‘Visit?’ I asked, wondering where we were going. As far as I knew, Augusta had no acquaintance in the city of Bath.
‘We’re going to see Mr Wilkins and Mr Stanley Wilkins. They’ve invited you and me to their house in Bristol. You will be all right here, Jane, my dear? Edward-John will keep you company once he gets back from visiting your aunt and uncle.’ She didn’t wait for Jane’s answer but was chivvying me up the stairs, peering into the clothes press to see what I might wear.
‘I’ll be perfectly all right on my own, ma’am. Thank you for enquiring, ma’am. I very much appreciate your kind concern for me.’ Jane dropped a few curtsies, so ridiculous that I found it hard to repress a giggle as Augusta went through my scanty wardrobe with exclamations of despair.
‘I suppose you had better wear that blue muslin,’ she muttered eventually. ‘I don’t suppose that he will notice what you are wearing.’
‘He??’ Jane signalled me with her eyebrows and I shook my head silently at her, wishing that I had the courage to say no to Augusta.
The Wilkins brothers live side by side in two enormous houses in George Street in Bristol. I wondered why they have two houses, since neither man has wife nor family, but I suppose they have to display their wealth. According to Augusta both are ‘wealthy beyond dreams’ – her expression.
We went into Mr Stanley Wilkins’s house first. We had to see all over the house, from the bedrooms with their beautifully carved beds, hung with finest muslin drapery, dressing tables in shining mahogany and delicate china on the washstands, and the kitchen, with its modern closed stove, to the drawing room, where I sat, uncomfortably squashed between Augusta and the hugely fat Mr Stanley Wilkins, right in the centre of one of Mr Chippendale’s three-seater settees and gazed at the glowing carpet.
‘If you look at the design on the carpet, Miss Jenny,’ wheezed Mr Stanley, ‘you will see that it exactly echoes the plasterwork on the ceiling. I had it woven for me specially.’
Augusta exclaimed happily about all the beauties while I craned my neck to look at the elaborate scrolls and tendrils above my head ‘Now, I must just pop in and see your brother,’ said Augusta brightly. ‘It would never do to make him jealous, would it? You will look after my little sister, won’t you, Mr Stanley?’
I hardly know how to write the next bit. After Augusta went, neither of us knew what to say. Eventually he rang the bell for some sweetmeats for me. I took one, but I hated it. It had a strange sickly taste – coconut, according to him. I chewed and chewed and wished that I could spit it out.
And then, when my mouth was full of this horrible flaky stuff, he suddenly got off the settee and knelt on the floor. At first I thought that he was going to point out another pattern on the carpet and obediently I looked down. I remember my attention being caught by the twisted, rather spindly legs of the settee and thinking that it was amazing that they held his weight as well as Augusta’s and mine.
And then I realized that he was asking me to marry him!!!
And I was so embarrassed!!!
He was an old man – well, he might be less than forty, but he looks older because he is so fat.
He took hold of my hand and I thought it might be impolite to snatch it away.
And there I was with my mouth full of sickly coconut and my hand imprisoned by a fat old man.
Suddenly I felt angry. Augusta had planned all of this – left me alone with him while she went next door. She would marry me off to this rich old man – my little legacy of fifty pounds a year would be nothing to him – he would never demand that! In fact, he would probably bring lots of nice little items back for her from over the seas– I could just imagine what Augusta would get out of this marriage . . .
I swallowed the rest of the coconut sweet. I hardly tasted it now and I didn’t care if I was sick all over his specially woven carpet. I stood up and dragged my hand away from his and thanked him politely for his offer of marriage but said that I had to decline it.
I was quite pleased with this little speech, but it didn’t work. He tried to take me in his arms. I screamed! And then I managed to get one of Mr Chippendale’s elegant Chinese lacquered chairs between him and me. I held it out in front of me, and when he grabbed the seat I suddenly let go and escaped by the long windows out to the front of the house and shrieked for Augusta.
Jane, who has been writing at her desk, has just interrupted me and asked me to read out my journal to her. This is how our conversation went:
Me: ‘I don’t want to.’
Jane: ‘Well, at least tell me what he said.’
Me: ‘I don’t remember exactly.’
Jane (quite shocked): ‘My dear Jenny, I don’t think that you take your duties as a cousin to a novelist seriously. I don’t seem to get any offers of marriage myself so I’m relying on you, who seem to get them every few days. How can I write about love scenes when no one will describe them properly?’
Me: ‘That was not a love scene.’
Jane: ‘Doesn’t matter. I could turn it into an abduction scene. That might be more fun. I think I’ll write it up about you being dragged screaming into his chaise. Wait a minute, though, and I’ll write a letter that you can put under Augusta’s door before you flee through the darkness to find your own true love and beg his protection.’
When I read Jane’s letter I giggled a bit. I was beginning to feel better about the whole day. After all, I had stood up to that man and I had stood up to Augusta, and when we came home and she complained about me to Edward-John, I had stood up to him as well. I shouted at the two of them and told them that they could not sell me off to a slave dealer. I don’t think I will give this letter to Augusta though. She is too stupid to understand that it is satirical, so I will stick it into my journal.
Thursday, 5 May 1791
Augusta has not been speaking to me since our talk last night. She called me downstairs just after I had written my journal and told me how stupid I was being and what a fantastic (that was her word) match this would be.
‘After all,’ she commented, ‘the family is rather in disgrace over this business of your aunt being imprisoned.’
Once I become Mrs Stanley Wilkins, apparently, I will have everything that I could possibly desire (and HIM, of course). I kept telling her that I consider myself engaged to Captain Thomas Williams and she kept shouting me down. And then she got Edward-John in to talk to me, but that didn’t work either. I was very proud of myself. When Edward-John said that Mama had left me in his charge I replied very quietly and very reasonably, ‘That was because she thought you, as my brother, would do everything for my happiness.’
And he went red and said no more.
Augusta then tried to be friendly and sisterly, shaking her head and saying: ‘Jenny, Jenny, you really are a very sad girl and do not know how to take care of yourself. You must let others do that for you.’ And she assured me that my ‘timidity’ had done me no harm with dear Mr Stanley Wilkins. She even told me – these are her exact words – that: ‘In those who are at all inferior, it is extremely prepossessing.’
But I held firm, and after a few minutes’ silence from both of them said that I was going up to my bedroom.
Jane has just said that she can see Harry walking down the hill past the house. He will be waiting for us at Queen’s Square Gardens. We are both going to take letters. Mine is to Charles, who is recovering slowly from the chickenpox, and Jane’s is to her mother, telling all about the Leigh-Perrots. She has just been down to tell Augusta that we are going out to put our letters in the post. She tells me that Edward-John is entertaining Mr Stanley Wilkins in the breakfast parlour and that Augusta and Mr Jerome Wilkins are nowhere to be seen!
‘Perhaps he has abducted her in his barouche,’ said Jane.
Later on Thursday, 5 May
Now it is after dinner and I have two things to write down – three things really. One is that Augusta is still not speaking to me. It’s quite funny actually, because at dinner she asked Jane t
o tell me that I should eat cabbage. Dear, kind Franklin looked rather troubled as he glanced from one to the other of us, but Jane enjoyed it all very much, putting Augusta’s questions and orders into a very formal, old-fashioned style.
‘Jenny, dear, I do assure you that it is a truth universally acknowleged, that cabbage brightens the complexion.’
Or,
‘My dear Jenny, your sister wishes to request you to be good enough to remove your wrist from the table and hold your fork daintily, as becomes a young lady.‘
The second thing is that we met Sir Walter, the baronet who is paying attentions to Thomas’s sister, Elinor. He was walking along with his eyes fixed on the pavement and muttering to himself. He did not even appear to see us, which was quite strange after his quarrel with Harry at Sydney Gardens. I wonder whether he is thinking about his card games.
The third thing is more important because it is what Harry has found out. He has now established – no doubt through the friendly chambermaid – that Sarah Raines, Miss Gregory’s apprentice, who had testified that she watched Mr Filby wrap Aunt Leigh-Perrot’s parcel (and that he had definitely not put any white lace in with the gown), could not have done so. Apparently a girl in the shop opposite saw Sarah Raines come out of the pastry-cook shop with a large pie on a plate – and this was well before Mrs Leigh-Perrot had emerged.
‘I shall have to write another anonymous letter to the lawyer,’ said Jane with satisfaction.
I asked her what she had written in the first letter, and she promised to let me have a copy to stick in my journal.
We had a peaceful evening. Jane and I played cards and Edward-John stared at a book. Augusta had gone off to have supper with a friend who was staying at the Greyhound Inn. We know that’s where she went because Franklin told us that he ordered a sedan chair to take her there and to pick her up again at ten o’clock.
Now I am going to put away my journal, but before I do so I will stick in the letters that Jane wrote to the lawyer. I must say that I would have liked to see his face when he broke the wax seal and unfolded the sheet.
Friday, 6 May 1791
This morning a letter came for Jane to say that her parents, along with James, would be arriving on the stagecoach on Sunday. Charles was very much better, and Mrs Austen felt that she should come to support her brother and his wife.
Augusta actually spoke to me this morning. It was only to enquire whether Rosalie had washed and pressed my blue muslin gown. I nodded silently and she gave me an annoyed glance and said, ‘Come now, these sullens don’t become a young girl. Look up and speak up; that’s what I was told when I was your age.’
‘And see how generally esteemed you are now, ma’am,’ said Jane in her politest manner. I choked over a piece of toast and Franklin fussed over me, bringing a glass of water and bending over me. I thought I glimpsed the shadow of a grin on his face.
Augusta just smiled sweetly and cast a glance at Edward-John to see whether he was going to say something complimentary. My brother, however, seemed in a troubled mood. He was eating very little and drinking cup after cup of coffee.
‘Come now, not you too,’ his wife said to him impatiently. ‘Pray, let us have some news, Mr Cooper! How are things going for the unfortunate Mrs Leigh-Perrot?’
‘Well,’ said Edward-John, making a visible effort to rouse himself from his depressing thoughts, ‘when I was there yesterday afternoon the lawyer came with some good news. Apparently this is not the first time that the clerk, Mr Filby, has wrapped up something not paid for in a lady’s parcel. The lawyer thinks that is very significant.’
‘Good gracious me, Mr C., how can you be so tiresome!’ Augusta’s voice was so shrill that it made the glasses on the sideboard ring. She stared at Edward-John in an exasperated manner. ‘Why ever didn’t you tell me that last night?’
‘Because you went straight out to dinner with your friends, my dear.’ His voice was quiet, but it seemed to hold a meaning in it. Jane and I exchanged glances across the table.
Augusta’s face seemed to colour a little. I had never seen her blush before. But then she turned on me in a most vindictive manner.
‘If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times, Jenny. Pray sit up straight. Perhaps you can’t help being dwarfed, but you can at least hold yourself properly.’
‘You’re quite right, ma’am,’ said Jane, spooning some honey on to her toast with a calm expression.
‘What?’ Augusta looked at her suspiciously.
‘Yes, indeed, I’ve heard you say so again and again. I have very good hearing,’ she added with a bland expression as she licked the honey spoon. ‘I’m always overhearing things that are not meant for me. My mama used to say, “Little pitchers have big ears,” when I was small. She made sure not to talk about private business when I was around.’
As Jane and I were going back up the stairs to our bedroom I could hear Augusta from the parlour saying loudly to Edward-John, ‘I’m not sure that I am too impressed with the manners of that Austen girl. She seems to me to have all the vulgarity of her mother combined with the slyness of her father.’
When we got into the bedroom I looked anxiously at Jane to see if this had hurt her, but to my surprise there was a broad smile on her face and her eyes were sparkling.
‘There’s some mystery here,’ she hissed. ‘Who was she having dinner with yesterday?’
I looked blank and she said impatiently, ‘Go on, Jenny; think! Who’s staying at the Greyhound Inn – and don’t say Harry . . .’
And then suddenly something about her expression made me think. My mouth opened, began to form a name and then shut again.
Jane nodded.
‘The Wilkins brothers!’ I gasped.
Jane shook her head vigorously. ‘Not the Wilkins brothers – remember, Mr Stanley is reserved for you, you lucky, lucky girl. No, I would guess that she dined with Mr Jerome Wilkins.’
I must say that first of all I was flooded with horror. What a terrible thing for Edward-John to have a wife who would dine alone with another man. But Jane’s expression made me conceal my feelings. After all, why should I care about Augusta?
Jane was looking more than pleased though. She looked positively elated – with that expression that she wears when her brain is working fast. She went over to the window and began to mutter, ‘Harry, Harry, where are you? Come on, Harry!’ drumming her fingers on the glass all the while.
‘Here he is,’ she said after a minute. I was glad to see him and to distract Jane from Augusta. I felt a bit uncomfortable talking about my brother the clergyman and his wife. However much I loathed Augusta, somehow I just could not imagine her doing something like that.
But then, as I was putting on my bonnet and cloak, I remembered the scene in Mr Jerome Wilkins’s house. After I ran from the parlour it had taken a long time for Augusta to appear. Several maids and the butler had come through the front door and stared in alarm before she had arrived to see her disgraceful sister-in-law weeping hysterically on the front lawn. I had been so upset and so frightened at the time that I had not really considered Augusta’s strange behaviour.
Why did she take so long to appear?
And what had she been doing in Mr Jerome Wilkins’s house?
Harry greeted us with an air of quiet satisfaction when we met him beside the garden in Queen’s Square. He had already been to see the Leigh-Perrots – ‘They keep early hours,’ he said briefly, though I guessed that he wanted to have the most up-to-date information for Jane. The couple had been in very good humour. Mr Leigh-Perrot had engaged four lawyers from London, and letters testifying to the good character of Mrs Leigh-Perrot had come in from all quarters. The trial had been set for the following Monday, 9 May, and they were hoping that their ordeal would soon be over and they would be back in their own comfortable house on that very night.
I asked Harry whether he thought that it would really end happily or if they were pretending in order to keep their spirits up. I thoug
ht this was the sort of thing that a devoted husband and wife might say to each other, without really believing it. Harry tried to say that he thought it would, but he has a very open, honest face and after a few words he fell silent.
‘Why shouldn’t it?’ asked Jane in an annoyed tone, interpreting his silence as I had done.
‘Well, there’s talk at the Greyhound that your aunt turned red and then white when Miss Gregory found the white lace in her parcel,’ said Harry. He watched Jane’s face anxiously before adding, ‘They say that Sir Vicary Gibbs, the prosecuting lawyer, will make full use of that.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Jane. ‘Anyone would look uncomfortable if they were accused of stealing. I wish I were a lawyer. I’d answer him.’
‘The important thing is the jury,’ said Harry. ‘If they like Mrs Leigh-Perrot, and believe her, then they will acquit; if they don’t . . . well, they won’t.’
Harry had certainly changed, I thought, watching him gaze at Jane’s worried face. He adored her, that was obvious, but these days he did not hesitate to disagree with her. However, he was very protective of her and did not like to see her troubled. Now he was anxious to put her mind at ease.
‘Perhaps you could write to her,’ he suggested. ‘She definitely doesn’t want you to come to see her, but you could write and offer to help her with her submission. The lawyer arrived this morning when I was there. On my way out I heard him tell her that she will have an opportunity in court to make a submission and that he always advises his clients to write it out beforehand.’
I could see a struggle going on in Jane’s face. On the one hand, she would love to do this, I know, and I could just imagine how funny it would be when she had written it. But on the other hand this was a serious matter. She briefly told Harry that she would think about it, and then changed the subject.
‘Harry, we need your help about something else,’ she said. ‘It’s something about Jenny – something to ensure her everlasting happiness with the man whom she loves.’ She delivered these words so dramatically that a passing lady escorted by a middle-aged maid passing by, gave her an icy glance.
Jane Austen Stole My Boyfriend Page 16