A Walk with Jane Austen Read online

  Praise for

  A Walk with Jane Austen

  “A young woman goes looking for Austen in all the places Austen once lived and many of the places she wrote about. The Austen she finds is a woman of family and of quiet but sustaining faith. Austen shares these things and many others with author Lori Smith whose book gives the reader the great pleasure of time spent with both. A lovely, intimate read.”

  —KAREN JOY FOWLER, best-selling author of The Jane Austen Book Club

  “Sensitively written and carefully paced, this memoir takes the reader on a tour of the authors experiences while journeying around England in the footsteps of Jane Austen. Lori Smith moves seamlessly from romantic daydreams, through a close questioning of her relationship with God, to battles with her mental and physical health. The book reads as an intimate and honest memoir and has enough to satisfy the non-Christian (like myself) if they choose to look beyond the somewhat unexpected (in a mainstream book at least) pairing of Jane Austen and Christianity. Above all else, this is a book about searching—for love, meaning, peace with oneself, health, a good night's sleep, and a decent cup of coffee that wasn't made with that freeze-dried instant powder—and these are experiences that anyone of any faith can relate to…. A welcoming read. Lyrical and questioning.…perfecdy pitched.”

  —EMMA CAMPBELL WEBSTER, actress, author of Lost in Austen and founder oflostinaustenblogspot.com

  “In this engaging, deeply personal and well-researched travelogue, Smith (a PWcontributor) journeys to England to soak in the places of Jane Austens life and writings…. This is an unusual look at Jane Austen. Readers will learn plenty of biographical details—about Austens small and intimate circle of family and friends, her candid letters to her sister, her possible loves and losses, her never-married status, her religious feelings, and her untimely death at the age of 41. But it is the authors passionate connection to ‘Jane’—the affinity she feels and her imaginings of Austens inner life—that bring Austen to life in ways no conventional biographer could. Smiths voice swings authentically between her own raw, aching vulnerability as a single Christian woman battling a debilitating and mysterious chronic illness and the surges of faith she finds in the grace of a loving God. And yes, Smith even meets a potential Darcy at the start of her journey This deliriously uncertain romantic tension holds the book together as Smith weaves her own thoughts, historical research, and fitting references to Austens novels into a satisfying whole.”

  —PUBLISHER'S WEEKLYstarred review

  “With wit, charm, and rare honesty—of which I have to believe Jane Austen would have thoroughly approved—Lori Smith weaves her personal life experiences throughout her journey into the life that was Jane s. Infused with faith, romance, loss, and a search for self, A Walk with Jane Austen makes for that rare book that keeps popping into ones thoughts and beckoning one back.”

  —TAMARA LEIGH, author of Perfecting Kateand Splitting Harriet

  “With deep and sometimes heartwrenching honesty, Lori Smith weaves her story and Jane's together into a wholly unique narrative. In the midst of a craze for treating Austens novels as little more than glorified bodice-rippers, Lori brings to bear her perspective as a single Christian woman who can identify in many ways with Austens own beliefs and experiences, exploring truths and ideas that others gloss over. The resulting book stands out like a beacon.”

  —GINA R. DALFONZO, editor of The Point Weblog and writer for BreakPoint Radio

  for mom and dad

  Lori's Walk with Jane

  This guide will help you track (and trek through) the places Lori visited on her pilgrimage in the footsteps of Jane Austen—where Jane lived and loved.

  Oxford

  St. John's College: Jane's father, George, and brothers James and Henry attended St. Johns; it was founded by a distant relative of Jane's mother. www.sjc.ox.ac.uk.

  Christ Church Cathedral: Both George and James Austen were ordained to the deaconate here, www.chch.ox.ac.uk.

  Wycliffe Hall: Where Lori attended summer school. www.wyclifFehall.org.uk.

  Hampshire

  Alton Abbey: Where Lori stayed. Dom Nicholas is an expert on Jane Austen and leads occasional Austen retreats, www.starcourse.org/abbey.

  Steventon: Village where Jane grew up.

  St. Nicholas, Steventon: George Austen was rector here.

  www.dutton.force9.co.uk/nwsadhs/stevchur.htm.

  Ashe: Village where Jane's friend Anne Lefroy lived.

  www.ashevillage.co.uk.

  Jane Austen's House Museum: Also known as “Chawton Cottage,” this is the house Jane lived in with her mother and sister on her brother Edward's estate. She wrote or edited all the books here.

  www.jane-austens-house-museum.org.uk.

  Chawton House Library: This was Edward's house in Chawton, now a library for the study of early English women writers. Tours of the house are offered, www.chawtonhouse.org.

  Hidden Britain Tours: Offers Jane Austen tours of Hampshire.

  www.hiddenbritaintours.co.uk.

  London

  Box Hill: Setting for the picnic in Emma, now a National Trust property with hiking trails. Roughly an hour from London, www.nationaltrust.org.uk.

  British Library: Has Jane's writing desk and glasses on display, along with a manuscript copy of Persuasion,www.bl.uk.

  National Portrait Gallery: Contains the pencil and watercolor sketch of Jane by her sister, Cassandra, www.npg.org.uk.

  Covent Garden: Jane's brother Henry's banking business and home were for a while at 10 Henrietta Street.

  Canterbury

  Godmersham Park: Edward's estate.

  Goodnestone Park: Edward's in-laws’ estate; he lived close by at Rowling for a while after his marriage, and Jane and Cassandra visited him there.

  www.goodnestoneparkgardens.co.uk.

  Winchester

  Winchester Cathedral: Jane is buried here, www.winchester-cathedral.org.uk.

  8 College Street: This private home behind the cathedral is where Jane and Cassandra came to stay while she was being treated by Mr. Lyford. Jane died here on July 18, 1817.

  Lyme Regis

  Jane set parts of Persuasion here—readers will recognize the Cobb and the Granny's Teeth steps, www.lyme-regis-dorset.co.uk/.

  Bath

  Jane set parts of Persuasion and Northanger Abbey here and lived here with her parents and Cassandra for several years after her father retired.

  Jane Austen Centre: A wealth of information about all things Jane.

  www.janeausten.co.uk.

  Roman Baths: Visitors—like Admiral Croft in Persuasion or Mr. Allen in Northanger Abbey—often came to “take the waters” at the baths, which were thought to have healing properties, www.romanbaths.co.uk.

  Pump Room: Jane's characters visited the Pump Room to walk and drink the spa water. You can still drink the water here or stay for dinner, as it's now a nice restaurant, www.romanbaths.co.uk.

  Beechen Cliff: Catherine hikes Beechen Cliff with the Tilneys in Northanger Abbey.

  Assembly Rooms: Jane visited the Assembly Rooms for dances and concerts, as do her characters. The Museum of Costume is now on the lower floor. www.nationaltrust.org.uk and www.museumofcostume.co.uk.

  Villa Magdala Hotel: Where Lori stayed, www.villamagdala.co.uk.

  Derbyshire

  Jane set Darcy's home—Pemberley—here, though she likely never visited herself.

  Lyme Park: Pemberley in the 1995 BBC version of Pride and Prejudice,with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. Now a National Trust property. www.nationaltrust.org.uk.

  Chatsworth: Pemberley in the 2005 Focus Features version of Pride and Prejudice, with Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen. www.chatsworth.org.

  D
evonshire Arms Pub, Pilsley: Where Lori stayed. Also, great food. Many pubs in the UK only serve lunch, but proprietors Rod and Jo Spensley give occasional “carvery dinners.” Phone: 01246 583258.

  Stoneleigh Abbey

  Jane's mothers family's estate. Jane came to visit with her mother after her father died, www.stoneleighabbey.org.

  Contents

  A Note on the Text

  Introduction: Loving Austen

  PART 1

  In which I go to Oxford and fall into something like love.

  1 Crossing Oceans

  2 Oxford: Dirt and Dreaming

  3 Christ Church: Good Company

  4 Austenian Faith and Love

  5 Alarms (Fire and Otherwise)

  6 Simple Conversation

  PART 2

  In which I follow Austens footsteps about England,

  attempting not to think about the love into which I have fallen.

  7 Alton Abbey: Incense and Blooms

  8 Steventon: A Solitary Walk

  9 Chawton: Love and Grit

  10 London: To Friends

  11 The British Library

  12 On Beauty

  13 An A Road in Kent

  PART 3

  In which I stumble upon deeper meanings of grace.

  14 Winchester: A Patient Descent

  15 Lyme: the Comforting Ocean

  16 Sensibility and Self-Expression

  17 The Bath Bun

  18 Pilsley and Pemberley (Or What Makes Darcy Great)

  19 Over Hill and Dale

  20 Evensong

  One Year Later: The Return to Ordinary

  Acknowledgments

  The Works of Jane Austen

  Bibliography

  Notes

  Readers Group Guide

  A Note on the Text

  Those who tell their own story you know must be

  listened to with caution.

  —SANDITON

  Many friends and acquaintances who first read portions of this book on my blog were under the impression that perhaps the story was fictional or were at least confused enough to have to ask. So since the veracity of memoir is generally questioned these days, I feel compelled to say that this is a work of nonfiction. Everything I report about my life in the following pages actually did happen.

  I am indebted to several Austen scholars—particularly Deirdre Le Faye, whose painstaking research has been invaluable in sifting out rumor versus fact in Jane's life. Biographers agree that there are gaps in our knowledge of Austen. I've tried to note wherever I am assuming or imagining what her life may have been like. Any errors are entirely my own.

  There is only one aspect of the text that is semifictional, and that is that I did not write it in its entirety on the trip. I kept a detailed journal but didn't have the luxury of being able to write out all of my thoughts at the time.

  Memoir is a subjective art in that it always comes back to your perspective—not only your worldview per se, but also your emotional stance toward the world. If you simply related facts as they happened, and related every available fact, you would have an incredibly unreadable and uninteresting book. We don't choose what happens to us, but I suppose we choose (even subconsciously) how we remember it and what stories we tell.

  Admittedly this is my interpretation of what happened—filtered through a lens of humor and grace, always with an eye for getting as close to truth as possible—along with my favorite stories from Jane's life. She would never have written a book like this herself—she didn't even keep a journal that we know of—and I think she would have been horrified to be the subject of one. But she might have found inspiration here for one of her own intelligent romances. No doubt she would have had enough material.

  Introduction

  Loving Austen

  If adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad.

  —NORTHANGER ABBEY

  I've always loved Jane Austen. Or perhaps it would be more correct to say that I, like so many women, think Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy is the ideal man.

  I didn't start reading Austen until I was in college and picked up a copy of Pride and Prejudice at a used-book sale somewhere. I still have the copy, the bluish-green cover with two desolate watercolor women on the front who look like they belong more to Brontë than Austen. I read it over Christmas break at my grandparents’ house in Sacramento. I was there alone, waiting for the rest of the family to get in, when we would all drive down to L.A. for my brother's college graduation.

  But before that, I was there with Grammy and Bob, my step-grandfather, in the simple house his uncle had built in the fifties for eight thousand dollars. It still had the green shag carpet then, the green sofas, the lovely yellow kitchen with gold-patterned sheet-vinyl floor with brown spots in the crevices that wouldn't come out. In later years, Grammy would turn up the heat at night until it was stifling, and Bob would end up in a wheelchair, unable to maneuver. Grammy and I would come back to the house to horrible excretory smells because Bob had trouble making it to the bathroom alone. The laundry sat dirty in the bathtub, and Grammy sometimes forgot to change clothes. I couldn't stay with them then, but on this trip they were still young-old, and I was sleeping on the Murphy bed in the guest room. I stayed up late after they went to bed, smelling comforting old-house smells and reading Pride and Prejudice, greedily turning pages, awash in the glory of unexpected love.

  I was in full-on crush mode at the time, the kind of simple crush perhaps that can strike only an evangelical college girl at twenty when she has yet to be kissed. This particular crush had Austenian themes in that, like Elizabeth with Darcy, I wasn't attracted to the guy at first, until I got to know his character and figured out what a great guy he was, and suddenly he became terribly attractive to me.

  So I followed Elizabeth and Darcy, dreamed of my own unlikely romance, and fell in love with Austen.

  What's not to love? Jane Austen was born into a house full of love and activity on December 16, 1775,1 in the village of Steventon, to a father who would soon be leading prayer services against the American rebels.2 George Austen was rector at St. Nicholas, a small stone church built in the 1200s3; he hid the church key in the trunk of the old yew that still guards the churchyard.

  Jane had six brothers and one dear sister, Cassandra, who was Loving Austenalways her closest companion. Her parents ran a small farm, along with a boys’ boarding school in their home. Her mother loved to write sharp, merry poems, and her Oxford-educated father could teach all of his children (but especially the boys) whatever they needed to know of Greek and Latin. There were family theatricals in the barn, with lengthy prologues written by the eldest brother, James, and a strong network of family and friends who visited often and might stay for months at a time.

  The Austen home seems to have had a sense of abundance, though the family's finances were not certain, at least when the children were small. George regularly borrowed money and then borrowed from a different source to pay back that debt, so there was a constant juggling and never catching up, though not for lack of very hard work.4

  The world at large was chaotic, ships firing on each other broadside in the name of war, and plenty of war to be had for England—with the colonies, with Napoleon, throughout Europe, North America, India, and the West Indies. George III was on the throne going mad, to be replaced by his obnoxious, licentious son, George IV, as regent, laughingly known as “Prince of Whales.”

  It was in the noisy house, in the quiet village guarded somewhat from the chaos of the age, that Jane began to write.

  To me, Jane Austen's books (and the movies based on them) have become the entertainment equivalent of comfort food, what I return to over and over again when I need a break from the real world, when I need to retreat. I've watched and read them so many times. Once, flat on my back with a four-month-long exhaustion that my doctors could only describe as “a mono-like virus,” I pulled out my VHS copy of the BBC version of Pride and Preju
dice,only to find that I had worn out the pictures and was left only with sound. I watched five hours of gray static that time, listening to the voices and music, imagining the scenes in my head.

  But after years of reading and rereading, I began to feel like I had nowhere left to go. I knew the plot lines of Austen's books and was familiar with the corners of her fictional world. But I knew little about her life. I wanted to know the stories that made her who she was, the things she never wrote about, the characters of her family and friends, her navy brothers.

  I read Carol Shields's biography and Claire Tomalin's Jane Austen: A Life. I was thrilled to find Austen's own witty and at times caustic voice in Deirdre Le Faye's collection of her letters. I read her brother Henry's biographical sketch about the sister from whose pen “every thing came finished”5 and her nephew's glowing memoir about the aunt who, in his mind, conjured her romantic stories solely from “the intuitive perceptions of genius, not from personal experience.”6 I wanted to see the Hampshire countryside, the old Norman-era church where her father had been rector, the site of the rectory with the hill Jane rolled down as a child, like Catherine in Northanger Abbey. Lovely Bath, where Jane stopped writing for so many years, taunted my curiosity, as did the Cobb at Lyme, the houses in Derbyshire on which she may have based Pemberley, her brother's huge estates, the small cottage in Chawton where she sat to write in the room with the squeaky door so she could put her work away quickly if anyone disturbed her.

  And that is how I found myself in the middle of a Hampshire wheat field, alone and nearly lost, on a sunny day in mid-July.