AT SOUTHAMPTON
For two and a half years, that is to say from May 1801 to
September 1804, we do not hear any more of Jane Austen from her own
correspondence. Then, while she was staying at Lyme, she sent a letter
to her sister which is given in Mr. Austen-Leigh’s _Memoir_. It will
be remembered that part of the scene in _Persuasion_ takes place at
Lyme, where the principal characters are transported, and where Louisa
Musgrove meets with her accident. Captain Wentworth’s friend, Captain
Harville, had settled there for the winter, and wrote such a glowing
account of the fine country around that “the young people were all wild
to see Lyme.” The party that finally went were the heroine, Anne Elliot
herself, her brother and sister-in-law, her two friends, Henrietta and
Louisa Musgrove, and her quondam lover, Captain Wentworth, who was at
this time paying rather more attention to Louisa Musgrove than could
be borne with easiness by poor Anne, who had realised the dreadful
mistake she had made in giving him up seven years before. “They were
come too late in the year for any amusement or variety which Lyme,
as a public place might offer; the rooms were shut up, the lodgers
almost gone, scarcely any family but the residents left—and as there is
nothing to admire in the buildings themselves, the remarkable situation
of the town, the principal street almost hurrying into the water, the
walk to the Cobb, skirting round the pleasant little bay, which in
the season is animated with bathing machines and company; the Cobb
itself, its old wonders and new improvements, with the very beautiful
line of cliffs stretching out to the east of the town, are what the
stranger’s eye will seek; and a very strange stranger it must be who
does not see charms in the immediate environs of Lyme to make him wish
to know it better. The scenes in its neighbourhood, Charmouth, with
its high grounds and extensive sweeps of country, and still more its
sweet retired bay, backed by dark cliffs, where fragments of low rock
among the sands make it the happiest spot for watching the flow of the
tide, for sitting in unwearied contemplation; the woody varieties of
the cheerful vista of Up Lyme; and, above all, Pinny, with its green
chasms between romantic rocks, where the scattered forest trees and
orchards of luxuriant growth declare that many a generation must have
passed away since the first partial falling of the cliff prepared the
ground for such a state, where a scene so wonderful and so lovely is
exhibited, as may more than equal any of the resembling scenes of the
far-famed Isle of Wight; these places must be visited, and visited
again, to make the worth of Lyme understood.”
It is wonderful that Jane should have remembered in such detail a place
which she had apparently only seen on one visit, and that many years
before she wrote the book in which the description is embodied, but
it is not unlikely that, as the instinct of word-painting was strong
within her, she wrote down some such account on the spot, and had it
for reference afterwards.
Louisa’s wilfulness in leaping down the steps of the Cobb, and her
subsequent accident, at which Captain Wentworth deceives Anne further
as to the real state of his feelings by displaying much poignant and
unnecessary grief, form the chief episode in the book.
While at Lyme herself, Jane took part in the usual amusements; she went
to a dance and was escorted back by “James and a lanthorn, though I
believe the lanthorn was not lit as the moon was up.” She walked on the
Cobb, and bathed in the morning, also she looked after the housekeeping
for her father and mother, who were with her in lodgings.
This was in September. In the beginning of the following year her
father died, but there is no letter yet published from which we can
judge any of the details or the state of her feelings at this great
loss.
In the April after this event there are two letters, given by Mr.
Austen-Leigh, written from Gay Street, Bath, in which no allusion is
made to her father’s death. She and her mother were then in lodgings.
It was at the end of this year that they moved to Southampton.
Jane’s pen had not been altogether idle while at Bath, for it is
supposed that she there wrote the fragment _The Watsons_ which is
embodied in Mr. Austen-Leigh’s _Memoir_.
It must also have been at this time that the MS. of _Northanger Abbey_
was offered to the Bath bookseller, a transaction which is described
elsewhere.
Before leaving Bath Jane went to stay with her brother, Edward Knight,
at Godmersham; this was in August of the same year, 1805.
Godmersham, to which the Austen girls so often went on visits, is thus
described by Lord Brabourne, who certainly had every right to know—
“Godmersham Park is situated in one of the most beautiful parts of
Kent, namely, in the valley of the Stour, which lies between Ashford
and Canterbury. Soon after you pass the Wye station of the railway
from the former to the latter place, you see Godmersham church on your
left hand, and just beyond it, comes into view the wall which shuts off
the shrubberies and pleasure grounds of the great house from the road;
close to the church nestles the home farm, and beyond it the rectory,
with lawn sloping down to the river Stour, which for a distance of
nearly a mile runs through the east end of the park. A little beyond
the church you see the mansion, between which and the railroad lies
the village, divided by the old high road from Ashford to Canterbury,
nearly opposite Godmersham. The valley of the Stour makes a break in
that ridge of chalk hills, the proper name of which is the Backbone of
Kent.
“So that Godmersham Park, beyond the house, is upon the chalk downs,
and on its further side is bounded by King’s Wood, a large tract
of woodland containing many hundred acres and possessed by several
different owners.”
The children of Edward and Elizabeth were now growing up. The eldest
boy, Edward, was delicate, and there was some talk of taking him to
Worthing instead of sending him back to school; however, he apparently
grew stronger, for he returned to school again with his brother George.
The next two boys were Henry and William; Jane says, she has been
playing battledore and shuttlecock with the younger of the two, “he and
I have practised together two mornings, and improve a little; we have
frequently kept it up three times, and once or twice six.”
The eldest girl, Fanny, had become almost as dear as a sister to her
aunt, and the next, Elizabeth, are also mentioned in the letters; there
were besides these younger children, two more boys and three girls, a
fine family!
Before coming to Godmersham Jane had stayed at Eastwell, where George
Hatton and his wife Lady Elizabeth lived; their eldest son succeeded
later to the title of ninth Earl of Winchilsea; Jane mentions this lad
as a “fine boy,” but was chiefly delighted with his younger brother
Daniel, who afterwards married a daughter of the Earl of Warwick. At
the time she wrote this letter, Cassandra was at Goodnestone with the
Bridges. The two sisters soon after changed places, crossing on the
journey, as Jane went to Goodnestone and Cassandra to Godmersham; owing
to the difficulty of carriage transit, journeys must frequently have
been arranged thus to save the horses double work.
Jane in writing from Goodnestone alludes much to the two Bridges girls,
Harriet and her delicate sister Marianne.
There was to be a great ball at Deal for which Harriet Bridges received
a ticket, and an invitation to stay at Dover, but this was suddenly
put off on account of the death of the Duke of Gloucester, brother of
George III. Jane opined that everybody would go into mourning on his
account. Mourning was of course much more generally used then than now,
and everyone seems to have rushed into it whether they belonged to the
Court or not on the death of any member of the Royal Family.
During the four years that had passed since the beginning of the
century, Europe had been in a continual turmoil, a turmoil that could
never cease while Napoleon was at liberty. The Battle of Alexandria in
the first year of the new century had taught him that the English were
as formidable on land as on sea, and the Battle of the Baltic in the
following month, further convinced him that there was one unconquered
nation that dared oppose him. He recognised, however, that while he
could not but acknowledge the superiority of Britain on the sea, and
in places accessible by sea, he could do much as he pleased on the
Continent, therefore a compromise was arrived at, and on March 27,
1802, the Treaty of Amiens was signed, and for the first time for many
years the strain of war was relaxed in Great Britain.
The arrogance of Napoleon, however, made a continuous peace impossible,
and by the spring of the next year (1803) the two nations were again
ready to spring at each other’s throats. Napoleon seized and detained
10,000 British travellers who were in France, and this provoked fury
in Great Britain. Great preparations were now once more made in France
for the long-cherished project of the invasion of England, where in a
few weeks 300,000 volunteers were enrolled. The national excitement
was tremendous, and Jane must have heard at least as much about
the preparations for war, and the dangers of invasion, even in the
frivolous society of Bath, as about dress and trivial society details.
In May 1804, Napoleon threw aside all disguise, and had himself
proclaimed Emperor of the French, and by the end of the same year
Spain, having thrown in her lot with France, declared war also against
England. The whole of 1805 must have been one of tense excitement to
everyone with a brain to understand. The future of England trembled
in the balance, yet Jane’s pleasant letters from Godmersham deal in
nothing but domestic detail and small talk, not one allusion is there
to the throes which threatened to rend the national existence.
In the autumn of 1805 both the sisters had returned to their mother,
who in their absence had had the companionship of Martha Lloyd. Then
came the removal to Southampton, where they went to “a commodious
old-fashioned house in a corner of Castle Square.”
Mr. Austen-Leigh, writing from recollection, says: “My grandmother’s
house had a pleasant garden bounded on one side by the old city walls;
the top of this wall was sufficiently wide to afford a pleasant walk,
with an extensive view, easily accessible to ladies by steps.... At
that time Castle Square was occupied by a fantastic edifice, too large
for the space in which it stood, though too small to accord well with
its castellated style, erected by the second Marquess of Lansdowne,
half-brother to the well-known statesman who succeeded him in the
title. The marchioness had a light phaeton drawn by six, and sometimes
by eight little ponies, each pair decreasing in size and becoming
lighter in colour.... It was a delight to me to look down from the
window and see this fairy equipage put together, for the premises of
the castle were so contracted that the whole process went on in the
little space that remained of the open square.... On the death of the
Marquess in 1809 the castle was pulled down. Few probably remember its
existence; and anyone who might visit the place now would wonder how it
ever could have stood there.”
Mrs. Austen was not well off, for her husband had had no private means
and she herself but little, yet her son Edward was well able to help
her, for Chawton alone is said to have been worth £5000 a year. There
was also money in the family, for Jane some years later speaks of her
eldest brother’s income being £1100 a year. She and her sister must
have had some little allowance also, as it was with her own money that
she paid for the publication of the first of her books. Simply as she
had always lived, she does not seem to have had small ideas on the
subject, the couples in her books require about two thousand a year
before they can be considered prosperous, and incomes of from five
thousand to ten thousand pounds are not rare. She makes one of the
characters in _Mansfield Park_ remark, on hearing that Mr. Crawford
has four thousand pounds a year, “‘Those who have not more must
be satisfied with what they have. Four thousand a year is a pretty
estate.’”
There was apparently some question raised by her relations about the
income bestowed by Jane upon the mother and daughters in _Sense and
Sensibility_, namely, five hundred pounds a year. But having regard
to all the circumstances, the style to which they were accustomed, and
Mrs. Dashwood’s inability to economise, this could perhaps hardly have
been made less.
We hear at the close of one year at Southampton that Mrs. Austen is
pleased “at the comfortable state of her own finances, which she finds
on closing her year’s accounts, beyond her expectation, as she begins
the new year with a balance of thirty pounds in her favour.”
And afterwards, “My mother is afraid I have not been explicit enough on
the subject of her wealth; she began 1806 with sixty-eight pounds; she
begins 1807 with ninety-nine pounds, and this after thirty-two pounds
purchase of stock.”
In this year, 1805, the income tax was increased from 6½ per cent. to
10 per cent. on account of the tremendous war expenditure.
At this time an amicable arrangement had been arrived at, by which
Frank Austen and his wife shared the house of the mother and sisters at
Southampton, Frank himself being of course frequently away. His first
wife, Mary Gibson, whom he had only recently married, lived until 1823;
and is referred to by her sister-in-law as “Mrs. F. A.,” doubtless to
distinguish her from the other Mary, James’s wife. Martha Lloyd, whom
Frank married as his second wife, long, long after, seems to have been
such a favourite with the family that she practically lived with the
Austens at Southampton, as her own mother had died some years before.
The country round Southampton is pretty, and the town itself pleasant;
we have a contemporary description of it in 1792. “Southampton is one
of the most neat and pleasant towns I ever saw ... was once walled
round, many large stones of which are now remaining. There were four
gates, only three now. It consists chiefly of one long fine street
of three quarters of a mile in length, called the High Street.... The
Polygon (not far distant) could the original plan have been completed,
‘tis said, would have been one of the first places in the kingdom....
At the extremity a capital building was erected with two detached
wings, and colonnades. The centre was an elegant tavern, with assembly,
card rooms, etc., and at each wing, hotels to accommodate the nobility
and gentry. The tavern is taken down, but the wings converted into
genteel houses.” (Mrs. Lybbe Powys.)
There does not seem to be any record of the first year spent here,
there are no letters preserved, and we know that Jane wrote no more
novels. Household affairs and altering clothes according to the mode
must have filled up days too pleasantly monotonous to have anything
worth recording. Southampton evidently did not inspire her, for it
figures in none of her books, though its neighbour, Portsmouth, is
described as the home of Fanny Price in _Mansfield Park_.
Yet in October 1805, just at the time Jane was settling into her new
home, was fought the Battle of Trafalgar, which smashed the allied
fleets of Spain and France, and freed Britain from any fear of
invasion. As it was a naval battle, we can imagine for the sake of her
brothers she must have thrilled at the tremendous news, which would
arrive as fast as a sailing ship could bring it—probably a day or two
after the action.
In January 1807, Cassandra was again at Godmersham, and Jane writes her
several letters full of family detail as usual.
James Austen had then been staying at Southampton with his wife;
perhaps they had brought with them the little son who looked out of the
window at the fairy carriage and the ponies; as he was born in November
1798 he would be between eight and nine years old. His little sister
Caroline certainly was there, for she is mentioned by name.
In speaking of a book Jane draws a distinction between her two
sisters-in-law, “Mrs. F. A., to whom it is new, enjoys it as one could
wish, the other Mary, I believe, has little pleasure from that or any
other book.”
The garden at Southampton was evidently the cause of much enjoyment.
“We hear that we are envied our house by many people, and that our
garden is the best in the town.”
“Our garden is putting in good order by a man who bears a remarkably
good character, has a very fine complexion, and asks something less
than the first. The shrubs which border the gravel walk he says are
only sweet briar and roses, and the latter of an indifferent sort; we
mean to get a few of a better kind therefore, and at my own particular
desire he procures us some syringas. I could not do without a syringa,
for the sake of Cowper’s line. We talk also of a laburnum. The border
under the terrace wall is clearing away to receive currants and
gooseberry bushes, and a spot is found very proper for raspberries.”
In this extract the odd use of the active for the passive tense, in
fashion in the eighteenth century, jars on modern ears, these and
similar constructions, used throughout the novels, have had something
to do with the opinions of those people who have dismissed these
brilliant works as “vulgar.”
Terrific fighting continued on the Continent, and in December the
prestige of Napoleon was enhanced on the stubborn field of Austerlitz.
In the beginning of 1806, England had the misfortune to lose by death
the great minister Pitt, who had steered her through such perilous
times. It is said that the news of Austerlitz was the final blow to a
nature worn out by stress and anxiety. In September of the same year
his talented but inferior rival, Fox, died also.
In this year was issued the famous Berlin Decree, by which Napoleon
prohibited all commerce with Great Britain, and declared confiscated
any British merchandise or shipping. But Britain had spirit enough
to retort in the following year with a decree declaring a blockade of
France, and that any of her merchant vessels were fair prizes unless
they had previously touched at a British port.
The war continued without intermission throughout 1807. Austria,
exhausted, had sullenly withdrawn, Prussia had plucked up spirit to
join with Russia in opposing the conqueror of Europe, but in June,
after the hard fought battle of Frieland, France concluded with Russia
the secret Peace of Tilsit, based upon mutual hatred of England.
England, however, soon found out the menace directed against her, and
as the French troops marched to Denmark, evidently with the intention
of summoning that country to use her fleet in accordance with their
orders, England by a prompt and brilliant countermove appeared before
Copenhagen first, and by bombarding the town compelled submission, and
carried away the whole fleet for safety’s sake. Those were glorious
days for the navy, when measures were prompt and decisive, when no
hesitation and shilly-shallying and fear of “hurting the feelings” of
an unscrupulous enemy prevented Britain from taking care of herself.
Britain was now at war with Russia and Denmark as well as France, but
the unprecedented duplicity of Napoleon in Spain in 1807 gave Britain
an unexpected field on which to do battle, and allies by no means to be
despised. Spain was France’s ally, yet France after marching through
the country to crush Portugal, quietly annexed the country of their
ally in returning, and by a ruse made the whole Royal Family prisoners
in France, while Napoleon’s brother Joseph, King of Naples, was
subsequently proclaimed King. The Spaniards were aroused, and though
the best of their troops had been previously drawn off into Germany by
the tyrant, they managed to give a good account of themselves, even
against the invincible French. Joseph Buonaparte had been proclaimed
King of Spain in June 1808. In that month Jane was at Godmersham again,
and though she did not know it, this was the last visit she would pay
before the death of Mrs. Edward Knight, which occurred in the following
October, at the birth of her eleventh child; Jane seems to have noticed
her sister-in-law was not in good health, she says, “I cannot praise
Elizabeth’s looks, but they are probably affected by a cold.”
[Illustration: FASHIONS FOR LADIES IN 1795]
Mr. and Mrs. James Austen accompanied her on this visit, and her
account of the arrival gives such a homely picture that, trivial as
it is, it is worth quoting. “Our two brothers were walking before the
house as we approached as natural as life. Fanny and Lizzy met us in
the hall with a great deal of pleasant joy.... Fanny came to me as soon
as she had seen her aunt James to her room, and stayed while I dressed
... she is grown both in height and size since last year, but not
immoderately, looks very well, and seems as to conduct and manner just
what she was and what one could wish her to continue.”
“Yesterday passed quite à la Godmersham; the gentlemen rode about
Edward’s farm, and returned in time to saunter along Bentigh with us;
and after dinner we visited the Temple Plantations.... James and Mary
are much struck with the beauty of the place.”
Lord Brabourne gives a note on the Temple Plantation, it was “once a
ploughed field, but when my grandfather first came to Godmersham, he
planted it with underwood, and made gravel walks through it, planted
an avenue of trees on each side of the principal walk, and added it to
the shrubberies. The family always walked through it on their way to
church, leaving the shrubberies by a little door in the wall at the end
of the private grounds.”
The casual sentence “Mary finds the children less troublesome than she
expected,” adds one more stroke to the character of that sister-in-law
which Jane makes us know so well.
Mrs. Knight senior was still living, and was generous toward the other
members of her adopted son’s family besides himself.
“This morning brought me a letter from Mrs. Knight, containing the
usual fee, and all the usual kindness.... She asks me to spend a day
or two with her this week ... her very agreeable present will make my
circumstances quite easy; I shall reserve half for my pelisse.”
It will be remembered that Mrs. Edward Knight had been a Miss Bridges,
and the good-natured Harriet, her sister, was now staying at Godmersham
with her own husband, Mr. Moore, whom Jane did not think good enough
for her, though she admits later, “he is a sensible man, and tells a
story well.” She refers to her sister-in-law’s opinion of her, “Mary
was very disappointed in her beauty, and thought him very disagreeable;
James admires her and finds him pleasant and conversable.”
It was at the conclusion of this visit that Jane wrote to her sister
of the pressing necessity of coming home again to meet the visitor with
whom her “honour as well as affection” were engaged.
She was now thirty-two, no longer a young girl, and not at all likely
to mistake the nature of attentions of which she had had her full
share. However it was, whether the visitor did not come, or coming
proved himself unequal to her ideal, we do not know, and in any case
the romance so mysteriously suggested by these few words, must ever
remain in the shadow.
Jane speaks with pleasure of her sister-in-law, Elizabeth, “having a
very sweet scheme of accompanying Edward into Kent next Christmas.”
Alas, before that Christmas came, the loving mother, who seems to have
been in every way a perfect wife and sister, was no more.
When this sad event occurred in October the sisters had again changed
places, Cassandra being at Godmersham and Jane at Southampton. The
first of Jane’s letters of this period is congratulatory on the birth
of Edward’s eleventh child, and sixth son, but very shortly afterwards
she writes in real sorrow at the dreadful news which has reached her of
the death of her dear sister-in-law. The news came by way of Mrs. James
Austen and her sister Martha, who was at Southampton.
“We have felt—we do feel—for you all as you do not need to be told; for
you, for Fanny, for Henry, for Lady Bridges, and 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. 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, and keep you, my dearest Cassandra, well.”
“With what true sympathy our feelings are shared by Martha you need not
be told; she is the friend and sister under every circumstance.”
Poor Fanny was then in her sixteenth year, the time when a girl perhaps
feels the loss of a sensible, affectionate mother more than any other.
She acquitted herself splendidly in the difficult task that fell on her
as the eldest of so many brothers and sisters. Her next sister Lizzy
was at this time only eight years old, and though she seems to have
felt the loss keenly, it could not be the same to her as it was to
Fanny.
Mourning at that time entailed heavy crape, and Jane at once fitted
herself out with all that was proper. The two eldest boys, Edward and
George, were by this time at Winchester College, but when their mother
died they went first to their aunt and uncle at Steventon, and on
October 24 came on to Southampton. Jane’s next letter is full of them.
“They behave extremely well in every respect, showing quite as much
feeling as one wishes to see, and on every occasion speaking of their
father with the liveliest affection. His letter was read over by each
of them yesterday and with many tears; George sobbed aloud, Edward’s
tears do not flow so easily, but as far as I can judge, they are both
very properly impressed by what has happened.... George is almost a new
acquaintance to me, and I find him, in a different way, as engaging
as Edward. We do not want amusement; bilbocatch, at which George is
indefatigable, spillikens, paper ships, riddles, conundrums, and cards,
with watching the ebb and flow of the river, and now and then a stroll
out keep us well employed.”
Rhymed charades were a very common form of amusement at that date, and
all the Austen family excelled in them.
It will be remembered that Mr. Elton’s charade, of which the meaning
was “Courtship,” further misled the match-making Emma into thinking he
was in love with Harriet the dowerless, while she herself, the heiress,
was the real object of his attentions.
Several charades of this type made up by the Austens are still extant;
the two following are Jane’s own.
“Divided I’m a gentleman
In public deeds and powers;
United, I’m a monster, who
That gentleman devours.”
To which the answer is _A-gent_.
“You may lie on my first by the side of a stream,
And my second compose to the nymph you adore;
But if, when you’ve none of my whole, her esteem
And affection diminish—think of her no more.”
Which is easily read as _Bank-note_.
Both of these specimens show the gaiety of spirit so noticeable in the
smallest extracts from her letters.
Her observations on her nephews put the two boys before us to the life.
“While I write now George is most industriously making and manning
paper ships, at which he afterwards shoots horse chestnuts, brought
from Steventon on purpose; and Edward equally intent over the Lake of
Killarney and twisting himself about in one of our great chairs.”
Her wonderful powers as an entertainer are clearly shown in this sad
time, when she strove to keep her nephews occupied to the exclusion of
sad thoughts; she took them for excursions on the Itchen, when they
rowed her in a boat, and she was never weary of entering into their
sports and feelings; her real unselfishness came out very strongly on
this occasion.
Sir Arthur Wellesley had sailed for Spain in the July of this year, and
now England was in the throes of the Peninsular War; some of the very
few allusions that Jane ever makes to contemporary events are to be
found in reference to the Peninsular War, and these are more personal
than general. On hearing of Sir John Moore’s death in January 1809, she
writes: “I am sorry to find that Sir J. Moore has a mother living, but
though a very heroic son, he might not be a very necessary one to her
happiness.... I wish Sir John had united something of the Christian
with the hero in his death. Thank heaven we have had no one to care
for particularly among the troops, no one in fact nearer to us than Sir
John himself.”