The Mrs. Perrot is the aunt, Mrs. Leigh-Perrot, before mentioned, she was sister-in-law to Mrs. Austen, and her husband had taken the additional name of Perrot. It was from him that Mr. Austen-Leigh inherited the additional name of Leigh when he came into the estate. The Austen family seem to have been almost as much in the habit of changing their names as of marrying twice.
The topography of the letter can only be appreciated by those who know Bath, and requires little comment. The various streets mentioned are still existing, and we can pass through the despised Trim Street, survey the house in Gay Street lower rented than the others, or cross over the river to Laura Place to see the neighbourhood Jane feared would be too expensive, just as well now, as she could then.
In May of 1801, Jane, with her father and mother, went to Bath and stayed with Mr. and Mrs. Leigh-Perrot at Paragon, in order to hunt for a house. Paragon remains unchanged, the doorways enclosed by pent-house and pilasters remain the very type of late eighteenth-century architecture.
It is easy to imagine the difficulties that had to be encountered by the Austens in their quest.
“In our morning’s circuit we looked at two houses in Green Park Buildings, one of which pleased me very well. We walked all over it except into the garret; the dining-room is of a comfortable size, just as large as you like to fancy it; the second room about fourteen feet square. The apartment over the drawing-room pleased me particularly, because it is divided into two, the smaller one, a very nice sized dressing-room which upon occasion might admit a bed. The aspect is south-east. The only doubt is about the dampness of the offices, of which there were symptoms.”
“Yesterday morning we looked into a house in Seymour Street which there is reason to suppose will soon be empty; as we are assured from many quarters that no inconvenience from the river is felt in those buildings, we are at liberty to fix on them if we can. But this house was not inviting; the largest room downstairs was not much more than fourteen feet square, with a western aspect.”
“I went with my mother to look at some houses in New King Street, towards which she felt some kind of inclination, but their size has now satisfied her. They were smaller than I expected to find them; one in particular out of the two was quite monstrously little; the best of the sitting-rooms not as large as the little parlour at Steventon, and the second room in every floor about capacious enough to admit a very small single bed.”
“Our views on G.P. Buildings seem all at an end; the observation of the damp still remaining in the offices of a house which has only been vacated a week, with reports of discontented families and putrid fevers, has given the coup-de-grace. We have now nothing in view.”
Anyone who has ever been house-hunting will sympathise with the difficulties sketched in these remarks. It was finally decided that the family should go to 4 Sydney Place, and later they removed to the despised Green Park Buildings after all.
The sale of the effects at Steventon had begun before the family left, and continued after.