I Was Jane Austen's Best Friend (34 page)

‘It was Captain Thomas Williams,’ I said desperately. ‘The naval officer who is a guest of the Portsmouths at Hurstbourne Park.’

‘Captain Williams.’ Mr Austen sounded relieved. He had liked Thomas. I think he was reassured to know that he had been looking after me on that terrible night.

‘Captain Williams?’ Mrs Austen sounded puzzled. I knew how she felt. A horrified expression crossed her face. I could follow her thoughts; Captain Williams had shown affection to me, but then he must have thought it over and decided to have no more to do with me.

‘I wonder why he felt he had to talk to your brother.’ Mrs Austen’s voice was still puzzled — puzzled and worried.

‘And he promised that he would never tell a living soul.’ I felt sick and faint and was glad of Jane’s arm around me.

No one said anything for a full minute. I sensed rather than saw Mrs Austen exchange glances with her husband and with Jane. Then she got to her feet.
She crossed over to her bedside table, poured a small measure of wine and brought it over to me.

‘Drink this, Jenny,’ she said soothingly. ‘Jane, take her back up to your bedroom. You are both excused from lessons this morning. Don’t worry, Jenny. I will sort out Mrs Augusta Cooper, and young Edward-John, when they come on Saturday. That lady will find that your uncle and I have something to say about them trying to ruin your reputation and risk your life by sending you off to boarding school again. After all, I am your poor mother’s elder sister. The main thing is to hush up this terrible business as much as possible. Let us hope that Captain Williams is a man of honour and he doesn’t mention it to anyone else.’

Thursday, 7 April 1791

I did nothing much but cry yesterday, but this morning I got up with a resolve. I would write Thomas a letter, finish this business now and put him out of my head forever. Then I would concentrate on avoiding being sent to boarding school. Jane had great plans about the two of us running away, but I thought I would prefer to rely on Mrs Austen.

‘Here’s some paper.’ Jane arranged the clean sheet and a new quill and the inkhorn in front of me with a very sympathetic face.

I dipped the quill into the ink, but then left it there, stroking the smooth curved shape of the horn with my fingers while I tried to think of what to say. A big tear dropped down on to the clean sheet of paper.

‘Don’t.’ Jane was at my side, blotting the tear with the corner of her handkerchief. ‘You’ll spoil the paper and water down the ink. Let me write. You can dictate it.’

‘
Dear Captain Williams,
’ I began, getting up obediently and allowing her to sit in my place. ‘Just call him “Sir”,’ advised Jane, carefully selecting a large goose quill and dipping it into the inkstand.

‘Sir.’ Then I stopped. I didn’t know what to say.
I just wanted to cry, but I knew I shouldn’t allow myself to start again. Soon it would be time for the bread-and-cheese lunch that the Austens always took at eleven o’clock, and I didn’t want all the boys to see my blotchy face and red eyes. I went to the window and opened it, leaning out to cool my cheeks before turning back to Jane.

‘I never want to see you again,’ I said as steadily as I could.

Jane made a face. She stirred the ink with her quill, but did not write. I could see that she didn’t think much of this, but I couldn’t think of anything better to say so I bit my lip and tried not to think about Thomas and how splendid he had looked at the ball.

‘What about this?!’ exclaimed Jane. She opened her writing desk, took out her notebook, turned over the pages and then gave a satisfied nod.

‘This will do,’ she said. ‘It is from
Jack and Alice.
’

She read it aloud as her quill scratched out the letters on the page.

‘
 “Sir, I may perhaps be expected to appear pleased at and grateful for the attention that you have paid me, but let me tell you, sir, that I consider it an affront.
” … What do you think of that, Jenny?’

I didn’t reply; I couldn’t. I was trying too hard not to sob aloud.

‘I’ll put in “
considering your vile and deceitful
behaviour”,
’ said Jane, writing rapidly. She needed to mend her pen; I could hear the point spluttering as it moved across the page, but once Jane was composing she never allowed anything to slow her down.

I nodded, but I didn’t really care what she said. Thomas had hurt me so badly by telling my terrible secret that I could never forgive him. Even if he really did love me — and now I doubted that he ever had — and even if I could have brought myself to forgive him, my brother would never have allowed me to marry a man who had walked with me in the streets of Southampton at midnight. I was ruined for life. If he had told my secret to Augusta and Edward-John, he would tell it to everyone.

‘
 “I look upon myself, sir, to be a perfect beauty — where would you see, sir, a finer figure or a more charming face?” 
’

I stopped her. ‘That’s silly. Just say that after his behaviour I never want to see him again …’

‘Don’t cry,’ said Jane sympathetically. ‘Don’t worry about the letter. I’ll just finish it off and sign it “Jenny”, and then I’ll give it to Frank and he’ll ride to the post with it straight away. I won’t read out any more. You can rely on me to make a good letter out of it. You just read a book or something.’

‘I’ll go and walk in the fresh air,’ I said, wrapping my cloak around me and then taking down my bonnet. I tried to shut my ears to the words she was
muttering as I was tying my bonnet strings, but I could hear them as I went out of the door: ‘
my accomplishments
 … 
my sweet temper
 … 
your dastardly behaviour
 …’

That was the thing with Jane, I thought as I escaped down the stairs. She was very fond of me; I knew that. I was her best friend, just as she was my best friend, but writing always came first with her. Although very sorry for me, she was really enjoying composing this letter. I wondered whether she would change when she fell in love. I hoped for her sake that she never did. It all hurt too much. It was never worth it.

And then I thought about Thomas and I knew that I couldn’t send him a letter like that. I raced back upstairs and burst into the bedroom.

‘Jane,’ I said, ‘I am very, very grateful to you, but I just think that I’d better write the letter myself.’ I could see she looked disappointed so I said that I thought her letter was too good for Thomas and would be best kept for a novel.

And then very quickly I wrote to Thomas and said that after what had happened I would prefer not to see him again and that I hoped that he would respect my wishes. I ended it: ‘Yours, etc., J. Cooper.’

I thought that sounded the right note and then very quickly, before I could change my mind, I ran downstairs and asked Frank if he would take it to the post for me. He told me that it wouldn’t get to
Southampton before Friday as the mail coach had already gone, but I told him it didn’t matter as long as it arrived before the weekend. I could see him looking at my red eyes and tear-stained face, but I was past caring. I had a terrible pain in my heart and I just wanted to get into bed, draw the blankets over my head and moan.

‘Are you all right, Jenny?’ Frank’s young, slightly hoarse voice sounded so concerned that a lump came into my throat and I found it hard to answer him.

The whole Austen family are being so nice to me. Henry allowed me to win some pennies from him in a game of pontoon, Frank offered to lend me his pony whenever I wanted it and, just because I ate so little at breakfast, Cassandra made a special dish of syllabub for me, whipping up the cream and white of eggs and flavouring it with orange juice and lots of sugar. Even that wasn’t enough to make me hungry though, and I shared it between Jane and little Charles when she had gone back to the kitchen.

Friday, 8 April 1791

I don’t think I’ll ever write in this journal again.

Saturday, 9 April 1791

The mail coach is due at ten o’clock this morning. I wish I didn’t have to go to meet Augusta and Edward-John, but Mrs Austen is insistent with me. She says that Cassandra and Charles must go too, as well as Jane, of course. Mr Austen and Henry have taken an earlier coach to visit James at Oxford; Frank has gone over to join a shooting party at the Portals’ place.

‘We’ll show them that you have a family here, and that family values you,’ she says to me, pinching my cheeks to give me some colour. Then she sends me upstairs to change my calico gown for my best blue muslin. ‘Go up with her to do her hair, Cassandra,’ she says. ‘Do it the way she had it at the ball, just pinned on top of her head with a few stray curls around her neck. I thought she looked very grown-up with that hairstyle. Boarding school indeed … we’ll see about that!’

I feel my feet dragging as we set out and for once Mrs Austen isn’t shooing everyone along to hurry them up. ‘Ten o’clock,’ she says with a glance at her timepiece as we pass through the village. ‘We’re going to be quite late.’

‘Oh dear,’ says Cassandra in a worried way, but Mrs Austen just smirks.

‘They invited themselves; let them wait on our
convenience.’ She sounds quite pleased with herself.

When we reach Deane Gate Inn though, there is no sign of the coach, no bustling around, no changing horses, no piles of luggage on the ground – just the innkeeper’s wife peering anxiously down the road.

‘Oh, Mrs Austen, ma’am, I’m that worried; I don’t know what to do,’ she says. She looks at Mrs Austen. Everyone in the neighbourhood relies on Mrs Austen to tell them what to do, so now the innkeeper’s wife comes back to the gate and joins us. ‘The coach is overdue, ma’am. I’m feared that there might have been an accident. Do you think that I should send the man out to look for them? The trouble is that my husband isn’t back from Basingstoke.’

‘We’ll walk down the road to see whether it is coming.’ As always, Mrs Austen makes up her mind immediately. ‘They can give us a lift back if we meet them.’ She’s in a good mood, relishing the prospect of the battle ahead, but I’m worried. I know what Augusta is like. I always have a feeling that she hates me. I know that she resents that my mother left me fifty pounds in order to give me a dowry when I marry or when I reach the age of twenty-one – whichever happens first.

Mrs Austen glances at me a few times but says nothing. Cassandra is silent because Tom Fowle has gone home for the weekend, Charles is looking into the little stream that runs along the side of the road to see if there are any sticklebacks in it, and Jane, I reckon, judging by her glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes, is making
up a story where Augusta would be defeated by some splendidly funny device – last night she was suggesting things like steel traps set all around Steventon!

So we are silent when we come around the corner. There are poplar trees belonging to the Ashe family’s woodlands on either side of the road, making it almost a tunnel of green, but the sun shines down through the tunnel and we can see plainly the scene ahead of us.

The coach is there in front of us. It has not overturned or anything like that. The four horses are still harnessed to it. However, the doors are widely ajar and the six passengers, including Edward-John and Augusta, are out on the road. Their luggage has been taken off the coach. One masked highwayman is ransacking the bags and trunks, while the other keeps two pistols aimed at the huddled group, the coachman and guard included.

The highwaymen haven’t seen us. The early-morning sun will be shining directly in their eyes if they look at us, but their whole attention is on their prisoners. Mrs Austen puts a finger to her lips and edges over to touch Charles on the shoulder. She makes urgent beckoning signs, and we all step cautiously across the ditch and into the woodland. None of us makes a sound, and in another moment we might creep away through the trees and make our way back.

But then everything changes.

Further up the road, on the left-hand side, there is a large juniper bush. As I give one glance backwards
it seems to move. I stop. Jane bumps into me and she stops also. Mrs Austen looks around impatiently.