I Was Jane Austen's Best Friend

by Cora Harrison

  Mrs Ford held up the yellow doubtfully against me and then shook her head. ‘Not her colour,’ she said decisively. ‘That makes her look far too pale.’

  ‘Well, let’s have blue for the two of them,’ said Mrs Austen. ‘You don’t mind, Jane, do you?’

  Jane shook her head, but she still looked longingly at the primrose-coloured muslin. Mrs Ford did not bother holding up the blue against her. Anyone could see that it wasn’t her colour.

  ‘It’s a pity they are not more alike in colouring, ma’am,’ she said to Mrs Austen. ‘You’re right, of course. If you can get something to suit both, you’ll save at least a yard on the making up. Wait a moment — I’ve got an idea. Where did I put those sprigged muslins?’

  ‘They’re in the back room, under the tamboured muslins, Mrs Ford,’ called one of the girls, going after the flying figure of her employer.

  Mrs Ford didn’t run back though. She walked slowly and carefully, bearing a brown-paper parcel reverently in her arms.

  ‘There you are, Mrs Austen, ma’am. This came from London yesterday.’ Slowly and gently she stripped off the folds of brown paper.

  And there on the counter was lying the most lovely stuff for a gown that I had ever seen in all my life. The cloth was so beautiful, of the finest cotton, and woven so softly, that it looked just like Indian muslin. It was whiter than any snow could be and the tiny sprigs were not of a colour but were silver. Mrs Ford picked it up, and as she moved it on to her arm the light from the oil lamp caught it and made it sparkle.

  ‘It’s just like frost on snow,’ I said eventually, and Mrs Austen gave me a pleased grin.

  ‘See how it will suit both of them, ma’am.’ Mrs Ford held it up to Jane. ‘Look, it makes the dark hair and eyes look even darker, and isn’t it lovely with those rosy cheeks?’

  And then she held it against me and I looked at myself in the mirror and all the young lady assistants crowded around smiling and whispering praise. I looked at myself and felt that I looked like something from the land of dreams. Only a princess could have a gown as beautiful as this one.

  ‘We’ll take twelve yards,’ said Mrs Austen decidedly.

  After dinner, Jane and I slipped out down to the village. Jane had managed to put a basket under her shawl and in the basket she had a nice ripe apple from the orchard at Steventon. I had done a drawing of an apple and I had written the letter A beside it. I had also copied the finger shape of the sign language from Mr Austen’s book.

  George was pleased to see us. He snatched the apple from Jane immediately and started to eat it in huge chunks. I was quite shocked — I didn’t expect him to have good table manners, but it seemed almost as if he were starving. He even ate the core of the apple and the little stalk on the top.

  Then we showed the picture and the sign for apple, but it wasn’t a success. He just kept poking in Jane’s basket to see whether she had another one hidden there.

  ‘Tomorrow we’ll just show him the apple and then we’ll keep it until he makes the sign,’ I said to Jane as we walked back from the village. ‘He’ll soon get the idea.’

  * * *

  It was so funny today when we were passing the shrubbery — we were walking on the gravel sweep and we were not talking; I think we were both thinking about George — when we suddenly heard a sound — someone saying, ‘Shh!’ very quietly. Jane looked at me with a grin and put her finger to her lips. We both walked on until we came to a laurel bush, and then Jane ducked behind the large green leaves and I followed her. We stood there very silently for a moment.

  ‘They’re gone.’ It was Cassandra’s voice.

  Jane put her finger to her lips again and began to steal deeper into the shrubbery. I followed her, trying not to laugh. We passed a few more evergreen bushes and then stopped. In the centre of the clearing was a huge rhododendron bush. It was a very old one and the branches with their peeling bark splayed out sideways, just a couple of feet above the ground. The bush was covered with small fat flower buds, their tips just showing purple, but deep within the leaves was a flash of pink. Hardly daring to breathe, we came a little closer and there, right in the centre, were Tom Fowle and Cassandra. They had made a little nest with heaps of old sacks and a couple of cushions. They were just lying there, not kissing, not touching, just lying there side by side looking at each other. I tapped Jane on the shoulder and turned and started to go back. Somehow I couldn’t bear to disturb them. They looked so in love with each other.

  ‘Don’t tell,’ I said to Jane when we were going in through the door.

  ‘Of course I won’t.’

  But during supper, once Mrs Austen had gone out, Jane couldn’t resist saying to her father, ‘Papa, Jenny and I have been thinking about doing some nature study — perhaps starting off with trees and bushes. Do you think that is a good idea?’

  Mr Austen, of course, did, and went into a long explanation about deciduous trees and evergreens — he recommended books and he even told us we would find some excellent examples of evergreens in the shrubbery.

  Jane nodded thoughtfully and said, ‘That’s just what I was thinking myself today. Like rhododendrons, for instance.’

  It was good luck that Mrs Austen was out of the room because Tom Fowle went bright red and Cassandra blushed a rosy pink. It was funny, because she kept trying to shoot Jane angry glances, but then she would look at Tom and her face would get all soft again. I’m beginning to like Cassandra. I hope things work out for her.

  Tonight Jane was busy with her notebook while I was doing my journal. I had just finished writing all of this when she said, ‘Look at this. You can stick it in your journal. I might use it in a story some time.’

  Mrs George Austen

  The Parsonage,

  Steventon.

  Dear Madam,

  We are married and gone.

  Tom and Cassandra Fowle.

  Her Highness Madam Austen, having read this letter which, of course, sufficiently explained the whole affair, flew into a violent Passion and having spent an agreeable half an hour calling them all the shocking Names her rage could suggest to her, sent after them 300 men with orders not to return without their bodies whether dead or alive, intending that if they should be brought in the latter condition, to have them put to death in some torture-like manner, after a few years’ confinement.

  Tuesday, 15 March 1791

  We had just finished breakfast and Jane and I were airing our bedroom when the dressmaker, or mantua maker, as Cassandra grandly called her, came around. We saw her on the sweep when we looked out of our bedroom window. She was a small woman with a pale face and rounded shoulders and she was carrying a flat basket in her hand.

  Jane and I were downstairs before she reached the front door.

  ‘Miss Jane Austen,’ she said, dropping a curtsy. ‘Miss Cooper,’ she said to me, and then as Cassandra came out of the dining room, she dropped another curtsy and murmured, ‘Miss Austen.’

  ‘Come in, Mrs Tuckley, come into the best parlour. Mrs Austen is there.’ Cassandra was very grand today. I don’t think that she has quite forgiven Jane and me for spying on her and Tom Fowle in the rhododendrons yesterday — she wouldn’t speak to us for the rest of the day.

  ‘She should thank us,’ Jane had said this morning when we were brushing our hair. ‘If we don’t tease them, he might never declare his intentions to Papa.’ She lowered her voice and hissed, ‘He might abduct her by midnight in a post-coach and then she would be ruined.’

  The idea of decent, kind, shy Tom Fowle abducting the very virtuous Cassandra had made us both laugh so much that Mrs Austen tapped on the ceiling of the parlour below and told us to hurry down.

  ‘I’ve just brought some patterns today, ma’am,’ said Mrs Tuckley. ‘I thought that the young ladies could choose the styles that they like and then I could make sure that you had enough material and I could start work first thing tomorrow. I should have the gowns ready for a week on Saturday with no trouble, because my niece is comin
g to help me tomorrow and she is a good, fast worker.’

  ‘The young ladies can do their share also,’ said Mrs Austen firmly.

  Jane made a face, probably only because she is in the middle of her novel Love & Freindship (as she spells it). Jane is very accomplished with her needle, better than I am.

  ‘Let’s see the patterns,’ she said, lifting the cover off the basket.

  ‘Jane!’ reproved Mrs Austen.

  ‘We have seven yards of pink muslin for me and twelve yards of white muslin for the two young girls to share between them,’ said Cassandra to Mrs Tuckley in a very matronly manner.

  ‘Two young girls and one elderly one,’ whispered Jane to me, and we both had a giggle at that. I stopped first because I feared it wasn’t very polite to Mrs Austen when she was going to such a lot of trouble for us.

  ‘These are the paper patterns that I made from the Misses Biggs’ new gowns,’ said Mrs Tuckley, bringing out some large shapes of brown paper from her basket. ‘These ones are from Miss Bigg’s gown, these are from Miss Elizabeth’s gown and these from Miss Alethea’s gown.’ While she was talking to us she was able to sort out the patterns in a moment although they all looked the same to me.

  Cassandra didn’t look too pleased at that. ‘Catherine Bigg will be at the Assembly Hall’s ball at Basingstoke; I don’t want to look the same as her.’ I could see that Mrs Tuckley was looking a bit worried so I picked out some black silk ribbon from her basket.

  ‘If this was to be plaited across the top of the bosom it would look very unusual and different and it would go well with the pink,’ I said, and Cassandra even smiled at me.

  ‘You are very artistic, Jenny,’ she said approvingly.

  Mrs Tuckley looked relieved. ‘I’ll slot it in and out of the muslin, Miss Austen.’

  Cassandra nodded graciously. She liked the very polite way that Mrs Tuckley talked to her and the way that Mrs Tuckley was always so careful to give her, as eldest girl in the family, the title of Miss Austen while Jane was just Miss Jane. Cassandra will probably make a very good mistress of a house when she and Tom Fowle get married.

  ‘Here’s Elizabeth’s pattern for you, Jenny — she’s about your size.’

  As soon as Jane handed it to me, I couldn’t help giving a cry of delight. ‘Oh, it’s got a train on it!’

  ‘They’ve all got trains.’ Mrs Tuckley was looking at Mrs Austen a bit nervously. Mrs Austen had pursed her lips and was looking disapproving. ‘Don’t worry about that, ma’am. The young ladies will be able to help each other to pin them up before they start dancing so the material won’t get spoiled.’ She was talking very quickly now. No doubt she was anxious to use these patterns, as they would save her quite some work. I was anxious too. I had never had a gown with a train before, but I could just imagine how fine I would look as it flowed behind me when I walked down the long passageway at the Assembly Rooms that Jane had told me about. Perhaps Henry would hand me out of the coach, which was to be hired for the evening, and we would walk in together, the tips of my fingers just resting on his arm, perhaps with a blue ribbon holding back my curls — if I can get my hair to stay in curl — and the train whispering along the ground behind me.

  Now I must write about George. Today was a success. We fed him the apple slice by slice, and each time we made him make the sign with his fingers. In the beginning we had to position his fingers, but once he got the idea that he would only get the apple if he made the sign, he did it himself. Bet came along while we were teaching him and she asked what we were doing. Jane told her that we were teaching George to read and she just laughed and went away.

  I said to Jane that I thought Bet was unkind, but Jane shook her head and told me that Bet could not read herself and probably thought it was a very hard thing to do.

  ‘She’s just jealous perhaps,’ I said when we were walking home, but Jane wouldn’t agree. That’s the nice thing about Jane. Once she gives her friendship she won’t let anyone say a word against a friend, and Bet was a friend of hers.

  ‘Bet and I were brought up together until I was three years old,’ she said. ‘She’s my foster-sister.’

  I was amazed at that and she nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘My mother left us all down in the village until we could walk and talk and dress and feed ourselves. She only took us back when we wouldn’t be a nuisance to her.’

  She didn’t say anything for a while. Then she added, very sadly, ‘And George never learned to do anything, so he was just left down in the village.’

  Wednesday, 16 March 1791

  ‘Jenny, this is something that I’ve had for you for a long time. I took them from your poor mother’s jewellery box before Madam (Mrs Austen always called Augusta Madam) could take them for herself.’ As usual, Mrs Austen was in a rush. She took a box from her reticule, handed it to me, put down her teacup, finished her pound cake in two bites, pushed open the breakfast-room door and in a moment was outside shouting orders to the gardener to be sure to get more potatoes planted today than he managed to do yesterday.

  The breakfast room was very quiet after she left, Mr Austen sipping his tea and reading a poem by Cowper, Henry frowning over a piece of paper from his pocket with some figures on it and Jane scribbling in her notebook. Cassandra had gone to feed the hens and all of the other boys had gone into the schoolroom. Cousin Eliza was having breakfast in bed as she did most mornings.

  I opened the box very slowly. It was a beautiful box, made of thin sandalwood covered in blue silk. I had often admired it on my mother’s dressing table.

  But I had never seen it opened before. It had always stayed locked.

  The box was full of pale blue glass beads. They glistened in the light of the pale winter sun that came through the breakfast-room window. I couldn’t stop myself giving a cry of delight. Everyone looked at me with surprise. There was a piece of paper on the top of the box with the words ‘Beads from my wedding gown for Jenny’s first ball gown’ written on it. I’ve stuck it in here as I don’t ever want to lose it.

  I felt very sad for a moment after I put the note down; no doubt my mother had kept these glass beads from her wedding gown in memory of my father.

  ‘What’s the matter, Jenny?’ asked Jane.

  I couldn’t speak, but I handed her the piece of yellowed paper. She glanced at it quickly and Henry looked over her shoulder.

  ‘What colour is your gown, Jenny?’ Henry put away his figures and looked at me kindly.

  I told him about the white sprigged muslin, almost whispering the words because I was just thinking how beautiful the gown would look if the beads were sewn all over it. I would have to talk to Mrs Tuckley about it.

  Jane and I rushed upstairs to fetch our work baskets, and as we came out of our bedroom again we saw something strange. Henry was going upstairs very quietly, making no noise on the wooden boards, and we saw him turn the handle of Eliza’s door and slip inside without even knocking. Jane looked at me and raised her eyebrows and I did the same back, but I didn’t know what to think. We tiptoed downstairs, and as we passed Eliza’s room we could hear them both laughing and joking.

  I’ve decided that I don’t really like Cousin Eliza very much. I think she is a shallow, insincere sort of person. I don’t believe that she cares for Henry. I think that she is just leading him on.

  It’s night-time and Jane and I are in our bedroom. We should be in bed, but we are both writing, she in her notebook and I in my journal. I have just finished writing about the gowns and I am trying to think of something else to write in order to fill up the page. Jane is writing very fast. I think she is very clever. She is almost a year younger than I am, but she can write much more quickly.

  I’ll ask Jane to read out what she’s writing so I can finish my page …

  She says she has finished copying and has tossed the piece of paper to me. Here it is:

  It may now be proper to return to the Hero of this Novel, the brother of Alice, of whom I believe I have scarcely ever had occa
sion to speak; which may perhaps be partly owing to his unfortunate tendency to alcohol, which so completely deprived him of the use of those faculties Nature had endowed him with, that he never did anything worth mentioning. His Death happened a short time after Lucy’s departure & was the natural Consequence of this heavy drinking.

  When he died, his sister became the sole inheritress of a very large fortune, which as it gave her fresh Hopes of rendering herself acceptable as a wife to Charles Adams, could not fail of being most pleasing to her – & as the effect was joyful, the cause could scarcely be lamented, so she did not mourn her brother.

  I read it through and laughed, but then I asked Jane how she could write about things like love and marriage when she had never been in love.

  ‘I’ve never been drunk either,’ she said, ‘but I can write very well about that.’

  I told Jane that for all I knew she was drunk every night before I came here, and that it was a good job I was such a good moral influence on her, and she laughed.

  Then I asked if she would ever write a love story with Eliza as the heroine.

  ‘Oh, Eliza is not in love,’ said Jane impatiently. ‘She just flirts. That’s different. Flirting is great fun. What about you? You’re in love with Henry, aren’t you? I know by the way you blush.’

  I said that I thought Henry was in love with Eliza, but Jane just laughed at me.

  ‘He’s just flirting too,’ she said. ‘Henry is a terrible flirt; everyone knows that. There’s a difference between flirting and being in love. Real love is what Cassandra feels for Tom Fowle.’

  I wish Eliza would go back to London. I’m sure Jane’s right and that Henry is just flirting with her — but I wish she would go.

  Oh, and I forgot, we taught George the sign for the letter B today. He learned it by having bits of bun.