Stephanie Barron: Jane and The Wandering Eye

Lord Harold’s niece turned and quitted the supper-room in considerable haste, her eyes overflowing with tears. As if released at a command, the scandalised guests sent up a buzz of conversation; and the Duchess moved to follow her.

“Stay, Grandmère,” called my Knight; “I shall go to Mona. Have Jenkins show this blackguard the door.” And with a look of contempt for the White Harlequin, who sat slumped in a chair, he sped swiftly in Lady Desdemona’s train.

My Knight, the Dowager Duchess’s grandson? Then was he, in fact, Lady Desdemona’s brother, and the heir to the Wilborough dukedom? There was something of Eugenie’s sharpness in his features, and I could imagine him as almost his uncle’s twin in another twenty years.

The Duchess halted in her path, leaning heavily upon her cane, and glanced around the supper-room. “Jenkins!” she called, her voice low and clear. “Send round the wine, if you please. I shall attend to Mr. Portal.” And grasping her cane with one hand and the White Harlequin with the other, she led him unprotestingly away.

“I might almost think it a set-piece of the stage,” said a wry voice at my back, “did not my familiarity with a lady’s tears argue its sincerity. What think you, Jane? A lovers’ quarrel? Or something deeper?”

“Madam Lefroy!” I turned in delight, and held out my hands. “Do my eyes misgive me? Or is the magnificent Elizabeth reborn in the form of Ashe?”

The masked figure of Queen Elizabeth, whom I had observed earlier in conversation with the Red Harlequin, seized my fingers and laughed.

“As you find me, my dear Miss Austen! — My dear Mrs. Henry! And how do you like the Duchess’s party?”

“I may forgive her the disadvantage of a large acquaintance, however much it ensures I shall be crushed, now that there is a touch of scandal to the evening,” Eliza declared mischievously. “Of what else might I speak in the Pump Room tomorrow?” [10] The Pump Room was one of the social centers of Bath. It adjoined the King’s Baths, near the Abbey and Colonnade in the heart of the city, and was frequented by the fashionable every afternoon. There they would congregate to drink a glass of medicinal spring water presented by liveried pump attendants; to promenade among their acquaintance; and to peruse the calf-bound volume in which recent arrivals to the city inscribed their names and local addresses. Austen describes the Pump Room to perfection in Northanger Abbey , in which Catherine Morland and Isabella Thorpe make the place their second home. — Editor’s note.

“Eugenie should never forgo a chance to set the town to talking — but I wonder if the Lady Desdemona is quite of her way of thinking? She seemed much distressed.”

All discussion of the interesting episode was forestalled, however, by my brother’s return. Henry carried a chair with effort in one hand, and a glass of punch in the other; and the result of his exertions, in having raised a fine dew along his forehead, did little for his Richard.

“My poor Henry,” I exclaimed. “Your benevolence is for naught. I have secured my dear Madam Lefroy, as you see, and will leave you to your lovely Antoinette, and the comforts of iced custard.”

“WHAT THINK YOU OF THE ROUT, JANE?” MADAM BEGAN, AS she slipped her arm through mine, and commenced a measured step in time to the musicians’ playing. “I confess to some amazement at the company — a more Whiggish group I have rarely seen, and did your father know of it, he should as soon have barred you within doors as hastened you on your way. Is Henry, then, a traitor to the Austen cause?”

“Our sentiments may be Tory, my dear Madam, but our practices are not so discriminating, as to refuse a patron of the Duke’s stature.”

“Or his brother’s?” Madam enquired keenly. “Do not I recall some little acquaintance of yours , and of fully two years’ duration — with the disreputable Lord Harold?”

“Indeed, I have never found Lord Harold disreputable” I faltered, with a sudden colour in my cheeks.

“But his behavior towards your friend the Countess was hardly honourable. I read the accounts of that notorious trial, you know. The papers wrote of little else that winter.”

“Both Isobel and her present husband were acquitted by the House of Lords.” Impatiently, I thrust my mask in my reticule. “What was possible to proclaim to the public, of the sad business at Scargrave, and what of necessity remained closed to the general understanding, I am hardly at liberty to reveal. But I may freely assure you, Madam, that Lord Harold Trowbridge acted then in a manner that has fully won my respect and esteem.” [11] Jane refers here to the events related in the first volume of her edited journals, Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor (New York: Bantam Books, 1996). — Editor’s note.

“I am heartily glad to hear it,” Madam Lefroy replied, “for I should not like to be uneasy about my dear Jane’s associations, at such a remove from Bath. I may well rejoice at the delay that has provided an occasion for finding you amidst the very best society this town may offer, however Whiggish its aspect. Is Lord Harold present, Jane?” Her head turned swiftly about the supper-room. “I quite long to make his acquaintance.”

“I do not believe that he is. Business in Town, I understand, has detained him.”

“A pity. I might almost have prolonged my stay in Bath on the hope of meeting with him.”

“Prolong your visit for any whim, I beg. If the prospect of Lord Harold may serve to keep you by my side, I shall summon him from the ends of the earth!”

“I require no very great inducement,” Madam replied with a smile. “There is so much of the diverting to be found in Bath! I might almost believe myself returned to Kent, and the days of my girlhood, when the Dowager Duchess presided at Fairlawn! The present Duchess entertains only rarely, you know — and her circle is hardly so lively as Eugenie’s.”

I drew Madam Lefroy towards a pair of chairs just then returned to liberty. “You have enjoyed a singular intimacy with the Dowager, I collect.”

“She is some years my senior, of course — but her warmth must always transcend age or station. A great many changes have occurred since first we called one another by our Christian names. How gay we all were, when the late Duke was alive, and all the world came to Kent!”

My friend’s voice held a familiar note of regret. Anne Lefroy may be many years a clergyman’s wife, but she has not forgot the brilliance of her father’s house, or the elegant society of Canterbury in the days of her youth. She married late, and only, it is whispered, after a grave disappointment in her first attachment; and has suffered the remainder of her days in the retirement of a Hampshire village. She retains as yet the beauty that marked her youth — the fineness of bone and brilliancy of complexion that so transported Gainsborough — and hungers still for the best of the Fashionable World: stimulating conversation and the elegance of a select acquaintance. Indeed, it is her air of the great lady that inspired the affectionate title of Madam.

“The sight of so many ravishing young gentlemen and ladies, all accomplished in the theatrical line, must recall the days of Eugenie’s youth,” she continued, as she glanced about the throng.

“Had you occasion to see her play?”

“I? Good Lord, no — I was barely out of leading-strings when Her Grace quitted the boards forever. But as a girl of sixteen I was privileged to participate in amateur theatricals, at Fairlawn of a Christmastide — Wilborough maintained a private theatre, you know, for his lady’s use — and all manner of personages were wont to parade in pantomime, for the amusement of Her Grace’s guests. The young Sarah Siddons and her brother Kemble, and the elder Conynghams, were summoned one year as I recall — and very prettily they played it, too, though not yet attaining the excellence of their London years.”