Jane Austen Stole My Boyfriend (7 page)

Eliza, I think, was bored, because her eyes lit up at the sight of us, and in her usual dramatic manner she said, ‘Dearest James, how lovely of you to entertain me. But I must not keep you
any longer. You are like all men; you want to be out hunting and shooting. Sit down,
mes petites
, sit and keep me company. Here, Jenny dear, you hold Pug. Why the sad face?’ she
enquired after James had bowed and strode back across the lawn. Even his back expressed acute annoyance with us. He had been enjoying himself, reading to Eliza.

Still, Mrs Austen will be obliged to us. She was hinting to James this morning that he should go and call upon Anne Mathew, the daughter of the wealthy General Mathew. She would be a good match
for him, and Mrs Austen is very keen on the idea (according to Cassandra) and doesn’t think it matters that Anne is six years older than James. His mother wouldn’t want him to waste his
time flirting with a married cousin.

I stroked Pug and didn’t reply, and Jane said, ‘She’s upset at not having heard from Thomas.’

‘But,
chérie
, it is only a few days, you are not
raisonnable
.’ Eliza rolled each letter
r
in the back of her throat in the French style. I wish that I
could speak French – it seems such a romantic language.

‘Aunt Leigh-Perrot had time to reply,’ I said dolefully. I had gone three times to the hollow tree, but there had been nothing there. And then Jane had gone over to the manor house
to see Harry and he had been most upset that we thought he had not bothered to deliver the letter.

‘I’ll take it over no matter what – even if I am in the middle of sowing turnips,’ he said, according to Jane – who didn’t think he showed much romantic taste
in mentioning turnips in the same sentence as love letters.

‘But there is a difference,’ cried Eliza. ‘Your aunt is an old lady who has nothing to do in her life other than to write letters. The good captain, ah, now that is a different
matter. He is busy, shouting orders, standing on his ship deck . . . La, la, I do not know, but I’m sure a thousand things must occupy him. How can he sit down and write a pretty love letter
when his men are standing by, waiting for him to shout, “Lower ze boat, my hearties.”?’

I had to laugh at that, especially as Eliza made no effort to copy a sailor-like voice but pronounced the words in the refined tones of a Parisian lady.

‘I know why you haven’t heard from him,’ exclaimed Jane when we were reluctantly responding to Mrs Austen’s shouts from the open window.

‘Why?’ I asked. Jane had stopped in the middle of the gravel sweep in front of the door and was staring at me with serious eyes.

‘He’s been taken prisoner by French brigands, of course.’ She looked quite satisfied by that explanation and shook her head when I pointed out that England was no longer at war
with France.

‘Once a brigand, always a brigand,’ she said wisely. ‘We should write and find out his news – and tell him ours.’

She raced upstairs, seized a pen, sharpened it to a fine point, trimmed the feathered end carefully and took a piece of scrap writing paper from her desk.

Then she folded the paper in four, wrote the address, scattered some sand on it, opened it out, turned it over and wrote the message on the inside in her most elegant hand. Then she refolded the
paper, melted the end of a wax stick, dropped a blob to seal the letter, told me to stick the copy into my journal and then jumped up. ‘Let’s go and see Harry,’ she said
enthusiastically. ‘I bet he will ride straight up to Deane with it. That will be in Southampton by tomorrow morning.’

Jane’s letter to Thomas:

Tuesday, 19 April 1791

It’s very early in the morning and I am writing in my journal before the others are awake. Everything is ready for our journey to Bath. The post-chaise will call for our
bags and trunks and then, at Deane Gate Inn, only a short walk up the road, we will get on the coach and start on our journey to Bath.

Jane is very excited about it, but I am not. I wish now I could stay on in Steventon and keep inspecting that hollow tree to see whether Thomas has remembered me. Everything is so uncertain for
me. I feel that I am in danger of going back to being the very insecure, worried girl that I was before I came to Steventon.

Perhaps Thomas doesn’t love me any more. That thought keeps coming into my mind. Perhaps he has found another girl whose parents are very pleased at the idea of a match between their
daughter and the handsome naval officer with his own property in the Isle of Wight and his uncle, the admiral.

After all, my brother has turned him down. When he got back to Southampton, Thomas must have thought of that. He must feel very angry.

Tuesday night, 19 April

By six o’clock in the evening we had been travelling for hours. The journey across the Salisbury Plain was long and tedious. Eliza entertained us in the early part by
telling us about an undercover agent a –
rrrrevolutionary
who took part in storming the Bastille. She told us some hair-raising stories of this daring individual who even swam through
the murky waters of the River Seine in Paris, with his pistol clenched between his teeth. Although Eliza’s husband is an aristocrat, she seems to find this
‘rrrrevolutionary’
undercover agent very attractive, and Jane’s eyes were sparkling with excitement. Mrs Austen fell asleep in the middle of the story and then Eliza dozed
off, but Jane and I discussed the undercover agent for a long time. We planned a book about him, with Jane writing the story and me providing the sketches.

After we finished discussing this I began to feel sleepy, and even Jane started to yawn. Everyone woke up suddenly at Andover when the coach stopped. A stout woman got in and sat next to me,
squeezing us both up against the window. Jane started to have a little fun.

‘Mama,’ she said in a penetrating whisper, ‘did you hear what the ostler said about the highwaymen?’

Mrs Austen gave her an annoyed glance. ‘Don’t be silly, Jane. I heard nothing of the sort.’

‘Dear Mama,’ confided Jane in a whisper, supposedly meant for my ear, but definitely aimed at my fat neighbour. ‘She doesn’t wish to frighten us, but I know that she has
stowed her diamond necklace in her left boot.’

Poor Mrs Austen! I doubt that she ever owned a diamond necklace, but if she had I fancy it would have been long sold to buy a couple of Alderney cows. She would get more satisfaction from
supplying her large household with milk, cream and butter than in flaunting a diamond necklace to impress her neighbours.

The fat lady, however, immediately got to her feet and shouted out of the window to the driver to hand in her small travelling bag to her.

That was a nuisance, as the four horses had to be pulled up and the bag retrieved from the luggage basket at the back of the coach, but it was very funny to watch the fat lady, her side turned
firmly towards us, rummaging in her bag and stowing things into secret pockets inside her travelling cloak and poking something else down into her boots.

‘Terrible times, ma’am,’ she said to Eliza, as Mrs Austen had firmly shut her eyes to distance herself from her embarrassing daughter.

‘
Terrrrible
,’ said Eliza, giving the word its French pronunciation. ‘You would not believe the scenes that I have witnessed. The mob! The riots! The burnings!’

‘What?!’ screamed the lady. ‘In Andover!’

‘Doesn’t seem possible, does it,’ commented Jane gravely. Eliza, by the look on her face, was trying not to laugh.

Mrs Austen opened one weary eye, looked from Eliza’s animated face to Jane’s, and then closed it again. I think she had decided to disown us all.

‘These people are animals,’ pronounced the stout lady.

‘
Oh la
, the
paysans
! The . . . how you say it? The peasants – they say they are starving!’ was Eliza’s next contribution.

I thought that would put a stop to the conversation, but the stout lady was just getting into her stride.

‘Animals, that’s what I call them, greedy animals. Always wanting more. Never content with what was plenty for their fathers and their grandfathers before them. I could tell you such
a story . . .’

‘What’s that?’ asked Jane sharply, sticking her head out of the coach window. ‘Not a highwayman, I hope!’

‘What!’ screamed our travelling companion and she also put her head out of her window.

‘We are being followed, ‘ announced Jane, pulling her head in. ‘No, really. I’ve been listening to the sound of horse hoofs for the past five minutes. They’ve been
getting nearer and nearer.’

‘Coachman, there’s a man following us!’ The scream was enough to rouse the whole neighbourhood and we were now passing through a town.

‘We’re at Devizes now,’ said Mrs Austen calmly, opening her eyes. ‘Did I ever tell you that I stopped at this very inn on the day of my wedding? Myself and Mr Austen rode
all the way from Bath to Devizes and then on to Steventon, did you know? I was married in a red riding habit and jumped on to the horse straight after the ceremony. Did I tell you about
that?’

‘Yes,’ said Jane bluntly, and Eliza smiled faintly and peered hopefully from the window. For someone so easily bored as Eliza, a highwayman seemed a better prospect than the
thousandth repetition of Mrs Austen’s story of her honeymoon ride and of the fate of her red riding gown . . .

I felt a little worried though. Who was this man who was following us?

The coach now swung sharply to the right, toppling the stout lady over on to me, and me on to Jane. We were entering the inn yard. The ostlers were running forward to catch the reins of the four
horses, hens scattered with indignant squawks and the landlady came out with a welcoming face and a clean white apron, but there was no fuss, no exclamations of horror . . .

‘It’s Harry Digweed,’ whispered Jane, sticking her bonnet into mine, the deep rims making a private little screen between us and the others in the coach. ‘He must have a
letter for you!’

I looked at her wide-eyed, but Mrs Austen had already pushed open the coach door and was clambering heavily out.

‘Harry Digweed!’ she exclaimed. ‘What in the world are you doing here?’

‘Hallo, ma’am, this is a surprise,’ said Harry in such artificial tones that I was sure that Mrs Austen must suspect something. ‘I’m on my way to Bristol to see
about some new seed for my father.’ He laboured on with his prepared speech and then turned to us with relief. ‘Had a good trip?’ he asked. His words seemed directed at Jane, but
his eyes were on me, and they were so full of meaning that I blushed a little.

‘Are you staying the night, Harry? You must join us for supper, mustn’t he, Mama? We’ll go with you while you see to the stabling of your horse. It will be good to get moving
after sitting in that coach for six hours.’

‘That is a good idea.’ He said each word separately like a child learning to read. It was a good job that James had not given him a part in the play. He certainly couldn’t
act.

Once in the stable, though, he relaxed. I rather admired the easy way that he gave instructions about his horse to the ostler and how he gave the horse an affectionate pat as it was being led
away. I saw Jane smiling – a small, private smile. She put a hand on his arm as we stood there in the warm-smelling dimness of the inn stables. Harry beamed his gorgeous smile down at her . .
.

‘Here’s your letter, Miss Jenny,’ he said. He had my letter carefully carried inside his inner pocket and he had even put a piece of stiff cardboard with it so that it
wouldn’t be crumpled.

‘Oh, Harry, you don’t know how grateful I am to you.’ In my excitement at the appearance of Thomas’s letter with the neatly drawn anchor on it, I called him Harry, just
as Jane did.

‘URGENT’, read Jane over my shoulder.

‘That’s why I thought I should ride after you,’ explained Harry. I felt like kissing him. I turned slightly aside, broke the wax seal and unfolded the sheet of paper. I
expected to find a long letter and I could hear Jane engage Harry in conversation.

But the letter had only six words on it. I’ve stuck it in here.