Jane Austen’s First Love

PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF SYRIE JAMES

The Missing Manuscript of Jane Austen

“A novel within a novel honoring what we love most about Austen: her engaging stories, her rapier wit, and her swoon-worthy romance . . . Pitch perfect . . . brilliantly crafted.”

—
Austenprose

“This richly imagined Jane Austen ‘road novel’ is such a page turner . . . A standout addition to the crowded archive of Austen homages.”

—
Kirkus Reviews
(starred review)

“A literary feast for Anglophiles . . . [with] an Austen-worthy ending.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“Syrie James has surpassed herself . . . It’ll be one of your favorite reads in 2013!”

—
My Jane Austen Book Club

“Ingenious! . . . An absorbing, reflective, and remarkable work of fiction that masterfully captures the essence and style of a Jane Austen novel.”

—
Austenesque Reviews

“James expertly blends Austen archetypes—bumbling suitors, lady friends both silly and sympathetic, bemused fathers—with her own narrative wit . . . A sweet, enjoyable read for any Austen fan.”

—
Shelf Awareness

“A delightful novel that you simply won’t want to put down . . . A must read for all Jane Austen enthusiasts.”

—
Confessions of an Avid Reader

“A book a Jane Austen lover cannot miss.”

—
The Bookish Dame

“A magical book . . . that readers will definitely store on their keeper shelf and read more than once.”

—
RT Book Reviews

The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen

Named One of the Best First Novels of the Year by
Library Journal

“This fascinating novel will make readers swear there was such a man as Mr. Ashford and that there is such a memoir . . . Tantalizing, tender, and true to the Austen mythos, James’s book is highly recommended.”

—Library Journal
(starred review)

“James creates a life story for Austen that illuminates how her themes and plots may have developed . . . The reader blindly pulls for the heroine and her dreams of love, hoping against history that Austen might yet enjoy the satisfactions of romance.”

—
Los Angeles Times

“Austen and Mr. Ashford seem a perfect match in matters of head and heart . . . Though she hews closely to the historic record, [James] creates . . . will-they-or-won’t-they suspense that culminates with a proposal and an ‘intensely’ kissed Austen. It’s a pleasant addition to the ever-expanding Austen-revisited genre.”

—Publishers Weekly

“A beautiful, fictional what-if.”

—
Austenprose

“Suspense builds, and it’s a tribute to the world James creates that readers will anxiously root for Jane to find true love and wealth, even though we know it never happened.”

—
Kirkus Reviews

“Syrie James is a fine storyteller, with a sensitive ear for the Austenian voice . . . The result is a thoughtful, immensely touching romance . . . Well researched, well written, and beautifully plotted.”

—
Jane Austen’s Regency World

The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë

“Faithful to the writer’s language, time, and place. This is bound to fascinate admirers of the doomed Brontës.”

—
Library Journal

“James adapts Brontë’s voice, telling Brontë’s story as though it came straight from the great writer . . . James offers a satisfying—if partly imagined—history of the real-life experiences that inspired Brontë’s classic novels.”

—
BookPage

Dracula, My Love

“James gives readers an intriguing alternate theory as to the events that occurred in Stoker’s classic horror tale while at the same time delivering a spooky yet thoroughly romantic love story.”

—
Chicago Tribune

Nocturne

“Nicole and Michael are haunting characters, each with a past that makes it difficult for them to embrace the future. In each other they find a kindred spirit, and their journey is a well- written page-turner . . . that will stick with the reader.”

—Fresh Fiction

Berkley titles by Syrie James

THE MISSING MANUSCRIPT OF JANE AUSTEN

JANE AUSTEN’S FIRST LOVE

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) LLC

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

USA • Canada • UK • Ireland • Australia • New Zealand • India • South Africa • China

penguin.com

A Penguin Random House Company

This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

Copyright © 2014 by Syrie James.

Readers Guide copyright © 2014 by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

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The “B” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-698-13926-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

James, Syrie.

Jane Austen’s First Love / Syrie James.—Berkley trade paperback edition.

pages cm

ISBN 978-0-425-27135-3 (paperback)

1. Austen, Jane, 1775–1817—Fiction. 2. Love stories. 3. Biographical fiction. I. Title.

PS3610.A457J36 2014

813'.6—dc23

2013047390

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Berkley trade paperback edition / August 2014

Cover photographs: Woman © Mohamad Itani / Arcangel; House: Image Brief.

Cover design by Lesley Worrell.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental

For Laurel Ann Nattress

T
he summer of 1791 is so firmly fixed in my memory that I believe I can never forget it; every detail is as fresh and vivid as if it occurred only yesterday, and looking back, there are times when it seems as if my life never really began until that moment—the moment when I first met
him
.

It was a letter which instigated this fond remembrance—a letter I wrote to my sister Cassandra many years past, which she came upon the other day by happenstance. It was a cold morning in late November, and we had recently returned to our Bath apartment following a lovely, all too brief holiday at Lyme. I was setting the table for breakfast, when I observed my sister seated by the window in the drawing-room, deeply engrossed in reading. An open box of old correspondence lay at her feet.

“What are you reading, Cassandra?” inquired I.

“One of your old letters,” replied she, smiling. “I came upon this box while I was tidying the wardrobe, and could not prevent myself from taking a look inside.”

“My letters? Why do you keep those old things? Re-reading them can hardly prove to make lively entertainment of a morning.”

“Oh, but it does. You wrote this one in September 1796 when you were in Kent. Here you speak of a Miss Fletcher:
She wore her purple muslin, which is pretty enough, though it does not become her complexion. There are two traits in her character which are pleasing; namely, she admires Camilla, and drinks no cream in her tea
.” Cassandra laughed softly. “You are a most candid and amusing writer, Jane.”

“I am flattered that you think so, but I still say: what is the point of reading my old correspondence? It is full of nothing but useless details which can no longer be of interest to anybody.”

“I beg to differ. Reading them is a source of great pleasure for me, dearest.” Turning the letter over, she continued, “Look what you write here:
We went by Bifrons and I contemplated with a melancholy pleasure the abode of him, on whom I once fondly doated.
”

I paused, the spoon which I had been holding forgotten in my hand. That single sentence caught at my heart, of a sudden bringing back to mind a person, and a time and place, which I had not thought about in many years—and an attachment which I thought I had long since got over.

Cassandra looked at me, empathy in her eyes. “You are thinking about that summer, are you not?”

I nodded.

“How many years has it been?”

I did the mental calculation. “Twelve and a half years.”

She carefully refolded the letter. “They say that memories fade in time—but where particular people and events are concerned, I have not found that to be the case.”

I knew that she was thinking of Tom, her own lost love, who had tragically died so many years before. Our eyes caught and held across the room.

“Nor have I.”

She came to me, removed the spoon from my hand, and set it on the table; then she took me in her embrace. “You are older and wiser now, Jane. But it is only natural that you should think of him. I know what he meant to you.”

So saying, she kissed my cheek, handed me the letter, and left the room.

I sank into the nearest chair, immediately opening and scanning the letter until I found the phrase which was of such interest to me. Then I held the missive to my chest, as a hundred memories came flooding back.

At that point of my life when this history occurs, I had attained my fifteenth year. I was young, I know it; but does age matter? Did Juliet, not fourteen, love her Romeo any less? What of Pyramus and Thisbe’s burning passion? Ought we to discount their raw and overpowering feelings, simply because of their youthful age? I think not. When he was near, at times my heart did not beat to its regular rhythm; in so many ways, I thought he was my perfect match.

To
my
mind, particularly when one took into account my education and the manner in which I was raised, I was, at fifteen, a grown-up person in every way; indeed, I felt as mature and worldly as my sister, who was three years my senior. I was not beautiful, like Cassandra; my hair was far too curly, and neither fashionably light nor dark, but a shade of brown somewhere in between; even so, I received compliments on my hazel eyes and clear complexion, and was often told that I bore a strong resemblance to my father and my six brothers, whom I believed to be handsome.

I lived in the house where I was born, Steventon Rectory, in the county of Hampshire. Although not grand or elegant by any means, it was a dwelling worthy of a scholar and a gentleman and had provided me with all the comforts and joys of a happy childhood. It offered more accommodation than many parsonage houses, making it possible for my father to augment his income as rector by taking in boarding pupils—as such, my sister and I had the benefit of growing up in a house of rowdy boys and being educated at their side. Since Cassandra had finished her studies, and all my brothers were grown and gone except Charles (the youngest, at nearly twelve), the size of the school was much depleted; yet Papa gave it no less attention than before.

We had a lovely garden and a big old barn, where for years my brothers and sister and I had enjoyed holding home theatricals. I had done very little travelling outside of Hampshire, other than two brief intervals away at school, and one family excursion to east Kent to visit my elderly great-uncle at Sevenoaks. I was anxious to see the world.

I had been taking dancing lessons since I was a child and loved nothing more than the idea of a ball; but an
idea
was all it had been, for as much as I perceived myself to be an adult, my mother still forbade me from attending the assemblies at Basingstoke. This was the greatest cross I bore at the time, for I dreamt of three things in life: doing something useful, writing something worthy, and falling in love—and how could I ever fall in love if I had to wait nearly two years before Mamma would allow me to come out?

On Thursday morning, the 18th of March, 1791, I was in my dressing-room, a smallish chamber which communicated with my bedroom and had been especially fitted up for my sister and me. I adored every inch of that room, from the chocolate brown carpet, blue wallpaper, and comforting fireplace, to the painted bookshelves and cheerful striped curtains, for it was a place of quiet and refuge, where I could write in privacy and peace.

I was seated at the small table between the windows, above which hung a looking-glass and our Tonbridge-ware work-boxes, thoroughly engaged in composing a little play I had entitled
The Visit
, and was just considering the next line to be spoken, when I heard the tread of footsteps on the stairs and my mother’s voice ringing out:

“Jane! Jane! Come down! You are needed!”

“I am writing, Mamma!” I doubted very much that my reply would hold much weight with her, and sadly this proved to be the case.

My mother entered the room and stopped beside me, shaking her head and clicking her tongue. “Look at you, bent over that table like an interrogation point—do sit up straight, Jane!”

Like myself, my mother was of middle height, and spare and thin; I never understood her personal assertion that she had never been handsome, for with her bright gray eyes, her aristocratic face and nose, and her shiny dark hair (which had retained its colour, although she was two-and-fifty) I thought her attractive. Although at times her behaviour mortified and infuriated me, I loved her dutifully, for she was a clever, honourable woman who worked hard to manage our busy household. However, to my everlasting distress, although she doted on her other children, she seemed to have singled me out as the one with whom to persistently find fault.

“Jane, put down your pen and come downstairs; we have work to do.”

“What kind of work?”

“I told you at breakfast! We still have all those shirts to make for Charles, and two new pairs of breeches, and who knows how many handkerchiefs. Cassandra and I have been working all morning, and with only two pairs of hands, it is slow going.”

My brother Charles was a cheerful, sweet-tempered, affectionate boy, who had chosen to follow in my brother Frank’s footsteps, and was to start at the Naval Academy at Portsmouth a few months hence. We had been sewing his new clothes for months, and although I was very happy to assist in the occupation, I saw no reason to interrupt my writing at that precise moment for such a task.

“Mamma: Charles is not going away until July. We have plenty of time.”

“The time will fly by, Jane. Even if we sew every day between now and July, we will be lucky if we finish it all before he leaves.”

“May I come down in an hour, Mamma? I am right in the middle of the most amazing scene: eight people are crowded into a tiny drawing-room which only has chairs for six. Two large persons will be obliged to sit on the laps of others—only imagine the hilarity which will ensue!”

“That can wait, Jane; this cannot.”

“But, Mamma! I have the whole dialogue in my head. If I stop now, I will forget! Did Shakespeare’s mother interrupt
his
efforts with a pen? Did Mozart’s father oblige
him
to sew gowns for his sister?”

My mother raised her eyes heavenward. “I know how much you enjoy your writing, Jane. Lord knows, we all love a good laugh now and then, and if anyone understands the pleasures of composition, it is
I
—I flatter myself that my poetry is not entirely unreadable—but it is only a hobby, Jane: an amusement for the family. We are neither of us Mozart nor Shakespeare.”

I could not argue with that assessment. The short stories and plays I had written were only fluff and nonsense which I composed to amuse myself and my family. When it came to literary talent,
that
honour belonged to my brothers James and Henry, who had demonstrated their brilliance by editing a newspaper while at Oxford.

“I write because I cannot help it,” said I.

“I understand; but that does not make it important. What
is
important is that you improve and perfect your needlework skills, Jane, for they will be of infinite value when you have a family of your own one day.”

I turned in my chair to face her. “How do you know I
will
have a family one day?” We had always been allowed—nay,
encouraged—
to speak frankly within the confines of our family; outside the home, it was a different matter. Perhaps this was to my detriment, for I often spoke without sufficient consideration, regardless of the setting; but my mother and father said they wished to know what was on our minds. “
That
will only happen if I
marry
, which requires that I meet an eligible gentleman—which seems highly unlikely given that you will never allow me to attend a real ball!”

She sighed. “We have been over this too many times to count, Jane. You may come out when you are seventeen, just as your sister did. Your father and I do not wish you to enter society or marry at too early an age.”

“Dancing does not necessarily lead to matrimony.”

“No, but dancing facilitates the means by which one might meet her life’s partner, and is one of several, certain steps towards falling in love. I met your father at a ball.”

“I know; but Cassandra has been out more than a year already, and she is not in love, nor even close to engaged. No doubt we shall both be required to attend
many
balls before we each find our perfect match. What is the harm in me starting early? Cassandra and I have done everything together since the moment of my birth; our progress in everything we have learnt has always been the same. Cannot you forget our age difference in this one, particular matter?”

“No, I cannot. Now go wash your hands—your fingers are all black—and come downstairs at once.” So saying, she quit the room.

With a deep sigh, I returned my aborted manuscript to my writing-box, washed my hands at the basin, and joined my mother and sister in the sitting-room. I threaded my needle and worked beside them in silence, struggling to keep the conversation between the characters in my play alive in my mind; but my mother’s and sister’s chatter, and the sounds of my father’s Latin lesson issuing from the adjoining parlour, forbade it.

After two hours thus employed, I felt I could sit still no longer. Glancing out the rectory window, I observed that the sun had made a bright appearance, and there was nary a cloud in the sky. After a frigid and dreary winter, the last dusting of snow had at last melted away, and the fields beyond, covered in a sparkling frost, beckoned to me. “Mamma, I have finished the long seam on this sleeve, and made good progress on the cuff. May I stop working now and take a walk?”

“You wish to go out in
this
weather?” She was incredulous.

“The post will not deliver itself.
Someone
has to go to Deane and fetch it,” replied I lightly, adding to my sister, “Would you like to join me?”

“I would, very much,” answered Cassandra, lowering her work. My sister, a prudent, well-judging young woman, was generally less demonstrative of feeling than I—a characteristic which I struggled in vain to emulate. She was also my dearest friend in the world; I valued her advice and counsel above anybody else’s, and loved her more than life itself.