by Lori Smith
“Walk ahead over a large field aiming for the left-hand corner of a strip of woodland,”27 the guide says. Aim left through a large field? I think. But when I cross a stile under the trees, I find a field full of high summer wheat, with a green walking path cut through the middle, aiming for the left corner.
I walk into the field and stop in the sun. I don't think these are the paths Jane walked, of course. But I imagine this may be the way she felt walking them: gloriously alone, surrounded by the heat and health of nature, with friends waiting at the other end.
An hour and a half of walking takes me to lovely Ashe House, on a quiet lane. The entire village of Ashe appears to consist of this little street with brick homes and gardens and the church. Ashe House is a simple Georgian structure, red brick with a row of front windows and a fanlight above the door, vines and roses climbing along the front. It looks like the perfect house—tasteful and simple but quietly grand—and would have been dear to Jane as the home of her friend. Its rumored that Tom Lefroy chased Jane through the garden here.
Anne Lefroy was more than a friend; she was like a mentor to Jane. She was twenty-six years Jane's senior and met Jane when she was seven—just a girl, but a smart girl who already loved literature. Madam Lefroy, as she was known, was intelligent and kind. She loved poetry, taught the village children to read and write, and personally vaccinated the entire neighborhood for smallpox.28 She was beautiful and gracious. Her husband was rector here at Ashe Church.
I can imagine the influence she had on Jane's life, this lovely woman who lived out her faith among the poor, who loved those around her with more than words, and who could also meaningfully discuss poets and playwrights. She was strong in an age in which women were not thought to be so, educated when most women were not. She must have had a streak of independence as well. I think Jane learned something from her about the possibilities of life, of what it could be like to be a woman who was strong and yet not improperly so, about the purposes and value of wealth not for its own sake but as it might be used for the sake of others. Anne's values would have been much like George and Cassandra Austen's, but sometimes these things are easier caught from those who are not your parents.
We all must strike a certain balance, which I tend to think of when I am in ballet and my foot must be more pointed, my legs more turned out, my heel back, stomach held in, the proper triangle between my outstretched arms and solar plexus, and the whole thing stretching up, up, up, like I am pulled by a string. It is never right; there will always be adjustments. But all of us have this balance in our lives, attempting to work out our faith within our particular cultural context. We must be more humble (or perhaps I should say I must be) yet use our strength and maintain compassion when we are bombarded with needs in a world where everyone now is our neighbor and we know everyone's tragic stories. Anne's balance was to stretch within her late-eighteenth-century world where women's roles were so limited, where the Christian faith was often in name only, where it would have been more than acceptable for her to learn nothing and do nothing. But—continuing this analogy—she danced.
I'm thankful to have had dance instructors of my own, chief among them Beth, whom I think of as kind of my own Anne Lefroy. She is lovely and probably the best natural communicator I know. Beth is fourteen years my senior, and her oldest daughter fourteen years my junior, and I believe I met her when I was fifteen or sixteen. I would come to clean her house every week, and little two-year-old Anna would follow me around to help, but it was never so much about cleaning as it was about building a relationship. Our families melded together in a way—we went to the same church, and Mom watched her kids every week, and over years of holidays and simpler days we grew close. I held all of her five children when they were small, and she has heard all of my love stories. She will always be like family, one of the people I count on to help me understand where the balance of my life is off and how to correct it.
Anne interfered a bit with Jane's love life—not always in the most welcome ways. She was the one who sent Tom home, of course, when there seemed to be a growing attachment, and she was the one who encouraged the somewhat ridiculous Samuel Blackall. I think perhaps Persuasions Lady Russell, who keeps Anne from Wentworth once and later encourages the duplicitous Mr. Elliot, may have been partly based on Madam Lefroy. She died tragically in a riding accident on Jane's twenty-ninth birthday, when her horse got away from her and she fell off. Jane wrote a poem in her memory, speaking of her “solid Worth” and “captivating Grace.”29 She was not perfect, but she was wonderful. If there are traces of Madam Lefroy in Lady Russell, I do not think she could have rivaled the “genuine warmth of heart without pretence”30 of Jane's dear friend.
I stop for a moment simply to remember Anne in the Ashe churchyard, by the moss-covered Lefroy graves. It is peaceful and sheltered, gated with intricate wood arches, and shaded by trees.
Nine
Chawton: Love and Grit
Home could not be faultless.
—PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
One of my favorite images of Jane is that of her sitting by the fire with her mom and their neighbor Miss Benn, reading Pride and Prejudice after it had just come out—the already best-selling novelist reading her new book (the one she called “my own darling Child”1) out loud with her mother, who couldn't get the voices right, and their old neighbor friend. Jane never put her own name on any of her books—a lady never would—so when Sense and Sensibility came out, it said only, By A Lady2(except some of the printers misprinted it to read By Lady A.,which created some speculation in society about other ladies with last names beginning in A),and when Pride and Prejudice came out, it said, By the Author of Sense and Sensibility. She hoped to keep her authorship a secret, and she and her mother endeavored to hide the source of their enthusiasm for the new novel, but it seems Miss Benn quickly guessed that they were more than just interested readers. I sit in the abbey, in my favorite spot at the desk by the bay window looking out on the garden, thinking over everything I have seen today— the topaz crosses3 that Jane scolded Charles for buying for her and Cassandra, Mrs. Austens red riding habit (which she wore when she got married and for two years following, because she could not afford another dress, then made into a coat for little Frank for his boyish hunting exploits),4 a quilt Cassandra and Jane and their mother made, a lace collar Jane herself made, some of her small, perfect handwriting—neat and elegant—a lock of her hair (faded) and a lock of her father's hair (white), the small bedroom she and Cassandra shared (twelve by twelve?), her writing table by the bay window in the dining room. The table is tiny, small angles all around the top, on a little pedestal, not what I expected, and I thought she wrote in the drawing room and not the dining room. But there it was, in the dining room with the squeaky door so she could put her writing away if she heard anyone coming.
Chawton Cottage, the cottage Jane and her mom and sister shared along with their dear friend Martha Lloyd—where she sat by the fire reading her darling P&P—is now Jane Austens House Museum, restored to look the way it did when they lived there and full of family things. Chawton was Edward's estate, and the cottage was his gift to his mother and sisters after his father died. Well, not a gift exactly, but he let them live there. It's where Jane lived when her work began to be published, where she wrote or edited almost every story. Truthfully, the cottage looks like a big brick box, but it's quaint inside and the flower gardens are lovely.
I talked Susan and Lane and Catherine, my friends from the abbey, into coming with me today. (Or rather, they offered because they have been graciously driving me all around, public transportation in the Hampshire countryside being slightly difficult.) We went first to St. Nicholas Church—a different St. Nicholas, this one on the grounds of Chawton House. It was a living Jane's brother Henry wanted, and Edward offered to buy it for him (because church positions were bought and sold then), but Mr. Papillon, to whom it had been promised—and whom some family members were always expecting to propose to Jane, w
hich was a great joke—was not willing to give it up.5 There were huge round sheep in the field outside, unshorn, with a few little ones too. We spent half an hour reading all the gravestones of the various Edward and Elizabeth Knights and found the graves for Jane's mom and Cassandra.
Edward seems to have been officially adopted into the Knight family when he was fifteen or sixteen, though he had been singled out by them much earlier.6 Thomas and Catherine Knight were distant cousins of Mr. Austen. They came through Hampshire on their honeymoon and enjoyed young Edward, then just twelve, so much that they took him with them for part of their trip. (Which sounds very strange to us, but it was not unusual to have other friends or family on a wedding tour then.)
When it became clear that they wouldn't have children of their own, they began inviting him for holidays, which Mr. Austen grudgingly allowed, fearing Edward would get behind on his Latin grammar. But gradually it became evident that they wanted to adopt Edward and that he would not need his Latin grammar much longer. It was incredibly advantageous, landing Edward in a completely different realm of society. Edward wasn't eager to get away from his real family, so it was years before he went to live with the Knights permanently, and he waited until his adopted father and mother died before taking on the Knight name along with his inheritance.7
So Edward inherited the Chawton estate—the great house and lands—another huge estate in Kent called Godmersham, and the Steventon estate, including the manor house just down the lane from the rectory in which he'd grown up. He lived worlds away from the rest of the Austens, in wealth and privilege. It seems strange to think of one child inheriting so much when even his parents were merely surviving for the most part, but great discrepancies among families were fairly regular. Among the wealthy, the first son would inherit all the father's estates. The second would inherit from the mothers side of the family, if any wealth existed there, and the rest were expected to make it on their own—the daughters to marry well, the sons to join the army or study law or join the church.
Still, it must have been a bit awkward for everyone.
While the others studied—James and Henry at Oxford, Frank and Charles at the naval academy—Edward went on a four-year-long grand tour in the tradition of wealthy sons. We can't trace his route exactly, but we know he went to Switzerland and Rome at the least and probably spent a year studying in Germany.8
The Austen family, as kind and lively as they were, had their hints of dysfunction. Is any family without them? There are always small aggressions, and whoever we are at our core—tainted by insecurity, pride, and jealousy—all of that comes out, and these character faults rub against one another.
It seems that James, the oldest, could be a bit demanding and officious. His second wife, Mary Lloyd, who had been a good friend of the girls, ended up being unable to control her jealousy. She could not stand the fact that James had been married before (his first wife died young) or that he had courted their lovely cousin Eliza. She was a force of negativity and hardly treated her stepdaughter, Anna, as a member of the family. James, showing himself to be weak, ignored his daughter Anna so as not to anger his new wife and never again mentioned Annas dear mother.9 Mrs. Austen may have had a talent for imagining herself ill.10 Charming Henry had some difficulty making his way in the world and at one point went bankrupt, losing valuable family holdings.11Mr. Austen could be impetuous.
The Chawton Cottage may be another example of a small tear in the family fabric. After Mr. Austen died, it was expected that the brothers would help take care of Mrs. Austen, Cassandra, and Jane, as their income was much reduced. They went to live with Frank awhile in Southampton until his small family began to grow and they felt they should no longer impose. They visited relatives. They took lower accommodations in Bath. Edward—who should most have been able to afford it—seems to have been slow in offering significant support. He waited until after his wife died to give his mother and sisters Chawton Cottage. (His wife seems to have adored Cassandra and been rather uncomfortable with Jane, so perhaps there was something keeping him back.) Jane and Cassandra always thought of Edward as kind and gracious. People wonder if Emmas Mr. Knightley was in some way fashioned after the brother who took the name of Knight. So perhaps I am misreading the situation. We know that there was some anxiety about where the girls and their mother would live and what they could afford, and this was finally removed when they were able to settle here in Chawton.
Whatever irritations there were in the Austen family—and somehow it is reassuring to read Jane's letters, even the ones Cassandra thought were completely safe, and get some hint of them—the girls lived with them. Like my neighbors from El Salvador, they were driven by society and situation to need their family and to always be with them. It was certainly not a fair society—women would rarely have inherited wealth, and it would have been unthinkable for the Knights to bestow their estates on one of the Austen girls. And the girls seem to have lived at the beck and call of their brothers, coming to visit them for months when a new baby arrived, taking care of their children whenever necessary. We could never endure this kind of dependence today, and certainly it led to all kinds of evils in families where there was little love. But with the Austens, there was a great deal of love, however imperfect, and the arrangement, rather than creating resentment, seems to have given them assurance and created their own little world, which, while they lived at Chawton, they had little desire to leave.
There are people who love you. I think that's another thing all of us want to know. For those of us who are lucky, that begins with our families, whatever kind of irritating grit there may be underneath.
Chawton Great House (now a library for the study of early English women writers) is perfect for ghosts—grand and heavy, with thick oak paneling going back to the Elizabethan era, and stone floors. It just so happens that there are two ghosts, one known for going up and down one of the many sets of stairs. Our tour guide had seen him. I don't particularly ever wish to see a ghost—or an angel for that matter—but there is something delicious about imagining them (which, of course, little Catherine Morland of Northanger Abbey would understand).
We have an abundance of ghosts in Virginia from all of our brutal Civil War ground. One of my favorite stories involves a friend of my brother who was housesitting. In the middle of the night, she heard something and woke up to find the ghost of a Civil War soldier in her room. He had a beard, and he was blue, I think (which makes it sound very funny. A blue ghost?). She would have thought she was imagining things if the cat and the dog weren't hissing and snarling, hair raised. So she called 911. And he just stood there, smiling an evil grin at her the whole time she called. When her friends got back, they said, “Oh yeah, he only shows up when there's a woman alone in the house.”
I absolutely love this story, until I am alone in my room in the dark and start to fear that my own delicious imaginings could summon the evil smiling soldier, so then I pray that God will surround me with angels to protect me and that I will not have to see any of them either.
Jane wrote three evening prayers. In one of them she talks about the blessings of God, thanking him and asking that they will continue, understanding that she was never worthy of them in the first place. She says, “We feel that we have been blessed far beyond any thing that we have deserved; and though we cannot but pray for a continuance of all these mercies, we acknowledge our unworthiness of them and implore thee to pardon the presumption of our desires.”12
I read that and felt terribly insecure. Oh, dear God, you have given abundant blessings. I do not deserve them, and I cannot help but ask for more. I am sure this is not what Jane intended, but at the moment I do not feel secure in the whims of God. All these blessings—this sense of love and happiness, which I have not felt for so long (not that Jack is the only source of that, far from it)—are they going to continue? I feel a little like I am begging. I do not know how he will respond.
My heart and mind are far from consistent. I will be the
first to admit that. As much as I fear God, I have come to expect great gifts from him—and small gifts as well—and feel so assured of encountering them now, on this trip.
The other day I crossed the fields into the village of Deane, where both George and James Austen were rector at one point, where the Harwoods lived, and where Jane and her brothers and sister attended balls. I was writing down the number for the rector, to call to see if he could get me into St. Nicholas in Steventon, when a van pulled up with a sign on the back that said Hidden Britain Tours. Phil and Sue Howe were putting together—of all things—a Jane Austen tour of Hampshire. They had just been to St. Nicholas and drove me back there (the door was unlocked the whole time, but I didn't know how to open it) so that I was able to sit in the small pews for a few minutes and wonder at the gorgeous paintings on the walls, which look like an ancient sort of wallpaper, in simple dark reds and greens, flowers and vines, but painted on. Then they drove me to Oakley Hall, home of Mrs. Augusta Bramston, who thought Jane's writing was “downright nonsense,”13 and on to Manydown, which was the seat of the Bigg-Wither family and would have been Jane's home had she been willing to marry for money rather than love. Unfortunately, the house is no longer standing.
Phil and I spent time comparing notes on Jane and both tried to figure out again where the Steventon rectory was, to no avail. Now I have reread the guidebook, and it basically says to walk down the road from the church, and the rectory was across the street on the left.14(Sheesh! I'm dying to go back and see it.) But it was a great serendipitous blessing just happening to run into them.
Then there are the monks and the great peace of the abbey—the lovely garden and the care they take of me, whom they do not know at all. I'm sad to be leaving them and sadder that I haven't gotten to know them better. I find myself wondering about them, what they are like, wishing I could talk to them. The only time I see them is during meals, which are silent, and after night prayers they glide out with their hoods up, in silence that will last until morning. Occasionally, if I am around, I might catch them having coffee after morning mass and they will stop and chat, at least a few of them, before they rush off to make icons or organize retreats.
