Jane Austen Stole My Boyfriend (23 page)

I have just sealed my letter to Thomas and asked Jane whether she enjoyed the party at the Crescent. She yawned and said, ‘It will give me some material for my
novels.’ I didn’t say anything and after a minute she yawned again and said, ‘They don’t seem real, these French counts, do they? You couldn’t imagine going for a walk
through the woods with them . . .’ and then she went off to bed.

Wednesday, 4 May 1791

Just after breakfast Jane and I escaped for our morning walk. This time we were ready with the excuse that we wanted to say goodbye to Henry, who was returning to Steventon on
the midday stagecoach.

There was no sign of Harry Digweed, so we walked down to Queen’s Square and rang the bell at Eliza’s door. For a wonder she was up and dressed, her face delicately powdered and the
faintest trace of rouge on her cheeks.

‘
Mes chéries!
Come in, come in,
mes petites
!’ Eliza was in a cheerful mood. But then, with a guilty look over her shoulder, she changed to dramatic, tragic
tones.

‘How good you are,
mes chères petites filles.
You have come to cheer up your lonely
cousine
.’

‘Lonely?’ Jane and I looked at each other with raised eyebrows. By this time we were both in the drawing room. The mantelpiece above the fire was crowded with innumerable invitation
cards; bunches of hothouse flowers, each dangling the name of the presenter, made the room seem like a garden. No one in the whole city of Bath looked less likely to be lonely than Eliza.

‘It’s Phylly,’ exclaimed Eliza loudly in heartbroken tones. ‘She is thinking of leaving me, going to Steven-ton.
Hélas!
‘ Eliza gave a gulp, which had
the effect of making Jane giggle, but then Phylly strode out from the inner room, and Eliza stopped abruptly. Phylly was not wearing her cloak or her bonnet.

‘I’ve changed my mind, Cousin Eliza,’ she announced solemnly. ‘I’ve decided that it would be improper of me to travel alone with a young man.’

‘But he’s your cousin, Phylly,’ wailed Eliza, and Henry gave her a sharp frown, kissed all three of us, bowed to Phylly and declared that he had to be off straightaway. We
heard him running fast down the stairs.

‘He’s going to be very, very, very early,’ Jane muttered to me as we looked down from the window at her brother’s fleeing figure.

‘
Les jeunes
– life is fun and movement for them,’ said Eliza sadly. But then she cheered up. ‘Let’s discuss the ball,’ she said. ‘Jane,
chérie
, you’ve made quite a conquest, haven’t you. We might see our little Jane as the wife of an earl some time, Phylly!’

‘An earl!’ Jane stared at her. ‘What are you talking about, Eliza?’

Eliza laughed. ‘Listen to her, Phylly. She spent most of the night dancing with Newton Wallop, the son of the Earl of Portland, no less! And there she is with a face like a baby. He is so
taken by her! He hangs on every word that she says. And Jenny, too, you naughty girl! I saw you with the
comte
. You two were laughing together.’

Jane and I giggled, but Phylly was not amused. ‘I must say that all this flirting upsets me. What are you young girls thinking of! This sort of behaviour will get you talked about. I wish
we could all leave this dissipated city and go back to our quiet country ways.’

‘
Hélas
,’ sighed Eliza, leaving it to our imagination to guess whether she was referring to the loss of the quiet country days or to the continued presence of
Phylly.

‘We have to leave you,’ said Jane with a solemn face. ‘We have an appointment with a young gentleman in this dissipated city of Bath and we cannot disappoint him. Who knows,
but he may fall into despair and end his days in a stream. I wrote a poem about that last night.’ She stood very still in the centre of the room, her toes, in her neat slip-on shoes, turned
outwards, her hands clasped in front of her, clutching her reticule, and recited:

Then she bowed slightly towards Phylly. We both raced down the stairs and flew out into Queen’s Square before exploding into a laugh.

On the way back we met Harry. What a surprise!!

‘You’re out early,’ he said.

‘Tell us the news,’ commanded Jane. ‘I can see that you have some. I know that look on your face.’

These two have known each other since they were babies, I thought, looking from one face to the other. They’ve played together, gone for walks together, and spent evenings dancing together
in the shabby parlour at Steventon parsonage. They probably recognize each other’s every expression, understand every move.

‘Well, I do have something interesting,’ said Harry, his soft Hampshire accent standing out amidst the clipped speech of the inhabitants of Bath, who were hastening downhill for
their morning bath in the spa waters or drink at the Pump Room.

‘From your friend the chambermaid?’ It was difficult for me to tell from Jane’s voice whether she cared about Harry’s friendship with this chambermaid. Harry, however,
gave a small smile and a quick glance at Jane’s high-coloured face.

‘Yes,’ he said, nodding. ‘And she got it from her friend, the lady’s maid to Mrs Kent.’

‘Who on earth are Mrs Kent and her lady’s maid?’ said Jane impatiently.

‘Ah, don’t be rushing me now,’ said Harry with a grin. ‘I’m not a novelist like you, you know. You must give me time.’

‘Let Harry tell the story, Jane,’ I said, and he proceeded to tell it very well. It appears that Mrs Kent, a respectable widow living in Bath, had bought four pairs of gloves from
Miss Gregory. When she got home and unwrapped the parcel at home she found five pairs of gloves. According to the maid, she was puzzling over how such a thing could have happened when there was a
loud ring at her front door. It was Miss Gregory, who straightaway accused Mrs Kent of stealing the gloves. When the widow angrily denied this, Miss Gregory said that she was going to summon a
constable. At this stage Mrs Kent got frightened and gave the gloves back to Miss Gregory with a ten-pound note tucked in between them. Jane and I both gasped at this. Ten pounds would feed a farm
labourer’s family for a year! However, Miss Gregory took the ten-pound note and then marched away, muttering to herself, according to the lady’s maid. After that no more was
heard!!!

‘Harry, you must tell the lawyer this,’ said Jane. ‘It’s obvious that this is a plot. They hoped to frighten my aunt and uncle into paying them money. They are in debt to
the printer who owns the shop and this plan was concocted to get them out of trouble.’

Harry hesitated a little.

‘I don’t think that will work,’ he said eventually.

‘No, you must,’ said Jane. ‘Don’t be shy.’

‘What about your brother H-Henry? I thought I would get him to do it; he could pretend that he had found it out for himself.’

‘Henry’s gone back to Steventon,’ said Jane impatiently. ‘No, Harry, you must be the one to talk to them.’

‘It’s just that . . . it’s j-just that I think your uncle and aunt won’t take much notice of me . . . They might even think that I was meddling in their a-affairs,’
stammered Harry, obviously uncomfortable.

I told Jane that I saw what Harry meant. I felt sorry for him, but someone like Jane, who wasn’t shy, could not understand how Harry was feeling.

Harry went on: ‘Anyway, I don’t think that the lawyer would believe me. He’d probably tell me to mind my own business.’

‘I wonder, could we go and talk to our uncle and aunt – pretend that we had overheard something?’ I suggested.

‘No, that wouldn’t do either. Mr and Mrs Leigh-Perrot told Henry yesterday that on no account are either of you to be allowed to go into the prison. She said it would never do for
girls of your age. She said the same thing to your brother, Miss Jenny.’

‘I know what we’ll do!’ Jane was suddenly all lit up with excitement. ‘I’ll write a letter, an anonymous letter, and you can drop it in through the lawyer’s
door at darkest midnight, Harry. Then the lawyer can claim all the credit it for it – which is a shame really, when it was your cleverness, dear Harry – you should be
rewarded.’

‘I don’t want any reward.’ There was a smile on Harry’s face, and I had a feeling that Jane’s words, especially the ‘dear Harry’ part, were all the
reward that he had ever wanted.

Jane rushed me back home, dying to get to work on the letter and assuring Harry that it would be ready for him after our three o’clock dinner.

But when we came in through the hall door Augusta was there, all dressed up in a brand-new gown, trimmed with all sorts of lace billowing around her hips and falling into folds below her fur
jacket and enormous fur muff.

‘There you are,’ she exclaimed when she saw me. ‘I’ve been sending here and there, looking for you. I do declare you are running quite wild! Now go upstairs and get
changed into something decent. What have you to wear for a visit?’

‘Visit?’ I asked, wondering where we were going. As far as I knew, Augusta had no acquaintance in the city of Bath.

‘We’re going to see Mr Wilkins and Mr Stanley Wilkins. They’ve invited you and me to their house in Bristol. You will be all right here, Jane, my dear? Edward-John will keep
you company once he gets back from visiting your aunt and uncle.’ She didn’t wait for Jane’s answer but was chivvying me up the stairs, peering into the clothes press to see what
I might wear.

‘I’ll be perfectly all right on my own, ma’am. Thank you for enquiring, ma’am. I very much appreciate your kind concern for me.’ Jane dropped a few curtsies, so
ridiculous that I found it hard to repress a giggle as Augusta went through my scanty wardrobe with exclamations of despair.

‘I suppose you had better wear that blue muslin,’ she muttered eventually. ‘I don’t suppose that he will notice what you are wearing.’

‘He??’ Jane signalled me with her eyebrows and I shook my head silently at her, wishing that I had the courage to say no to Augusta.

The Wilkins brothers live side by side in two enormous houses in George Street in Bristol. I wondered why they have two houses, since neither man has wife nor family, but I
suppose they have to display their wealth. According to Augusta both are ‘wealthy beyond dreams’ – her expression.

We went into Mr Stanley Wilkins’s house first. We had to see all over the house, from the bedrooms with their beautifully carved beds, hung with finest muslin drapery, dressing tables in
shining mahogany and delicate china on the washstands, and the kitchen, with its modern closed stove, to the drawing room, where I sat, uncomfortably squashed between Augusta and the hugely fat Mr
Stanley Wilkins, right in the centre of one of Mr Chippendale’s three-seater settees and gazed at the glowing carpet.

‘If you look at the design on the carpet, Miss Jenny,’ wheezed Mr Stanley, ‘you will see that it exactly echoes the plasterwork on the ceiling. I had it woven for me
specially.’

Augusta exclaimed happily about all the beauties while I craned my neck to look at the elaborate scrolls and tendrils above my head ‘Now, I must just pop in and see your brother,’
said Augusta brightly. ‘It would never do to make him jealous, would it? You will look after my little sister, won’t you, Mr Stanley?’