Jane Austen’s Letters: Letter 45, Sat 24 August 1805, from Godmersham: swapping as a sister sunk in poverty

Dear friends and readers,

Four months have gone by and many letters missing (letter 44). We hear nothing of the plan to live with Martha Lloyd. Anne Sharpe is now at Godmersham, wandering in the grounds as a governess-servant. The plan to live together as a women friends group got nowhere. Squashed. No funds? or some other unmentioned objection.

The sisters, Jane and Cassandra, undergo a process of switching — or swapping if you emphasize it’s not they who decided but others’ desires, urging, invitations. One is now at Goodnestone Farm, the Bridges’s family house. Whence the mention of a man living there, Edward Brydges — early on let us recall perhaps a suitor (he [played by Hugh Bonneville] is made much of in Miss Austen Regrets). The switching puts me in mind of Ayala’s Angel by Anthony Trollope: the relatives in Ayala keep switching two sisters depending on who a particular sister has pleased or displeased.

They had been to Eastwell: this is a place I do know something of as I learned a good deal about it when I did my work on Anne Finch, Countess of Winchelsea (1661-1720) who lived there probably in the mid-1690s and again from 1704 to her death. Her husband unexpected inherited it, but she had no children. Yes a lovely place and now a hotel.

The letter seems on the surface cheerful but not another swap seems about to take place: that when Cassandra comes to Godmersham, Jane can go to Goodnestone. Jane seems to want this — get away from Godmersham — but there’s an enigmatic reference to Harriot who Jane defies to accept this self-invitation of hers (Jane is inviting herself). Elizabeth longs for Cassandra to take care of one of the daughters, Lizzy.

And also it ends on Austen’s portrait of herself as a “sister sunk in poverty.” She cannot afford to give more than 10 shillings as tip to one of the servants, Sackree. The nursemaid. I remember Richardson saying how badly he was treated when he didn’t tip someone and how no one from the family helped him out. She has had to spend some of her tiny reserve to keep up with these Bridges and Austen Knights.

I know I’ve been emphasizing that Austen in her letters at least treats servants as people. I didn’t sufficiently emphasize how in the previous letter she talks of Isaac who seems to have been out of service for a while. He does not object to a change of country (area in England); the place will have “good soil” (countryish), e “a good mistress” and some joke about her giving him medicines (“I suppose will not mind taking physic now and again), some quirk of a woman he will have to live with. In this letter We hear of a number of servants Austen can’t keep up with: Mrs Salkeid, Mrs Sace, also the hairdresser whose services note she cannot really afford. He charges her only 2 shillings 6 pence for the cutting only when he has dressed her hair too. Imagine the embarrassment. The poor relative in the big house.

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Eastwell Manor, Kent (today)

I’m not sure which Harriot who is living at Goodnestone where Cassandra is staying, and who has a cold is meant in the first sentence. It is probably not the Harriet who Edward Brydges married in 1809 for Harriet Foote would not be living at Goodnestone before marriage. My guess is this is Harriot-Mary who married George Moore in 1806 (as his second wife). Austen laughs at herself by saying she hopes that Cassandra is “sitting down to answer these questions.”

The whole of the first page of this letter in manuscript is then taken up by the visit to Eastwell. (The names Anne and George were repeated endlessly in the Finch-Hattons; after that Daniel was common. In many families Elizabeth and Mary, Charles were very popular.) The people mentioned are the family and household at Eastwell and those of the Brydges who came. Lady Gordon is Harriet Finch and Lefaye in her notes says Lady Gordon was an admirer of Austen’s novels in later years. It seems they were congenial. Lady Gordon’s husband is Sir Janison and Austen objects only to his sneering at Mrs (Miss) Anne Finch, one of the unmarried sisters of the present owner, a George. Austen is an unmarried sister. He had apparently said nothing, only begun to talk to Elizabeth Austen (Edward’s wife) as she was getting into the carriage to leave. Sounds like last minute civilities.

I don’t know where Cassandra went with Harriot — perhaps to a doctor and thus missed some enjoyment. Thus the self-sacrifice was applauded. When the female Finches (sound like birds I know) professed to be afraid Cassandra would find Goodnestone dull, they were in effect pointing out how boring (as they many would see it) to stay with an elderly widow. Austen did not speak up only wished she had the nerve to tell them Edward Brydges was intensely solicitous about Cassandra’s happiness at Goodnestone. My guess is this mockes Brydges for pretended concern too.

They were civil to Jane as they always are. She’s intelligent and poverty-sticken.

Lefaye guesses Mr E Hatton to be the younger brother of the owner who has many first names. I take it she liked him too — like her he was something of a hanger-on, at least of limited status in the house. She discovered Lady Elizabeth and Miss Hatton have little to say for themselves. I don’t think the next line implies Miss Hatton was deaf, rather that she gestured a lot — nervous?

Two Finch boys, George “fine… well-behaved” and she was chiefly delighted by Daniel — a good humored countenance delighted Austen.

Cribbage boards

They played cards — cribbage. She got a kick out of winning two rubbers with Daniel as her partner. For her sake I hope some money was involved. Mary is another maiden sister of the owner, George. Mr Brett was from a family in Wye — this town is named after a river, very close to Eastwell.

She’d had enough by eleven and didn’t enjoy anyone going to Lady Yates’s ball. This is probably Lady Elizabeth; I don’t know what was the name of their estate. I think it important to keep alive Austen’s continual sense of how she has no estate. After she hopes for her wishes for a good ball were efficacious.

Godmersham Hall today

Then a long passage given over to a description of a typical day and evening at Godmersham. On Friday she had written Frank and played games with Edward’s boys, Battledore and Shuttlecock.

Battledore raquets

She counts how many times they get the object across. Edward and his oldest son, Edward, visited Mrs Knight and Cassandra and Austen refers to Cassandra’s full knowledge there. As I wrote I found it interesting that Austen mentions Miss Sharp again, with Miss Miles (from yet another rector family).. Fanny Knight amuses herself mightily with her own witticisms from the publication of a book of letters from a mother to two daughters and sends her funny comments to her mother. Palmerstone is not the prime minister, but the name of a woman who published a book of letters to her daughters. Then evening a quiet walk around the farm (its lands). Two boys race and are merry; little Edward’s condition not looking good. Edward and Elizabeth take him for walks; unless he can get stronger he will not return with brothers to school. They will take him to Worthing for sea-bathing. Jane included here.

A letter from Frank had gone astray; finished the 16th (August), it traveled round about and thus was not in Jane’s hands when Eliza [Henry’s wife] and Henry had theirs. So everyone wants letters at the same time? I suggest under the joking tone is real disappointment. When something is cancelled many people can’t find a substitute. Now she moves onto Frank, in a great hurry to marry which she encourages (never fear); she thinks Frank thinks it strange since in her last she did not mention his letter — also did not fold her paper the cheapest way, to add to her (Jane’s) injuries she did not number her own letters. (Letters are written and then passed around and slightly outside our family.) Remembering her own goofs reminds her to report she found Cassandra’s white mittens inside her own clean nightcap. They must’ve been put there perhaps when in a hurry.

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Goodnestone Park
Goodnestone Gardens

The last part of the letter contains the proposed swap of the sisters in which Austen seems to acquiesce happily so maybe she was not as happy as one might think in the luxurious place and in the county where everyone is rich. This is born out by the last part of this final section where we can see how strained (actually positively without, distressed) for money before others Austen was. I’ve read again and again the hardest social pressure to take beyond falling in rank in front of others is to have to live with those higher in rank than you. Money equals rank here, trumps it in fact.

Elizabeth Austen proposed the scheme of swapping: this coheres with the assumption I’ve seen made (though always discreetly) that Jane was not appreciated by Elizabeth — as too smart (perhaps too satirical in the way Lady Middleton resented and feared). Elizabeth could get more service from Cassandra to care for her brood (especially we see by the end young Lizzie).

The way the phrase about Harriot is written it seems backwards – but it seems to say that Harriot will not accept Jane’s inviting herself unless it what perfectly suits her and at the same time comically assume it will suit: Jane defies her. There may be an obscure hurt floating around here.
At any rate there is no time to write and ask. So anxious was Elizabeth to switch the sisters? Yes, for at the close of the letter Elizabeth asked Jane to add she hopes Cassandra will come no later than Monday 5 o’clock. Some service for Lizzie required. Austen does implore Harriot’s pardon at the close of the letter for Elizabeth’s not writing to her. I have a hunch Elizabeth was no eager correspondent, unlike her part counterpart, Lady Bertram.

The Knatchbulls are another county family, the senior male an MP for parliament. These are big people — like the Cumnors in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Wives and Daughters.

Then she has had but one letter from Frank since Thursday. Frank is her especial brother we see repeatedly. If it was not he who worked to publish the first novel, that was that he was not a literary knowing person; Henry and James we know were from the days of the Loiterer.

The PS tells Cassandra neither did she hear from Henry

A series of caricatures of the later hairstyles in the 1890s to 1810

Then the embarrassment of the hair-dressing and kindness (and I assume tact) of the hairdresser who however we notice was not inclined to stay any more than he had to. He did not leave Jane out. He could have. He charged her a tiny sum for the cutting so she would not look as if she couldn’t pay anything at all. Mrs Salkeid the housekeeper, Mrs Sace the lady’s maid, had their hair dressed. I wonder if they literally had more than Austen whose allowance for the year is said to have been 25 pounds. Mortifyingly though she can give the nursemaid only 10 shillings.

Hair and hairdoes of the 18th century

Were servants voracious? No more than waiters/resss today who are paid $2.13 an hour on which together with tips imagined and then average the waiter/ress is actually taxed. So they make a negative income unless they rush about and kowtow for their tips. Servants were paid miniscule sums, given little time off.

Still it must be admitted the need to pay tips kept some people from visiting houses with big staffs 🙂 like Godmersham.

Austen does look forward to meeting in Canterbury but wants to forewarn her: “it is as well however to prepare you for the sight of a Sister sunk in poverty, that it may not overcome your Spirit.”

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And so she closes this letter. No ability to choose her life, no recognized right.

Of the films thus far made, Gwyneth Hughes’s and Anne Pivcevic’s Miss Austen Regrets, based on Austen’s letters and other primary documents have come closest to depicting the desperate moneyless state of the Austen women.

After the announcement of Henry’s bankruptcy, Mrs Austen (Phyllida Law) berates Jane for not marrying Harris Bigg-Wither

But this film too avoids the Bath lodging and wandering homeless years, and emphasizes one of the men in the letters as earnestly devoted, congenial, waiting to marry or succor Jane, willing to leave her alone to write, if she only would allow him to be her support

Jane (Olivia Williams) and Edward Brydges (Hugh Bonneville)

The real counterpart for Jane Austen was Henry Fielding’s sister, Sarah — desperately poor, preferring to live with her women friends, visiting them at Bath, moving from friend’s house to friend’s house, living alone when older, trying to live by her pen and not managing, and serving her brother.

See Letters 29, 30, 31, 32, 33 and 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40-42, 43, 44

Ellen