Jane Austen (24 page)

account of such an affair, so, though she understood perfectly the varying attitude of society to sexual

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immorality, and reflected the tolerant as truly as the hostile, in her own heart she hated it. The idea of such a thing's happening in her own family would have caused her an unspeakable horror and

distress; directly it approached her own particular orbit, it took on another color altogether; and the fact that she and Mrs. Powlett had communicated at the same service was sufficient to make her regard the matter as a serious one. An airy reference to it, in those circumstances, would have been impossible to her taste. It is the tradition of her family that though she was very devout, she so much distrusted the exploiting of religious feeling that she was almost exaggerated in her reserve about her own. The very few references she ever makes to it belong to a later period of her life, with the exception of this; but the passage on Mrs. Powlett is of great interest when one remembers the sensations of Fanny Price on hearing of the liaison of Maria Bertram and Henry Crawford: "There was no possibility of rest. The evening passed without a pause of misery, the night was totally sleepless. She passed only from feelings of sickness to shudderings of horror; and from hot fits of fever to cold." This is a picture, not of Jane Austen, who had been acquainted with the nature of elopements ever since she was old enough to read the novels in her father's eighteenth-century library, but of Fanny Price, seventeen years old, who had been brought up in the austere elegance of

Mansfield Park, by a fashionable governess who worked under the eye of Sir Thomas Bertram; a girl protected by "a youth of mind as lovely as that of person," who was in a state of agitation in any case, being in love with Maria Bertram's brother, and having been

proposed to with the utmost perseverance by Henry Crawford

himself. Her situation fully justified her sleepless night; but had such a thing occurred in Jane Austen's own family, one believes that her

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feelings would have been more those of Fanny Price than of Mary Crawford.

By the end of June the house party was breaking up. "In another week," said Jane, "I shall be at home--and then my having been at Godmersham will seem like a dream, as my visit to Brompton seems already." Little Edward was to come with her. She supposed that when they got home it would be time to think about making the

orange wine, but for the moment all was "elegance, ease and luxury.

The Hattons and the Millers dine here today--and I shall eat ice and drink French wine, and be above vulgar economy." But even in resigning the comforts and elegance of Godmersham, there was

something to go home for. "Luckily the pleasures of friendship, of unreserved conversation, of similarity of taste and opinions, will make good amends for orange wine."

For July, August and September these pleasures were enjoyed, but in October it was Cassandra's turn to be at Godmersham again. The baby, John, was born just before his aunt's arrival; Jane was glad of that, and said: "His mama has our best wishes, and he our second best for health and comfort--though I suppose unless he has our best too, we do nothing for her." But the wishes this time were of no avail. Elizabeth had had eleven children in fifteen years, and the eleventh killed her. The anguish of her loss was felt for at

Southampton as much as if they had all been at Godmersham. "We have felt, we do feel for you all--as you will not need to be told--for you, for Fanny . . . for dearest Edward, whose loss and whose

sufferings seem to make those of every other person nothing. God be praised! that you can say what you do of him--that he has a religious mind to bear him up, and a disposition that will gradually lead him to comfort." Her heart was with Fanny. "My dear, dear Fanny!--I am

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so thankful that she has you with her!--you will do everything to her, you will give her all the consolation human aid can give." To Cassandra's next letter, she said: "Your accounts make us as comfortable as we can expect to be at such a time. Edward's loss is terrible, and must be felt as such, and these are too early days indeed to think of moderation in grief . . . but soon we may hope that our dear Fanny's sense of duty to that beloved father will rouse her to exertion. For his sake, and as the most acceptable proof of love to the spirit of her departed mother, she will try to be tranquil and resigned." She said she had sent the news to their cousin Edward Cooper, but she did hope he would not send "one of his letters of cruel comfort to my poor brother." Cassandra had sent news of all the children then at home, and mentioned particularly the eight-year-old Lizzie. Jane thought that such an event ought to make a solemn impression on a child's understanding, and yet, she said, "one's heart aches for a dejected mind of eight years old."

Soon she had an opportunity, gratefully accepted, of doing

something for the children. George and his brother Edward, thirteen and fourteen years old, were at Winchester, but their father had removed them for the time being until the shock of their mother's death should be something passed; they had been first with their uncle James at Steventon, and now they came for a few days to

Southampton. They came down perished with cold, having chosen to ride outside, and without their greatcoats; the coachman, Mr. Wise, had kindly spared them as much of his as possible, but they arrived in such a state that Jane thought they must be going to be laid up with chills. They were not, however; they had never been better.

They cried next day over a letter from their father, whom they spoke of with great affection, but after that they cheered up and Jane devoted herself to

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amusing them. They played bilbocatch, spillikins, paper ships, riddles, conundrums and cards; one evening Jane introduced

speculation, and "it was so much approved that we hardly knew how to leave off." Out of doors there was endless amusement by the tidal river; they walked to the quayside after church, "when George was very happy as long as we could stay, flying about from one side to the other and skipping on board a collier immediately." Her eagerness in promoting their enjoyment and taking their minds off their grief was the more remarkable because, to a certain point, she believed that the grief ought to be felt. She was glad to see that Edward had been much affected by the sermon, of which the text happened to be taken from the Litany, on the subject of "All that are in danger, necessity or tribulation." In the evening they read the Psalms and Lessons and a sermon, to which the boys were very

attentive, but, said Jane, "you will not expect to hear that they did not return to conundrums the moment it was over." The next day they all went from Itchen Ferry up to Northam, where they landed,

"looked into the 74," and walked home. "The boys rowed a great part of the way, and their questions and answers, as well as their

enjoyment, were very amusing." George often, by his eagerness in everything, reminded Jane of his Uncle Henry.

Their aunt at Steventon had written pleasantly of them, which was more than Jane had hoped for; but Mary had only been able to get them one suit of mourning in Basingstoke, so it devolved on Jane to see to the rest in Southampton. She herself was already in mourning, in a black crepe gown and bonnet and a black velvet pelisse; she had supposed that black coats only would be needed for the boys, but she found that they considered black pantaloons equally indispensable.

Jane was doubtful, but she said:

"Of course

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one would not have them made uncomfortable by the want of what is usual on such occasions." She gave a picture of the two boys as she wrote: "George is most industriously making and naming paper ships, at which he afterwards shoots with horse chestnuts, brought from Steventon on purpose and Edward equally intent over the 'Lake of Killarney,' twisting himself about in one of our great chairs."

The death of Elizabeth Austen had far-reaching consequences in her own family. It meant, for one thing, the end of Fanny's childhood, and that before she was sixteen she was the mistress of

Godmersham, responsible for her father's comfort, and for that of her brothers and sisters, of whom the youngest was a few weeks old. It also affected Edward with a desire to have his sisters, the aunts of his children, somewhat nearer to him. They had been thinking of a

remove from Southampton. The Frank Austens now had a baby,

Mary Jane, born in 1808; in 1809 they were to have another, Francis.

Charles also was married. In 1807 he had married Frances Palmer, the daughter of the Governor General of Bermuda, and their

daughter, Cassy, was born in 1808; Cassandra and Jane were the only unattached members of the family. An independent

establishment for them with their mother and Martha Lloyd was

desirable, and Edward wanted it to be near him. He offered his mother a choice of two small houses, one near the grounds of

Godmersham, the other at Chawton, opposite the Great House.

There were many reasons for their preferring the latter. Jane called their branch of the family "the Hampshire-born Austens," and it was an attractive proposal that they should be once more settled near to Steventon and Deane. Godmersham was lovely in itself, but to Jane at least the neighborhood outside it was not so pleasing as that of Alton and Basingstoke. She did not like Canterbury. And there was

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another consideration; so large a family as the Austens and their connections made up provided in itself a society, and a most

agreeable one, outside which its members scarcely needed to go for variety and amusement. They all felt that it was so, but family tradition says that Jane was the most keenly alive to it, and thought the tendency should be strenuously withstood. However deep one's private attachments might be, however much one felt that the truest pleasure could only be found at home, any feelings which caused one to appear abstracted, or inattentive to the claims of society as a whole, seemed wrong to her. There was a moral reason for the view-

-that of doing one's duty by one's neighbor; their was also a social reason--no normal person could lead a full and happy life confined to one circle, however pleasing and attractive its members might be; but there was yet another reason, though perhaps unconsciously felt-

-such a preoccupation with the affairs of one's own family was against the interests of vitality, and counter to the artist's instinct for self-preservation. Had she and Cassandra been established at the gates of Godmersham, they would have been out of their own house much oftener than they were in it; their whole lives would have been absorbed, a willing, eager sacrifice to the interests, cares and pleasures of somebody else. Whereas at Chawton, not removed and yet detached, they stood upon their own feet, the center of their individual sphere, and radiated their influence instead of being drawn into another orbit. When one considers that
Pride and
Prejudice
was rewritten, and
Mansfield Park
,
Emma
and
Persuasion
actually composed in that cottage built upon the side of the village street, one realizes something of its significance as a home, and may believe that, however unknown to herself, Jane Austen's mind was actively working in its own best interests when she gave her

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voice in the family discussion as to which of Edward's offers they should accept.

She longed to go to Chawton, as soon as it was decided that they should. Cassandra was at Godmersham in December 1808, and

Jane's letters were frequently interspersed with talk of what they should do in their new home. They would certainly have a piano, as good a one as could be got for thirty guineas, and Jane promised herself to practice country dances, to be able to provide amusement for the nephews and nieces. Their change of home was already being discussed by their connections. The present Rector of Chawton, Mr.

Papillon, was a bachelor, and old Mrs. Knight thought it would be a good thing for Jane to marry him. Jane said: "I am very much obliged to Mrs. Knight for such a proof of the interest she takes in me, and she may depend upon it that I
will
marry Mr. Papillon, whatever may be his reluctance or my own."

At Godmersham, the ten-year-old William, who had been kept

indoors with a cold, had found great comfort in his cross-stitch; he was now working a footstool for Chawton. Jane said: "We shall never have the heart to put our feet on it. I believe I must work a muslin cover in satin stitch to keep it from the dirt. I long to know what his colors are--I guess greens and purples." She hoped they would be in the cottage "in time for Henry to come to us for some shooting in October at least;--but a little earlier, and Edward may visit us after taking his boys back to Winchester." Meantime they were having a last fling at the gaieties of Southampton. She meant to make up a party for a play; she thought Martha ought to see the inside of the theater before she left, and Jane imagined that one visit would be enough. She and Martha went to some of the assemblies.

Of one of them she said: "It was the same room in which we danced fifteen years

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ago!--I thought it all over,--and in spite of the shame of being so much older, felt with thankfulness that I was quite as happy now as then." She went on: "You will not expect to hear that I was asked to dance, but I was--by the gentleman whom we met
that Sunday
with Captain D'Auvergne." At another one she was so well entertained she would have liked to stay longer "but for the arrival of my list shoes to convey me home, and I did not like to keep them waiting in the cold. The room was tolerably full, and the ball was opened by Miss Glyn;--the Miss Lances had partners, Captain D'Auvergne's friend appeared in regimentals. Caroline Maitland had an officer to flirt with, and Mr. John Harrison was deputed by Captain Smith, being himself absent, to ask me to dance. Everything went well, you see, especially after we had tucked Mrs. Lance's neckerchief in behind, and fastened it with a pin." She regarded a ball now as more in the nature of a party, when people of her age were occasionally asked to dance but expected more of their entertainment in the tea and card room or among the spectators' benches; but she delighted to hear of Anna, whose dancing season had just begun. Anna had been to a ball at Manydown, which turned out to be a very small affair.