Her name is Hélène, third and most lovely daughter of the Comte de Pont-Ravel, of an obscure and little-travelled family locked in the Jura. Her father fled the boyhood domains at a tender age, having a lust for adventure not shared by his fellows; and but for the untimely death of the eldest and heir, might have remained forever in Madras and made a fortune for the Compagnie des Indes. Sadly, the Comte was recalled last year to take up his estates, and show a proper face to the local gentry, and Hélène remained behind. In a convent school run by the nuns of Sacré-Coeur, who rely upon the good will of the French officers brought in to defend the French traders from the rapine of the British — except that the British have slowly and surely become the masters of the French on the Subcontinent, and the convent school is closing, and Hélène is bound in all irony for England itself, aboard an English ship.
And how, I asked her lightly, did this betrothal come about?
She lifted her pretty shoulders, and twirled her parasol. Papa has known the English Viscount’s family for many years; there was a time when they were united by blood; and Papa has found his circumstances much embarrassed since his return to the Jura. The estates are not in good repair, the harvests are bad, the wine-making imbecilic; in short, all Papa’s Madras gold is unequal to the necessities of his domain, and he has sold his youngest daughter to the highest bidder.
This much I learned from his daughter’s piquant mouth as we strolled about the quarterdeck in the cooling world of the southern hemisphere autumn, while the passage of the Horn and its terrors loomed still ahead of us. I have so far advanced the trust of Captain Dundage that he sees no harm in these young British noblemen entertaining the young lady, as assuredly she must improve her English; and it required only the knowledge of my acquaintance with her espoused husband, tactfully dropped in Dundage’s ear by Freddy Vansittart, to win the right to place the lady’s arm through mine and lead her about the stern. Freddy makes a third in these jaunterings, and unlike myself is fairly well lost to the charms of Hélène. I observe her parted lips — how they swell childishly in the sea air — observe her hair, whipped free of her bonnet by the compelling wind and shining gold in the sunlight; I hear her melodious voice, like lark song in the morning; and I am unmoved. She is but a child, and I no longer find children enchanting. Hélène, be she ever so fair, is doomed like the victim of tubercular fever, like the prisoner of a castle already under siege. I was foolish enough once to believe love could change the terms of one’s very existence, if only one loved hard enough; I was ready to kill or be killed for love’s sake; and I have since learned that the murder of the innocent is the true end of passion. I would not win this chit’s heart now, if I could; I am certain that in working my revenge upon St. Eustace I should only succeed in destroying Hélène’s peace — and should never land a blow upon the Viscount’s impassive façade. If I am weak, so be it. I have the satisfaction of knowing that I am not yet beyond the reach of all human feeling. Freddy, having a more carnal object in view, is no such respecter of the fair Hélène’s predestination. “Bollocks,” he said, when I would have pled St. Eustace’s case. “Don’t tell me you don’t hate the man. I know that you do. He’s a Viscount; well, by God, I’m an Earl now, Harry — and I claim my droit de seigneur. ” I must hope that if Bertie is thrown from his horse one day, and leaves me in possession of the strawberry leaves and Wilborough House, that I do not commit the same follies of arrogance that Freddy has come to, since the receipt of that letter from Hampshire.[12] And so, regardless of whom she may love, Hélène de Pont-Ravel is forever a chattel, the property of one man or another who proposes to claim her. No wonder Mamma saw fit to run off to the Parisian stage. Freedom is worth any amount of scandal.
I should not be a woman for anything in this world.
Chapter 11
The Steward
6 July 1809, cont.
Chawton Great House, constructed of flint in the Tudor style, sits at the southern end of the village on a gentle rise above the church of St. Nicholas. It is a noble and somewhat eccentric old gentleman’s house, with wings facing awkwardly to west and north, and any number of curious, ill-considered passages running through its interior. I spent more than a week as an intimate of the place two years ago, while Edward made some repairs to the property prior to Mr. Middleton’s taking up his lease, and was thus prepared for the archaic splendours within.
Tho’ the light of a summer’s evening was still strong as the Austen party approached the entrance porch for our appointed dinner, Mr. Middleton had caused flaming torches to be set into brackets near the door.
“Quite a feudal note, Jane,” Henry observed; “I wonder whether we shall be compelled to share our joint with the hounds?”
As a sportsman, Mr. Middleton might be expected to keep a pack of hunting dogs, or at the very least a family of spaniels; and the galleries running off the top of the main staircase do possess a Dog Gate, designed to prevent the beasts from invading the upper storeys. There is a Great Hall within, accessible through a gap in an ancient oak screen; a draughty, inhospitable space, such as may serve for the reception of tenants on Publick Days, but cannot hope to cheer a family party even in July. Oak panelling rises on every wall, much of it carved, and a massive fireplace struggles in winter to heat the room — notable for its fireback, which is engraved with the name John Knight, and the date 1588—the year of the Hall’s completion as well as the Spanish Armada. In addition to all these, the house boasts a dining parlour; a stone-flagged kitchen; a buttery; a drawingroom where the chief treasure of Chawton — the Lewkenor Carpet[13] — is hung; and a much-neglected garden. The Knight family line failed in 1679, when Sir Richard Knight — whose imposing effigy is carved in stone on his tomb in St. Nicholas Church — died childless, and all the subsequent owners of Chawton have been obliged under his will to take the name of Knight in order to succeed to his riches. In death Sir Richard exerted a powerful influence over as-yet-unborn kin: the Martins and Broadnaxes, and now the Austens. It was inevitable, I supposed, that my brother Edward and all his progeny would one day exchange their name for Sir Richard’s — and I should have done the same to possess even one such house. Mr. Middleton had caused a fire to be lit in the massive Hall grate; and around this cheerful if superfluous blaze several persons were gathered. I recognised Miss Benn, looking selfconsciously fine in a gown of black sarcenet; all the Prowtings; Mr. Julian Thrace, whose attention was claimed by Miss Ann Prowting; and standing a little apart from them, another gentleman perhaps five years Thrace’s senior, in close conversation with a handsome young woman whose dress and air proclaimed her an established member of the ton.
Mr. Middleton, who was listening to Miss Benn’s effusions regarding his kindness, patted that lady’s gloved hand gently and broke away long enough to pay his respects to the Austen party. A sharp-featured and brilliant-eyed lady was before him, however, her hand imperiously extended.
“My brother should have brought me to your door already, Mrs. Austen, but that he is too intent upon showing his guests the country; I hope you will forgive our appalling manners.”
“My sister, Miss Maria Beckford,” interposed Mr. Middleton hastily. “She is so kind as to do the duties of the Great House.”
12
We are to assume from Lord Harold’s oblique reference that Frederick Vansittart acceded to his elder brother’s earldom sometime in 1785, and that for this reason he returned to England aboard the
13
The Lewkenor Carpet is a tapestry roughly sixteen feet by seven feet, executed in the mid-sixteenth century in France and now in the possession of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.