Miss Austen de
Gill Hornby
A white sky rushed past the windows; the bare branches of the big beech waved high in the wind. The two ladies watched it all from their table, at which Cassandra was enjoying her breakfast. This was always the meal to rely on when visiting; even the worst of kitchens found it hard to go wrong. And she needed all the strength she could muster for the day that lay ahead. ‘This jam was made by my mother.’ Isabella spooned out just enough for a scraping. ‘She was so productive right till the end. We are still, even now, enjoying her food.’ Cassandra took another bite and Eliza was conjured up before her. She could taste her in the fruit, see her picking and stirring and laughing and pouring and thought: these are the things by which most of us are remembered, these small acts of love, the only evidence that we, too, once lived on this earth. The preserves in the larder, the stitch on the kneeler. The mark of the pen on the page."