Jane Austen’s First Love Read Free

it important. What
is
important is that you improve and perfect your needlework skills, Jane, for they will be of infinite value when you have a family of your own one day.”
    I turned in my chair to face her. “How do you know I
will
have a family one day?” We had always been allowed—nay,
encouraged—
to speak frankly within the confines of our family; outside the home, it was a different matter. Perhaps this was to my detriment, for I often spoke without sufficient consideration, regardless of the setting; but my mother and father said they wished to know what was on our minds. “
That
will only happen if I
marry
, which requires that I meet an eligible gentleman—which seems highly unlikely given that you will never allow me to attend a real ball!”
    She sighed. “We have been over this too many times to count, Jane. You may come out when you are seventeen, just as your sister did. Your father and I do not wish you to enter society or marry at too early an age.”
    “Dancing does not necessarily lead to matrimony.”
    “No, but dancing facilitates the means by which one might meet her life’s partner, and is one of several, certain steps towards falling in love. I met your father at a ball.”
    “I know; but Cassandra has been out more than a year already, and she is not in love, nor even close to engaged. No doubt we shall both be required to attend
many
balls before we each find our perfect match. What is the harm in me starting early? Cassandra and I have done everything together since the moment of my birth; our progress in everything we have learnt has always been the same. Cannot you forget our age difference in this one, particular matter?”
    “No, I cannot. Now go wash your hands—your fingers are all black—and come downstairs at once.” So saying, she quit the room.
    With a deep sigh, I returned my aborted manuscript to my writing-box, washed my hands at the basin, and joined my mother and sister in the sitting-room. I threaded my needle and worked beside them in silence, struggling to keep the conversation between the characters in my play alive in my mind; but my mother’s and sister’s chatter, and the sounds of my father’s Latin lesson issuing from the adjoining parlour, forbade it.
    After two hours thus employed, I felt I could sit still no longer. Glancing out the rectory window, I observed that the sun had made a bright appearance, and there was nary a cloud in the sky. After a frigid and dreary winter, the last dusting of snow had at last melted away, and the fields beyond, covered in a sparkling frost, beckoned to me. “Mamma, I have finished the long seam on this sleeve, and made good progress on the cuff. May I stop working now and take a walk?”
    “You wish to go out in
this
weather?” She was incredulous.
    “The post will not deliver itself.
Someone
has to go to Deane and fetch it,” replied I lightly, adding to my sister, “Would you like to join me?”
    “I would, very much,” answered Cassandra, lowering her work. My sister, a prudent, well-judging young woman, was generally less demonstrative of feeling than I—a characteristic which I struggled in vain to emulate. She was also my dearest friend in the world; I valued her advice and counsel above anybody else’s, and loved her more than life itself.
    “Well! I, too, am ready to do something else for a while,” mused my mother, putting her work in her bag, “but to go out? The roads and fields are all covered in frost. You will catch your death of cold!”
    “It is nought but a
light
frost, Mamma,” countered I.
    “There is nothing worse than a light frost, for it will soon melt away, and
then
you are forced to walk over wet ground. I had a childhood friend whose death was occasioned by nothing more—she walked out one morning in April after a hard rain, and her feet got wet through—she never changed her shoes when she came home—and that was the end of her! Have you any notion how many people have died