Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas (6 page)

“I look forward to discussing literature with you, Miss Austen,” Mr. West said with equanimity.

I was released from his probing gaze and commanded to accept a glass of punch, William Chute being just the sort of man to welcome his neighbours with a steaming bowl of brandy and lemon. We seated ourselves in little groups about the room as a parlour maid appeared with sweetmeats and cakes, a swell of incidental chatter rising now the introductions were done. The adventure of the carriage accident
must be canvassed again, for the eager amusement of The Vyne party; the prospect of hunting on the morrow debated, as well as the general trend in the weather; and intelligence of family events shared to the full.

Mary, I observed, was still attempting to pose with Caroline for the benefit of Mr. West. No doubt she hoped that he might immortalise her in his sketchbook—or capture her in oils for the next Academy exhibition! Caroline was fidgeting under the iron hold of her mother’s hand, and James-Edward took care to go nowhere near the parental end of the room.

Neither, I observed, did Raphael West. He had resumed the perusal of his book.

“Condolences are due to you, I understand, Mrs. Austen,” Eliza said in a lowered tone as she settled herself beside us. Mamma and I were seated next to one another on a comfortable settee, and Eliza had crossed the room in her desire to convey her sympathy.

“If you would speak of the lost hamper of brawn,” Mamma replied, “I assure you I do not think of it above once a day.”

Eliza’s brow furrowed in bewilderment and she glanced at me. “I meant to refer to Captain Charles Austen’s wife. I am correct in thinking she passed away this autumn? She was quite young, was she not?”

“Sadly so,” I supplied. We had never loved Fanny Palmer as well as we ought, because we had so little known her—being a child of Bermuda, she married my younger brother Charles while he served on the Atlantic station, when she was but eighteen. Seven years later, she was dead—of the birth of her fourth daughter, who survived her only a fortnight.

“How does the Captain bear it? He was very much attached to her, I believe?”

“I have rarely known any man more sincerely grieved,” I said. “He has lately quitted us for active service on the Mediterranean Station; it is to be hoped that duty and command will recover him, in time.”

Of the little girls, the eldest barely six, who had been left to the care of their grandmamma Palmer in Keppel Street, I said nothing. Tho’ we were fond of these nieces, we knew them hardly at all—the bulk of their young lives having been spent abroad or at sea. Fanny herself had died aboard Charles’s ship, the
Namur
, as it lay off Sheerness. Indeed, I suspect that Charles blamed himself for keeping her too long aboard, as tho’ the ship had proved pestilential. He resigned his command almost immediately after his wife’s death, and sought a posting into the
Phoenix
.

My brother Edward, who lost his Elizabeth a few years since in similar circumstances, posted to Sheerness to comfort his brother; but Charles was not to be consoled. He could not quit England soon enough. I believe that all our thoughts have turned to him, alone upon the seas at Christmas-tide. My mother’s countenance was troubled; she held a scrap of lace to her lips.

“How do you come to be acquainted with Mr. West?” I enquired of Eliza, in an effort to turn the conversation. “Are you intimate with his family when in London?”

“Not at all.” She adjusted the ruby bracelet at her wrist. “He is come to The Vyne in support of his father, who is to attempt a large historical painting, I believe, on the subject of Parliament. Something to do with the end to our European wars, and the exile of Napoleon; I do not pretend to know what it is.”

The Monster who had so determined our nation’s fears, for the better part of my adult life—whose military adventures on land and sea had shaped the destinies of my brothers—whose intrigues against the Kingdom had required the subtle employment of such
men of parts as my late esteemed Rogue, Lord Harold Trowbridge—Napoleon—was defeated. His fall was declared complete but six months ago, and his exile to Elba engineered by the British government. Henceforth his guard was to be kept by officers of our Army appointed to the task. The celebrations in London that greeted this monumental coup, and the return to the Throne of France of the Bourbon kings, occupied most of the summer. Publick fêtes and displays of fireworks, publick parties in the streets, appearances by the Prince Regent, and a gala party at White’s Club—which our own brother Henry was privileged to attend—had helped to relieve the high spirits and exultation all England must feel.

I wondered, from time to time, how Lord Harold should have greeted such a spectacle; and heard his wry voice in my mind.
Exclaim over your sudden access of safety if you must, Jane—but do not believe in it, until Buonaparte is dead
.

“I can easily credit that the Regent would commission a great work on such a subject,” I said—for the Prince is nothing if not a squanderer of coin and a promoter of Self. “I am relieved that he chose Mr. West to accomplish it. The commission might have gone to Sir Thomas Lawrence—and tho’ he is a fine painter of faces, he lacks Mr. West’s sweeping grandeur.”

“If Parliament were filled with women,” Eliza returned, “Lawrence should be our man.”

“What does Mr. Raphael West find to occupy him in Hampshire?”

“His father requires studies, as he calls them, of the various Members. The son is arrived to make sketches of poor William. Only think how droll, Jane! My shabby hound, to figure among the Lofty in a picture of State!”

I invariably forgot that William Chute had served most of his life among the Tory party; he was so obviously the sporting fellow, rather
than the sage of Government. Eliza looked with such affection at her husband, in his leather breeches buttoned at the knee, his rough top-boots, and his serviceable brown coat, that I collected William Chute’s lack of elegance troubled her not at all. The Wests, one presumes, might supply a more proper costume, in paint.

“That explains a good deal,” my mother interjected suddenly. “I thought the man impudent—for he possesses a most penetrating eye, and very nearly put me out of countenance. But if Mr. West is a painter, he was reared in insolence.”

So Mamma had felt the weight of the gentleman’s gaze as heavily as I had.

Eliza smiled at her. “It is said that Raphael West possesses a remarkable talent, but too little inclination. He appears content to serve as his father’s amanuensis, rather than strive for fame himself. It is just as well—for his younger brother is a sad disappointment, and tho’ his father’s namesake, has nothing to do with the parent at all. Old Mrs. West—Raphael’s mother—is very recently deceased of a long and wasting illness; you will observe he goes in black.”

“Mr. West’s family did not accompany him into Hampshire?” I asked.

“He has little family to speak of, Jane. Raphael West is a widower. His wife passed away some years ago, I believe. He never speaks of her. There was one child—a daughter. I understand that she is lately married.”

I should have liked to continue the interesting conversation, but Eliza, after a pause, pressed my mother to partake of further refreshment.

A little later we were led to our bedchambers, while the gentlemen of the party braved the cold. William Chute can never bear to be long indoors when he might be tramping to the stables, to display his
fine pack of hounds. As I followed Eliza up the celebrated staircase, past the Yule log burning brightly in the hall, I reflected that my Christmas should be far pleasanter than I had found reason to hope in yesterday’s snow.

I ought never to have dared the thought.

THE SECOND DAY

The housemaid, to my distinct pleasure, crept into the room I share with Cassandra this morning and swept the remains of last night’s fire from the hearth. As she laid a new one, I raised myself on one elbow—Cassandra still slumbering in the neighbouring bed—and whispered, “What is the hour?”

“A little past seven by the hall clock,” she replied. “Will you be wanting tea, ma’am?”

This is the dignity that age has conferred upon me: at nine-and-thirty, I am to be addressed as
ma’am
. Oh, for the
miss
of yesteryear!

I ordered tea, and sank back into my pillows.

I had assumed The Vyne’s servants would already have quitted the place—it being customary to give them a free day in place of Christmas, when servants are expected to wait upon their masters and silently witness festivities they cannot enjoy. But perhaps they should leave us at midday, when the house party had thoroughly awakened and might be trusted to fend for themselves. When the maid reappeared with my tray I enquired as to her St. Stephen’s Day plans, but her gaze fell as she answered.

“Indeed, and it is snowing that hard, ma’am, I should never try to walk the three miles home to my mother! Christmas shall have to bide for my next free day.”

She bobbed and left me in possession of my tea. I did not venture out of bed to peek through the draped windows at the storm—I did not like a sudden white glare to disturb Cassandra. The quiet of the great house around me suggested that no one else was afoot. I sipped contentedly, therefore, conscious of an unaccustomed luxury in the crackling flames and the hot liquid. There was even a branch of holly bestowed on the tray. Nothing was wanting at The Vyne that might supply comfort; indeed, the memory of last evening’s Christmas Feast is one I shall cherish for some time.

We assembled in all our finery at half after six o’clock last evening—neither so early as to embarrass our hosts before their fashionable London guests, nor so late as to offend country sensibilities. I wore my cobalt-blue silk—newly trimmed with gold spangles during my visit last month to Henry and my publishers in Town. I left off my usual lace cap in favour of a bewitching shako of gold and cobalt, perched on my curls, which were brushed and arranged by Eliza Chute’s personal maid; beside me, Cassandra wore a gown of deep rose. For ladies of a certain age, like ourselves, who go abroad in society so seldom, dress is a matter of considerable anxiety. Our wardrobes are neither large, nor varied, nor costly; it would be as well if we curtailed the length of our stay at The Vyne to suit the breadth of our costumes. But for Christmas Night, at least, we appeared very well—and in the admiration of our friends, I must be easy.

“I suppose it is a commonplace for ladies who engage in commerce,” Mary said in a lowered tone, “to waste their funds in lavish display.”

“Indeed,” James replied. “Would that poor Jane’s thirty pieces of
silver had been turned to charitable good. But a profit in novels must struggle to find a worthy use; the frivolity of impulse that inspires their creation, must also attend their earnings.”

“What an extraordinary reticule, ma’am,” Thomas-Vere broke in, his quizzing-glass held up before my mother. “I have never seen its equal.”

“I netted it myself,” Mamma replied proudly. “Dear Jane brought the silk from London last month—so good to me as she always is.”

Our party was thirteen, almost evenly divided at Eliza’s contrivance between the gentlemen and the ladies; the schoolroom set supplied three more, accommodated at the middle of the table, so that both the Chutes might have charming partners at their respective ends. The dining parlour at The Vyne is an intimate and cheerful chamber, lined with linenfold panelling nearly three hundred years old. The walls are hung with landscapes and portraits of Chutes long since dead; a fire crackles at one end of the room, and at the other, long windows draped in crimson damask give out onto the lake. The great mahogany board where Walpole once presided was laid tonight for sixteen, with a parade of beeswax candles held aloft in silver, crystal glasses and porcelain chargers, a quantity of greens festooned with silk ribbons, and an exotic faerie castle rising from the centre, carved entirely from a block of sugar. This confection resembled the Regent’s summer pavilion at Brighton, but in better taste. I stole a glance at Caroline, and saw her mouth agape. Far more exciting than Snapdragon, to one raised on Evangelical principles.

William took in Lady Gambier; Eliza was escorted by Mr. West; Thomas-Vere gallantly claimed my mother; Mr. L’Anglois offered his arm to Miss Gambier, as should be correct, and James took in his wife. Young Mr. Gambier presented an arm each to Cassandra and me, and with perfect good humour we accepted his gallantry. He placed
himself between us at table. Mr. West was at my right hand. I turned to converse with him first, as was customary.