I Was Jane Austen's Best Friend (14 page)

The Author
.

Messrs Demand & Co. – please to pay the demand of Miss Jane Austen Spinster the sum of one hundred guineas on account of your Humble Servant
.

H.T. Austen

105.0.0 pounds

Sunday, 13 March 1791

Yesterday was a wonderful day — the day of the supper dance.

Let me see what I can remember about the Vyne. The house is very big and old-fashioned. Mr Austen told me that that sort of building with the timber beams showing is called Tudor.

The house was full of guests. The Lefroys and Portals and Terrys and Digweeds were there, as well as the Chutes, of course.

When we went to take off our wraps and cloaks in Mrs Chute’s bedroom there were three sisters there and Jane introduced them to me. Their name was Bigg and Catherine was the same age as Cassandra, Elizabeth the same age as me, and Alethea the same age as Jane. All of them were dressed very fashionably in gowns of fine soft silk with a sheen. I’ve drawn a picture of the three of them here.

‘Jane!’ screamed Alethea when we came in. ‘I so wanted to see you. What’s this I hear about you nearly dying at boarding school?’

‘I was carried out of there unconscious,’ said Jane dramatically. ‘And so was Jenny. We were left for dead.’

‘I knew that!’ Alethea’s eyes were sparkling with excitement. ‘I kept asking Papa to bring me over to see you. I know all about it. Wait until you hear!’

‘What?’ asked Jane. I could see that she was excited. I almost felt a little jealous. It was obvious that Alethea and Jane were great friends. I took a few steps back and waited.

‘Have you heard what happened after you left?’ Elizabeth took part in the story.

‘It was a scandal,’ said Catherine to Cassandra. ‘Mrs Cawley didn’t want anyone to know, but then girl after girl took the fever and parents started rushing down to Southampton and removing their daughters by post-chaise.’

‘Maria Bertram wrote to Catherine,’ said Alethea.

I said nothing. I remembered Maria and Julia and the insults that they heaped upon me. I remembered their sneers at my poor education and their peals of laughter when I couldn’t put together the jigsaw of the countries of Europe and how they had jeered at my lack of artistic knowledge.

‘Well, Maria wrote and told us everything,’ said Elizabeth, ‘and apparently Mrs Cawley had to close the school. Maria and Julia go to a very good school in Bath now.’

‘I like your new gowns,’ said Cassandra politely to Catherine. She obviously didn’t want to spend the evening talking about boarding schools.

‘We shouldn’t be wearing them really,’ said Catherine, ‘because they are intended for the Basingstoke Assembly Rooms ball next fortnight.’

‘But we begged and begged and in the end Mama said that we could as long as we made very sure to spill nothing,’ said Elizabeth primly.

Alethea was whispering something in Jane’s ear. I could just hear the words, ‘Mama … Catherine …’ And then something about William Chute and then both Jane and Alethea collapsed into fits of giggles and I could see Jane whisper something back in Alethea’s ear. Under all the giggles I could only make out one word and that was ‘Cassandra’.

‘They’re made from sarsenet, you see,’ Elizabeth was saying, glancing down at the glossy material.

‘And they won’t wash,’ added Catherine.

‘So don’t you dare make me laugh when we’re at supper, Jane,’ threatened Alethea. I think she is the one that Jane likes the best. I liked her too as she seemed to be more fun than her sisters, even though I felt a little jealous that I was not part of the whispering and giggling.

‘The Biggs must be very rich to be able to afford silk for their girls,’ I whispered to Jane as we went out to the hall to greet Mrs Chute and her sons.

‘I don’t care for the colours too much though,’ Jane whispered back with a shrug, and I agreed with her. Catherine had a very bright purple, Elizabeth a strange shade of green and Alethea wore blue — but a very dark blue.

‘Muslin is nice when it’s new,’ said Catherine with a slightly disdainful glance at my gown.

I felt embarrassed. My best gown is more than two years old. It still fits me because I haven’t grown at all in that time, but it has been in the washtub so often that it has a washed-out, limp appearance.

‘William Chute is here tonight,’ whispered Elizabeth to Jane. ‘He’s just back from a visit to London. I declare he gets handsomer and handsomer. They say that he doesn’t care for balls, only for hunting.’

‘I prefer Tom,’ said Jane bluntly. ‘Cassandra can have William.’

Cassandra gave her a condescending smile and moved away to talk to Catherine. She wasn’t listening to Miss Bigg though. Her attention was on the door, and in a moment it was opened and Mr Austen and the boys came in. Cassandra moved towards them, and Tom Fowle’s face lit up with a big smile. I saw Mrs Austen’s eyes go suspiciously to the two of them, but Jane was by her side in a moment.

‘Mama, can’t we have some new gowns? These old
muslins are as limp as a piece of lettuce, and mine’s far too short,’ whispered Jane in her mother’s ear. ‘Look at the way Elizabeth Bigg keeps twirling to show off the twill weave.’ Jane’s whisper was very loud, and Mrs Austen frowned at her as we went up to curtsy to Mrs Chute.

There were only three of the Chute family — as well as Mrs Chute, I mean. Our host was William Chute, the man who sent me a donkey; he’s the eldest son, the squire. Jane keeps saying that he will die soon because he’s sickly and cross and then Tom Chute will be the heir to the estate and she will marry him.

However, I think that’s just Jane having fun. William certainly didn’t look sickly or cross. He gave me a great welcome and smiled at me when I thanked him for the pretty little donkey, but mostly he just chatted away to Henry and Frank about hunting and about the rumour that a couple of highwaymen were hiding out in the woods outside Steventon. They seemed very excited about that and talked about getting up a party to get rid of these menaces to the stagecoaches.

As well as William, there are Mary, who is older even than Cassandra, and Tom. At seventeen, he’s the youngest of the family.

Tom is great fun. I’m not surprised that Jane likes him so well. All during the supper before the dance Mrs Austen and Mrs Chute were having a whispered
conversation and Tom and Jane were imitating them, nodding their heads and pinching their lips and saying things like, ‘
I would never have believed it’, ‘And after all I did for her!
’ and ‘… 
in my own kitchen, too.
’

‘What’s the joke, Jenny?’ Henry gave me a fright. Mrs Austen stopped whispering and turned round to look at me. Tom and Jane looked like a pair of owls, staring at me with round, serious eyes, and that made me want to giggle even more, especially as I overheard Jane saying to Tom, ‘
Dear child — she has not been out in such exalted society as this before. She is very young …
’

‘She’s thinking of how she’s going to play the piano for us in a minute,’ said William.

‘I — I don’t play the piano,’ I stammered, feeling quite alarmed, although I thought it pleasant of him to try to get me out of an embarrassing moment.

‘Let’s start the dance,’ said Henry. He looked across at me and smiled. I thought that no one in the world could smile like Henry. The smile starts at his mouth and lights up his whole face and then spreads to his bright hazel eyes, which become very soft and dreamy. His gaze lingered on me for a moment and then he turned his smile on to his mother and asked her to play the first dance. Apparently there was a servant in the kitchen with a fiddle who would play the rest of the tunes.

And then, while Mrs Austen was exclaiming about
how out-of-practice she was, Henry whispered across the table. ‘You’d like to dance, Jenny, wouldn’t you?’

Henry is very good at getting his own way. In a minute, we were all in the long drawing room, where the furniture had been moved to the sides and the floor waxed to a high shine. I’m not sure how I managed to get from the dining room to the drawing room; I was so excited at the idea of dancing, especially with Henry. My legs felt weak, almost as though I were ill again. Henry took my hand, his skin feeling cool to my hot palm, and led me in and then went over to talk to his mother. There were two servants there with fiddles, but Mrs Austen, looking quite good-humoured, sat down at the piano.

‘Dance this one with me, Jenny,’ said Henry. He held out his hand and I took it. I couldn’t believe that he asked me first — before any of the Bigg girls or Mary Chute or anyone. My cheeks were bright red, I know — I could even feel the lobes of my ears glowing. Jane was chatting to Tom Chute as if he were Charles or Frank and she didn’t blush at all. She mustn’t care anything for him, I thought.

I had three dances with Henry, one with Frank, one with William Chute and then another one with Henry. Jane danced two dances with Harry Digweed, but after that she went back to Tom Chute and they danced together for most of the rest of the evening. Whenever I overheard them they were going on with their game of pretending to be two gossipy old ladies,
saying things like, ‘
Did you ever know such a thing?
’ and ‘
Wait till I tell you what she said
’ every time they met and crossed hands in the dance.

‘Are you coming to the ball at the Assembly Rooms at Basingstoke Saturday fortnight?’ William asked me when I was dancing with him.

I told him that would be up to Mr and Mrs Austen and then he said something rather nice.

‘Oh, Henry will make sure that you come! He told me that he was going, and I don’t think that he will want to go if you are not there to dance with him. Henry always wants to dance with the prettiest girl in the room.’

I wondered if he was just being polite, or if he really did think that. I looked up at him doubtfully. Perhaps he was just joking. In my mind was always the memory of my sister-in-law, Augusta, saying to one of her friends, ‘Jenny is such a thoroughly unattractive girl, no manner, no style. I declare it embarrasses me to take her out with me. Only my duty to Edward-John persuades me to sacrifice my own comfort.’

‘Don’t you believe me?’ asked William as I looked at him uncertainly. ‘Prettiest girl in the room — you’ll be the belle of the ball at Basingstoke!’

I must remember to tell Jane that I don’t think William is cross and sickly at all. I think he is very nice.

After that I danced with Henry again for the last dance of the evening. I couldn’t think of anything to say. I wasn’t good at dancing and talking at the same time like Jane did with Tom Chute. Henry didn’t say anything either, just smiled at me and pressed my hands gently when we were doing the two-hand turn. I was glad that I didn’t have to talk. I was too busy looking at his face. There was something about the way that he looked at me with a half-smile that made my heart thump very fast. From time to time I thought of saying something to break the tension, but I didn’t. We stood up opposite Tom Fowle and Cassandra and they didn’t say anything either, just gazed into each other’s eyes. It was very romantic.

What does Henry think about me? I was wondering about that all the way home in the coach. I thought that he liked me, but I knew that his mother would not approve of his paying attention to me. I was afraid that she might think I was fast if I encouraged him. Earlier in the evening when William Chute brought me back to her after our dance, she had patted me on the arm approvingly and told me that I was looking very well. But all the time as the coach bumped and jolted its way down the road towards Overton and then turned down the narrow laneway from Deane to Steventon, she hardly said a word to me.