizabeth.’

  Fanny grinned into the darkness. She didn’t plan to do any waltzing, but it was nice to be asked.

  The sound of the wheels changed as they passed on to the paved road, now swooping down the hill into the town. To Fanny it suddenly felt all too soon to be arriving, her nerves flustered, her hair surely messed up.

  But they’d halted, and Anna was shoving the door open, and the deep cold air was rushing in. She jumped down, trying not to get horse manure from the street on her satin shoes.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting to encounter ordure this evening,’ Anna grumbled, grabbing Fanny’s shoulder for support.

  Anna was wearing a precious new pair of pumps, Fanny knew, a gift from her own parents. Anna’s brown dress was just a hand-me-down from another lady living in Hampshire.

  Fanny tried to push down the sudden recollection of the cost of her own gown. She knew that Anna had been shocked when she’d heard its price.

  A lantern marked the entrance to the Star Inn, and then they were going up the wide staircase, up, up to the dancing room. They could hear the scraping sound of violins tuning up.

  But where was the buzz of conversation? The sound of the crowd?

  ‘Early, God damn it!’ Edward said. ‘After all that, we’re early. Never mind, girls, you can make a grand entrance next time.’

  Inside the long ballroom, there were so few people they could see all the way through to the blazing fireplace at the other end. It hardly looked like a ballroom at all, just an empty room.

  Had Fanny braced herself … for this?

  But the Star Inn was famous for its winter balls, to which came all the gentlefolk of Kent. Fanny had heard so much about them, every winter of her life: what dances ha
d been danced, who’d received a proposal … and now she was really here at last.

  Perhaps, with its candles, the room did have something of a glamorous, glowing quality after all. The air smelt rich and sweet.

  And it seemed that tonight London fashion had come to dance too. Seated stiffly on a row of chairs were people she didn’t recognise. They weren’t speaking or moving except for the languid beat of one lady’s fan. They were well dressed – too well dressed. Fanny could imagine her mother clicking her tongue in annoyance at the sight of someone more fashionable than herself.

  Oh, Fanny cringed. How silly she’d been even to half believe Anna when she’d said that Fanny’s would be the prettiest dress in the room.

  She shrank back behind her father. Her white gown now seemed dowdy compared to the rose-and-yellow outfit of the lady with the fan.

  But it was very difficult to disconcert her father.

  He went stomping ahead, Anna keeping pace with him, patting her hair, fluffing her brown skirt, turning her head to the side. Fanny knew that she was trying to show off her profile. It really was the most striking angle of her face. Yet Fanny secretly thought it just looked like Anna was turning her nose up.

  ‘Good evening!’ Edward was saying. ‘I see Sir William isn’t here yet, so we will just have to do the honours and introduce ourselves. I am Mr Austen, of Godmersham Park, outside the town, you know, a subscriber to the Star Inn Ball for many years, and this is my niece Miss Austen, and my daughter, who is … erm … Miss Austen too. Two young ladies. This is their first ball!’

  Fanny died a little inside. Why did he have to mention that? It made her and Anna look so … unsophisticated.

  But there was no time to worry about that now. The moment had come for which they had long been practising in Fanny’s bedroom. Fanny glanced at Anna, and knew she was thinking the same thing. They stood side by side, crossed one ankle behind the other, locked the knees, locked the knees, that was the secret, and together, slowly, they curtsied. There! It was done. They’d been introduced to strangers, making them officially ‘out’ in society, and therefore ready to be married.

  Fanny stood back up again. It hadn’t been that bad. If anything, the room was so astonishingly empty that it was almost an anticlimax.

  She’d been concentrating so hard on her curtsy that she hadn’t heard a word of the introductions. The rosy lady was extending a gloved hand, returning Fanny’s clasp so limply that she feared that the fingers inside might actually be dead. But now, who was this? Fanny felt an unaccustomed thrill running down her spine. Here was a young man with glowing golden hair, and curious dark smouldering eyes, bowing down before her. She noticed, with a little shock, how long his black lashes were, long as a girl’s. She herself had that same combination of pale hair and dark eyes, she knew it was odd, but on him it was striking … almost beautiful. He didn’t look up through his long lashes, though, as she found herself wishing that he would. Instead, he lazily tossed his longish hair back into place as he stood, and then … sat back silently down on his seat.

  Fanny felt disbelief. He’d just sat down again! As if he had no intention of talking to her. Could he really … yes, he was! … he was examining his nails. As if he had all the time in the world.

  Fanny could hear her father chatting to the young man’s friends, Anna putting in a word here and there, and then here at last was Sir William, the master of ceremonies, a red-faced, squashy-looking gentleman, who often visited them at Godmersham, and who’d known Fanny since she was tiny.

  ‘My lord Smedley!’ he was saying to the golden young man. ‘Here’s the charming Miss Austen. Her very first ball, you know. Won’t you invite her to dance?’

  Fanny had been teetering between triumph and disaster all evening, but now everything seemed to have come together in a golden explosion of wonder. The ballroom! A dance partner! And now it seemed that she would be opening the ball, her first ball, hand in hand with a member of the aristocracy.

  She imagined her mother’s proud smile.

  She curtsied again, trying to look demure, not smug. For once everything was going just as it should.

  She was looking right at Lord Smedley, getting ready to say yes and yet trying not to appear too eager, when the blow came.

  Lord Smedley looked up, looked away, looked back at his nails.

  ‘I’m afraid,’ he said, distantly, tossing out the words as if tossing down banknotes to pay an unwelcome debt, ‘that I don’t dance.’

  Fanny’s stomach plunged down, down through the floorboards, down to the stables below. How mortifying!

  She opened her mouth, but closed it. She’d almost said, far too quickly, ‘Of course, of course, I do apologise for having …’

  Having what? Having assumed?

  It had been Sir William, she reminded herself, who’d suggested they dance.

  But Anna was there. And of course, Anna would be on Fanny’s side.

  ‘How strange of you, my lord,’ she was saying, loudly, as if to draw attention to his strangeness, as if he were the odd one, not Fanny.

  She put her arm through Fanny’s, making as if to draw her away to somewhere much more exciting.

  ‘How strange it is, Sir William,’ Anna continued, at even higher volume, ‘that my lord Smedley here says he doesn’t dance, yet has come to a ball! He must have been mistaken as to the purpose of the gathering.’

  The conversation between the young lord’s rosy companion and Fanny’s father faltered and died, and they turned to see what was happening.

  ‘I’m afraid,’ Anna concluded triumphantly, ‘that his lordship has mistaken the Star Inn for the barber’s shop, and thinks that very soon the manicurist will come along to cut his nails!’

  There was a burble of laughter; even the rosy lady joined in. Fanny herself pretended to laugh as well while she and Anna turned away to go to sit by themselves.

  Anna had helped, but it had still been humiliating beyond measure.

  Chapter 4

  The ballroom, the Star Inn, Canterbury

  ‘Miss Austen? Miss Fanny Austen?’

  It was a young man, a real young man. But Fanny was so cowed by the evening’s disastrous start that she could scarcely raise her eyes to look at him.

  Half an hour later, the Star Inn’s assembly room was looking much more like a proper ballroom, and was positively packed with people. But Fanny found herself stranded primly on a chair. She wished she could take her gloves off her sweaty hands. She could sense wisps of hair round her face as if her knot was coming loose.

  More importantly, though, she hoped that if she kept completely still, no one would notice her. The first dance had been and gone, and she’d suffered the shame of standing up for it with her own father. Anna, of course, had seized the hand of Sir William, and had ended up opening the ball with the master of ceremonies.

  The best that could be said of the first dance was that it was over.

  Fanny peeked through her lashes at the person before her. He was bowing, so she could only see the top of a curly brown head. But – oh no – she could also glimpse beetle-black breeches. Fanny realised, with a sinking of the heart, that he must be one of her mother’s dreaded clergymen. Not a nobleman. Not even rich. Just a boring church-mouse clergyman.

  ‘May I beg the pleasure of knowing if you are Miss Fanny Austen?’

  But wait a minute, Fanny thought, this was much more like a ball was supposed to be. Here was a young man seeking her acquaintance, and doing it in an unorthodox manner. He hadn’t sought an introduction through Sir William, but had come marching straight over as if he could not bear to remain unknown to her one second longer.

  Fanny’s bruised heart gave a tiny little skip.

  She forced herself to stand, curtsy and speak to him. She was beginning to see that in the ballroom everyone must chat to strangers as if they were old friends – as Anna was doing on the other side of the room – or else sink like a stone.

  He placed his hand over his heart.


  ‘I am Mr Drummer,’ he said, ‘and I’ve recently had the honour of being appointed to the parish of Godmersham. But I haven’t yet had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of the daughter of my new patron, Mr Austen.’

  He spoke formally, and with a blush, as if it too cost him some effort to be sociable. Fanny warmed to the uneasiness in his manner.

  She now saw that Anna had popped up at his shoulder, ogling him from behind.

  ‘I am delighted to meet you,’ Fanny said, taking his cue and talking as if following a script for correct ballroom conversation. ‘And this is my cousin, another Miss Austen, just like me. Our fathers are brothers.’

  Anna was looking Mr Drummer up and down with open curiosity.

  ‘Oh, but we’ve heard about you!’ she said. ‘You’ve just been appointed to the parish of Godmersham, is that right? You’ll be living in Fanny’s park! Or at least, in the parsonage in her father’s park.’

  He hung his head a little.

  ‘I hope … the tidings that have gone ahead of me do me credit,’ he stuttered.

  Fanny wasn’t sure what to say, for it seemed improper to reveal that her father had called him a brainy fellow, and that her mother had already forbidden her from marrying him.

  ‘Let’s sit down,’ Anna suggested, ‘and we can tell you about some of the people here. We know a few of them, at least, don’t we, Fanny? They’ll be your parishioners.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, with pink cheeks, and suddenly all three of them smiled. It was nice to be newcomers together.

  With one of the cousins on each side of him, Mr Drummer was soon doing his best to pick out the people Fanny and Anna were able to name among the ball-goers. The tune drew to an end, the two lines of dancers parted, and suddenly they could see right across the room to the moody Lord Smedley, sitting alone on one of the seats opposite.

  ‘And that,’ said Anna, ‘is the rudest young man that we’ve ever met. He refused to dance with Fanny! Refused! At her very first ball. Can you believe it?’