Jane Austen Stole My Boyfriend (10 page)

Eliza was only just getting dressed, but she looked quite at home. Gowns peeped from closets and presses, frilly petticoats spilled from half-open drawers and the surface of her dressing table
was almost completely covered with her possessions. While Jane was relating an account of our morning, including the appearance of Harry Digweed, I sat on the bed and made a list in my mind of
everything that Eliza had there.

This is the list:

That’s all that I can remember I think there could have been a dozen more items, but my attention was distracted by a soft knock on the door and a strange-looking woman
sidled in.

‘Ah, Phylly,’ said Eliza. She jumped up and made a big fuss of her, introducing her and making sure that Phylly had a comfortable chair to sit on.

Philadelphia Walters is about the same age as Eliza (though no one would have guessed as she looks ten years older). She is only about thirty, I think. She is also Mr Austen’s niece, but
this time through his stepbrother, William-Hampson Walters. She is an unmarried lady who lives with her elderly parents in a small village in Kent, a strange little person, who was dressed in a
very dowdy, old-fashioned gown. She has an odd habit of putting her head on one side and looking at you with very bright beady eyes, which makes her look rather mouse-like or perhaps more like a
little sparrow.

‘You know dearest Jane, don’t you, Phylly?’

Head on one side, Cousin Philadelphia surveyed Jane, from the toes of her neat flat-heeled shoes, right up her spotted yellow muslin morning dress with its tightly buttoned yellow spencer to the
tip of her straw bonnet, and then nodded vigorously.

‘Yes, of course . . . I remember you when you were about twelve – dear, dear, dear, what a strange little girl you were then! I remember thinking that it was a shame that your elder
sister had all the good looks.’ This was Philadelphia’s amiable reply, which she followed by saying, ‘So this is Jenny? Not a bit like her mother, is she?’ and peering at me
in a disapproving fashion.

Jane made a face at me and turned to look out of the window.

‘Are you going out, Eliza?’ she enquired, ignoring Phylly. ‘We were hoping to go for a walk with you up the hill through the park. We have lots to tell you.’ She cast a
quick frowning glance at Philadelphia, who had now wandered over to Eliza’s dressing table and was sniffing distastefully at a jar of hair powder.

Eliza looked a little worried as she said, ‘Phylly, darling, why don’t you have a little siesta – after all, you were out at all sorts of early hours this morning when I was
still
endormie
. I’ll look after the two girls.’

‘No, Cousin Eliza, I came to Bath to bear you company and I won’t desert you now.’ Phylly was grimly resolute. ‘Not that I enjoy Bath,’ she went on. ‘I
can’t stand the shiny newness of the place and the glare and the chatter, and of course it is so noisy that it’s no wonder that your poor nerves are shattered by it, Eliza. Don’t
you worry – you just take your ease and I will entertain the girls. Perhaps they would like to visit St Swithin’s church?’

‘No, we wouldn’t,’ said Jane abruptly. ‘Let’s go out then, Eliza, if you’re ready.’

Eliza gave a last pat of the powder puff to her face, squirted on some scent, arranged her hat, with its elaborate bunches of cherries, to frame her small heart-shaped face and then picked up
her parasol and announced herself ready.

‘We might as well have gone with Mama and Aunt,’ Jane hissed furiously at me as we followed the two ladies, Philadelphia talking continuously about her good works back home in Kent
and how she insisted on some unfortunate village child learning to read and told his father to beat him because he had been slow and inattentive at her lesson. I decided that I didn’t like
this Phylly very much. I could see why Jane disliked her – everyone else said that I looked like my mother, so I think she meant to imply that I was plain.

‘Let’s visit some shops,’ said Eliza over her shoulder. ‘Come along, Phylly. I insist on buying you a new hat. Do allow me the pleasure.’

‘And then the hat that she has on can be returned to the scarecrow.’ Jane made the observation in a low tone, but definitely not a whisper. Philadelphia swung round sharply, but Jane
just smiled sweetly at her.

‘What I admire about you, Cousin Philadelphia,’ she said amiably, ‘is your great sense of humour. My father is always talking about it. No one has a greater sense of fun than
my niece Philadelphia, that’s what he says.’

Jane uttered this with the earnest countenance that she always assumes when telling an outrageous lie, and Phylly gave an uncertain smile and continued walking.

‘Bother,’ said Jane in my ear. ‘Why didn’t she take offence and go back to their lodgings? Is there any way of getting rid of her? Could I push her under that omnibus, do
you think?’

I looked at the omnibus and its four horses. It looked rather fun to be in, with its passengers of excited girls and gallant young men.

And then I saw Harry, with a smart new hat which he was doffing as he came up to us.

‘Good afternoon, Miss Jenny, Miss J-Jane.’ Harry had a slight stutter from time to time. I thought it added to his attractiveness and I beamed encouragement at him as I curtsied.

Jane held out her hand to him in her impulsive way. ‘Eliza, you know Harry Digweed, don’t you? You met him at the play.’

‘Oh, the play,’ broke in Phylly before Eliza could open her mouth. ‘I’ve heard all about that play. Your mother, Jane, wanted me to come and join in, but my principles
wouldn’t allow me. It’s a nuisance to have been brought up with such strong Christian principles, but there you are, we can’t change who we are, can we?’ The last phrase was
aimed at Harry, who – dear Harry! – immediately stammered that she was quite right.

Jane gave him an annoyed glance, which disconcerted him, and he turned bright red and tapped the brim of his shiny new hat against a lamp post in his confusion.

‘Let’s walk up towards the Crescent,’ said Eliza soothingly. ‘Will you come with us, Mr Digweed?’

He looked unsure for a moment, glancing from Philadelphia’s unwelcoming face to Jane’s annoyed one.

‘Do come, Harry,’ I said and earned myself a suspicious, head-to-one-side, bird-like look from Philadelphia.

‘Tell me about your school, Cousin Philadelphia,’ I said, moving up beside her and allowing Jane to fall behind and walk beside Harry. Eliza felt it her duty to keep Phylly and Jane
at a distance from each other. So she walked beside me, gamely putting extra questions to Phylly about her teaching methods (involving mainly, we understood, the use of a small sharp ruler which
stung the backs of the children’s fingers when they made a mistake in their reading) and then, once she ran out of stories about the village school, hearing about Phylly’s exciting ball
at a nearby town where a gentleman actually asked her to dance for the second time!!!

Eliza, in her generous way, was very merry about Phylly’s beau and her teasing remarks almost relaxed her unpleasant cousin into an odd, bird-like giggle. She even went so far as to tease
Phylly about the impression that she had made on Harry, and Phylly graciously conceded that she thought he was a well-behaved young man.

I loved my first view of the Crescent when we eventually got there. It was as if someone had taken one huge mansion, gently bent it into a semicircle and set it on top of the
hill to look down over the parkland. I couldn’t count how many houses there are because we stayed just at the edge of it. (But my uncle told me at supper that there are thirty.)

Eliza was very interested in the quality of the luggage being taken into number 1, the Crescent, where a huge travelling coach was unloading an enormous amount of goods and smartly dressed
footmen were rushing in and out. Someone in the first rank of fashion must have hired the house, Eliza surmised.

I asked her if she was going to the Assembly Rooms tomorrow night and she nodded vigorously and was delighted to hear that Uncle James approved of the idea.

‘And Jenny, you will wear your so beautiful white gown,
n’est-ce pas
? And Jane?’ Eliza looked thoughtfully over at Jane, who was looking up at Harry, but then was forced
to reassure Phylly, who was making a fuss about whether or not she should go to a ball.

Harry then decided that he should leave us. He is a sensitive young man and he felt that Phylly didn’t like him. Nothing that Jane or I could say made him change his mind. Jane went with
him to the top of the gravel walk, and I could see that she was giving him some directions. It was funny to watch them from a distance, he bending his fair head over Jane’s dark one, she
vehemently talking and gesturing and he nodding from time to time.

And then we all went off to buy the new hat for Phylly. We went from shop to shop to shop until eventually the troublesome woman chose something in pink and green in Gregory’s shop, right
down at the bottom of the town in Bath Street, near to the Pump Room. After all that, on the way back to Queen’s Square she kept talking about remaking the bonnet.

Just now without a word Jane handed me the rough copy of something she had been writing. ‘That’s to put in your journal,’ she said. ‘It’s in honour of Phylly.
I’m thinking of dedicating one of my novels to her.’

Jane does make me laugh (I like the way she spells majestic). Poor Phylly!

Friday, 22 April 1791

The noise of the traffic woke me early this morning. Jane is still asleep so I will fill in the time by writing in my journal.

Yesterday evening Franklin and Rosalie escorted us to the supper party. Even now I keep giggling when I think about it, but I must explain it properly.

Mr and Mrs Forster are quite an elderly couple who own a fine house at Laura Place, down in the lower part of the town beyond the Pump Room. Their granddaughter Frances has just left school so
they were having a little party for her and some of her friends before she left Bath to join her parents in London.

‘It sounds very dull, doesn’t it, Franklin – a party for schoolgirls,’ said Jane as we walked down the hill followed by Rosalie carrying our slippers in a neat bag.

‘Perhaps Mr and Mrs Forster thought it would be a treat for their granddaughter to meet two grown-up young ladies,’ said Franklin soothingly.

‘We’ll instruct her, won’t we, Jenny?’ said Jane with a grin. She stuck her nose in the air and said in loud, lofty tones, ‘My dear young thing, pray do not bother
me with talk of globes and such things. Let us discuss our beaux. I’ve got four or five myself and I can never decide between them.’