Miss Austen emitted an exasperated sigh. “Why not seize the pleasure at once? How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation?”
“As though I have not waited long enough,” C.J. replied with a light laugh. “You need not go to extremes on my account, Percy.”
“Is not my Cassandra the most charming girl in the world, Miss Jane?” Darlington said, a besotted smile on his lips.
“It requires uncommon steadiness of reason to resist the attraction of being called the most charming girl in the world,” Jane teased.
“I shall endeavor to keep my head then,” C.J. replied, as the two young ladies exchanged an impish glance. “But you must allow, Jane, that your cousin is quite charming when he is smitten. Quite a contrast to how studious he looks with his spectacles on! And I daresay I cannot number many men among my acquaintance who have as thorough a knowledge and understanding—and passion—for the poetry of Shakespeare, as well as a rather wicked art collection.”
Jane ruffled her cousin’s hair. “His friends may well rejoice in his having met with one of the very few sensible women who would have accepted him, or have made him happy if they had.”
His lordship took his leave just as Mary appeared in the doorway. “Lady Dalrymple wishes to know if you and Miss Austen might join her in the front parlor for tea, your ladyship.” C.J. replied that they would be delighted to accept her aunt’s offer, particularly if there were rosewater biscuits to be had. She noticed an unusual brooch pinned to Mary’s livery and inquired after its provenance. “A gift it was from Mrs. Jordan and His Highness, to thank me for assistin’ in the delivery of her babe. A boy, it was. In the pink of health.”
“Goodness!” C.J. exclaimed admiringly. “Then did you actually meet the Duke of Clarence?”
Mary shook her head. “Oh no. But Mrs. Jordan herself pressed this into my hand.”
“Mrs. Jordan was up and about so soon after giving birth? I pray that I may be as fortunate,” said C.J., lovingly caressing her abdomen.
“Oh, she’s had so many babes, she says they practically pop out by themselves now,” Mary replied. “She told us she just summons the midwives to entertain her in her hours of labor so she should not have to endure them alone. Why, she was even doin’ speeches for us from the theatre while she was pushin’ out the babe. And Mrs. Goodwin asked her to do Pickle,” Mary added, referring to the role for which Mrs. Jordan had gained the most renown.
Astonished, C.J. clapped a hand to her breast. “I pray, too, that I may have her humor under the circumstances!”
Epilogue
AND SO, DEAR READER, they were married. In the quiet parish church of St. Mary the Virgin, where Henry Fielding recited his vows, the third Earl of Darlington married Lady Cassandra Jane Warburton Tobias, only daughter of the eighth Marquess of Manwaring. Miss Austen’s “foolish preparation” was dispensed with at a small ceremony attended by the couple’s intimate friends and family.
Lady Oliver was conspicuous in her absence.
Following tradition, the groom handed his bride up into the open carriage, then climbed in beside her. The newlyweds tossed coins to those who had come to wish them well, then spurred their steeds toward the city. As they rode along Stall Street, headed for Darlington’s town house in the Circus, the new countess asked her husband to have the carriage brought to a halt. She alighted in front of an apple cart, took a good deal of care in selecting a particularly fragrant specimen, then removed a gold crown from her reticule. “For your pains, Adam Dombie,” she told the stunned costermonger.
The following March, as the vernal equinox was celebrated with great relief that the dark days of winter had once again drawn to a close and the crisp spring air promised warmer and gentler breezes to come, Lady Darlington was delivered of twins by Mary Sykes.
William, the boy, had his father’s dark curls and lapis-colored eyes; his sister, Nora, younger by a quarter hour, was possessed of the same deep blue eyes, but her hair was as fine and fair and golden as her mother’s had been when she was a newborn.
Their godmother was Miss Jane Austen.
Both babes demonstrated a remarkable, and rather immediate, inquisitiveness and shared a stubborn reluctance to go to Mrs. Fast, the wet nurse. On the afternoon following the births, Mary presented Lady Darlington with a small packet wrapped in tissue. Inside it was the cameo that had been bestowed upon the apprentice midwife by Mrs. Jordan.
“Mary, how can I possibly accept this?”
“It is the least I can do for your ladyship. Had it not been for you learnin’ me my letters and his lordship relievin’ me from my situation at Lady Wickham’s, I should never have made anything of myself, and now—”
“Mary, side by side we have scrubbed the rust stains from roasting pans, dyed used tea leaves black for smouch, and slept in the same bed. I cannot permit you to call me ‘your ladyship.’ I beg you to use my Christian name.”
“Oh no, your ladyship. Will you never learn? You are a countess and I am but a midwife. It is not at all proper.”
“Well then, you must at least permit me to address you as Mrs. Musgrove in future. And may I offer the deepest felicitations from Darlington and me.” Mary blushed a deep crimson. The twins’ godmother reappeared, bearing a tray of refreshments. “How astonishing I still find it,” C.J. remarked to Miss Austen, “that after all my peregrinations, Bath is my home after all.”
Jane smiled, and taking Cassandra’s hand in hers, pressed it to her cheek. “A heroine returning, at the close of her career, to her native village, all in the triumph of recovered reputation and all the dignity of a countess . . . is an event on which the pen of the contriver may well delight
