Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House by Stephanie Barron Read Free Book Online Page B

aloud to my mother. I devote myself to planning the shape and composition of our garden in Castle Square. I choose green baize for the dressing-room floors and consider of the size of beds. But I have not ventured inside the theatre in French Street; I have not danced since quitting Bath; and I have entirely left off my attempts at novel-writing. The creatures of my pen afford me no amusement in this despondent season. Their caprice and wiles cannot dislodge the mental dullness and spiritual weight that have dogged me, now, for too great a period—dogged me, in varying degree, since my poor father's death, and the end of so much that was comfortable in our domestic arrangements.
    There is nothing unusual in a period of lowness during the winter months. And I have been more than usually bereft of companionship—my sister, Cassandra, having gone to my brother Edward's estate in Kent for Christmas. Edward's wife, Elizabeth, being but recently delivered of her tenth child, there is much to do this winter at Godmersham—what with the little boys too young to be sent away to school, and the little girls in want of a governess, and the eldest child, Fanny, on the verge of quitting the schoolroom altogether. I am certain that Cassandra must have her hands quite full, and may forgive her the letter that arrived only Friday, postponing her descent upon the South until April, several weeks after we shall have undertaken the move to Castle Square. I could not wish her to suffer the same lassitude and confinement I have myself endured, and may hope that she enjoys a pleasant interval of dancing at Chilham, and the luxury of claret with her dinner, and much coming and going in my brother's equipages, before the monotony of home life must once more descend.
    But I am sick of cities and towns, of the rumble of cartwheels on paving-stones, of the ceaseless babble of harsh conversation, of muck and commerce and an end to all peace. I would give a good deal for one breath of fresh air—for the sharp green smell of bruised clover, the sight of snowdrops poking through the warming earth; for the call of a curlew, and the rushing chatter of a stream. In the blessed quiet of a country lane, or before a wide-flung window, I might recover somewhat of my serenity, and learn to sustain myself in the affections of my family alone. I might cease to yearn for love that is beyond hope. I might even be able to write again.
    This rush of confidence, scrawled in the pages of my little book, was spurred, I know, by Louisa Seagrave— by her own air of disappointed hopes, of throttled ambition. The love of a brash man, and a headlong union of two brilliant spirits, accomplished little towards her happiness. She is more earthbound and compassed now—by obligation, duty, the bonds of family—than the young girl beating her wings against a viscount's cage could possibly have imagined. I pity her; I recognise in her the human condition; and I return once more to the conviction that life's burdens may only be overcome by a summoning of inner resources: by a dependence not upon others, but upon the qualities of spirit and mind.
    I resolve to do better. I resolve to leave off depression, and embrace what I may of good in my lot. I possess, after all, life and health—or should, but for this abominable cold—and am not so far reduced in circumstances as to admit of shame. There might yet be cause for rejoicing in the years ahead; much of worthy and fruitful endeavour, that might contribute to the happiness of my family and increase my own respectability. It cannot be so seductive a prospect as the life of a woman of fortune—one, for instance, allied to all the resources of a duke's second son, a confidant of the Crown—
    But I must banish the thought It is as illogical, as unlikely, as improbable as one of my own creations—a Lizzy Bennet, perhaps, in conquest of a Mr. Darcy, or a Marianne triumphant over a Willoughby reformed. Such things may only be