I Was Jane Austen's Best Friend Read online

  This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical and public figures, are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2010 by Cora Harrison

  Illustrations copyright © 2010 by Susan Hellard

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in hardcover by Macmillan Children’s Books, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, London, in 2010.

  Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Harrison, Cora.

  I was Jane Austen’s best friend / Cora Harrison; illustrated by Susan Hellard.

  —1st U.S. ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: In a series of journal entries, Jenny Cooper describes her stay with cousin Jane Austen in the 1790s, and her entrance into Jane’s world of beautiful dresses, dances, secrets, gossip, and romance.

  eISBN: 978-0-375-89753-5 1. Austen, Jane, 1775–2827—Juvenile fiction. [1. Austen, Jane, 1775—1817—Fiction. 2. Cousins—Fiction. 3. Friendship—Fiction. 4. Courtship—Fiction. 5. England—Social life and customs—18th century—Fiction. 6. Diaries—Fiction.] I. Hellard, Susan, ill. II. Title. PZ7.H2467Ian 2010

  [Fic]—dc22

  2020025309

  First U.S. Edition

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  For my daughter, Ruth Mason, a fan of the

  Jane Austen novels since her early teens

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  My Journal Monday, 7 February 1791

  Southampton at Midnight

  Tuesday, 8 February 1791

  Wednesday, 9 February 1791

  Friday, 4 March 1791

  Saturday, 5 March 1791

  Sunday, 6 March 1791

  Monday, 7 March 1791

  Tuesday, 8 March 1791

  Wednesday, 9 March 1791

  Thursday, 10 March 1791

  Friday, 11 March 1791

  Saturday, 12 March 1791

  Sunday, 13 March 1791

  Monday, 14 March 1791

  Monday Afternoon, 14 March 1791

  Tuesday, 15 March 1791

  Wednesday, 16 March 1791

  Thursday, 17 March 1791

  Friday, 18 March 1791

  Sunday, 20 March 1791

  Monday, 21 March 1791

  Tuesday, 22 March 1791

  Wednesday, 23 March 1791

  Thursday, 24 March 1791

  Friday, 25 March 1791

  Saturday, 26 March 1791

  The Assembly Rooms at Basingstoke

  Sunday, 27 March 1791

  Six o’clock on Sunday, 27 March

  Monday, 28 March 1791

  Tuesday, 29 March 1791

  Wednesday, 30 March 1791

  Thursday, 31 March 1791

  Friday, 1 April 1791

  Saturday, 2 April 1791

  The Portsmouths’ Ball

  Saturday Night, 2 April 1791

  Sunday, 3 April 1791

  Monday, 4 April 1791

  Tuesday, 5 April 1791

  Wednesday, 6 April 1791

  Thursday, 7 April 1791

  Friday, 8 April 1791

  Saturday, 9 April 1791

  Sunday, 10 April 1791

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Tuesday, 12 January 1796

  Dearest Jane,

  Yesterday I was up in the attic and discovered a bundle of my old journals – I spent half the night reading this one. I’m sending it to you because I think you will enjoy it too.

  I can’t believe how much my life changed in that spring of 1791! It was like coming out of a dark room into bright sunlight. With you as a friend, I learned so much that year—about life, about love—and about how to have fun!

  Do you remember our new sprigged muslin gowns for the ball at the Basingstoke Assembly Rooms? And getting ready for the ball? And how Eliza did our hair?

  Well, it’s all here in my journal so I hope you enjoy reading it. I’m looking forward to visiting you next month and then we can talk over old times.

  Yours affectionately,

  Jenny

  PS I LOVED your book about Elizabeth Bennet and her sisters! I think your father is quite right; it should definitely be published, and when it is, I shall give myself such airs and will go around telling everyone that I was Jane Austen’s best friend!

  MY JOURNAL

  Monday, 7 February 1791

  Jane looks like she could die.

  It’s a terrible thing to write: Jane looks like she could die — but it’s even worse to have the thought jumping into your mind every few minutes.

  I’m just sitting here in this cold dormitory looking at Jane. The only light is the light that comes in from the street. It’s enough though, as Jane’s bed is next to the window. I can see her face. It is very red; it’s been like that for the last few days. She’s pushed off her nightcap and her dark curly hair is soaked in sweat. Her eyes are widely opened, but there is nothing of Jane in that gaze. She looks at me, but she doesn’t know me, just carries on muttering through swollen, cracked lips. Her skin is burning hot when I touch her. She’s burning with fever. Becky, the kitchen maid, had that fever last month, but she recovered after a few days.

  But Jane is not recovering.

  And I am frightened.

  Mrs Cawley is the owner of the school. She’s responsible for us all. Why doesn’t she look after Jane?

  But she doesn’t want to talk about Jane and how ill she is. She wants to pretend the illness isn’t happening.

  She doesn’t even come up to the dormitory.

  She just sends Becky.

  And Becky is frightened too. I saw it in her face tonight when she was trying to get Jane to swallow some of that medicine that the doctor left for her.

  I know I must do something. It’s no good just sitting here staring at Jane and writing a few sentences in my journal and then looking at her again. It’s eleven o’clock of the evening. The house is quiet, of course, because Mrs Cawley makes everyone go to bed early in order to save on fires and on candles. All the girls in the dormitory are asleep except for me — Jane is still burning with fever and her breathing sounds like the watchman’s rattle.

  I’m scared. I’ve begged Mrs Cawley to send for Jane’s mother and father. My Aunt Austen will know what to do; I remember my mother telling me how good her sister was at nursing — that she had shelves full of remedies in her pantry. I’m sure that Jane would improve if her mother were here. I don’t trust that doctor who comes every day. His fingernails are dirty and he hardly comes near enough to Jane to know what is wrong with her. He just keeps leaving bottles of something that smells like tar water with a few bits of dried herbs floating in it.

  Jane’s mother must come. Jane’s mother must come. Jane’s mother must come.

  So I have
written to her. I managed to write the letter earlier today when we had silent study in our dormitories while the maids were cleaning the schoolroom. I even managed to steal some sealing wax from Mrs Cawley’s desk and use the candle to melt it without anyone’s seeing. I turn the letter over and over in my hands. The neatly folded paper is beginning to look grubby, and the wax seal that keeps it fastened will break and fall off if I handle the sheet any more. Once again I read the address that I have written on the back of the sheet in my best handwriting:

  Mrs G. Austen,

  Steventon Parsonage,

  Steventon,

  Hampshire.

  I tried to bribe Becky to take it to the post-inn for me, but she was too scared of Mrs Cawley to go. She had heard Mrs Cawley scream angrily at me when I mentioned writing to Jane’s mother. There is only one thing to do …

  I’ve just been over to the window for the third time since deciding on my plan. The streets are still full of light and noise. A young officer wearing a red coat, with a sword girded about his waist, has just passed. I think about Jane telling me that her brother wants to join the army. If only one of her family were here now! There are crowds out in the streets, but I know no one. I will have to do it. I could never forgive myself if Jane died here in this horrible dormitory in Southampton and her mother was not by her side during the last moments.

  I owe Jane so much.

  I don’t know what would have happened to me in this terrible school if I didn’t have Jane as a best friend.

  The cold, the lack of food, the misery of it would have given me a wasting disease, I’m sure of it.

  I’d have died or gone mad.

  All sorts of pictures are going through my head:

  Jane on the day we came here, making a joke of the terrible dormitory when I just felt like crying because my brother and his wife had sent me away. I can hear her voice declaring loudly that the place smelt of death and demanding to know where the vampire was and giggling about the enormous fungus in the corner of the room.

  Jane mocking the teachers when they scolded and punished — ‘You know, Jenny, Miss Nash is a woman of such elegance and beauty; except for the fact that she walks like a hen and has a face like a squashed potato …’

  Jane standing up for me when Lavinia made fun of my gown, pretending that Lavinia was a secret drinker …

  Jane telling me stories of her family — her five brothers and her sister, Cassandra — to distract me from the hunger and the cold …

  Jane coaxing the cook to fill a bottle with hot water to warm my bed when I had a bad cold …

  Jane sneaking out of the kitchen door and running up the basement steps to buy a couple of hot pies from the pieman for the two of us …

  Jane reading her stories of great romances aloud in the dormitory at night … about a girl whose face was her fortune …

  Jane laughing at the expression on my face when we got just a tiny slice of bread and a cup of watery milk for our supper and telling me to think of it as a seven-course dinner for a cockroach.

  What would I do without her?

  Just in case I never come back again, I am going to tuck this journal under Jane’s pillow as soon as the ink dries. If I am still missing by morning, at least people will know where I went.

  And they will know why.

  Southampton at Midnight

  Down the stairs …

  Every stair creaks …

  Every minute I think that I hear my name screamed by Mrs Cawley.

  ‘Miss Cooper!’ she will shriek at me.

  I stop and listen, but there is nothing to hear. My hands are damp and I am shaking. My bonnet strings come undone and the bonnet falls off my head and rolls down to the bottom of the stairs, only stopping when it reaches the front door. And it makes a sound that I feel could wake the house. I leave it on the floor as I struggle with the bolt. Eventually the bolt slides back with a rusty screech.

  The cold damp air of the street rushes in. I pick up my bonnet by its blue ribbon, but I dare not stop to put it on. I close the door as carefully as I can and pray that no burglar tries the handle before I can get back, and then I am off running down the street, my bonnet swinging from one hand and my folded letter in the other.

  Lights flash in my eyes: the watchman is ahead of me. I must not overtake him. He would want to know what I was doing out here on my own. I stop in a shadowed shop door and tie on my bonnet and then I go on, walking as fast as I can.

  More lights now. Some runners with flaring torches, and four men carrying a lady in a sedan chair – through its window I can just see her powdered hair piled very high and the low-cut frilled neck of her yellow gown. The sedan is painted in very fine colours of black and gold, but the poles in the men’s hands are rough and look full of splinters. I shrink against a gateway with my back turned, and they pass me without breaking step. I can hear their trotting footsteps grow quieter and quieter.

  And then a crowd of rough sailors laughing and shouting. Southampton is full of sailors. They’re the ones that brought this fever; the kitchen maid told me that. The men are on the other side of the road so I slip quietly behind a tree and stand there very still, my head down so that my bonnet hides my face. I will just have to wait until they pass, and then I will turn left, go through two small lanes and then into Bargate.

  The post-inn is in Bargate. The mail coach will set out at midnight; I know that. I will be in plenty of time. I peep out to see whether the sailors have gone as I can’t hear their voices.

  And then something dreadful happens. The sailors have not gone. They are all drinking from flagons. That’s why they’ve stopped talking. Another sedan passes and the torch held by one of the chairmen at the back casts a light over my face, making me blink. There is a shout, a sort of a cheer from across the road.

  ‘Look what I see!’ shouts one.

  ‘A little beauty,’ shouts another. He sounds quite drunk.

  ‘Come on, pretty girl. We’ll give you a good time.’ This sailor puts down his flagon and starts to cross the road. I shrink against the wall. My heart jumps and my mouth is dry. I open my mouth to shriek, but no sound comes out. I used to have nightmares like that sometimes, where I struggled to scream but could not. It’s a cold night, but I feel sweat run down between my shoulder blades.

  And then there is a clatter of hoofs. An open-topped barouche comes swiftly down the road, drawn by a pair of grey horses. Two young men are in it. I think by their uniforms that they are naval officers.

  ‘Whoa,’ shouts one of them, and the horses stop with a skidding of hoofs and a squeal. For a moment I think that I am completely lost, that they will drag me into the barouche like what happened to Clarissa in the novel Jane lent to me. I will be ruined.

  But they are not looking at me.

  They are shouting angrily, but not at me. They are scolding the sailors for drinking in the street, for disgracing their uniform, and they are telling them to get back on board their ship.

  Suddenly my courage comes back. My gown is well looped up over my petticoat, and my petticoat is quite short; it barely reaches my ankles. I start to run as fast as I can. The angry shouts ring out as I continue up the High Street, but it is still the young naval officers shouting at the drunken sailors. No one has seen me.

  And now I turn into the lane.

  I had been afraid that it would be very dark, but there is an inn there, halfway up the lane, and the lights are on in every window. Even the door stands open and lets a pool of light come out on to the cobblestones. I tiptoe over their bumpy, uneven surface. I will be able to go quickly once I pass the inn, but I am scared of the rough voices that I hear from within.

  There is a sudden silence from the inn. I’m afraid that someone has seen me and I step into a darkened doorway. I wish that my cloak were a dark colour, but it is a light blue, and my petticoat shows shockingly white below it. I reach inside and let my gown down to cover the petticoat, but the gown is also a pale blue; it will be easy to s
ee against the darkness of the door.

  Then there are a few notes from a fiddle and someone starts to sing – a horrible, rude song, but I don’t care. The man sings so loudly and the noise as the others join in is so deafening that it means that no one could possibly hear the sound of my footsteps. I move on as quickly as I can go, but I don’t run and I keep my face turned to the wall as I pass the inn.

  Now I am at the top of the lane. There is a house there with a torch burning in the holder outside. All the windows are lit up. I can see an oil lamp burning in the parlour. The curtains are not closed so the light from the room spills out. I wait for a minute. My heart is still thumping hard. I tell myself that I am just waiting for it to slow down, but I know that I am too scared to go on. There is a young lady sitting at the piano. She turns her head and I can see that she is not much older than me. She looks about seventeen. She has lovely curling dark hair; some of it is piled up on top of her head, but other long curls hang down behind her neck and a few fringe her forehead. She is wearing a pale yellow gown and a string of pearls around her neck. Although the window is closed, I can hear the notes of the piano and the sound of a high, sweet voice singing a love song.

  One more lane to go and then I will be in Bargate. In the distance I hear the watchman call out, ‘Half past the hour of eleven o’clock and all is well.’

  Only half past eleven o’clock. That’s fine – still half an hour to go, and Bargate is not far now. I linger for a few minutes; somehow I feel safe there outside this well-lit house, but an elegant lady, her hair piled on top of her head and powdered in the old-fashioned way, comes to the window. Her hand is on the cord of the window blind and for a moment her eyes meet mine. Hers are full of curiosity and mine are probably filled with panic.

  And so I turn away quickly and I go on. I go into the second lane. My eyes are getting used to the dim light and I don’t need to touch the wall. I am clenching my fists so tightly that my nails are digging into the palms of my hands. I know all the reasons why I should not be out here alone at night-time. This town is rougher than Bristol, and Mama would never dream of walking after dark in Bristol.