Jane Austen (4 page)

What did Jane actually look like? It was Anna Lefroy who gave this fine description of her:

Jane’s eldest brother James Austen, born in 1765, was ten years her senior. Like all of the Austens’ sons, he was educated at Steventon by his father. When he was old enough he followed in his father’s footsteps by entering St John’s College, Oxford, where he became a Fellow. James was said to be ‘well-read in English literature, had a correct taste, and wrote regularly and happily, both in prose and verse’. It was also said that he had ‘a large share in directing her [Jane’s] reading and forming her taste’.
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Jane’s brother George Austen, born in 1766, was nine years her senior. Sadly, from an early age he suffered from fits (presumably epileptic) from which he ‘never recovered sufficiently to take his place in the family’.
2
George spent his time as a boarder in the village of Monk Sherborne, 3 miles to the north of Basingstoke, where he was looked after and visited regularly by his parents.

Edward Austen, born in 1767 and eight years Jane’s senior, is described as ‘an excellent man of business, kind-hearted and affectionate; and he possessed also a spirit of fun and liveliness’.
3
Thomas Knight II (the son of the Revd Austen’s patron Thomas Knight I), Edward’s distant cousin and his wife Catherine, took a great interest in the young Edward and invited him to spend much time with them at their home, Godmersham Park in Kent. Subsequently, in 1783 Edward was legally adopted by the Knights (who were childless), on condition that he adopted
their surname. Edward, in turn, would stand to inherit the Knights’ estates of Godmersham, Steventon and Chawton.

Henry Thomas Austen, born in 1771, was also educated at St John’s College, Oxford, where he too became a Fellow. Henry was described by Jane herself as being ‘most affectionate & kind, as well as entertaining’. In return, Henry was unstinting in his praise and admiration for Jane.
4
He also encouraged her in her reading, as already mentioned.

Cassandra Austen, born in 1773 and therefore almost two years older than Jane, was Jane’s only sister. Jane’s love and affection for Cassandra is evident from the dozens of letters which she wrote to her during her lifetime, signing herself ‘With best love’; ‘God Bless you’; ‘Yours affectionately’; ‘Yours ever’. In these letters she speaks of outings she has had, gives detailed descriptions of purchases which she has made of fabric – out of which clothes were to be made for forthcoming balls – and offers delightful snippets of family news such as, ‘… my father wishes to receive some of Edward’s pigs’.
5
This appears to have been a two-way process because Jane subsequently tells Cassandra that the Revd Austen has furnished Edward with ‘a pig from Cheesedown [Farm]; it is already killed and cut up, but it is not to [i.e. does not] weigh more than 9 stone; the season is too far advanced to get him a larger one’.
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When the sisters were apart they corresponded every three or four days. However, it was invariably Jane who made the first move. If Jane was the traveller, for instance, ‘There [was] always a first letter from Jane telling Cassandra of the journey’. On the other hand, if Cassandra was the traveller, ‘then the first letter is from Jane expressing the hope that she had a good journey’.
7
This suggests that of the two, Cassandra was emotionally the stronger and Jane the more dependent.

Francis William Austen (‘Frank’), born in 1774, was a mere twenty months older than Jane. William Austen-Leigh said of
him: ‘There can be no doubt that by his bright and lovable nature he contributed greatly to the happiness of his sister Jane’.
8
At the age of 12, Francis joined the Royal Navy.

Charles John Austen, born in 1779, was three years younger than Jane. Jane referred to him as ‘our own, particular little brother’ – on account of him being the youngest. William Austen-Leigh remarked upon Charles’s ‘sweet temper and affectionate disposition, in which he resembled his sister Jane’. Said he:

At the age of 12, Charles too joined the Royal Navy.

Steventon lay in the territory over which the Vine Hunt operated, William John Chute of The Vyne, Sherborne St John, being Master of Foxhounds. Not surprisingly, therefore, hunting loomed large in the lives of Jane’s brothers. In fact, it was said of George Austen that:

For this he dressed in a suit of scarlet cloth made for him ‘from a riding habit which had formed part of his mother’s wedding outfit’.
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It was in 1786 that Eliza Hancock, Jane’s cousin who was fourteen years her senior, appeared at Steventon Rectory like a brilliant comet, to bring life, gaiety and a certain degree of raciness to the proceedings. Eliza was the daughter of Philadelphia, George Austen’s sister and her husband Tysoe Saul Hancock. Her life was, and would become, so extraordinary as to make Mrs Radcliffe’s gothic novels – which Jane so despised – pale into insignificance. This was not least because Eliza’s life was real and tangible.

Eliza’s arrival occurred just as Jane was about to embark upon her teenage writing years, when she would produce her so-called
Juvenilia
, and her influence on this, and upon other aspects of her young cousin Jane’s formative years, has probably been underestimated. In the words of James E. Austen-Leigh, Eliza was ‘one of Jane Austen’s most colourful connections and a significant influence on her teenage years’.
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Eliza’s recent family history was as follows. Her mother Philadelphia, having been brought up, allegedly, in Hertfordshire by her maternal cousins, spent five years as an apprentice to a London milliner before sailing, in January 1752, to Madras. William Austen-Leigh declared:

In February the following year, Philadelphia met Tysoe Saul Hancock, son of a vicar from Hollingbourne in Kent. Hancock, who had worked in India since 1745, was an employee of the Honourable East India Company (HEIC). He and Philadelphia were married on 22 February 1753.

In 1759 Hancock was appointed as the HEIC’s official surgeon at Fort St David, the company’s military post near Madras. Here he met and became friends with Warren Hastings, also an employee of the HEIC (and subsequently, from 1773–85, Governor-General of Bengal). Hastings’ wife – whom he had married two years previously in 1757 – was Mary Buchanan, who happened to be a friend of Philadelphia. By Mary, Hastings had one surviving son, George, born in December that year. Sadly, however, Mary died in July 1759.

In 1761 Hastings sent his son George – a sickly child now aged 3 – to England from India, to the Leigh family home at Adlestrop, Gloucestershire. Then, when Philadelphia’s brother the Revd Austen married Cassandra Leigh in 1764, the couple brought George to live with them at their new home at Deane. George then became Revd Austen’s pupil and he also ‘came under Mrs Austen’s maternal care’.
3

On 22 December 1761 in Calcutta, the Hancocks’ daughter Elizabeth – initially known as ‘Betsy’ and later as ‘Eliza’ – was born. She was their only child and Warren Hastings was invited to become her godfather.

In autumn 1764 Warren Hastings was struck by another tragedy when his son George died. According to William Austen-Leigh, Mrs Austen mourned George Hastings’ death ‘as if he had been a child of her own’.
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In 1765 Hancock returned to England with his wife and daughter. In 1769 he returned to India, leaving Philadelphia and Eliza in England, where they spent a great deal of their time with the Austens at Steventon. Hancock now engaged himself in business ventures, but when he failed to prosper, Warren Hastings came to the rescue by donating the sum of
£
5,000 (which he later increased to
£
10,000), ‘in trust for Hancock and his wife during their lives, and, on the death of the survivor, to Betsy’.
5

In the new year of 1773 Philadelphia visited Steventon to assist Mrs Austen, who gave birth to her fifth child Cassandra on 9 January 1773. Philadelphia’s husband died in India in November 1775, whereupon Philadelphia went abroad. She and Eliza finally settled in Paris where the latter completed her education, paid for by the money which Hastings had given them (Eliza’s father having died a bankrupt). Eliza’s beauty, education and accomplishments, which included musicianship and the ability to speak fluent French and probably Italian, then became a passport for her entry into the upper echelons of Parisian society.

On 16 May 1780 Eliza wrote to her cousin, Philadelphia (‘Phylly’) Walter, from Paris, where she was clearly having a wonderful time:

Eliza goes on to describe the queen’s apparel:

Eliza was, nevertheless, rather scathing about the Parisiens’ wigs:

The relationship between Eliza and the Revd Austen was a close one and she would later say of him: ‘What an excellent & pleasing Man he is, I love him most sincerely as indeed I do all the Family’.
7
Eliza sent her uncle, who was also one of her trustees, a portrait of herself in miniature.
8
However, on learning that she intended to marry French aristocrat Jean-François Capot, Comte de Feuillide and an officer in the Queen’s regiment of dragoons, the Revd Austen was not amused:

Despite this, in late 1781 Eliza, then aged 20, and the Comte were married.

On 27 March 1782 Eliza, now the Comtesse de Feuillide, wrote to Phylly to tell her more about Paris:

Sadly, the Dauphin lived for only one year. In that same year, at Phylly’s request, Eliza presented her with a miniature portrait of herself and a sample of her dark brown hair. On the back of the portrait were inscribed the words,
Amoris et Amicitiae
(‘Of Love and Friendship’).
11

On 1 May 1783, Eliza tells Phylly how she has been to Longchamps, a monastery situated in the Bois de Boulogne where:

On 25 June 1786, while she and her mother Philadelphia were at Calais, en route from France to England, Eliza gave birth, prematurely, to a son, Hastings François Louis Henrie Eugènie – his first name being chosen to honour Eliza’s godfather, Warren Hastings. The three spent time in London where Eliza was accepted at Court, just as she had been in France. It was at Christmas time, 1786, that Eliza and her family travelled to Steventon and met Jane (then aged 11) and Cassandra for the first time.

At Steventon Eliza entertained the family with piano recitals, participated in the customary Austen family theatricals
and gave an account of the French king, queen and court, and of the splendours of Versailles. She also described the daring achievements of Jean Pierre François Blanchard who, on 2 March 1784 – as she herself had witnessed – had soared high above the French capital in his hydrogen-filled balloon. He had ‘ascended to the height of 1500 fathoms & returned from thence in perfect health & safety to the astonishment of most of the Spectators’.
13

James E. Austen-Leigh describes Eliza as ‘a clever woman and highly accomplished, after the French rather than the English mode’, and who could speak the French language perfectly.
14
It appears that Eliza was determined that Jane should become equally fluent because on 16 December 1786, which was the occasion of Jane’s 11th birthday, she and her mother presented the young cousin with a copy of French children’s author Arnaud Berquin’s
L’Ami des Enfants
(a book which was designed to help British children learn French).

The outcome was, in the words of Anna Lefroy, that both Cassandra and Jane came to read French ‘easily’ and that ‘in these matters I think it probable they had very valuable assistance from their cousin … [Eliza] who was an extremely accomplished woman, not only for that day, but for any day’.
15
And it was James E. Austen-Leigh’s opinion that Jane and Cassandra ‘may have been more indebted to this cousin than to Mrs La Tournelle’s [
sic
] teaching for the considerable knowledge of French which they possessed’.
16

It was undoubtedly Eliza, also, who encouraged Jane to sing in French, one of Jane’s favourite songs being ‘a little French ditty’, the first two lines of which were:

Jane was clearly much taken with Eliza, for in 1790 she dedicated one of a series of letters, included in her novel
Love and
Freindship
(her spelling), to the countess. (Eliza may have told Jane about the miniature portrait of herself which she had previously given to Phylly, and Jane may have chosen this title for her novel from the words which were inscribed on the back of it – in French, as previously mentioned). The letter was entitled, ‘Deceived in Freindship and Betrayed in Love’, and the dedication read: