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his attitude is defined with an outspokenness unprecedented even in Jane Austen's workmanlike frankness, and with an almost weary
cynicism. "It was Clara whom he meant to seduce. Her seduction was quite determined on. Her situation in every way called for it.
She was his rival in Lady Denham's favors, she was young, lovely and dependent.--He had very early seen the necessity of the case, and had now been long trying with cautious assiduity to make an impression on her heart, and to undermine her principles.--Clara saw through him and had not the least intention of being seduced--but she bore with him patiently enough to confirm the sort of attachment which her personal charms had raised. A greater degree of
discouragement indeed would not have effected Sir Edward:--he was armed against the highest pitch of disdain or aversion.--If she could not be won by affection he must carry her off. He knew his business.
--Already he had had many musings on the subject. If he were constrained so to act, he must naturally wish to strike out something new, to exceed those who had gone before him--and he felt a strong curiosity to ascertain whether the neighborhood of Timbuctoo might not afford some solitary house adapted for Clara's reception;--but the expense, alas! of measures in that masterly style was ill-suited to his purse, and prudence obliged him to prefer the quietest sort of ruin and disgrace for the object of his affections, to the more renowned."
The second consideration is that of a use of scenery--not so beautiful as that in Persuasion, or even that in Mansfield Park and in Emma, but of an eerie sensibility, quite unlike anything she had touched before, and oddly in keeping with the story. One morning Charlotte goes with the simple, pleasant, somewhat wistful Mrs. Parker to pay a call on Lady Denham at Sanditon House. It is a close morning in late July, and the sea mist is so dense that when, on their
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way, they unexpectedly meet with Mr. Parker's brother, the dashing, flippant Sydney, driving himself in his carriage, and taking Sanditon in his way from Eastbourne, they are almost upon him before they can make out what the vehicle is, and whether it is drawn by one horse, two, three or four. The ladies turn into the road to Sanditon House, "a broad, handsome planted approach between fields," and presently come to the park paling, "with clusters of fine elms and rows of old thorns, following its line almost everywhere." But some gaps were left, and as they walked along, "through one of them, Charlotte . . . caught a glimpse over the pales of something white and womanish in the field on the other side; it was a something which immediately brought Miss Brereton into her head--and, stepping to the pales, she saw indeed and very decidedly in spite of the mist, Miss Brereton seated, not far before her, at the foot of the bank. . . .
Miss Brereton seated very composedly, and Sir Edward Denham by her side. They were sitting so near each other and appeared so closely engaged in gentle conversation that Charlotte instantly felt she had nothing to do but step back again and say not a word." The
"something white and womanish" appearing in the mist strikes a note quite different from any she had sounded before, but it follows more naturally upon Persuasion than it would have followed upon any of the other novels. At the same time, enough of Sanditon remains to show that the remarkable alternation of shadow and light in Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma and Persuasion would have been maintained by Sanditon's returning to vivid brightness after the pensive sweetness of Persuasion.
The dates attached to the manuscript are January 27th on the first quire, and March 18th on the last.
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21
ON MARCH 28th occurred the death of Mr. Leigh Perrot. As he was a man of great wealth, childless, and Mrs. Austen his only surviving sister, it was generally expected that he would leave Mrs. Austen and her children provided for in his will. But when the will was read it was found that he had left everything to his wife, except a
considerable sum to James Austen, and a provision that £1,000
should be inherited by each of his nephews and nieces who outlived his wife. Mrs. Austen was not mentioned at all, and despite the very disagreeable shock, it was her common sense which supplied the explanation, namely, that her brother had always expected to outlive her.
The will came hard to the Austen family. The Chawton lawsuit was settled in this year by Edward Knight's retaining possession of the estate but paying down a large sum for it, but he was the only member of the family in a position to do anything substantial
towards helping the rest, and he had eleven children. Still, they were not as a whole unduly cast down by the matter, awkward and
somewhat painful as it was; but Jane was now so weak in nerves and health that it did come as a severe shock to her. She would have faced poverty courageously, but she was nonetheless afraid of it.
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She had always taken a refreshing satisfaction in her own pins.
"Though I like praise as well as anybody, I like what Edwards calls Pewter too," she had said, apropos of Mansfield Park. "Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor," she had said to Fanny. She was now in a state in which she felt everything with almost unbearable intensity, and the sensation which the others were able to throw off remained with her. Cassandra had gone with James and Mary to help and console Mrs. Leigh Perrot at Scarlets; but when the will became known at Chawton, Jane felt an alarming
increase of illness; she thought she was going to be quite helpless, and she implored Cassandra to come back.
Almost as soon as her sister was in the house once more, Jane began to feel better. On April 6th she wrote to Keppel Street, to Charles, a letter long overdue, but, she said, "I am ashamed to say that the shock of my uncle's will brought on a relapse and I was so ill on Friday and thought myself so likely to be worse, that I could but press for Cassandra's returning with Frank after the funeral last night, which of course she did, and either her return or my having seen Mr. Curtis, or my disorder choosing to go away, have made me better this morning. I live upstairs however for the present and am coddled. I am the only one of the legatees who has been so silly, but a weak body must excuse weak nerves." Charles' second child Harriet had been causing great anxiety by an affection of the head which they thought might be water on the brain; but she seemed now to be a little better. Jane sent her a message at the end of the letter to her father. "Tell dear Harriet that whenever she wants me in her service again, she must send a hackney chariot all the way for me, for I am not strong enough to travel any other way, and I hope Cassy will take care that it is a green one." On the
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outside of this letter is written in Captain Charles Austen's
handwriting: "My last letter from dearest Jane." The circumstance of Mr. Leigh Perrot's will, or perhaps a feeling that her own death might be nearer than she knew, caused her to make her own will in this month. In it she left all the money she possessed at the time of her death, and any which might afterwards accrue through the sale of her works, to Cassandra, except that she left £50 to Henry, and £50
to poor Madame Bigeon.
But on May 22nd she wrote cheerfully to Miss Anne Sharp, who had at one time been a governess at Godmersham. In this letter she said that she had had another relapse, and been in bed since April 15th, only moving from there to the sofa; but now she was getting better once more, and would have got up, had she been left to herself. As it was, she could employ herself perfectly well in bed, of which her writing the letter was a proof. She had had many things, she said, for which to be thankful; she had never been delirious, and she seemed very much to value that: and she had had, on the whole, very little pain. She had had a discharge which the Alton apothecary did not pretend to be able to cope with, and so a Mr. Lyford from
Winchester had been called in, and his applications had been very successful, and the consequence was, she said, "that instead of going to town to put myself into the hands of some physician, as I should otherwise have done, I am going
to Winchester instead for some weeks, to see what Mr. Lyford can do farther towards reestablishing me in tolerable health." Cassandra was going to take her there on Saturday, "and as that is only two days off, you will be convinced that I am now really a very genteel, portable sort of invalid." Mrs.
Heathcote had engaged lodgings for them already, and James was sending the carriage from Steventon to take them. Jane mentioned, as ever, the
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unspeakable kindness and comfort she had had from Cassandra; but everyone, she said, had shown her such kindness. She said: "In short, if I live to be an old woman, I must expect to wish I had died now; blessed in the tenderness of such a family, and before I had survived either them or their affection." In a letter posthumously published in the form of an extract by Henry, she showed the state of her nerves and how agonizingly acute every feeling and emotion had become:
"as to . . . the anxious affection of all my beloved family on this occasion, I can only cry over it, and pray to God to bless them more and more."
She ended gaily to Anne Sharp, saying what a comfort it would be to have Elizabeth Heathcote in Winchester; but Alethea Bigg would not be with them: "she being frisked off, like half England, into Switzerland."
It had been arranged that while James and Mary Austen were at
Scarlets, Caroline should come to Chawton, but when it came to the point, Jane was found to be too ill for them to have such a young visitor in the house, and Caroline went to her sister at Wyards instead. One morning at the beginning of April they both walked over to see her. She was upstairs, but they were allowed to go up to her, and found her sitting in a chair in her dressing gown. She was cheerful and like her usual self, except that she looked pale and weak; she got up when they came in, and pointed to two seats by the fire, saying: "There is a chair for the married lady, and a little stool for you, Caroline." On looking back, those were the last words of her Aunt Jane's that Caroline could remember; she retained nothing else of what was said: nor was there time for much conversation; in less than a quarter of an hour, their Aunt Cassandra came and fetched them away, and in Caroline's words: "I never saw Aunt Jane again."
On May 24th Jane said goodbye to Chawton Cottage and
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got into James' carriage for the drive to Winchester; with Cassandra beside her, she was perfectly comfortable, except that, as it was raining, she was constantly worried by the thought that Henry, who rode at one side of the carriage, and young William Knight on the other, would be getting wet.
The lodging taken by Mrs. Heathcote was one of a small lane of houses, which terminated in the buildings of the school. Its little bow-windowed drawing room overlooked the headmaster's garden
on the opposite side of the lane. In summer, the height of May, there could hardly be a pleasanter situation. Jane was very hopeful of getting better. Three days after her arrival she wrote to Steventon to thank Edward for the loving anxiety he had shown for her during her illness; she could only repay it by telling him how much she was improving, "I will not boast of my handwriting; neither that nor my face have yet recovered their proper beauty, but in other respects I am gaining strength very fast. I am now out of bed from nine in the morning till ten at night--upon the sofa, 'tis true,--but I eat my meals with Aunt Cass in a rational way, and can employ myself and walk from one room to another." She added: "Mr. Lyford says he will cure me, and if he fails, I shall draw up a memorial and lay it before the Dean and Chapter, and have no doubt of redress from that pious, learned and disinterested body." As Mr. Austen Leigh said on Mr.
Lyford's behalf, it was not his business to discourage his patient; but from the first moment of his seeing her in Winchester, he thought there was no hope. The fourteen-year-old Charles Knight was still at Winchester, and his Aunt Jane said they were to have him in to breakfast the next day, which was a holiday. "We have had but one visit yet from him, poor fellow, as he is in the sick room, but he hopes to be out tonight."
Old Mrs. Austen wrote notes to Anna, saying that though
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Jane's state was very precarious, there had been some good news of better nights; but James, who had come over from Steventon, wrote to Edward and said he must be prepared for any letter now to contain the worst news.
June passed into July, and James and Henry felt that it was their duty as clergymen to tell her she must face the fact that she might be going to die. She realized the significance of what they said, but she was "not appalled" by it. She was thankful that she had been able to remain in her right mind throughout the illness, and now she asked them to administer the communion service to her, before she might become too weak and wandering to follow it with all her faculties.
All her life she had said so little about religion, and shrunk so much from people who talked a great deal about their religious feelings, that Henry thought it impossible that ordinary acquaintances could have had any idea of how settled and devout her convictions were.
Mary Austen was with them now; she had promised Cassandra she
would come if she could be of any use, and as a nurse who had been got in did not quite please Cassandra, Mary had come to take her place. Jane had often in a private letter expressed herself as harassed by the peculiarities of Mary's temperament, but she did not find them trying now. On one occasion when Mary was doing something for
her she turned to her, and said: "You have always been a kind sister to me, Mary." One of the links with the outer world which lasted longest was the pleasure she got from reading Fanny's letters. They were as full, as loving, as amusing and enlivening as ever. Cassandra blessed her niece; she knew the effort it must have cost her to write in such a strain, but the pleasure it gave to Jane was inexpressible.
On Thursday evening, July 17th, Cassandra went into the town to fulfill something Jane was anxious to have done; and
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when she got back a little before six o'clock, she found that Jane had had an attack of faintness. She was recovered enough to tell
Cassandra about it, and was quietly talking to her as the clock struck six; but very soon afterwards the faintness came back again, and for half an hour she felt the actual pangs of death; she had no fixed pain, but she said she could not tell them what she suffered. "God, grant me patience!" she gasped. Such it was to die in pain without the alleviation of injections or drugs. Cassandra, waiting for Mr. Lyford, who had been sent for, tried to discover if there were anything she could do for her. Jane's voice was altered, but it was intelligible to the last. When Cassandra asked if she wanted anything, she replied:
"Nothing but death."
When Mr. Lyford came, he did something to relieve her, and by
seven o'clock she was in a state of quiet unconsciousness. She lay perfectly still except that every breath caused a slight motion of her head. For six hours Cassandra sat beside the bed with a pillow on her lap because Jane's head was nearly off the bed. Then Mary took her place for two hours and a half. At half-past three Cassandra came back again, and Jane died in her arms at half-past four on the morning of the 18th of July.
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22
THE FUNERAL was conducted in Winchester Cathedral; it had to
be very early because the morning service began at ten. Cassandra did not go to it. Fanny had written a long letter full of anguish and distress; she could not imagine how Cassandra would bear it.
Cassandra wrote back, comforting her: "I am perfectly conscious of the extent of my irreparable loss, but I am not at all overpowered."
"You know me too well," she said, "to be at all afraid that I should suffer materially from my feelings." Poor Cassandra's was not a nature that could find relief in an attack of nervous prostration; the only relief in her power was to give the details of the last night to Fanny. "My dearest Fanny, doubly dear to me now for her dear sake whom we have lost." She gave the account, of which she said: "I could not write so to anybody else." There had been nothing in Jane's last appearance, sh
e said, which gave the look of pain; "but for the continued motion of the head, she gave me the idea of a beautiful statue." Cassandra thanked God that she had been able to do everything for her at the end. Fatigue and grief had not impaired her faculties at all so long as she could be of any use; even when the funeral procession left the house for the cathedral, she did not break down. "I watched the
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little mournful procession the length of the street; and when it turned from my sight and I had lost her for ever, even then I was not overpowered, nor so much agitated as I am now in writing of it."
They left Winchester the day after the funeral and went back to Chawton, to Steventon, to Bentley, to a family life that had lost its brightest ornament. Writing in middle life, one of the nieces said:
"It comes back to me now, how strangely I missed her. It had become so much a habit with me to put things by in my mind with a reference to her, and to say to myself, I shall keep this for Aunt Jane"; and one of the Godmersham nephews used to say that after the death of his Aunt Jane, his visits to Chawton were always a disappointment to him. "He could not help expecting to be particularly happy in that house; and never till he got there could he realize to himself how all its peculiar charm was gone."
Henry undertook the publication of her two remaining works: Miss Catherine, on whose publication Jane Austen had not actually decided, he called Northanger Abbey, and to the last one he gave the title of Persuasion. The works were published in one set of volumes by Murray in 1818, and Henry prefixed to them the biographical notice of his sister which was the first account of any kind to be written of her.
Henry Austen's temperament made such an impression on the people who came in contact with him, that he is almost never mentioned without some exclamation on his charm and wit; but his liveliness did not transfer itself to the written word, and the essay on Jane Austen, though of unique value, is something of a disappointment.
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