Unfortunately we have not got Frank’s reply to his sister’s letter, but we have her next letter to him dated about two months later, when she was staying with Edward.
“Godmersham Park, September 25, 1813.
“My dearest Frank,—The 11th of this month brought me your letter, and I assure you I thought it very well worth its two and three-pence. I am very much obliged to you for filling me so long a sheet of paper; you are a good one to traffic with in that way, you pay most liberally; my letter was a scratch of a note compared to yours, and then you write so even, so clear, both in style and penmanship, so much to the point, and give so much intelligence, that it is enough to kill one. I am sorry Sweden is so poor, and my riddle so bad. The idea of a fashionable bathing-place in Mecklenberg! How can people pretend to be fashionable or to bathe out of England? Rostock market makes one’s mouth water; our cheapest butcher’s meat is double the price of theirs; nothing under nine-pence all this summer, and I believe upon recollection nothing under ten-pence. Bread has sunk and is likely to sink more, which we hope may make meat sink too. But I have no occasion to think of the price of bread or of meat where I am now; let me shake off vulgar cares and conform to the happy indifference of East Kent wealth. I wonder whether you and the King of Sweden knew that I was to come to Godmersham with my brother. Yes, I suppose you have received due notice of it by some means or other. I have not been here these four years, so I am sure the event deserves to be talked of before and behind, as well as in the middle. We left Chawton on the 14th, spent two entire days in town, and arrived here on the 17th. My brother, Fanny, Lizzie, Marianne, and I composed this division of the family, and filled his carriage inside and out. Two post-chaises, under the escort of George, conveyed eight more across the country, the chair brought two, two others came on horseback, and the rest by coach, and so, by one means or another, we all are removed. It puts me in remind of St. Paul’s shipwreck, when all are said, by different means, to reach the shore in safety. I left my mother, Cassandra, and Martha well, and have had good accounts of them since. At present they are quite alone, but they are going to be visited by Mrs. Heathcote and Miss Bigg, and to have a few days of Henry’s company likewise.
“I expect to be here about two months, Edward is to be in Hampshire again in November, and will take me back. I shall be sorry to be in Kent so long without seeing Mary, but I am afraid it must be so. She has very kindly invited me to Deal, but is aware of the great improbability of my being able to get there. It would be a great pleasure to me to see Mary Jane again too, and her brothers, new and old. Charles and his family I do hope to see; they are coming here for a week in October. We were accommodated in Henrietta Street. Henry was so good as to find room for his three nieces and myself in his house. Edward slept at a hotel in the next street. No. 10 is made very comfortable with cleaning and painting, and the Sloane Street furniture. The front room upstairs is an excellent dining and common sitting parlour, and the smaller one behind will sufficiently answer his purpose as a drawing-room. He has no intention of giving large parties of any kind. His plans are all for the comfort of his friends and himself. Madame Bigeon and her daughter have a lodging in his neighbourhood, and come to him as often as he likes, or as they like. Madame B. always markets for him, as she used to do, and, upon our being in the house, was constantly there to do the work. She is wonderfully recovered from the severity of her asthmatic complaint. Of our three evenings in town, one was spent at the Lyceum, and another at Covent Garden. “The Clandestine Marriage” was the most respectable of the performances, the rest were sing-song and trumpery; but it did very well for Lizzy and Marianne, who were indeed delighted, but I wanted better acting. There was no actor worth naming. I believe the theatres are thought at a very low ebb at present. Henry has probably sent you his own account of his visit in Scotland. I wish he had had more time, and could have gone further north, and deviated to the lakes in his way back; but what he was able to do seems to have afforded him great enjoyment, and he met with scenes of higher beauty in Roxburghshire than I had supposed the South of Scotland possessed. Our nephew’s gratification was less keen than our brother’s. Edward is no enthusiast in the beauties of nature. His enthusiasm is for the sports of the field only. He is a very promising and pleasing young man however, upon the whole, behaves with great propriety to his father, and great kindness to his brothers and sisters, and we must forgive his thinking more of grouse and partridges than lakes and mountains. He and George are out every morning either shooting or with the harriers. They are good shots. Just at present I am mistress and miss altogether here, Fanny being gone to Goodnestone for a day or two, to attend the famous fair, which makes its yearly distribution of gold paper and coloured persian through all the family connections. In this house there is a constant succession of small events, somebody is always going or coming; this morning we had Edward Bridges unexpectedly to breakfast with us, on his way from Ramsgate, where is his wife, to Lenham, where is his church, and to-morrow he dines and sleeps here on his return. They have been all the summer at Ramsgate for her health; she is a poor honey—the sort of woman who gives me the idea of being determined never to be well and who likes her spasms and nervousness, and the consequence they give her, better than anything else. This is an ill-natured statement to send all over the Baltic. The Mr. Knatchbulls, dear Mrs. Knight’s brothers, dined here the other day. They came from the Friars, which is still on their hands. The elder made many inquiries after you. Mr. Sherer is quite a new Mr. Sherer to me; I heard him for the first time last Sunday, and he gave us an excellent sermon, a little too eager sometimes in his delivery, but that is to me a better extreme than the want of animation, especially when it evidently comes from the heart, as in him. The clerk is as much like you as ever. I am always glad to see him on that account. But the Sherers are going away. He has a bad curate at Westwell, whom he can eject only by residing there himself. He goes nominally for three years, and a Mr. Paget is to have the curacy of Godmersham; a married man, with a very musical wife, which I hope may make her a desirable acquaintance to Fanny.
“I thank you very warmly for your kind consent to my application, and the kind hint which followed it. I was previously aware of what I should be laying myself open to; but the truth is that the secret has spread so far as to be scarcely the shadow of a secret now, and that, I believe, whenever the third appears, I shall not even attempt to tell lies about it. I shall rather try to make all the money than all the mystery I can of it. People shall pay for their knowledge if I can make them. Henry heard P. and P. warmly praised in Scotland by Lady Robert Kerr and another lady; and what does he do, in the warmth of his brotherly vanity and love, but immediately tell them who wrote it. A thing once set going in that way—one knows how it spreads, and he, dear creature, has set it going so much more than once. I know it is all done from affection and partiality, but at the same time let me here again express to you and Mary my sense of the superior kindness which you have shown on the occasion in doing what I wished. I am trying to harden myself. After all, what a trifle it is, in all its bearings, to the really important points of one’s existence, even in this world.
“I take it for granted that Mary has told you of ——’s engagement to ——. It came upon us without much preparation; at the same time there was that about her which kept us in a constant preparation for something. We are anxious to have it go on well, there being quite as much in his favour as the chances are likely to give her in any matrimonial connection. I believe he is sensible, certainly very religious, well connected, and with some independence. There is an unfortunate dissimilarity of taste between them in one respect, which gives us some apprehensions; he hates company, and she is very fond of it; this, with some queerness of temper on his side, and much unsteadiness on hers, is untoward. I hope Edward’s family visit to Chawton will be yearly; he certainly means it now, but we must not expect it to exceed two months in future. I do not think, however, that he found five too long this summer. He was very happy there. The new paint improves their house much, and we find no evil from the smell. Poor Mr. Trimmer is lately dead, a sad loss to his family, and occasioning some anxiety to our brother; for the present he continues his affairs in the son’s hands, a matter of great importance to them. I hope he will have no reason to remove his business.
“Your very affectionate sister,
“J. A.
“There is to be a second edition of S. and S. Egerton advises it.”
At the time when this letter was written Charles was on the Namur, as Flag-Captain to Sir Thomas Williams. His wife and two small children lived with him on board, an arrangement of somewhat doubtful advantage. In the published letters of Jane Austen there are some of the same date as this one to Frank, written to Cassandra from Godmersham, and giving an account of the visit of Charles and family which she was expecting in October.
“September 23.—Wrote to Charles yesterday, and Fanny has had a letter from him to-day, principally to make inquiries about the time of their visit here, to which mine was an answer beforehand; so he will probably write again soon to fix his week.”