Jane Austen

by Valerie Grosvenor Myer

  Godmersham was being redecorated and the Knight family spent the summer at Chawton to avoid ‘painter’s colic’. When paint was lead-based, tradesmen suffered from lead poisoning as an occupational hazard. Their customers could escape if they had two homes. Jane told Frank that Edward was at Chawton Great House planning a new garden and intending to have his children with him as soon as school broke up.

  Henry was recovering from the loss of Eliza. Jane thought him ‘too busy, too active, too sanguine’ to grieve too long. He had been sincerely attached to her but business had taken him away so often that she was not so badly missed as other wives might be. Her illness had been long and dreadful and her death expected. It was a release.

  The Revd Thomas Leigh had just died at seventy-nine. ‘We are all very anxious to know who will have the living of Adlestrop, and where his excellent sister will find a home for the remainder of her days,’ said Jane. For once she even pitied her Aunt Leigh-Perrot, who had lost her chance of being mistress of Stoneleigh by the ‘vile compromise’. Now Stoneleigh reverted to James Henry Leigh, who owned Adlestrop Park already.

  In her postscript to a letter to Frank in July 1813, Jane wrote that every copy of Sense and Sensibility had sold and brought her £140, besides the copyright, ‘if that should ever be of any value. I have now therefore written myself into £250, which only makes me long for more.’ She confided to her brother that she had another project in hand, which she hoped would sell well on the back of Pride and Prejudice though it was admittedly not half so entertaining.

  Jane read Pride and Prejudice aloud to Fanny in one of the bedrooms. Fanny’s sister Louisa, Edward’s fourth daughter, remembered going into Jane’s bedroom one evening when Jane was dressing for dinner: ‘She had large dark eyes and a brilliant complexion, and long, long black hair down to her knees.’ This seems unlikely as Jane’s hair was chestnut brown and nobody else mentions such a length. Louisa was only eight or nine at the time, so her memories were possibly confused. Fifty years later, Fanny, the widowed Lady Knatchbull, read Pride and Prejudice again, aloud to Louisa. Louisa was by then Lady George Hill, in succession to her younger sister, Cassandra-Jane, who had married this younger son of the Marquis of Downshire and died after giving Lord George four children. Louisa bore him one.

  In summer 1813 Anna, who wanted to get away from home, announced her second engagement. This was to Ben Lefroy, youngest son of the late ‘Madam’ Lefroy His father had died in 1806 but his eldest brother, J H George Lefroy, had succeeded him in the living, so Ben was still in his childhood home. He was handsome, charming and intelligent, but as yet had no career. Jane was anxious because despite being sensible, very religious, well connected and not poor he had ‘some queerness of temper’, and Anna’s showed ‘much unsteadiness’. Worse, she was fond of company and he hated it. The engagement was announced on 17 August and was probably reluctantly countenanced at home, for Anna was soon taking refuge once more at Chawton Cottage.

  In September Jane was with Henry in London again, accompanied by Edward and his daughters Fanny, Lizzie and Marianne. Number 10 Henrietta Street, above the bank, had been made comfortable with cleaning and painting and the Sloane Street furniture, though Henry stayed there less than a year. He employed several servants: the visitors were welcomed by the coachman, then by William the manservant and by Madame Perigord the housekeeper, while the French cook Madame Bigeon, Madame Perigord’s mother, was preparing a dinner of soup, fish, bouillee (stewed meat), partridges and an apple tart. Henry was at the forefront of a new fashion. Formerly two courses had meant that a mixture of sweet and savoury dishes was spread upon the table, then all removed and replaced by another such varied selection. Now courses were sequential individual dishes, starting with soup and ending with pudding or dessert. Madame Bigeon and her daughter came to shop and cook and clean as often as he liked or as they liked. Jane told Frank that Henry had no intention of giving large parties any more. His social prominence had died with Eliza.

  The family went to see Donjuan, a popular pantomime which delighted Lizzie and Marianne, then thirteen and twelve. They sat in a private box, ‘directly on the stage’, which Jane found much more pleasant than the body of the theatre. Her eyes were troublesome, plagued by London’s dust and by artificial light, and she found the box less fatiguing. They left Don Juan in Hell at half-past eleven. Theatrical performances then were a mixed bag, with a play, opera, ballet and farce, the whole lasting five or six hours.

  Jane writes, ‘I talked to Henry at the play last night’. It seems to have been the custom to have private conversations during performances. In Pride and Prejudice Elizabeth and Mrs Gardiner discuss family matters and are only ‘separated by the conclusion of the play’. There is no suggestion that they kept their voices down:’ “Well!’ cried Elizabeth’ (emphasis added).

  After the theatre the party had soup and wine and water ‘and then went to our holes’. Fanny and Jane shared ‘poor Eliza’s’ bed. Edward put up at an hotel. Next night they were off to Covent Garden to see The Clandestine Marriage by George Colman the Elder and Midas by Kane 0’Hara. The children enjoyed these but preferred Don Juan, ‘I must say that I have seen nobody on the stage who has been a more interesting character than that compound of cruelty and lust,’ wrote the single lady

  ‘Beautiful Edward’ gave Jane and Fanny £5 each. With for once some ‘superfluous wealth to spend’, Jane went shopping for linen at four shillings the yard, and was to have a new cap in white satin and lace with a little white flower perking out of the left ear, ‘like Harriet Byron‘s feather’. Harriet Byron is the heroine of one of Jane Austen‘s favourite books, Sir Charles Grandison. She was also having a new gown and buying one for Cassandra.

  ‘Remember that it is a present. Do not refuse me. I am very rich. She had heard from ‘Mrs Tickars’s young lady, to my high amusement, that the stays now are not made to force the bosom up at all; that was a very unbecoming, unnatural fashion. I was really glad to hear that they [gowns] are not to be so much off the shoulders as they were.’ The bra would not be invented for more than another century. Although the ideal was a willowy, uncorseted figure, some women had obviously decided they preferred a little control.

  Fanny bought stockings at Remington’s, silk at twelve shillings the pair and cotton at four shillings and threepence, which she thought great bargains. When Fanny, back at Godmersham, decided that her new gown and cap were mistakes, Jane laughed tolerantly that it was one of the ‘sweet taxes of youth’ to choose in a hurry and make bad bargains.

  Edward and Fanny ordered a Wedgwood dinner service. The pattern was a small lozenge in purple between lines of narrow gold, with the family crest. It can still be seen at Chawton Cottage.

  The Austens went to Mr Spence the dentist. Fanny, whose teeth looked perfect, had gold fillings and Lizzie had her teeth filed. Poor Marianne had two teeth behind her eye teeth taken out to make room for the ones in front. With no anaesthetic, she screamed. Jane would not let the dentist inspect her mouth ‘for a shilling a tooth and double it’. She thought him greedy and giving unnecessary treatment. But she did have her hair done and thought it looked hideous. With only a bit of velvet round her head, she longed for the shelter of a ‘snug cap’. She did not catch cold, though she rather expected to, and recently had suffered no pain in her face. Jane’s face-ache later became chronic. Perhaps her teeth were going, as her mother’s had done.

  There was news from Bath, where the Bridges family, Edward’s in-laws, were taking the cure. The regimen was by modern standards alarming:

  Dr Parry seems to be half-starving Mr Bridges for he is restricted to … bread, water and meat, and is never to eat so much of that as he wishes; and he is to walk a great deal, walk till he drops, I believe, gout or no gout… I have not exaggerated.

  Mrs Austen had been treated with leeches for headaches. Mrs Cooke later told Jane that headaches were frequent with elderly women. ‘Last year I had for some time the sensation of a peck loaf resting on m
y head and they talked of cupping me, but I came off with a dose or two of calomel and have never heard of it since.’ Cupping was a painful treatment: blisters were raised by the application of heated glasses, then burst to release blood. Blood-letting was believed to release bad humours. Calomel was a stomach medicine made of mercurious chloride, now recognized as poisonous. Henry was on his way to Chawton, with a cold and an unsettled stomach: Jane prescribed rhubarb medicine and ‘plenty of port and water’.

  Edward took Jane back to Godmersham with him after visiting

  Chawton. He had spent the previous five months there. Invitations were unwelcome to him. He had promised to take Fanny Lizzie and Marianne to the fair at Goodnestone. He repented this rashness and hoped for a wet day but the late September morning was bright. Jane and Fanny lived in the library except at meals and had fires in the evening. They were supposed to be getting on with Modern Europe, but other things got in the way. The apple crop was poor. Little Louisa, aged nine, sent her Aunt Cassandra ‘a hundred thousand million kisses’.

  Writing to Frank from Godmersham at the end of September 1813, Jane was sorry to hear from him that Sweden was so poverty-stricken. She mentioned the price of food, which was high because of the war, and then said, ‘Let me shake off vulgar cares and conform to the happy indifference of East Kent wealth.’ She expected to stay with Edward about two months. Jane had asked Frank previously if she might use the names of his old ships for Mansfield Park and he gave his permission. Frank warned her that this might identify the author as a member of the Austen family. The ‘secret’ of her authorship was spreading and she decided to make money rather than mystery out of it. Henry had blabbed, and although Jane forgave him his ‘brotherly vanity and love’, she was grateful to Frank and his Mary for keeping quiet. A second edition of Sense and Sensibility came out at the end of the month, together with a second edition of Pride and Prejudice. At Godmersham she was writing in the library, finishing Mansfield Park.

  Jane told Cassandra halfway through October that Anne Lefroy’s mother, Jemima Brydges, had been obliged to leave Canterbury because of her debts and nobody knew where she was. Jane was hoping to cadge a frank from Mr Lushington MP, who was chiefly young Edward’s acquaintance. She considered Mr Lushington something of a waste of space. Jane was not altogether approving of Edward and George, now in their late teens, either: she thought them sports mad and extravagant. They redeemed themselves in her eyes, however, by having taken Communion the previous day.

  While Jane was loved by all James’s children, Edward’s possibly regarded her more coolly. James’s children grew up as had their Aunt Jane at Steventon Rectory; Edward’s, brought up at Godmersham, had a different social position of which they cannot have been unaware. Jane seems never to have thought of this.

  She was feeling neglected because she had brother Charles at the Nore and Frank’s wife at Deal, both nearby, and saw nothing of them. On the other hand, she dreaded a simultaneous visit from Charles and his family, and the Moores, who had one child. ‘The two parties of children is the chief evil,’ wrote the aunt who considered Charles’s daughters were out of hand. She was not sure whether she wanted to see the Moores or not. She would enjoy seeing ‘dear Charles’, but expected Cassy, the eldest girl, to be cross and disagreeable. When Charles and his wife arrived, Cassy was looking thin and poorly. Cassy suffered from seasickness and was wretched living on board with her parents, but did not want to leave them. The baby was not so pretty as formerly. Jane felt there were too many people in the house, large as it was, but the company cheered Edward up no end. Cassy got on fairly well with her cousins, but they were too many and too noisy for her. The Godmersham children were clearly not easy to manage, yet if Jane criticized their upbringing as she did that of Charles’s children Cassandra must have expunged the record.

  Jane was eager for news of her home. Was meat any cheaper, she asked Cassandra. Were there tomatoes at Chawton? Jane and Fanny ‘regaled on them every day’. Tomatoes were still an unusual luxury. Jane advised Cassandra to get some flounces for her gowns and asked for news of the alterations at Chawton Great House. Instead of visiting her son-in-law Edward, the dowager Lady Bridges was going to remain at Bath, where the waters agreed with her. Lady Bridges’ daughter Louisa, who never married, put her mother’s improvement down to being out of doors, but Lady Bridges was about to try the Hot Pump, as the Cross Bath was being painted. Louisa felt better herself and thought the waters had benefited her.

  Jane kept meeting people she described as very plain. She had changed her mind about Mr Lushington: now she liked him very much. ‘I am sure he is clever and a man of taste. He got a volume of Milton last night and spoke of it with warmth. He is quite an MP -very smiling, with an exceeding good address, and readiness of language. I am rather in love with him,’ she confessed, consoling herself with, ‘I daresay he is ambitious and insincere.' Were the grapes by any chance sour? The letter travelled free, on Mr Lushington’s frank.

  She was learning to like Harriot Bridges’s husband, the Revd Mr Moore. He scolded a servant, but his manners to Harriot were unobjectionable and Jane was pleased to see that the couple did not spoil their boy Either Mr Moore was making Harriot happy or she was making herself happy, concluded Jane, though she had previously thought his manners to her wanted tenderness.

  At the end of October, Cassandra was in London with Henry. Jane arranged to stay with Henry on her way home that November. She loved his company She planned to drop in on the Cookes at Bookham for a day or two. Edward was a magistrate and took his sister when he went on an inspection visit to a jail. She commented only that she went through all the feelings which everybody was likely to experience on visiting such a building: it would have been interesting to know exactly what she meant.

  Jane told her sister, ‘Your tidings of S and S give me pleasure. I have never seen it advertised.’ Unknown to her, Sense and Sensibility, ‘by a Lady’, had been announced just a year previously in the Edinburgh Review, appearing on a list of newly published novels, along with volumes four, five and six of Maria Edgeworth’s Tales of Fashionable Life. In the same list, among novels and novelists now largely forgotten, was The Loyalist by the prolific novelist and moral writer, Mrs Jane West. Jane Austen wrote to Anna the following year, ‘I am quite determined not to be pleased with Mrs West’s Alicia de Lacy, should I ever meet with it, which I hope I shall not. I think I can be stout against anything written by Mrs West. I have made up my mind to like no novels really but Miss Edgeworth’s, yours and my own.’ Also on the list was Traits of Nature by Miss S. H. Burney, not Madame D’Arblay but half-sister of the more famous Fanny. This other Miss Burney had written the novel called Clarentine, which Jane had dismissed as foolish, ‘full of unnatural conduct and forced difficulties’. In the same list of new publications was Tales by the poet and clergyman George Crabbe, whom Jane declared she would have liked to marry.

  Writing when she was all alone, Edward having gone to his woods, she noted that ‘I have five tables, eight and twenty chairs and two fires all to myself.’ This was in the south drawing room: the second fireplace has now been closed up. She reported to Cassandra that various readers, whose opinion she valued, were delighted with Pride and Prejudice. She was amused by the curiosity as to who the author could be. It was gratifying to learn that she was read and admired in Ireland.

  There was a Mrs Fletcher, an old lady, wife to a judge, ‘and very good and very clever’, who was dying to know what the writer was like. Jane was flattered, of course, and may have been only half joking when she said, I do not despair of having my picture in the Exhibition at last -all white and red, with my head on one side.’ She allowed herself the fantasy that she might marry the son of Fanny Burney, some twenty years younger than herself. Then she turned to practical matters: ‘I suppose in the meantime I shall owe dear Henry a great deal of money for printing, etc.’

  After a concert Jane felt so tired she wondered how she would get through the ball that was pl
anned for the following Thursday, though she was keeping her China crepe for it. Fanny wore white sarcenet, a soft silk fabric, and silver, with silver in her hair, but despite good company there was no dancing. Officers were idle and there was a scarcity of county beaux. Jane discovered compensation for growing older: being a sort of chaperone, she found herself on the sofa near the fire and was pleased to think she could drink as much wine as she liked. Old Lady Bridges, Jane heard, ‘found me handsomer than she expected, so you see I am not so bad as you think for’. Lady Bridges was to spend the winter in Bath. Dr Parry, said Jane drily, would not mind having a few more of her ladyship’s guineas.

  Pride and Prejudice had established Jane’s reputation and she tasted the sweets of success. Sometime during the year a nobleman suggested to Henry that Jane might like to meet the French writer, Germaine de Staël. She was a dazzling celebrity, though large, coarse-featured and considered ugly. The Prince of Wales, patron of the arts, had made a point of meeting her. As a writer, Jane admired her. But Madame de Staël had been an early supporter of the French Revolution and was separated from her husband. From 1796-1806 she had been involved in a stormy affair with the writer Benjamin Constant. Jane unhesitatingly relinquished the chance to meet her. Anyway, although Jane could read French, she was far from confident about speaking it, which may have been an additional reason for avoiding embarrassment.

  Jane was home for the end of the year, when a big freeze set in. London was shrouded in impenetrable fog. Heavy snowfalls made travelling almost impossible. Jane was already gestating her next book and started writing Emma on 21 January 1814. Visiting nephews and nieces, seeing her quietly writing at her desk in the living room, often imagined her to be merely writing letters and felt free to interrupt her. Mansfield Park had been accepted for publication on commission, but Egerton had not enough confidence in it to offer for the copyright.