By half-past six o’clock, I abandoned my bed for the book room and sat in my dressing gown by the ashes of yesterday’s fire. I schooled myself to look over the pages of Sense and Sensibility most lately delivered from Mr. Egerton’s press — he has at last arrived at Chapter Ten, which must be felt to be a triumph — but the gestation of these slim volumes begins to seem like that of an elephant. The effort of concentration, upon a task so generally felt to be enjoyable, proved too much for my strained nerves; by eight o’clock I had abandoned it.
Henry was abroad when I entered the front passage: shaved, put into his neat dark coat by his man, and ready to be thrown up onto his horse.
“I have urged Eliza not to come down,” he told me in a voice more suited to the tomb; “we have said our adieux. Pray look after her, Jane — I shall send word when I have reached Oxford safely.”
“Enjoy the solitary splendour of the Blue Boar,” I advised him, “and do not be mourning your undergraduate days. You improve with age, Henry.”
I watched him wave from the back of his hired mare and clatter off down the silent streets of Hans Town in a westerly direction; and reflected that there are few sights so gratifying to a female eye, as a handsome man in a well-made coat and hat, astride a horse on a spring morning.
I accepted a cup of coffee from Manon and dressed myself for service in the Belgrave chapel.[21] The day — so nearly May — was fine enough for walking, provided I might persuade Eliza to the exertion; she was prone, however, to suggest a hackney coach bound instead for the Chapel Royal, as being the house of worship most likely to offer an array of Fashionables in Pious Attitudes, for our amusement. Eliza is frank in admitting she is rarely able to keep her mind on higher things, even of a Sunday — but I was determined this morning to be firm. Fanny and James Tilson are often to be found at the Belgrave chapel, in company with their numerous little girls; and I felt such a wholesome display of family devotion must be salutary, after the thoughts of bloodshed, treason, and adultery I had entertained.
“But, Jane,” Eliza faltered from amidst the bedclothes, where she was imbibing a cup of chocolate, “should I not stay the sacrament? I cannot think myself worthy to receive it, when a suspicion of law-breaking hangs over me! And recollect, we are to dine this evening with Mrs. Latouche and her daughter Miss East, in Portman Square. I am sure I should recruit my strength — for they are both of them so voluble as to send one home with a headache!”
I left her propped up on her pillows, reading her French novel in perfect enjoyment; and walked alone through the brightening morning to church.
The Tilsons caught me up on my way, all of them handsome and virtuous; and I saw that Fanny wore a decidedly fetching straw hat in the jockey style — not unlike the one I had admired on Julia Radcliffe’s bright curls. It seemed the entire world must conspire to remind me of the sordid, when I had trained my thoughts to a more elevated plane.
“Your sister does not accompany you?” Fanny enquired, in a repressive tone. “I should not admit to surprise — I have often found her observance to be wanting, and have imputed it to the irregular nature of her upbringing. One cannot live out one’s girlhood in India and France, among such abandoned persons as Nabobs and Bourbons, without receiving quite improper notions of what is due to the spiritual realm.”
“I am sorry to say that most of Eliza’s notions are improper,” I tranquilly agreed, “which is why she is invariably such excellent company! But this morning her cold persists in troubling her; I am charged by my brother with taking the utmost care for her health, and could not permit her to put her foot out of doors. However bright the sunshine, the air is not so warm as one would like.”
“And your brother, I collect, has quitted Hans Town for Oxford this morning? You will not reproach me, Miss Austen, for confessing how much I deplore Sunday travel; it has not been the habit of my family. But there is a carelessness to Town life that may encourage the lapse of every observance, even among persons one must generally regard as unimpeachable; the business of this world is accorded more weight than the business of the next; and in our hurry to pursue a monetary gain, we very nearly lose our eternal souls! James is to join your brother at the Blue Boar tomorrow — but I could not be easy in my mind, should he have travelled today.”
I ought not to have found anything objectionable in this speech, which expressed sentiments no different than my sister Cassandra had voiced on numerous occasions — being nearly as grave in her attitudes as Fanny Tilson — but my companion’s air of complaisance worked strangely upon me. I desired nothing more than to discompose her this morning, and prick her smug self-regard.
“That is a ravishing hat, Mrs. Tilson! I wonder if you obtained it at Cocotte’s?”
“No, indeed!” she exclaimed, staring. “I do not think I have ever ventured within a hundred yards of that establishment — nor do I know of any respectable woman who has done so.”
We walked on in silence, Fanny’s face averted. Then she said, with an air of offering an olive branch: “This straw was made for me by a very competent girl in Hans Town, Miss Austen — and if you should be desirous of examining her wares, I should be happy to accompany you at any hour. I may assure you that her workmanship is good, and her prices not exorbitant. Perhaps Mrs. Henry Austen would care to join us?”
“Thank you,” I returned, with a resurgence of humility, and a vow to say nothing further for the remainder of the morning. I am all too prone — particularly under the intoxicating influence of springtime — to allow my wretched tongue to run away with me, and offend the most worthy of persons with my levity. The forbearance of a Fanny Tilson must ever serve as salt in the wounds of one less marked by goodness than she.
VIRTUE WAS REWARDED IN THIS CASE, AS VIRTUE SO rarely is — with the surprising pleasure of a visit from a gentleman caller. I had returned but an hour to Sloane Street when Mr. Sylvester Chizzlewit’s card was sent into the drawing-room.
“Delightful,” Eliza murmured. “He looks so well against the scarlet hangings, don’t you agree, Jane? One should always have a decorative young man about the room, and well-bred if one may contrive it; it lends so much tone to the display. Show him in, Manon! And bring the decanters, if you please. I do not care if it is Sunday; I am sure the Good Lord was in spirits, too, on his day of rest.”
I said nothing of this deplorable want of respect, acquired no doubt among Bourbons and Nabobs, and rose to greet Mr. Chizzlewit.
While Manon remained in the room, he said everything that was indifferent and proper, in one paying a Sunday call; enquired after Eliza’s health; offered a pretty compliment on the style of my gown; and declared that there was nothing, after all, like April in England. When the door had closed behind the maid, however, he turned immediately to business. “I have seen Charles Malverley,” he said, “and must congratulate myself on having renewed those ties which a few years’ absence on his part, and hard work on mine, had very nearly extinguished!”
“Well done, Mr. Chizzlewit. And how did you find your old friend?”
21
According to Austen historian Deirdre Le Faye, this may be Jane’s personal name for St. George’s, Five Fields, Chelsea. In Austen’s day this would have been on the edge of what is now Belgravia, and would have provided a pleasant walk. —