Stephanie Barron: Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor

I expect many to be shocked by the notion of Austen as detective; but it should not be surprising that a woman of her intellectual powers and perception of human nature would enjoy grappling with the puzzle presented by a criminal mind whenever it appeared in her way. Her genius for understanding the motives of others, her eye for detail, and her ear for self-expression — most of all her imaginative ability to see what might have been as well as what was — were her essential tools in exposing crime. Spending the bulk of her days in the country, where order was kept by a justice of the peace and more informally by the authority inherent in the local gentry, Austen would look first to her powerful acquaintances for assistance in securing punishment for the guilty and justice for the innocent. As a single woman of modest means, she was forced to rely at times on the men in her circle, whose access to the worlds of commerce, law, and politics afforded them greater power in the cause of justice than she could attain. That they availed themselves of her intellectual ability is a testament to their good judgment.

What follows is, as best we can judge, the first of Austen's detective adventures. It begins in December 1802, immediately following Jane's acceptance and rejection (within twenty-four hours) of Harris Bigg-Wither's proposal of marriage. She turned twenty-seven during the course of her narrative and, with her rejection of Bigg-Wither, must have faced the prospect of spinster-hood full in the face. Isobel Payne's invitation, coming at the height of what must surely have been a difficult period, provided Jane with a welcome avenue of escape. It would prove a painful time of self-reflection as well as diversion; but the narrative is remarkable for its blending of the criminal and the personal, the love of the chase and internal exploration of her own motives and dreams.

TO EDIT AUSTEN IS DAUNTING. I DO NOT PRETEND to her skill. I only hope that the essential spirit of the original manuscripts blazes forth from these new pages, with all the power of that remarkable mind.

Stephanie Barron

Evergreen, Colorado

June 1995

17 March 1803

No. 4 Sydney Place, Bath

WHEN A YOUNG LADY OF MORE FASHION THAN MEANS has the good sense to win the affection of an older gentleman, a widower of high estate and easy circumstances, it is generally observed that the match is an intelligent one on both sides. The lady attains that position in life for which her friends may envy and congratulate her, while the gentleman wins for his advancing years all that youth, high spirits, and beauty can offer. He is declared the best, and most generous, of men; she is generally acknowledged to be an angel fully deserving of her good fortune. His maturity and worldly experience may steady her lighter impulses; her wit and gentle charms should ease the cares attendant upon his station. With patience, good humour, and delicacy on both sides, a tolerable level of happiness may be achieved.

When, however, the older gentleman dies suddenly of a gastric complaint, leaving to his mistress of three months a considerable estate, divided between herself and his heir; and when the heir in question offends propriety with his attentions to the widow—!

The tone of social commentary may swiftly turn spiteful.

The deceased man's fortunes, once proclaimed as rivaling the gods’, are now all struck down. He is become to all men a figure of melancholy, a poor benighted dotard, seduced by youth and flattery where probity and good sense should better have prevailed. The lady is turned an object of suspicion rather than general pity; her mourning weeds are reviled as a mockery of propriety; her presence is not desired at the select assemblies; the solicitors burdened with the management of her affairs are much to be pitied; and scurrilous rumour circulates among the habitues of the opera box and card room.

Her star is fallen, indeed.

Such has been the fate of my poor Isobel. That a lady gently bred, possessed of intelligence and a discerning nature, should be so embroiled in scandal, must sober us all. None can assume that the winds of fortune shall always blow fair; indeed, the better part of our lives is spent seeking some shelter from their caprice. Women, possessed of a frailty in their virtues not accorded the stronger sex, are more surely victims of the random blast. In considering all that occurred during the fading of the year, I might be moved to rail against my Maker for suffering those least capable of bearing misfortune, to have found it so liberally bestowed. But that would be ungenerous in a clergyman's daughter, and too bitter for my spirit. I have determined instead to turn to the comforts of journal and pen, in the hope of understanding these events that marked the turning of my twenty-seventh year.

I NEVER FEEL THAT I HAVE COMPREHENDED AN EMOTION, or fully lived even the smallest of events, until I have reflected upon it in my journal; my pen is my truest confidant, holding in check the passions and disappointments that I dare not share even with my beloved sister Cassandra. Here, then, in my little book, I may parse my way to understanding all that I have survived in recent weeks. Indeed, I have gone so far as to walk into town for the express purpose of obtaining this fresh binding of paper, in the hopes that by setting the events apart — by giving them the narrative force and order of a novel, in fact — I might bring some order to the unwonted discomposure of my mind. This story will never be offered for the public reader, even were I to transform the names and disguise the places; for to so expose to the common traffic of drawing-room and milliner's stall what must be most painful in my dear friend Isobel's life, would be rank betrayal. Better to retrieve from Cassandra the letters [3] Jane Austen's older sister, Cassandra, was the person she loved best and trusted most in the world. Austen scholars have long been frustrated by gaps in their surviving correspondence, and have imputed the missing letters to Cassandra's propensity to destroy those that were most personal. Many of what may be the missing letters have now been found in the Westmoreland manuscript holdings. — Editor's note. concerning these events that I sent to her from Scargrave, and insert them between the pages of this journal. It shall live in my clothes-press, and be opened only for the edification of my dear nieces, that some knowledge of the forces which so disastrously shaped Isobel's fortune, may prove a moral guide for the conduct of their own.

What follows then, as my journal and letters so record it, is the history of the unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor. May that unhappy abode witness more congenial hours in the coming year than those I spent during the last.

Journal entry, 11 December 1802,

written in the small hours

“WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF IT, JANE?” THE COUNTESS of Scargrave asked. Her fingers gripped my elbow painfully.

I gazed at the recumbent form of her husband with dismay. Frederick, Lord Scargrave [4] A brief explanation of English titles and modes of address may be helpful to American readers, who lack Jane's easy familiarity with both. Isobel Collins married Frederick Payne, the Earl of Scargrave, and as such became the Countess of Scargrave. She would be addressed as Lady Scargrave, but because she is a commoner by birth, she would never be addressed as Lady Isobel; that would be a courtesy title conferred on the daughter of a peer. The Earl is usually addressed as Lord Scargrave, taking his name from his title, rather than as Lord Payne, his family name, which in this account denotes his heir Fitzroy, Viscount Payne. — Editor's note. , was decidedly unwell — so unwell that I had been called to his bedside an hour before dawn, an indiscretion the Earl would never have allowed while possessed of his senses. I pulled the collar of my dressing gown closer about my neck and placed my free hand over the Countess's.