'Miss Austen' Recap: Episode 4

Miss Austen is available to stream. Recap the previous episode.
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Cassandra bursts into Kintbury, eager to discuss Isabella’s future with her after learning from Isabella’s sister Beth that Isabella once loved Mr. Lidderdale. But the Dundases are there, examining the vicarage they are soon to take over. Once alone, Isabella explains to Cassandra that Lidderdale proposed to her but she refused, because her father thought Lidderdale beneath the family, since his mother was a servant, he had no inheritance, and he worked with the poor as a doctor. Even though Isabella’s father Fulwar is now dead, Mr. Lidderdale is proud and will not ask Isabella again for marriage after being refused, Isabella believes. But she takes heart from Cassandra’s example of a happy, single woman.

So Cassandra visits Isabella’s other sister, Mary Jane, to secure a future for Isabella. Mary Jane’s lodgings cannot accommodate Isabella, so the sisters begin looking for a new home, with Cassandra’s help. Mary Jane tells Cassandra that Isabella’s romance with Lidderdale was just a dalliance, although Cassandra believes they were in love.

She had to find new lodgings for herself, Jane, and her mother after her father’s death, too. Cassy took the family’s future into her hands, securing funds from her brothers to support their mother and sisters in a meager living. Jane is upset that she can contribute nothing, and cannot bring herself to work on her novels. Although she sold Lady Susan, the publisher has not published it. Jane believes nothing will ever come of herself.

Cassandra is determined to prevent Isabella from falling into similar melancholy, and so insists on certain things – a garden, a room in which to teach – while looking at lodgings for Isabella and Mary Jane.

A way to a more comfortable life for Cassy did present itself while the Austen women were in some dismal lodgings. Mrs. Austen has corresponded with Henry Hobday’s mother ever since meeting her during a seaside visit, and Henry wants to visit Cassy. He tells her that he is to be married, but he wanted to first see if there was still any possibility of a future for the two of them. Cassy cries, and tells him that her duty is with her family. He says he could help with their situation, but she says that Jane needs her constant care; her duty is with her sister. They sadly part.

Another opportunity arises when Cassy’s sister-in-law Elizabeth dies, leaving her brother Edward alone with numerous children. When Cassy visits him, he asks her to live with him and help with the children, but she tells him she must stay with Jane and their mother. He agrees.

She waits for more – and then just forces a plan. She suggests that he could put her, Jane, and their mother up in a cottage on the grounds of one of his estates, so that she could see and tend to the children when he visits. He loves the idea – as does Jane, when she sees the cottage. A writing desk beckons to her, and she sets back to work on her various manuscripts.

Isabella and Mary Jane also find a cottage in which to live. Cassandra and Isabella run into Mr. Lidderdale after viewing it, and he explains that he has accepted a new position and is due to leave town in a month.

Isabella nearly cries, and asks Cassandra to finish reading Persuasion back at Kintbury, as a way to wrap up their time in the vicarage. Dinah listens at the door, and both she and Isabella are rapt as Cassandra reads of a character falling – possibly to her death.

The scene gives Dinah an idea. She tumbles down the stairs – purposefully. Cassandra sends Isabella to fetch Lidderdale. He comes at once, and finds nothing broken. His hand touches Isabella’s as they tend to the unconscious maid. Isabella thanks him for coming, and he tells her he would never turn his back on her. Dinah rouses.

While Mr. Lidderdale is leaving, he pauses, sets his bag down, and turns back to Isabella. They kiss.

Cassandra tends to Dinah inside and notes the “peculiar coincidence” of Dinah’s fall and the fall in Persuasion. She applauds Dinah’s gumption.

Jane did finally find a publisher to release her books, under the authorship of “a lady.” But a pain in her back began to ail her, and doctors could not diagnose it. Cassandra tried everything to help her sister, bringing her to spas, doctors, and friends around the countryside. At Kintbury, Fulwar noted to Cassandra that he skipped reading most of Jane’s Emma, and that Mary told him that none of Jane’s four published novels made a profit – this is presumably why Jane’s books are hidden in his home, years later. Cassandra told him to look forward to Persuasion.

It is to be the last novel published during Jane’s lifetime. She is tired of trying doctors, and simply wants to return home to her cottage. But her illness is too far gone for her to travel again, so she takes to bed in Winchester, where a doctor thought he could help her. Mary comes to see Jane and sit with her in order to allow Cassy a reprieve. To Cassy’s surprise, Jane and Mary happily reminisce.

Once Mary leaves, Jane worries to Cassandra that the world will see her as a pitiable creature; she does not want people to know of the melancholy she often expressed in her letters during the trying times after her father’s death, but only of the joy in her stories. She dies with Cassy clinging to her in bed.

And so Cassandra has sorted Jane’s letters, leaving happy ones for Mary to find and taking the darker ones for herself. Mr. Lidderdale has proposed to Isabella, and she has accepted; she thanks Cassandra, Dinah, and Jane – for Dinah’s inspiration. Dinah gives Cassandra one last letter she has found, just as Mary returns to the vicarage, which is about to be vacated. Cassandra tells Mary where she might find some of Jane’s letters, and the two women bid goodbye, nearly crying as they leave behind a house that has meant much to both of them.

In her carriage ride back to the cottage she once shared with Jane and her mother, Cassandra reads the letter Dinah found, weeping. It’s Jane’s final letter to Eliza. Cassandra has been the most tender, watchful sister, who always protected me, Jane writes, and will be sure to protect my legacy as well. Back in her home, Cassandra burns all the rest of Jane’s letters.