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Authors: Stephanie Barron
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whole, Mr. Rundell?” Eliza asked.
He pursed his lips. “The settings are decidedly out of mode, Countess—none but a dowd would be seen to wear them now without they was reset—and the price of gold has sadly fallen in recent weeks—”
“Tush.” I made as if to rise from my chair. “You were mistaken, Eliza, in your opinion of Mr. Rundell. I think perhaps I should have followed my own inclination, and consulted Mr. Phillips in Bond Street.”
“Not so hasty, if you please,” he said, lifting one hand. “The settings are old and the price of gold is fallen sadly—”
“—At the height of war, Mr. Rundell? That is not what we hear from my brother the banker. The price of gold has, if anything, risen—”
“But it is undoubtedly true,” he continued as tho’ I had not spoken, “that the gems themselves are of the finest, and should fetch a pretty penny. If you will trust me with the lot for a matter of two days, I will undertake to state my very best price. You won’t get as good from Phillips in Bond Street nor Gray in Sackville Street neither. They’re warm men, but they haven’t Rundell’s means.” 2
“Very well,” I answered, with just the faintest suggestion of unwillingness. “Write out a receipt for these items, if you please, and I shall return in two days’ time.”
“Done.” Mr. Rundell scrawled his name on a square of hot-pressed paper and handed it to me with a flourish.
Eliza was so relieved to have the business concluded, that it was quite an hour before I could tear her from the contemplation of the amethyst bracelets strewn about the shop’s casements.
1 Jane’s elder brother, Edward, was adopted by his distant cousin, Thomas Knight, who bequeathed extensive estates in Kent and Hampshire to Edward.— Editor’s note.
2 To be “warm” in Jane’s day was to be wealthy. According to Charles Greville, a contemporary of Austen’s, Rundell was so rich he was able to lend money to his bankers during the financial panic that followed Waterloo. When he died at the age of eighty, Greville notes, Rundell left the largest fortune then registered under a will at Doctors Commons—some million and a half pounds.— Editor’s note .
Chapter 6
The Cyprian on Parade
Wednesday, 24 April 1811, cont.
∼
O UR ERRAND HAPPILY CONCLUDED AND THE weather holding fine, we ordered our hackney carriage to Gunter’s establishment, and regaled ourselves with pastries and tea, followed by a thorough debauch among the volumes of Lackington’s book shop—a vast room lined with shelves and clerks poised on the steps of ladders necessary to reach them, a vision so replete with the printed word that I stood as one stunned, incapable of voicing a request for full seven minutes. Mary Brunton’s Self-Controul then offered as the ardent object of my writer’s soul—it being the only novel talked of in London this April—but in vain; among all that wealth of books, not a copy of Brunton was to be had. Eliza quitted Lackington’s with a volume in the French, and I with some poems of Cowper and a dissatisfied heart. Of what use is it to reside for a time in the very centre of the world, surrounded by every possible whim or comfort, if one cannot obtain Self-Controul?
Having spent all our money, we made a virtue of necessity, and extolled the benefits of exercise in walking the remainder of the way to Hans Town.
“Only think, Jane,” Eliza observed as we bent our steps towards Hyde Park, “what it shall be to find your book in Lackington’s window! I am sure I shall faint!”
“It could never be deemed worthy of such prominence,” I said despairingly. “It shall be thrust with the other lamentable publications beneath the counter, there to languish unread—or abused by every rational critic as the most vulgar and silly effusion yet offered by an ill-educated ape-leader. What can I have been thinking, Eliza, to throw Henry’s money after such folly? —When there are already so many
He pursed his lips. “The settings are decidedly out of mode, Countess—none but a dowd would be seen to wear them now without they was reset—and the price of gold has sadly fallen in recent weeks—”
“Tush.” I made as if to rise from my chair. “You were mistaken, Eliza, in your opinion of Mr. Rundell. I think perhaps I should have followed my own inclination, and consulted Mr. Phillips in Bond Street.”
“Not so hasty, if you please,” he said, lifting one hand. “The settings are old and the price of gold is fallen sadly—”
“—At the height of war, Mr. Rundell? That is not what we hear from my brother the banker. The price of gold has, if anything, risen—”
“But it is undoubtedly true,” he continued as tho’ I had not spoken, “that the gems themselves are of the finest, and should fetch a pretty penny. If you will trust me with the lot for a matter of two days, I will undertake to state my very best price. You won’t get as good from Phillips in Bond Street nor Gray in Sackville Street neither. They’re warm men, but they haven’t Rundell’s means.” 2
“Very well,” I answered, with just the faintest suggestion of unwillingness. “Write out a receipt for these items, if you please, and I shall return in two days’ time.”
“Done.” Mr. Rundell scrawled his name on a square of hot-pressed paper and handed it to me with a flourish.
Eliza was so relieved to have the business concluded, that it was quite an hour before I could tear her from the contemplation of the amethyst bracelets strewn about the shop’s casements.
1 Jane’s elder brother, Edward, was adopted by his distant cousin, Thomas Knight, who bequeathed extensive estates in Kent and Hampshire to Edward.— Editor’s note.
2 To be “warm” in Jane’s day was to be wealthy. According to Charles Greville, a contemporary of Austen’s, Rundell was so rich he was able to lend money to his bankers during the financial panic that followed Waterloo. When he died at the age of eighty, Greville notes, Rundell left the largest fortune then registered under a will at Doctors Commons—some million and a half pounds.— Editor’s note .
Chapter 6
The Cyprian on Parade
Wednesday, 24 April 1811, cont.
∼
O UR ERRAND HAPPILY CONCLUDED AND THE weather holding fine, we ordered our hackney carriage to Gunter’s establishment, and regaled ourselves with pastries and tea, followed by a thorough debauch among the volumes of Lackington’s book shop—a vast room lined with shelves and clerks poised on the steps of ladders necessary to reach them, a vision so replete with the printed word that I stood as one stunned, incapable of voicing a request for full seven minutes. Mary Brunton’s Self-Controul then offered as the ardent object of my writer’s soul—it being the only novel talked of in London this April—but in vain; among all that wealth of books, not a copy of Brunton was to be had. Eliza quitted Lackington’s with a volume in the French, and I with some poems of Cowper and a dissatisfied heart. Of what use is it to reside for a time in the very centre of the world, surrounded by every possible whim or comfort, if one cannot obtain Self-Controul?
Having spent all our money, we made a virtue of necessity, and extolled the benefits of exercise in walking the remainder of the way to Hans Town.
“Only think, Jane,” Eliza observed as we bent our steps towards Hyde Park, “what it shall be to find your book in Lackington’s window! I am sure I shall faint!”
“It could never be deemed worthy of such prominence,” I said despairingly. “It shall be thrust with the other lamentable publications beneath the counter, there to languish unread—or abused by every rational critic as the most vulgar and silly effusion yet offered by an ill-educated ape-leader. What can I have been thinking, Eliza, to throw Henry’s money after such folly? —When there are already so many
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