I Was Jane Austen's Best Friend (12 page)

‘I wish she
were
my stepmother.’ Jane’s voice was choked, as if she wanted to cry but was not allowing herself. She pulled away from me and stood with her back turned. Her voice was hoarse and choked when she said, ‘If she were my stepmother, it wouldn’t matter that I hate her.’

‘But George is definitely your brother, your real brother?’ I tried to sound sort of casual, but I had to know the truth. For a moment I wondered if this was just one of Jane’s stories. Perhaps she had seen this poor unfortunate in the village and had made up the tale because she was sorry for him.

‘Of course he’s my brother. I’ve got six brothers, not five.’

And then Jane ran from the room and slammed the door. I heard her running down the stairs. I guessed that she was going into the privy at the back of the house and that she would lock herself in there until she finished crying.

And I’ve written all this in my journal. Now I’m going to lock it and I am going to hang the key around my neck.

Saturday, 12 March 1791

Today was a day that I am never going to forget in my life. I have never had a day like it. It all started at breakfast time, when Mr Austen looked up from his book and asked, ‘Who’s going to walk up to Deane Gate Inn to meet James and Henry from the Newbury coach?’

‘I’m going riding with Harry Digweed,’ said Frank.

‘What about you, Jane and Jenny? Will you go?’

‘Yes, let’s, shall we, Jenny?’ Jane sounded enthusiastic. I was glad to see that she looked herself this morning. I nodded happily. It was very exciting meeting people off the stagecoach. I even enjoyed going with Jane to collect the letters from Deane Gate Inn.

‘I’ll come too then,’ said Frank, suddenly changing his mind. ‘Harry won’t mind what time I arrive. His mother can never get him out of bed in the morning.’

‘And me,’ said Charles.

‘You’d better wash your face first,’ said Jane smartly.

‘Dear, dear, look who’s talking,’ said Mrs Austen, but she was smiling as she said it. She was in a very good mood. She was excited that James — her favourite son, according to Jane — was coming for a visit. She hadn’t seen him for months. I gathered that James
studied very hard, unlike Henry, who, apparently, liked to amuse himself and to attend every ball in the neighbourhood.

The coach was late, so we needn’t have hurried. When it arrived we saw James and Henry sitting up in front beside the driver. They were glad to get down and to walk with us. They said they were frozen as they had set off in the early morning, but they were both in very good spirits. I had a good look at them so that I could compare their likenesses with the pictures in my journal.

And this is what they look like. They are both quite tall and they both had greatcoats, which they took off and slung over their bags as they walked along. James has the small thin nose and pale skin of his father and he has blond hair — I don’t know the colour of Mr Austen’s hair because he is always wearing a wig. Henry is quite like Jane in appearance, dark-haired and dark-eyed. Both were dressed in the same way, in well-fitting white trousers, a blue coat with a stand-up velvet collar, and a white shirt with a
high stock tied round the neck in a loose bow. They both wore their own hair and they wore it quite long, almost touching their shoulders. I’ve tried to do a picture here of them and I think it’s quite good.

Henry gave Jane a great hug when he descended. She is obviously his favourite. Jane was so excited to see him and straight away started to tell him about all of her latest stories. James wasn’t so interested in her. I thought I liked Henry better than James. He was very friendly to me and paid me some compliments, telling me how well I looked and that he liked my cloak and that the blue bonnet suited me.

‘I’ve decided on a play for our end-of-team taster production, Frank,’ said James, as we all went at a brisk pace down the hill. ‘It’s Sheridan’s
The Rivals
. There are parts for everybody in it and I’ve written a prologue and an epilogue. I’ve been in touch with Cousin Eliza and she has promised to be Mrs Malaprop.’

‘She will be excellent, won’t she, Frank?’ Henry had an amused grin. I thought he was probably like Jane in his sense of humour as well as in appearance. ‘No one can be as funny as Eliza.’

‘And Cassandra will be Lydia.’

‘Then you’ll have to have Tom Fowle as Captain Jack Absolute,’ said Henry with a little of his mother’s decisiveness. ‘Tom’s not much of an actor, bless him, but he will play the part of a lover of Lydia very well indeed.’

So everyone knows the secret about Tom Fowle and Cassandra, I thought. It was highly unlikely that Mrs Austen didn’t know it also.

‘What about me and Jenny?’ asked Jane. James was definitely not Jane’s favourite brother, I thought. Her voice was quite sharp.

‘Well, I’d forgotten about Jenny, but I thought you might be the maid,’ said James carelessly. Even though he is quite handsome, I didn’t think he was as nice as Henry.

‘Who’s going to act the part of Julia, then?’ Jane sounded quite pert and James clicked his tongue disapprovingly at her.

‘Don’t say that Father has allowed you to read
The Rivals
,’ he said with a stern look. ‘I must say that I think he should supervise your reading. There are parts that are quite shocking. I’ve cut them out of our production.’ He sounded so prim when he said that, and Jane made such a comical face, that I found it hard to hold in a fit of the giggles.

‘Dear, dear,’ said Henry with a wink at Jane. ‘She’s got a point though, James. Who is going to be Julia?’

I was looking at Henry with interest because I remembered Jane saying that he was her favourite brother. She was right — he was very handsome — taller than William Chute, although he was years younger. He saw me looking at him and gave me a very wide smile and a quick wink. I looked away
quickly; I could feel one of my embarrassing blushes coming on.

‘I thought of Frank.’ James gave his young brother a sidelong glance. ‘He could wear one of mother’s old gowns.’

‘Well, you can think again.’ Frank sounded quite alarmed. ‘My voice is broken now.’ He was so upset that his voice rose and cracked and he turned very red. James looked dubiously at him and I had to bite my lip to stop myself from laughing. There was no way that Frank, with his breaking voice and moustache fluff around his upper lip, could pass for a girl.

‘Perhaps Charles then. And I will be Sir Anthony Absolute, the wealthy baronet.’ James smiled to himself; his good humour had come back. He seemed to fancy the part of a baronet.

‘What about Jenny for the part of Julia? Wouldn’t she be lovely?’ enquired Henry. ‘Are you good at fainting, Jenny?’

I said that I wasn’t. I remember that I almost shouted it. Or perhaps it was more like a squeak. I definitely didn’t want to act in a play and I didn’t think that I would be able to faint. I said that they should let Jane be Julia and I would be the maid.

‘No, Jenny will be perfect as Julia,’ said Henry. ‘I’m going to be Faulkland and I am madly in love with you. Don’t worry, Jenny. I’ll help you to learn your words. We’ll make a great pair.’

I didn’t say any more after that. I liked the idea of
Henry helping me to learn my part in the play. And I quite liked the idea of him pretending to be in love with me.

‘What do I have to say as the maid?’ demanded Jane.

‘Not much,’ said James. He was frowning. I felt a bit uncomfortable. I think that he didn’t like all his arrangements being upset.

‘I’ll make some more up then. I’ll make up something funny. The maid could be made very amusing,’ said Jane.

‘And I don’t mind being a servant or something,’ offered Frank.

‘In fact, you’ll do anything as long as you don’t have to wear a dress; it wouldn’t do for the sailors on board the good ship
Perseverance
to find out about that,’ joked Henry.

‘By the way, Frank,’ said James carelessly, ‘I was down in Southampton with the two Portsmouths, Newton and Coulson, and they took me on board one of
Perseverance’s
sister ships, I think it was the
Bonaventure
. The captain gave us dinner, and I must say I thought it was a very smart, well-run ship.’

‘What’s his name?’ asked Frank. He was always intensely interested in anything to do with the navy. He was always talking to me about it. That must be where I had heard the name
Bonaventure
— it seemed familiar to me.

‘Oh …’ James snapped his fingers with the air of
a man who has a lot to think of. ‘One of those ordinary names: Thompson — Jameson — Williamson — no, it was Williams, Captain Thomas Williams. Come to think of it, I almost forgot’ — he turned to me and I could feel the palms of my hands icy with cold sweat — ‘yes, he knows Jenny — at least, when I told him that I lived at Steventon, he asked me whether I had a cousin called Jenny Cooper.’

It was amazing that he couldn’t hear the thumping of my heart — that they could not all hear it. The beats sounded so loud to me that I even expected the mare and foal who were cropping the grass in the field over the hedge to lift their heads and stare at me.

‘How many guns had she, James?’ I began to be able to breathe a little again when Frank asked that question. I clutched Jane’s hand, and when she squeezed mine back I knew that she understood the danger I was in.

‘I don’t know — I never looked.’ James sounded bored with the whole subject, but he was still half looking over his shoulder as if waiting for me to say something. I stared fixedly at the star-like shape of a tiny golden celandine on the opposite side of the road. Jane let go of my hand and moved up next to her eldest brother. I dug my nails into the soft part below my thumbs while I listened to her.

‘James, I don’t want to be just a maid. Why can’t I be Mrs Malaprop? I could do it just as well as Eliza. Why do you have to be the one giving the orders all the time? Why can’t we all choose our favourite parts?’ Jane had a very petulant tone and now no one was looking at me.

‘Well, you can’t, and that’s that! The trouble with you, Jane, is that you always think that you can get your own way. I agree with Mother. It’s time that you started to behave like a young lady, not a spoiled child. Aren’t you supposed to be in school or something?’

‘My dear man, I’m too busy with my writing for things like school,’ said Jane primly. ‘I am just about to embark on writing a play in three acts, which I shall dedicate to you, James, and I hope that it will make you ashamed of your ill-temper to such a talented person as myself.’

Even James had to laugh at that, and then Henry took his arm and began asking his advice about a new horse that he was going to buy from John Portal, one of the neighbours. James, of course, had plenty of advice to give, and Jane and I gradually got further and further and further to the rear of them as we lingered to pick some primroses.

‘Oh, Jane,’ I said, when we went up to our bedroom to wash our hands, ‘what will I do? Do you think that Captain Williams has told James all about me?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’ Jane dried her hands on the
towel by the fire and tipped the water into a pail below the washstand. She looked quite calm when she turned round and I began to feel a little better. ‘No, I’m certain that he didn’t. James would have looked quite different. He’s a very fussy, pernickety sort of man, but he didn’t even seem very interested. If he had heard anything like that he would have been on to Mama instantly with a big, long, pompous letter and when he met you he would have looked at you like this.’ And Jane tilted her nose in the air and looked down it with such a self-important and haughty manner that I had to smile.

I smoothed out the soft petals of the primroses and shut them between the leaves of an old book, and began to feel hopeful that Thomas had not told James how we met, and I asked Jane if she agreed.

‘Thomas!’ teased Jane. ‘Oh, so he’s Thomas! Don’t you know that it is considered very fast for a young lady to use the first name of a young man? My dear creature, you quite make me blush!’

Jane could always make me laugh, but I pleaded with her to tell me what to say if James asked me about Thomas in front of his parents. I couldn’t imagine Mrs Austen being diverted by Frank’s questions about gun ports.