Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Ghosts of Netley

“Well, girls, I have determined to accept my dear Edward’s offer of a freehold, and shall write to him this very hour to convey my gratitude,” said Mrs. Austen as we removed our wraps in the front entry. The chill weather of the previous week had abated, and the walk from St. Michael’s Churchyard was positively spring-like. I regarded my reflection in the glass with disfavour, however, for it showed none of the good effects of a hopeful morning. My eyes were heavy-lidded and smudged with black; I had slept but little the previous night, being haunted by the implications of Lord Harold’s parting remark. Was it possible — did I delude myself in thinking — that I was somehow dear to him? Or when he spoke of loving but one woman in the world — did he refer to Lady Harriot Cavendish, who had spurned his advances two years since?

“Jane,” my mother said sharply, “you are not attending. Martha kindly asked which freehold of your brother’s I intended to accept. Are you so devoid of interest regarding your future abode? Or do you hope to form no part in the establishment, being bound for the grandeur of London on that reprobate’s arm?”

It must be impossible for a Lord Harold to love a mere Jane —she whom others had left on the shelf, a spinster of insignificant connexion and little beauty, whose purse did not extend even so far as the purchase of an Equestrian Hat. Consider the infinite charms of a Lady Harriot: daughter of a Duke, and child of his oldest friends; a member of the Whig set from birth; a girl of trenchant wit, no little beauty, and a comfortable independence. Even did I hold Lord Harold in my power, he should be filled with repugnance at my present disloyalty — my persistence in questioning his judgement — the swiftness with which I had championed Sophia Challoner, and on so trifling an acquaintance as three days.

“I mean to settle in Chawton,” my parent persisted. Her gaze, fixed perplexedly on my face, shifted to Martha’s. “Can it be possible that the child is ill?”

I shall never see him again, I thought. I shall learn presently that he is gone away, and that will be an end to all speculation — and sleepless nights.

“Chawton shall suit us very well, Mamma. I am exceedingly happy in the choice.”

“Fiddlesticks!” she exclaimed, and went off to write her letter.

• • •

Martha and I might have settled over a book, or taken up our embroidery, or written letters ourselves to a numerous correspondence — but an unaccustomed restlessness had me in its grip. I paged listlessly through the latest newspapers, my eyes straying from reports out of the Peninsula, which were all cavalry regiments and quantities of cannon. The King had refused once more to consider the question of Catholic Emancipation; red waistcoats for gentlemen were very much worn; and the Prince of Wales had attended a rout at the London residence of Lord and Lady Hertford. [20] Catholic Emancipation, or the Irish Question, as it was sometimes called, erupted throughout the final years of George III’s reign as a result of the inclusion of Irish representatives among the members of the unified Westminster Parliament from 1801. Those Irish members who were also Catholic were “debarred” from taking their seats under the provisions of the British constitution. The Whig opposition, and even some Tories such as William Pitt the Younger, raised the necessity of “emancipating” Catholics, or according them the full rights of all British subjects, but George III refused even to consider the question, because as king he had sworn to uphold the Church of England. Catholic Emancipation was finally passed by the Duke of Wellington’s administration in 1829. — Editor’s note. If Mrs. Fitzherbert was also among the company, the fact was suppressed, from notions of delicacy.

“It is such a lovely day, Jane, and the weather shall soon be dreadful — should you not like to take a ramble about the countryside?” Martha enquired wistfully. I looked up from my paper. My dear friend’s face was pale and sallow, her air as restless as my own.

“That is an excellent thought! You have been too much confined of late. You want exercise, Martha — a good, long walk within scent of the sea.”

“But can your mother spare us?”

“We should only be a plague upon her time, otherwise. She is all plans and lists, sums and stratagems, in deference to the Chawton scheme.”

“That is partly why I wish to go, Jane. We may not have occasion for such jaunts in future; and if we are to quit this place by spring, I must make my farewells.”

“Shall you miss Southampton?”

“What I know of the place,” she said with a faint laugh. “I have never once attended the Assembly at the Dolphin. I have barely set foot inside the theatre in French Street. And I have never ridden out in a chaise to view the villas of the surrounding country—”

It was true: from a habit of self-denial, or deference to my aged parent, Martha had seen very little of the town during the year and a half she had been resident in Southampton. Once buried in the country, where every kind of society must be limited, her opportunities for enjoyment should be fewer still. I felt a great pity and gratitude towards my friend: for I realised that my own adventures had sometimes been bought at Martha’s cost.

“Where should you like to go today?”

“Netley Abbey,” she replied promptly.

Of all directions, it must be the least favoured! I could not hear the name without conjuring the face of Mrs. Challoner — the cloaked stranger who waited in the ruins — or my knowledge of the curious tunnel, and the gold cross I had discovered there. Something of my surprise must have shown in my face, for Martha said, “I know you must be tired of it, Jane; but your enumeration of its beauties has made me long to see it again. And the day is so very fine — only think of crossing by the Itchen ferry! How the wind shall sweep our faces, scented with the spice of every Bombay trader sailing up the Solent!”

“Of course we shall go,” I told her briskly. “I stay only to fetch my cloak.”

We walked arm and arm along Southampton’s walls, the least trafficked resort for quitting the town. From the steps at the foot of our back garden we might ascend the ancient fortification, and circumvent the streets entirely, arriving with ease at the road for the Itchen ferry. I left the idea of Lord Harold behind, with the crumpled newspapers, in the stuffy Castle Square parlour; a little of vigour and happiness had returned. But my peace was short-lived.

“I cannot help feeling that this offer of your brother Edward’s is highly propitious,” Martha ventured.

“You refer to the cottage? How shall you like living there?”

“Oh! Above all things! One is never so happy in town as in the country!”

“A pretty little place set into a garden must have everything to recommend it — particularly when it costs nothing each year.”

“And it comes at such an interesting time in your own affairs,” she persisted. “I am persuaded that you must feel yourself relieved of a considerable burden. You need not consider the fate of your mother and sister — or even my own situation, which is, I am happy to say, extremely comfortable, and should merely be improved by the hope of fulfilling a greater function, in attempting to supply your absence.”

“Absence?”

She came to a halt near one of the ramparts and leaned over it to gaze at the New Forest. “You cannot expect me to believe that you are so silent, Jane, from debating the merits of Wye over Chawton. You cannot be thinking that I have failed to see what is in your heart. You neither hope nor expect to remove from Southampton to live in your brother’s freehold. You have greater things in view.”