She had perhaps never showed herself in so good a light as now. Her situation made her family passionately anxious to do everything they could for her, but she absolutely refused to let others undergo what she endured herself. She wrote to a friend: "My dear, affectionate sister Austen, though in a state of health not equal to trials of any kind, has been with the greatest difficulty kept from me." James had been exceedingly anxious to come to her; he had been throughout, she said, "a perfect Son" to her in affection; but unfortunately he had had a fall from his horse and was laid up with a broken leg, which meant that neither he nor Mary could be with her at the Assizes, as they had meant to be. Mrs. Austen therefore suggested that
Cassandra and Jane
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should come to stay with her in the Scaddings' house and sit by her through the trial, if their presence would give her any comfort and relief. When one considers what an exquisite consolation it would have been to have Cassandra's company and Jane's in the Scadding household; how they would have waited on Mrs. Leigh Perrot, talked to her and soothed her; how they would have nursed Mr. Leigh
Perrot, and gently diverted the children's toast and beer, one cannot but very much admire the austere unselfishness of Mrs. Leigh Perrot in refusing to accept the offer. But she said she could not allow
"those Elegant young Women" to come to such a scene as she was undergoing; and as for having them beside her at the trial--"to have two young creatures gazed at in a public court, would," she said, "cut me to the very heart."
The trial, which opened on the 29th of March, began at 8:30 in the morning and the court was densely crowded with spectators. The jury found no difficulty in coming to the conclusion that the prisoner was not guilty, and they returned a verdict to that effect after a consultation of less than fifteen minutes.
The scenes on Mrs. Leigh Perrot's release and her return to Bath were of uninterrupted joy and congratulation; she wrote to one of her friends apologizing for not having done so before, but her time had been almost entirely taken up with crying and kissing! The business had cost Mr. Leigh Perrot something nearer two thousand pounds than one; Mrs. Leigh Perrot said that from the point of view of their expenses it was a good thing they had no children, and as for
themselves, she added, "Lace is not necessary to my happiness!"
A residence in the Scaddings' house would have been a severe tax on Jane Austen's nerves and health, and though
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her virtue and common sense would have borne her up, she would not, in all probability, have come out of the eight months'
confinement as well as her aunt. She was lively, and she was
healthy, but she was not robust, and in the light of what happened some sixteen years later when she nursed her brother Henry, there is much to be thankful for in the self-denying decency of Mrs. Leigh Perrot.
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9
IN OCTOBER, Cassandra was at Godmersham again. Edward and
the younger Edward had been spending a little time at Steventon, and the latter had picked up some very fine chestnuts which he meant to take home and plant, and had also made a drawing for
young George; unfortunately, he had left them both behind him, and his Aunt Jane said: "The former will therefore be deposited in the soil of Hampshire instead of Kent; the latter I have already
consigned to another element."
The letter of the last week in October merely contained news of country visiting, and an account of some improvements that were being made in the garden--the bank under the Elm Walk was going to planted with thorn and lilacbushes--but the next letter was full of an important piece of news; a letter had come for Cassandra from Frank Austen, who was on his ship Peterel off the coast of
Alexandria. The previous year, Frank had come into touch with his hero. When, in 1799, Admiral Brieux escaped through the blockade of Brest harbor and set sail for the Mediterranean, Lord St. Vincent sent word of the calamity to Nelson, who was then at Palermo. This urgent dispatch was given to the captain of the Hyena, but when the Hyena came alongside
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the Peterel, the latter being the faster sailing ship of the two, the Hyena's captain made over the dispatch to Captain Austen. The log of the Peterel contains the entries in Frank Austen's handwriting, which mark his putting on shore the first lieutenant with dispatches for Lord Nelson.
In March of 1800, the month of Mrs. Leigh Perrot's ordeal, Frank, cruising off the coast of Marseilles, fell in with La Ligurienne, and captured her without a single man of his own being killed or
wounded and with the loss of only two killed and two wounded to the French. This capture was considered of such importance by the Admiralty that Frank was elevated to the rank of post-captain; but as he was still cruising in the Mediterranean, his family heard the news of his promotion long before he did, and he was still unaware of it when he wrote to Cassandra in October.
Cassandra had been to London from Godmersham and had had her
turn of shopping for the family: pink shoes, a comb and a cloak for Jane; a locket and a mangle for Mary; a looking-glass and some wine glasses for the Rectory. She appeared to feel that some of the things might not be quite what was wanted, but Jane said: "We find no fault with your manner of performing any of our commissions, but if you like to think yourself remiss in any of them, pray do." There had been another ball at Basingstoke: "Did you think of our ball on Thursday evening, and did you suppose me at it? You might very safely, for there I was." She had had three offers of hospitality for the night, one from Mary, one from Mrs. Bramston of Oakley Hall and one from Mrs. Lefroy; "and therefore with three methods of going, I must have been more at the ball than anybody else." She said: "I wore your favorite gown, a bit of muslin of the same round my head and one little comb."
"The Debaries," she said, "persist in being afflicted at the
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death of their uncle, of whom they now say they saw a great deal in London."
The next letter acknowledged the arrival of another of Cassandra's commissions. "The Tables are come and give general contentment; .
. . The two ends put together form our constant table for everything and the centerpiece stands exceedingly well under the glass. . . .
They are both covered with green baize and send their best love."
One of the great houses in the vicinity of Steventon, Ashe Park, was rented by a Mr. Holder who had made his fortune in the East Indies; Jane had been over there with Mary for dinner and a quiet evening.
"I believe Mary found it dull," said Jane, "but I thought it very pleasant. To sit in idleness over a good fire in a well proportioned room is a luxurious sensation. I said two or three amusing things and Mr. Holder made a few infamous puns."
The winter storms were blowing up, and on Sunday evening, Jane, sitting in the dining room, heard an odd kind of crash. "In a moment afterwards it was repeated. I then went to the window, which I reached just in time to see the last of our two highly valued elms descend into the Sweep! ! ! ! ! The other, which had fallen I suppose in the first crash, and which was the nearest to the pond, taking a more easterly direction, sunk among our screen of chestnuts and firs, knocking down one spruce fir, beating off the head of another, and stripping the two corner chestnuts of several branches in its fall."
The storm that wrought this sensational ruin was so high, blowing down some trees in the meadows besides those in the Rector's
plantation, that they all felt considerable alarm. However, no damage was caused in the neighborhood except to trees. "We grieve therefore in some comfort."
In the middle of November, with Cassandra still away,
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Jane was going to visit Martha at Ibthrop. Martha had suggested that if she had anything to read, she had better bring it. Jane said: "You distress me cruelly by your request about books, I cannot think of any to bring with me, nor have I any idea of our wanting them. I come to you to be talked to, not to read or he
ar reading. I can do that at home."
Before she went, there had been a visit from Charles. "About two o'clock he walked in on a Gosport hack." He seemed much better in health than they had expected to find him; he walked over with Jane to James and Mary's, where they had dinner, and went to a dance afterwards. "He danced the whole evening and today is no more tired than a gentleman ought to be." It says something for Charles' state of health that he felt nothing more than gentlemanly lassitude after a journey, a long ride, and a night spent in dancing from which they did not get back to Deane till nearly five in the morning. Cassandra and Jane had had gowns made out of the same length of stuff, and Jane wearing hers, Charles said he did not like it. James, however, liked it so much that he said it was the best dress of the kind he had ever seen, so the devoted Mary asked Jane to find out whether she might buy Cassandra's from her.
The Rectory received a parting visit from Mr. James Digweed, the son of the tenant of Steventon Manor. Mr. James Digweed was
leaving Hampshire for Kent, and Jane said to Cassandra: "I think he must be in love with you, from his anxiety to have you go to the Faversham Balls, and likewise from his supposing that the two Elms fell from their grief at your absence. Was not it a gallant idea? It never occurred to me before, but I daresay it was so." Charles sent his best love to Cassandra and promised to write to her when he got back to his ship. The postscript added: "Charles likes my gown now."
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The visit to Martha Lloyd was memorable for what happened
immediately afterwards. Jane brought Martha back with her, and when they walked into the house, Mrs. Austen abruptly greeted
them: "Well, girls! it is all settled. We have decided to leave Steventon and go to Bath." Mrs. Austen was not one to beat about the bush, but she may have regretted being quite so precipitate on this occasion, because Jane fainted. When she was a little girl she had made the heroine of Love and Friendship say: "Run mad as often as you choose but do not faint," and nothing but a very severe shock could have been responsible for making her faint herself. The circumstance indicates how extremely rapid her perceptions were.
The ordinary girl, on being told that she is to leave the home where she has spent the first twentyfive years of her life, cannot
understand, immediately, the full force of the statement: the
realization comes by degrees; it is at first resisted by the mind and makes its way only with difficulty. When Jane received the news, in one instant she understood the whole of its implication, and the shock was too much for her. That she was extremely agitated by the idea of leaving Steventon is suggested, as the family record points out, by the fact that though Cassandra was still at Godmersham, there are no letters from Jane to her preserved from November 30th, when Jane was still at Ibthrop, till January 3rd, 1801. This gap in a correspondence which sometimes extended to three or four letters a week would be significant, even if her descendants had not known that Cassandra Austen destroyed of set purpose the parts of Jane's correspondence which she thought showed too much intimate feeling to be made public. But by January of the new year Jane was quite herself again and looking forward to the move and all its attendant arrangements with interest.
James was to succeed his father as the Rector of Steventon,
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and it became necessary to find another curate for Deane. The curacy was offered to Mr. Peter Debary, but he declined it because he said he wanted to be nearer London. "A foolish reason!" said Jane. "As if Deane were not near London in comparison of Exeter or York!--
Take the whole world through, and he will find many more places at a greater distance from London than Deane, than he will at a less."
Mr. Austen then thought of offering it to James Digweed, but Jane did not think it would suit him, unless Cassandra were to remain there too. "Were you indeed to be considered as one of the fixtures of the house! but you were never actually erected in it, either by Mr.
Egerton Brydges or Mrs. Lloyd." The arrangements connected with the church were Mr. Austen's province, but there was plenty to do indoors for Mrs. Austen and Jane. Cassandra's being away just now was very inconvenient and Jane wanted her opinion on all kinds of things. In the middle of a long letter full of household concerns, she suddenly broke off to say: "I have now attained the true art of letter-writing, which we are always told, is to express on paper exactly what one would say to the same person by word of mouth; I have been talking to you almost as fast as I could the whole of this letter."
Cassandra's advice, and also Mrs. Austen's, as to leaving things behind did not always meet with Jane's approval. They both thought a cabinet of Jane's might be very well left in the house for Anna.
Jane said: "You are very kind in planning presents for me to make, and my Mother has shown me exactly the same attention--but as I do not choose to have generosity dictated to me, I shall not resolve on giving my cabinet to Anna till the first thought of it has been my own." In the meantime, Mary wanted to know if Cassandra could let her have the pattern of "the Jacket and Trowsers, or whatever it is, that Elizabeth's boys wear when they are first
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put into breeches." As for their own clothes, Jane said she should want two new colored gowns for the summer, as her pink one would not do more than "clear her" from Steventon; but if Cassandra would buy her a length of brown cambric muslin in Kent, she should buy a yellow muslin when she got to Bath.
How long Cassandra stayed away once they had got her at
Godmersham! Jane said: "Neither my affection for you nor for letter-writing can stand out against a Kentish visit. For a three months'
absence I can be a very loving relation and a very excellent
correspondent, but beyond that I degenerate into negligence and indifference." The move was to be made in May, and Cassandra would be at home for the previous two months; in May they would all go to the Lloyds at Ibthrop for a short visit, and then Mrs. Austen and Jane would go on to Bath and leave Cassandra to follow them.
Jane had become quite resigned to their departure now that she had had time to get used to it. She said: "I get more and more reconciled to the idea of our removal. We have lived long enough in this
neighborhood . . . there is something interesting in the bustle of going away and the prospect of spending future summers by the sea or in Wales is very delightful." A house had not yet been fixed upon; Mrs. Leigh Perrot had wanted to establish them in Paragon, or in Axford buildings opposite: but as, in Jane's words, they all united in a particular dislike of that end of the town, they hoped to escape.
Jane and Cassandra had previously agreed that it would be very agreeable to be near Sydney Gardens, as they could then walk in the gardens every day; and the house finally chosen was to be No. 4
Sydney Place, overlooking the classical pavilion and the trees behind it.
While house-hunting was still in progress, Jane and her mother were to stay for a while at No. 1 Paragon, and when
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Cassandra joined them, they were to go to Sidmouth. Jane looked forward to this trip intensely, and was extremely glad that an invitation from some of the Coopers that would have interfered with it was refused. Another year, she said; this year the sea was more to them than their relations.
The journey to Bath with their personal possessions was
accomplished without any accident except to Cassandra's drawing ruler, which was found, on being unpacked, to have broken in two.
Jane wrote to Ibthrop to tell her so, and to describe their doings in Paragon. This time they entered the city in fine weather, but she said:
"I think I see more distinctly through rain. The sun was got behind everything and the appearance of the place from the top of
Kingsdown was all vapor, shadow, smoke and confusion." The search for a suitable house went on, and Jane went with Mr. Leigh Perrot to look at one, having first been with him to the Pump Room for him to take his second glass of water. Her uncle and aunt took her to
a ball at the Assembly Rooms, for which, she said, "I dressed my self as well as I could, and had all my finery much admired at home." At this ball, she was on the lookout for a certain Miss Twistleton, whom she did not know by sight, but of whom she had heard a good deal. In describing how she picked her out, Jane said:
"I am proud to say that I have a very good eye at an adulteress, for tho' repeatedly assured that another in the same party was she, I fixed upon the right one from the first."
The next evening Mr. and Mrs. Leigh Perrot had a staid party at home. Their niece said it was very stupid; three ladies--Lady Fust, Mrs. Busby and Mrs. Owen--were among the guests, and they had
sat down to whist with Mr. Leigh Perrot "within five minutes after the three old Toughs came in," nor did the card table break up until the Toughs' chairmen were announced.
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A gentleman called Mr. Evelyn, whose name had been connected
with Miss Twistleton's, was known to Mrs. Leigh Perrot, and though the latter seems to have been doubtful as to whether he ought to be encouraged in the circumstances, he was quite accepted by the
neighborhood, even to the extent of being given groundsel out of their gardens. Jane said: "I really believe he is very harmless; people do not seem afraid of him here, and he gets groundsel for his birds and all that." He asked to be allowed to drive Jane out in his phaeton:
"which," she said, "to confess my frailty, I have a great desire to go out in." The next day she did go out in it; "a bewitching phaeton and four," it was. They drove over the top of Kingsdown and had a delightful airing; the homecoming was delightful too, for when Jane got back she found on the table a letter from Cassandra, and a letter from Charles, who had got thirty pounds as his share of prize money for the capture of a French privateer, and had bought for each of his sisters a topaz cross on a gold chain. Jane said: "Of what avail is it to take prizes if he lays out the produce in presents to his sisters? . . . I shall write again by this post to thank and reproach him.--We shall be unbearably fine."
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