Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Man of the Cloth

8 September 1804

Dawn

I HAVE PUT ASIDE MY FOOLSCAP AND MY EFFORTS TO FORM EMMA Watson to my liking — a more wrongheaded heroine I have never encountered, so intent is she upon ceding the stage to her spiteful sisters and the ridiculous Tom Musgrave [48] Tom Musgrave, a charmingly vacant womanizer in The Watsons manuscript, should not be confused with the more finely drawn Musgrave family of Persuasion. It was Louisa Musgrove who received a near-fatal head injury in falling from the Cobb — an event that may have been inspired by Cassandra Austen's misfortune recounted in this diary. Austen clearly liked the sound of the name and its variations; and her godmother was Jane Musgrave of Oxfordshire, a relative of her mother's. — Editor's note. — and taken down this journal once more to record all that has unfolded since yester e'en. I had progressed only so far, in relating the chief of that tumultuous day, when Mr. Dagliesh appeared at my brother Henry's dispatching. And so I must set down something of how the surgeon's assistant came again to Wings cottage.

We had partaken of a little refreshment, and decidedly superior tea — an excellent Darjeeling — in Captain Fielding's attractive blue and white drawing-room, and had then quitted the house to observe the last slanting rays of sunlight in the gentleman's garden. Captain Fielding reveals himself as a devotee of the rose, on a scale that rivals the Empress Josephine, for almost the entirety of his grounds is given over to beds of that noble flower — though sadly for us, well past its blooming.

“But this is charming, Captain Fielding!” my sister exclaimed; among the Austens, she is the true lover of the garden and its healthful exercise, and is possessed of a remarkable taste in the arranging of beds and successive waves of seasonal bloom. “Utterly delightful! And in June, when the roses flower, it must be a veritable Eden!”

“Eden must not be considered as approaching it, Miss Austen,” the Captain replied. “For my garden has no snakes.”

“But what energy and industry has been here applied!” Cassandra continued. “And you are not even resident in the place very long.”

“No — but where application is steady, and the means exist for the furthering of work, all manner of change may be swiftly effected. I have had teams of men labouring here to rival Crawford's fossil pits. Where we stand this very moment, was only two years ago a pitiful stretch of downs, replete with scrub heath and the occasional fox den.”

“Extraordinary,” Lucy Armstrong said quiedy, and gazed around her with a wistful air. “I remember this place some months ago, Captain Fielding, when you entertained us all at dinner. The roses were then in bloom— and a glorious sight it was.” She gave me a brief smile, as though lost in a pretty memory, and moved on down the path with my sister.

Captain Fielding offered his left arm, which I gladly accepted, and we followed behind. The Captain employs a walking cane when attempting a greensward, and must progress more slowly as a result, so that Cassandra and Miss Armstrong were soon at some little distance from ourselves.

“I venture to hope, Miss Jane Austen, that you shall again walk among these flowers, when their scent fills the air with a headiness unequalled, and their petals suggest a grace that can only be found in your lovelier form,” my companion said, in a lowered tone.

I blushed and turned away; for the import of his words was unmistakable. But I affected not to understand him, and said only, “I hope I shall often have reason to visit Lyme. It is a place and a society that has become quite dear to me. To fix one's residence by the sea, is, I believe, to live in the greatest privilege and the most salubrious circumstance.”

“You dislike Bath, then?”

“Who can feel otherwise, who is consigned to spend the entire year through, in a place destined for pleasure parties and occasional travellers? The sameness, and yet the constant parting with friends, happy in their return to quieter homes; the bustle, and the self-importance, and yet the nothingness of the town; the white glare of its buildings, the fearful drains, the endless parade of the fashionable and the foolish, hopeful of cures from the sluggish waters — no, Captain Fielding, I cannot love Bath. It is become a prison to my spirit, however gilded the trappings of the cage.”

“I regret to hear it,” he said slowly. “But you will have some weeks yet in Lyme.”

“Yes,” I said, recovering. “We intend to remain here through November. I cherish every day, and count out those remaining, as though I turn the rarest pearls along a string.”

The Captain raised his fair head, and gazed into the distance, his eyes narrowing. “Miss Austen!” he cried. “Miss Armstrong! We are losing the light, I fear, and must turn back.”

“And what is that place my sister has come to?” I enquired, in gazing upon a prettyish little wilderness some yards before us.

“It is my temple ruin,” Captain Fielding said abruptly, “a colonnade of stone, in wisteria and hedgerose. Your sister has found it necessary to rest some few moments, but she cannot remain there.”

I must have looked my surprise at his terse words, so clearly expressive of a proprietary interest in the place, rather than in Cassandra's state; but in a moment, I understood the cause of Captain Fielding's distress.

“I must chide myself for an overactive enthusiasm in exhibiting these grounds — and in so vigourous a manner,” he said, “for assuredly the walk has proved too much for her delicate health.”

And indeed, Cassandra was slumped upon a bench in an attitude of great fatigue, while Lucy Armstrong searched frantically among her green muslin pockets for what I imagined to be some errant smelling salts. The enquiring eyes of a stone wood nymph, arranged over a little door that stood ajar in the temple's wall, looked down upon the tableau. That the door shielded an area for the storage of garden implements, I readily discerned; for a huddle of indiscriminate shapes, cloaked in sailcloth, was revealed by the setting sun — and a clever usage it was for a wilderness ruin. Captain Fielding's house is entirely fitted out with such similarly charming notions— reflective, perhaps, of a man accustomed to tight quarters on a ship. I had observed the snug arrangement of his bookshelves and desk, the latter article having a removable surface for writing in one's chair, as we earlier passed through the library; and indeed, little that the Captain owns is designed purely for ornament, or for a single purpose, serving a variety of duties in ways that are decidedly ingenious. I thought of Frank, whose life is similarly efficient in its organisation, and shook my head fondly at my brother's plans to marry. [49] Frank Austen had recently fallen in love with Mary Gibson, a girl of Ramsgate whom Jane found disappointing — she considered her as vulgar as her town. Frank married Miss Gibson in 1805; they had six sons and five daughters before her death in childbirth. — Editor's note. Mary Gibson should make a sad business of Frank's tidy habits.

As we approached, Cassandra raised her head, her countenance suffused with pain. “I have overtaxed my strength, dearest Jane,’” she said, “and must run the risk of offending you, Captain Fielding, with my plea for a return to Wings cottage.”

He turned from securing the door beneath the nymph's head, and cried, “It shall be done with the greatest dispatch. A moment only is required for the summoning of Jarvis. But tell me, Miss Austen — can you attempt the walk to the house?”