Free Jane Austen by Valerie Grosvenor Myer

a light breakfast, lounged at the open door of his room and chatted with the landlord, Mr Bell. Mrs Powlett came downstairs and walked about a little but said nothing. When she went upstairs again Lord Sackville soon followed her. They went into her room and closed the door. Mr Bell, growing suspicious, asked his wife to investigate. She knocked on the door, but was told not to come in. Mrs Bell went to another room with a connecting door and as it had been locked from Mrs Powlett’s side insisted that it be opened. After some delay, it was. Shutters and curtains were closed, and Lord Sackville was huddled at the far side of the bed. Mrs Powlett indignantly demanded an explanation for the intrusion. Mrs Bell said nothing but when Mrs Powlett grew shrill Mrs Bell accused her of immorality. Lord Sackville stepped forward and asked Mrs Bell to hush the matter up. Mrs Bell said this was impossible as one of her chambermaids knew all about it. Mrs Powlett burst into tears. Lord Sackville ordered Mrs Bell not to upset Mrs Powlett. He left the room and drove away in his carriage. Mrs Powlett went back in hers to Southampton. The subsequent court case resulted in Colonel Powlett being awarded damages of £3,000. Jane Austen was to use a similar story for the Henry Crawford-Maria Rushworth elopement in
Mansfield Park
, though in less salacious detail. In the novel there is merely a newspaper paragraph which uses initials.
    During Jane’s lifetime, divorce was rare and consequently newsworthy. Just before she died Jane wrote to her niece Fanny Knight, ‘If I were the Duchess of Richmond, I should be very miserable about my son’s choice. What can be expected from a Paget, born and brought up in the centre of conjugal infidelity and divorces? I will not be interested about Lady Caroline. I abhor all the race of Pagets.’ Charles, fifth Duke of Richmond, was engaged to Lady Caroline Paget, whose father Lord Paget later became Marquis of Anglesey. He famously lost a leg at Waterloo, and the Duchess of Richmond, Lady Caroline’s future mother-in-law, had given the celebrated ball on the eve of the battle.
    In 1795 Lord Paget, Lady Caroline’s father, had married Lady Caroline Elizabeth Villiers, daughter of the Earl of Jersey and a former mistress of the Prince Regent. Jane Austen detested the thought of both people. Lord Paget had an adulterous affair with Lady Charlotte Wellesley, sister-in-law of the Duke of Wellington. Lady Charlotte’s husband was awarded £20,000 in damages and divorced his wife. Family and friends tried to mediate between Lord Paget and his wife, but he had run away with Lady Charlotte. The Pagets were divorced in 1810. Lord Paget remarried and fathered six children, in addition to four by his first wife. Here were conjugal infidelity and divorces indeed! Jane was not exaggerating.
    There was a family connection, however, and the Austens owed the Pagets a favour. Jane’s brother Charles served on the frigate
Endymion
under Captain Charles Paget, who became Admiral Sir Charles Paget and whose recommendation got Charles a promotion. Jane knew the facts of service life. In
Pride and Prejudice
a private in the militia is flogged. Sailors on one of Frank Austen’s ships were flogged for mutiny and sodomy. Both could be capital offences. Mary Crawford in
Mansfield Park
is making an outrageously rude joke when she says that as an admiral’s niece she has seen enough of ‘rears and vices’. She laughingly adds, ‘Now, do not be suspecting me of a pun, I entreat.’ Such brittle coarseness is completely in character.
    Marital infidelity was not the only social vice of which Jane was aware. At the same time she spotted the ‘Adultress’, she added coolly, ‘Mrs Badcock and two young women were of the same party, except when Mrs Badcock thought herself obliged to leave them, to run round the room after her drunken husband. His avoidance and her pursuit, with the probable intoxication of both, was an amusing