Letter #2

Sunday 10 January 2010
Letter #2! Jane is still writing to Cassandra who is still in Kintbury with Tom’s family.

The notes in the book say there is a letter missing, dated Tuesday the 12th or Wednesday 13 1796. Maybe one of the letters Cassandra destroyed before she died? She destroyed letters that might have hurt someone’s feelings or contained circumstances she did not want relived. I think it is interesting that Jane Austen’s family, mainly Henry and Cassandra, treated her life, even after her death, as if they knew she would be famous for hundreds of years later.

“I have just received your & Mary’s letter & I thank you both, tho’ their contents might have been more agreeable. I do not at all expect to see you on Tuesday since matters have fallen out so unpleasantly, & if you are not able to return till after that day, it will hardly be possible for us to send for you before Saturday; tho’ for my own part I care so little about the Ball that it would be no sacrifice to me to give it up for the sake of seeing you two days earlier.” – Jane Austen, Thursday 14 1796

I wonder if the Mary she mentions is Mary Lloyd. Mary Lloyd was Eliza Lloyd Fowle’s sister. Eliza is discussed in letter #1 on Wednesday 6 January 2010. She also mentioned Mary Lloyd in letter #1 which we discussed on 24 November 2009. It makes sense that she would be referring to Mary Lloyd.
http://allthings-jane-austen.blogspot.com/2009/11/letter-1.html

I do not believe the ball she mentions can be the ball at Ashe because that ball will take place the next night, on Friday the 15th. She must be referring to a different ball, she talks of not seeing Cassandra on Tuesday which would be after the Friday ball.