Jane Austen (27 page)

The piano at Steventon had been hers, and the instrument bought for thirty guineas that stood in the left-hand parlor at Chawton was hers also. On this, she used to practice every day before breakfast, because, as her nephew thought, she disturbed the household least at that hour. The children thought her singing voice very sweet;

Caroline remembered standing by her at the piano while she played and sang. The greater part of the airs and pieces she played were from manuscript copies she had made herself.

It was the opinion of her descendants that she had no sooner settled down after the move to Chawton--and such

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upheavals were very disturbing to the workings of her mind --than she began to write once more; and her writing took the form of a reconsideration of
Sense and Sensibility
.
Northanger Abbey
was lost to her,
Pride and Prejudice
had not yet been tried in the refiner's fire, but
Sense and Sensibility
, which in its original state had been nearer to what she deemed the standard of publication than the previously composed
First Impressions
, was the natural choice. Eleven years had passed since the completion of the story, and those eleven years-

-her life since the age of twenty-three--comprised everything that could be accounted her development as a human being and as an

artist. What she had learned from this apparently eventless existence is shown by the amazing rapidity with which she composed those three later novels, whose worlds of experience are so solid in their detachment, so infinite in the associations they bring about in the reader's mind with depths upon depths of human nature, that one would imagine they had been the slow growth of half a lifetime, instead of, as they are, that of little more than a twelvemonth each.

Another writer might have altogether outgrown the work of eleven such years ago; but it was characteristic of Jane Austen's singular integrity of mind that she seems never to have put down anything of which she could afterwards be ashamed.
Sense and Sensibility
is certainly the least regarded of her works, and she applied to it hardly any of those expressions of interest and personal love which, in the strict privacy of her family circle, she made use of in connection with every other novel; but she thought, with ample justice, that it contained material, which made over, was worthy to represent her in her mature appearance before the world.

Henry, naturally, was the man to come forward with assistance at this point. He and Eliza had moved to a house in

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Sloane Street, next door to Mr. and Mrs. Tilson; and Henry not only put his experience and encouragement at his sister's service, but his hospitality, while she wished to be in touch with the printers, correcting the proofs.

The publisher who undertook the work was Mr. Thomas Egerton,

but he would not do it at his own risk. Jane Austen did not hand over a sum of money to him to defray the expenses of publication, but she undertook to reimburse him in case of loss, and set aside a sum for the purpose.

She arrived in Sloane Street in the middle of April, and plunged immediately into the round of sightseeing and diversion that a visit to Henry and Eliza invariably spelled. One of the first expeditions she made was to a couple of art exhibitions, one at the Liverpool Museum and the other at the British Gallery. She said: "I had some entertainment at each, though my preference for men and women

always inclines me to attend more to the company than to the

sights." She had the usual shopping commissions to fulfill; at the great draper's, Grafton House, the crowd was so thick she had to wait half an hour at one counter before getting attention; but when she had secured it, she bought some bugle trimming and some silk

stockings very satisfactorily.

Jane was accompanied to Grafton House by one of Eliza's servants, because Eliza meanwhile was out on her own account ordering in things for a grand evening party. Eighty people had been invited for the next Thursday evening. The next day, however, they planned, if it were fine, "to walk into London" together. Jane said: "She is in want of chimney lights for Tuesday: and I of an ounce of darning cotton."

She was much taken up with the idea of going to the theatre. Mrs.

Siddons had returned to the stage in 1809, and though her

astonishing beauty was no more, and the lovely,

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fragile, large-eyed creature had become an unwieldy bulk, so that when Isabella knelt to Angelo attendants had to help her to her feet, her power had no whit diminished, rather it had increased. It is impossible to say with any authority what her effect would be on an audience today; one can only recall, by fits and starts, the almost petrifying influence of her acting upon audiences who saw it. A playgoer who went to see her in
Hermione
has recorded the impression made upon him by the difference between the silence of an ordinarily well-bred audience, full of small rustlings and sounds, and the deathly hush that settled over the theatre as Mrs. Siddons opened her mouth.

The party from Sloane Street meant to go to Drury Lane on the night of Thursday, April 18th, to see Mrs. Siddons as Constance in King John. Constance was a role in which she had made her name some years before; the young Miss Kelly who was her Arthur said that when Mrs. Siddons wept over her, her collar was always wet with Mrs. Siddons' tears; and Mrs. Siddons herself said that it was her practice to leave her dressing-room door open throughout the play, because she wanted to hear, as she said, "going on upon the stage . . .

those distressing events . . . the terrible effects of which . . . were to be represented by me." Jane in particular was most eager to see this celebrated performance, but when they got to the box office they found that King John was to be replaced that evening by
Hamlet
, in which Mrs. Siddons did not appear. They therefore drove to No. 10

Henrietta Street, to ask Henry what should be done. Henry said they had better put off the theatre altogether until Monday, and then see Mrs. Siddons as Lady Macbeth. But Mrs. Siddons was in an

uncertain state of health or spirits. When Henry went to secure seats on Monday, the box-office keeper told him that she was not going to appear that evening either;

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Henry walked away, much discomfited at the thought of

disappointing his family, and his feelings were not relieved when they all heard, a little later, that Mrs. Siddons was to appear that night after all, but that to get tickets now was, of course, out of the question. Jane told Cassandra she could have sworn quite easily.

On Tuesday night all was forgotten in the party, which was a

resplendent success. The first floor of the Sloane Street house was composed of a rectangular drawing room, an octagonal back drawing room, and a passage between the two, so broad that it was almost like an ante-room. At half-past seven, the musicians arrived in two hackney coaches. At eight the company proper began to arrive, and the rooms filled so rapidly and became so hot that Jane was glad to seek the comparative coolness of the broad passage, where, besides being more comfortable, she had a very good view of everybody

who passed out and in. She was "surrounded by gentlemen" most of the evening. One of them, Captain Simpson, told her "On the authority of some other Captain, just arrived from Halifax, that Charles was bringing the
Cleopatra
home, and that she was probably by this time in the Channel." But Jane said the news could not be altogether depended on, because Captain Simpson was obviously

something the worse for drink; however, there was enough in it to make her feel it was not worth while to write to Charles again until they heard something definite.

The last guests had not left till after midnight, and the party was commented on in the
Morning Post
two days afterwards.

Cassandra inquired how the proof-correcting of
Sense and Sensibility
was going on; she thought perhaps in the middle of these distractions Jane might scarcely have leisure to think about it; but Jane said: "No, indeed, I am never too

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busy to think of S. and S. I can no more forget it than a mother can forget her sucking child; and I am much obliged to you for your enquiries." The sheets she had received so far carried the story to Willoughby's appearance. She had received some suggestion, albeit rather late in the day, that the incomes mentioned in the opening of the story were not exactly in accordance with probability, but the second chapter, in which Mrs. Dashwood's financial position is discussed, was already in type. She said to Cassandra: "The Incomes remain as they were, but I will get them altered if I can."

Mrs. Knight had said how much she was looking forward to the

book's appearance, and Jane, though much gratified by her interest, could not feel altogether sure that the old lady would be pleased with it when she read it. She said: "I think she will like my Elinor, but cannot build on anything else."

The letters from Sloane Street were sent to Cassandra at

Godmersham. In Cassandra's absence Anna had been staying at

Chawton with Mrs. Austen and Martha and both the latter were very much pleased with her. Jane said of her: "She is quite an Anna with variations--but she cannot have reached her last, for that is always the most flourishing and shewy--she is at about her third or fourth which are generally simple and pretty."

When Jane returned to Chawton in May, Cassandra was still at

Godmersham, and she had much to tell her about Anna's various

amusements. There was a party on Selborne Common with

"Volunteers and felicities of all kinds" and another one, an evening party, with "syllabub, tea, coffee, singing, dancing, a hot supper, eleven o'clock, everything that can be imagined agreeable." Anna sent her best love to her cousin Fanny and promised to write her an account of

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the day on Selborne Common before she left Chawton.

The flowers in the rambling garden were doing well. Cassandra's mignonette, said Jane, made a wretched appearance; but "our young peony at the foot of the fir tree has just blown and looks very handsome; and the whole of the shrubbery border will soon be gay with pinks and sweetwilliams, in addition to the columbine already in bloom. The syringas, too, are coming out." The Orleans plums were likely to do well, but not the mulberries. The peas, however, would soon be ready. "You cannot imagine," she wrote, on May 31st, "it is not in human nature to imagine what a nice walk we have round the orchard. The row of beech look very well indeed, and so does the young quickset hedge in the garden. I hear today that an apricot has been detected on one of the trees."

The pleasantness of the month had been spoiled by frequent

thunderstorms. She hated them. When they visited the Digweeds,

"we sat upstairs and had thunder and lightning as usual. I never knew such. a spring for thunder storms as it has been. Thank Godl we have had no bad ones here. I thought myself in luck to have my

uncomfortable feelings shared by the mistress of the mansion, as that procured blinds and candles." "We have had a thunder storm again this morning. Your letter came to comfort me for it."

In June the fruit was ripening. "Yesterday I had the agreeable surprise of finding several scarlet strawberries quite ripe. . . . There are more gooseberries and fewer currants than I thought at first--we must buy currants for our wine." Martha was in town and had chosen a breakfast set at Wedgwood's for Mrs. Austen. Jane said: "I hope it will come by wagon tomorrow. I long to know what it is like."

The death of King George III was thought to be imminent this

month, and people were buying mourning to be

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in readiness for it. Anna was back at Steventon, but she meant to go over to Alton to buy mourning, and, accompanied by her friend, Harriet, she called in at Chawton to ask her Aunt Jane to go with them. The latter put aside her letter to do so; when she returned she wrote in it: "I am not sorry to be back again, for the young ladies had a great deal to do--and without much method in doing it."

July brought Cassandra home; summer passed into autumn and in

October,
Sense and Sensibility
was published. It was announced in a list, containing Maria Edgeworth's
Tales of Fashionable Life,
and

Traits of Nature
, by the halfsister of Fanny Burney. The only item on the list which is now of any value had the least pretentious title and was published anonymously. "
Sense and Sensibility
, by a Lady": it was in three volumes and offered for sale at fifteen shillings.

Maria Edgeworth not only earned a great contemporary reputation for herself;
Castle Rackrent
, the only one of her works which has perfectly withstood the test of time, had the honor of inspiring a Russian novelist. Turgenev said that he might never have written of the Russian peasants as he did, had he not first seen what Maria Edgeworth had done for their Irish counterparts. Yet it is one of the curiosities of literature that Henry Austen should have said, after his sister's death, that
some
had thought her works not unworthy to stand on the same shelf with a D'Arblay or an Edgeworth.

Nonetheless, Jane Austen never, after her work was published,

suffered the sensation of failure, or of not receiving what she felt was her due of public estimation. On the contrary, she was delighted by the admiration she called forth, and she took a most healthy delight in the fortunes of her work; but she had no intention

whatever that her own neighborhood should know her to be an

authoress. At the end of September, a month before
Sense and
Sensibility

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made its appearance, Cassandra wrote to Fanny at Godmersham, and Fanny recorded in her diary of September 28th: "Letter from Aunt Cass. to beg we would not mention that Aunt Jane wrote
Sense and
Sensibility
." And so well was the secret kept that even Anna knew nothing of it. Anna one day accompanied her Aunt Jane to Alton, and they turned into the circulating library, on whose counter, among other novels, was
Sense and Sensibility
. Anna, her aunt standing beside her, picked up the first volume, looked at it, and threw it scornfully down upon the counter again. That one, she said, must be rubbish. She could tell it from the title.