Microsoft Word - Copy of Jane Austen by Elizabeth Jenkins.doc Page 11
young sister-in-law; still, Jane was pleased with her; she said Mary behaved very well and was not fidgety, and added the further praise that she had now become "rather more reasonable" about her child's beauty; she did not now think him really handsome. The ball was not a particularly brilliant one, but Jane enjoyed it because, she said: "I do not think it worthwhile to wait for enjoyment until there is some real opportunity for it."
Charles, "our own little brother," was now on shore leave. The marriage of Jane Cooper with Captain Williams had been of great use to her young cousin, for he had thus been on board Captain Williams' frigate Unicorn when she captured La Tribune after a chase of two hundred and ten miles. Captain Williams was knighted for the exploit, and many of the crew received promotion. Charles was now second lieutenant on the Scorpion. His homecomings were always occasions of happy pride and loving delight. He took Jane about, and was much admired in the neighborhood; some people
thought him even handsomer than Henry. He had gone away with his hair tied at the nape of the neck and powdered, but he had come back with it in the newly fashionable crop. It seemed an eminently
sensible fashion for a
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young man who spent most of his time on board, but Edward, in the stately retirement of Godmersham, was inclined not to think well of it. Edward had not been well for some time; in December, Jane had written: "Poor Edward! It is very hard that he, who has everything else in the world that he can wish for, should not have good health too." Now she said: "I thought Edward would not approve of Charles' being a crop, and rather wished you to conceal it from him, lest it might fall on his spirits and retard his recovery." Charles had brought with him a large piece of Irish linen which someone had told him he ought to buy, and Jane warned Cassandra that as soon as she came back her help would be demanded in making it up into shirts for him.
In spite of all her distractions, she was growing very weary of her sister's absence. She had, in letter-writing, a favorite device of understatement, and she used it here. "What time in March may we expect your return in? I begin to be very tired of answering people's questions on that subject, and independent of that I shall be very glad to see you at home again." She hoped that they would be able to secure Martha for a visit on Cassandra's return, and then she said:
"Who will be so happy as we?"
But the happy, busy, domestic life enjoyed, but never enjoyed in perfection unless Cassandra were there, did not remain uninterrupted for long. Edward's health grew worse, and a visit to Bath was
decided upon, and this time it was Jane who left home to accompany him. The party was a large one; in May, Jane and Mrs. Austen, with Edward, Elizabeth and their two eldest children, Fanny, aged six, and Edward, five, set off from Steventon in two carriages, and arriving in Bath, took lodgings at No. 13 Queen's Square. The day after their arrival Jane gave Cassandra an account of their
proceedings. They had spent the night at Devizes, where they
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had had good accommodation, and where the children had made "so delightful a supper" off lobster, asparagus and cheese-cakes, "as to endear the town of Devizes to them for a long time." It was raining when they entered Bath. Their road to Queen's Square in the lower part of the city led them past Paragon, and here they stopped to inquire after Mr. Leigh Perrot; it was so wet and dirty they did not get out, but were merely told at the carriage door that he was "very indifferent" though he had had a rather better night than usual.
The house in Queen's Square proved most agreeable. The rooms
were large and good; there was a stout landlady in mourning and a little black kitten playing about the stairs. They arranged the rooms so as to let Mrs. Austen and Jane have a bedroom each at the top of the house. Elizabeth had wanted Mrs. Austen to have a room on the first floor opening out of the drawing room, but it would have meant moving a bed into it, and as Mrs. Austen felt strong enough not to mind the stairs, she said she would prefer to be above with Jane.
They had all stood the journey quite well; since their arrival, Elizabeth had had a letter from her nurse Sackree giving "a very good account of the three little boys" left at Godmersham: George, aged four, Henry, two, and the baby, William; so she was quite at ease, and though Edward had seemed "rather fagged" on his arrival, and was not very brisk this morning, Jane hoped that his spirits would be improved by his going out personally to order the tea, coffee and sugar, and to taste a cheese for himself. The weather was clearing; when they had come, umbrellas were up everywhere, but now, she said, "the pavements are getting very white again."
It was delightful to be in Bath--and not in Paragon. The north side of Queen's Square had been built in the middle
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of the century by the great Wood, at the time of his laying out the Royal Crescent, the Circus and the Assembly Rooms. It has a
massive stone front, adorned with columns and pediments on a grand scale; Wood had meant the other sides of the square to correspond, but he had never completed his design, and the west wing and the south wing, of which No. 13 forms the corner, had been built some years later in a graceful domestic style, with ample sash windows and good doorways suggestive of space and comfort within. The
green plot in the middle of the square is dignified by an immense monolith and made pleasant by some trees and shrubs. Jane said: "I like our situation very much; it is far more cheerful than Paragon, and the prospect from which I write is rather picturesque as it commands a perspective view of the left side of Brock Street, broken by three Lombardy poplars in the garden of the last house in Queen's Parade."
Brock Street leads from the Circus to the Royal Crescent, and thus connects Wood's two greatest achievements. The outside of a
Georgian house, whether native or classical, is lovely, stimulating, satisfying; but Wood took the ordinary classical house front of the time, repeating and repeating it in perfect uniformity until he closed the whole in a giant circle, pierced by the roads leading out of it; thus imposing the majestic beauty of the circular formation on the small perfection of the component parts. The delicate Bath stone in which he embodied his inspiration is extremely susceptible to
atmosphere, and dampness blackens it almost to the extent of smoke; the pillars and classical friezes, the doors and window frames of many of these houses are painted black, and their façades appear to have suffered unusually from the darkening influence of the weather, with the result that the whole circle has a Plutonian air, hardly relieved by
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the freshness of its trees and grass. Wonderful as it is, it is not until one passes through Brock Street and gains the paved walk before the Royal Crescent that one realizes the full splendor of Wood's genius.
The first view of the Royal Crescent affects the mind like a great burst of music. The Crescent contains as much of a semi-circle as is described by the crescent of a new moon. The vast curve of the façade is striped wtih pairs of stone columns, between which the windows, enormous as they are on a nearer view, appear in a very reasonable proportion. The material of this structure has escaped the darkening of the circle behind it; the porous stone seems filled with light as a honeycomb with honey; massive yet airy, gracious in line and hue but dazzling in its rigid uniformity, it is a unique example of classical domestic architecture, a visible manifestation of that spirit of the age from which people in the next century recoiled, ran into holes and corners and covered themselves up with ornaments and plush.
The Royal Crescent occupies a site a little less than halfway between the lowest point of the city where the Avon lies like a strip of looking-glass, and the highest line of buildings near the hilltop. On the higher levels Wood's successors erected further crescents: Camden Crescent of rich, wheatcolored stone, whose promenade is supported on a row of arches jutting out of the hillside, and
commands an unrivalled prospect of the opposite side of the valley and the city at its feet; and higher still, Lansdowne Crescent, less majestic
but perhaps the loveliest of all, a tall and gentle sweep of pearl-grey stone, the gracious curve of its parapet supporting urns that stand up boldly against the sky. Its retired elegance and lofty grace are as different in character from the warm-toned, open
Camden Crescent as from the powerful triumph of the Royal
Crescent; but they bear to
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each other something of the relation of the movements of a concerto by Mozart.
The more mundane quarters of the city do not suggest themselves in terms of poetry or music; they contain rows and groups of plain and elegant houses adorned with a wide variety of fairy-like porticos and fanlights, and shop fronts ennobled with fluted pillars and rich cornices: sometimes in spacious, excellent thoroughfares, sometimes hedging in streets so narrow that modern traffic finds difficulty in getting through them. The most famous thoroughfare is Milsom
Street, with shop windows on its ground level and apartments of great spaciousness and dignity above. The most expensive shops were to be found in Milsom Street and in Stall Street, where there is a beautiful cream-colored colonnade of shops, in the form of a semi-circle.
One could not come from a village to so noted a shopping center without being charged with commissions by those who remained
behind, and Jane had many to execute. Mary had asked her to get some stockings for little Anna, now six years old, and Jane said she should hope to get some such as Anna would approve of. Martha
wanted some shoes, but Jane did not promise to get these; she said:
"I am not fond of ordering shoes." She had had a cloak made for herself edged with lace, and was to procure one for Cassandra just like it; she made a little drawing of the lace, and said if Cassandra would like hers to be wider, she could buy some at an extra
threepence a yard and yet not go beyond two guineas for the whole cloak. She was also to buy Cassandra an ornamental sprig for the hair, and she and Elizabeth were both interested to see what could be bought in that line. They discovered that though flowers were worn a great deal, artificial fruit was even more fashionable. Elizabeth bought herself a bunch of strawberries, but they were so expensive that
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Jane hesitated. Mrs. Leigh Perrot told her that she could probably get something cheaper in a shop near Walcot Church, beyond Paragon, but when they went to the shop, it had no fruit after all, only flowers.
Jane began to think that Cassandra might be better pleased with flowers; for one thing, she could buy four or five very pretty sprigs for the cost of one Orleans plum: "besides," she said, "I cannot help thinking that it is more natural to have flowers grow out of the head than fruit. What do you think on that subject?" Meanwhile, she bought a black lace veil for Mary as a joint present from Cassandra and herself. It cost sixteen shillings, and she said: "I hope the half of that sum will not greatly exceed what you had intended to offer upon the altar of sister-in-law affection."
The children made her put messages from them into her letters to Cassandra, sending love to Grandpapa, Uncle James, Aunt James, and little Edward, and hoping that the turkeys and ducks and
chickens and guinea-fowl were all well, and asking for a printed letter each. Cassandra complied with this request; to save Jane the postage on the letters she enclosed them in one to her, and Jane sealed them up before delivering them, to make them look as if they had come through the post in their own right. "The children were delighted with your letters," she said, "as I fancy they will tell you themselves before this is concluded. Fanny expressed some surprise at the wetness of the wafers, but it did not lead to any suspicion of the truth." Sure enough, at the end of the letter came the notes dictated by Fanny and Edward. The latter said: "My dear Aunt Cassandra, I hope you are very well. Grandmama hopes the white Turkey lays an that you have eat up the black one. We like
Gooseberry Pye and Gooseberry pudding very much. Is that the
same Chaffinch's nest we saw before we went away? And pray will
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you send me another printed letter when you write to Aunt Jane again, if you like it."
In the meantime, the object for which they had come to Bath was not achieved. Edward remained very unwell, and they could only hope that he would begin to feel the benefit of the cure after he had got home. He became infected with the family's shopping fervor and bought a pair of black carriage horses for sixty guineas. Jane had enjoyed Bath immensely, but as the time drew near which had been fixed for their all going back to Steventon, she became anxious to get home again. They had been to a firework display in Sydney
Gardens, and it had been most effective and delighful, and they were going to the play on Saturday, but that she hoped would be the last of their engagements, as she did not want their return to be
postponed. She said: "It is rather impertinent to suggest any household care to a housekeeper, but I just venture to say that the coffee-mill will be wanted every day while Edward is at Steventon, as he always drinks coffee for breakfast."
And so on June 27th the party set out for Steventon once more. They had said goodbye to the Leigh Perrots, and as the carriages drew past Paragon, that somber and sunless dwelling, the spot least dear to Jane from situation and association of any that she knew in Bath, she had not an idea in her head of how she was next to hear of its inmates.
Mr. and Mrs. Leigh Perrot were not strikingly agreeable to the world in general, and perhaps the pleasantest part of their character was their great devotion to each other. So great was it that, reserved as they were, it was very generally known. The other circumstance affecting them that was public property was that Mr. Leigh Perrot was a man of considerable wealth.
In the beautiful colonnade at the junction of Bath Street
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and Stall Street was a milliner's shop which had once been the property of William and Mary Smith, and which, on their becoming bankrupt, was now in the hands of Mrs. Smith's sister, Miss
Elizabeth Gregory. Part of the profits were drawn by Miss Gregory, and part were paid over to the trustees of the creditors, one of whom, William Gye, was ostensibly a printer, but who was suspected to have less reputable means of adding to his income.
Mrs. Leigh Perrot on the early afternoon of August 8th bought some black lace at the shop, and was walking past the shop a little later, accompanied by her husband and with the parcel still under her arm, when one of the assistants ran out and charged her with having a card of stolen lace in the parcel as well as what she had paid for.
Mrs. Leigh Perrot replied that if she had another card, the shopman had wrapped it up by mistake. The parcel was undone there and then, and sure enough disclosed a second card of lace. The shopman now appeared, and he and his assistant loudly charged Mrs. Leigh Perrot with theft. Mr. Leigh Perrot took his wife away, saying that if anyone wished to speak to him, it was known where he was to be found; two days later it appeared that the shopman had lodged a formal accusation with the magistrates, and the magistrates, who knew the Leigh Perrots personally, had no course open to them but to commit Mrs. Leigh Perrot for trial at the next Assizes. These would be held at Taunton in March, and in the meantime she was lodged in Ilchester Gaol.
The situation today would be sufficiently startling, but in 1799 it was a hundred times worse. None of her friends remotely supposed her to be guilty; but were she judged so, the value of the alleged theft being above five shillings, she might legally be condemned to death. Sir F.
D. Mackinnon ( Grand Larceny) says: "I do not think there was any serious
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danger of her being hanged; for I do not believe that Sir Soulden Lawrence would have 'left her for execution." But there was a very real danger that, after being reprieved by him, she might have been transported to Botany Bay for fourteen years." That Mr. Leigh Perrot understood this is shown by his making tentative negotiations for the realizing of his property, so that if his wife were transported, he could go with her. In the meantime, to await one's trial in the
eighteenth century, unless one were a state prisoner in the Tower of London, was frequently an ordeal considerably worse than penal servitude today. John Howard's State of Prisons in England and Wales, published in 1777, disclosed a condition among jails which at its best was deplorable, and at its worst unspeakably dreadful. The state of the prisoners naturally varied very much from town to town, according to whether the jail were a modern building, or an antique one with waterlogged cells below the ground, or with its walls overlooking an open sewer; even more difference was made by the conduct of the jailers, whether they were honest and humane, or of the type represented in Hogarth's picture where the naked prisoner is appealing on his knees to the committee of inquiry.
Judged by the standard of what might have happened to her, Mrs.
Leigh Perrot was, on the whole, very fortunate, though she could scarcely be expected to think so. By 1800 Howard's exposition had begun to take some little effect; and had Mrs. Leigh Perrot been actually lodged in the prison, her plight would not have been, in the eighteenthcentury view, desperate; there were no offensive sewers near Ilchester Gaol and the cells were white-washed twice a year. As it was, however, her husband's money procured her special
treatment, and they were both lodged in the house of the prison-keeper, Mr. Scadding.
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Scadding had the reputation of a humane man, and he and his wife were sorry for the Leigh Perrots and certainly did their best to oblige them and make them comfortable; but for a person of Mrs. Leigh Perrot's nurture to be confined for eight months in a small and sordid lodging, with no privacy and only one smoky fire to which, although it was supposed to be for her use, the rest of the household naturally resorted, and waited upon by Mrs. Scadding, who licked her knife to clean it from fried onions, before she helped Mrs. Leigh Perrot to butter, entailed considerable suffering. Her plight was made much worse by compassion for her husband; Mr. Leigh Perrot was
personally fastidious almost to a fault, but he bore with Scadding's children putting pieces of greasy toast on his knee, and upsetting table beer down his coat, with perfect fortitude; until presently he had an attack of gout so severe that he could not move without agony, and his wife, distracted as she was, dared not call in the only doctor in Ilchester, because, apothecary, surgeon, coal-dealer, brick and tile maker in one, he would, she felt, be likely to do more harm than good.