FANNY AND ANNA
The nephews and nieces at Godmersham were rapidly growing into men
and women. Edward and George on leaving Winchester went to Oxford; the
luxurious way in which they were brought up evidently sometimes annoyed
their aunt, who was accustomed to see the younger generation more
repressed; she says of them—
“As I wrote of my nephews with a little bitterness in my last, I think
it particularly incumbent on me to do them justice now, and I have
great pleasure in saying they were both at the Sacrament yesterday;
now these two boys, who are out with the foxhounds, will come home
and disgust me again by some habit of luxury or some proof of sporting
mania.”
While Jane was at Godmersham in 1813, her brother Charles, his wife,
and little daughters were there too. It was the custom then—though not
an invariable one but a matter of inclination—for a captain in the Navy
to take his wife and children voyaging with him. It will be remembered
that in _Persuasion_ Captain Wentworth says he hates “to hear of women
on board,” and Mrs. Croft, whose husband is an Admiral, declares “women
may be as comfortable on board as in the best house in England. I
believe I have lived as much on board as most women and I know nothing
superior to the accommodation of a man-of-war.”
Charles Austen’s wife and children seem to have spent a good deal of
time on board with him; and Cassy, the eldest girl, a delicate quiet
child, suffered from seasickness during rough weather. Jane says
affectionately of her, “Poor little love! I wish she were not so very
Palmery, but it seems stronger than ever. I never knew a wife’s family
features have such undue influence.” Cassy was not quite happy among
her cousins, “they are too many and too boisterous for her.” Jane
speaks of her and her mother as being “their own nice selves, Fanny
looking as neat and white this morning as possible, and Charles all
affectionate, placid, quiet, cheerful good humour.”
Alas, in September of the following year Mrs. Charles Austen died in
childbirth. Her husband, who was a very domestic man, felt the loss
severely; subsequently he married her sister Harriet, and became the
father of two boys in addition to his little daughters.
In 1814, Edward Knight was annoyed by a claimant to the Chawton estate,
and it appears from what Miss Mitford says on the subject in her
letters, that this was in consequence of old Mr. Knight’s not having
fulfilled some technical point in connection with the property. As
Chawton was worth about £5000 a year, the matter was serious, and that
it was not altogether a fancy originating in the mind of the claimant,
is shown by the fact that after protracted discussions, Edward Knight
did, in 1817, pay him a sum of money to settle the matter.
We have no letters of Jane’s before November 1815; but she was
probably at home at Chawton with her sister and mother, when the
news that Napoleon had escaped from Elba burst upon the world like
a thunder-clap! The call to arms rang throughout Europe, and then
followed the terrible Hundred Days which ended on June the eighteenth
with the Battle of Waterloo.
Alison in his _Epitome of the History of Europe_ says, “No one who
was of an age to understand what was going on can ever forget the
entrancing joy which thrilled through the British heart at the news
of Waterloo. The thanks of Parliament were voted to Wellington and
his army; a medal struck by government was given to every officer and
soldier who had borne arms on that eventful day; and not less than
£500,000 was raised by voluntary subscriptions for those wounded in the
fight, and the widows and orphans of the fallen.”
We wonder if the household at Chawton contributed its mite among the
rest? Jane’s heart surely must have thrilled in unison with those of
her countrymen!
Louis XVIII. was once more placed on the throne of his fathers, and
Napoleon was sent to St. Helena. He arrived there on November the
sixteenth, and by that date Jane was again in London nursing her
brother Henry.
Between 1814 and 1816 many charming letters passed between Jane and her
young niece Fanny, and as these contain more of the personal element
than any of the others that have been preserved, they are among the
most interesting of all. At the beginning of these letters Fanny was
twenty-one, which in those days was considered quite a staid age for
an unmarried girl. In one of her letters she tells her aunt that her
feelings had cooled towards someone, who at one time she had thought of
marrying.
Jane’s answer is full of sense and sympathy, and gives us much insight
into her own views on the relations of the sexes. “What strange
creatures we are,” she writes, “it seems as if your being secure of him
had made you indifferent.... There was a little disgust I suspect at
the races, and I do not wonder at it. His expressions then would not
do for one who had rather more acuteness, penetration, and taste, than
love, which was your case, and yet after all I _am_ surprised that the
change in the feelings should be so great. He is just what he ever was,
only more evidently and uniformly devoted to _you_....
“Oh dear Fanny! Your mistake has been one that thousands of women fall
into. He was the _first_ young man who attached himself to you. That
was the charm, and most powerful it is.... Upon the whole what is to
be done? You have no inclination for any other person. His situation
in life, family, friends and above all his character, his uncommonly
amiable mind, strict principles, just notions, good habits, _all_ that
_you_ know so well how to value, _all_ that is really of the first
importance, pleads his cause most strongly. You have no doubt of his
having superior abilities, he has proved it at the University, he is,
I dare say, such a scholar as your agreeable idle brothers would ill
bear a comparison with. The more I write about him the more strongly
I feel the desirableness of your growing in love with him again....
There _are_ such beings in the world, perhaps one in a thousand,
as the creature you and I should think perfection, where grace and
spirit are united to worth, where the manners are equal to the heart
and understanding, but such a person may not come in your way, or,
if he does, he may not be the eldest son of a man of fortune, the
near relation of your own particular friend and belonging to your
own country.... And now my dear Fanny, having written so much on
one side of the question I shall turn round and entreat you not to
commit yourself farther, and not to think of accepting him unless you
really do like him. Anything is to be preferred or endured rather than
marrying without affection; and if his deficiencies of manner strike
you more than all his good qualities, if you continue to think strongly
of them, give him up at once....
“When I consider how few young men you have yet seen much of; how
capable you are of being really in love; and how full of temptation
the next six or seven years of your life will probably be, I cannot
wish you, with your present very cool feelings, to devote yourself in
honour to him. It is very true that you never may attach another man
his equal altogether; but if that other man has the power of attaching
you _more_, he will be in your eyes the most perfect.
“You are inimitable, irresistible. You are the delight of my life.
Such letters, such entertaining letters as you have lately sent! such a
description of your queer little heart! such a lovely display of what
imagination does!... You are so odd, and all the time so perfectly
natural, so peculiar in yourself, and yet so like everybody else. It
is very, very gratifying to me to know you so intimately.... Oh what
a loss it will be when you are married! You are too agreeable in your
single state. I shall hate you when your delicious play of mind is all
settled down into conjugal and maternal affections....
“And yet I do wish you to marry very much because I know you will never
be happy till you are,” and later on, apropos of someone else, she
adds: “Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor, which is
one very strong argument in favour of matrimony, but I need not dwell
on such arguments with you, pretty dear. To you I shall say, as I have
often said before, Do not be in a hurry, the right man will come at
last; you will in the course of the next two or three years meet with
somebody more generally unexceptionable than anyone you have yet known,
who will love you as warmly as possible, and who will so completely
attract you that you will feel you never really loved before.”
But it was not until 1820 that Fanny married, as his second wife, the
Rt. Hon. Sir Edward Knatchbull, 9th Bt., who had already five sons
and one daughter, the eldest boy being twelve years old. Six years
after the marriage, the daughter married Fanny’s brother Edward. She
herself lived to nearly ninety, and was the mother of five sons and
four daughters, and in 1880 her eldest son was created Baron Brabourne;
and he, as has been already stated, was the editor of the volumes of
_Letters_.
But Jane’s sympathetic advice was called for by more than one niece
passing through the difficult time between girlhood and womanhood;
Anna, her eldest brother James’s daughter, was a frequent visitor at
Chawton, and though she does not seem ever to have taken quite the same
position in her aunt’s affections as Fanny did, she was yet a lively,
amusing, pleasant girl.
She had evidently determined to follow in her aunt’s footsteps,
as was most natural, and had attempted to write a novel herself;
Jane’s treatment of her tentative efforts was very kind, some of the
letters to the would-be authoress are preserved, and nothing could be
gentler. “I am very much obliged to you for sending me your MS. It has
entertained me extremely; indeed all of us. I read it aloud to your
grandmamma and aunt Cass, and we were all very pleased. The spirit
does not drop at all. Now we have finished the second book or rather
the fifth: Susan is a nice animated little creature, but St. Julian
is the delight of our lives. He is quite interesting. The whole of
his break off with Lady Helena is very well done.” She then goes in
great detail into all the characters, making various suggestions: “You
are but now coming to the heart and beauty of your story. Until the
heroine grows up the fun must be imperfect, but I expect a great deal
of entertainment from the next three or four books, and I hope you will
not resent these remarks by sending me no more.”
Then she gives one or two characteristic touches.
“Devereux Forester’s being ruined by his vanity is extremely good, but
I wish you would not let him plunge into a ‘vortex of dissipation.’ I
do not object to the thing but cannot bear the expression; it is such
thorough novel slang, and so old that I daresay Adam met with it in the
first novel he opened.”
In 1814, Anna was engaged to Benjamin Lefroy, whom she married in
November. After her marriage she first lived at Hendon, but in the
following year she and her husband took a small house near Alton,
so that she was within a walk of Chawton. She still went on with her
novel-writing. And Jane continued to criticise her progress—
“We have no great right to wonder at his [Benjamin Lefroy’s] not
valuing the name of Progillian. That is a source of delight which even
_he_ can hardly be quite competent to.”
“St. Julian’s history was quite a surprise to me. You had not very
long known it yourself I suspect. His having been in love with the aunt
gives Cecilia an additional interest with him. I like the idea, a very
proper compliment to an aunt! I rather imagine indeed that nieces are
seldom chosen but out of compliment to some aunt or other. I daresay
Ben was in love with me once, and would never have thought of you if he
had not supposed me dead of scarlet fever.”
Anna became the mother of six daughters and one son, and lived until
1872.