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| Jane Austen with her father George |
Some years
ago, I painted a little picture of how I imagined Jane and her father would look
when she was about five years old. I thought about this painting whilst I was
writing a little scene in Project Darcy when Ellie goes back into the past and becomes Jane
Austen, and tied it in with what seem to be Jane’s own recollections that she
wrote about in Northanger Abbey.
Although she is writing about Catherine Morland when she says her heroine was ‘noisy and wild, hated
confinement and cleanliness, and loved nothing so well in the world as rolling
down the green slope at the back of the house’, I have a feeling she was referring to a memory of doing that herself. If
you’ve ever been to Steventon to see the site where the rectory stood, the back
of the garden has a pronounced slope! Here’s how I imagine Jane and her beloved
brother Henry playing at the back of the rectory. I hope you enjoy this little
excerpt from my latest novel, Project Darcy.
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| The green slope at the back of Steventon Rectory |
The moment she stepped through the hedges and trees
that screened the fields, Ellie knew something was different – her world was
changed in more ways than she could ever have imagined. Like the little girl in
Alice in Wonderland, she’d
grown smaller and everything around her had doubled in size. Trees were so tall
she could not see the top of them and the grass that tickled her bare legs
nearly came up to her knees. Ellie looked back towards the way she had come but
she knew it was fruitless. There was only one way to go, and that was to follow
the sound that beckoned her. It was as if she saw everything through mist,
layers of white vapour that rose to reveal a reality that became sharper with
every passing minute. She was no longer Ellie Bentley; that she knew. She was a
child, perhaps no more than five years old, and her thoughts intruded until
Ellie had none left of her own. Her world was larger, more defined, sounds and
smells were fresher, brighter and vivid. More than that, she felt different.
Ellie saw life through the eyes of someone else, and when she heard the boy’s
voice calling her name she knew him to be her brother.
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| Site of Steventon Rectory |
‘Come on, Jane, let us go again!’
Henry pulled me up the slope to the top of the field
where the elm trees stood like sentinels and whispered over our heads in their
hushing, leaf language. The day was hot like the one I’d left behind, and my
legs struggled to keep up with him in the heat. He sensed that my small legs
were tiring and he turned to wait, looking at me with a grin. Light flickered
in his hazel eyes, those that I knew grown-ups said were so like mine, but his
were almost golden on this day, like Baltic amber. The grass up at the top of
the terrace was so long; it prickled the back of my legs. Beads of dew, like
fairy necklaces strung along green blades, felt cold under my feet. When we
reached the top, he showed me how to lie down in line with the trees, my toes
pointing one way and my arms stretched over my head.
‘Jane, wait until I count to three,’ I heard him say.
Lying in the sweetly fragrant meadow, I felt so
excited I started to giggle, and my body fidgeted in response. And before he’d
managed to shout out the number three, I’d started going, rolling down the
hill, and gathering momentum until the world was spinning. There was a blur of
blue sky; then green fields, and then over I went again like a flyer on Nanny
Littleworth’s spinning wheel. I could see Henry overtake me, going faster than
ever. He got to the bottom before me but I came to a standstill at last, my heart
beating with pure pleasure as I lay in the grass chuckling and laughing. There
were grass stains on my dress and daisies in my hair, which Henry picked out,
one by one.
Sitting up, I could see a house that I knew was my
home and I had a sudden longing to see my father.
‘Are you not coming up again, little Jenny?’ Henry
asked, calling me by the pet name my family used when they wanted to appeal to
my better nature. He had his hands in the pockets of his breeches. His shirt
was crumpled and stained like my gown. Brown curls flopped over his eyes, which
looked into mine so tenderly that I almost changed my mind. I ran to hug him,
stood on my tiptoes and planted a kiss on his cheek. Henry was my protector,
and my beloved playmate. I longed to be just like him but my mother scolded me
when I behaved too much like a tomboy. I knew I should not run or jump or
shout, as my brothers did, but nothing she said would deter me, so when Henry
begged me to play with him I did not usually need to be asked twice. But, as much
as I wanted to be with him, home was calling.
I shook my head and muttered, ‘I’m going to see Papa.’
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| Site of Jane Austen's home, Steventon Rectory |
I have vivid memories of rolling down the
slope in the park at the back of my childhood home with my brother and sister,
which was a thing we all loved to do. I remember one time when we were recovering from German Measles,
and the grass made our rashes flare up again, all very prickly and itchy - but
we were all so glad to be outside again. Most of my childhood seemed to be
spent outdoors playing, or indoors drawing and writing if the weather was bad - I’d love to know what pastimes you enjoyed as a child!