Just Jane Read Online Free PDF Page A

pounds.”
    “Much more than that.”
    She shakes her head. “I am finished.”
    I stop her pinching of the blossoms and squeeze her hand. “No, you are not!”
    Her smile has lost its bitter edge and is tinged with calm assurance. “You will marry your Tom, and I will live in an attic room and take care of your children so you can write your grand stories.”
    Her fantasy reignites my fear. “I’ve not heard from him.”
    “A wise man must create the foundation of his fortune before he can gain a wife. Your Tom is doing just that. He will come. You are engaged.”
    “We are not—officially. Though in my heart . . .”
    “You are engaged.”
    I don’t argue. How she has turned my attempt to comfort into being the comforted is a talent I’ve often witnessed and still find disconcerting.
    She goes back to the flowers. “Go now, Jane. As a woman of means I have the right to spend my time as I chuse.”
    The indication that she will accept Tom’s offering allows me to walk away. Although our mother lacks the tact to pronounce it well, it is my sister’s due.

Four
    To own silence . . .
    How odd that one does not appreciate something, nor even realize its absence, until it is presented as an unexpected gift.
    The absence of my brothers and the exit of my father’s pupils allowed me to enter a new phase of my life: that of a writer.
    I have always written. My first attempts at novel writing— Catherine , Lesley Castle , and Lady Susan —are evidence of that. But none is quite right. The latter two works are a bit scandalous, with adultery, abandonment of children, and permissiveness beyond the ken of polite society. Years ago, when I read them aloud to the family, Father’s eyebrows rose. Yet he didn’t chastise me or tell me to stop. I thank him for being patient with me, for what good is a rector who cannot see the joke in sins and sinners?
    I’ve also attempted a series of letters called Elinor and Marianne . I enjoy the differences between the two sisters. Perhaps I have shown that a disparity in character does not indicate a lack of character . . . .
    We have always been a family of readers—my father’s library has over five hundred volumes, and I have access to them all. And though it’s not always considered delicate to admit it, we adore novels. Those of Fanny Burney, Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding—to name three. And though I hold Fielding’s Tom Jones dear—for the fact that book inspired the dialogue between my Tom and me—my favourite is Richardson’s masterpiece, Sir Charles Grandison . It’s a massive book, populated by friends. If only I could discuss their failings and follies directly with the characters themselves.
    If a book is well written, I always find it too short. The boldness in the craft that these authors possess inspires me to try my hand at it. Not that my busyness will ever amount to much.
    I remember sitting in my father’s study once, reading while the boys played outside. I heard Henry in the hallway talking with Father, wanting me to come join them in a roll down the green hill behind the rectory. But Father stopped him, saying, “Leave your sister alone, she is enmeshed; she is gone from us.”
    Henry (being Henry) said, “No, she is not; she is right there in your study. I saw her through the window.” Thankfully, Father held fast, protecting my privacy. His words held more than a kernel of truth. When I read a novel I’m not here . I’m transported to far-off places, my eyes unseeing of the words on the page, busy with a scene being played out in my mind’s eye, with my ears engaged, hearing the voices carry from the pen to the present. What a lovely place to be—not here .
    So, without the boys’ chaotic, despotic, and often idiotic presence, the air at the rectory has eased as if a spring breeze has swept away a tumultuous storm, as well as all pressure to constantly do . I especially see the change in Mother. Without the need to arrange meals