More Sport for our Neighbours

by Ronald McGowan

  It is apocryphal, of course, far too good to be true, with no real evidence to support it, but it is the sort of thing that might have happened, and the sort of thing that most people who heard it were, and still are, quite prepared to believe, and the tale has taken on a life of its own that no cavilling scholarship can suppress. Yes, there was a Hartlepool Monkey, just as there is a Santa Claus.

  The town itself has taken the story to heart, and Hartlepool Football Club (soccer, to our American friends) prides itself on its mascot, a monkey called Hangus. The name is a double pun, playing on the Scottish name Angus on the one hand, and on the other the Northeast dialect pronounciation, where an initial is not always pronounced, and the local dialect word for me is ‘uz’, so that Angus, and ‘Hang me’ would sound the same to a local.

  The other local details, including Sunderland Spaw, and the Black Cat Barracks, not to mention the ‘Old 68th’ are as accurate as I can make them without turning the book into a history rather than a romance.

  Meanwhile, all I can say is, thank you for your patience in reading this far.

  You may care to try these samples of two of Ronald McGowan’s other books.

  Miss Dashwood's Dilemma

  Chapter One :Ambition

  Elinor and Marianne are up to something. I can tell by the way they look pointedly away from each other every time I come upon them, and then start talking loudly about the weather, and about excursions we could make, and sights we could see. When I ask them what they are up to, they deny everything. This is only to be expected. They always did.

  Nobody ever tells me anything. Well, I suppose they do tell me things, but only instructions. “Come along, Margaret,” they say, “do this. Come along, Margaret, do that. Come along, Margaret, come along, do.”

  I might as well change my name to ‘Comealong Margaret Dashwood’

  Nobody ever really talks to me. They say lots of words to my face, but they don't talk to me.

  Mother talks at me, with all her lectures on how to sew, how to keep house, and, especially, how I must take care to catch an eligible young man, although she never even gives me a hint as to how I am expected to do that, stuck in the back of beyond at Barton cottage, where no-one ever comes but my sisters and the Middletons. And if I ask, she goes all mysterious about how precious a young lady's reputation is, and how it must never be compromised, and it will not do to get a reputation for chasing young men. When I ask how I am to catch a young man without chasing him, she says I must let him chase me. But what if he doesn't want to chase me? What if I don't want to be chased? It doesn’t help that I live a sort of semi-detached existence, shared around among my mother and sisters and never really part of anyone’s circle. Four months at Barton Cottage, followed by four months at Delaford House, rounded off by four months at Delaford Parsonage sounds reasonable enough, but they’re always the wrong set of four months. They suit mother, they suit Eleanor, they suit Marianne. They rarely suit me, and, if they do, it is purely by chance.

  Eleanor and Marianne talk around me, and over me, and beside me, but never to me. They decide what I want to do and plan things to amuse me and what I would like to eat, but they hardly ever actually listen to a word I say, and when they do they only laugh and tell me I "don't mean it" or I will "think differently in a year or two."

  Edward used to talk to me when he was courting Eleanor. He used to talk to me all the time then, and tell me all his plans, and listen, seriously, to mine, not just pretend, the way other people do. But now that he is up in London so much on his mother's business, I hardly ever see him, even when I am at Delaford.

  Colonel Brandon talks to me, when he remembers, but it takes an awful lot to get him started. He even talks about things the others won't. I know all about his secret love-child, - although we call her cousin Eliza -and his failed elopement a whole age ago. I know his other secret, too, which is why I still call him Colonel Brandon, although he is my brother-in-law. If I had such a silly set of Christian names I wouldn't want anyone to know them either, still less use them.

  But they all tend to end up saying "You're too young to understand" or "Wait till you're a few years older."

  The trouble is, they still treat me as if I were only eleven, even though it's three years now since my sisters were married. I am not a child any more, but what must I do to make my family realise it?

  Piracy, in plans of which Edward used to encourage me when I was a child, is no longer an option, I admit. Besides, the attraction it once held has, somehow, faded. But there must be something I could do, preferably not too arduous and time-consuming, that would make my family take notice!

  I am tired of being treated as part of the furniture, or a domestic pet, who must be coddled and humoured, but never really considered.

  I must do something to distinguish myself.

  Yes, I must do something to distinguish myself. But what? An easy question to ask, but not so easy to answer. Young ladies, especially those in my position, are not encouraged to do anything, other than hope for the best. Hoping for the best is something my family is rather good at, I cannot deny that. Mother's entire life has been founded on that principle, and, in the end, it seems to have worked for her. She is perfectly happy at Barton Cottage, with the Middletons to dine out with whenever she chooses, and sharing me with Delaford.

  Elinor and Marianne, too, have never done much more than hope for the best as far as the way their lives have turned out. It has worked for them, too, but it might so easily have been different.

  Marianne definitely threw herself at Willoughby, and nearly died from self-neglect when he let her down, If that is the consequence of throwing yourself, I can see why Mother is so against it, and I quite agree with her. If Marianne had not had dear Colonel Brandon to fall back on she would have been in a bad way indeed.

  Elinor went the other way, She was so far from throwing herself at her Edward that we could never get her even to admit the obvious fondness she had for him, and she would have lost him if that nasty Lucy Steele had not found a more tempting target for her husband-hunting.

  Things have gone very well for both of them in the end, but it has all been luck. And it has all been through "catching a man" in the end.

  I do not know that I want to catch a man, which is perhaps just as well, as I never meet any who are less than a hundred years old. Colonel Brandon's friend, Sandy, always flirts with me when he comes to visit, but someone really should tell him that he is far too old. When is a man to be free from such wit, if age and infirmity will not protect him?

  And yet, what can a young lady of my condition do without a man. I have no fortune to sustain me in my old age. The thousand pounds I shall inherit when Mother dies will barely keep me in genteel poverty. Marianne tells me there will always be a home for me at Delaford, but I do not want to spend the rest of my life dependent on my sister's charity, as a sort of upper servant cum child-minder.

  Still less do I want to end my days as a governess, or a lady's companion and doormat, or, horror of horrors, as a teacher at a school. I can think of nothing worse than that. Marianne says that if Colonel Brandon had not found her in time, Cousin Eliza would have come upon the town. The way she says "come upon the town" makes it sound even worse, but she won't tell me why, only that it is not the same as coming upon the parish, and I will understand when I am older.

  I certainly don't want to come upon the parish, but my fifty pounds a year should at least preserve me from that. I do want to do something, however, and not just “when I am older”. I want to make a name for myself.

  The only possibility I can think of is writing. Miss Edgerton, Mrs Radcliffe, Miss Burney are all well-respected in society, as much for their novels as for their other merits, and if they can support themselves from their writing, why should not I? Am I not as capable as they of inventing a tale? And what more is needed, save the chore of writing it down?

  Very well, I shall do it. When they see my books on the shelves of every circu
lating library, my sisters will be forced to acknowledge that I am no longer the child they think me. Literary fame shall bring me to their attention, will they or nill they.

  It cannot be so difficult, can it?

  The Journal of Miss Jane Fairfax

  CHAPTER ONE

  Forsan et Haec Olim Meminisse Iuvabit

  Friday 5th August 1808

  There.

  I have put pen to paper at last. A journey of a thousand miles, if we are to credit the oriental sage, begins with but a single step.

  This narration of my journey this summer begins, too, with just one word.

  I am resolved from this day forth to keep a journal. It is not to be a commonplace journal, replete with reports of the weather, with recipes and samples of muslin and all the other things that young ladies commonly burden their diaries with, and to which, I own, I have added my own freight in the past. No, it is to be an accurate and comprehensive record, as far as I can make it, of significant events, and of those only, except perhaps my own musings on those events and their meaning. On days on which nothing of moment occurs, I will record nothing, so that this volume will, perhaps, bear less of a resemblance to a shopping list than is commonly the case. It will, I hope, provide a source of comfort in days to come, when I shall perhaps be in need of a reminder of happier times, and remembrance, from some draughty schoolroom, of my last summer of freedom.

  For my last summer of freedom it will be. Tomorrow we set off, all of us, Colonel and Mrs Campbell, Dora and I, and Mr Dixon too, for Weymouth, to "Get to know each other better" before the wedding in the autumn.

  After that ceremony, it will no longer be "Dora and Jane", but "Mr and Mrs Dixon", and not Jane at all.

  Afterwards, I am determined that I must strike out on my own.

  I am aware that, although slave markets have been abolished, something similar still exists for young gentlewomen of limited means, who must even now expose themselves, if not in the slave market, then in one of three other shop windows.

  In the marriage market, with no fortune of my own, and no inheritance to anticipate, my prospects must be very uncertain. Colonel and Mrs Campbell are very kind, including me in all entertainments and furnishing every opportunity, but I cannot expect them to damage the prospects of their own child, and I know that accomplishments, beauty, virtue, intellect are all as nothing in the minds of most young men. What they look for is money, and of that I have distressingly little. And in any case, I would rather be teacher at a school (and I can think of nothing worse) than marry a man I did not like.

  For the companion market I am scarcely of an age, nor is my temperament well suited to carrying dowager's reticules and coddling their pug dogs.

  There remains the governess market, where my proficiency at music and languages should render me a marketable commodity. It is not a life of many attractions but there is an old saying about beggars and the limits on their choices.

  For I am resolved, now that I am of age and can no longer be of much consequence to my darling Dora, to impose no further on the generosity of Colonel and Mrs Campbell, both of whom have been far too kind to me for far too long.

  When I was a small child, the difference in my condition from that of my playmate was not evident to me, though older persons reminding me of how grateful I must be were not wanting. I knew, of course, that Colonel Campbell was Dora's father and not mine, that mine had been killed fighting the wicked French, that in doing so he had saved the life of his commander, who, in gratitude, had taken me in when my own mother died shortly afterwards. But I had no real recollection of these events, and they were to me but one story among many others, as real, as veracious as Tom Thumb, or Goldilocks, but no more so.

  As I grew older, the disparity became more obvious. It never occurred to me to begrudge the precedence accorded to Dora, nor the small but real differences made between us in our dress. We were as sisters, and shared everything, and the beads of one were so often exchanged for the ribbons of the other that in any case the difference was never so pronounced. In our style of living, and in our education, no distinction at all was made. We had the same governess, the same lessons, and in short, the same advantages. The equality with which we were treated could not have been more perfect. Indeed, in some respects, it might be said that I proved the superior. In my lessons, in English prosody, in French, Latin and Italian, and especially in music, Miss Jones was far more lavish in her praise of me than of my "sister". Poor Dora could never hit a note, let alone hold it, in her singing, and her playing, both on the harp Colonel Campbell bought specially for her and on the fortepiano in the music room at Manchester Square, was the despair of us both. Her embroidery, indeed, her needlework in general, was far superior to mine, however, and she could reckon a row of figures far quicker than I, and with much more consistent success. These little differences, however, meant no more to us than her auburn locks to my chestnut. The slight disparity in our ages, furthermore, and Dora's own natural diffidence placed us on a far more equal footing than mistress and companion, even after we were both out.

  I will not say that all that has changed recently, for it has not. Colonel and Mrs Campbell are still to me as parents, and Dora and I are still the closest, the best of friends. But an interloper has come between us.

  I refer, of course, to Mr Dixon.

  Let me say it right out, I do not like Mr Dixon. I have no more reason than in the famous case of Dr Fell, indeed, I scarcely know the gentleman. I met him for the first time just this evening. My delicate state of health has always been an annoyance to me, and last summer it prevented me from making the journey to Brighton with the Campbells. It also put paid to my usual visit to my Aunt Bates in Surrey. While I was, perforce, languishing in my sickbed at Manchester Square, darling Dora was enjoying the delights of the most fashionable seaside watering place in the land. Among those delights, indeed, the chief among them, as it turned out, was Mr Dixon.

  My Dora came back from Brighton full of his charms, his attentions, his manifest and unparalleled attractions, his complete superiority in every thing. I was hard put to credit that such a paragon of all the virtues could exist in this imperfect world, and I confess that the subject very soon became rather tedious.

  I had been looking forward to having my old Dora back again after such an absence, the longest we had been apart for many years. Instead, there came back from Brighton this elegant stranger, improved, perhaps, but only in deportment, in elegance of dress and manner, and readiness of polite but essentially vacuous conversation. Her enquiries as to my health and welfare during her absence were of the most perfunctory nature, and she displayed no interest at all in the latest books that I had been so looking forward to discussing with her, nor in the music that I had so carefully learnt to welcome her home with. I had been prepared for tales of balls, and outings, even of young men, but this interminable Mr Dixon, I confess, quite set my teeth on edge.

  In my inability to divert my childhood friend from her obsession with this unknown gentleman, for almost the first time, I realised what it was to be dependent, to be in no position to speak one's mind, and that realisation came hard upon me.

  To do the gentleman credit, the family's return to Manchester Square was followed, quite shortly, by a letter from Mr Dixon to Colonel Campbell setting out his position and offering in form for his daughter's hand. When this proposal was relayed to Dora her response was immediate and unqualified, and we were left only with the settlements and the ceremonies to agree.

  To say that I was shocked by such hasty matchmaking would perhaps be something of an exaggeration, but I was surprised. On enquiry it appeared that no positive objections could be found to Mr Dixon's suit. He was not, like so many of his compatriots, of the Romish persuasion, although his estate, Bal-y-Craig, was in the Pale, rather than in Ulster. That estate appeared to be perfectly adequate to support a wife and family, and the settlements he proposed were entirely acceptable.

  But surely the only daught
er of Colonel and Mrs Campbell, of the Horse Guards, with all of London at her feet, could do better than a bog-trotting Irish squireen with a name so undistinguished that there must be trade lurking in the background somewhere?

  It was when I ventured, somewhat diffidently, hesitantly, and very carefully, to mention as much to Colonel Campbell that I began truly to see how the land lay.

  He was on the point of leaving for the Horse Guards, but he glanced at the clock and opened the door to his study, motioning me inside.

  We sat on either side of the fireplace.

  "Jane,"

  He said,

  "you are an intelligent girl, and I will credit you with enough sense to understand why what I now tell you must remain strictly between the two of us. Mr Dixon is no great acquisition, I grant you, but his money is real enough, wherever it may have come from originally, and a considerable part of it is - I can think of no more elegant way to say this - is currently keeping this roof above our heads."

  "You know that I am no great highland landowner, though the Duke of Argyll is my distant cousin, and that my army pay barely covers the expenses of maintaining the style of life in London necessary for an officer on the staff of the Duke of York. The chances of seeing action for one holding such a place are not great, and in any case the opportunities for making a fortune from the enemy available to a soldier are far fewer than those our friends in the navy enjoy. We have been living on capital for some time now, and it cannot go on much longer. I had been forced to consider selling my commission before we met Mr Dixon."

  "Mr Dixon's offer comes at a most opportune time, and I find myself obliged to him for an advance of the funds needed to tide us over until I can realise my sugar estates in the West Indies, which have long been unprofitable with the fortunes of this present war. He, too, has estates in the Leeward Islands, and is to arrange all things on the spot for me when he visits them this winter. His letter to me came from Falmouth, where he will by now have boarded the packet. You will surely see that, being under such an obligation to the gentleman, I cannot, without serious cause, refuse his offer, though he is Irish and his name may not be so ancient as some."