Free Cassandra's Sister by Veronica Bennett Page B

how I am immediately defeated! You see the best in everyone and everything, while I look upon life with a jaded eye.”
    â€œOh, but there is no need,” retorted Cassandra with confidence. “Somewhere your future husband waits patiently for you. When you meet him, I predict that every jaded notion you ever had will fly away.”
    Jenny’s affection for her sister rose up. “Dearest Cass, I know you will find great happiness with your Tom. But last night has shown me how powerful falling in love can be. How suddenly it can happen – and how swiftly a woman, or a man, can switch their allegiance. The joy of love, as you so eloquently describe it, is an exquisite human experience, but a precarious one. And we women go through all its passions and problems, thinking of nothing else for years and years of our lives … for what? For a man who may or may not love us after our youth and beauty have faded away.”
    â€œYou only say this because you have never been in love,” insisted Cass. “You will change your mind, I promise.”
    â€œAnd if I do not succeed in making anyone fall in love with me,” went on Jenny, “I shall end an old maid. That is an indisputable fact. But, unlike most old maids, I can at least indulge my habit of writing stories as an alternative to the endless hours of glove-knitting that await me.”
    â€œWhich reminds me,” said Cass, brightening, “we are expected at James’s this afternoon. Apparently he and Anne have a gift for me which I am not supposed to know about. Knitted gloves aside, what do you think they have got me which I could possibly want?”
    When Mrs Lloyd and her daughters had moved to a small house in the village of Ibthorpe several miles away, the living at Deane had been granted to James. The Lloyds’ old house, Deane Parsonage, was larger than the cottage James and Anne had lived in before, with a well-kept garden Jenny had always loved. But Mama considered sitting outdoors, even in early September, detrimental to one’s health, so Jenny, her mother and sister, and James and Anne themselves, with baby Anna clinging to her mother’s knees, gathered in the parlour. In the Lloyds’ day this had been a bright, uncluttered room, always full of flowers. But Anne, who shared her mother-in-law’s distrust of fresh air, had closed the windows against it. The room was stifling.
    Anne and James were interested to hear an edited description of the previous evening’s ball. “I have not been to the Rooms for many years,” Anne observed. “James, we must stir ourselves to join the company there again soon.”
    â€œYes, my dear, we must,” replied her husband. “Personally, I enjoy dancing.”
    Jenny saw him gesticulate to Anne, while at the same time pretending he had not done so. When she made no response, he nodded his head towards a cupboard to the side of the chimney breast.
    â€œOh!” Anne jumped up, surprising little Anna, who sat down unexpectedly hard on the stone floor. The child set up a loud wail. “Cassandra,” said Anne, “we have a gift for you. Now, Anna, you are not hurt.” Picking her daughter up, she went to the cupboard and removed something wrapped in the sort of paper in which draper’s goods came. Shyly, she presented it to her sister-in-law, whose pretence of utter astonishment impressed Jenny.
    â€œWhat can it be?” wondered Cass, fumbling a little as she opened it. “Oh, a shawl! How beautiful!”
    It
was
beautiful. Folded, the shawl took up no more space than a pocket-handkerchief. Opened out, the delicate, silken-fringed material spread to the size of a tablecloth. Cass fingered the impeccably stitched embroidery. “Anne, you are far, far too kind,” she gasped.
    â€œJames bought the shawl in London,” Anne explained, “but it was plain, except for the fringe. I embroidered it with things you