Jane Austen (12 page)

A possible explanation for the sequence of events which led to the meeting between Jane and the Revd Samuel Blackall in South Devonshire in the summer of 1802, after an interval of three and a half years, is now given. Blackall, probably through Mrs Lefroy, learned that the Austens were holidaying in South Devon. He had already stated in 1798 that it would give him ‘particular pleasure to have the opportunity of improving my acquaintance with that family – with a hope of creating to myself a nearer interest’. Now that the opportunity had presented itself, he would go to stay with his brother Dr John Blackall at Totnes, and hope to meet the Austens during the course of his stay.

As for the Austens, it is quite possible that they were aware that Samuel had a brother in Totnes; that this brother Dr John Blackall was a man of considerable reputation, ‘famed for his skill in diagnosis’,
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and that his particular speciality was in the treatment of dropsy (oedema). Here it should also be noted that Jane, in a letter to her sister Cassandra dated 18 December 1798, includes ‘dropsy’ [oedema] and ‘water in her chest’ as two of her mother’s principal complaints. So what could be more natural than for Mrs Cassandra Austen to seek Dr John Blackall out in order to consult him?

The above accounts by Caroline Austen and Louisa Bellas give rise to further questions. Both believed that soon after his meeting with Jane, her lover (the Revd Samuel Blackall) died. And yet, it is a fact that Blackall lived on to the year 1842, when he died at the age of 72. How can this be explained?

Close examination of Caroline Austen’s and Louisa Bellas’ statements, as given above, reveals that in both cases their information was based, directly or indirectly, upon information supplied to them by Jane’s sister Cassandra in the latter’s declining years. Bearing in mind that Cassandra took it upon herself to destroy many of Jane’s letters after her death, had
she deliberately put out false information about the fate of the gentleman whose name she admitted was Blackall? If so, what was her motive for doing so? Was it because she wished to save the Revd Samuel Blackall – who had married long since – from any embarrassment? If so, then this was quite understandable. Or was there another explanation – one which had more to do with Cassandra’s own reputation? This will be discussed shortly.

Another question arises from the account of Catherine Hubback, who relates Cassandra’s excursion to the Wye in the company of four other members of the Austen family, with the purpose of meeting up with Jane’s mystery lover’s brother, the doctor. The Wye presumably means the River Wye, of which there are three. One passes through the counties of Cardiganshire, Montgomeryshire, Radnorshire, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and Monmouthshire; one through Buckinghamshire, and one through Derbyshire. Whichever River Wye it was, it does not correlate with the fact that Dr John Blackall lived out his life in Devonshire, practised in Exeter and finally died in that city in January 1860. Or could it be that Samuel had another brother, apart from John, who was also a doctor? The previously mentioned Blackall family tree indicates that this was not the case. Therefore, the identity of the gentleman from the Wye remains a mystery.

Assuming that Jane and Samuel were reunited in the summer of 1802, why did their relationship not prosper? Perhaps this was for the same reason that it had failed to prosper when the couple had first met in 1798; mainly that Samuel simply could not afford to support a wife. Or was there another reason; one which related to Jane’s sister Cassandra? Again, this will be discussed shortly.

On 25 March 1802 the Treaty of Amiens brought the war with France to a close. It was probably after this that Henry Austen resigned his commission and moved to London, to Upper Berkeley Street with his family. Here, he set up as a banker with offices in Cleveland Court, St James.

December 1802 found Jane staying with the Bigg-Withers family at Manydown Park, Wootton St Lawrence, Hampshire. When the wealthy young Harris Bigg-Wither (who was six years Jane’s junior and whose sisters were Jane and Cassandra’s childhood friends) made Jane a proposal of marriage, she accepted. However, by the following morning she had had second thoughts and decided to retract, whereupon both she and Cassandra immediately returned to Bath. Catherine Hubback said, ‘It was in a momentary fit of self-delusions that she [Aunt Jane] accepted Mr Withers’ proposal …’
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From a letter which Jane wrote subsequently to Cassandra, it is known that she was in Lyme Regis on the Dorsetshire coast (referred to by Jane simply as ‘Lyme’; it received its Royal Charter in 1284) on 5 November 1803, when she witnessed a large fire which had broken out in the town.
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Lyme Regis is famous for its stone-built cobb which juts out into Lyme Bay to form an artificial harbour. The town became popular with visitors from about 1775 onwards, when coaches ran directly between that town and the city of Bath. Lyme Regis’s Assembly Rooms were built in about 1775, near to which bathing machines (mobile changing rooms) were available. Sea-bathing became even more popular when King George III visited Weymouth, another of Dorset’s seaside towns; the first occasion being in 1789. In Jane Austen’s time, Lyme Regis boasted several hotels; the most fashionable being
the ‘Three Cups’.
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Jane was extremely fond of Lyme Regis, and one day it would feature in one of her novels.

Following the resumption of the war between Britain and France on 18 May 1803 after a brief truce, Francis was ordered to command the ‘Sea Fencibles’ – a volunteer force whose duty it was to prevent an enemy landing on the coast of southern England. To this end, he took up residence in Ramsgate, Kent, where Jane duly visited him that autumn. The war would continue for another twelve years.

September 1804 found the Austens once again at Lyme Regis in company with Jane’s brother Henry and his wife Eliza, staying at Pyne House, Broad Street. From here, Henry and Cassandra subsequently went to Weymouth, while Jane and her parents remained in Lyme Regis at a small boarding house in the town. For Jane, the sea always had a strong, romantic attachment and she may have been thinking of Lyme Regis when, in
Sanditon
, her character Sir Edward Denham describes ‘the terrific grandeur of the ocean in a storm, its glassy surface in a calm, its gulls and its samphire …’

And yet Jane was aware of its dangers, for Denham goes on to say:

By the time the Austens returned to Bath that autumn, the lease had expired on Sydney Place; they therefore relocated to Green Park Buildings.

During her time in Bath, Jane’s writing of novels came to a virtual standstill, possibly because the fullness of her social life left her precious little time for this pastime, and also because she had been uprooted from her beloved Steventon to a place in which she did not feel entirely happy. However, according to Fanny Lefroy, her brother James’s granddaughter, one novel which Jane did commence in Bath, ‘somewhere in 1804’, was
The Watsons
.
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The work was left unfinished, possibly because of the death of her father on 21 January 1805. (In fact,
The Watsons
was not published until 1871 by James E. Austen-Leigh, who included it in his
A Memoir of Jane Austen
).

The Watsons are described as a poor family who live in Surrey and have ‘no close [enclosed] carriage’. Emma Watson has recently returned to the family having been brought up by an aunt. She has a brother Robert of Croydon, whose wife Jane she despises for her narrow-mindedness.

Emma’s elder sister Elizabeth describes herself as having been ill-used. She had been attached to a man by the name of Purvis, however, another of her sisters, Penelope, whom she had trusted had ‘set him against me, with a view of gaining him herself’. Such treachery, says Elizabeth, ‘has been the ruin of my happiness. I shall never love any man as I loved Purvis’.

‘Could a sister do such a thing?’ asks the incredulous Emma.

‘[D]o not trust her,’ says Elizabeth, ‘she has her good qualities,
but she has no faith, no honour, no scruples, if she can promote her own advantage’.

A ball is to be held at the White Hart Inn by the Edwards who are ‘people of fortune’ and who live in the ‘best house in the street’. Emma is to attend, but before she does so, her more experienced sister Elizabeth cautions her against a certain Tom Musgrave who, although he has ‘about eight or nine hundred pounds a year’, is ‘a great flirt and never means anything serious’. Nonetheless, Elizabeth stresses how important it is that she and her sisters marry as their father cannot provide for them, ‘and it is very bad to grow old and be poor and laughed at’. Penelope, says Elizabeth, is currently attempting ‘to make some match at Chichester [with] rich old Dr Harding’. Another sister, Margaret, described as ‘all gentleness and mildness … if a little fretful and perverse’, believes erroneously that Tom Musgrave is seriously in love with her. As for Emma’s brothers, Robert ‘has got a good wife and six thousand pounds’, whereas Sam is ‘only a surgeon’.

The ball is attended by a Captain Hunter (whose brother officer asks Emma to dance); Lady Osborne of Osborne Castle and her son Lord Osborne and daughter Miss Osborne; Mr Howard, ‘formerly tutor to Lord Osborne, now clergyman of the parish in which the castle stood’. Howard is described as ‘an agreable-looking [
sic
] man, a little more than thirty’. In contrast, Lord Osborne is ‘not fond of women’s company’ and does not dance.

After the ball, when Emma is expecting her father’s ‘chair’ (conveyance) to take her home, Tom Musgrave appears bearing a note from her sister Elizabeth. This is to say that it is impossible for Emma to return home until the following morning because her father has decided to go out in the conveyance himself in order to attend a ‘visitation’ (a visit to the parish by an ecclesiastical superior).

When Tom offers to take her home instead, Emma declines his offer. This is because she finds him to be ‘very vain, very conceited, absurdly anxious for distinction, and absolutely contemptible in some of the measures he takes for becoming so’. The Revd Howard’s manners, on the other hand, are ‘of a kind to give me much more ease and confidence’. Emma therefore avails herself of her hostess Mrs Edwards’ invitation to stay overnight.

When Emma does finally return home, she hears her father describing the visitation which he had attended where Howard, who was the preacher, had ‘given an excellent sermon’. Mr Watson was also impressed by the way Howard had helped him up a steep flight of steps when he was suffering with his, ‘gouty foot’.

When Lord Osborne and Tom Musgrave pay the Watsons an unexpected visit, Emma finds the occasion embarrassing, bearing in mind the ‘very humble style’ in which she and her family were obliged to live, in contrast to ‘the elegancies of life’ which she had previously enjoyed with her aunt.

Jane Austen’s unfinished novel
The Watsons
is a story with many themes: Emma’s ability to differentiate between the superior qualities of Mr Howard, as compared with Lord Osborne and Tom Musgrave; plus her ability to recognise the materialistic nature of her brother Robert, who was more intent on:

Emma was also painfully aware of the condescending attitude of Robert’s wife. Were there allusions here to Jane’s eldest brother James and his wife Mary, who seemed anxious to lay their hands on as many of the Austen possessions as possible, at the time of the family’s removal from Steventon to Bath? However, she delighted in the companionship of her father who, ‘being a man of sense and education, was if able, to converse, a welcome companion’, and who even though he was ill made few demands other than to receive ‘gentleness and silence’.

The most significant theme in
The Watsons
is that of the rivalry between sisters Elizabeth and Penelope, as they vie with one another for a partner. In no other work by Jane is her language so blunt, so outspoken, so censorious, so bitter, as when she describes the treacherousness displayed by Penelope to Elizabeth over Elizabeth’s lover Purvis. Why should this be so? Why had Jane, on this unique occasion, abandoned her normally moderate tone and launched into a full-scale attack on Penelope? Did this reaction by Jane stem from some bitter hurt which she herself had sustained? If so, was it at the hands of her own sister Cassandra? When writing of Penelope, was it really Cassandra whom Jane had in mind?

This theory might appear fanciful, were it not for the following poem, written by Jane and discovered by Lord Brabourne, ‘enclosed in one of the [i.e. Jane’s] Letters of 1807’ (the poem was probably written in that year, but may have been written earlier):

From its title there is no doubt that the sentiments expressed are addressed by Jane to her sister. There is also no doubt that it is the last line which is the most significant. But who were these bitter foes? Or was Jane speaking in general terms about human attachments? But if so, why choose such a painful subject to dwell upon? Or could it be that Jane and Cassandra, as a result of a love affair, had themselves become ‘bitter foes’? Is it possible, therefore, that in both her novel
The Watsons
, and in her poem ‘Miss Austen’, Jane was expressing her disapproval, as strongly as she knew how, of the fact that her sister Cassandra had attempted to steal her gentleman friend?

Nonetheless, in the latter part of the poem a reconciliation is proposed:

Did reconciliation subsequently occur between Jane and Cassandra, and was this a factor in Jane being able to regain her composure to the extent that she was eventually able to resume her novel writing?

If the sisters did fall out over a lover, who might this lover have been?

Lefroy is an unlikely candidate, the reason for his break-up from Jane being that he was recalled to Ireland by his family. Also, at the time of Tom and Jane’s association in late 1795, Cassandra was engaged to the Revd Thomas Fowle.

Bigg-Wither is alleged to have proposed marriage to Jane in December 1802. However, something of a smokescreen has been cast over this event. Between May 1801 and January 1805, no letters of Jane’s survive (with the exception of one she wrote to Cassandra in September 1804). This is either because during this ‘missing letter’ phase, no letters were written, which seems unlikely, or because Cassandra deliberately destroyed them after Jane’s death. Also, Caroline Austen told her brother James E. Austen-Leigh: ‘My own wish would be, that not any allusion should be made to the Manydown story [i.e. of Harris’s alleged proposal.]’
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The Bigg-Wither episode occurred during the ‘missing letter’ phase, and therefore Harris cannot entirely be ruled out as object of Jane and Cassandra’s supposed rivalry – even if no blame attaches to him for it. (Harris, like Purvis in
The
Watsons
, was married soon after his break-up with Jane, in November 1804, to Anne Frith). Catherine Hubback made light of the event: ‘I think the affair vexed her [Jane] a good deal, but I am sure she had no attachment for him [Bigg-Wither]’.
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Jane and Blackall met for the first time in the summer or early autumn of 1798. Evidence has been put forward that he reappeared briefly on the scene in the summer of 1802 when, during a visit to his brother John in Totnes, Devonshire, he was reunited with the Austens who were on holiday in the vicinity. By this time, Cassandra’s fiancé the Revd Thomas Fowle, had died (February 1797) and once again, the year 1802 falls within the ‘missing letter’ period.

Was Jane wronged by Cassandra, and did the latter, like Penelope in
The Watsons
, attempt, in Elizabeth’s words, ‘to set him [in this case the Revd Blackall] against me, with a view to gaining him herself’? And if so, did this prompt Jane to express her feelings of outrage towards her sister in her subsequent letters, and was this the real reason why Cassandra deliberately destroyed so many of them?

Likewise, was this falling out between the two sisters the real reason that Jane failed to complete
The Watsons
, which had the prospect of being equally as meritorious as any novel that she had written before, and would write subsequently? Also, why was publication of
The Watsons
delayed until fifty-four years after Jane’s death (and twenty-six years after the death of Cassandra)? Could the reason have been that if Jane’s explosive words about Penelope’s treachery towards Elizabeth had become known to Cassandra, which would inevitably have been the case, then this would have opened up a final, deep and unbridgeable rift between the two of them?

What other clues does Jane’s novel
The Watsons
provide? When Elizabeth declares that ‘very few people marry their first loves’, this is reminiscent of the failed relationship between Jane and Tom Lefroy. However, when Elizabeth states that Purvis went on, soon after, to marry somebody else, this does
not accord with what is known about either Tom Lefroy or Samuel Blackall. It is, therefore, unwise to attempt to extrapolate too rigorously the relationship between real people and the fictional characters of the novels. Nevertheless, the theme of love and treachery between sisters is a powerful one, and not easily dismissed.