Jane Austen Stole My Boyfriend (26 page)

Eliza greeted us warmly, ushering us rapidly through her small narrow hallway and into the drawing room, with its views over the square. There was something different about the room and for a
moment I could not think what it was. Then Jane’s eyes met mine and I realized the plan.

At one end of the drawing room there was a large hatch with wooden doors that could be opened to hand food in from the tiny kitchen beyond. Today this hatch was screened off. Eliza had hung
across it a hideous piece of embroidery, stitched by Phylly, with strange-looking flowers around the outside and a large text scrolled across the middle:

‘Don’t take off your cloaks and bonnets, girls,’ Eliza was saying with well-acted haste. ‘Something terrible has happened. The pastry-cook has not delivered the
petits
gâteaux
for our tea. You must run down to Bath Street and fetch them. Here is the key for you to let yourselves back in again. Go quickly
Madame
and I will entertain ourselves with
gossip until you return.’

In a moment she had pushed us out of the room with a quick wink and a nod towards the kitchen. We waited until she had gone back in, then walked noisily, tramping on the floor, towards the hall
door, opened it, shut it with a bang and then crept back into the kitchen, where we were not surprised to see a great array of little cakes spread out on pretty plates. Jane tiptoed towards the
hatch, whose wooden doors were clipped open, and I followed her. We both perched on the table there and prepared to listen. With just the screen between the drawing room and us, we could hear every
word spoken.

Eliza, I realized, was playing the part of a lifetime. Sophisticated lady-about-town, deeply admiring of Augusta’s fashion sense, full of deprecating little jokes about
‘admirers’, sure that Augusta had many of these . . .

‘We don’t take any notice of men, do we?’ she said to the rather impressed Augusta, who judging by her giggled response to ‘
agréables’
, was flattered
to be counted as a woman of the world by the sophisticated Comtesse de Feuillide, who was important enough to be invited to private balls at the Crescent by a
prin
cesse
.

And then Eliza mentioned the baths. Perhaps she and Augusta could go there together one day, she suggested. Augusta was not keen, pretended that she could not go without Mr Cooper’s
approval. Eliza laughed at the idea of a mere man having anything to say on the matter. However, she told her how right she was.

‘La,’ she said. ‘I do declare that the last time I went there – what with all this affair of wearing a canvas shift and the smell of the water,
oh là là
. . .
and the crowds that were there . . . I felt quite unwell. In fact, on the way home – this was last Thursday – I felt so faint that I had the sedan chairmen stop at the
Greyhound Inn to get me a glass of brandy. I fancy you may have seen me there . . .’

There was a long silence. I wished that I could pluck aside Phylly’s embroidery to see Augusta’s face. I almost thought that I had heard a quick gasp, and then Eliza spoke again, her
tone light and teasing.

‘Don’t worry,
chère madame
,’ she said. ‘
Les dames
, they must have fun,
hein
? He is rich, this Mr Wilkins,
n’est-ce
pas
?’

Augusta gave a shaky laugh. ‘I’ve heard that you are a great flirt,’ she said, trying to match Eliza’s lightness of tone, but only succeeding in sounding vulgar and
stupid, as usual.

Eliza sighed. ‘Ah, flirtation!’ she said, sounding deeply sincere. ‘
Hélas, mon amie
, I am too old for all that sort of thing now. But you, that is another affair.
You are young, you must amuse yourself.’

Then there was a short silence. I imagined Eliza tapping Augusta on the arm with her fan and exchanging smiles with her. Eliza is only a few years older than Augusta, but my sister-in-law was
probably quite happy to be taken for a young woman.

And then Eliza spoke again.

‘However, permit me to give you a little advice. Have your fun, but be careful. Above all, be careful of sharp young eyes and sharp little ears. Keep them sweet, my dear. Don’t set
them against you.’

Still Augusta said nothing. Jane was mouthing the words ‘little pitchers’. I shook my head at her. How was Eliza going to manage this? I wondered.

Eliza herself had no doubts though. Her voice was strong and confident.

‘It was a mistake,
mon amie
, to make an enemy of your husband’s sister and her cousin,
bien sûr
. They come to me, you understand, with stories . . . You must
marry Jenny off. You don’t want her back with you in your house, do you? Accompanying you on every visit? Talking to her clever little cousin about you? No, no, you don’t want that.
Give her what she wants – let her marry the captain.’

‘She is so without ambition. I could have made a wonderful match for her with a very wealthy man,’ sighed Augusta, but there was something about her voice, a sort of respectful
sweetness, that made me think that she had understood the point. Her own flirtation – or whatever it was with that abominable man, the slave dealer – was more important to her than
thwarting me and my hopes for the future. She had no doubt given up the thought of marrying me off to Mr Stanley Wilkins. He probably didn’t ever want to see me again after the way I
disgraced him in front of his servants and neighbours at Bristol.

‘Talk to your husband tonight,’ advised Eliza. ‘He will be pleased to think that you have Jenny’s interests at heart and that you just want the girl’s
happiness.’

I imagined a quick wink from Eliza at this point. I held my breath. Was it going to work?

Another deep sigh from Augusta. ‘I suppose you are right,’ she said. ‘It’s not as if she were a beauty or anything like that. I hoped to make a match for her – a
very advantageous match, but her manners . . . her clumsiness . . . her stupidity – well, the gentleman will probably no longer be interested if she behaves again as she did a few days
ago.’

‘You have done your best,’ said Eliza sedately. ‘Now get her off your hands, before the captain too changes his mind. No one would blame him as you have refused his offer. Let
her write to him as quickly as possible.
Alors
, tell me, are you going to Lady Russell’s party next week? And have you heard the latest
on-dit
about her young
admirer?’

Jane put her finger to her lips and slid carefully off the table. I followed her and we tiptoed down the hall. There was little fear of discovery – gales of laughter were coming from
Eliza’s drawing room. We edged the hall door open quietly and went down the stairs towards the front door. After waiting for a while we returned noisily, went straight into the kitchen and
appeared in the drawing room with plates of small cakes in our hands and demure expressions on our faces.

But now it is ten o’clock at night and Augusta has not spoken to Edward-John. Or else she has spoken and he was unwilling to grant his permission . . .

What is happening????

I’m so sleepy that it feels like the middle of the night. I stumble out of bed while Rosalie wakes Jane. Neither of us speaks while we wash and dress.

Downstairs James is yawning over a cup of strong coffee. Mr and Mrs Austen have finished their breakfast and are waiting in the hall; she is dressed in a stout cloak and he in an old-fashioned
greatcoat with many capes over his shoulders. Edward-John appears and says guiltily that Augusta is too ill to come. Jane looks sidelong at me but is too sleepy to make a comment.

Then we are walking down the hill to the White Hart Inn where we will get the stagecoach. The trial is not to be at Bath, but in another town called Taunton. In the coach I keep sleeping and
waking with a start and sleeping again. James and his parents are playing cards, and Jane is sound asleep with her head on her father’s shoulder.

‘Taunton!’ shouts the coachman, and we are here at last.

We get out, stretch our legs, eat a second breakfast with some wonderful tea and scorched toast, and then we are on our way up through the town until we reach the courthouse.

‘It’s in the castle,’ says Jane, looking up excitedly. ‘It’s where Judge Jeffreys condemned all those two hundred men to be hanged in the time of King Charles II.
He did that at the Bloody Assizes, you know.’

‘Jane, be quiet,’ says Mrs Austen fiercely, and I think it rather tactless of Jane to talk in this way. By the end of this day we will know the fate of our own aunt. I just
can’t believe that anyone could hang an old lady – even if she did take that piece of lace! And would transportation be any better? Could she stand the journey of a year out to
Australia and then have to live as a convict? I start to shiver and pull my cloak closely around me.

The court is held in the great hall of the castle. There is a sort of raised platform at the end with a large chair for the judge. Then there is one boxed-off enclosure for the accused and
another larger one where the twelve members of the jury are already seated. At the end of the platform, but at floor level, is a long table where the lawyers in wigs and long black gowns are
sitting. Beside this is the witness box.

The hall is almost full – James says that he thinks there must be about two thousand people there. Mrs Austen takes a piece of paper and a pencil from her reticule, scribbles a note and
tells James to take it to Mrs Leigh-Perrot’s lawyer, Mr Jekyll.

In a couple of minutes he comes over and shakes hands with us all and finds us chairs at the side of the hall, quite near to the dock. He tells us that there are four of them, four lawyers, all
to defend Mrs Leigh-Perrot. He speaks confidently, but when he goes back to the table and whispers to his three colleagues I think that they all look worried.

Then Mr Leigh-Perrot comes in by himself. He looks very old, and his gout is troubling him. He walks with a stick. Mr Jekyll jumps up to greet him and takes him over to a seat beside us,
whispering loudly that this is going to be a famous case and that most of the big London papers have sent journalists to cover it. He points out the journalist from the
London Times,
standing leaning against the wall nearby, but Mr Leigh-Perrot ignores him. He hardly even notices us as he stumbles along. He has cut himself shaving this morning and his hair doesn’t look
brushed. His eyes have huge pouches under them as if he hasn’t slept properly for a long time. Mrs Austen jumps up, hugs him, and gets him to sit down beside her. I notice that she holds his
hand. This brother and sister are very fond of each other, I think, and I look at Edward-John sitting at the end of the row. He hasn’t spoken one word to me today.