Jane Austen (28 page)

Generally the Austen sisters formed few close friendships with neighbours at this time but kept up as much contact as possible with their brothers and their growing families. Edward’s sons would drop by regularly on their way to and from school in Winchester. Family conversation was lively but never quarrelsome. James’s daughters, Anna and Caroline, adored their Aunt Jane and her playful talk. Jane had a talent to amuse not only adults but children as well. Caroline too wrote poems and stories. Jane gently warned her that it might be wiser to write less and read more, at least until she was sixteen.

The Great House, or Chawton Manor, was only a few hundred yards away, on rising ground. The current tenant was Mr John Charles Middleton, a widower with six young children. His sister-in-law, gushing Miss Maria Beckford, kept house for him.

In the hollow lies the church where the church clerk, William Carter, played the bassoon. He and four singers sat in the front gallery, the boys and sexton in the one at the back. One of Edward’s daughters helped train the male voice choir. Old Mrs Knight employed a music teacher called Mr Giffin to train the school children in hymn-singing.

One of the church singers, William Arnold, was the village postman. As well as the fee according to the weight of the letter, twopence had to be paid on delivery, one penny for the postmaster, one for the postman. Delivery services were not universal. Some letters had to be collected from the Post Office and where no post office existed, from inns. A branch of Henry’s bank, Austen Gray and Vincent, was at 10 High Street Alton, so family letters could travel with bank business, saving on postage.

The Rector of Chawton was the Revd John Rawstome Papillon. In 1803 Mr Papillon had rebuilt his rectory and lived there with his unmarried sister Elizabeth. Old Mrs Knight, who took a kindly interest in the Austen sisters’ welfare, told Cassandra that he would be just the man for Jane to marry. Presumably she considered Jane at thirty-three still eligible but expected Cassandra, nearly three years older, to be dedicated to the memory of Thomas Fowle. Jane was amused and told Cassandra:

Their circle was full of single women, many of them genteel but poor. Men who had lost their wives, as so many did, often married not spinsters but widows, as Jane recorded in her letters. By this time Jane had probably outgrown all hopes of love and marriage for herself. She and Cassandra were better off than poor Miss Benn, sister of the Revd John Benn, rector of the neighbouring parish of Farringdon. Mr Benn had twelve children. Hard-pressed himself, he could not help his sister. She rented a cold leaky hovel from one of the villagers, old Philmore, who in 1813 ordered her out because his son wanted it. Jane mentioned old Philmore‘s funeral in March 1817. Miss Benn’s meagre existence was a painful reminder of how far Jane and Cassandra might have sunk if Edward had not been adopted by the Knights and if other brothers had not been generous.

Jane used to write in the small living room on the right-hand side of the house where the family meals were eaten. According to family tradition she was careful that nobody, not even the servants, should know what she was about, so she wrote on small sheets of paper which could easily be put away or covered with a piece of blotting paper, relying on a creaking door to warn her when anybody was coming. This may be true, though there comes a time when scrappy jottings have to be collated and woven into coherence. A full-length novel in fair copy is a bulky object. The creaking door is still there, unoiled, as a curiosity and its noise demonstrated to visitors. It is easy for the word-processor generation to forget the sheer drudgery of writing a full-length book by hand. When it was not possible to shunt paragraphs at the touch of a button a writer had to have a clear idea of what she wanted to say and the way she wanted to say it before she started.

Edward stayed for extended periods at Chawton and lent the house to Frank and Charles when they were ashore after Middleton’s lease expired. Edward arrived on 21 October 1809 with Fanny and his fifth son, little Charles, to stay at the cottage for three weeks. In November Edward went home with his children via Steventon, collecting Anna and taking her back with him.

Anna was in disgrace, having become engaged at the age of sixteen to the Revd Michael Terry, who was twice her age. Anna was unhappy at home and looking for an escape route. She had grown up starved of affection, except from her grandmother and her aunts. Michael was one of thirteen children and a graduate of St John’s College, Cambridge. He would have been a good match for he was tall, good-looking and well connected; he had in prospect a good family living. But James and Mary refused to recognize the engagement and packed Anna off to Godmersham. Mary was nearing forty, and plain. She cannot have been altogether pleased to have a pretty stepdaughter flaunting evidence of her own sexual attractiveness.

In the New Year of 1810 Mr Terry’s sister Charlotte pleaded on his behalf and Fanny wrote to Cassandra begging her to mediate. James reluctantly gave his consent and Mr Terry was permitted to call at Godmersham to see Anna. She returned to Hampshire and in April went to stay for three days with the Terry family. As her Aunt Jane had done seven years previously, Anna decided she had made a mistake and her father put an end to the relationship. One of Anna’s daughters thought Mr Terry not clever enough for Anna, saying it would have been as bad as a match between Lizzie Bennet and Mr Collins in
Pride and Prejudice
. Fanny, having interfered from the best of motives, was disappointed. She decided Anna was as unstable as the family said she was. ‘What a girl!’ wrote Fanny in her diary. ‘Heavens! What will she do next?’ Anna’s father and stepmother were exasperated and banished her to Chawton Cottage for three months. Jane, whose own equilibrium had been hard won, was worried by Anna’s emotional volatility which made her fear for the girl’s future happiness. She wrote a ‘Mock Panegyric on a Young Friend’, beginning:

Jane’s talent was not for poetry. But she was warning her niece in true eighteenth-century fashion about the dangers of emotional self-indulgence. Anna went home in mid-July with Mrs Austen.

Jane and Cassandra went to stay at Manydown and came to dinner at Steventon early in August. Young Fulwar-William Fowle, nephew to Mary and Martha, visited and heard Jane reading aloud. She was, he said, a very sweet reader. She had just finished the first canto of
Marmion
and was reading the second when William Digweed was announced. For the young boy it was like the shattering of a pleasant dream. Jane had clearly overcome her distaste for Scott’s poem. Caroline said that when her Aunt Jane read aloud from Fanny Burney’s novel
Evelina
it was like a play. Jane had histrionic abilities as well as a speaking voice generally agreed to be pleasant.

Edward and Fanny came to Steventon in October. Edward was also good at story-telling and the parsonage children loved him. He and Fanny went on to Chawton and stayed three weeks.

In contrast to the quiet domestic lives of their brothers and sisters the naval Austens travelled the world and pursued increasingly successful careers. Frank had returned from China earlier than expected, having managed to bring his crew safely away from Canton after friction with the Cantonese. The East India Company rewarded him with 1,000 guineas. Charles wrote from Bermuda to say he had a second daughter, Harriet-Jane, and the following May he was promoted post-captain into the 74-gun HMS
Swiftsure
.

The sisters had been together for two years without a break. In April 1811 Jane visited Henry in London, where she was correcting proofs of
Sense and Sensibility
. She had agreed to publish it at her own expense and was putting money aside to cover the expected loss.

Various commentators have assumed that Jane Austen distrusted the city and endorsed the values of rural life but in fact she seems to have found London stimulating. I find all these little parties very pleasant/ she told Cassandra. She might have gone to town more often if she had not been so poor, and tasted the cosmopolitan social delights enjoyed by Eliza de Feuillide, instead of making do with occasional balls in Basingstoke. Jane always took pleasure in shopping.

‘I am sorry to tell you that I am getting very extravagant and spending all my money; and what is worse for
you
, I have been spending yours too,’ she wrote cheerfully to Cassandra, though her writing had earned her nothing as yet. She had bought herself some checked muslin at seven shillings the yard. She had been tempted into laying out on ten yards of pretty coloured muslin with a small red spot for Cassandra at half that price. If Cassandra did not like it Jane would not be put out, she said, but would happily keep the lot. She had also bought some beaded trimming at two shillings and fourpence and three pairs of silk stockings for a little under twelve shillings though the shop had been so crowded she had been forced to wait half an hour to be served. She was having a new hat made, straw, of the riding hat shape, as well as a pretty new bonnet. ‘I am really very shocking,’ said Jane, taking pleasure in her own recklessness. New pelisses cost only seventeen shillings apiece, she was pleased to learn, though the buttons were expensive.

Henry would have taken her to the theatre but a cold had kept her at home. She had hoped to see Shakespeare’s
King John
with the celebrated Sarah Siddons as Constance the bereaved mother, but
Hamlet
had been substituted. They settled for
Macbeth
the following Monday, but hearing that Mrs Siddons would not be acting gave up their seats. In the event they went on the Saturday to the Lyceum and saw
The Hypocrite
, based on Molière‘s
Tartuffe
. Jane was grieved to miss seeing Mrs Siddons. ‘I could swear at her for disappointing me,’ she told Cassandra.

Eliza and Henry lived in some style. A grand party, with eighty people invited, was in the offing: there was to be ‘some very good music’ with five professionals, three of them glee singers, as well as amateur performers. ‘One of the hirelings is a capital [performer] on the harp, from which I expect great pleasure,’ added Jane. Eliza went shopping with Jane, Eliza for chimney-lights for her party, thrifty Jane for darning cotton.

In the upshot everything went off well. The rooms, dressed up with flowers, looked pretty. The festivities started with a dinner of Very fine soles’ at half-past five, the musicians arrived at half-past seven in two hackney coaches and by eight o’clock ‘the lordly company’ began to appear. The music was as good as Jane had hoped. Glees sung included ‘Strike the Harp in Praise of Bragela’, In Peace Love Tunes’, ‘Rosabelle’, The Red Cross Knight’ and ‘Poor Insect’. There were performances on the harp, and on harp and pianoforte together. The harp player was Wiepart, whose name Jane was told was famous though unknown to her. There was one female singer, a short Miss Davis all in blue, bringing up for the public line [training as a professional], whose voice was said to be very fine indeed; and all the performers gave great satisfaction by doing what they were paid for, and giving themselves no airs. No amateur could be persuaded to do anything.’ The party, which did not break up till after midnight was mentioned in the
Morning Post
next day. Unfortunately Eliza’s name was misspelled as ‘Mrs
H Austin’
.

In addition there was news of the sailor brothers. Frank had been superseded in the
Caledonia
. Where would he live? What would he do? Frank now had a second son, born 21 April at Portsmouth. Charles was likely to be in England within the month.

The D’Antraigues and their son Comte Julien could not come to Eliza’s party so the Austens went to them. ‘It will be amusing to see the ways of a French circle,’ said Jane.

On the way there was a near-accident in the carriage where the horses jibbed at some fresh gravel and everybody got out. Eliza caught cold. The Frenchmen took too much snuff to please Jane. Monsieur the Count was a fine-looking man with quiet manners, ‘good enough for an Englishman,’ said the chauvinistic Jane. He was a man of great information and taste and had some fine paintings which delighted Henry as much as his son’s music had delighted Eliza. Jane, who could read French but could neither speak it fluently nor follow rapid conversation, said that if the Count would only speak English she could take to him.

Comte Emmanuel-Louis D’Antraigues and his beautiful wife. Anne, an opera singer, were rather different from Jane’s usual acquaintances. The highly educated Count was a forger and a spy. The following year, he and his wife were murdered in their house in Barnes by their servant, whose motive could have been political.

Jane was going to Catherine Bigg, now Mrs Hill, at Streatham, then still outside London, the first week in May and Eliza would kindly carry her there. By the end of the month Jane was making her usual resolutions about spending no more money and denying herself a trimming for her new pelisse.

T
HE EXCITING FAMILY
news was that Jane had a novel coming out, but her authorship was a secret. Only Mrs Austen, Cassandra and Martha, the brothers and their wives, the Leigh-Perrots, old Mrs Knight and Fanny Knight had been let into it. Cassandra wrote to Fanny more than once, imploring her to tell nobody Anna, though almost the same age as the responsible Fanny, was not allowed to know. Her aunts considered her less discreet. Cassandra, who was at Godmersham, imagined that the social pleasures and attractions of the capital might distract Jane from preoccupation with her novel. The author was almost indignant. ‘No, indeed, I am never too busy to think of
S and S
. I can no more forget it than a mother can forget her sucking child and I am much obliged to you for your inquiries. I have had two sheets to correct, but the last only brings us to Willoughby’s first appearance.’ She reported that Mrs Knight regretted, ‘in the most flattering manner’, that she would have to wait till May to read the book but Jane was not hopeful of its being ready before July. Henry was nagging the printer. I am very much gratified by Mrs K’s interest in it… I think she will like my Elinor, but cannot build on anything else.’