May, Lou & Cass Read online

  Jane’s wariness was to soften into appreciation of Catherine Knight’s kindness, especially when, in the spirit of a patron, she gave her money on a regular basis, which Jane was very happy to accept: ‘This morning brought me a letter from Mrs Knight, containing the usual Fee, & all the usual Kindness,’ she wrote to Cassandra in the summer of 1808. ‘She asks me to spend a day or two with her this week ... and I believe I shall go. — ... Her very agreeable present will make my circumstances quite easy. I shall reserve half for my Pelisse.’22 They even came to share certain jokes, like the longstanding fiction that Jane was on the point of marrying the Rector of Chawton, the perpetually single Mr Papillon.23

  While Catherine Knight’s friendship and patronage made it easier for Jane Austen to follow her vocation, it may be that Edward’s wife, Elizabeth, was less than encouraging to her younger sister-in-law.24 James’s daughter Anna had, like her Godmersham cousins, many opportunities to observe her aunts and other relatives; she had been sent to Steventon at the age of two for an extended stay after the death of her mother in 1795, and maintained close contact thereafter. She thought Edward’s wife Elizabeth ‘a very lovely woman, highly educated, though not I imagine of much natural talent. Her tastes were domestic,’ she said, ‘her affections strong, though exclusive, and her temper calculated to make Husband and children happy in their home’.25 Where Cassandra and Jane were concerned, she believed that the former Elizabeth Bridges was not especially fond of Jane, distrusting her creativity, because ‘a little talent went a long way with the Goodnestone Bridgeses of that period, & much must have gone a long way too far’. It may be that Elizabeth’s ‘strong, though exclusive’ affections did not extend to Jane, or Jane’s to her.26

  Whether Anna was correct in her judgement or not, there is no doubt that Edward’s children, though apparently unspoiled, enjoyed the comforts of a landed gentleman’s family, which the Austens had not. Like the young Austens before them, however, they enjoyed games and theatricals, as Fanny described in a letter of January 1806 to her former governess, Miss Chapman:

  On Twelfth day we were all agreeably surprised with a sort of masquerade, all being dress’d in character, and then we were conducted into the library, which was all lighted up and at one end a throne, surrounded with a grove of Orange Trees, and other shrubs, and all this was totally unknown to us all! Was it not delightful? I should have liked you very much to have been of the party. Now I will tell you our different characters. Edward and I were a Shepherd King and Queen; Mama a Savoyarde with a Hurdy-Gurdy; Marianne and William her children with a Tambourine and Triangle; Papa and Aunt Louisa — Sir Bertram and Lady Beadmasc one hundred years old — Uncle H. Austen — a Jew; Uncle E — a Jewess; Miss Sharpe — a Witch; Elizabeth — a flowergirl; Sophia — a fruitgirl; Fanny Cage — a Haymaker; George— Harlequin; Henry — clown; and Charley a Cupid! Was it not a good one for him, sweet fellow! He had a little pair of wings and a bow and arrow! And looked charming.27

  Fanny’s vignette gives a charming glimpse of the family over two years before Jane described them so dispassionately, in the summer of 1808. Fanny, who would one day dismiss her aunt Jane as unrefined, was, in January 1806, a carefree child of almost thirteen; her brother Edward, who would later sell off the family home, an eleven-year-old boy. Their mother, Elizabeth, a full participant in the revelry, was already the mother of nine children, and would in November of that year give birth to Cassandra Jane, always known as Cassandra or, within the family, as Cass. William, carrier of the triangle, seven years old, would be one of only two members of the family to accompany Jane Austen on her last journey to Winchester in 1817. The flower girl Lizzy, almost six, and nearly two years older than Marianne with her tambourine, would come out in society the year Jane Austen died, and marry the following year, aged just eighteen. Little Charley, their Cupid, not yet three, would visit his aunt Jane in her last days at Winchester and would provide, as the Reverend Charles Austen of Chawton, a refuge for Marianne in the middle of her life.

  No part seems to have been assigned on that happy Christmas to Louisa, Jane’s goddaughter, then just over a year old. Yet, although she was not included in the pageant of January 1806, an impression of the infant Louisa has survived. Fanny describes her in her diaries as ‘very pretty’ with ‘beautiful black eyes’. She was, however, a noisy child, which may explain her exclusion, as may her complete lack of inhibition: when Charles tried to say his prayers, Fanny wrote: ‘He kneels down and she does too, gabbling all the time, quite naked.’28 It is also worth noting the presence at the 1806 Twelfth Day party Edward’s brother, ‘Uncle H. Austen’. Henry Austen, Jane’s favourite brother, had been posted with his regiment to Ireland in 1799, in the wake of the unsuccessful rising of the United Irishmen.29 He so relished the occupation of Paymaster, and the company of such powerful figures as Lord Cornwallis, that he decided to go into banking with some of his regimental friends, and persuaded his family to invest in a bank at Alton in Hampshire. The collapse of this venture would prove to be the cause of great financial loss to his brother Edward.30 Years later, Marianne would refer back to this collapse which, despite their good fortune in living at Godmersham, would leave all of the family with greatly reduced prospects.31

  Although nobody could have guessed it at the time of that party in January 1806, the family’s happiest days together were coming to a close. Elizabeth Austen, in her thirty-third year, seemed healthy: she gave birth without incident to Cassandra Jane later that year. Jane’s letter to her sister Cassandra, yet again in attendance at Godmersham, reveals a certain amused weariness with the seemingly endless business of babies and their care:

  I really have very little to say this week & do not feel as if I should spread that little into the shew of much. I am inclined for short sentences. Mary [their sister-in law, Mrs Francis Austen] will be obliged to you to take notice how often Eliz’th nurses her baby in the course of the 24 hours, how often it is fed & with what; — you need not trouble yourself to write the results of your observations, Your return will be early enough for the communication of them. — 32

  Despite Jane’s lack of interest in the details, Elizabeth was undoubtedly a good mother to her children. A letter written to Lizzy from Chawton in September 1807, when Elizabeth and her husband went with Fanny and William to see Edward off to school at Winchester, makes it clear not only that Elizabeth disliked Chawton Great House, but also that she missed and was thinking with tenderness of her youngest children. She gives a clear picture of the children, as she saw them, and of Marianne, ‘poor little May’, in particular. She was not quite six, and nervous at her first experience on horseback, yet so quick with letters that Elizabeth could advise Lizzy, more than a year and a half Marianne’s elder, to seek her help in deciphering their mother’s handwriting.

  You cannot think how much I miss you all. The house is quite dull & melancholy, & it appears already a long time since I have seen any of you. My little darling Cassandra, I am afraid she will forget me, I hope you talk to her of Mama sometimes that she may be accustomed to the sound, sweet Angel! How I long to kiss her fat soft neck and her little sweet lips. I am very glad she has cut another tooth, & I hope she will have four by the time I return home, & not look quite so pale as she did. How happy you must have been riding ... I should have liked to have seen you very much, I suppose you did not venture to trot or canter, but you will another time, so poor little May was afraid! I am not much surprised at it, as it was the first time ... This house is very cold and dreary, but it would be very comfortable if it was well filled with Children, their playing and prattling would enliven us very much. We all Breakfast together at half-past nine o’clock, your Brothers then go out; & amuse themselves generally with a nice little green Chaise which Edward gets into & William stands up behind, then they guide it down the hills as fast as they can, & enjoy it extremely, they have got a Trap, Bat and Ball, likewise. Wm. comes in about 12 and does a few lessons, afterwards he takes a walk with Fanny & me, whils
t Papa and Edward ride, we dine at ½ past 4, walk in the evening, drink tea at 8 or before, and your Brothers generally go to bed soon after, not knowing what to do besides. I thought you should like to know how we pass our time, we shall soon have a little variety, for today your Grandmamma, and your Aunts Cassandra & Jane come to us which we shall like very much. I am afraid, my darling, you will not be much amused by this letter, for I am not in spirits to be entertaining. If you cannot read it, you must ask Marianne to help you, I know she is a clever little thing in reading letters, you must give her a great many loves and kisses from me, likewise my little angels, Charles, Louisa and Cassandra. Oh, how I wish you were all here, that I might kiss you myself, dear sweet little loves ... 33

  Whatever Elizabeth’s true opinion of her sister-in-law may have been, or Jane’s of her, they had Edward and the children in common, and maintained at all times the appearance of warmth. The Godmersham children were always glad to see their aunt, as Jane describes in an account of her welcome in June 1808. Elizabeth was expecting her child in November, and Jane was to bridge the gap soon to be left by the retirement of the girls’ governess, Miss Anne Sharp, who would become instead a companion in the household, and a lifelong friend to Jane. ‘Fanny and Lizzy met us in the hall with a great deal of pleasant joy,’ she wrote. ‘Elizabeth, who was dressing when we arrived, came to me for a minute attended by Marianne, Charles, and Louisa, and, you will not doubt, gave me a very affectionate welcome ...’ Fanny was then very close to Jane who, while wholeheartedly trying to help her sister-in-law with the care of the exuberant children, was not above attempting to discover through her guileless niece any hint of a lack of enthusiasm on the part of Elizabeth. ‘I cannot discover,’ she wrote with what may have been mild disappointment, ‘even through Fanny, that her mother is fatigued by her attendance on the children. I have, of course, tendered my services, and when Louisa [Bridges, the children’s maternal aunt] is gone, who sometimes hears the little girls read, will try to be accepted in her stead. She will not be here many days longer ...’ 34

  As intended, Jane took on some of the work of the children, hearing their reading, supervising their handwork and trying to make allowances for a lessening of her goddaughter’s earlier prettiness: ‘Louisa is not so handsome as I expected,’ she wrote to Cassandra, ‘but she is not quite well’. Before long, no one was quite well: the whole household came down with heavy colds, and Lizzy was in danger of being very ill ‘with specks and a great deal of fever’.35 Jane became homesick by the end of June and, as soon as the children were well enough recovered, she hoped to go back to Chawton. For the time remaining, she planned to ‘eat Ice & drink French wine, & be above Vulgar Economy’. Homesick or not, she did not underestimate the luxuries available to her only at Godmersham. Jane had no qualms, however, about leaving Godmersham, for there was no suggestion that anything about Elizabeth’s pregnancy was unusual. In fact, when she left in early July 1808, Jane wrote that her sister-in-law was ‘considered ... more than usually active for her situation and size’.36 In the autumn, Cassandra travelled to Godmersham to help Elizabeth with the birth of the expected child. In the end, despite all the careful preparation, the birth took place before Cassandra arrived, which amused Jane:

  Your letter this morning was quite unexpected, & it is well that it brings such good news, to counterbalance the disappointment to me of losing my first sentence, which I had arranged full of proper hopes about your Journey ... — We are extremely glad to hear of the birth of the Child, & trust everything will proceed as well as it begins; — his Mama has our best wishes, & he our second best for health & comfort — tho I suppose unless he has our best too, we do nothing for her. —We are glad it was all over before your arrival.37

  The new baby, a healthy boy christened Brook John, and known ever afterwards as John, or Johnny, was born on 28 September 1808. His mother seemed so well, that Cassandra had less to do than expected. Like her sister, she made herself useful by hearing the children’s lessons. ‘Pray tell my little Goddaughter,’ wrote Jane, ‘that I am delighted to hear of her saying her lesson so well’ and, a week later, she wrote to Cassandra with affection of her eldest niece, Fanny:

  I am greatly pleased with your account of Fanny; I found her in the summer just what you describe, almost another Sister, & could not have supposed that a niece could ever have been so much to me. She is quite after one’s own heart; give her my best Love, & tell her that I always think of her with pleasure.38

  This was to be the last time Fanny would ever be considered by anyone as a carefree young girl. On Monday, 10 October 1808, when little John was less than a fortnight old, Elizabeth Austen died unexpectedly. She seemed to have nothing more serious than a cold which, as the whole family had struggled with one throughout the summer, did not cause undue distress. No one suspected that she was suffering from puerperal fever, whose early symptoms resembled those of the common cold. ‘Oh! The miserable events of this day!’ wrote the distraught Fanny, in her journal. ‘My mother, my beloved mother torn from us! After eating a hearty dinner, she was taken violently ill and expired (May God have mercy upon us) in ½ an hour!!!!’39 Poor Fanny’s literal description, with its incongruous description of the ‘hearty dinner’ and its many exclamation marks, underlines the fact that she was only fifteen years old and, like the rest of the household, in deep shock.

  Help was soon at hand and two days later, Henry Austen arrived. The two eldest boys, Edward and George, were taken to stay with their uncle James at Steventon, and arrangements were made for the funeral on the following Monday, 17 October. Jane received the news from her sister two days after Elizabeth’s death. She wrote the next morning of her shock and distress, her novelist’s mind fully picturing the scene, and her attachment to the children clear, not only in her imaginative concern, but also in her sincere wish to look after Edward and George herself:

  I have received your letter, & with most melancholy anxiety was it expected, for the sad news reach’d us last night, but without any particulars; ... — We have felt, we do feel for you all — as you will not need to be told — for you, for Fanny, for Henry, for Lady Bridges, & 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, & a Disposition that will gradually lead him to comfort. — My dear, dear Fanny! — I am so thankful that she has you with her! — You will be everything to her, you will give her all the consolation that human aid can give. — May the Almighty sustain you all —& keep you my dearest Cassandra well — but for the present I dare say you are equal to everything — You will know that the poor Boys are at Steventon, perhaps it is best for them, as they will have more means of exercise and amusement there than they cd have with us, but I own myself disappointed with the arrangement; — I should have loved to have them with me at such a time.40

  In 1808, Edward Knight’s older children were barely in their teens, yet his eldest daughter Fanny was immediately considered fit to be not only a substitute mother to her ten younger siblings, but also the mainstay of her widowed father. Jane herself, despite her compassion for the whole family, naturally assumed it. ‘Edward’s loss is terrible,’ she wrote to Cassandra five days after Elizabeth’s death, ‘& must be felt as such, & these are too early days indeed to think of Moderation in grief, either in him or his afflicted daughter — but soon we hope that our dear Fanny’s sense of Duty to that beloved Father will rouse her to exertion. For his sake, & as the most acceptable proof of Love to the spirit of her departed Mother, she will try to be tranquil and resigned ...’41 A stoic sense of duty, such as she herself had always shown, was expected even of the little girls: ‘Your account of Lizzy,’ she replied to Cassandra, ‘is very interesting. Poor Child! One must hope the impression will be strong, & yet one’s heart aches for a dejected mind of eight years old.’ Jane was equally unsentimental about the facts of death, and her query: ‘I suppose you see t
he Corpse, —: how does it appear?’ may seem surprising, or even heartless, today. The Georgians, however, were unsqueamish and entirely pragmatic about both birth and death, and it was their accepted custom to view the remains before the closing of the coffin. In addition, proper mourning dress had to be worn. As Jane had already remarked to Cassandra before her sister-in-law’s death: ‘we must turn our black pelisses into new, for Velvet is to be very much worn this winter.’42 Now, following Elizabeth’s death, she used her eye for detail to remodel their winter fashions into mourning attire: