I Was Jane Austen's Best Friend (10 page)

‘Ah, mothers don’t very often tell their daughters the truth.’ Jane’s voice sounded sort of hollow. I twisted round again and saw that she was laughing now and I laughed too, with relief. I brushed her hair and then there was the sound of the kitchen door opening.

‘Jane, Jenny, come and do your drawing lesson!’ Mrs Austen sounded impatient, so we rushed down. She was standing tapping her foot in the parlour. She had promised my brother and sister-in-law that we would do some lessons every day, but really the poor woman had hardly any time for us. She had to look after the pupils’ meals and clothing, see to the dairy and the butter making, the vegetables and the baking, and supervise the servants and the monthly washwoman. In reality, she did not have the time to tutor us also. She tried to get Cassandra to take over our education, but Jane argued so much that Cassandra had refused to have anything to do with teaching us. Now Mrs Austen just told us to draw a farm and then she left the room.

I did my best, but Jane did her worst, on purpose. Mrs Austen was not pleased when she came flying in half an hour later. We hadn’t done much as we had been discussing Tom and William Chute.

‘Jane, your cow looks like a pig and your ducks look like hens,’ she scolded. ‘You can just sit there and rub it out and do it again and again until you show some improvement. I declare, I’m quite ashamed of you! Now what is that Betty Dawkins doing with those sheets? I declare to the Lord, she is trailing them on the yard. She must be the worst washerwoman I’ve ever had.’

And then she went running out of the door, and when we looked out of the window we saw her flying across the yard with her pattens clicking on the muddy cobbles.

I went on with my cow, shading it very carefully. Jane’s mama scared me a little. My own mother never used to scold like that all the time. Still, I liked Mrs Austen much better than I liked Augusta, and she was a very busy woman, so it was not surprising that she found Jane a bit of a trial. My mother only had me to look after — not a whole household of about twenty people.

I tried to keep my mind on my drawing and keep the thoughts of my mother out of my head. It worked best like that, I found.

‘Look, Jenny!’ Jane had been rubbing out, but she had made her cow look worse — now it looked like a real pig with a curly tail and a lot of little piglets in a long line behind it. There was a balloon coming out of one piglet’s mouth and it said, ‘
Mother’s cross.
’

‘You’d better rub that out,’ I said, but Jane is stubborn.

‘No, I won’t,’ she said. ‘I think that piglet looks like a little cherub. I’ll give him wings.’

And then Mrs Austen came in, red-faced and very cross, and when she saw the drawing she got crosser than ever.

‘Jenny, you go up to your room and read a book until I call you. Jane, come with me. I am going to speak to your father about you.’

Jane came in just as I was drawing a picture of Tom Chute. She looked quite normal and she hadn’t been crying, so I didn’t think that her father was too annoyed with her.

‘That’s pretty good,’ she said, examining the picture. ‘Give me your pencil.’

I handed over the pencil and she put whiskers on Tom’s face. ‘Imagine kissing a man with whiskers,’ she said, and we both giggled. I was glad that I hadn’t drawn the picture of William yet. I wouldn’t have liked that to be spoiled.

‘Anyway, the rain has stopped now and I have to go and draw a picture of our house,’ said Jane. ‘That’s the punishment that my father gave me.
I suppose even Jane can draw a house.
’ She imitated her mother’s high, scolding voice exactly.

I said that I would help her as I didn’t want her to get into any more trouble; when Jane is in that sort of mood she gets more and more sarcastic and I get worried about what she might do or say next.

There was no sign of Mrs Austen when we went out and stood in the carriage sweep, so I took the drawing pad from Jane. It would be easier to do the picture myself.

‘Four diamond-paned windows downstairs and a door with a porch in front of it in the middle, and five windows upstairs and then three garret windows in the roof,’ said Jane, peering over my shoulder. ‘Don’t forget the two sets of chimneys on each side of the roof. Hurry up; don’t fuss. I want to go and do something more interesting.’

I wished that she would leave me alone because she was making me nervous, but I didn’t want to suggest that she should go and feed the hens and leave me in peace to finish drawing the house. If Mrs Austen came out now I could hand the drawing quickly to Jane, but if she was not there then I would be in trouble too, and I hate being scolded.

As I shaded the eight-paned windows I asked Jane if she minded being scolded.

‘No, why should I? They’re all so stupid. I just make up jokes when my mother is scolding me, and then I mimic her to the boys. It’s lucky that the boys
are here. They are such fun. I like Tom Fowle the best. Last year he pulled me down the three flights of stairs on a tablecloth.’

‘I thought you liked Tom Chute.’ I determined that no one would pull me down the stairs on a tablecloth. I could understand my mother pitying Mrs Austen. The boys are quite noisy and they do make a lot of work in the house, running in and out in muddy boots. This is a very different school to Mrs Cawley’s Seminary for Young Ladies. I suppose the Austens and my brother thought they were sending us to a place that would be like another home for us, because they imagined it would be like Steventon.

‘Oh, I’m going to marry Tom Chute and I’ll leave Tom Fowle for Cassandra,’ said Jane carelessly. ‘Why don’t you draw one of the casement windows open and Mama shouting out of it at someone? That’s the way our house is usually. Give me the pencil and I’ll draw her.’

‘No, don’t, you’ll spoil it.’ I turned away from her and began to mark in the roof tiles. I hated to rush a drawing, but Jane was in a wild mood and I thought I’d better get it finished quickly. I needn’t make it too good; Jane was much cleverer than me, but I was better at drawing.

‘You do the front door,’ I said, handing the board to her when I had finished the roof. The drawing looked quite nice and I hated to have it spoiled, but I thought it was better that she should be doing something. Any minute now she would get bored and would be off climbing a tree or something. And then her mother would look out of the window and be furious. Jane was funny. One minute she was talking about love and marriage, and the next she was behaving like some sort of boy.

I told Jane not to forget to put nine windows in the top half of the door, trying to sound bossy.

Jane had finished the door in one minute and then went flying into her father’s study to give the drawing to him. The sun was coming out so I went to fetch my bonnet. My mother always told me that I should keep the sun off my face or my complexion would get brown.

‘Let’s go down to the village,’ said Jane as soon as she came out. ‘We won’t need to wear pattens because the ground is hard with all the frost. I hate wet, dull
springs, don’t you? And I really hate wearing pattens.’

I agreed with her. I certainly dislike wearing pattens too. I hate the way your foot is up so high and your ankle twists.

The road to the village was still nice and dry. Our feet stayed clean and I didn’t get any mud on my petticoat. It was a lovely afternoon, with the hedges ornamented with tiny snow-white buds of blackthorn and curling strands of bright green woodbine and the ditches lined with white and yellow daffodils. I’ve drawn them here in my journal. They would make a lovely picture in watercolours.