Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters Part 21

The Cookes want us to drink tea with them to-night, but I do not know whether my mother will have nerves for it. We are engaged to-morrow evening--what request we are in! Mrs. Chamberlayne expressed to her niece her wish of being intimate enough with us to ask us to drink tea with her in a quiet way. We have therefore offered her ourselves and our quietness through the same medium. Our tea and sugar will last a great while.

I think we are just the kind of people and party to be treated about among our relations; we cannot be supposed to be very rich.

_Thursday._--I was not able to go on yesterday; all my wit and leisure were bestowed on letters to Charles and Henry. To the former I wrote in consequence of my mother's having seen in the papers that the _Urania_ was waiting at Portsmouth for the convoy for Halifax. This is nice, as it is only three weeks ago that you wrote by the _Camilla_. . . . I wrote to Henry because I had a letter from him in which he desired to hear from me very soon. His to me was most affectionate and kind, as well as entertaining; there is no merit to him in _that_; he cannot help being amusing. . . .

He offers to meet us on the sea coast, if the plan of which Edward gave him some hint takes place.

Will not this be making the execution of such a plan more desirable and delightful than ever? He talks of the rambles we took together last summer with pleasing affection.

Yours ever, J. A.

_From the Same to the Same._

Gay Street: Sunday Evening, April 21 [1805].[144]

MY DEAR Ca.s.sANDRA,--I am much obliged to you for writing to me again so soon; your letter yesterday was quite an unexpected pleasure. Poor Mrs. Stent! it has been her lot to be always in the way; but we must be merciful, for perhaps in time we may come to be Mrs. Stents ourselves, unequal to anything, and unwelcome to everybody.

Your account of Martha is very comfortable indeed, and now we shall be in no fear of receiving a worse. This day, if she has gone to church, must have been a trial to her feelings, but it will be the last of any acuteness. . . . Yesterday was a busy day with me. I went to Sydney Gardens soon after one and did not return until four, and after dinner I walked to Weston. My morning engagement was with the Cookes, and our party consisted of George and Mary, a Mr. and Miss B. who had been with us at the concert, and the youngest Miss W.

Not Julia; we have done with her; she is very ill; but Mary. Mary W.'s turn is actually come to be grown up, and have a fine complexion, and wear a great square muslin shawl. I have not expressly enumerated myself among the party, but there I was, and my cousin George was very kind, and talked sense to me every now and then, in the intervals of his more animated fooling with Miss B., who is very young, and rather handsome, and whose gracious manners, ready wit, and solid remarks, put me somewhat in mind of my old acquaintance L. L. There was a monstrous deal of stupid quizzing and common-place nonsense talked, but scarcely any wit; all that bordered on it or on sense came from my cousin George, whom altogether I like very well. Mr. B. seems nothing more than a tall young man. . . . My evening engagement and walk was with Miss A., who had called on me the day before, and gently upbraided me in her turn with a change of manners to her since she had been in Bath, or at least of late.

Unlucky me! that my notice should be of such consequence, and my manners so bad! She was so well disposed, and so reasonable, that I soon forgave her, and made this engagement with her in proof of it. She is really an agreeable girl, so I think I may like her; and her great want of a companion at home, which may well make any tolerable acquaintance important to her, gives her another claim on my attention. I shall as much as possible endeavour to keep my intimacies in their proper place, and prevent their clas.h.i.+ng. . . . Among so many friends, it will be well if I do not get into a sc.r.a.pe; and now here is Miss Blachford come. I should have gone distracted if the Bullers had staid. . . .

I am quite of your opinion as to the folly of concealing any longer our intended partners.h.i.+p with Martha, and wherever there has of late been an enquiry on the subject I have always been sincere, and I have sent word of it to the Mediterranean in a letter to Frank. None of _our_ nearest connections I think will be unprepared for it, and I do not know how to suppose that Martha's have not foreseen it.

When I tell you we have been visiting a Countess this morning, you will immediately, with great justice, but no truth, guess it to be Lady Roden.

No: it is Lady Leven, the mother of Lord Balgonie.

On receiving a message from Lord and Lady Leven through the Mackays, declaring their intention of waiting on us, we thought it right to go to them.

I hope we have not done too much, but the friends and admirers of Charles must be attended to. They seem very reasonable, good sort of people, very civil, and full of his praise.[145] We were shewn at first into an empty drawing-room, and presently in came his lords.h.i.+p, not knowing who we were, to apologise for the servant's mistake, and tell a lie himself that Lady Leven was not within. He is a tall gentlemanlike-looking man, with spectacles, and rather deaf. After sitting with him ten minutes we walked away; but, Lady Leven coming out of the dining parlour as we pa.s.sed the door, we were obliged to attend her back to it, and pay our visit over again. She is a stout woman, with a very handsome face. By this means we had the pleasure of hearing Charles's praises twice over.

They think themselves excessively obliged to him, and estimate him so highly as to wish Lord Balgonie, when he is quite recovered, to go out to him. . . . There is a pretty little Lady Marianne of the party, to be shaken hands with, and asked if she remembered Mr. Austen. . . .

I shall write to Charles by the next packet, unless you tell me in the meantime of your intending to do it.

Believe me, if you chuse, Y^{r} aff^{te} Sister.

'Cousin George' was the Rev. George Leigh Cooke, long known and respected at Oxford, where he held important offices, and had the privilege of helping to form the minds of men more eminent than himself.

As tutor at Corpus Christi College, he had under his charge Arnold, Keble, and Sir J. T. Coleridge.

The 'intended partners.h.i.+p' with Martha was an arrangement by which Martha Lloyd joined the family party: an arrangement which was based on their affectionate friends.h.i.+p for her, and which succeeded so well that it lasted through Southampton and Chawton, and did not end until after the death of Mrs. Austen in 1827.

FOOTNOTES:

[124] Probably, when they were on a visit to the Fowles at Elkstone, between Cheltenham and Cirencester. See p. 373.

[125] Family MS. One short paragraph, _Memoir_, p. 65; the remainder unpublished.

[126] Afterwards Sir William Heathcote, M.P.

[127] We remember that in _Mansfield Park_ William Price had been able to afford only the amber cross as a present to f.a.n.n.y, and not the chain.

See _Sailor Brothers_, p. 92.

[128] _Terrace_ seems to be a slip; at least, its present name is Sydney Place. We have, unfortunately, no letters dated from this house.

[129] There is an inscription to his memory on the wall of the south aisle in the Abbey.

[130] See p. 92.

[131] In an article called 'Is it Just?' p. 282.

[132] _Memoir_, p. 24.

[133] _Autobiography_, vol. ii. p. 40.

[134] See end of Chapter XIII.

[135] The watermarks of 1803 and 1804 on the paper are the sole authority for this date.

[136] P. 296.

[137] Miss Hill seems to have identified also the cottage, 'Mrs. Dean's house,' in which the Austens themselves lodged in 1804. No doubt decanters, and everything else, have long been perfectly immaculate.

[138] Nearly all _Memoir_, p. 68; the remainder unpublished.

[139] Chap. V.

[140] _Sailor Brothers_, p. 127.

[141] Mr. Oscar Fay Adams, a most careful investigator, failed to discover the inscription in Walcot Church to the memory of George Austen. It is in the crypt below the church, and runs as follows: 'Under this stone rest the remains of the Rev. George Austen, Rector of Steventon and Dean in Hamps.h.i.+re, who departed this life the 21st of January 1805, aged 73 years.'

[142] _Sailor Brothers_, p. 125.

[143] A gentleman and lady lately engaged to be married.

[144] _Memoir_, p. 74.

[145] It seems that Charles Austen, then first lieutenant of the _Endymion_, had had an opportunity of showing attention and kindness to some of Lord Leven's family.

CHAPTER XII

FROM BATH TO SOUTHAMPTON

1805-1808

The addition of Martha to the family party made it easy for the two sisters to leave their mother in August and pay a visit to G.o.dmersham; and owing to the fact that they, each in turn, varied their stay at G.o.dmersham by paying a short visit to Lady Bridges at Goodnestone Farm, we have three brief letters from Jane at this date. She was spending her time in the usual way, seeing a good deal of her sister-in-law's neighbours and connexions, and playing with her nephews and nieces.