Stephanie Barron: Jane and the Stillroom Maid

“You shall not win an argument from me, Miss Austen,” replied Hemming. “I have seen your life of artifice in my younger days; and I assure you it will break its victim as a butterfly on a stone.”

His words were heavy; they belied the sunshine of the morning. Abruptly Mr. Hemming fell silent. Some memory he had stirred, of bitterness or regret; it was not for me to probe the wound. I turned my energy to an enjoyment of the landscape beyond the gig, and found everything to delight.

We travelled west for a time through a lovely passage of country, along the banks of the River Wye. The water gurgled in its bed, the horse’s hooves clopped comfortably along the dusty August road, and the green Derbyshire hills rose up around us. It is a northern custom to divide the fields with stone walls, rather than the hedgerows so suitable to the flat meadows of the South. I found the practise charming, and longed for a hut among the rocks, where I might survey the entire country of a morning, and breathe the clear sweet air. We rolled on, through Ashford-in-the-Water, while my cousin Mr. Cooper was yet lost in slumber, and the sun climbed higher in the cup of sky.

Near Blackwell, the road turns north and plunges into the Dale itself, a precipitous and winding drop among the crags towards the torrent of water below. I had grown accustomed to such a pitch in the course of our Derbyshire travels; and I prided myself upon a measure of complaisance. It should not be said that Jane Austen was so little familiar with the world, that a smart stretch of road might reduce her to hysterics. Upon reflection, however, it was greatly to be thanked that Cassandra had remained in Bakewell.

I gripped the leather seat of Mr. Hemming’s equipage more firmly, and trained my eyes upon his hands as they managed the reins. He spoke in a low voice to his horse, holding the animal in, and we descended by degrees to the Wye, and Miller’s Dale itself. I had a moment for the drawing of breath, and a swift prayer of thanks, when Mr. Hemming brought the gig to rest under the shade of a venerable oak.

He roused my cousin with a few jocular remarks, and the threat of a dose of river water to clear Mr. Cooper’s head; then led our party to a secluded spot some distance downstream, where the limestone crags rose in harsh and fantastic shapes. An ancient mill stood beside a weir; and the picturesque was so delightful that I gasped with pleasure.

“You must not neglect to form an acquaintance with the miller,” Mr. Hemming informed me with a smile, “for he is the purveyor of an excellent cordial. We shall all be desirous of a glass before the day is out.”

The gentlemen disposed themselves with their rods and tackle, their figures quite charming amidst the willows and reeds. It was a bucolic scene that had grown quite familiar. Fishing, I will own, is one of the more healthful and least vicious of gentlemen’s pursuits; but it is unfortunate that it should produce such a number of fish, that must be consumed or otherwise disposed of, before they rot. The rivers that spring from the High Peaks are justly celebrated for their quantities of trout; they have provided generations of gentlemen with sport, well before Mr. Izaak Walton wrote of their charms in The Compleat Angler over a century ago. Our progress through Derby had been marked by an assay of waters: the Trent, the Derwent, the Dove, and at last the Wye. It was through a tangle of line and tackle that I first espied Dove Dale; it was in the odour offish that I descended upon Burghley House, and was granted permission to tour the estate. By the time we achieved Matlock, I was heartily sick of trout, and utterly refused it for dinner in Buxton.

I set about the business of unpacking Mr. Hemming’s commodious hamper, which contained a generous store of bread and cheese, a packet of sliced ham, and some peaches — all of it warm and fragrant with the heat of the day. He had considered of cutlery and napkins, and a cloth to lay upon the ground; an admirable host in every respect. It was as I laid out the fruit knives that my cousin Mr. Cooper commenced to sing.

“ Hear us, oh hear us Lord; to thee

A sinner is more music, when he prays

Than spheres, or angels’ praises be

In panegyric alleluiaaaas.”

Mr. Hemming was at a little remove, between my cousin and the bend in the river, where the mill was situated; he glanced over his shoulder as my cousin achieved a fulsome baritone, looked a trifle uneasy, and then glanced at me. I waggled a gloved hand in salutation.

Mr. Hemming returned his gaze to his rod; but I observed that the set of his back was rather more rigid than before. “Do you always sing, Edward, when angling?” he enquired.

“There are few pursuits, I suppose, that are not improved by a hymn,” replied my cousin gaily. “I may assure you, George, that a burst of song is highly beneficial to the lungs. My esteemed patron, Sir George Mumps, has condescended to follow my example — and Sir George survived the whole of last winter without so much as a cold. You must attempt it.”

“I am unfamiliar with your tune,” Mr. Hemming managed.

My cousin’s countenance was suffused with delight. “But the words themselves you certainly recognise. They are Donne’s, from the Divine Poems . My ambition is to set all of his work to music, in the course of time.”

Mr. Hemming did not vouchsafe a reply. His brow was furrowed and his attention claimed by the tying of a fly.

“As no doubt you comprehend,” Mr. Cooper continued, in happy oblivion of his effect, “Donne is sometimes problematical. What is one to do with ‘And through that bitter agony / Which is still the agony of pious wits / Disputing what distorted thee / And interrupted evenness, with fits’?”

Mr. Hemming’s rod twitched; so, too, did his jaw; and then the line broke free of the river and was swiftly reeled in. He was keeping a check on his temper, I perceived; but the excess of his feeling was visible in his handling of the rod. There would be few fish to catch, at this present rate.

“Not to mention ‘as wise as serpents, diversely / Most slipperiness, yet most entanglings hath,’” I murmured.

“Exactly.” My cousin wheeled about, jerking his line from the river with a spattering of drops. “I have been forced to abandon those for a time, Jane, until the Lord provides for their arrangement. But I have infinite faith in His devising.”

Mr. Hemming raised his rod in preparation for a cast, his gaze trained upon the coursing river. “If I might make a suggestion, Edward — the counsel of an old friend—”

“But I should be delighted, George!”

“I believe your singing — excellent though it may be in its way — is driving off the trout.”

A look of the most extreme mortification clouded Mr. Cooper’s countenance. “I had not the slightest notion the creatures possessed ears.”

“I am not convinced that ears are entirely necessary. The … vigour of your performance—”

“Perhaps the fish do not approve of Donne,” I suggested.

Mr. Hemming threw a glance my way. “It must be said that there are many who do not,” he observed.

My cousin looked from my serene countenance to the blacker one of his friend. “If I have offended you in anyway, George, I humbly beg leave to apologise—”

“Pray do not mention it,” Mr. Hemming retorted abruptly. He cast, and the line tangled upon a tree branch. Mr. Hemming stifled an oath.

The waters of the Wye lapped at our feet; a curlew called in the crags somewhere above; and off in the distance I caught the clatter of crows. It was a distinctly mournful sound, rife with dispute and acrimony; and for an instant, a shade was thrown over the brightness of the summer day. I lifted my head, and studied the heights. Nothing but a soaring of rock and green things among them, a footpath winding above. I was not yet seized with hunger, and now that my cousin was cowed to silence, the gentlemen were absorbed in their sport. It was time to attempt the heights of Miller’s Dale.