Stephanie Barron: Jane and The Wandering Eye

I profited from the brief journey, by indulging in a review of the causes of our exertion, for pleasure was unfortunately the least of them. However circumscribed my usual society in Bath — which is generally limited to my Aunt Leigh-Perrot’s insipid card parties, and the occasional indulgence of the theatre when my slim purse may allow it — I am not so desperate for enjoyment as to spend a decidedly snowy midnight done up as a Staffordshire doll, in a gay throng of complete strangers more blessed and happy in their mutual acquaintance. Nor are Henry and Eliza so mad for rout-parties as my father had been led to believe. My brother and sister [2] Eliza de Feuillide was both Jane Austen’s cousin and the wife of her brother Henry, but Jane usually refers to Eliza simply as her sister. It was a convention of the time to address relatives acquired through marriage in the same manner as blood relations. — Editor’s note. had succumbed to my entreaties for support, and had gone so far as to prevaricate on my behalf. From an awkwardness of explanation, I had deliberately withheld from the Reverend George Austen the true nature of our visit to Laura Place. We were gone in the guise of revellers, indeed, but laboured in fact under a most peculiar commission.

Lord Harold Trowbridge, my dark angel of recent adventure — confidant of the Crown, adversary of whomever he is paid to oppose, and general Rogue-about-Town — is the Dowager Duchess of Wilborough’s younger son. He is also in the throes of some trouble with a lady — nothing unusual for Lord Harold, although in this instance, the novelty of the lady’s being not only unmarried, but related to him, must give the mendacious pause. In short, his niece, Lady Desdemona Trowbridge — an Incomparable of the present Season, a girl of eighteen with all the blessings of fortune, beauty, and breeding to recommend her — has thrown off the protection of her family and friends; has left all in London whose interest should form her chief consideration and care; and has fled to the Dowager Duchess in Bath. The agent of her flight? The redoubtable Earl of Swithin, who claims an interest in the lady’s future happiness. In short, the Earl has offered for her hand — and caused the fair Desdemona considerable vexation and grief.

Lord Harold observed the flight, and respected his mother’s wishes to leave the girl to herself for a time; he remained in London, and restrained His Grace the Duke from summoning the chit immediately back home; he forbore to visit Laura Place himself, and urge the reclamation of sense; and when the Lady Desdemona showed neither an inclination to quit her grandmother’s abode, nor to suffer very much from her voluntary exile, being engaged in a delightful round of amusement and shopping in the weeks before Christmas — he applied, at last, to me.

My niece is a lady of excellent understanding, Lord Harold wrote in his barely legible hand, but possessed of the Trowbridge will. She is headstrong, and entirely capable of acting against her own interest. I am most concerned that she not fall prey to the basest of fortune hunters — whose attentions she might unwittingly encourage, from a misplaced sense of pique, or an inclination to put paid to Lord Swithin’s plans. Is it impossible — do I ask too much — that you might observe her movements for a time, my dear Miss Austen? And report what you observe? I wish chiefly to know the nature of Desdemona’s acquaintance — in whose circle she spends the chief part of her days — and the names of those gentlemen upon whom she bestows the greatest attention. You would oblige me exceedingly in the performance of this service; for tho’ Her Grace might certainly do the same, she is, as you may be aware , not the strictest judge of propriety.

And as the letter supplied a direction in Pall Mall — Brooks’s Club, to be exact — and the very rout tickets formerly mentioned, I could not find it in me to refuse — if, indeed, at present I could refuse Lord Harold anything. It is not that I owe him some great debt of gratitude, or harbour for the gentleman a more tender sentiment; but rather that where Lord Harold goes, intrigue surely follows — and I confess I have been insupportably bored with Bath, and the littlenesses of a town, since my return from Lyme Regis but a few weeks ago. The Gentleman Rogue and his errant niece presented a most welcome diversion.

And so to Laura Place we were gone.

I DO NOT BELIEVE I EXAGGERATE WHEN I DECLARE THAT the Dowager Duchess of Wilborough’s establishment was ablaze last e’en with a thousand candles. Light spilled out of a multitude of casements (the original glazing of which must have exacted from the late Duke a fortune), and cast diamond-paned shadows upon the snowy street; light flowed from the open entry-way at every chair’s arrival, like a bolt of silk unfurled upon the walk. A hubbub of conversation, too, and the clatter of cutlery; a voice raised hoarsely in song; a burst of laughter. The faintest strain of a violin drifted to the stoop.

Henry paid off the chairs and presented our cards to the footmen, but I found occasion to dally at the very door, almost deterred by the glittering hordes I glimpsed within — until an exclamation from Eliza thrust me forward. I had trod upon the foot of Marie Antoinette.

The foyer was a wealth of pale green paint picked out with pink and white, the colours of Robert Adam. Pink and green silk lined the windows, and a bust of the Tragic Muse loomed before a pier glass opposite — Mrs. Siddons, no doubt, and taken from the painting by Reynolds. [3] Sarah Siddons (1755–1831) was the foremost tragic actress of Austen’s day. With her brother, John Philip Kemble, Siddons dominated the London stage at this time, where it is probable Jane had seen her perform. — Editor’s note. I gazed, and beheld myself reflected as Shepherdess, a forlornly bucolic figure amidst so much splendour. Eliza pinched my arm.

“As near to Old Drury as may be, my dear,” she murmured. [4] Robert Adam’s renovation of Old Drury Lane Theatre in 1775 featured pale green and pink paint with bronze detailing — which the Dowager Duchess apparently emulated. Old Drury was pulled down and replaced by a newer building in 1794. This building burned to the ground in 1809. — Editor’s note.

“Indeed,” I replied. “The Dowager Duchess may be living in relative retirement, but she has not yet forsworn her passions.”

“Let us go up,” Henry interposed with impatience. “There is a fearful crush at my back!”

The rout was intended, so Lord Harold had informed us, as a tribute to the principal players of Bath’s Theatre Royal [5] This was the original Bath theater on Orchard Street, where Jane was a frequent patron. Its company divided performances between Bath and Bristol, playing houses in each city on alternate nights — Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday in Bath; Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in Bristol. — Editor’s note. — and the present evening’s performance being just then concluded, the tide of humanity spilling into Laura Place from the direction of Orchard Street was decidedly at its flood. The staircase, a grand curve of mahogany, was completely overpowered with costumed bodies struggling towards the drawing-room; I hooked one arm through my brother’s, and the other through my sister’s, and so we stormed the redoubt.

Let us pass over in silence the travails of the next quarter-hour; how our gowns were torn, and our headdresses deranged; what injuries to slipper and glove. Better to employ the interval in relating the chief of what I know about the Dowager herself — the barest details of Her Grace’s celebrated career.

I have it on so good an authority as my dear mother’s dubious memory, that Eugenie de la Falaise began her ascent as a pert young chorus girl in the Paris comic opera; from thence, with a comely ankle and a smattering of English, she rose to Covent Garden; and it was there the Duke of Wilborough — the fifth , rather than the present, Duke — fell headlong in love with the lady. Wilborough was already past his first youth; he had seen one Duchess into her grave, and her stillborn son with her; and thus it should not be remarkable that he might establish the beautiful Eugenie privately, or offer unlimited credit in the most fashionable shops, and a smart pair to drive her about Town, in return for the enjoyment of her favours, as Lord Derby once did with Miss Farren. [6] Elizabeth Farren was a member of the Drury Lane company during the 1780s and the recognized mistress of the Earl of Derby, who made her his second countess at his first wife’s death in 1797. — Editor’s note. But Eugenie had a greater object in view. She wished to play at tragedy.