Jane and the Ghosts of Netley
Page 26
While the carter jumped down to secure his horse, I studied the distant view of the privy and banished the idea of a water closet, recently installed in brother Henry’s London house; such ostentation has no place in a country village. It is not for Jane to repine. I had found no love or joy in the habitation of cities—I had rather witnessed, in first Bath and then Southampton, the gradual erosion of nearly every cherished dream I held in life. It was time I made a trial of rural delights; it was they that had formed my earliest vision of happiness.
“The man will want something for his pains,” my mother urged in an audible hiss as the carter helped her to descend. “See that he shifts the baggage before he deserts us entirely. And do not go spoiling him with Edward’s coin! I am gone to inspect the privy.”
She moved slowly in the direction of my brother’s improvements, her gait marked by the stiffness of rheumatism. I stepped down to the rutted surface of the road and prepared to be—content.
WE HAD SET OUT FROM CASTLE SQUARE IN APRIL, bidding farewell forever to the glare and stink of a town. We made for Godmersham, where we tarried nearly two months in the pleasant Kentish spring, tho’ the place and all who live in it are remarkably changed from what they once were. Elizabeth is dead now nearly a year and my sister Cassandra resident in the household, supplying the want of a mother; she is careworn but steady in her attachment to the little children, and a prop to Fanny, who at the tender age of fifteen must now fill Eliza’s place. Tho’ the chuckling of the Stour was as sweet as I remembered, and the temple on the hill beckoned with serenity, I could not stomach the climb to its heights, nor rest an interval between its columns. In happier times I had sat in that very place with my brother’s wife beside me—and once, looked up from my pen to find the tall figure of a silver-haired man climbing the grassy slope—
Edward has not yet learned to endure Eliza’s passing. Indeed, he has come to see in it a deliberate blow of Divine Judgment: that having loved his wife too well, and delighting in the gift of every luxury and indulgence her fair form desired, he incurred the wrath of Providence—Who despised Edward’s attachment to things of this world so much, that He tore from my brother’s bosom the one creature he cherished most.
“Were it not for the children,” Neddy said bitterly as we sat together before a dying grate in the stillness of Eliza’s drawing room, “I should have gone into the grave with her, Jane. I should not have hesitated at self-murder.”
“—Tho’ the very act should damn you to Hell?”
“It is Hell I endure at present.”
I could not assure him that I understood too well his sentiments; could not add my misery to his own, as he sat glaring at the waste of all that constituted his happiness. Edward knew nothing of the Gentleman Rogue, beyond a passing acquaintance with one who had called briefly at Godmersham several years before, and had long since been forgot. I could not explain that I, too, must submit to all the agony of bereavement—with the added burden of suffering in silence. Never having been Lord Harold Trowbridge’s acknowledged love, I must be obscured and forgot in the world he deserted so abruptly last November.
As I studied my brother’s countenance—grave, where it had once been gay; worn, where it had formerly appeared the portrait of inveterate youth—I concluded that there was at least this relief in public grief: one was not forced to shield the feelings of others. The Bereaved might be all that is selfish in their parade of unhappiness. Whereas I was continually chafing under the daily proofs of inconsideration, imperviousness, high animal spirits and insensibility that surrounded me, when every hope of happiness for myself was at an end.
When the Rogue expired of a knife wound on the fifth of November, some ten months ago, it was as though a black pit opened at my feet and I trembled on the brink of it for some days together without being conscious of what I said or did. I know from others that the body was fetched back to London in the Duke of Wilborough’s carriage; that Wilborough House, so lately draped in black for the passing of the Rogue’s mother, remained in crepe for this second son; that nearly five hundred men followed the cortege first to the Abbey church at Westminster and then, on horseback, to the interment in the Wilborough tomb. It was said that no less than seven ladies of Fashion fainted dead away at the awful news, and three fell into decline. All this my mother read aloud from the London papers, offering comment and opinion of her own.
Murdered by his manservant, so they say, a foreigner his lordship took up with on the Peninsula. I’ll wager that fellow knew a thing or two of Lord Harold’s unsavoury affairs! It is a nasty end, Jane, but no more than he deserved. I always said he was a most unsuitable tendre for a young lady such as yourself, and quite elderly into the bargain; but nobody listens to me, I am always overruled. Still, it is a pity you did not get him when you could—you might have been the Relict of a lord! And now all his riches will go to Wilborough’s son—who will find no very good use for them, I’ll wager. A rakehell and a gamester, so they say. The Heir has taken a page from his uncle’s book, and will undoubtedly prove as disreputable a character. We must impute it to Her Grace’s French blood, and habits of parading onstage …
Four days after the murder I took up my pen to compose a few paragraphs of explanation and regret that ought to have been dispatched without delay to his lordship’s niece, Desdemona, Countess of Swithin. That lady, despite her lofty position in Society and the cares attendant upon her duties as a mother, has been narrowly concerned—as much as woman could be—in Lord Harold’s affairs, and loved him more dearly, I suspect, than her own father. It seemed imperative that the Countess be in full possession of the facts of his lordship’s death—of the bravery with which he embraced it, and his determination not to submit to a form of treachery that might imperil His Majesty’s government—so that no scandalous falsehood put about by his enemies among the ton should shake her faith in his worth. From what I knew of Desdemona, I doubted that anything could.
Her answer was brief, correct and exceedingly cold. I knew not whether she regarded my letter of commiseration in the light of an impertinence; or whether she charged me with having precipitated her uncle’s death. Perhaps she merely judged his attentions to a woman so clearly beneath his touch as deplorable. I cannot say. But her ladyship’s brevity cut me to the quick. I have had nothing from her since.
Only Martha Lloyd, who in Cassandra’s absence has become as dear as a sister to me, understood a little of the pain I suffered. Tho’ she referred to my grief as a chronic indisposition, she was quick to order me to bed, and leave me in silence with a pot of tea during the long gray winter afternoons. My brother Frank, who had witnessed the Rogue’s death in company with myself, was a considerable comfort. Tho’ he no longer shared our lodgings, his occasional visits afforded the opportunity to unbend—to speak openly of what we both knew and mourned in his lordship’s passing. Even in Frank’s silence I felt sympathy, and in his accounts of his naval activities—he oversaw the landing in January of the remnant of Sir John Moore’s Peninsular army, a tattered band of harried soldiers deprived too soon of the leadership of that extraordinary man—I felt some connexion to the greater world Lord Harold had known and ruled. We are forced to go on living, however little we relish the interminable days.
In April, Frank quitted home waters for the China Station and we devoted ourselves to the activity of household removal. My mother’s querulous demands and persistent anxieties regarding the packing provided diversion enough; so, too, did the necessary farewells to naval acquaintance, the last visits to the little theatre in French Street, and a final Assembly endured at the Dolphin Inn. I even danced on that occasion with a black-eyed foreign gentleman too shy to enquire my name. But I had no joy in any of these things. The coming of spring mocked me with a promise of life I no longer shared. At the moment of our descent upon Edward’s house in Kent, I had determined I should never feel hopeful again.
There is no remedy for the loss inflicted by death except remembrance. And so I
tried to recollect what his lordship’s dying words had been.
Promise me … you will write …
What is writing compared to life, my lord?
All we have, Jane.
He was wont to speak the truth, no matter how harsh its effect. It was one of the qualities for which I esteemed him: his unblinking gaze at the brutality of existence. But I could not keep my promise. What are words and paragraphs in comparison of what might have been? A cold solace when love is forever denied. I had written nothing in the long months that followed his headlong flight from this world but stilted letters to Cassandra, remarkable for their brittleness of tone and the forced lightness of their jokes.
Now, as I stood in the dusky heat of a Hampshire July, lark song rising about me, I felt the first faint stirrings of life. Feeble, yes—and a hairsbreadth from guttering out; but stirrings all the same. I unknotted my bonnet strings and bared my head to the sun. Lord Harold’s gaze—that earnest, steadfast look—wavered before my eyes; I blinked it away. Perhaps here, I thought, as I opened the door of the cottage and stepped inside its whitewashed walls, perhaps here I might begin again.
JANE AND THE GHOSTS OF NETLEY
A Bantam Book
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Bantam hardcover edition published June 2003
Bantam mass market edition / May 2004
Published by
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New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales in entirely coincidental.
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Copyright © 2003 by Stephanie Barron
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Published simultaneously in Canada
eISBN: 978-0-553-90104-7
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Chapter 1
1 A third-rate ship carrying 74 guns, this was the most common line-of-battle vessel and a considerable number were built during the Napoleonic Wars; by 1816, the Royal Navy possessed 137 of them. They weighed about 1,700 tons and required 57 acres of oak forest to build.—Editor’s note.
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2 The opinion given here is a rough paraphrase of sentiments Jane first expressed at the age of sixteen in her History of England, by a Partial, Prejudiced, and Ignorant Historian.—Editor’s note.
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3 Austen wrote the manuscript entitled Susan in 1798 and sold it to Crosby & Co. for ten pounds in the spring of 1803. The firm never published it, and Austen was forced to buy back the manuscript in 1816. It was eventually published posthumously in 1818 as Northanger Abbey. —Editor’s note.
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Chapter 2
1 The bosun’s chair was formed of a simple board, rather like the seat of a swing. Sailors used it when repairs aloft were necessary; but it was frequently employed to assist ladies up the side of a ship, as they could not be expected to mount rope ladders while wearing skirts. —Editor’s note.
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2 The British army engaged the French at Vimeiro, Portugal, on August 21, 1808. It was the first British conflict on the Peninsula, and a decisive victory.—Editor’s note.
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3 Wellesley was thirty-eight years old in 1808, and would make his career in the Peninsular War. He was eventually created the Duke of Wellington, and confronted Bonaparte for the last time at Waterloo in 1815.—Editor’s note.
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4 Burnt orange.—Editor’s note.
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Chapter 4
1 The Whip Club was known after 1809 as the Four-in-Hand Club, and was comprised of a fashionable set of gentlemen who emulated the skill of public coachmen by handling the reins of four horses driven as a team. They met quarterly for group driving expeditions and wore white drab driving coats with numerous capes, over a blue coat and a striped kerseymere waistcoat in yellow and blue. Membership was based upon the skill of the driver and was thus highly exclusive. —Editor’s note.
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2 Seamen in the Royal Navy were designated Ordinary or Able, depending upon their level of skill and experience. Able Seamen were paid slightly more than Ordinary.—Editor’s note.
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Chapter 8
1 Recusant was the label applied to those British subjects who refused to swear an oath of allegiance to the Church of England, and thus to its secular head, the Crown. Included in this group were a variety of sects, but the term was generally taken to denote Roman Catholics, whose allegiance was accorded to the pope. As a result of refusing to swear the oath, English Catholics of Austen’s era were barred from taking degrees at either Oxford or Cambridge, holding cabinet positions or seats in Parliament, serving as commissioned officers in either the army or the navy, or entering the professions as physicians, lawyers, or clergy. They were thus consigned to the roles of leisured gentry or merchants in trade. They were forbidden, moreover, to educate their children in their chosen faith—and thus frequently sent school-age progeny to France for instruction.—Editor’s note.
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2 From this reference to a housemaid named Phebe, it would seem that the Austens’ faithful servant Jenny, who had been with them since 1803, had left their service.—Editor’s note.
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Chapter 9
1 Jane probably refers, here, to the manuscript versions of Northanger Abbey (Susan), Pride and Prejudice (First Impressions), Sense and Sensibility (Elinor and Marianne), and Lady Susan. She had also begun, and abandoned, a novel entitled The Watsons by 1807.—Editor’s note.
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2 The Company of Shipwrights incorporated in 1605.—Editor’s note.
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Chapter 10
1 The passage Lord Harold describes still exists at Netley Abbey today. —Editor’s note.
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Chapter 11
1 The custom of going into black clothes at the death of a relative increased during the Victorian era, which made an elaborate ceremony of mourning; but in Austen’s day, it was customary to honor only the closest relations with prolonged adoption of black. A spouse might adopt mourning clothes for half a year or longer, but more distant relations would shorten the period and the degree of black clothing, wearing merely black gloves or hair ribbons in respect of the most distant family members.—Editor’s note.
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2 Maria Fitzherbert was born Maria Anne Smythe on 26 July 1756 in Jane Austen’s own county of Hampshire. Her mother was the half-sister of the Earl of Sefton; her paternal grandfather, a baronet created by Charles II in gratitude for loyal Catholic support during the Civil War. She thus belonged firmly among the Recusant Ascendancy, as noble Catholics were called.—Editor’s note.
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Chapter 12
1 La Belle Assemblée, despite its title, was not a French ladies’ periodical but a British one, subtitled Bell’s Court and Fashionable Magazine. It was printed in London and contained numerous fashion plates with descriptions of materials, trims, and appropriate accessories, for both men and women. It was common to carry such engravings to one’s modiste when ordering a gown.—Editor’s note.
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2 The guinea was a uni
t of currency that was often used for the cost of expensive items, such as horses, carriages, and certain items of clothing. A guinea connoted twenty-one shillings—one shilling more than a pound. Thus, the cost of Jane’s costume—though hardly exorbitant by the standards of the day—amounted to eight shillings more than her yearly income. By contrast, a good hunter could command seven hundred guineas at Tattersall’s Auction Room.—Editor’s note.
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3 The Gordon Riots occurred in 1780 when Lord George Gordon moved that a petition protesting Roman Catholic influence on public life be taken into immediate consideration by Parliament. In response, Protestant mobs burned Catholic chapels and looted Catholic property over a period of a week; Newgate Prison was stormed and its prisoners liberated; the killed and wounded number 458. Lord George was tried and acquitted of High Treason as a result.—Editor’s note.
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Chapter 14
1 Catholic Emancipation, or the Irish Question, as it was sometimes called, erupted throughout the final years of George III’s reign as a result of the inclusion of Irish representatives among the members of the unified Westminster Parliament from 1801. Those Irish members who were also Catholic were “debarred” from taking their seats under the provisions of the British constitution. The Whig opposition, and even some Tories such as William Pitt the Younger, raised the necessity of “emancipating” Catholics, or according them the full rights of all British subjects, but George III refused even to consider the question, because as king he had sworn to uphold the Church of England. Catholic Emancipation was finally passed by the Duke of Wellington’s administration in 1829.—Editor’s note.
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