I Was Jane Austen's Best Friend (24 page)

‘Thank you, Sukey,’ said Eliza gently. Sukey looked almost bewitched by the scents, but she pulled herself together and bobbed a curtsy. ‘Here you are,’ said Eliza, handing her a coin. ‘Come back with two more pails in half an hour.’ And then, Eliza being Eliza, she took a little scented muslin bag from her basket and handed it to the kitchen maid. ‘Put that under your pillow tonight, Sukey, and you will have sweet dreams.’

‘Thank you, ma’am.’ Sukey bobbed another curtsy and went towards the door, taking one last look at the steaming bath before closing the door quietly behind her.

‘Now,
mes petites
, we have to decide on a soap for you.’

‘We brought our soap, Eliza,’ said Jane, holding out the scummy white bar that lived on our washstand.

‘
Mais non! Mais non!
’ Eliza was getting more French by the moment. She took the soap from Jane, smelt it and put it down with a shudder. ‘No, that coarse lye soap is
terrrrrible
for your delicate skins. How could your
maman
give you such a thing?
Voilà!
’ And Eliza went in behind the screen and came out with two bars of soap and held them out. Jane touched the orange one, but I only had eyes for the second piece of soap. It was a pale green, shiny and smooth and glossy. I sniffed the bar, and Eliza handed it to me with a smile. I held it up to the light from the window. It was completely translucent and it smelt wonderfully romantic and aromatic — like pine needles under a hot sun.

‘Mine smells of oranges,’ said Jane, sniffing hers.

‘You have chosen so well, my children,’ enthused Eliza. ‘I knew that the green would suit Jenny’s character — shy, like a little violet in the moss beside a spring — and you, my Jane, this is your scent — sharp, exotic, spicy — just like your personality.’

First Eliza washed my hair with her special Indian shampoo. She rubbed and massaged my head and then showed me in the looking glass. I had white foam like a whipped syllabub all over my head, almost like a very curly wig, and I smelt of incense.

While I bathed, Jane had her hair shampooed and then she bathed. Eliza insisted that we use her thick Turkish towels, not the thin, hard towels from our bedroom, and while we sat, wrapped in these, in front of the fire, she styled our hair.

Mine was pulled back from my face, with just one little curl hanging over my forehead. Then Eliza fastened the rest of my hair with a little ribbon of rubber on the back of the crown of the head and allowed the whole weight of it to flow down my back. While the hair was still damp, she quickly wound strands of it around spills of paper and tied them tightly with rags.

‘Leave them in place until after your gown is on. I myself will brush it out and fasten the blue velvet bandeau. You will be ravishing,
ma petite!
’

And then Eliza went to work on Jane’s hair. First she sprinkled it with an exotic oil that filled the room with its spicy smell and then she wound each curl around her finger, brushing it and holding it in place until it dried before going on to the next.

‘I shall just take some of this back hair to form
un petit chignon,
’ she cried. ‘Ah, now, it starts to come
together.
Voyons
, we will make you a little dark-haired rose.’

And the amazing thing was that Jane’s head did look like a rose — like one of those huge French roses with hundreds of curled petals. I told her how pretty she looked — she couldn’t do the same for me with my hair all screwed into corkscrew spirals, but I had complete confidence in Cousin Eliza.

‘And now,
mes enfants
, go back to your room and sleep. I will wake you before the carriage comes and help you to get dressed. But sleep now.’

Jane is asleep as I write this, but I couldn’t sleep. I wanted to write down everything about that extraordinary hour in
Madame la Comtesse’s
room. When I am old, I will read these pages again and I will remember what it was like.

The Assembly Rooms at Basingstoke

Sukey taps at the door and we both wake with a start. She puts fresh wood on to the fire, lights the candles, and then goes out with a last look at the two beautiful gowns. ‘Jane, help me with my stays. Lace them tighter … tighter. They should push the bosom up.’

I can hardly breathe, but then Jane opens the laces a little. ‘You look fine,’ she says. ‘At least you have a bosom to show off. I wish my bosom would grow a bit. I’m going to stuff a couple of Cassandra’s torn silk stockings inside my stays.’

I slip on my chemise and then my finest lawn petticoat. I wear my shortest petticoat. I don’t want any of it to be seen under the gown. The gown is too beautiful.

And then Eliza appears with her hair in curling papers and wearing a very becoming wrapper of lace; she seizes the two gowns and we follow her to her chamber, which is lit by at least twenty candles. She hangs up the gowns and then shakes a little more of that spicy, aromatic oil over Jane’s hair and brushes her curls once more.

Then Jane has to sit very still with a piece of old muslin over her head to absorb the extra oil while Eliza takes out my curling papers and brushes each fat ringlet
over her finger and arranges Henry’s bandeau carefully, pulling forward a couple of curls over my forehead. She brings over the looking glass and I think that I look years older, that my hair is blonde and beautiful, that my eyes are large and even bluer than my velvet bandeau. I don’t even notice my snub nose.

Then Eliza slips our gowns over our heads very carefully, produces two pairs of superfine white elbow-length gloves from her trunk, hands us our fans and our reticules. Last of all she leads us over to a full-sized cheval looking glass – the only one in the house, I think – and we both tell each other how lovely we look.

‘That gown really suits you. I think white is your best colour,’ I say to Jane. ‘I like you better in white than in pink.’

‘I’m glad we forced Mama to agree to short sleeves, aren’t you?’ Jane was admiring her bare arms.

‘I love them.’ But I was too busy looking over my shoulder, admiring the shimmer of blue light from the beads on my train, to bother about my arms.

‘Sit on the bed,
mes enfants
, while I dress,’ says Eliza, and we sit and admire how swiftly she gets ready, patting her lips with a piece of damp red leather from Brazil (so she told us), brushing out her curls, dusting her face with some talc and pulling on a pair of superfine silk stockings before taking a gown of shimmering lilac from her press.

‘The coach from the inn has arrived.’ Charles is clattering up the stairs, his voice high with excitement.

‘Let’s go,’ I say, opening the door and looking out.

Charles is wearing a pair of white gloves; they are far too big for him and look quite comic next to his young-boy skeleton suit.

‘Don’t forget you promised me a dance, Jenny,’ he says. He looks so sweet with his well-brushed hair that I feel quite motherly towards him. He sounds a bit anxious so I smile reassuringly at him as I drape a lace shawl lent by Eliza over my shoulders. Mrs Austen says that I will be cold, but I don’t want to spoil the effect of my lovely gown with my old blue cloak.

In the end, Mr Austen, Henry and Frank have gone to Basingstoke by stagecoach with the other boys from Mr Austen’s school. It is just as well; I’m worried about my gown as Jane and I squeeze next to Eliza, while Cassandra, Charles and Mrs Austen sit opposite. I wish I didn’t have to sit down; I’m worried in case I lose one of the glass beads, although Jane and I sewed them on as firmly as we could. It seems an age before we arrive at Basingstoke.

When we get out of the coach we have to walk up the stairs. Luckily they are laid with a beautiful red carpet so I allow my train to swish up behind me, though Mrs Austen, Cassandra and Jane hold theirs up.

The Assembly Rooms are grander than I could ever have imagined. The ballroom is painted in red and gold. The ceiling is embossed with curls and scrolls of stucco, all crusted in white. Four great chandeliers, their diamond-shaped crystal droplets flashing in the light of
the hundreds of beeswax candles above, hang from the ceiling, and in their light, gowns – pink, white, green, blue – revolve in the dance.

I can’t walk in. I can’t follow the others. I just stand, looking, until Henry comes back to me.

‘Come on, Jenny,’ he whispers, taking my arm. ‘You look lovely. They’re just finishing the cotillion and then they will have a country dance. You’ll be my partner, won’t you?’

And then we are in the line facing each other and the music has begun. We move to and fro. Other couples are talking but we are just dancing: just dancing and looking at each other. His eyes are fixed on me.

And then we take hands and Henry swings me around and around. He is smiling and I start to smile too.

And then I see Eliza. She is dancing with a foreign-looking man. They pass down the row in front of us and they are both chattering in French. They act like old friends and he is calling her ‘
chérie
’.

And then Henry and I thread in and out of the line, going down to the bottom of the row and then back again. For a moment, Jane and I are briefly opposite each other. She doesn’t even see me; she is too busy laughing with the Irish cousin of the Lefroys.

Now Henry takes my hand and we join with Gilbert East and a girl called Charlotte Palmer, who are the couple nearest to us, and we whirl around in a circle.

And then the music stops and everyone stands laughing and chatting.

‘Henry!’ It’s a fine young gentleman in a red coat with gold epaulettes on the shoulders and a high gold collar. ‘Henry, what’s the news? What did your father say? Will he be able to come up with the money to buy you a commission?’

A commission? Suddenly I stop smiling. Does Henry really want to join the army?

‘Frederick!’ Henry is a bit uneasy. He looks at me and then across at his mother, sitting on a sofa by the wall.

‘Come on, Jenny,’ he says, ‘you look a bit tired after that dance. I’ll take you over to Mama so you can have a rest.’

I’m not tired, but I allow him to walk me across the room. He is the most handsome man in the room, I think proudly, admiring the glossy black of his evening coat and the snowy whiteness of his cravat.

‘Jenny! Is it time for our dance?’ Little Charles is jumping up and down with excitement. Quickly he takes his white gloves out from his pocket and does his best to pull them as high as possible so that his fingers can come some way near to the tips of the gloves’ fingers. He is so excited that I feel ashamed. If Henry had wanted to go on dancing with me, I would have forgotten all about the poor little fellow.

‘Quick,’ I say. ‘The music is starting. Let’s take our place in the line.’

I see a few people smiling when I join the line and face my little escort. His face is pink with excitement and he bows to me in a very courtly way. Gilbert East bumps
into him purposely, but Charles takes no notice. He is concentrating very hard and I see his lips counting ‘one, two, three; one, two, three’ as we whirl around.

‘The next dance is mine, Jenny,’ says Henry as we cross over. I feel his gloved palm touch my bare arm for an instant, above my elbow. Even though my gown is so light and I didn’t obey Mrs Austen and wear a flannel chemise, I suddenly feel very hot.

‘Do you like dancing?’ asks Charles in a very grown-up manner.

‘I love it,’ I say. I hope he won’t keep talking to me; I want to think about Henry. I needn’t have worried; even those few words make him miss his step, and he goes back to counting, his lips moving silently. Jane is dancing with Tom Chute. They are having a good time; as I’m not talking I can hear them making funny remarks to each other as they stand at the end of the row, waiting their turn to go up to the top again.

‘A fine sight, ma’am,’ says Tom. ‘It makes one proud to be a part of this great civilization where such sprightly dancing takes place.’

‘Nonsense, my dear man,’ says Jane, imitating her mother’s voice as usual. ‘Every savage can dance.’

‘There’s Anna Terry over there,’ I say to Charles when the dance has finished. ‘Why don’t you go and ask her to dance?’ Anna Terry is younger than Jane and she looks a bit bored, leaning up against the sofa where her mother is sitting.