FASHIONS FOR LADIES IN 1795
Mr. and Mrs. James Austen accompanied her on this visit, and her account of the arrival gives such a homely picture that, trivial as it is, it is worth quoting. “Our two brothers were walking before the house as we approached as natural as life. Fanny and Lizzy met us in the hall with a great deal of pleasant joy.... Fanny came to me as soon as she had seen her aunt James to her room, and stayed while I dressed ... she is grown both in height and size since last year, but not immoderately, looks very well, and seems as to conduct and manner just what she was and what one could wish her to continue.”
“Yesterday passed quite à la Godmersham; the gentlemen rode about Edward’s farm, and returned in time to saunter along Bentigh with us; and after dinner we visited the Temple Plantations.... James and Mary are much struck with the beauty of the place.”
Lord Brabourne gives a note on the Temple Plantation, it was “once a ploughed field, but when my grandfather first came to Godmersham, he planted it with underwood, and made gravel walks through it, planted an avenue of trees on each side of the principal walk, and added it to the shrubberies. The family always walked through it on their way to church, leaving the shrubberies by a little door in the wall at the end of the private grounds.”
The casual sentence “Mary finds the children less troublesome than she expected,” adds one more stroke to the character of that sister-in-law which Jane makes us know so well.
Mrs. Knight senior was still living, and was generous toward the other members of her adopted son’s family besides himself.
“This morning brought me a letter from Mrs. Knight, containing the usual fee, and all the usual kindness.... She asks me to spend a day or two with her this week ... her very agreeable present will make my circumstances quite easy; I shall reserve half for my pelisse.”
It will be remembered that Mrs. Edward Knight had been a Miss Bridges, and the good-natured Harriet, her sister, was now staying at Godmersham with her own husband, Mr. Moore, whom Jane did not think good enough for her, though she admits later, “he is a sensible man, and tells a story well.” She refers to her sister-in-law’s opinion of her, “Mary was very disappointed in her beauty, and thought him very disagreeable; James admires her and finds him pleasant and conversable.”
It was at the conclusion of this visit that Jane wrote to her sister of the pressing necessity of coming home again to meet the visitor with whom her “honour as well as affection” were engaged.