Ninety-seventh in an occasional series of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters.
Mary Lloyd was a friend of Jane and Cassandra Austen before she became the second wife of their oldest brother, James. But scattered remarks in Jane Austen’s letters suggest that the friendship soon became strained. Indeed, Austen’s dislike of her sister-in-law is such conventional wisdom that the author of a 2011 mystery novel about Jane’s death cast Mary in the role of her murderer.
As Janeites, we naturally take Jane Austen’s side in every interpersonal feud, and thus it is that Mary Lloyd Austen has come down to us as peevish, grasping, unfairly jealous of her husband’s relationship with his family, and a bad stepmother to the daughter of his first marriage.
But read the letter that the 22-year-old Austen finished writing to Cassandra exactly 226 years ago today (#13 in Deirdre Le Faye’s standard edition of Austen’s correspondence), and it’s hard not to wonder if there might be another side to this story.
Two weeks earlier, Mary had given birth to her first child, James Edward, who would grow up to become his famous aunt’s biographer. Any woman who has had a baby will remember what those first weeks can be like: A blur of pain, sleep deprivation, dirty diapers, feeding problems, and an overwhelming feeling of . . . being overwhelmed.
Jane Austen’s sympathy for her erstwhile friend? Non-existent, apparently.
“Mary does not manage matters in such a way as to make me want to lay in myself,” she writes to Cassandra, who is staying with their brother Edward’s family in Kent. “She is not tidy enough in her appearance; she has no dressing-gown to sit up in; her curtains are all too thin, and things are not in that comfort and style about her which are necessary to make such a situation an enviable one. Elizabeth was really a pretty object with her nice clean cap put on so tidily and her dress so uniformly white and orderly.”
The Elizabeth in question was Edward’s wife, who had given birth to her fifth child in October, while the Austen sisters were visiting. More to the point, Elizabeth was a rich woman whose grand house was staffed by a bevy of servants, while Mary was a clergyman’s wife making do in a rural parsonage.
It is possible—indeed, likely—that Jane Austen kept her judgy sentiments to herself while visiting Mary and her new baby. It is also possible--indeed, likely--that Mary could tell exactly what her ex-friend was thinking.
I doubt that Mary murdered Jane Austen. But I can imagine that she might have been tempted.
I enjoyed that book! And JA and the Twelve Days of Christmas Mary and James are page skipable. Lol, and in Miss Austen she is a "peach". But thanks for pointing that out about JA. Of course, as you know, Mary appears to have "steppped up" during JA's final illness.