Jane Austen (3 page)

It was Dr. Hancock's intention to make a comfortable fortune and come home to spend it; but when he had settled in England, he found that his means were less adequate than he had thought, and that he himself was obliged to go out to India once more and rebuild his fortune. Left in England, Mrs. Hancock relied completely on her brother's protection and advice, and Betsy quite fell in love with her handsome, kindly uncle. Mr. Austen, with his fondness for

intelligent and lively children, was less critical in his affection than Mrs. Austen was likely to be, and was perhaps more agreeable to Miss Betsy as an uncle than Mrs. Austen as an aunt.

Before he could return to his family, Dr. Hancock died in India, leaving his affairs in a much-embarrassed state, but the generosity of Warren Hastings came to the relief of his goddaughter and her

mother. He settled ten thousand pounds upon them.

Having lost her husband, and being at the same time comfortably provided for, Mrs. Hancock now had nothing

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in the world to think of but giving Betsy every advantage and every pleasure that she could possibly obtain for her. She decided that her education should be finished abroad, and in 1780, when Jane was a child of five, Betsy, now known as Eliza, moved with her mother to Paris.

The first mutterings of the Revolution could be heard by those who had ears to hear, but such people did not include Mrs. Hancock and her gay, excitable, pretty daughter. Within the narrow sphere of Parisian society it was possible to be as elegant, as dissipated, as self-centered, as blind and deaf, as seems scarcely credible to those living in a later age, to whom, on looking back, nine years seems but a moment in time before the avalanche of that gigantic disruption.

To the eager debutante the social structure in which she moved seemed as solid, as important, as immovable, as the palace of

Versailles; in salons and in parks, at fêtes champêtres, at before-breakfast concerts and at midnight balls, life passed from day to day in as small a circle, with as heightened a brilliance, as if it were the reflection in a convex mirror.

In the midst of her distractions, Eliza did not forget her Steventon relations; she had a miniature painted for her uncle, which showed her with her face narrow and largeeyed, beneath a very full coiffure, lightly powdered, and wearing a white dress trimmed with blue. She wrote to him: "It is reckoned like what I am at present. The dress is quite the present fashion of what I usually wear." Mr. Austen might be pleased with the portrait and the attention, but the next thing he heard about his niece filled him with dismay; she had become

engaged to a wealthy Frenchman, Jean Capotte, the Comte de

Feuillide. Mr. Austen had not, of course, seen the Comte de

Feuillide, but he expressed himself as "much concerned" at the proposed connection, which would lead, he was afraid, to his sister and her daughter

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"giving up their friends, their country and their religion." But what did it matter what he was afraid of? Eliza loved her uncle dearly and had a great respect for his opinion, but it could hardly be supposed that on such a matter as this she would do otherwise than please herself. Besides, her mother approved of the match. The wedding was celebrated, and shortly afterwards Eliza wrote in glowing terms to her cousin, Phila Walter, of her happiness and importance. Her husband was everything that was handsome and agreeable; to say that he loved her was scarcely to do justice to either of them, "since he literally adores me." She enumerated her blessings: her wealth, her rank, her "numerous and brilliant acquaintance." It would have been mere hypocrisy to disguise the fact that Eliza de Feuillide was a most soughtafter and dazzling young lady; nor was the Comtesse guilty of such affectation.

In 1796 she was expecting a baby, and as she and the Comte wished it to be born in England, she and her mother came to London and took a house in Orchard Street. Here a son was born, and called after his mother's godfather, Hastings de Feuillide. For some time the party moved between England and France. In both countries Eliza was unremitting in the discharge of her social duties. While in London she wrote to Phila Walter describing her mode of life: "I have been for some time past the greatest rake imaginable, and really wonder how such a meager creature as I am can support so much

fatigue." She had stood for two hours in the Drawing Room,

"loaded" with the great hoop of her court dress; had gone on to the Duchess of Cumberland's, and from there to Almack's, where she had stayed till five in the morning. It was exhausting, but it was obligatory; but in the midst of these functions there was one which claimed her attention, of a very different nature. In 1788

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the trial of Warren Hastings opened in Westminster Hall. The

proceedings, of which Macaulay has left so solemn and magnificent a picture, were on a scale so different from anything in our

experience that even with his assistance we can hardly conceive them; such were the magnitude of the interests involved and the stupendous eloquence of the orators who inveighed against them.

Macaulay's enchantment evokes the scene as no first-hand

information can; but the accounts of eyewitnesses, taking for once a second place, provide, as it were, an interesting footnote to the historian. Fanny Burney attended many days of the trial, and with feelings quite as violently party to Hastings as Eliza de Feuillide's could be. She commented on the paleness of Hastings' face and its immovable expression of distress. The gentlemen in the green

benches who looked like a pack of hairdressers were really the Commons.

In August, Eliza made a visit to Oxford, where James and Henry were delighted to do the honors to their attractive cousin. Eliza was charmed by the garden of St. John's and "longed to be a Fellow," that she "might walk in it every day." She was also much taken with academic dress; she thought the square cap "mighty becoming," and, as if from an instinctive association of ideas, she added that Henry had grown so tall, he was now taller than his father, and that he wore his hair powdered "in a very
tonish
style." There had been "a coolness" between the writer and Henry, but after Henry's confessing himself to be quite in the wrong, this had been done away with, and they were now on what Eliza described as "very proper, relation-like terms," but which were perhaps, if anything, slightly more interesting than the terms between most relations.

Eliza had also a passion for the theatre; in the summer of 1787 she had gone with her mother and Phila Walter to

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Tunbridge Wells, and had "bespoken" two comedies at the local theatre: Garrick
Bon Ton
and Mrs. Cowley
Which is the Man
, and in the Christmas of that year which she and Mrs. Hancock spent at Steventon, Eliza inspired a burst of amateur theatricals in her cousins and their friends. The fact that
Bon Ton
and
Which is the Man
were the plays decided on shows who was the ruling spirit. The big barn on the other side of the lane was fitted up as a theatre, and meantime the Rectory itself was filled to overflowing. The Austens could only have house parties at Christmas and Midsummer, when the pupils went home for their holidays; and this Christmas, with the theatricals as an attraction, the fullest advantage was taken of the opportunity.

Word was, however, sent to Phila Walter that room could be found for her, provided she would take a part in the plays, but that Mrs.

Austen had no room "for any idle young people." Phila Walter was sure she could not act and did not mean to try, and remained

steadfast to her objection in spite of entreaties from Eliza, who was really very fond of her. ("My Aunt Austen can only promise you 'a hole to hide your head in,' but I think you will not mind this inconvenience; I am sure I should not--to be with you.") In vain did the Comtesse hold out the promise of "a most brilliant party and a great deal of amusement, the house full of company, frequent balls."

Phila stood firm and would not come. Otherwise, all was gaiety and enthusiasm. The Austens were not new to amateur theatricals. Three years before they had given a performance of
The Rivals
. From time to time they had given plays in their own dining room, though it could scarcely have accommodated more than a row of spectators along the wall. The proceedings this Christmas were on a much

handsomer scale; as befitted their respective temperaments, James wrote the prologue and Henry and Eliza acted the

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chief parts, and one may imagine how very exciting a child of

twelve, who had never been inside a real theatre, found the goings-on in the great barn.

The Comtesse de Feuillide was naturally an important person at Steventon; her uncle was fond of her and proud of her, James and Henry were fascinated by her, and to her little cousin Jane she was, with her fashion, her liveliness, her assurance, her savoir vivre, an object of wonder and admiration. Then something happened which gave her the deepest possible claim on their imaginations, their sympathy and interest. The Revolution had broken out. The Comte de Feuillide, who had come to London to be with his wife because her mother had just died, had taken her to Bath, but Eliza was too unhappy to enjoy it; they returned therefore to town, to be met by letters announcing to the Comte de Feuillide that if he did not return to France immediately, he would be proscribed as an émigré and his estates would be confiscated.

Not realizing, perhaps, how acutely dangerous a return would prove, or perhaps realizing too well but deciding on it nonetheless, he said goodbye to his wife and crossed to France; but the Reign of Terror was already established. The travesty of legal process, with which the Committee of Public Safety amused itself, was seldom better exhibited than in the case of a friend of the Comte de Feuillide, the Marquise de Marlboeuf. The Committee having discovered that

certain fields on Madame de Marlboeuf's estate were under hay and sanfoin for her cattle, instead of wheat, pronounced the charge that she had purposely allowed arable land to run to waste with the object of creating a famine. The Comte de Feuillide should have realized that death, without the possibility of reprieve, awaited Madame de Marlboeuf, and that all a friend could do was to encourage

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her to meet it with fortitude. Instead, he made an effort both futile and disastrous. Knowing that whatever the nature of the evidence it would be sufficient to convict the prisoner, he attempted to bribe the witnesses into bringing none at all. To take the Count's money and expose him to the Committee in the name of the Republic was

equally the duty and the pleasure of loyal citizens, and on February 12th, 1794, Madame de Marlboeuf and the Comte de Feuillide were executed on one scaffold.

A sudden death in the family circle is a shock affecting every member in a different manner. This one was made dreadful by every circumstance of terror, distance, the completeness of bereavement.

The death of the Comte de Feuillide was a trifle in that slaughter-house; it was not of great significance when compared with those ages of callous wickedness which had, in their turn, produced the Revolution; but in the Rectory at Steventon the single death was felt as the whole causes and consequences of the Revolution could never be; and to the end of her life Jane had a horror of France. Within a year of her death, she described someone's coming back from France

"thinking of the French as one could wish, disappointed in everything."

Poor Eliza, an orphan and a widow, was doubly dear to them now.

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THE SUSCEPTIBLE
child was surrounded by scenes and people to love, and poured out her affections on family and home, relations, friends, books, fields, and woods. In the neighboring parish of Ashe, the Rector's wife, Mrs. Lefroy, was a great friend of Mr. and Mrs.

Austen and very kind to Jane, who admired and loved her

passionately. Mrs. Lefroy, to her eyes, seemed to present the unusual combination of being at the same time very amusing and very good.

Her manners were most attractive--enthusiastic and sweet; she was also elegant and graceful; with so many charms, Jane thought it wonderfully kind of her to be so encouraging to someone so much younger than herself; she was touched and delighted by Mrs.

Lefroy's affection for her, and a long time afterwards, among Mrs.

Lefroy's many attractions, she remembered with an aching heart "her looks of eager love."

Mrs. Lefroy's husband had a nephew, Tom Lefroy, who often stayed with them, with whom Jane got on most successfully in a flirtatious and light-hearted manner; but, as was natural at this time, her chief friends were girls of her own age; there were Elizabeth, Catherine and Alethea Bigg, who lived with their father and their brother Harrison at Manydown Park. When Jane was old enough to go to

subscription balls in Basingstoke, she used to be driven over to

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Manydown to dine, dress and sleep the night. Still more intimate were Martha and Mary Lloyd, the daughters of a widowed lady who rented a house of Mr. Austen's in the next village. Martha and Mary were quiet and pleasant, and to look at them no one would suppose that there had been anything sensational in their family history; actually it contained in the person of their grandmother one of those figures rare in personal experience, a truly wicked and terrifying woman. Mrs. Craven, referred to by her descendants as the cruel Mrs. C., was very beautiful and moved in the first circles, and no one who met her there ever imagined the state of things she had left behind her at home. Her three daughters aroused a streak of morbid cruelty in her, and were subject to shocking ill-treatment: beaten, starved and locked up. When Mrs. Craven was on her round of

visits, one of them accompanied her as her maid; but on one

occasion their mother left them all at home, and, profiting by this brief respite, the desperate creatures ran away. With two of them the flight was something in the nature of an elopement; they married a farmer and a horse-dealer respectively; the third was taken in by hospitable relations, and subsequently became the wife of the Rev.