Free The Missing Manuscript of Jane Austen by Syrie James Page A

bond formedbetween them. Despite the disparity in their ages (he was now sixty years of age, having not married early), they became each other’s dearest and closest companion. She was her father’s prime source of comfort, and he hers; they had much in common intellectually; they loved and admired each other with all their hearts.
    Twice a month, she and her father dined at Claremont Park, the elegant home of their patron, Sir Percival Mountague, with whom her father enjoyed a weekly game of cards. On occasion, they dined with friends from the adjacent parishes, where she was asked to play and sing. But most evenings, they spent alone at home, either reading aloud from the paper, or from whatever book had been newly purchased or acquired from the circulating library.
    Each and every newspaper and volume seemed to Rebecca like a window to the world, which fascinated her with its many cultures and diversities; yet, she had no desire to move beyond the safety and comfort of that window. She had never undertaken a journey longer than ten miles—had never even seen her sister’s house, it being too distant for a day’s excursion—and the pleasure of her sister’s company was now restricted to but a few weeks at Christmas or midsummer, when Sarah and her husband and family came to them. These visits, which filled the rectory with the happy bustle, noise, and confusion peculiar to children, and obli ged Mr. Stanhope to give up any attempt at household order, made Rebecca very happy. She wished they could occur more frequently; indeed, she dearly missed her sister, and their regular, intimate correspondence could never make up for the joys of a face-to-face conversation; but she contented herself with what was offered.
    Although there were no longer any young ladies ofRebecca’s age with whom she could keep company in Elm Grove (the Mountagues’ youngest daughters, like Sarah, having been removed by matrimony), Rebecca was busy and content. Every morning before breakfast, she practised her music. She took daily walks in the nearby meadows. She worked in the garden and the poultry yard, sewed her father’s shirts and household linens, made clothes for the poor, visited the cottagers when they were sick, and read to their children (teaching many to read).
    Sarah understood and honoured Rebecca’s affection for her home and its environs, yet she worried.
    “The true difficulty in the neighbourhood,” Sarah had pointed out on her last visit, “is the complete lack of eligible young men.” How, she wondered, was Rebecca ever to marry? The balls at the assembly room in Atherton were sparsely attended, by men with no pretensions to culture. The curate-in-charge of Farleigh was married. The vicar of Calderbury was a widower of fifty. The Mountagues had only one son, who was promised to one of his cousins. Was Rebecca destined to be an old maid, dependent on her father all her life, never to give her heart to any one, or to know the joy of raising a family? Rebecca calmly insisted that if she
was
never to marry, she would graciously accept her fate, for her life and heart were full in caring for her father, and in her activities and associations in the parish; and as to children, one must never discount the importance of being an aunt.
    It was now a mild evening in early August, the sun hanging low in the sky, the air redolent with the fragrance of roses in bloom and the gentle sound of the breeze brushing the trees. Rebecca sat with her father on a garden bench beneath a large elm, listening to him read aloud from
The Female Quixote
. She loved to hear him read; he was highly skilled atthe activity, imbuing his performance with spirit and feeling. When Mr. Stanhope finished a chapter and closed the volume, she gave a happy sigh, drinking in the quiet of the surroundings, thinking how fortunate she was, and how happy and content.
    “What a thrilling and amusing story!” commented she cheerfully. “Such refined language and