Mrs Austen came from a wealthier family than Mr Austen, with distant connections to rank and title, and had upset her relations by marrying a country parson. As the years passed in their quiet parish, her income and station had diminished still until she retained a singular vestige of her old life: a solid-gold locket and chain which shamed the brass trinkets she had acquired during marriage. Purchased in the 1600s for a princely sum by her great-grandmother, a baroness, the necklace’s value had grown since then. Mrs Austen displayed it proudly around her neck and polished it every Sunday with a silk cloth.
She grabbed Jane by the shoulders. ‘Listen now, Jane. Say beguiling and coquettish things to this man. Do not talk about books or politics or anything else to make him feel stupid. No one marries a clever boots.’
Jane bristled; she would have argued had she not explored the theme herself all morning. ‘Yes, Mama,’ she said. ‘I promise to act as silly as possible.’
Then her father touched her hand. ‘It will be all right, Jane.’
Jane nodded. With the gravity of the situation communicated, and enough scowling and worrying completed, the trio each took a deep breath and proceeded into the sitting room.
Reverend Austen entered first and greeted Mr Withers and his son, Charles. Introductions were then made with startling control for the Austens. Even Mrs Austen was shushed into a modicum of decency by the wealth and handsomeness of the suitor. She waited a full seven minutes before providing a list of her son Edward’s houses, filling the space with polite and meaningless chatter, as was her talent.
Jane sighed with gratitude for once at her mother’s conversation, for it removed the focus from her. She preoccupied herself with not meeting the young man’s eye; the first time Jane allowed him a decent look at her face, he would run a Yorkshire mile. She counted the floorboards instead. But when she finally snuck a glance in his direction, to her great surprise, she found him smiling at her.
‘Mr Withers, I believe you are a naturalist,’ Mrs Austen said to the father.
‘Indeed, I am,’ replied Mr Withers Senior. ‘Though I am no professional botanist; it is a hobby of mine.’
Jane stole another glance at the young man as her mother praised and flattered the older one for his dedication to nature. Could it be? Was Mr Withers truly smiling at her? He was. Jane commanded her breathing to slow.
‘There is a bush of roses in the garden which I cannot identify,’ Mrs Austen said. ‘Would you assist me in classifying it?’ Mr Withers Senior replied his assent, and the quintet set forth outside to explore Sydney Gardens. Jane knew the roses her mother referred to were pink Queen Mary’s, the standard-issue flower in the limey soil of Bath, and her mother knew this also. While Jane could see her mother’s strategies from miles away, evidently the men could not.
‘If you will observe, Mr Withers, I see the bud of a rose by the garden wall,’ Mrs Austen said.
‘I see no buds, Mrs Austen,’ Mr Withers Senior replied. ‘We might struggle, for it is March.’
The gardens resembled a graveyard of bare earth and sticks, but Jane’s mother persisted with her scheme. ‘Perhaps you are right,’ Mrs Austen said. ‘Will you join me for a closer inspection? Then we may settle the matter.’
Mrs Austen led him and the Reverend away, leaving Jane and her suitor alone, filling Jane with terror. Jane felt grateful for her mother’s plotting but now the situation would force her to say something, whereupon she’d ruin everything.
As Jane and Mr Withers walked up the path in silence, Jane recalled her mother’s earlier instructions and strained for something coquettish to say. The weather? It appeared the rain had ceased. She thought of the most flirtatious way to comment on precipitation, perched on the verge of despair, when Charles Withers himself turned his head and smiled. ‘Have you taken the waters, Miss Jane?’ he asked her.
She struggled for a way to reply without speaking. ‘I have not, sir,’ she answered at last, defeated into verbalisation. He referred to the famous ancient spa waters which bubbled up from the earth’s centre and collected in a pool in the centre of Bath. King George had drunk the water and been cured of his gout. People flocked from far and wide to imbibe the pool’s magical liquid after the miracle. John Baldwin built a grand tea room adjacent to the mystical site, the Pump Room, so people might drink it in style. The only person Jane knew who’d been inside was Margaret, the Austens’ housemaid. After much prodding, Margaret had confessed to paying a week’s wages to drink a teaspoon of sulphurous water, which she spat out when her friends turned their backs. She assured Jane it had done her good in the brief time it sat in her mouth.
‘Do you know what it is, to take the waters?’ Mr Withers asked. ‘I have walked around Bath for three days now pretending to know what it means. With the performance gone on for so long, I am too afraid to ask anyone.’ He adjusted his coat button.
Jane stopped. Did this handsome man make a joke? Jane tested him. ‘What do you think it means, sir?’
‘From what I can gather, one breaks into the Pump Room under the cover of darkness, gathers up as much water as he can carry in his pockets, then runs back out again.’ He smiled again.
Jane swallowed. ‘You are modest in professing your ignorance, Mr Withers. That is precisely how it is done.’
‘May I take my own water from the bathtub, or repossess it from an obliging puddle, or is it only the water from the Pump Room tap that is magical?’ he asked.
‘I regret the sorcery is limited to the water you must pay for.’
‘Oh, but I intend to steal it.’
‘Of course.’ Jane could not contain a small smile.
‘I shall need an accomplice, if you will do me the honour.’
So much time had passed since a man last requested Jane’s company that she almost missed the invitation. ‘With pleasure,’ she said with another smile. She elected to stop smiling then; two sufficed. Any more and she might be accused of having a nice time.
‘Tomorrow I have business in Bristol, but perhaps the day after,’ he said.
Further conversation revealed, to her horror, that he admired Cecilia, Jane’s favourite book. Jane was worried, for now she enjoyed this man’s company, respected his opinions and shared his mockery of Bath. With his one great defect being the smallness of his coat buttons, Jane had no choice but to like Mr Withers.
They reunited with their parents and returned to the house. Jane and her mother agreed to attend the Pump Room in two days’ time. Charles Withers and his father took their leave with felicity and goodwill and, as the Austens bade them farewell by their gig, Mrs Austen enjoyed the happy opportunity to wave at Lady Johnstone, who spied at them from behind her sitting room curtain.
CHAPTER THREE
The next morning, a letter arrived for Jane from Cassandra. My dear Jane, it read. It seems so long since we last spoke. I trust I have missed much while I have been away, and Bath misses me as much as I it.
Her sister made this joke often, for their lives in Bath were duller than their brother James’s Sunday sermons. A parade of vapour and nothings filled their time, meeting silly people who stayed for a week and then returned home, never thought of again once they departed Stall Street. However, today Jane did have news. She longed for Cassandra now, but her sister had travelled east twelve days ago to help Edward’s wife birth her eighth child. Cassandra had expressed reluctance to leave Jane, observing that Jane may have slumped into one of her fogs, as she did from time to time. But Jane insisted she go, for her own struggles of the mind were ridiculous compared to the safe delivery of a spare Austen heir. Her sister would delight in reading Jane’s news.
Jane took a place at the small desk by the drawing room window, where Mr Withers had stood the day before, and drafted her reply. My dear Cassandra, she scratched onto the paper with her father’s quill. Steady the buffs, sweet sister. I have news from Bath. She dipped the quill, composing a few lines in her head about Mr Withers, his coat buttons, Lady Johnstone, but found she cou
ld write none. A drop of ink fell from the pen to the page.
Jane felt silly. In the new day, it all appeared a flight of fancy. Mr Withers had smiled at her and invited her to a public assembly. In her desperate state, her mind had collected these crumbs of regard and transmuted them into true love. He’d likely invited her to the Pump Room out of charity. Jane cursed her daydreams and put the quill down.
‘What are you writing, Jane?’ her mother asked as she entered the drawing room. ‘Not a story, I hope.’ She snatched up Jane’s letter and studied it.
‘No, Mama,’ Jane replied.
Jane’s mother squinted at the paper. ‘I maintain my previous decision to incinerate any novels I find. Even now you have Mr Withers.’
‘I do not have Mr Withers, Mama.’
Her mother put the page down. ‘Come now, you may write to your sister later. We are due in town.’
As they crossed Pulteney Bridge and headed towards the centre of Bath, Jane noticed something strange. Most of the townsfolk usually ignored her or shook their heads when she walked by but today a woman called, ‘Good morning, Jane!’ with a broad smile as they passed. This peculiar salutation preceded a dozen similarly enthusiastic greetings as Jane and her mother continued down the cobblestoned street. By the time they reached the corner, every tradesman’s wife and churchgoer in the laneway had waved or smiled at her. Mrs Austen looped her arm through Jane’s happily.
‘Why is everyone so pleasant, Mama?’ Jane asked. ‘They scare me with their smiles.’
‘Oh, hush now,’ said her mother. ‘They are happy for us.’
Jane stopped walking. ‘Why are they happy, Mama?’ Her mother made no remark. ‘Mama, how many people did you tell of Mr Withers?’
‘Hardly anyone!’ her mother cried, waving her hand as though swatting a fly. ‘What is the problem, in any case? Who conceals such good news?’
‘I have only been invited to an assembly.’
‘What nonsense you speak sometimes,’ her mother said. She dragged Jane down Stall Street and turned left, where the waves and smiles of half the population of Bath assaulted Jane. She swallowed in panic and was about to berate her mother for her foolish indiscretion when Mrs Austen halted out the front of Maison Du Bois, a dress shop at the end of Westgate. At first Jane assumed her mother paused there to tie a bootlace, but then she turned to enter the shop.
‘Mama. Have you gone mad?’ Jane asked. Maison Du Bois sold the most expensive gowns in Bath, if not all of England. Locals never patronised this shop; it existed solely for rich Londoners and nobles who shopped there on holiday. The child princess Charlotte had purchased her entire wardrobe there, to the dismay of the privy purse, with every gown, glove, bonnet and boot shipped exclusively from Paris.
Mrs Austen walked inside, pulling Jane behind her. It surprised Jane that the door remained unguarded. She expected an armed sentry to stand there, blocking the untitled likes of her and her mother from entering in their soot-stained boots, but they passed through the doors undetected. Once inside, the most beautiful room molested Jane’s eyes: white plaster roses adorned the ceiling, polished cornices trimmed with brass blessed every cabinet. A giant oak staircase soared upwards into the back of the room, leading to who-knew-where – heaven, maybe. Glass cabinets held cream scarves of silk and damask, lemon-hued bonnets, peach slippers as light as air, and shawls spun from pure gold. Gowns hung from every surface. It more resembled a patisserie than a dress shop.
‘What a dreadful place,’ Jane said. ‘This will not do at all.’
‘This is what the afterlife must be like,’ Mrs Austen said in a hushed tone.
A shop-hand scowled at them from behind a cabinet. ‘Are you lost?’ He studied them from head to toe and made little attempt to conceal his appraisal.
Jane nodded. ‘Let’s go, Mama,’ she said. She made for the exit.
Her mother ignored her and turned to the man. ‘You sell dresses here, sir?’
‘As you can see, madam,’ he said. ‘Expensive ones.’
‘Good,’ she said, with a nod. ‘We should like to buy one.’
‘Mama, no!’ Jane said.
‘Quiet, daughter, or you shall get a slap,’ Mrs Austen said.
‘Are you aware, madam, this shop once made a hat for Marie Antoinette?’ the shop-hand said, sniffing at Mrs Austen.
‘Before she lost her head, I suppose,’ Mrs Austen said, raising an eyebrow and tilting her head. The tone and the words warmed Jane’s heart; her mother used her wit when she wanted to.
The man gasped. ‘We make and import the finest gowns for the most exclusive commissions.’
‘I am glad to hear it. Please make one for my daughter.’ She crossed her arms over her chest. A stalemate ensued where the shop-hand refused to move, and Mrs Austen refused to leave. Finally, the man realised sensibly that Mrs Austen possessed more stamina for stubbornness than he. He sneered and crouched down to measure Jane with his length of tape.
He proceeded with great ceremony, tutting and clucking and muttering under his breath at the length of Jane’s arm and the size of her waist, as though each measurement surprised him, despite Jane’s genteel proportions. A more objective person might have even called her figure pretty, or lithe, but not this person with a vested determination to find fault. He emitted a long sigh, then retrieved a single gown on a silk hanger, declaring, ‘This is all we have in her measurement.’
Jane studied the dress and gasped. ‘Mama’ was all she said. Surely a month of skill and love had brought this dress into being. An ivory overdress of silk shrouded a gown of bone-white muslin. The seamstress had embroidered lines of roses into the strips of gold which ran down the dress. Jane discerned the petals and leaves of each flower; she imagined a woman leaning over her table for hundreds of hours in a draughty workshop on the Left Bank, with a tiny needle and delicate thread. Lengths of silk braid were used for its closures, giving it the appearance of a military coat, the detail Jane approved of most. It reminded her of a uniform her brothers Frank and Charles, who were naval officers, might wear when they sailed down the Spanish coastline. Jane ran her hand down the diaphanous fabric. ‘Such a shade of white,’ Jane remarked. ‘I’ll soil it in the space of a morning’s walk.’
‘The whiter the dress, the better,’ the shop man instructed. ‘One does not walk in this dress; one takes a carriage.’ He reached to take back the gown.
‘See if it fits you,’ Mrs Austen said, moving the dress from his reach and offering it to Jane.
Jane protested, feeling she would destroy it with the first touch of her finger, but relented when her mother’s expression threatened violence once more. She moved behind a Chinoiserie screen and changed.
‘Good God,’ said her mother as she returned.
‘What is it, Mama?’ said Jane. ‘Does it fit ill?’
‘Jane.’ Her mother paused, her face making an expression Jane had never witnessed before. ‘You are beautiful.’
Jane scoffed. Her mother had never uttered such sentiments about her. No one had. But when Jane inspected her reflection in the mirror, she went quiet. The bone-white fabric brought out the gold in her fawn eyes. Pink flushed her cheeks. She never dressed this way. She pushed her shoulders back; the dress demanded it.
‘How much is it?’ her mother asked.
‘Twenty pounds,’ the man replied with a triumphant smile.
Mrs Austen grabbed her reticule. ‘We shall take it.’
‘Mama, no,’ Jane said. Twenty pounds paid their rent in Sydney House for six months. Mrs Austen could not own such a sum. Yet she pulled a banknote from her bag and offered it to the man.
‘Where did you get this?’ Jane asked. She glanced at her mother and noticed a change: her neck, ordinarily adorned with heavy gold, now lay bare. ‘Mama! Where is the baroness’s necklace?’ The white skin of her mother’s neck seemed to quiver, newly exposed to daylight. Jane had never seen her mother without this prized piece of jewellery; she seemed plain and naked without it.
Her mother touched her bare neck, then removed her hand. ‘If my daughter is to go to the Pump Room, she shall be fit to be seen.’
Jane gasped and shook her head. ‘Mama—’
‘Listen now, Jane. This will smooth the deal, for the father especially. This confirms we are not paupers.’ She raised her chin.
‘Mama, you loved that necklace.’
Her mother seemed to wince. ‘This is my fault, Jane. I let you sit with your father and read, when I should have taken you to balls and parties. I should have shown you how to make tea.’
‘I know how to make tea.’
‘You make it very ill, Jane. You forget the leaves until the brew tastes like tin. If we had reprimanded you, helped make the most of your appearance, you’d be married by now. I failed you, Jane. I let you run wild. Let me buy you this dress.’
Jane paused to recall the joy which running wild had brought her. She glanced at her mother’s bare neck once more, shaking her head. She never understood her. ‘All right, Mama.’
Mrs Austen smiled for an instant, then returned to her frowns. She gestured for Jane to change, and when she returned, Mrs Austen placed the banknote in the shop-hand’s claw. He grinned and snatched the money before taking the dress from Jane and wrapping it. She took possession of the white dress, having never owned anything so beautiful before.
CHAPTER FOUR
As they approached Sydney House, they saw a handsome man of thirty, who cut a dashing figure as he waited out the front of the apartment. A black ribbon tied back his sunflower hair. Jane gasped in surprise. ‘Hello, Henry,’ Jane called to her brother.
‘Hello, Jane,’ he said with a smile.
Eliza, his wife, held his arm. ‘Bonjour, Jane,’ Eliza said.
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