The adult Jane Austen wrote both scathingly and pityingly of schoolmistresses. “To be rational in anything is great praise, especially in the ignorant class of school mistresses.” “ ‘I would rather be Teacher at a school (and I can think of nothing worse) than marry a Man I did not like.’—‘I would rather do any thing than be Teacher at a school— said her sister. I have been at school . . . & know what a Life they lead: you never have.’ ” But there are no references to her own time at school beyond one passing phrase in a letter to Cassandra, where she wrote, “I could die of laughter . . . as they used to say at school.”6 Better to die of laughter than of infectious fever, at least; beyond this, she did not choose to recall her schooldays.
Their very wretchedness may also have done something for her. She described herself as a shy child, and shy children withdraw into themselves when they are unhappy; one thing a seven-year-old can retreat into is reading any and every book that comes to hand. Other people’s worlds offer an escape. Then her own imagination may have offered her another escape route, as Maria Edgeworth’s did. So the dreadful Mrs. Cawley may claim some indirect credit for Jane Austen’s mental and imaginative development.
Charlotte Palmer, in Sense and Sensibility, is said to have spent “seven years at a great school in town to some effect”—the effect being the production of a landscape in coloured silks, and a social manner carrying silliness into surreal realms. In contrast to such places, the motherly Mrs. Goddard’s establishment in Emma “had an ample house and garden, gave the children plenty of wholesome food, let them run about a great deal in summer, and in winter dressed their chilblains with her own hands.” This has Jane Austen’s approval, and Mrs. Goddard and her twittering assistants are kindly women, clearly not modelled on Mrs. Cawley; the parents of the illegitimate Harriet Smith, who is dumped there, are luckier than many more careful and respectable fathers and mothers. But Mrs. Goddard’s also becomes a pretext for an attack on schools that “professed, in long sentences of refined nonsense, to combine liberal acquirements with elegant morality upon new principles and new systems—and where young ladies for enormous pay might be screwed out of health and into vanity.” 7 All her life Jane found it hard to see girls’ schools as anything but places of torment for pupils and teachers alike.
For the moment, the girls were at home again. Edward had now left for good, officially adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Knight. Henry said their father was less keen on the adoption plan than their mother, but that she urged it for Edward’s good. As with the decision to send the girls away to school, hers seems to have been the dominant voice. In this case she was justified by events. The move was made gradually, he was old enough to understand and appreciate what was happening, and to keep up his contacts with Steventon; and he fitted perfectly into the world of the Knights. They were rich, kindly, and not particularly clever; and Edward was neither an intellectual nor an imaginative boy, but one with a good heart and a steady nature. Although he would have to change his name to Knight one day, he remained an Austen for the present, and devoted and attentive to his natural family, a devotion unshaken by his years of Grand Touring, his marriage to a baronet’s daughter or his inheritance of the Knights’ large estates and fortune.
Edward’s adoption and the girls’ illness coincided with James taking his degree at Oxford. He remained there as a Fellow of his college, but was often at home, and planning more theatricals. Encouragement may have been sought, and would certainly be given, from new neighbours at Ashe, the next village to Deane, where the Revd. George Lefroy moved into the rectory with his wife Anne and three small children. She was known as “Madam Lefroy,” in tribute to something exotic about her as much as to her Huguenot husband; and she came from Kent with a reputation as a great reader and writer of poetry, with a knowledge of Milton, Pope, Collins, Gray “and the poetical passages of Shakespeare.” She was a beauty and a spirited woman, clever, quick, witty and popular, a different being from the lumpish wives of the hunting squires of the district. She enjoyed entertaining, and was “the life of every party into which she entered.” This is her brother’s view of her, and it is borne out by others. She dressed elegantly, her hair was beautifully arranged and powdered, her expression sweet; and she did not let children or domestic cares stop her sitting down to talk over a poem or a piece of writing by a friend. She soon became Jane Austen’s best loved and admired mentor, the person she would run to for advice and encouragement, and who always made time for her, an ideal parent to be preferred to the everyday one.
It looks as though 1784, when Jane was eight, was spent at home again. By now she was able to read anything in English on her father’s shelves that took her fancy. She could also read some French, probably taught her at Mrs. Cawley’s, for she owned a volume of Fables choisies with her name inscribed in December 1783. On its advertisement page her brother Francis practised writing his name with various flourishes, and a tired student—it could be Jane herself—scrawled “I wish I had done”; in tiny letters, the words, “Mothers angry father’s gone out” may be a glimpse into a cross afternoon at the parsonage.8 Mrs. Lefroy could also encourage her in her choice of books, supplementing her father’s and mother’s suggestions. The death of Dr. Johnson occurred in 1784, which may have inspired her to start reading his essays from the Rambler, with their fine rolling prose and their short, dramatic life studies: the fortune-hunter, the flighty Miss of fifteen impatient of control, the adopted niece who is betrayed and abandoned and becomes a prostitute, and many more stories, all told with such point and concision that any intelligent child would seize on them as a window on to the adult world.
Jane later associated Johnson’s name with Anne Lefroy’s in a memorial poem she addressed to her, touchingly citing his greatness as “the first of Men” alongside her pre-eminence among her friends. The poem is warm but disappointingly general in its terms. “Angelic woman!,” “solid worth,” “captivating grace,” “energy of soul sincere” are none of them phrases that give any impression of a living personality, or allow us to see what form this friendship took in day-to-day life. While Jane’s adult letters mention Mrs. Lefroy as hostess or fellow guest, and we hear of her calling on the Austens for informal conversation, no solid picture of her character or of the exchanges between the young woman and the clever child appears; we have to take on trust the way in which she demonstrated her early friendship.
Endpaper of Jane Austen’s copy of Fables choisies
In July, there was another production in the Steventon barn, this time a comedy, Sheridan’s The Rivals, first produced at Drury Lane in the year of Jane’s birth and now “Acted by some young Ladies & Gentlemen at Steventon,” as James wrote at the head of his prologue, to be spoken by thirteen-year-old Henry at the performance. This was altogether more ambitious than Matilda. Uncut, its playing time is five hours, and it has a cast of twelve principals, with three important parts for women; James must either have called on Oxford friends or cast children. There is some evidence that he did the latter from the final words of his prologue, where he addresses the girls in the audience:
Ye blooming Fair, from whose propitious smile,
We hope a sweet reward for all our toil,2
Though yet too young your stronger powers to own,
We fondly wait your smile, and dread your frown
Smile but this evening, and in riper years,
When manhood’s strength has damp’d our boyish fears,
Our hearts, with genuine grace and beauty caught,
In fervent sighs shall thank you as they ought.
You’ll see us suppliant at your feet again,
And they who liked as Boys, shall love as Men.
This is a real advance on his earlier prologue, and rather surprising for a boy of fifteen, not an age when it is usual to look forward in this graceful fashion to the prospect of adult love. If it does suggest there were children in the cast as well as in the audience, we may speculate boldly that Jane Cooper and Cassandra p
layed Lydia and Julia, and even that Jane Austen may have been given Lucy the maid. There was plenty to laugh at for children who were growing up in a house full of books, starting with the scene in which the maid Lucy hides the library books for her mistress Lydia, nervous of being caught out reading unsuitable ones:
LYDIA Here, my dear Lucy, hide these books. Quick, quick! Fling Pere grine Pickle under the toilet—throw Roderick Random into the closet—put The Innocent Adultery into The Whole Duty of Man . . . put The Man of Feeling into your pocket—so, so—now lay Mrs. Chapone in sight, and leave Fordyce’s Sermons open on the table.
LUCY O burn it, ma’am! the hair-dresser has torn away as far as Proper Pride.
LYDIA Never mind—open at Sobriety.—Fling me Lord Chesterfield’s Letters. Now for ’em.
And in comes Mrs. Malaprop (Mrs. Austen, perhaps?), ready to declare she would send a girl “at nine years old, to a boarding school, in order to learn a little ingenuity.”
The truth was, after a year at home, and with Jane Cooper motherless, the girls were to be sent off to school again. This time it was to Mrs. La Tournelle’s in Reading. This was a well-established place, with the use of a good house built beside all that was left standing of Reading Abbey, and a garden overlooking the ruins of the rest, where the children could run about and play as they liked; but even here the headmistress left something to be desired. Although she was known by the impressive name of Mrs., or Madame, La Tournelle, her real name was Sarah Hackitt. The false name was merely a tribute to the expectations of prospective parents, and she spoke no French. The school did, however, have a French connection, its proprietress being a Madame St. Quintin; and a few years later, when the French Revolution began, émigrés came to teach there.
Mrs. La Tournelle was an odd creature. She was in her forties, had a cork leg of mysterious origin, and a passion for the theatre. What she most enjoyed was telling stories of actors and actresses; it seems unlikely the Austens expected this when they chose the Abbey School. She did not attempt any teaching herself, content with acting as matron, or housekeeper, always dressed with a good deal of white muslin, apron, cuffs, ruffles, scarf and two large flat bows on her cap and her bosom; and she sat in a wood-panelled parlour with chenille pieces representing tombs and weeping willows on the wall behind her, and a row of miniatures set over the high mantelpiece. She served an early breakfast to the children, sitting by the fire, with a large plate of bread and butter supported on an ebony tripod known as a “cat”; it was all quite cosy, and the young women teachers were allowed to come in with their hair in curl papers. After this, morning prayers were read by Mrs. La Tournelle’s niece Miss Brown, their effect sometimes diminished by urgent whispers of “Make haste!” from her aunt, because the washerwoman was waiting in the next room.
This school sounds a harmless, slatternly place. The girls slept six to a room, and were taught some spelling, needlework and French. They would certainly have had dancing lessons, essential basic training for every girl; and perhaps piano was taught too. A pupil who was there a little later took part in performances of plays, so plays may also have been a feature of Jane’s and Cassandra’s education.9 They were given plenty of free time, for after morning lessons they were left entirely to their own devices; and they did not fall ill again. On one occasion they were taken out to dinner at a nearby inn in Reading by their brothers, Edward Austen and Edward Cooper, eighteen-year-olds who must have thought it rather a lark to visit a girls’ school; easy-going Mrs. La Tournelle made no objection. The only other recorded visit is from a Gloucestershire cousin of their mother, the Revd. Thomas Leigh of Adlestrop, who gave them half a guinea each on his way through Reading. He may have reported that the girls were being taught very little, causing Mr. Austen to wonder whether it was worth paying £35 a year to have his daughters kept idle away from home. Whatever the reason, they were removed from Mrs. La Tournelle’s towards the end of 1786; and that was the end of Jane’s formal education.
5
The French Connection
Whatever “Madame La Tournelle” had done for Cassandra’s and Jane’s French, they were going home to something better. Their French-speaking cousin Eliza was due to spend Christmas at Steventon with her mother, Aunt Hancock, and her six-month-old baby, Hastings François Louis Eugène Capot de Feuillide. The arrival of a French countess with her tremendously named son and heir was something to stir the imagination. Eliza had been living abroad since Jane was a baby, so she knew her only through hearing her parents talk of her and the letters that came from France; although they also had her portrait, sent as a gift to Mr. Austen, in which she appeared slight, intense, unsmiling, with widely spaced dark eyes and teased out, powdered hair. Mysterious Eliza: everything about her history spoke to the ten-year-old, from her birth in India to her recent dash all the way from remote southern France to London in an advanced state of pregnancy, determined that her child should be born on English soil. She had the magic conferred by marriage and motherhood, and she was still young and beautiful; she also shared Jane’s birthday month of December, and would be twenty-five just as Jane was eleven.
There were only two brothers at home when Cassandra and Jane arrived, little Charles and delightful Henry, full of jokes and at fifteen grown to a man’s height. No George, of course; and the three others were embarked on adventures. James was making his first trip abroad, on his way to France to visit cousin Eliza’s unknown French husband, Count Jean François Capot de Feuillide, on his estates near Nérac in the south-west; although the latest news was that James’s ship was still becalmed at Jersey. Edward the fortunate was in Switzerland, and would be travelling on to Dresden and later Italy; and Francis was at the naval school in Portsmouth. The regime there was tough, not to say brutal; discipline was maintained with a horsewhip, and there were complaints about bullying, idleness and debauchery.1 Francis himself did not complain; he had chosen to enter for the school and been there since April, was doing very well, and due home for a short holiday at Christmas.
Before Christmas the busy parsonage emptied itself of homebound schoolboys and filled up again immediately with visitors. “We are now happy in the company of our Sister Hancock Madame de Feuillide & the little Boy; they came to us last Thursday Sennet & will stay with us till the end of next Month,” Mrs. Austen wrote to her Kentish niece Phila Walter. She was also expecting her Cooper niece and nephew; and “Five of my children are now at home, Henry, Frank, Charles & my two Girls, who have now quite left school.”2 Mrs. Austen did not give her niece her title, but the French countess cast her glamour over the whole family party. It was as though a bird of paradise had alighted on the parsonage. She talked gaily of life in London, where she and her mother had taken a house near Portman Square and acquired a carriage and four in which she went out to attend court Drawing Rooms, wearing a dress so heavily hooped it was quite fatiguing to stand in. She told them how she called on duchesses and went to Almack’s, which everyone knew as the most select assembly rooms in town; and stayed out until five in the morning.3
Cousin Eliza wore French fashions, had a French maid, and talked French as though it were her native tongue; and although Monsieur le Comte was not able to be with her, she could tell stories of his regiment, his estates and châteaux, of journeys with him into the Pyrenees and through remote parts of France, of theatrical parties among their aristocratic friends and of their brilliant life in Paris. Like Mrs. Lefroy, she had crossed the great divide of a woman’s life without giving up her own tastes and pleasures. Nothing about Madame la Comtesse was dull or domestic; and although she was devoted to her baby, she talked of his having “two Mammas”—herself and her mother—and remained girlishly dependent on Mrs. Hancock. 4 She was lively, light-hearted and kind, interested in all her cousins and ready to join wholeheartedly in the family’s amusements as if she had no responsibilities or cares in the world.
Every day she sat down at the pianoforte especially borrowed by the Austens, and played to them; Jane’s
love of playing and transcribing music was surely inspired by Eliza on this visit. And there was dancing: “on Tuesday we are to have a very snug little dance in our parlour, just our own children, nephew & nieces . . . quite a family party.” All the guests were expected to stay until the end of January. 5 Henry, as the eldest son at home, was quite ready to take up his position as Eliza’s host and dancing partner. He had a turn for wit and flattery, and knew how to tease; and she enjoyed the teasing, especially since it was so evidently admiring. Henry was his father’s favourite, and adored by Jane too; and Eliza quickly saw his charm, and had no objection to acquiring an English Cherubino among her admirers. Before she left Steventon it was agreed that he should visit her in London in the spring. “Madame is grown quite lively,” wrote her aunt.
Eliza and her mother are the most likely people to have brought with them a birthday present of books for Jane by the French children’s writer Arnaud Berquin, whose L’Ami des enfants, a series of moral stories and plays, was newly published and hugely popular. There were already English translations, but Jane received the original French, printed in small volumes to suit small hands.6 The virtues Berquin sought to encourage were generosity, kindness to servants and also to animals, charity to the poor, hard work and, for girls, “prudence de conduite”: when in doubt about anything they were told they should seek their mother’s advice. His playlets were meant to be performed by parents and children together as “domestic festivals” within the family, designed to drive home the moral lessons and give children “courage, grace, and ease in their address, deportment and conversation.” Eliza, who had a taste for private theatricals, may have been particularly keen on this aspect of Berquin, and expected the Austens to warm to it. If so, she underestimated them, because one look at Berquin was enough to show that, in his eagerness to inculcate moral values in a family context, he wrote bland, sentimental, wishy-washy stuff. Jane would have thanked Eliza politely for her present, but her own earliest attempts at writing plays and stories provide her comment upon the improving Berquin. Where he sought to teach and elevate, she plunged into farce, burlesque and self-mockery, and created a world of moral anarchy, bursting with the life and energy Berquin’s good intentions managed to squeeze out. Berquin’s plays are dead on the page; some of Austen’s juvenile stories could go straight into a Disney cartoon.
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