Jane Austen (31 page)

memories of childhood and youth. Eliza had been ill for a long while, and in this month she died. That vivid, anxious existence, connected as it was with great scenes and persons of the past, could not cease without reminding Jane of her early years at Steventon, when, as a child of fourteen, she had dedicated
Love and Friendship
to Madame la Comtesse de Feuillide. It was strangely suited to Eliza's character that she should be mourned for in anguish, but not long. Jane, in writing to Frank on board H.M.S.
Elephant
in the Baltic, telling him how their brother was, could say, three months after Eliza's death: "Upon the whole, his spirits are very much recovered.--If I may so express myself, his mind is not a mind for affliction. He is too busy, too active, too sanguine." Then, too, she said that the blow had been made easier to bear by the fact of Eliza's being ill so long. "He very long knew that she must die, and it was indeed a release at last."

In May, Jane went to stay with him in Sloane Street. Henry took her to town in his carriage, and the journey, in perfect weather, was delightful. The Chawton family had provided for their refreshment on the way; they ate three of the buns that had been put up, and when they arrived at Sloane Street, Mr. and Mrs. Tilson drank tea with them and were offered the remaining three.

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Now, when Henry was out, Jane had the house to herself, except for two French servants, Madame Bigeon and her daughter, Madame

Perigord. She said: "I am very snug with the front drawing room all to myself, and would not say thank you for any companion but you.

The quietness of it does me good."

But Henry was proposing now to leave Sloane Street and live over the bank at 10 Henrietta Street; preparations were being made

already to fit up the upper floors for him. Jane went down there the following day, and told Cassandra: "I . . . walked into No. 10, which is all dirt and confusion, but in a very promising way"; she was present "at the opening of a new account, to my great amusement."

After that she and Henry went to an exhibition of water colors in Spring Gardens. Jane amused herself by seeing if any of the portraits would do for Jane or Elizabeth Bennet. She said: "I was very well pleased--particularly (pray tell Fanny) with a small portrait of Mrs.

Bingley, excessively like her. I went in hopes of seeing one of her sister, but there was no Mrs. Darcy;--perhaps however I may find her in the Great Exhibition which we shall go to if we have time.""Mrs.

Bingley's," she said, "is exactly herself, size, shaped face, features and sweetness; there never was a greater likeness. She is dressed in a white gown with green ornaments, which convinces me of what I

had always supposed, that green was a favorite color with her. I daresay Mrs. D. will be in yellow."

But Jane went through the whole of the Great Exhibition, and an exhibition of Sir Joshua Reynolds', without finding a resemblance of Elizabeth in either; she said: "I can only imagine that Mr. D. prizes any picture of her too much, to like it should be exposed to the public eye.--I can imagine he would have that sort of feeling--that mixture

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of love, pride and delicacy." The more she would consent to go on with the characters in
Pride and Prejudice
, the more she was begged to do it. Fanny wanted a letter, as from Miss Georgiana Darcy; but her aunt said: "I am much obliged to Fanny for her letter;--it made me laugh heartily; but I cannot pretend to answer it. Even had I more time, I should not feel at all sure of the sort of letter that Miss D.

would write."

Jane said that Henry would not be settled in Henrietta Street till the autumn, she thought. In the meantime, as he was occupied in the bank for most of the day, she drove about alone in the carriage. The weather was warm and an open carriage delightful. Much as she

found pleasure and satisfaction in her own work, it seems never to have occurred to her that the author of
Pride and Prejudice
could advance any claims to consideration on behalf of Miss Jane Austen.

She said of her thus driving about. "I liked my solitary elegance very much, and was ready to laugh all the time at my being where I was.--

I could not but feel that I had naturally small right to be parading about London in a barouche."

In July, Edward Knight brought his family to the Great House again.

Fanny was now eighteen, and her intimacy with her Aunt Jane grew with the growth of what she had to tell. When she fell in love, her Aunt Jane had to hear all about it; for Fanny was of a serious and practical cast of mind, and on so important a topic she liked to test the reliability and degree of her emotions by laying them before the person whose judgment she admired so much, and with whom the

most intimate confidence was easy. Anna was very different; Anna's love affairs were impulsive and could be managed by nobody but herself. When her brother Edward had gone back to Winchester after the holidays, she found herself so dull that she got herself engaged to Mr. Michael

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Terry. The match did not please James and Mary; they did not

approve of the young man, and it was very awkward and

disagreeable to a father incapable of taking things lightly, and a stepmother so prone to worry and distress herself, that Anna

persisted in being engaged in spite of them. But worse followed.

Anna discovered for herself that Mr. Terry would not do, and threw him over. Her action in doing so showed an unsteadiness that was even worse than her flying in her father's face and forming the engagement in the first place. Anna also was very intimate with her Aunt Jane, but, volatile as she was, she instinctively forbore to talk to her about this sort of affair. Fanny's artless, forthright mind did not engage in anything she could not lay before her aunt with a request for advice or encouragement. The summer at Chawton meant that she could see the latter every day, and in her diary she

frequently recorded their meetings. "Aunt Jane and I had a very interesting conversation"; "Aunt Jane and I had a delicious morning together." "Spent the evening with Aunt Jane"; and, one August day:

"Had leeches on for a headache. Aunt Jane came and sat with me."

Edward as well as his daughter was very happy in the visit; in writing to Frank, Jane said: "Edward is very well and enjoys himself as thoroughly as any Hampshire-born Austen can desire." Henry, too, was so much recovered that he had planned to make a tour in Scotland, and take his nephew, young Edward Knight, with him. The enterprise was a great success. Jane Austen's passion for scenery enabled her to take a vicarious delight in the views seen through her brother's eyes. "I wish," she said regretfully, "that he had had more time and could have gone farther north, and deviated to the Lakes in his way back." But what Henry had seen had given him very great pleasure, much of which he

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communicated to his sister. "He met," she said, "with scenes of higher beauty in Roxburghshire than I had supposed the south of Scotland possessed." On young Edward, however, these beauties of landscape had been, comparatively speaking, thrown away. He had enjoyed the tour because it was very agreeable to travel with Uncle Henry, but he really cared for the country only as he could hunt or shoot in it. But he was a dear boy, who behaved very well to his father, and was extremely kind to his young brothers and sisters, and his Aunt Jane said: "We must forgive his thinking more of grouse and partridges than lakes and mountains."

Besides news of the family, she had something to tell Frank of a mutual acquaintance, an old admirer of her own. The Mr. Blackall, who had once told Mrs. Lefroy that if it had been possible he would have liked to improve his acquaintance with the Austen family

because of Miss Jane Austen, had married at last, a lady called Miss Lewis. Jane remembered him as "a piece of perfection, noisy perfection"; she had always rather liked him; from what she recalled of him, she drew a thumbnail sketch of what Miss Lewis should be like to suit him. She could wish her, she said, "to be of a silent turn and rather ignorant, but naturally intelligent and willing to learn;--

fond of cold veal pies, green tea in the afternoon and a green window blind at night."

She concluded with the news that many people might have put first.

Every copy of S. and S. was sold and had brought her £140. So that with the £110 for which she had sold the copyright of
Pride and
Prejudice
she could say: "I have now therefor written myself in to

£250--which," she added, "only makes me long for more." Then she had a favor to ask. She had "something in hand," which she hoped would sell on the credit of P. and P., "though not half so

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entertaining"; she said, would Frank mind if she mentioned in it the
Elephant
, and two or three other of his old ships? "I have done it,"

she confessed; "but it shall not stay, to make you angry. They are only just mentioned." Frank gave his permission for the names to be used, and so in
Mansfield Park
William Price, having escorted Fanny to their home in Portsmouth, is greeted by his father with the news that Captain Walsh thinks William will certainly have a cruise westward in the Elephant, and that he himself had been on the

platform for two hours, looking at William's ship, where she lay, close to the Endymion, between her and the Cleopatra.

Mansfield Park
had, in some form at least, reached what is now its thirty-eighth chapter. In September, Jane went to Henry again. He was now settled in Henrietta Street. At the same time Edward arrived with Fanny, Marianne and Lizzie, attended by Mrs. Sace; but the Godmersham party put up in an hotel nearby, excepting Fanny, who was to be with her Aunt Jane. They arrived at quarter past four of a September afternoon, and were welcomed by Henry and by Madame

Perigord. Madame Bigeon was below, dishing up, and a little after five they sat down to a dinner of soup, fish, bouillee, partridges and an apple tart. Fanny and her aunt had a room with a dressing room leading out of it, and the large bed that had been Eliza's, and were very spacious and comfortable.

No. 10 had been made very presentable with cleaning and painting, and the Sloane Street furniture; Jane said: "It seems like Sloane Street moved here." There was a large front room which Henry used as a dining and common sitting room, and the back room opening out of it was quite large enough for any drawing room

accommodation he was likely to want. He did not mean to give

parties now.

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Madame Bigeon and Madame Perigord lived near at hand, and came in as often as he wanted them. Madame Bigeon still did all his marketing for him, and with the visitors at No. 10, she was there almost the whole time to do the work.

On the evening of their arrival Henry took the party to
Don Juan
at the Lyceum. They had the stage box, and the little girls were

enraptured, but Jane's delight was "very tranquil." She sat in the back of the box and talked to Henry. The latter had a piece of news and a letter for her to see which were of extreme and delightful interest. He had sent a copy of
Pride and Prejudice
to Warren Hastings, and Warren Hastings from his retreat at Daylesford had written to praise the novel warmly. Jane could not but be charmed by this approval; but she did wish that Henry had respected her desire of having the authorship kept a secret. Henry, however, was not the man to keep secrets, particularly agreeable ones. Frank, on the other hand, was silent as the grave, and Jane wrote to thank him for it: "Henry heard P. and P. warmly praised in Scotland, by Lady Robert Kerr and

another lady; and what does he do in the warmth of his brotherly vanity and love, but immediately tell them who wrote it! A thing once set going in that way--one knows how it spreads!--and he, dear creature, has set it going so much more than once. I know it is all done from affection and partiality,--but at the same time, let me here express to you and Mary my sense of the
superior
kindness which you have shown on the occasion, in doing what I wished."

But it was impossible to be really annoyed with Henry, when his actions proceeded from brotherly feeling and when staying with him in town was always so festive and amusing. London, as ever, meant shopping;--Edward gave Fanny and Jane £5 each. They set out to make the necessary rounds of the great shops, but they managed first to pay a

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call of ten minutes or so in Hans Place upon the Tilsons. Mrs. Tilson was in an advanced stage of pregnancy. "Poor woman!" said Jane.

Fanny, from much experience at home, prophesied that the child would come in three or four days. Free to devote themselves to the serious business of the day, from eleven to half-past three they were hard at it: silk stockings at twelve shillings a pair, cotton at four shillings, ribbons and lace, poplin for dresses, rose color and dark slate; a beautiful square veil for Fanny, some net for a frock for Anna; a set of fingering exercises for beginners at the piano, and a visit to Wedgwood's, where Edward and Fanny chose a dinner

service. The characteristic productions of the firm showed white classical figures on the black or azure ground; a tea service in the height of the Grecian mode had cups and saucers bordered with a key pattern in black, while the sides and center of the vessels were ornamented with a medallion in sepia of a classical figure beside an altar or a tripod; but the firm also produced more ordinary patterns.

The dinner service chosen for Godmersham was bordered with small purple lozenges between lines of narrow gold, and was to bear the family crest.

The expeditions were not all of them of a pleasant nature, as Lizzie and Marianne had to be taken to the dentist.--Jane said: "Going to Mr. Spence's was a sad business and cost us many tears; unluckily we were obliged to go a second time before he could do more than just look." Edward went with the children both times; the second visit took an hour, and in it Lizzie's teeth were filed, and pronounced to be of a very perishable nature, while poor Marianne had two taken out. When the extractions had been decided upon, Jane, with Fanny and Lizzie, went into the next room, where they heard "each of the two sharp, hasty screams." Fanny's teeth were examined also, and Jane said: "Pretty as they are, he