A Walk with Jane Austen (15 page)

So Edward inherited the Chawton estate—the great house and lands—another huge estate in Kent called Godmersham, and the
Steventon estate, including the manor house just down the lane from the rectory in which he'd grown up. He lived worlds away from the rest of the Austens, in wealth and privilege. It seems strange to think of one child inheriting so much when even his parents were merely surviving for the most part, but great discrepancies among families were fairly regular. Among the wealthy, the first son would inherit all the father's estates. The second would inherit from the mothers side of the family, if any wealth existed there, and the rest were expected to make it on their own—the daughters to marry well, the sons to join the army or study law or join the church.

Still, it must have been a bit awkward for everyone.

While the others studied—James and Henry at Oxford, Frank and Charles at the naval academy—Edward went on a four-year-long grand tour in the tradition of wealthy sons. We can't trace his route exactly, but we know he went to Switzerland and Rome at the least and probably spent a year studying in Germany.
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The Austen family, as kind and lively as they were, had their hints of dysfunction. Is any family without them? There are always small aggressions, and whoever we are at our core—tainted by insecurity, pride, and jealousy—all of that comes out, and these character faults rub against one another.

It seems that James, the oldest, could be a bit demanding and officious. His second wife, Mary Lloyd, who had been a good friend of the girls, ended up being unable to control her jealousy. She could not stand the fact that James had been married before (his first wife died young) or that he had courted their lovely cousin Eliza. She was a force of negativity and hardly treated her stepdaughter, Anna, as a member of the family. James, showing himself to be weak, ignored his daughter
Anna so as not to anger his new wife and never again mentioned Annas dear mother.
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Mrs. Austen may have had a talent for imagining herself ill.
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Charming Henry had some difficulty making his way in the world and at one point went bankrupt, losing valuable family holdings.
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Mr. Austen could be impetuous.

The Chawton Cottage may be another example of a small tear in the family fabric. After Mr. Austen died, it was expected that the brothers would help take care of Mrs. Austen, Cassandra, and Jane, as their income was much reduced. They went to live with Frank awhile in Southampton until his small family began to grow and they felt they should no longer impose. They visited relatives. They took lower accommodations in Bath. Edward—who should most have been able to afford it—seems to have been slow in offering significant support. He waited until after his wife died to give his mother and sisters Chawton Cottage. (His wife seems to have adored Cassandra and been rather uncomfortable with Jane, so perhaps there was something keeping him back.) Jane and Cassandra always thought of Edward as kind and gracious. People wonder if
Emmas
Mr. Knightley was in some way fashioned after the brother who took the name of Knight. So perhaps I am misreading the situation. We know that there was some anxiety about where the girls and their mother would live and what they could afford, and this was finally removed when they were able to settle here in Chawton.

Whatever irritations there were in the Austen family—and somehow it is reassuring to read Jane's letters, even the ones Cassandra thought were completely safe, and get some hint of them—the girls lived with them. Like my neighbors from El Salvador, they were driven by society and situation to need their family and to always be with them. It was certainly not a fair society—women would rarely have
inherited wealth, and it would have been unthinkable for the Knights to bestow their estates on one of the Austen girls. And the girls seem to have lived at the beck and call of their brothers, coming to visit them for months when a new baby arrived, taking care of their children whenever necessary. We could never endure this kind of dependence today, and certainly it led to all kinds of evils in families where there was little love. But with the Austens, there was a great deal of love, however imperfect, and the arrangement, rather than creating resentment, seems to have given them assurance and created their own little world, which, while they lived at Chawton, they had little desire to leave.

There are people who love you.
I think that's another thing all of us want to know. For those of us who are lucky, that begins with our families, whatever kind of irritating grit there may be underneath.

Chawton Great House (now a library for the study of early English women writers) is perfect for ghosts—grand and heavy, with thick oak paneling going back to the Elizabethan era, and stone floors. It just so happens that there are two ghosts, one known for going up and down one of the many sets of stairs. Our tour guide had seen him. I don't particularly ever wish to see a ghost—or an angel for that matter—but there is something delicious about imagining them (which, of course, little Catherine Morland of
Northanger Abbey
would understand).

We have an abundance of ghosts in Virginia from all of our brutal Civil War ground. One of my favorite stories involves a friend of my brother who was housesitting. In the middle of the night, she heard
something and woke up to find the ghost of a Civil War soldier in her room. He had a beard, and he was blue, I think (which makes it sound very funny. A blue ghost?). She would have thought she was imagining things if the cat and the dog weren't hissing and snarling, hair raised. So she called 911. And he just stood there, smiling an evil grin at her the whole time she called. When her friends got back, they said, “Oh yeah, he only shows up when there's a woman alone in the house.”

I absolutely love this story, until I am alone in my room in the dark and start to fear that my own delicious imaginings could summon the evil smiling soldier, so then I pray that God will surround me with angels to protect me and that I will not have to see any of
them
either.

Jane wrote three evening prayers. In one of them she talks about the blessings of God, thanking him and asking that they will continue, understanding that she was never worthy of them in the first place. She says, “We feel that we have been blessed far beyond any thing that we have deserved; and though we cannot but pray for a continuance of all these mercies, we acknowledge our unworthiness of them and implore thee to pardon the presumption of our desires.”
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I read that and felt terribly insecure.
Oh, dear God, you have given abundant blessings. I do not deserve them, and I cannot help but ask for more.
I am sure this is not what Jane intended, but at the moment I do not feel secure in the whims of God. All these blessings—this sense of love and happiness, which I have not felt for so long (not that Jack is the only source of that, far from it)—are they going to continue? I feel a little like I am begging. I do not know how he will respond.

My heart and mind are far from consistent. I will be the first to admit that. As much as I fear God, I have come to expect great gifts from him—and small gifts as well—and feel so assured of encountering them now, on this trip.

The other day I crossed the fields into the village of Deane, where both George and James Austen were rector at one point, where the Harwoods lived, and where Jane and her brothers and sister attended balls. I was writing down the number for the rector, to call to see if he could get me into St. Nicholas in Steventon, when a van pulled up with a sign on the back that said Hidden Britain Tours. Phil and Sue Howe were putting together—of all things—a Jane Austen tour of Hampshire. They had just been to St. Nicholas and drove me back there (the door was unlocked the whole time, but I didn't know how to open it) so that I was able to sit in the small pews for a few minutes and wonder at the gorgeous paintings on the walls, which look like an ancient sort of wallpaper, in simple dark reds and greens, flowers and vines, but painted on. Then they drove me to Oakley Hall, home of Mrs. Augusta Bramston, who thought Jane's writing was “downright nonsense,”
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and on to Manydown, which was the seat of the Bigg-Wither family and would have been Jane's home had she been willing to marry for money rather than love. Unfortunately, the house is no longer standing.

Phil and I spent time comparing notes on Jane and both tried to figure out again where the Steventon rectory was, to no avail. Now I have reread the guidebook, and it basically says to walk down the road from the church, and the rectory was across the street on the left.
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(Sheesh! I'm dying to go back and see it.) But it was a great serendipitous blessing just happening to run into them.

Then there are the monks and the great peace of the abbey—the lovely garden and the care they take of me, whom they do not know at all. I'm sad to be leaving them and sadder that I haven't gotten to know them better. I find myself wondering about them, what they are like, wishing I could talk to them. The only time I see them is during meals, which are silent, and after night prayers they glide out with their hoods up, in silence that will last until morning. Occasionally, if I am around, I might catch them having coffee after morning mass and they will stop and chat, at least a few of them, before they rush off to make icons or organize retreats.

I know very little about them for certain. The abbot, who appears to be in his sixties, has lived here nearly forty years. He wears sandals that look like Tevas and squeak on the tile floor. He has a big bushy beard and carries around a bandanna, and I imagine him to be a hippie sort of a monk, if that's possible. I have taken to studying the shoes carefully because there is so little else that distinguishes them from one another.

Dom Nicholas, who was so careful to warn me about the shower mat, wears the sort of comfortable, sensible black shoes you would expect of him. Kind Anselm, the renowned iconographer, is thin and careful with his trim gray beard and studious spectacles. He wears nice black leather. There is a new one (well, not new to them, but to me). He is Welsh, with short dark hair, and wears what look sort of like Doc Martens. He seems to be second in command and sings and reads as though he ought to read loudly, not as though it is a performance exactly, but he is much more expressive than the others, which is a bit unsettling after getting used to the comforting monotone, where everyone blends together.

Isn't it funny that at a monastery, where everything appears to be the same, their shoes hint at an individuality underneath everything?

One of my favorites is Father Timothy. Dress shoes again. He has only ever said two words to me, I think, and that was tonight during dinner when everyone was, of course, silent. I was trying to eat as quickly as possible because the whole thing is intimidating to me, and they eat very fast (perhaps so they can get back to their prayers), and then I find them watching me finish and decide it's just easier to stop. The other night as everyone was finishing up last bits and pieces, I grabbed a little plum and started to eat it the way I always do, taking small bites around the pit—but plums are messy and so perhaps this is better done without an audience and not in a silent room. I hadn't fully realized until that moment that I had never seen any of the rest of them biting into any sort of fruit. They slice and eat them with the utmost civility. Nor had I realized that eating a plum might be a sensuous thing. But there I was, in the silence, with the messy, suddenly sexy fruit. I am sure I broke the Benedictine code. I will have to look this up.

So Father Timothy, the gardener, sits next to me and takes care of me during meals. I believe this is his assignment. Sometimes he adds more to my plate just when he
sees
I've finished something if it seems to be something I really like. Mostly he just offers me anything on the table I could want whenever something starts to look low. He has the kindest face, and by looking at him, I would have to say, the most active mind. I would love to know what he's thinking about or have a theological discussion with him. Tonight at dinner (which was only bread and cheese and peanut butter because Wednesday is fast day), he kept peering over. I offered him the fruit bowl, which he didn't want, but he kept craning, staring intently at something, until finally, with
the quietest voice and the best British accent, he leaned over and said, “More tea?” I believe those are the only two words he's said to me, though I feel like I know him.