My Friend Jane

I am thinking of England. The gently sloping hills of Hampshire County. The stately home of the Knight family where Jane Austen spent many wonderful days reading in her nook upstairs and dressed in her finest gown to attend parties in the moonlight.

I can see her arm in arm with her beloved sister Cassandra walking up the lane to the great house its windows lit with candlelight and the warm glow of the dancer’s faces as they hopped and stepped past each other in revelry.

Is it odd to miss someone you’ve never met? My pilgrimage to her home fulfilled something in me that I wonder if it will ever be filled again. How can the Bronte parsonage compare? Or the Alcott’s Orchard House? They are equal in stature when it comes to the literary world, but Jane’s home is something special to me.

Sometimes when I lie in bed at night, my mind again wanders through her cottage in Chawton. How small the doorframes were, how cozy and tightly knit the rooms where she lived and breathed. It is difficult to imagine my life now had I not been there and learned so much from her, though she has been but a ghost in the house for many, many years.

In their dream state, my eyes rove over the beloved pieces she left behind: a ring with a lock of her father’s hair curled inside, a lace collar she made herself, the books on her father’s shelves she touched and loved. How alive I am when I think of that special day! How precious is to me is the memory of setting my own feet on the stairs she ascended and descended time and time again. How many times did she look longingly out the window on the landing where I stood, watching the rain and snow fall gently in the garden beyond?

If only walls could talk! If only I could somehow transport myself back to a day where I would find her sitting in the garden reading aloud to Cassandra, their rosy faces entranced by the text, laughing and enjoying each other’s company. How I wish I could see that scene with my own eyes.

Did Jane run into the great house and find shelter from the rain? Surely. She did touch the staircase I touched, the dark would slick with the oil of many hundreds, even thousands of palms. My heart beat so fast as I ascended the staircase, my eyes trying to take in every detail of the old house as I walked through with my guide. The place where she was said to find the inspiration for Northanger Abbey, the alcove with the tall window, took my breath away. It was there she sat, there that she believed in herself enough to write what would become one of her most famous novels.

She would probably laugh at me if she knew how I felt about being in her cottage and the great house where she spent so many happy hours. But part of me believes she'd understand. Women want to be understood, as Elizabeth wanted Darcy to understand, as Marianne needed Colonel Brandon to understand.

Do you see? This is the power of a writer. To create and breathe life into beings that only live in the stars, far away in the galaxy of imagination. So far away that if we don't give them words to speak or places to go or feelings to feel, they remain lost and suspended in the air of uncertainty. They ask themselves "Who am I? Where am I to find my rest?"

I think Jane knew these people well. I believe she knew someone would understand them someday, and so they are. Millions of people around the world have taken them into their hearts and loved them. And in loving them, they love their creator. Just as I do... My friend Jane.