Jane Austen Stole My Boyfriend (19 page)

And then Eliza’s happy face became worried. All three of us looked from Phylly’s disapproving face to one another.

The terrible thing was that Phylly would probably hate the ball, make Eliza uncomfortable and conscience-stricken during the evening, then spend the following day criticizing everything and
everyone.

However, she was Eliza’s cousin and guest so she had to go. And Jane was Eliza’s cousin. I was no relation. I was the one that had to be left out.

I was just opening my lips to say this, but Jane was quicker.

‘Eliza was just telling us about the Princesse de Lambelle, the best friend of Marie Antoinette,’ she said in solemn, hesitant tones. ‘What do you think of Marie Antoinette,
Phylly?’

Phylly pursed up the lips of her tight little mouth. ‘It’s not for me to criticize a queen,’ she said to my disappointment, but then couldn’t resist adding sharply,
‘however, she is not a good example to young girls like yourself.’

‘Oh, why?’ breathed Jane, opening her eyes in wide innocence.

Phylly hesitated but could not resist it. ‘Debauched,’ she said bluntly. ‘That is the only word that can describe her.’

‘Oh!’ Jane looked shocked. ‘And what about her friend, Madame de Lambelle?’

Phylly shuddered. ‘I should prefer not to talk about her!’ she said. ‘I cannot bear to relate the scandalous stories that I have heard.’

Eliza now decided to lend her own considerable acting ability to Jane’s performance.

‘But, Phylly,’ she said with a gay little laugh. ‘No one cares about these things nowadays. That is very
démodé
. I’m sure you will want to accompany
me to the ball that the Princesse de Lambelle is giving next week.’

‘Certainly not,’ said Phylly piously. ‘You could not ask that of me, Eliza. I will be happy with my Bible and a dish of tea. You go to the ball and I will wait up for
you.’

‘If you’re sure, Phylly dear,’ said Eliza meekly and allowed herself to be dragged away by Phylly who wished to pray at the abbey. As they went along, Eliza glanced over her
shoulder and gave us both a tiny wink.

And then I spotted Miss Gregory coming out of her shop. She crossed the road and stopped squarely in front of us.

‘Excuse me, ma’am, but did you by mistake take a card of white lace as well as the black?’ she said to Mrs Leigh-Perrot. Her tone was superficially polite but there was an edge
of insolence under it.

‘Certainly not,’ said Mrs Leigh-Perrot sternly. ‘I bought, and paid for, a card of black lace and no other.’

‘There must have been some mistake. My assistant says that a card of white lace is missing from the pile that you looked at.’ The woman was still polite, but quite insistent. I saw
the man who had wrapped the parcel come out of the door of Miss Gregory’s shop.

‘Look for yourself,’ snapped Mrs Leigh-Perrot. She handed the basket impatiently to Miss Gregory and stood back, staring at the woman with a frown on her face.

It only took one minute for the parcel to be unwrapped. The card of black lace bought and paid for by my aunt was on top of the remodelled gown, but underneath it, hidden in the folds, was a
card of white lace.

‘Well,’ said Mrs Leigh-Perrot eyeing it stonily, ‘your young man must have put it in there by mistake. It was he who wrapped the parcel.’

‘No such thing, no such thing!’ Miss Gregory screamed the words out in a loud and agitated voice, adding, ‘You stole it. You’re guilty of theft.’

‘Take it away and mind your tongue,’ snapped Mrs Leigh-Perrot. She snatched the basket from Miss Gregory, thrust the white lace into her hands and set off at a great pace. We hurried
after her, exchanging glances, but she did not speak to us until we reached the end of George Street.

‘Not a word to your uncle about this,’ she said. ‘I won’t have him worried.’

‘Do you think that she did it?’ Jane whispered to me, but I told her not to be silly.

And then we had a nice discussion about our new gowns. I thought that we should save them for the ball at the Crescent as I thought this would probably be a more grand affair, but Jane wanted to
wear her ‘daffodil’ dress at the Assembly Rooms on Saturday.

Then I realized that I was being obtuse. Of course, Harry would be at the Assembly Rooms on Saturday night, but there was no chance that he would have an invitation to a ball given by a French
princess. So I proposed that I would wear my white gown on Saturday and Jane would wear her new yellow gown. Then the following week, Jane would wear white and I would wear my bluebell gown.

I would have to have a little talk with my uncle and assure him that ladies never wore the same gown twice in a row and explain to him that I really, really wanted to keep my beautiful bluebell
gown for the ball given by a real ‘princesse’.

Thursday, 28 April 1791

Something terrible happened today.

Two terrible things, really.

But one will probably turn out to be just a ridiculous mistake.

When Jane and I came downstairs Franklin was already putting letters by the plates.

‘Cassandra,’ said Jane, examining the folded piece of paper beside her mother’s place at table. It seems awful now, but we were both giggling over a teary splash on the ink of
the capital P of Paragon on the address.

‘Perhaps she’s eloped with Tom Fowle,’ said Jane dramatically. ‘This is her letter of penitence.
Dearest Mama . . . love conquers all . . . I could no longer resist
his manly arms . . . I have lost my virtue . . . pray consent . . . my tears flow as I write . . .
‘

And then Mrs Leigh-Perrot arrived, closely followed by her husband. A minute later Mrs Austen came in and plumped down in her place.

For a moment she hardly noticed the letter – she was busy sipping her tea and crunching the toast that Franklin handed to her on a silver dish, straight from the toasting fork. She liked
her toast hot and crisp, with no butter or honey on it.

Then she looked at the letter and gave an amused smile, recognizing Cassandra’s handwriting.

‘Some trouble with the laundry, or the hens, no doubt,’ she remarked tolerantly, breaking open the seal.

There was a moment’s silence. Mrs Leigh-Perrot was reading her own letters, Mr Leigh-Perrot was busy with his newspaper, which Franklin had just warmed at the fire to make sure that the
ink was dry on all the pages, and Jane and I were immersed in drinking the frothy hot chocolate Franklin prepared for us every morning.

When I looked up I saw Mrs Austen on her feet, her weathered complexion drained of colour.

‘I must go home,’ she said, gathering up her reticule, first having stuffed the letter from Cassandra into it.

‘Goodness gracious, sister, what is the matter?’ Her brother looked very alarmed. My heart stopped for a moment. Could Jane have been right? Perhaps Cassandra had eloped.

But no, Mrs Austen was looking anxious, almost frightened, but certainly not annoyed. It seemed to take her a minute to speak, almost as though her throat had swelled for a moment.

‘My little boy, my little Charles,’ she said. ‘Cassandra writes that he is in a high fever . . .’

I saw Mrs Leigh-Perrot open her mouth as if to say that children get fevers all the time, but then she shut it at the expression on Mrs Austen’s face.

‘I must leave. Jane and Jenny, go and pack your things!’ And then she stopped. Her face contorted. ‘What am I thinking of? No, I can’t bring you girls back into the
house.’ She looked at her brother. ‘Cassandra says that he has pustules on his face and body. The apothecary fears smallpox.’

A moment ago that breakfast parlour had seemed the snuggest place on earth with the warm velvet curtains, the flames from the fire reflected by the highly polished Sheraton furniture, but now
that terrible word, smallpox, seemed to turn everything cold and grey – and to go on echoing for a long time afterwards. We all knew that people died in huge numbers from smallpox. Those who
did manage to survive were usually scarred for life. I thought of Charles’s smooth young skin and the tears rose to my eyes. I bit my lips, swallowed hard, and saw that Jane was doing the
same thing.

Mr and Mrs Leigh-Perrot were very practical and sensible. Jane and I were to stay in Bath – that would be no trouble. Franklin was sent running down the hill to the White Hart Inn to ask
the stagecoach to stop outside the house and pick up Mrs Austen. It was not normal to pick up passengers in that way, but it would be on their way to the London road and my uncle was confident that
the stagecoach would do this in the case of a mother being summoned home to a sick child.

‘Don’t mention the word
smallpox
, Franklin,’ advised my uncle, putting some coins into Franklin’s hand – no doubt for the coachman. ‘Just say the child
is very ill.’

In the meantime, Mrs Austen had gone upstairs to pack, sternly refusing any assistance. Jane and I looked at each other uncertainly when she was gone. I suspected that Mrs Austen wanted to shed
a few tears in private, but it did seem bad not to help her to gather her things together. Neither of us spoke, and although we managed to hold back the tears I think we probably both envied
Franklin running at full speed down the hill towards the White Hart Inn. It would have been good to have had something to do.

‘Would you like me to escort you to Steventon, sister?’ asked our uncle when Mrs Austen reappeared with her bags. She shook her head resolutely and told him cheerfully that he should
stay and look after his gouty leg, so he had to be content with lending her his own special travelling rug and telling one of the maids to pack a small basket of things to eat.

Franklin arrived back in style, sitting up beside the coachman. Mrs Austen kissed us all in an absent-minded way and was in the coach before her brother could even lend her his hand.

No one quite knew what to do after she left. Jane and I wandered around aimlessly and then Jane decided to practise her music. Mr Leigh-Perrot went off, accompanied by Franklin, to drink the
waters at the Pump Room and his wife settled herself down with a little-used embroidery frame.

And then there was a loud peremptory knock on the door.

And this is how things went then.

The maid came in to say that a constable was at the door; Mrs Leigh-Perrot said to send him in. She sounded quite cheerful – she probably welcomed a break in her thoughts about smallpox.
The constable was probably just coming about some wild young soldiers who had been doing various tricks, like stealing carriage lamps in the neighbourhood.

And then the constable came in looking embarrassed. He asked her to confirm her name and address, which she did in a slightly annoyed way.

Then he told her that she had to come down to the Roundhouse in Stall Street, where the police constables had an office and a small jail. My aunt frowned at him and asked him why.

Then Jane came in. She had been crying, I could see, and I had noticed long pauses in her playing. However, she looked from her aunt to the constable with eyes that held just a little of their
usual sparkle.

The constable consulted his notebook and enquired whether my aunt had bought some white lace at Miss Gregory’s shop on the day before.

‘I did not.’ My aunt’s voice was harsh and her face had darkened. The constable looked at her in surprise and then consulted his notebook again.

‘I beg your pardon; I meant to say black lace.’ He sounded a bit nervous, and I didn’t blame him as Mrs Leigh-Perrot looked very fierce. He dived back into his notebook.

‘Miss Gregory says that you also took a card of white lace for which you had not paid. We would like you to come down to the Roundhouse and make a statement about this matter.’

‘Certainly not!’ exclaimed Mrs Leigh-Perrot. Her eyes were flashing and she stood very tall and straight.

‘W-what?’ stammered the constable.

‘Go to the Roundhouse alone and unprotected! Certainly not.’

‘Your husband can accompany you, of course.’ The constable seemed to breathe a little easier at the thought of Mr Leigh-Perrot. ‘Perhaps I could speak to him.’

‘My husband is not at home,’ said Mrs Leigh-Perrot firmly. ‘In any case, this silly business has nothing whatsoever to do with him. Now take yourself off, my man.’

As Jane said later, that was where things began to go wrong. Mrs Leigh-Perrot might have done better to stick with the lone-unprotected-female line of conversation, said Jane.

‘I’m afraid there is a very serious complaint made against you, Madam. You are accused of theft. You know the law of the land. Any stolen article over the value of five shillings
– and this lace was worth twenty shillings – is classified as grand larceny.’

Jane and I were quite frightened by this. We looked at each other. Mrs Leigh-Perrot showed no signs of anxiety though.

‘May I ask who makes this complaint?’ Her voice was haughty and quite loud.

‘The complaint was sworn by Miss Gregory, the shop owner.’

‘A woman,’ said my aunt with emphasis, ‘without moral or financial probity.’

Jane’s eyes glinted. She liked these sorts of phrases.

The constable snapped his notebook shut.

‘You will kindly attend the Roundhouse in Stall Street as soon as your husband comes home, madam.’ He then picked up his hat and strode out, banging the front door behind him.

An hour later my uncle came home, but nothing was said. We talked of Charles. We heard of Franklin’s opinion that it probably wasn’t smallpox, just some fever. We heard of the
opinions of most of the people who drank the waters in the Pump Room, many of whom thought smallpox was nothing, some of whom had various recipes for herbal drinks and others who believed in
bloodletting immediately. My uncle sat down to write to his poor sister with all this advice, but my aunt said not a word of the constable’s visit.

It rained heavily for the whole afternoon and none of us ventured out. No one visited the Roundhouse to see the constable.

I’ve just asked Jane what she thought my aunt meant by calling Miss Gregory ‘a woman without moral or financial probity’.

This is what Jane said: ‘She cheats her customers and lives with a man outside marriage.’