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of bride and groom together. Lady Portsmouth, aware that her husband was a sadist and necrophile, brought in her lover to live, and had three children by him. They ill-treated her husband, as he had ill-treated his servants and animals. The Earl’s brother rescued him and in 1823 had the marriage annulled. While he stayed fairly sane, Lord Portsmouth showed his gratitude to the Steventon family by inviting them to his annual ball at Hurstbourne Park near Andover. This suggests he had not found the Revd George Austen’s regime oppressive.
    As well as her husband’s pupils and her own babies, Mrs Austen was still concerned with her four-legged and feathered creatures. She wrote to Mrs Walter, ‘I have got a nice dairy fitted up, and am now worth a bull and six cows, and you would laugh to see them; for they are not much bigger than Jack-asses - and here I have got jackies and ducks and chickens … In short, you must come, and, like Hezekiah, I will show you all my riches.’
    Little Cassy was followed by Francis on 23 April 1774, and Jane arrived the following year. The baby of the family was Charles, born 23 June 1779. He was to Cassandra and Jane their ‘particular little brother’, a deliberate misquotation from
Camilla
by Fanny Burney, in which the heroine is referred to as ‘my own particular little niece’.
    The relationship between the fictional sister and brother Fanny and William Price in
Mansfield Park
reflects Jane’s pride in her nautical brothers. Both Frank and Charles rose to be admirals and Frank was knighted after becoming Admiral of the Fleet. Even as a small boy he showed initiative. Aged seven, he saved up his own money, bought a chestnut pony called Squirrel for a guinea, hunted on him for a year or two, and sold him at a profit of one hundred per cent.
    The Austen boys liked nothing better than to follow the hounds after a hasty breakfast in the kitchen. Fox hunting was a new and fashionable sport. William Price, in
Mansfield Park
, enjoys a hunting party when visiting his sister. To tease Frank, his brothers insisted on calling his pony ‘Scug’. His own nickname was Fly.
    He entered the Royal Naval Academy at Portsmouth just before his twelfth birthday, followed later by his young brother Charles. Frank, although intelligent, was not specially good at classical languages. His flair was for mathematics, and he wisely insisted on the navy as a career. This was no inconvenience to their father, for once boys were accepted there, they received free board and tuition. When Frank finished his studies, he left with a glowing report. He joined the frigate HMS
Perseverance
in order to learn practical seamanship for a year. In 1788 he sailed for the East Indies. He became a midshipman in 1789 and stayed on the
Perseverance
for nearly two years before moving to HMS
Minerva
. He was promoted lieutenant at the end of 1792, and did not return to England for another year. When Frank died at the age of ninety-one, in his pocket was a letter of fatherly advice, stained with sea water and almost worn out.
    The rest of the family relied mainly on each other for companionship. Mrs Austen wrote to Mrs Walter at Tonbridge in Kent wishing they were a mere thirty miles apart instead of eighty. She assured Mrs Walter that only distance prevented her from visiting as often as she would have wished. Educated people, or even those who could read, were thin on the ground. The moral tone was low. Among the peasantry bastardy was cheerfully accepted and considered no disgrace. In 1800 one-third of the nation’s brides were pregnant. Many parishioners were foul-mouthed, including the apparently wealthy but crude squire Harwood who lived at Deane House, next to Deane church, and habitually decorated his sentences ‘with an oath’. Mr Harwood was so ignorant he once asked Mr Austen, ‘You know all about these things. Do tell us. Is Paris in France, or France in Paris? … my wife has been disputing with me about it.’