A Jane Austen Encounter (23 page)

They wandered down the blue-and-gold carpeted aisle, pausing to admire the memorial to Thomas and Catherine Knight who adopted Edward Austen, and then the large memorial to Edward and his wife, Elizabeth. Elizabeth died at the tragically young age of thirty-five after giving birth to their eleventh child.

Elizabeth swallowed. Strange, how events of so long ago could be so evocative of nearer losses: Richard’s first wife and child, their own unborn children . . . With a small shake of her head, she turned to admire the beautiful window behind the altar, likewise a memorial to Edward and the wife he grieved for the rest of his life.

When they emerged from the church, Elizabeth was surprised by the delightful ring of children’s voices floating across the wall from the park beyond. Walter smiled. “Choir from the school our bride teaches in. Their choirmaster was the groom, so they sang for the wedding. They’re staying in the house for a bit of a holiday.”

Elizabeth put the pieces together. “Oh, The Headington Independent School for Boys? They sang Evensong at the cathedral last night. They were wonderful.”

“Yes, they were grand at the wedding.” Their guide led across the gravel yard to a small brick building next to the church. “This is the old granary. It’s been turned into a Heritage Centre. Lots of local history, which, of course, means Austen history. I think you’ll find it interesting.”

A shout from beyond the wall across the road caught their attention. “My goodness, I hope they don’t tear the place up.” Gerri’s voice was sharp.

“Ah, no. A bit of high spirits, that’s all. They’re good lads,” Walter reassured her.

As they moved on into the small museum, the strained tone of Gerri’s voice rang in Elizabeth’s ears. Of course, Gerri was grieving the death of her good friend and mentor. Elizabeth hoped their continuing the tour didn’t seem callous. Elizabeth stepped aside and let the others enter, then slipped an arm around Gerri’s shoulders when she came in behind the others. “Gerri, you must be missing Muriel. Is there anything I can do for you?”

Gerri looked startled at her quiet words, then shook her head.

“No. Silly question, I suppose. I just wanted you to know that if there is anything . . .”

“There isn’t.” Gerri stepped beyond her reach.

Feeling the bite of Gerri’s rebuff, Elizabeth stood for some time examining the wall with pictures and documents of The Austens at Godmersham, including several letters in Jane’s own hand. Elizabeth was especially interested in the history of the elegant house of which she so far had had only tantalizing glimpses. The printed history told that when Edward’s oldest son, also Edward, inherited the estate, he was firmly established in Chawton House and had no wish to move to Kent, so he sold Godmersham Park. A succession of owners had allowed the house to deteriorate, but it had been brought back to glowing life by new owners in the 1930s. Elizabeth was fascinated by an album showing photographs of the house as it had been in its heyday.

She was particularly interested in the picture of the library. Of course, the decor was nothing like Jane would have known it. Still, surely the fireplace, the walls lined with bookcases, the windows overlooking the park—the structure of the room must be the same. Elizabeth wished she could read the titles on the spines of the books. A note about the history of the house said that the library had contained more than 3000 volumes, including a vast collection on the life of Jane Austen. Where were they now? she wondered. Surely not still in the house. Would dispensing opticians study Jane Austen? She thought not.

She turned the pages back to the entrance hall with its black-and-white marble floor, porticoed doors and magnificent frieze above the fireplace—surely another room as Jane would have known it.

It was said that Godmersham served as Jane’s model for
Mansfield Park
. Elizabeth smiled, recalling Fanny’s longing for Mansfield when she was returned to her noisy, overcrowded home in Portsmouth. Elizabeth could almost quote the passage:
At Mansfield, no sounds of contention, no raised voice, no abrupt bursts, no tread of violence, was ever heard; all proceeded in a regular course of cheerful orderliness.
Yes, Elizabeth could just imagine so genteel an existence in the rooms pictured before her.

She turned the pages and mentally toured the elegant reception room, lounge, dining room, numerous bedrooms. She could only hope the budding dispensing opticians who lived and studied there during term time and the choristers of Headington Boys’ School currently holidaying there appreciated the rich heritage their walls had sheltered.

“Are you ready to move on to the park?” Their host interrupted her reverie.

“Yes, I think so. If the others are.” Elizabeth noticed that Arthur had already moved on outside, but Richard and Gerri had their heads bent over something from the book stall at the back.

She started to join them when Gerri jerked away from Richard. “If you’re so keen on it, why don’t you write the bloody paper? It was all Muriel’s idea anyway, and now there’s no point.” She charged out of the museum.

“Goodness, what did you say?” Elizabeth approached Richard.

He looked completely baffled. “Nothing. I just showed her this book. I thought it would be helpful for her thesis.”

Elizabeth took the slim red volume.
Three Prayers and a Poem by Jane Austen
. She flipped through the pages, admiring the charming line drawings. On the first page, a small bird before a garden door accompanied a line from one of the prayers Jane composed for her family’s use: “Bring us in safety to the beginning of another day . . .” And on the back, a figure that could easily be Jane kneeling at an open window. “May we now, and on each return of night, consider how the past day has been spent by us . . .”

“It’s lovely. You should buy it.” She handed it back to Richard.

“Yes, I will.” He was still staring at the door Gerri had stormed through. “You know, if she really isn’t going to carry on with the project . . .”

“I thought you were going to write about the completions of
The Watsons
.”

“Failing the ill-chosen ‘How I Found the Lost Austen Manuscript’?” His smile was sardonic. “Seriously, though, so few scholars today appreciate the importance of Jane’s Christian world view to her writing. Without her faith, she wouldn’t have had the clear-eyed understanding of human nature that is at the center of her genius.”

“Well, you’ve got your thesis statement. It’s a pity the library here isn’t still furnished. They had an extensive collection on Jane.” She started to tell him more about the library she saw pictured in the album, but their guide was holding the door open for them. Richard put the money for his book in the box provided and they moved on.

Walter locked the museum and handed them each a map of the grounds. “I’m afraid I need to leave you here.” He looked at his watch. “I have another group walking over from Chilham. I need to meet them at the end of the lane. Take all the time you want. You’ll want to walk up the Lime Tree Avenue to the temple.” He pointed to the line on the map leading from the lawn behind the house to a spot marked “temple.” “Edward Knight planted it. Well, actually, the lime trees he planted blew down in the great storm of 1987, but they replanted them.” His finger moved to an area closer to the house. “And then the gardens are all open.”

Elizabeth looked at the various arrows pointing to the rose garden, topiary, Italian garden, vegetable garden . . . “Just along the road here, you’ll see a blue door in the wall that will take you into the park. The family used it when walking to church. We call it Mr. Collins’ door.” Their guide smiled and gave a good-bye wave as he got into his vehicle.

Arthur appeared from around the side of the museum, beaming. “Just spoke to Claire. I was hoping she’d be able to join us. She’ll be coming along with Paul and Beth.” He returned his mobile phone to his pocket. “They should be here soon.”

“Oh, that must be the group Walter went off to meet.” Elizabeth indicated the Land Rover heading toward the entrance to the estate.

She turned toward the park, but Arthur held back. “Ah, would you mind going on your own? I told Claire . . .”

Elizabeth grinned. “Of course. You should have gone with Walter.” Their Arthur was a sly one, she thought. There seemed to be more to his relationship with Claire than appeared on the surface. “Are you coming with us, Gerri?” she asked.

But Gerri had already started off in the opposite direction.

“Just us, then.” Richard smiled and held out his arm.

Elizabeth sighed. “Couldn’t have planned it better myself.”

When they slipped through the little blue door into the park, the sounds from the holidaying choir boys grew louder, but not in the least raucous. The sound of a bat striking a ball was followed with a round of applause and light voices on the summer air from the direction of the house. Here, at the back of the park the dense green of the trees overhead and the soft grass underfoot gave a lovely fresh coolness to everything.

It was only a few steps from the wall to the Lime Tree Avenue. Here the grass had been mown short for easy walking and the wide avenue bordered solidly on each side by stately trees invited strolling. “It’s no wonder Jane loved coming here,” Elizabeth said.

“Yes, she reveled in the beauty and thoroughly enjoyed the luxuries,” Richard said. “I reread some of the references in her letters last night. Life at Chawton required a certain amount of economic care, but here she was free from such restraints. She wrote to Cassandra that she had ‘no occasion to think of the price of bread or of meat where I am now; let me shake off vulgar cares and conform to the happy indifference of East Kent wealth.’ And another time she said, ‘In another week I shall be at home, and there, my having been at Godmersham will seem like a dream. But in the meantime, for elegance and ease and luxury, I shall eat ice and drink French wine, and be above vulgar economy.’”

Elizabeth laughed. “‘Vulgar economy.’ How delightful it would be to live above that.” She walked on a bit, musing on Richard’s words and listening to the birds chirping in the trees over her head and the polite thwack of a ball and clapping beyond the park. “See, I always knew you were the better scholar. While you reread the letters, I just browsed Wikipedia on your laptop. It was interesting, though—it quoted a writer who said that the Hampshire Austens, quoted in Austen-Leigh’s
Memoir
, saw Jane as nature-loving, religious, domestic, and middle class while the Godmersharm Austens viewed her as more inward, passionate and gentrified—in other words, improved by contact with her fine relations.”

“That’s interesting.” Richard thought for a moment. “Yes, I think we all tend to see Jane through our own eyes. She was so universal a writer and focuses so much on human emotions that any reader can find what’s important to them in her writings.”

Their gentle downhill stroll soon brought them to a side path leading to a temple. This one was a small redbrick building with four Ionic columns across the porch. And here, the window at the back was not faux, but a portal looking out on dense verdure. At the front, the view from the porch swept down through the park, across the wide lawn dotted with cricketers, to the stately redbrick house.

A wood dove cooed and the breeze soughed in the pine trees surrounding the temple. Elizabeth felt she could stay there for hours, drinking it all in. She wanted to keep the moment forever. She pulled her camera from her pocket. That was the best she could do to preserve it.

Arm in arm, they strolled on through the park, following its intersecting paths at random, feeling sheltered in the more thickly wooded areas, then surprised and delighted when they came to a clearing and were presented with a distant vista. They had been wandering for perhaps an hour when Elizabeth realized it had been some time since she had heard sounds from the cricket match. She was just starting to comment on that when she stepped around a hedge and all but tripped over a small form lying on his stomach wriggling under a bush. “Oh! Hello. What a surprise.”

The form wriggled backwards and sprang to his feet. “Hullo. I’m sorry if I startled you. We’re looking for our cricket ball.”

“Yes, I noticed you’d stopped playing. Was it a good match?”

The boy with curly blond hair, whom she recognized as one from the choir Sunday evening, made a face. “Nah, we were down eleven runs. Narnia’s brilliant. We never beat them.”

Elizabeth was rather confused by the speech. “Well, I hope you find your ball.” She held out her hand. “I’m Elizabeth. This is Richard.”

“Oh.” Their young friend suddenly remembered his manners. He wiped his hands on his trousers and took Elizabeth’s in a firm, if gritty clasp. “I’m Stav.”

Just then they were joined by three others. “These are my mates.” He introduced Nilay and Sahil, the dark-haired choristers with snapping black eyes who had attracted her in the cathedral. “And Jack.” The taller boy with thick, sandy hair offered a ruddy-cheeked smile and produced a small red ball.

“It was over there.” He pointed to the far side of the park. “I didn’t know I could hit it so far.”

“Well done, you,” Richard said. “So your school names its houses for C. S. Lewis?”

“Yes. We’re Perelandra,” Nilay said with a note of pride. Now Elizabeth understood the earlier reference—the English system of organizing students into houses for sports and academic competition.

“Great idea, since Lewis was Headington’s most famous resident. What are the other houses?”

“Aslan and Malacandra.”

“Aslan always gets the most academic points, but Perelandra’s tops in music.”

They walked back toward the lawn, the boys chattering enthusiastically as Richard questioned them about their school. They had just entered the manicured lawn when Elizabeth caught sight of a charming statue. A small boy in Edwardian clothing leaned against a tree stump, his cricket bat resting at his side, the game abandoned for the book which absorbed his interest. “Oh, let me get a picture of you all with this statue.” She pulled out her camera and the boys posed obediently for her, Jack holding out the errant ball.