Beyond ill health, Diana Parker echoes her creator by being a house-hunter. Following her father’s death, Jane, Cassandra and their mother began a nomadic life, primarily dependent on the brothers for income, moving from lodgings to ever cheaper lodgings in Bath – then for a while staying with brother Frank and his family in Southampton, a port and spa (in Jane’s childhood writings notable for its ‘Stinking fish’). Until they came to live in Chawton in 1809 with Edward’s help, they had no settled home. A search for a home is one of the perennial themes of all the novels and it is an irony of her subsequent reputation that in later years Jane Austen was regarded as pre-eminently the novelist of stability and home. But not even Edward was secure and, when Jane was writing Sanditon, he was suffering a lawsuit which threw doubt on his claim to his huge estates, one of which included the Chawton cottage.
Diana Parker is not homeless, but she is consumed by finding lodgings for what turn out to be mythical visitors, and her manic house-hunting may draw something from Jane Austen’s experiences of trudging round Bath looking at ‘putrifying Houses’ in the hope of finding a place they could afford. All the novels are obsessed with houses, but none mentions so many kinds as Sanditon, which becomes a veritable estate agency of a book with its terraces, tourist cottages, hotels and puffed lodging-houses – all in imagination filled with rich tenants.
Underpinning anxiety about homelessness is of course money. Here the author’s life presses most fiercely on Sanditon. Jane Austen was not only disturbed by Edward’s threatening lawsuit but by something more definite. It happened just after she finished the last sentence of Sanditon, but it likely contributed to her inability to take up her pen again, so leaving her fragment ‘upon the Shelve’ along with Northanger Abbey.
Mrs Austen’s rich brother James Leigh-Perrot and his wife Jane were childless, and it was always understood that his estate in due course would come to his sister’s children but that, if his death preceded his wife’s, there would be immediate legacies for the needy Austens. Eleven days after Jane Austen stopped writing Sanditon, Thomas Leigh-Perrot died. To the great disappointment of the Austens, he left everything to his wife for her lifetime – and this despite their standing by her during the murky incident when she was accused of shoplifting and faced transportation for the crime. ‘I am ashamed to say that the shock of my Uncle’s Will brought on a relapse,’ Jane wrote. ‘I am the only one of the Legatees who has been so silly, but a weak Body must excuse weak Nerves.’
If she were indeed suffering from Addison’s disease, as many suppose, this added stress would have been hugely detrimental; she herself was aware that ‘agitation’ could be as harmful as fatigue. Possibly in the portrait of Lady Denham and her treatment of her poorer relatives, there was something of the whimsical and mean selfishness Jane Austen saw in aunt Jane Leigh-Perrot. (A modern critic, straying into gothic mode, finds Lady Denham an early example of the childless ‘rich lesbian vampire’, who collects husbands and property and preys on sick or poor young women.)
One of the reasons for Thomas’s decision – unmentioned by Jane Austen – may well have been the Leigh-Perrots’ anger at losing a large sum of money through the bankruptcy of Jane’s speculating banker brother, Henry Austen.
Henry and Jane
Henry benefited mightily from the long Napoleonic Wars. At first intended for the Church like his eldest brother James, he had instead joined the local militia, soon becoming paymaster and agent. He resigned his commission in 1801 and set up business as a banker in London, partnering local banks in Kent and Hampshire, one in the market town of Alton, very close to Chawton. He was also connected to small country banks in a couple of speculative inland spas: Buxton in Derbyshire and Horwood Well Spa in Somerset. The wartime economy helped all his projects with its huge defence spending as well as import restrictions which kept agricultural prices high – advancing the interests of his main customers, the landowners, though not of the urban or rural poor.
Jane was pleased at the prosperity enjoyed by her charming, witty and sanguine brother. She admired, loved and indulged him, rejoicing at his successes and sympathising in his setbacks. She stayed often with him in London, where one of his lodgings was above his bank in Henrietta Street. There she met his lively friends and colleagues and witnessed his financial activities. She attended the theatre with him and even came to the notice of the Prince Regent – whom she heartily despised. Hearing that Henry had been invited to the season’s most desirable social event in 1814, the ball at White’s Club celebrating the (temporary) allied triumph over Napoleon, she exclaimed, ‘O what a Henry!’
Yet, for all her supportiveness and admiration, she would have been painfully aware that as a woman she had none of Henry’s opportunities to increase her own modest income. Perhaps in this respect Lady Denham with her own money and speculating choices is wish-fulfilling, rather like Diana Parker with her conquerable sickness and private income.
In one area of course Jane could enter the marketplace: through her writing, though not easily without male sup port. Henry advocated his sister’s work, made connections with publishers and saw her novels through the press. With his help she speculated in publication by not selling most of her copyrights outright, the unfortunate exception being Pride and Prejudice, which would have brought her most money. She loved the ‘pewter’ she earned: ‘I have written myself into £250 which only makes me long for more,’ she wrote. Just after she penned the last words of Sanditon, she received nearly £20 for the second edition of Sense and Sensibility. It gave her a ‘fine flow of Literary Ardour’.
But her earnings were always modest. Especially unfortunate was the decision not to sell copyrights of her later novels to her final publisher John Murray: as a result, she earned little from Emma, since the losses on Mansfield Park’s second edition were set against its profits. It had not been a successful speculation.
In 1815 the battle of Waterloo ended the Napoleonic Wars and England was at peace for the first time in twenty-two years. After initial rejoicing and jollity came inevitable disappointment. The effect of peace on the economy was huge: financial and social adjustment, even depression, wracked the country. Through Henry, Jane now had firsthand experience of market volatility: his wartime prosperity was over. In 1815 the Alton bank was already struggling: it collapsed in March 1816. The rest of Henry’s businesses failed in a welter of debts. He lost his home and possessions and was declared bankrupt.
Henry Austen as Rector
With her other siblings, Jane showed no distaste at Henry’s murkier dealings, for patronage, nepotism and dependence on the great were part of the family background. Little blame seems to have been cast on the always charming brother, though he took his family down with him. Especially hit were Edward and uncle James Leigh-Perrot, the first owing £20,000 and the second £ 10,000. Jane herself lost £26. 2s, part of the profits from her writing. After their father’s death, the Austen brothers had clubbed together to provide a small income for their sisters and mother. After the crash, little of this could be paid.
Despite such huge losses, Henry’s optimism and vitality were undimmed. He returned to his original life-plan and took Holy Orders. Jane Austen was impressed by his resilience,