Did Tom Lefroy Really Wear A White Coat?

Much has been made of Jane Austen's early love, Tom Lefroy, purportedly wearing a white coat in emulation of Henry Fielding's racy literary hero, Tom Jones. However, the only authority we have for this is Jane herself, who, as a mistress of the art of the double entendre, ought not always to be taken literally. In Jane's earliest surviving letter to Cassandra, we hear that Lefroy:

“has but one fault, which time will, I trust, entirely remove—it is that his morning coat is a great deal too light. He is a very great admirer of Tom Jones, and therefore wears the same coloured clothes, I imagine, as he did when he was wounded.”

In Fielding's novel, Tom Jones incurred his wound in a singular manner: he volunteered to enlist in an army regiment, and in a round of after-dinner toasting and merrymaking, one Ensign Northerton jested about the allegedly loose morals of Jones’ beloved Sophia Western: “Tom French of our regiment had both her and her aunt at Bath” - among several other such slurs on her character. This was too much for Jones, who sprang to her defence, accusing Northerton of being an impudent rascal, which promptly earned him a bottle of liquor hurled at his head. Northerton, it turns out, had heard no such thing of Sophia, but was merely retaliating for an earlier jest by Jones. [Tom Jones, Book VII, Chapter XII]

The point has already been made on this blog that it is likely that an Austen family tradition existed concerning Jane Austen's resemblance to Fielding's heroine, Sophia Western. In Tom Jones, the specific reference to the white coat occurs when Jones is recovering from his injury:

As soon as the sergeant was departed, Jones rose from his bed, and dressed himself entirely, putting on even his coat, which, as its colour was white, showed very visibly streams of blood which had flown down it.[Tom Jones Book VII, Chapter XIV].

Austen biographer Jon Spence has given us a further example of Fielding’s use of wounding as a metaphor for being in love. In what is an extremely convoluted plot, Jones engages in a duel with a Mr Fitzpatrick, who wrongly believes that Jones is consorting with his wife, who is in fact lusting after Jones. Jones nearly kills Fitzpatrick, and is subsequently visited in prison by a Mrs Waters.

Earlier in the novel Mrs Waters had gone to Bath in the company of various Irish gentlemen, including Fitzpatrick, who from then on successfully passed her off as his wife (Fitzpatrick’s real wife was the cousin of Sophia Western). Mrs Waters has also once been in love with Jones:

“It was some time before she discovered that the gentleman [Jones] who had given him [Fitzpatrick] this wound was the very same person from whom her heart had received a wound, which though not of a mortal kind, was yet so deep that it had left a considerable scar behind it.” [Tom Jones Book XVII Chapter IX]

However, judging by the remainder of her interaction with Jones, it is by no means certain that her heart has in fact recovered from its wound.


I have already commented in an earlier post that Tom Lefroy’s purported admiration of Tom Jones need not be taken as incontrovertible fact. Fielding was a known favourite with the Austens, who had previously put on family theatrical performances of at least one of his works (Tom Thumb).

Given the numerous references to characters and situations from Tom Jones throughout Jane Austen’s novels, it is just as likely that it was Jane Austen herself who admired Tom Jones, despite what her brother assured the public after her death, when it became incumbent on the family to start protecting her ladylike reputation. Jane's talk of the Toms Lefroy and Jones and their white coats may well have been was a coded reference for Cassandra’s eyes only.[1]

If so, it would have been by no means the only time that Jane Austen employed a literary reference as a metaphor for her own situation. In a later letter she explicitly likened being stuck at her brother’s house with no means to get home again, to the plight of Fanny Burney’s heroine Camilla, stuck in a summerhouse without a ladder to get out.

Note:
[1] Linda Robinson Walker suggested the idea of a coded reference, although I believe it is more sophisticated than the one she puts forward. Jon Spence (Becoming Jane Austen) has pointed out a few character names from Tom Jones also employed by Jane Austen in her novels, although there are several more that have not been listed by him. One of the most telling examples is perhaps “Willoughby”, a surname from Jane Austen’s maternal ancestors but also the real life Justice Richard Willoughby, who appears in Book VIII, Chapter XI of Tom Jones. Readers of Sense and Sensibility may draw their own conclusions, or not, as they please.

A Scene from "The Jane Austen Book Club"

The first time I saw this was when it came out in cinemas and our public library service very considerately put on a screening for library members. The Jane Austen Book Club was funny then, and is just as funny on a second viewing, now that it has finally hit the video shops.

A small detail that especially appeals is that each book club member usually reads a different edition of every one of Jane Austen's novels, reflecting how many times they have been reprinted and how enduringly popular they are. Although Grigg's monster compendium edition is just ever so slightly déclassé and looked down on by the female members of the book club - another amusing touch. But onto one of my favourite scenes from the movie, when the group is discussing Mansfield Park:

Sylvia: [whose husband has recently left her] Okay, look. I love Fanny. She works hard. She puts her family's needs above her own.
Allegra: Mom, it's OK.
Sylvia: And she never, ever stops loving Edmund, ever. [emphatically] Even when he's stupid enough to do something like take up with Mary Crawford. [clatters dishes loudly in kitchen]
Allegra: (whistles)
Bernadette: Oh dear. I thought Mansfield Park would be safe, didn't you?
Allegra: I don't think we're gonna get through all six books.
Jocelyn: Reading Jane Austen is a freaking minefield.

Priceless. Oops, that was an unintentional pun.

On Women Swooning & Running Mad

Excerpts from various sections of "Love and Friendship", in which Jane's heroines make a habit of running mad and fainting at the slightest provocation. Completed six months before Jane's fifteenth birthday, and just hilarious. Her at times idiosyncratic spelling has been left as is.

On witnessing a reunion between their husbands Edward and Augustus, Laura, the narrator, relates: "It was too pathetic for the feelings of Sophia and myself - we fainted Alternately on a Sofa."

Due to their profligate lifestyle, Sophia's husband Augustus is soon arrested for debt: "Ah! what could we do but what we did! We sighed and fainted on the Sofa."

Augustus is carted off to Newgate and Edward follows him to London. The two impecunious heroines then have various adventures in London and Scotland and later encounter an overturned phaeton on the road, which turns out to contain their husbands "elegantly attired but weltering in their blood". Both appear to be dead, so

"Sophia shreiked & fainted on the Ground - I screamed and instantly ran mad-. We remained thus mutually deprived of our Senses some minutes, & on regaining them were deprived of them again-. For an Hour & a Quarter did we continue in this unfortunate Situation - Sophia fainting every moment & I running Mad as often."

Edward revives briefly, but quickly expires, whereupon Sophia sinks into another swoon and Laura runs mad again:

"Talk not to me of Phaetons (said I, raving in a frantic incoherent manner) - Give me a violin-. I'll play to him & sooth him in his melancholy Hours - Beware ye gentle Nymphs of Cupid's Thunderbolts, avoid the piercing shafts of Jupiter- Look at that Grove of Firs- I see a leg of Mutton- They told me Edward was not Dead; but they deceived me- they took him for a Cucumber-" Thus I continued wildly exclaiming on my Edward's death-. For two Hours did I rave thus madly and should not then have left off, as I was not in the least fatigued, had not Sophia who was just recovered from her swoon, intreated me to consider that Night was now approaching..."

The two friends then take up lodgings in a nearby cottage, however Sophia has caught cold due to her protracted swoon and is immediately carried off by "a galloping Consumption":

"My beloved Laura (said she to me a few Hours before she died) take warning from my unhappy end & avoid the imprudent conduct which has occasioned it.. beware of fainting-fits.. Though at the time they may be refreshing & Agreable yet believe me they will in the end, if too often repeated & at improper seasons, prove destructive to your Constitution... [...] Beware of swoons dear Laura... A frenzy fit is not one quarter so pernicious; it is an exercise to the Body & if not too violent, is I dare say conducive to Health in its consequences - Run mad as often as you chuse; but do not faint-".

Laura concludes her melancholy history of the fainting episodes with: "These were the last words she ever adressed to me... It was her dieing Advice to her afflicted Laura, who has ever most faithfully adhered to it."

More on Love and Friendship

Synchronicity is a strange and wondrous thing! Within less than one hour of publishing the Love and Friendship post on Monday, my Janeite friend (who lives in another city altogether) turned up at my workplace unannounced, and loaned me a copy of said book, which also contains the hilarious History of England. I had not asked for it - in fact, she hadn't even been aware that I was currently interested in it.

But what a charming work it is, and parts of it were finished when Jane was the tender age of fourteen and a half, so she had a highly developed sense of social satire even then. The swooning and "running mad" of the heroines of Love and Friendship in particular is a perfect delight. More of that to come.

An Excerpt From "Love and Friendship"

(or as Jane spelled it Love and Freindship), one of her early manuscript works, and being able to write with such skill at such an early age is why we are all still Addicted to Jane Austen.

One evening in December, as my Father, my Mother and myself, were arranged in social converse round our fireside, we were on a sudden, greatly astonished, by hearing a violent knocking on the outward Door of our rustic Cot.

My Father started - "What noise is that," (said he.) "It sounds like a loud rapping at the door" - (replied my Mother.) "It does indeed." (cried I.) " I am of your opinion; (said my Father) it certainly does appear to proceed from some uncommon violence exerted against our unoffending door." "Yes (exclaimed I) I cannot help thinking it must be somebody who knocks for admittance."

"That is another point (replied he;) We must not pretend to determine on what motive the person may knock - though that someone does rap at the door, I am partly convinced."

Here, a second tremendous rap interrupted my Father in his speech and somewhat alarmed my Mother and me.

"Had we not better go and see who it is? (said she) the servants are out." "I think we had." (replied I.) "Certainly, (added my Father) by all means." "Shall we go now?" (said my Mother,) "The sooner the better" (answered he). "Oh let no time be lost (cried I).

A third more violent Rap than ever again assaulted our ears. "I am certain there is somebody knocking at the door." (said my Mother.) "I think there must," (replied my Father.) "I fancy the servants are returned; (said I) I think I hear Mary going to the door." "I am glad of it (cried my Father) for I long to know who it is."'

A Spot of Professional Jealousy

I've been reading this edition of James Edward Austen-Leigh's Memoir of Jane Austen while waiting patiently for a copy of the Oxford edition, which has a few extra bells and whistles.

And finally, we discover the reason for Mary Russell Mitford's nastiness about Jane Austen - she was jealous because Jane was a much better writer! James Edward Austen-Leigh writes:

I remember Miss Mitford's saying to me: 'I would almost cut off one of my hands, if it would enable me to write like your aunt with the other.'

Although poor Mr. Austen-Leigh was not at all happy when he read the "prettiest, silliest, most affected husband-hunting butterfly" comments made by Miss Mitford, and was driven to add a postscript to the first edition, denying that his esteemed aunt had been anything of the sort.

I suppose that might show up a difference between Georgian and Victorian sensibilities, and also between Victorian and modern-day sensibilities. Personally I find the description of Jane's lively, youthful personality far more attractive than the impression of a somewhat dour Jane many people have had - until Anne Hathaway's inspired portrayal turned that smartly on its head.

More on Jane's admirers

About Mr Heartley nothing seems to be known apart from a reference in Jane’s second surviving letter, which shows that he owned an estate and he formed part of her entourage of admirers in January 1796. However, Jane wasn't interested.[1]

Rev. Charles Powlett, another of the entourage, wanted to kiss Jane.[2]

Jane’s early letters hint strongly that John Lyford was another romantic contender. She mentions her “inexpressible astonishment” at avoiding dancing with him, although she was “forced to fight hard for it”, possibly on more than one occasion, as in her next letter she mentions arrangements for getting to the Ashe Ball (her last opportunity to dance and flirt with Tom Lefroy). She is going in the company of her brother Edward, together with John Lyford and the latter’s sister. This is immediately followed by “I understand we are to draw for Partners” - which sounds like someone is attempting to keep her away from Lefroy, and possibly Lyford is trying to achieve by strategy what he could not achieve by asking.[3]

It is not entirely clear if John Warren was also one of the admirers – Valerie Grosvenor Myer lists him as one, and at least one of Jane’s friends certainly thought so. Jane herself said not, offering as definitive proof that he drew Tom Lefroy’s portrait for her, and presented it “without a Sigh”. In 1800, Jane described him as “ugly”.[4]

Thomas Langlois Lefroy, (left) who is now the stuff of legend, was the most serious contender in January 1796 and possibly right through to December 1797, as some commentators think he may then have been visiting Bath at the same time as Jane Austen. By November of 1798, if any shred of hope had remained to Jane, she knew for certain that it was over.[5]

The pompous Rev. Blackall reminds us irresistibly of Mr Collins, and it seems that in 1797-8, Mrs Lefroy had attempted to make a match between him and Jane in the aftermath of the Tom Lefroy débâcle, possibly as a sort of consolation prize. Jane was having none of it however, and her ironic voice leaves us in no doubt of her opinion of the Rev. Blackall and his charms. Fifteen years later, she was marginally more charitable, although the irony is still apparent: “He was a peice [sic] of Perfection, noisy Perfection himself which I always recollect with regard”.[6]

In 1799, Jane had an almost-admirer, as she reported tartly after a ball at nearby Kempshott Park, that “There was one Gentleman, an officer of the Cheshire, a very good looking young Man, who, I was told, wanted very much to be introduced to me; but as he did not want it quite enough to take much trouble in effecting it, We never could bring it about.”[7]

The unnamed clergyman who fell in love with Jane in the summer of 1801 was the brother of a doctor in a seaside resort in Devon (probably Sidmouth or Teignmouth). According to the account of Mrs Bellas, Jane’s great niece, who heard it from Cassandra, the feelings were reciprocated. However before anything further could come of it, the gentleman “very provokingly died suddenly”, in the words of Jane’s great-nephew Lord Brabourne.[8]

Harris Bigg-Wither (at left) proposed to Jane in December 1802, when he was 21 and she was almost 27. She accepted, but changed her mind the very next morning.[9]

In 1805, it is probable that another clergyman, Edward Bridges, a younger brother of Jane's sister-in-law Elizabeth Bridges, proposed and was refused. He paid Jane great attentions in 1805; three years later he and his mother encountered Jane, and their manners towards her were equally “unaltered”, and a few months after this Jane reports to Cassandra “I wish you may be able to accept Lady Bridges’s invitation, tho’ I could not her son Edward’s”.[10]

Valerie Grosvenor Myer cites an Austen “family tradition” that Jane received a proposal from Thomas Harding Newman, a wealthy young gentlemen who owned two estates in Essex (Nelmes and Clacton Hall) and one in Northumberland (Callerton).[11]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Notes:

[1] Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen’s Letters, No. 2 (14 Jan. 1796)

[2] Letters, No. 2

[3] Letters, Nos. 1 (9 Jan. 1796) & 2

[4] Letters, Nos. 2, 27 (20 Nov. 1800); Valerie Grosvenor Myer, Jane Austen: Obstinate Heart.

[5] Letters, Nos. 1, 2, 3 (23 August 1796), 11 (17 Nov. 1798) & 43 (8 April 1805). Linda Robinson Walker “Jane Austen and Tom Lefroy: Stories” and others believe that this last letter, in which Jane harks back to December 1797, refers to Tom Lefroy. The Austens and the Lefroys were then in Bath, and one of Mrs Lefroy’s nephews had been staying with her in the same month.

[6] Letters, Nos. 11 & 216 (3 July 1813). Jane’s great-nephew, Lord Brabourne was of the opinion that “any attachment which existed was rather on the side of the gentleman than of the lady”. Brabourne edition of the letters, published in 1884. Republic of Pemberley.

[7] Letters, No. 17 (8 Jan. 1799)

[8] Marghanita Laski, Jane Austen, citing Mrs Bellas, daughter of Ben & Anna Lefroy; also Lord Brabourne, online at the Republic of Pemberley.

[9] Cited by Laski, drawing on the account of Caroline Austen, probably from My Aunt Jane Austen (1867), printed for the Jane Austen Society, 1952. Also Valerie Grosvenor Myer, Jane Austen: Obstinate Heart, who states Bigg-Wither proposed on 2 December 1802.

[10] Deirdre Le Faye makes this suggestion. See Letters No 46 (27 Aug. 1805), No. 55 (30 June 1808) & No. 57 (7 Oct. 1808)

[11] Valerie Grosvenor Myer, Jane Austen: Obstinate Heart, no further source details given.

A List of Jane Austen’s admirers discovered so far:

January 1796
Mr Heartley
Rev. Charles Powlett (c.1765-1834)
John Lyford (1769-1799)
John Willing Warren (1771- c.1831), probably an admirer, although Jane denied it.
January 1796 – at least August 1796 (possibly as late as December 1797)
Thomas Langlois Lefroy (1776-1869)
Christmas 1797 - November 1798
Rev. Samuel Blackall (1770-1842)
January 1799
An unnamed officer of the Cheshire militia (an almost-admirer)
Summer 1801
An unnamed clergyman who suddenly died
November or December 1802
Harris Bigg-Wither (1781 –1833)
Sometime after August 1805
Rev. Edward Bridges (1779-1825)
Date unknown
Thomas Harding Newman (1779 - 1856)

More details to follow on each of these, but not a bad collection for a spinster who, they tried very hard to convince us, had a totally uneventful life and was “never in love”.

What They Said About Her: Henry Austen

This is what Jane's favourite brother Henry wrote about her, in his "Biographical Notice of the Author", which accompanied the posthumously published (1818) Northanger Abbey and Persuasion.

"Of personal attractions she possessed a considerable share. Her stature was that of true elegance. It could not have been increased without exceeding the middle height. Her carriage and deportment were quiet, yet graceful. Her features were separately good. Their assemblage produced an unrivalled expression of that cheerfulness, sensibility, and benevolence, which were her real characteristics. Her complexion was of the finest texture. It might with truth be said, that her eloquent blood spoke through her modest cheek. Her voice was extremely sweet. She delivered herself with fluency and precision. Indeed she was formed for elegant and rational society, excelling in conversation as much as in composition."

It has been noted that part of Henry's description - "her eloquent blood spoke through her modest cheek" - owes a debt to the poet John Donne, and consequently to Henry Fielding, who employed the same passage in Tom Jones (see my earlier post on this blog: Jane Austen & "Sophia Sentiment").

However, in the same Biographical Notice, Henry (at left) also avows that his sister had her reservations about Fielding. This latter assertion needs to be taken with a large grain of salt, considering the references in Jane's letters and the themes and character names used by her that also appear in Tom Jones. (A few of these have been pointed out by Jon Spence in Becoming Jane Austen, although a diligent reader will discover plenty more that he did not specifically note.)

Re-reading the famous Tom Lefroy white coat reference will reveal that the similarity to Jones is one envisaged by Jane Austen, not one that Lefroy himself professed or was necessarily aware of. "He is a very great admirer of Tom Jones, and therefore wears the same coloured clothes, I imagine, which he did when he was wounded." (Jane to Cassandra, 9 January 1796, emphasis in bold added).


Henry Austen's tribute to his deceased sister can therefore be considered the first of many attempts by her relatives to whitewash her image, whereby the sharp and witty Jane Austen becomes transformed into that sanctimonious creature, Saint Jane. Personally, this blogger much prefers the Jane whose halo is just ever so slightly askew!

What They Said About Her: Sir Edgerton Brydges

Samuel Egerton Brydges was Mrs Lefroy's brother, and lived at the Deane parsonage when Jane was young, prior to the Lloyd family moving there. Brydges later left the district, and from then on had little contact with Jane Austen, so can be counted on as an objective observer as any about her physical appearance.

"I remember Jane Austen the novelist... she was fair and handsome, slight and elegant, with cheeks a little too full. The last time I think I saw her was at Ramsgate in 1803: Perhaps she was then about twenty-seven years old."


From Bridges' Autobiography, published in 1834, and cited by Jon Spence in Becoming Jane Austen.