Cassandra & Jane Austen
Cassandra & Jane Austen
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"I
want to show you my Henry and my Cassy, who are both reckoned very fine
children," Mrs Austen wrote to her sister in law, Mrs Walter. "My little
girl talks all day long, and in my opinion is a very entertaining companion,"
enthused her mother.
The little girl was Cassandra Elizabeth Austen, Jane's elder sister by almost three years. Her mother, another Cassandra, already had three boys, James, Edward and Henry to look after and there were three more to come. On the sixteenth of December 1775 on a very cold winter's evening, Jane Austen made her appearance at Steventon Rectory, several weeks later than was expected and her father George, the Rector of St. Nicholas Church, reported her birth the following day. | |
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Cassandra
clearly loved her baby sister and must have spent hours looking after
her and keeping her company. Such devotion has its rewards and Jane loved
her sister in return. Cassandra must have been teacher and playmate in
that busy household, showing Jane how to help with the chores, telling
her stories and listening to her attempts to read them herself. The girls
enjoyed outdoor games, perhaps rolling down the green slope at the back
of the house and playing cricket or ball games with their brothers, Frank
and Charles. As a shy child, Jane may have been happy to quietly observe,
while the assured Cassy chatted and entertained visitors to the Rectory.
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The
girls were encouraged to follow the pursuits they enjoyed. Jane loved
to write and Cassandra painted. She illustrated Jane's 'History of England'
in a humourous style. Perhaps she may even have modelled Mary Tudor on
Jane as a joke. Queen Mary has a round face with red cheeks and we know
that Jane was very conscious of her own florid complexion. This little
book is very funny and the sisters must have had a lot of fun in its making.
It is easy to picture them sitting at the table, perhaps on a rainy day
after their chores were done, quills and paint brushes to hand, laughing
at their ideas and each other's contributions. Jane dedicated this work
to Cassandra and they must have regarded it as a special treasure, because
they kept it all their lives. Besides writing and painting, the girls
learned to sew, play the piano and dance.
They had lessons at home, most probably sharing the tuition their father gave to paying pupils. In 1782 Cassandra was to go away to school. Jane insisted on going, as she could not bear to be separated from her sibling. They set off together with their cousin Jane Cooper to Oxford, to be tutored by Mrs Cawley. The following year, a contagious throat infection struck the school. Jane Cooper wrote to her mother, who immediately came with her sister Mrs. Austen, to take the girls home. Unfortunately, Mrs. Cooper caught the putrid infection and died. The girls were then sent to Mrs Latournelle's Abbey School at Reading, where the attitude to their education seemed carefree and casual. Schooling consisted of a couple of hours each morning and then they were free to do as they pleased. By 1787 their education was complete and they returned home.
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the sisters were apart, they wrote to each other constantly. The letters
that Jane Austen wrote to Cassandra were written from 1796 in her 21st
year until 1816. Unfortunately, none of Cassandra's letters to Jane have
survived and we have to guess their content from Jane's correspondence.
The letters are fascinating and tell us much about Jane's life, although
they were edited by Cassandra after Jane's death. Some of the letters
were burned, and others have snippets cut out of them. I cannot blame
Cassandra. They were private letters, full of every day news and gossip,
written to her only confidante. I think it very unfair, that critics of
Jane's letters make sweeping statements about aspects of her personality,
based on a flippant or passing remark which was written in a letter meant
only for her sister's eyes. I think we should be careful not to read too
much into what are essentially Jane's transient thoughts and feelings.
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The first letter that Jane wrote to Cassandra, wishes her sister a happy
birthday and then introduces us to a young man she cannot stop talking
about. She is obviously very keen on Tom Lefroy, this "very gentlemanlike,
good-looking, pleasant young man" and his name is written again and again.
She tells her sister how shockingly she has behaved with him and seems
to be relating these incidents to provoke a reaction from Cassandra, who
has already scolded her in a previous letter. They have danced three times
in a row, sat down with each other and it seems had little time for anyone
else. |
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One of the first images I wanted to
produce, was that of Jane and Tom dancing together and I thought it would
be fun to imagine the sort of letter Cassandra might have written to Jane,
perhaps warning her to be cautious in her behaviour towards Tom, rather
in the way that sensible Elinor tries to curb Marrianne's passionate excesses
in Sense and Sensibility This illustration and Cassandra's first 'lost'
letter inspired a whole series of paintings and letters, which I later
turned into my book "Effusions of Fancy".
I wanted to add to the few images that we have of Jane and her family and fill in a few gaps in the correspondence. There was an opportunity to rexamine Cassandra's portrait and my painting of Jane is inspired by the original watercolour. I have drawn a younger Jane, with her hair dressed and a hint of a smile but hopefully keeping a flavour of the original. In this letter, 'Cassandra' hopes that the portrait will help to console Jane's admirers, now that she has lost her heart to Tom Lefroy. From there, I went back in time so that 'Cassandra' could illustrate Jane's birth, recollections of childhood and James Austen's wedding to Anne Mathew. Although there has been a lot of debate over the Rice portrait,a painting which may be of a young Jane, I decided to use it as an inspiration for the wedding sketch. Whether it is authentic or not, this image perfectly combines what we know about her features and personality, her intelligence is captured in the eyes and expression, and her whole posture and attitude is one of lively animation. | |
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The
Austen Family gave me a chance to illustrate the whole family in a domestic
setting, sitting at the table. I looked at the portraits of the brothers
and one which may be of Cassandra which is in Jane Austen's house. The
silhouettes of Jane's parents inspired an attempt to capture a loving
glance between them.
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| Cassandra
and Jane always shared a bedroom and dressing room. We know that the wallpaper
was blue and that there were striped curtains.There was a press and shelves
for books, Jane's piano and a looking glass between two windows. Cassandra
must have kept her drawing materials here and I like to imagine the sisters
working together in this room. In the next illustration I chose to portray
Jane in the dressing room, at her writing slope, with visions from Pride
and Prejudice dancing above her head.
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could not resist a winter scene with Jane and Cassandra trudging through
snow in the lanes around Steventon and the accompanying letter is full
of Christmas greetings. However, this was a sad period of Cassandra's
life; her fiance had died in the West Indies in the spring of 1797. She
never considered marriage again and it seems that she kept her feelings
of grief to herself.
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Scenes from Bath follow, with a ball at the Assembly rooms that Catherine
Morland would have enjoyed. Jane stayed in Queen Square in 1799 and I
have her contemplating the picturesque from her bedroom window. I think
these early visits to Bath inspired Northanger Abbey and that Catherine's
delight in Bath must have mirrored Jane's own initial pleasure in the
town. A visit to the Pump Rooms, Bath Fashions and a walk down Bath street
ensue, with letters enthusing about confections of orange blossom for
bonnets and sprigged and spotted muslins, or lamentations on the weather
and affected quizzes, flirts and fops. | |
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| Jane
is supposed to have met a young man in the west country whilst on holiday,
possibly at Sidmouth. Cassandra said that Jane held him in high regard,
but before their acquaintance could be strengthened further, news reached
them of his death. Jane and the young man are pictured saying goodbye
and the letter is written as a love letter from him. For my last painting,
I was inspired by Cassandra's back view portrait. I wanted to see Jane
turn round. I imagined her sitting on a cliff top, looking in unwearied
contemplation of Lyme and then turning to smile at Cassandra, her sister
and lifelong companion. Cassandra wrote in a letter to a niece,on Jane's
death, "I have lost a treasure, such a Sister, such a friend as never can have been surpassed,- She was the sun of my life, the gilder of every pleasure, the soother of every sorrow....." I am sure that Jane would have echoed similar sentiments about the sister who kept house for her, so that she had the freedom to write at leisure. Cassandra nursed her through her last illness until she died, at the age of 41, whilst staying in Winchester. She is buried there in the Cathedral. Jane Austen 1775-1817 Cassandra Austen 1773-1845 | 
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