little miss austin

1795, one day in December, Kent, Goethe Musham estate.

Edward Austin lived in the best room in the main house of the manor, and the sun shone through the windows every morning.

He already has two children and his wife gave birth to a boy last month.

The newborn is a limp red guy with wrinkles on his forehead.

Alice Austin thought that the newborn milk baby was the scariest animal in the world. It was neither fun nor beautiful to just cry. I really don’t know why adults like baby dolls so much.

Mother, two sisters, and sister-in-law Elizabeth, surrounded the baby in the swaddle, talking about some advanced experiences in raising children that she didn't want to hear at all.Alice was not interested in this at all, and sneaked away while no one was paying attention to her.

There were some servants in the corridor, all very gentle with the master's little sister.Alice took a piece of cream cake from a tray carried by a maid, and walked towards the study while eating the cake.There are many books in the study room of Goethe Musham Manor. Every time Jane comes, she has to borrow a few books from the study room to read at home, and she also plans to find some books to take home to read.

There were two young men in the study: her brothers, Edward and Henry.

Henry was scrambling to carry something in his arms. When he saw it was his little sister, he breathed a sigh of relief, "Alice, why aren't you with your mother?" Henry is 24 and a half years old, and Edward is only 27 years old. man.

When Alice was born, Edward was no longer at home, and Henry also went to St. John's College, Oxford University. Neither of them was close to this too young sister.

"Mom is looking at the baby." Alice looked at Henry suspiciously: what exactly is he carrying in his arms?She is still a child, and a child can say anything, so she asked, "What did you hide just now?"

Henry was a little embarrassed and fooled her, "That's a matter between us adults."

"I'll tell Dad later that you and—you and Edward are sneaking around and don't know what you're doing."

Edward fumbled around on the desk beside him, not knowing what he was looking for.

Henry went over to pick her up, "Don't tell Dad, I'll give you some coins, you can play with them." He took out two coins from his coat pocket and put them in her little hand, they were two 1 shillings.

Alice clenched her little fist without hesitation to protect her little property.The other hand stretched out, "Take it out and let me see."

Edward laughed "puchi" on the side, "Oh, Henry! Our little sister is not easy to deal with."

He took Alice from Henry's arms, took out a 1 pound coin, and held it up in front of her, "Look, this is 1 pound."

"I haven't seen what £1 looks like!" Alice exclaimed, stretching out her little empty hand to take it.

Edward took the coin away, "I can give you 1 pound, but you are not allowed to tell Mr. Austin what Henry and I did secretly just now."

"No problem." Alice stared at the barely worn coin.

Edward suppressed a smile, and put 1 pound into her hand, "Okay, let the maid take you to Mrs. Austin, okay?"

Alice held a huge sum of £1, and she had nothing she could not agree to, so she nodded.

Edward carried her to the corridor and called a maid to take her to Mrs. Austin.

This is a secret between her and her two brothers, even her parents don't know, she is already a "rich" little girl with a net worth of more than 5 pounds.

According to Alice's limited knowledge, the Goldmusham Manor is very, very large. It is located in Kent, far away from Steventon, where Austin's family is located. It takes two full days by carriage.Edward moved here when he was 2 years old. The owner of the manor, Mr. Knight, is a cousin of the Austin family. They have no children, and they like Edward very much, so they want to adopt him.

Alice still can't pronounce the correct pronunciation of Goethe Musham, so she has to call it "Gom" briefly.

Steventon in Hampshire is a small parish, a village that couldn't be smaller, with a population of just over 200.George Austen's stipend was modest for such a small parish, but he was also vicar of the nearby parish of Dean, and the combined income of the two parishes fed him eight—no, nine— — 8 children.

The youngest boy in the family is Charles, 16, and the youngest girl is Alice, 6.Since Alice was born, mother Cassandra was already 50 years old, and father George was 58 years old. Mother always felt that this was an embarrassing thing-most middle-aged women in this era began to die when they were over 40 years old. Entering menopause, and feeling like an old man again, um...

Mum sometimes pretended Alice didn't exist, but Dad liked the youngest child very much and would sneak her a few pennies, and the older brothers and sisters occasionally gave her coins ranging from 1p to 20p or 1 shilling, The amount depends on whether they have money in their hands at the time, and whether they are in a good mood.

Everyone in the Austin family knew that Alice was a little money junkie and worked hard to increase the amount of her private money, but no one knew how much she had.Because Alice has no chance to spend money by herself, she doesn't know what level of purchasing power 5 pounds is.

The Austin couple, their three daughters and one son stayed at Goldmusham Manor for two weeks before returning to Steventon, Hampshire in a four-horse carriage with the Knight family crest printed on it.

This winter is not bad, not too cold.But in terms of the year in the whole of the UK, including Ireland, it's not so good.The crop failures that began last year have directly led to rising prices and the disappearance of many foods from the table. Now the Austin family has to replace half of their staple food with potatoes.

Alice misses those old foods. She hasn’t eaten delicious ones for a few years, but she has to face potato, a high-starch and high-calorie food, especially now that there is no corresponding delicious potato recipe. Potatoes are stewed whole.

Later, dishes such as potato stew were developed. However, no matter how potatoes are made into flowers, it is still a potato, and it will be annoying to eat too much.At this time, Alice really wanted to be a guest at those rich neighbors, so that she could always eat some delicious dishes.

But this is an ordinary family. The table of landed nobles like the Knight family has a lot of ingredients. Alice can come to Goethe Musham twice a year, and every time she comes, she can always bring home some food. .Mr. Knight passed away last year, and Edward is now the owner of Goldmusham Manor. It is not a big deal to send some food to the little sister.

Alice's concept is very simple: eat well, have a little money, as for the rest, we will talk about it later.

Jane Austen, who had just turned 20, had a lot of personal freedom, visiting her neighbors almost every week, such as Mrs Lefroy, who lived in nearby Ash Parish, or her cousin Ellie, who rented a cottage Countess Sha Floyd.

Mother has no problem with Jane going out often. Jane can go home after dinner. Mrs. Lefroy and Cousin Eliza will send their servants to drive her back in a carriage. The safety issue is in the small countryside of Hampshire. Don't worry at all.

Alice also wanted to visit neighbors with this young lady who would bring great reputation to the Austin family in the future, but Jane always disliked her for being too young and was unwilling to take her.

Alice is very depressed.She is too young to go out alone, and her mother requires her to be accompanied by her parents or older brothers and sisters when she goes out, but this means that she has to stay at home most of the time—Jane despises her for being young; Henry recently She is sneaky and often goes to her cousin's house; the eldest sister Cassandra, as an engaged girl, stays at home most of the time to help her mother with housework.

Since January this year, she has been taking classes with Pastor George.In order to supplement the family income, George opened a private school like a private school, and Steventon and some nearby squire families sent their boys to study here.This teaching job brings Austin's family an income of 1 to 80 pounds a year, which is quite good.

An exclusive professional family like the Austin family is between the peasant class and the land aristocracy, closer to the squire class, but not an ordinary squire class.George Austin came from an old English family of great merchants. His father was a branch of the great family, but after the death of his parents, George and his sister had to live with rich relatives.Cousin Eliza is the daughter of aunt Felidafia.

Mama Cassandra also came from a side branch of a large family.

The problem with large families is that there are too many relatives, scattered all over England.The advantage is that relatives will invite them to visit. The two eldest daughters of the Austin family have been to many relatives' homes, sometimes walking around various relatives' homes throughout the year.

It's almost Christmas.

This season is also a time for the country people to socialize. Some squires will have dances at their country houses or something, and fashionable men and women from London, mostly because they are visiting relatives.When the eldest sister talks about the dance party, she is always beaming.This Alice can understand, girls, who doesn't like new dresses and dancing?

Jane also likes the ball very much, she is a good dancer!

Not to mention Henry!During his years at Oxford University, he had learned everything he needed to learn, flirting with young girls at balls was a good pastime, and his lieutenant uniform of the Oxfordshire militia could make him feel good when he was young. He was very popular with girls, especially since he was arguably the prettiest boy in the Austin family.

By the way, I heard that Henry and Tom Lefroy, Mrs. Lefroy's husband's nephew in Ash parish, can be regarded as good friends!

The author has something to say:

*Not wearing books.

*Some characters in the early stage come from the real Jane Austen family, and some characters come from the movie "Becoming Jane".

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List a bibliography and others

The Austin Study

The Biography of Jane Austen

The World of Jane Austen

The Encyclopedia of Jane Austen

"History of European Weathering"

Devil's Garden: A Tale of Forbidden Food

The Spice Tale: A History Born of Seduction

The Book of Spices

"Disease Changing History"

"From Dawn to Decay"

The Romantic Age of Europa

The Cambridge Economic History of Europe

Differentiation and Integration: The Structure of British Society, 1688-1783

"Fiction in 18th Century England"

A History of the Nineteenth Century British Fiction

A History of British Literature in the 18th Century

A History of British Literature in the 19th Century

"English Romantic Literature"

The Great Tradition of English Literature

Romanticism and Realism: A Study in English Bourgeois Literature

"Downton Abbey" British TV series

"Gosford Park" movie

"Becoming Jane" movie

"Austen's Choice MissAustenRegrets" TV Biography

The Real Jane Austen Documentary