'Miss Austen' Recap: Episode 1

Miss Austen airs Sundays at 8:00 pm and is available to stream. Recap the following episode.
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Cassandra Austen sits in bed reading Persuasion, the final published novel of her late sister Jane. Later, while feeding her goats, she receives a letter from Isabella Fowle that her father, the Reverend Fulwar Fowle, is dying. Although Isabella implores Cassandra not to undertake an arduous journey to see Fulwar, Cassandra immediately rushes off to Kintbury, the vicarage where she and Jane spent time as girls with their friend Eliza, Isabella’s late mother.

Cassandra arrives late at night in the midst of a downpour, surprising Isabella and her maid Dinah, who resents the intrusion. Cassandra immediately asks to see Fulwar, who is being attended by the doctor Mr. Lidderdale. Fulwar sends Lidderdale away. As Isabella insists on seeing him to the door, Lidderdale promises to return tomorrow. Upstairs, Fulwar asks Cassandra to ensure that Isabella goes to live with her sisters after his death.

Overnight, Cassandra tries to sneak down the hall from her room for the real reason she has rushed to the vicarage: to retrieve her sister Jane’s letters to Eliza. But Dinah hears her in the hallway, so Cassandra retreats back to her room.

Fulwar dies in the night. After the funeral, his daughter Beth quickly leaves, chatting with Lidderdale all the while, to Isabella’s seeming distaste. Despite her grief, Isabella must still play host and introduce Cassandra and her aunt Mary to Mr. Dundas, the vicar who will replace Fulwar. Mr. Dundas announces that he will be moving into the vicarage in a fortnight, even though custom gives a family two months to move out. But his wife is due to have a fourth child in a month, and there is no Fowle family to vacate other than Isabella.

Mr. Dundas also enthuses over Jane Austen’s books, saying that she deserves a biography. Cassandra says that everything you need to know about Jane is already in her novels. But Mary, sister-in-law to Jane and Cassandra by her marriage to their brother James, later picks up on the idea of a biography of both Jane and James, who was also a great writer. Perhaps Mary’s son James could write the book. She will return tomorrow to collect her sister Eliza’s correspondence with Jane, which could be useful for a biography; Eliza wrote often to both Jane and Cassandra. Cassandra assures Mary she will help Isabella move out of the vicarage, even though Dinah is eager to see her leave.

As soon as Mary leaves, Cassandra goes to Jane’s old room and finds her letters, bringing them back to her own room and propping a chair against the door while she begins to read them.

Cassy – as Cassandra was known when she was younger – was once engaged to Fulwar’s brother Tom. Jane and Cassy were very close, with Jane sharing drafts of her novels with Cassy to read first. Both girls were dear friends with Eliza; less so with her sister, Mary, who went on to marry their brother James and whom Jane satirized in the form of the “dreadful” Mary Bennett in Pride and Prejudice. Jane worries that Cassy’s marriage leaves her alone with her parents, but Cassy assures her she will live just a county over.

But her move will be delayed. While toasting Cassy and Tom’s engagement, Fulwar also announces that Tom will be departing on a seafaring excursion under the patronage of Lord Craven. Tom had not informed Cassy of this. He later tells her that he is doing it for their future, to secure money for them since neither is wealthy. And he has been promised his own parish upon his return – in a year. He leaves in a fortnight.

Jane reassures Cassy: she is marrying for love, not wealth, and that comes at a cost. Tom is simply trying to build a secure future for them.

Before Tom leaves, he tells Cassy to spend lots of time at Kintbury while he’s gone: it will soon be her home. She can help Eliza out with her children. Tom also tells her that he has made a will leaving her most of his money, in case he doesn’t return. If that happens, he insists that she feel unencumbered to marry someone else – but she promises him that she will never.

As Isabella prepares to leave the vicarage where the Fowles have resided for three generations, she laments that she will be alone. Cassandra presses her to live with her sisters, as her father wanted, but Isabella is not sure she wants to follow his wishes. There seems to be ill will between the sisters.

Cassy and Jane’s relationship was much closer, although Jane was annoyed by the unending wedding preparation after Tom’s departure. She puts up with her mother’s tried-and-true worries over what will become of Jane, the less “useful” daughter. She’s less enamored with her mother’s scheming to find a new bride for her widowed son, James, and surprised that Cassy indulges and even participates in it. Cassy pushes Eliza’s sister Mary, and plans to force James and Mary together at a county ball. James’ daughter Anna needs a new mother. But Jane struggles to imagine Mary as a mother, and doesn’t think it’s a good match. She worries that Anna will in fact be forgotten in the relationship.

Nevertheless, Cassy encourages the self-doubting Mary at the county ball and intervenes after James dances with another admirer in order to pair him with Mary. Soon Mary and James are married.

Cassandra is surprised to learn from Jane’s letters to Eliza how much she doubted Cassy’s intentions in matching Mary with James. She’s also surprised to find Dinah supposedly cleaning in her room with the door closed while Jane’s letters are out on her bed.

She opens a letter from Mary to Eliza.

It recounts how Mary resented Cassy and Jane’s close bond – and the occasion upon which Mary, with James, brought news of Tom’s death of yellow fever to Cassy. Mary’s telling of the event differs from Cassy’s recollection. Mary made a point of telling Cassy that Lord Craven didn’t know Tom was engaged, or he would not have allowed him to make the trip; it was fully Tom’s choice. Jane tried to tell Cassy not to believe Mary, but Mary forced the meek James to quietly back her.

Mary lied, Cassandra says angrily. And she has just arrived back at Kintbury to retrieve Jane’s correspondence.