1750 — 1810
Thomas H. Garrison
1746 — 1815
I gave out a whoop, and Rob ran over to see what I had found. He showed the proper enthusiasm for my discovery before pointing out that we were getting drenched and that I was shivering. With my teeth chattering, I told Rob that this backed up a lot of what the Crowells had told me. Holding his coat over my head, he said, “Joe gave me the names of some towns that are better preserved and are probably closer to what people have in mind when they read about Meryton.” But with the rain coming down in sheets, we decided to put visiting other villages on the back burner. Instead, we would go to Kent. It seemed unlikely that Rosings Park could have met with the same fate as Longbourn.
Rob and I again borrowed a car from a co-worker at TRC and drove into Kent in search of the home of Jane Austen’s Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Kent was still quite rural even though it had been at the heart of Britain’s defense against the Luftwaffe. RAF pilots flew from airfields in Kent to intercept and destroy the bombers targeting Britain’s industrial cities, ports, and airfields, and concrete bases for the anti-aircraft guns could be seen jutting out of green pastures.
We easily found the church and decided to go into the office to see if someone could tell us anything about its history. Mrs. Ives was right out of central casting for a church secretary: late middle age, gray hair tied back in a chignon, and wearing a navy blue dress with embroidered white collar. She needed little encouragement to share what she knew about what was now a Methodist church, but the information she provided didn’t help our search at all.
Just as we were about to head for the door, Mrs. Ives said, “Did I mention that before this building was converted for use as the church’s office, it was the original parsonage?” Rob and I looked at each other and shook our heads. “If you look past the filing cabinets and desks, you might be able to picture this room as the parlor.” I felt my pulse jump because, if that was the case, then we were standing in the very room where William Lacey had made an offer of marriage to Elizabeth Garrison. I asked if there was anything else she knew about the parsonage, and she said, “Oh, yes. Quite a lot.”
“The parsonage was built around 1780 on land donated by the Desmet family. After the death of its first pastor, Dr. Augustine Anglum, Lady Sylvia Desmet gave the living to William Chatterton, who had written a monograph on Frederick Cornwallis, Archbishop of Canterbury and a friend of Lady Sylvia’s. If the name Cornwallis rings a bell, it’s because Frederick was the uncle of Charles Cornwallis, who surrendered the British forces to George Washington in Yorktown and ended the American war of rebellion.”
This might explain how Mr. Chatterton (Mr. Collins) came to the attention of Lady Sylvia. After reading the monograph he had written about her friend, Frederick Cornwallis, Lady Sylvia must have contacted Mr. Chatterton.
“Rev. Chatterton lived here until he accepted an appointment to serve at the Old Palace in Canterbury on the staff of the bishop who is the head of the Diocese of Dover.”
We thought she was going to keep going, but she stopped. “That’s it,” she said after realizing we were waiting for more. “Mr. Chatterton was not a Methodist minister but an Anglican vicar, so that’s it.”
Before leaving, I took one last look at the room where Elizabeth had learned that Will Lacey was in love with her and where he had made her an offer of marriage. I could just picture Will pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace, struggling to find the right words to ask Lizzy to be his wife, and Lizzy, gripping the arms of the chair, getting angrier by the minute at his arrogance and conceit.
“I would have given the guy the finger and told him to take a hike” was Rob’s take on Will’s proposal to Lizzy.
Mrs. Ives said we were fortunate we were visiting now, as the whole structure was going to be torn down. As with Meryton, another piece of the Garrison/Lacey puzzle was about to disappear, but looking at the condition of the building, it was easy to see why it had to go. There wasn’t a plumb wall in the whole parsonage. As a nod to its former benefactress, the building was tilting toward Desmet Park.
“If you are thinking about going to Canterbury, I should tell you that the city was bombed heavily during the Baedeker raids. The cathedral had some damage, but the chapter library and many of the buildings near the cathedral were completely destroyed.” Neither Rob nor I had ever heard of the Baedeker raids, so I asked Mrs. Ives if they were a part of the Blitz.
“No, the Blitz was in 1940–41,” Mrs. Ives replied. “According to Lord Haw Haw, the British traitor used by the Nazis for their radio broadcasts, the Baedeker raids were in retaliation for the RAF bombing of German cities. Using Baedeker’s Guide to Great Britain, cities that received three stars in the tourist guide because of their historical importance were bombed by the Luftwaffe. Before Canterbury was bombed in June 1942, Exeter, Bath, and York were also bombed.”
After thanking Mrs. Ives for her help, we headed up the hill to Lady Sylvia’s manor house.
As we entered Desmet Park, we stepped into a huge foyer with vaulted coffered ceilings and black and white tile that could make you dizzy if you looked at it too long. The desk where the information clerk sat looked ridiculously small — almost Lilliputian — in relation to its surroundings. Watching us, the receptionist started laughing. “Everyone has the same reaction. It looks as if my desk was taken from a dollhouse. But that’s not the worst of it; it’s freezing in here.” She pointed to the sweater under her jacket and the space heater at her feet. We asked her if it was possible to view any of the rooms.
“Clive! Clive!” she shouted down the hall. “Lord, he’s going deaf.” She seemed reluctant to leave her space heater, but finally she stood up and said, “I’ll have to go find him.” Handing us a small booklet, she told us we could read about the mansion while she went to look for Clive.
Rob flipped through the booklet looking for interesting tidbits. “Desmet Park was built around 1675, shortly after the restoration of the Stuarts to the British throne following Oliver Cromwell’s death. Charles II, the new king, needed money, so he sold peerages to commoners for a lot of money, and that’s how the first Baron Desmet got the title. The house was built with defensive elements in its design, which accounts for the crenellated towers, and it once had a moat. Apparently, Lady Sylvia wanted a house that looked more like a country manor than a fortress, so she filled in the moat and had the fountain in the courtyard built with mosaics and marbles imported from Italy.”
After a few minutes, the receptionist returned to the foyer with an older man, whom we assumed to be Clive. “Clive has the time to take you around. He’s our handyman, but he gets bored just sitting and waiting for the next pipe to burst. He was asleep back there.”
My first impression of our guide was that he was an old pensioner filling in time, but Clive had a spring in his step, despite the weight of the tool belt he wore at all times because of the terrible condition of the building.
Our first stop was what had once been the formal reception room. During the war, Desmet Park had been used as headquarters for an American Army battalion, and as part of its conversion to an operations center, deckboard had been placed over the walls, and maps showing all of the landing beaches on Normandy were still pinned to it. Apparently, the battalion had moved all operations to France when the British troops on Sword Beach had linked up with the American troops on Omaha Beach on June 10th.
“The maps add to the ambience,” I whispered to Rob. “From the late military period.”
We told Clive of our interest in Pride and Prejudice and asked if Desmet Park could possibly be Rosings Park. Looking at the depressing interior, it didn’t seem likely. After repeating our question — he was more than a little hard of hearing — Clive shouted, “Look up! At the ceiling! What’s wrong with it?”