Of course, there were some who seemed to sail through. Old Mrs Austen, Jane’s mother, produced eight children and was still fit enough to run the busy household in Steventon, as well as the smallholding. After five years of mysterious ‘unfortunate events’, Fanny herself ended up a mother of nine – on top of Sir Edward’s first family – and lived until she was nearly ninety. Most remarkable of all was her sister Lizzie: ‘the Married One’. Having taken the great risk of marrying at eighteen, she gave birth to fifteen living children, and enjoyed a long and happy old age. Were they particularly robust, or was poor Mary Dorothea simply unlucky?

Edward Knight – Ned – mourned his lovely young wife for the standard two years after her death and then, of course, began to look around for a successor. After all, he was still only in his forties, had a large, very young family to raise and, by then, his Aunt Cassandra was an elderly lady who could hardly be expected to dance in constant attendance. So no one was surprised or affronted when he married again. Some, though, did argue with his choice of bride.

Adela Portal was young, cheerful and home-loving; nevertheless, Ned’s eldest sisters thought her nowhere near good enough. Lizzie refused even to attend the wedding: Any set of people where Portals are the finest must be at a lowish ebb. And Fanny was witnessed, at a later occasion, clearly hating them all. Though both ladies had snobbish tendencies, they may perhaps have had a point.

Adela was a flamboyant figure, according to Marianne Knight: very smart in strong pink flounced silk and yellow tussore with lilac – very fat. She dabbled in mesmerism and phrenology, of which some disapproved. She had an uneasy relationship with her motherless stepchildren, overtly favouring her own. And though, generally, the Austens and Knights were never that imaginative when it came to naming their offspring – just look at all the Edwards – Adela took that to extremes. She called each of her five daughters after herself.

But every Sunday morning of her married life, as she paraded into Chawton church wearing her finery, leading her enormous brood – as she took her rightful place in the family pew beside Mr Knight of the Great House – her eye must have strayed to the plaque on the wall. And she would have read, as we can still read to this day:

MARY DOROTHEA, WIFE OF EDWARD KNIGHT ESQRE

HER AFFLICTED HUSBAND CAUSED THIS TABLET TO BE ERECTED,

TO RECORD HIS IRREPARABLE LOSS,

AND IN THE HOPE THAT HER CHILDREN WHEN THEY READ THESE LINES,

MAY CALL TO MIND, AND ENDEAVOUR TO IMITATE THE VIRTUES

OF A GOOD AND AFFECTIONATE MOTHER.

‘THE LORD GAVE, AND THE LORD HAS TAKEN AWAY.

BLESSED BE THE NAME OF THE LORD.’

Acknowledgements