Stephanie Barron - Jane and The Wandering Eye

I took up the letter and broke open the seal. There were two full sheets, quite written through and crossed.

22 December 1804

Steventon Rectory

My dear Jane—

I was gratified to receive your letter of Wednesday last, and found it most proper in every expression of condolence and respect for the Deceased, though perhaps a trifle wanting in the form of its composition. You shall never be a truly accomplished writer, dear Sister, until you have studied the art of orthography and attempted consistency in its employ. In point of length your missive was not deficient, but in the organisation of your ideas—! The postscript alone was a mere jot, and entirely unconnected to the previous subject of your thesis. A sad muddle altogether. But of this, it is perhaps wiser not to speak. I may credit the fullness of your heart — that becoming depth of feeling so natural in the Female — for the unfortunate flow of your words, and the lack of stops to your sentences. I recollect that our excellent Father did not see fit to have you tutored in either Latin or Greek — quite rightly, too, for it should have burdened a mind remarkable for the weaknesses of its Sex! — and that you must be regarded, accordingly, as only half-educated.

I was so fortunate as to accompany my esteemed colleague, the Reverend Isaac Peter George Lefroy, to the carpenter’s last week, about the ordering of the coffin. I had offered this little service, of attending him in the arrangements for the burial of the Deceased, and I may assure you that he was excessively quick in his acceptance. The Reverend Lefroy was gratified, I daresay, by my expression of respect and willingness to act in the guise of Son, to one who has always behaved with Paternal Affection. His own boys, I may report, behave abominably; young Ben has not left off crying since the Unhappy Event; and even Mr. Rice, whose assumption of Orders should have taught him delicacy and advised him to stand in a Son’s place, to the father of his Chosen Companion, has failed utterly to lend support. He has taken, in fact, to Spirits, and spends the better part of every evening in throwing dice among the stable-boys . [80] Henry Rice, Madam Lefroy’s son-in-law, although the curate of Ashe, was a confirmed gamester who ended his days in flight to the Continent, pursued for debt. — Editor’s note. But I was enabled by your letter, my dear Jane, to convey the Austen family’s warmest sentiments of regard and feeling to the Reverend Lefroy, and can extend to you in turn the melancholy gratitude of a Man reduced to nothing by Grief.

The carpenter resided in Broad Street, in the neighbouring village of Overton; and as we progressed thither, our hearts could not fail to be oppressed by the dreadful memory of the Unhappy Event, in being forced to review again the site of the tragedy itself. You will recall that Madam Lefroy was in the act of quitting Overton, and had attained the top of Overton Hill, when her horse bolted and precipitated her injury. As we drew near the Fatal spot, Reverend Lefroy would not be gainsaid by the most earnest entreaty — he drew up his horse at the hedgerow itself — and holding aloft his whip, he pronounced the awful words.

“Here, my dear Austen, is the very ground of her unmaking. Here did the poacher sit, under cover of winter’s early dusk; here, he aimed his gun, and fired upon the partridge, that should have gone to Sir Walter’s bag”—for you know, fane, that Sir Walter Martin has always held that hedgerow in fief, and is sadly plagued by poachers—“and here the horse took fright, and ran away with my Beloved, to her tragic ruin.” At this juncture he dismounted, and tore at the hedgerow’s branches, and commenced a fearful weeping; and I must believe that had he proceeded alone, the carpenter should never have received him at all.

In consideration of Reverend Lefroy’s behaviour, indeed, I begin to comprehend the excesses of his offspring — but will allow no hint of remonstration to fall from my lips.

I apprehend, from the tenor of your missive, Jane, that you wish a full recital of Madam Lefroy’s misfortune, and some account of her final hours. I might caution you, perhaps, against the over-indulgence of a morbid sentiment, and the feverish immersion in all that pertains to the Passing of the Flesh; but I believe you to be a lady of some sense, Jane, and will trust in Providence and the excellent example of our beloved father, to preserve you from excesses of Emotion and Thought.

I encountered Madam Lefroy myself on that fateful day, as our father has no doubt informed you from the intelligence of my late express. She remarked at the time that her mount was so stupid and lazy she could hardly make him go, and so we parted — I to return home, and she to conduct her business among the tradesmen of the town. At about the hour of four o’clock, however, Madam Lefroy was in the act of quitting Overton with her groom — when at the summit of Overton Hill, her horse was frighted by the report of a gun fired from the hedgerow not ten paces distant from the animal’s withers. The horse bolted, and the groom failed in his attempt to seize its head. From fright or unsteadiness, Madam Lefroy then threw herself off; and sustained the gravest concussion. After some little delay about the conveyance, she was carried home to Ashe, and there lingered some twelve hours. Mr. Charles Lyford of Basingstoke — you will remember him, I am sure — attended her; but she slipped away quietly in the early hours of Sunday morning. I do not know whether she stirred or spoke before the End.

The shot that startled the horse has been imputed to the carelessness of a poacher — a poacher who remains at large, and will probably be far from his native turf at present, for the preservation of his neck. A just horror at the ruin his shot had caused, should undoubtedly have urged the rogue to flee under cover of the falling dark. His apprehension must go unaided by any report from Madam’s groom, who was necessarily engrossed in the pursuit and recovery of his mistress’s mount, now sadly destroyed — and so we must impute the Disaster to Him whose ways are hidden, and accept it with the propriety and grace becoming a Christian.

Propriety and grace, however, are sadly lacking among the Lefroys at present, and I may congratulate myself at having borne my own Dear Departed’s passing with a more commendable fortitude, as my present Wife is quick to recollect. The Lefroys are a family destined to be plagued with misfortune, as Mary has also condescended to point out; the heedlessness and injury to young Anthony’s back, and his subsequent death, were almost a presaging of this fresh tragedy . [81] James Austen refers here to the death of Anne Lefroy’s second son, Anthony Brydges Lefroy, who was injured in a fall from a horse at the age of fourteen, and endured a lingering decline of some two years before dying in 1800. — Editor’s note. They had much better avoid the horses altogether in future. But, however — I could not find it remarkable in any of them to behave most lamentably throughout the service, and was duly resigned to demonstrations of grief on every side.

You enquired, at the last, whether I have remarked the appearance of any strangers recently in the neighbourhood. There were a great many come for Madam Lefroy’s service — and I congratulate myself that I did not disappoint their expectations! — but I take it you would refer particularly to your acquaintance from Bath. How you come to know such disreputable persons as the man Smythe, I cannot begin to think, my dear sister; and when I mentioned the matter to my beloved Mary, she joined most vigorously in my opinion. For the full extent of his history, I was forced to enquire of the housemaid, Daisy, who was so unfortunate as to encourage the man’s lingering in the vicinity of the parsonage, through the offering of table scraps; and I have learned to my horror that he is a most dissolute person. If Daisy is to be credited, Smythe caroused in the Overton inn, meddled with the tradesmen’s daughters, and performed certain high jinks in the public lanes — tumbling and jumping for such pennies as the curious might afford him. We were only too glad to learn that he had quitted the vicinity as suddenly as he came; and must wonder at your having noticed him at all. Where he is gone, I cannot tell you.