Jane Austen and Her Times

by G. E. Mitton

Louisa’s wilfulness in leaping down the steps of the Cobb, and her subsequent accident, at which Captain Wentworth deceives Anne further as to the real state of his feelings by displaying much poignant and unnecessary grief, form the chief episode in the book.

While at Lyme herself, Jane took part in the usual amusements; she went to a dance and was escorted back by “James and a lanthorn, though I believe the lanthorn was not lit as the moon was up.” She walked on the Cobb, and bathed in the morning, also she looked after the housekeeping for her father and mother, who were with her in lodgings.

This was in September. In the beginning of the following year her father died, but there is no letter yet published from which we can judge any of the details or the state of her feelings at this great loss.

In the April after this event there are two letters, given by Mr. Austen-Leigh, written from Gay Street, Bath, in which no allusion is made to her father’s death. She and her mother were then in lodgings. It was at the end of this year that they moved to Southampton.

Jane’s pen had not been altogether idle while at Bath, for it is supposed that she there wrote the fragment The Watsons which is embodied in Mr. Austen-Leigh’s Memoir.

It must also have been at this time that the MS. of Northanger Abbey was offered to the Bath bookseller, a transaction which is described elsewhere.

Before leaving Bath Jane went to stay with her brother, Edward Knight, at Godmersham; this was in August of the same year, 1805.

Godmersham, to which the Austen girls so often went on visits, is thus described by Lord Brabourne, who certainly had every right to know—

“Godmersham Park is situated in one of the most beautiful parts of Kent, namely, in the valley of the Stour, which lies between Ashford and Canterbury. Soon after you pass the Wye station of the railway from the former to the latter place, you see Godmersham church on your left hand, and just beyond it, comes into view the wall which shuts off the shrubberies and pleasure grounds of the great house from the road; close to the church nestles the home farm, and beyond it the rectory, with lawn sloping down to the river Stour, which for a distance of nearly a mile runs through the east end of the park. A little beyond the church you see the mansion, between which and the railroad lies the village, divided by the old high road from Ashford to Canterbury, nearly opposite Godmersham. The valley of the Stour makes a break in that ridge of chalk hills, the proper name of which is the Backbone of Kent.

“So that Godmersham Park, beyond the house, is upon the chalk downs, and on its further side is bounded by King’s Wood, a large tract of woodland containing many hundred acres and possessed by several different owners.”