Mary looked at Melody with a little alarm. She tried to imagine how much money would be involved in abandoning her reservation and booking the flight for another day.
“Wouldn’t that be terribly expensive?” Jane asked.
“I can invent an excuse for you to skip a book signing. Mary can develop some tummy trouble, and we can go sightseeing or something,” she said, ignoring the question asked.
“I think you’re getting drunk,” Mary said.
“No, I definitely am drunk, but you two want a break. Why don’t we go for a river cruise, up—or is it down—the Thames? I’ve always wanted to do that. Oh, we can go to Hampton Court. Wouldn’t that be great to approach it by river?”
Mary had to confess her ignorance of Hampton Court and when it was explained to her, she privately thought the idea of traipsing through a big museum unappealing, but she was so amused by Melody’s enthusiasm that she agreed to it.
Jane also agreed to the excursion and made a reference to Three Men in a Boat,3 which had to be explained to her friends and led to a discussion of whether they could rent a skiff and a caution to bring a tin opener for the pineapples.
1 Regency slang for a homosexual
2 Cheap, but endearing wine, familiar to fans of Rumpole of the Bailey
3 A comedic travelogue penned by Jerome K. Jerome, published in 1889. The full title is Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog).
Chawton
Civility must be our guide
Mary nervously peeked through an opening in the marquee to see hundreds of seated Janeites waiting to see her—or rather Jane.
“Let me see, Mary,” Jane commanded. Mary pulled her head back and allowed her employer to view the crowd, although it then occurred to her why Jane hadn’t observed the crowd surreptitiously on her own, which question she posed.
“I hadn’t thought about that. I suppose I am nervous.”
“Oh great if you’re nervous, where does that leave me?” Mary asked.
“Oh you’ll do fine. I have the utmost faith in you. I think by this point you ‘do’ me in your sleep.”
“I do hope you’re not planning on going anywhere. That crowd looks …” She stuck her head back through the flap. “They look kind of grumpy to me.”
“They’re English; they always look kind of grumpy,” Jane said as a joke, knowing it not to be true. Several hundred Janeites meeting on a pleasant summer day should be in festive mood. She also peeked through the opening again and had to admit they did look unsettled. She began to doubt her choice of excerpt, but it was too late to pick another.
Mary closed the opening and stepped back just as Melody joined them.
“Are you two excited? This is a great turnout! Well, of course it would be with you here and it’s not like they ever not have a capacity crowd, but still, it’s great!” Melody said.
Although Mary’s terminal stripped Melody’s tone of its false bravado, it was still clear to Jane her agent was doing her best to buck their spirits.
“It is very exciting indeed, Melody. And it is thanks to your efforts that I am here. I have never been so conscious of the thanks I owe you,” Jane said.
That praise took Melody aback slightly, which effect Jane had intended, for she hoped to dampen her friend’s enthusiasm so that it might not increase Mary’s concern.
“Oh, well thank you Jane,” she said, turning her head away, and saying, “But I owe you more for all the pleasure I’ve had from reading you.”
Because she had turned her head away and the fact that emotion choked her voice, the terminal was unable to translate her words, but Jane did not need the translation. The look on Melody’s face when she turned back made it obvious what she’d said.
Melody rubbed at her eyes and quickly became businesslike.
“Let’s get away from the tent a little bit. I don’t want anyone spotting you just yet.”
Melody led them to a nearby tree, the shade of which offered Mary some relief from the sun. She still wore a raincoat to conceal her identity; something she thought would stand out on such a nice July day. But several people either actually wore light raincoats or had them about their person or carried umbrellas in anticipation of a downpour, and so her imposture was effective. The raincoat concealed her summer dress, which, while not a true Regency muslin, certainly was evocative of the period with its Empire waist. It would not stand out at most summer parties, although hopefully it would help identify her as Jane’s avatar.
Their difficulty lay in the fact that unlike the North American Jane Austen society, few of the attendees wore Regency costume and so Mary must attempt to blend in.
Shortly another lady, a Mrs Enderby, joined them.
“Ms Kramer please, you must keep Miss Austen from the tent. Several people have seen her looking into the marquee. She will ruin the effect. And there’s a delay while we try to find a way to increase the seating.”
“Tell her I’m standing right here,” Jane said, annoyed at the woman’s reluctance to address her—or Mary—directly.
“A thousand apologies, Mrs Enderby. I confess I’m nervous and wanted to assess the mood of the crowd. I have never addressed such an august gathering before.”
Mrs Enderby turned to look at Mary, although she couldn’t quite meet her eyes. The organizer’s peremptory attitude melted and Mary recognized her awe of meeting Jane.
“Oh, of course, I hadn’t thought … yes, it must be … but you will do well …” The elderly woman had almost addressed Jane Austen as “my dear,” reacting to the avatar’s age, until she remembered to whom she was talking. It was all rather confusing.
“You will do well, Miss Austen,” Mrs Enderby concluded.
“Thank you. I am sure of it, for you and the other members have already shown me such kindness that I feel quite at home.” She said the last with such a knowing smile that Mrs Enderby suddenly knew she was addressing the woman she had long admired. Jane Austen was home, at home among the grounds she had known two hundred years previous, and that knowing smile reminded Mrs Enderby that it was they who had come to her home.
Melody thanked Mrs Enderby, who returned to her task of finding more chairs.
“That was very well done, Mary,” Jane told her avatar. “I only hope the others can be swayed by your charms.”
“Great job, Mary,” Melody also said independently.
After a further five minutes, Mrs Enderby returned and asked that they return to the tent flap and wait for their cue as the afternoon’s presentation would shortly begin, and then she left them to enter the marquee.
From the tent, they could hear the volume of the crowd increase and then settle down.
“Thank you everyone for your patience while we skirted the health and safety laws and brought in more chairs. There does seem to be an unusually heavy turnout …” the emcee said. He waited for the polite laughter to run its course.
“Although some of our overflow crowd may be attributable to the more than usual press coverage today … they also seem to know that we have a special guest.
“But before we begin, we have a few announcements. As you know, Professor Janet Todd was originally scheduled to give her talk, The Real Mr Darcy, and has graciously agreed to reschedule that talk for 3 pm tomorrow in this same marquee. We are sorry for the change, but if you’ve remembered to give us your email addresses, you should have known of this weeks ago.
“Oh, and there is a red Fiat parked on the lawn beside the house. Please move it to the meadow immediately.”
Melody and Mary heard some laughter as apparently a member rushed to move his car. Mary took the laughter as a cue to remove her coat and handed it to Melody.
“Finally, I know that some of you may have misgivings about our ‘surprise’ guest and that you may be uncertain how to address her as you may have never met an ‘avatar’ before. All I can say is that civility must be our guide, something I am sure we have learned from the writings of Miss Jane Austen, whom I now have the
pleasure of introducing. Miss Austen?”
Mary took a quick deep breath, let it out and then opened the flap and stepped through into a marquee filled with several hundred almost silent people. She remembered the advice she had once gotten from a teacher: “Eventually someone will clap.”
She paused after entering, thinking eventually was a very long time until she heard that first tentative clap, then joined by another and another until most of the audience, remembering that civility would be their guide, were applauding.
She offered a little bow to the audience before proceeding to the emcee and took his proffered hand, to which he responded with a little bow as well, and relinquished the lectern to her, still amid the audience’s applause. She stood there a few seconds, waiting for the applause to die down, and then spoke:
“Thank you Mr Carlisle and members of the Jane Austen Society. It is a privilege, an honour and any number of other good and wonderful things to be here today, addressing you on the day of your annual general meeting.
“I should say this is not my first AGM; my most recent was in 2007, although it’s understandable you might have overlooked me.” Mary waited a beat and was rewarded by tepid and confused laughter. “Happily I can now stand before you and thank you for your continued interest in my writing.
“I know many of you are still in shock that the AfterNet has recognized my identity. You have been free to speculate about me for a long time, but now you may be uncomfortable about those speculations … and that I am also free to speculate about you!
“If that is your concern, please know that my long perspective has left me philosophic about criticism, although I can understand that my unkind remarks in the letters Cassandra did not burn might leave you wary of my unvarnished opinion. But again, fear not. I have learned a measure of discipline, especially when I know one’s tweets and postings may potentially be archived for eternity.
“Now let us move to the proximate reason for my visit today: Sanditon. I am, after all, an author on a book tour. I thought I might share with you the circumstances of when and how Sanditon was completed, some details of which may be news to you.
Mary thought she was finally winning over the audience. Jane too thought the attendees had relaxed in their seats. She began to search the faces, wondering if she might recognize anyone from her previous visits or from online conversation, when she noticed Courtney Blake in the audience, four rows back.
“As I’m sure you … oh, that phrase will become so tiresome. I will assume you know more about me than I do. You can imagine how upsetting it was to die. Whatever was the cause of it, I suffered increasingly and by my final days in Winchester I had lost my grasp of the world around me. And then suddenly I found myself free of pain but confused by that range of vision afforded the disembodied and the sight of my dear sister holding me in her arms.”
Jane had now lost track of Mary’s words, her attention on Courtney, who she thought affected a look of boredom. She was tempted to leave Mary’s side but remembered her duty. She was supposedly ready to “feed” Mary lines if required, although that would require knowing where they were in the speech. She forced herself to pay attention.
Mary, meanwhile, thought the reference to Jane’s death had definitely won the audience’s sympathies.
“My first thought was that I had entered a madness brought on by illness, but sober reflection told me that I had passed from life to death. You will realize that I had not the knowledge of the afterlife we now enjoy. In fact my uppermost thought in the days following my death was that I had been found wanting … that I was not worthy of the kingdom of Heaven and that I was doomed to exist neither of this world nor the next.
“You can imagine how slowly the days progressed and how over time I began to lose my reason. But having lost my reason once before as I lay dying, I resolved that I should not succumb again and in my desperation I turned to the one solace that had comforted me all my life, my writing.
“Some people have wondered at my dedication to the craft. I wrote only six novels and had many fallow years and because I did not seek notoriety, some thought I did not seek fame. But Janeites—and my apologies to those who disown that term—certainly know of my keen interest in sales … and reviews. To hear people talk of my stories was the greatest delight, and the greatest agony if they should be so dull as to not like them.
“I also have a reputation as a private writer, with the charming tale of hiding my work in progress at the sound of a squeaking door, not wanting to answer the question, ‘Oh, what are you writing? May I see? How is it going? Where do you get your ideas?’”
Mary paused and Jane wondered if she might have lost her way. She was about to prompt her when Mary cleared her throat, took a sip of water and continued.
“Excuse me. Now my friends and relations would have laughed at this reputation for privacy, for they were my early critics. Some even learned to change the conversation for fear I might ask them to read my latest work.
“After death, however, privacy was not a choice. I must become my harshest critic and my most ardent admirer. Fortunately I had always written for my own enjoyment.
“But your first thought now must be, how could I write without a body or any means of recording my words? This was certainly a challenge but I had a few advantages that you in the modern world do not. First, I was already accustomed to ‘writing in my head.’ Paper was too precious to write heedlessly and so I usually had a very good notion of what I would write beforehand. Second, the time in which I lived still relied on oral traditions. It was a commonplace skill to recite poetry from memory not to mention whole scenes from theatrical entertainments.
“Thus I wrote in my head … well, in my mind … committing to memory what I thought good. And as you can imagine, removing from my memory proved more difficult. As to what I was writing … well it was natural to return to the book I was writing before my death, which you know as Sanditon.
“I had essentially finished the broad outline of the story before my death and with the concentration I could now bring to the task, I was able to complete my writing in a few months time, but I found that my memory of what I’d written was faulty. With each attempt at recitation the story would subtly shift. After the course of a decade, however, I had fully committed the book to memory.
Jane saw that most in the audience responded to the story Mary related. Even Courtney Blake seemed interested.
“I had returned to Chawton with my sister and mother and little moved from that happy home. I gained some measure of enjoyment observing the Austen and Knight families, but after my dear mother and then sister died, my connections to Chawton withered and I eventually left to travel the world.
“During this time, I would occasionally recite Sanditon, to ensure that it remainded intact, but my newfound knowledge of the world suggested changes. So again Sanditon changed in many subtle ways.
“After the discovery of the afterlife and the arrival of the AfterNet, I was finally able to commit my words to a permanent form. You can imagine my surprise, once I had the benefit of spell check, at the amazing discovery that friend is spelled ‘F-R-I-E-N-D.’”1
There was hearty laughter at Jane’s well-known idiosyncratic misspellings.
“So again, Sanditon changed. Then came my decision to finally see it published and you will realize this was long before the AfterNet certified my identity. So in my search for an agent, I was told again and again that what I’d written didn’t seem to be the authentic voice of Jane Austen, that is until my work reached the desk … or rather the battered MacBook of Melody Kramer, who understood that I was not the Jane Austen of Regency England. I was a Jane Austen who walked Flanders Field and stood on the brink of the Grand Canyon and who cheered when England first brought home the Ashes.
“That she chose to represent me then was, outside my family, the greatest gift I have ever received and the greatest debt I will ever owe to any person. Unfortunately, finding a publisher also proved d
ifficult, which is when my agent proposed we find some way of proving my identity. And because of her efforts and the cooperation of both the Chawton House Library and the Jane Austen’s House Museum, you find me here before you, rather uncomfortably wearing the mantle of my own legacy. It is a garment that no longer quite fits, but I still wear it proudly.”
1 Austen titled one epistolary novel (part of her Juvenilia) Love and Freindship. There have been arguments as to how much credit should be given to Austen’s editors.
Excerpt II
Physical comedy
“I know what you are about, Miss Heywood.”
Charlotte looked up in surprise at this and found herself being observed by Mr Sidney Parker.
“I am sure that I do not know what you mean, Mr Parker,” she said, and returned her eyes to the book upon her lap. She meant to dissuade him from any further observations by increasing the intensity of her study of the words that had ceased to interest her half an hour earlier, but he failed to note her scrutiny.
“I know very well of your machinations. And I heartily approve for I think Sir Edward totally unsuited for Miss Brereton.”
At this she was very surprised. “I do not think I like being accused of machinations.”
“Very well, spoils and stratagems then. You see I have observed you as closely as you observe those around you. At first I thought you non judgmental, but then I see you make your opinions of the little community my brother and the august Lady Denham have created.” He chose then to sit—unasked—beside her on the low, stone wall looking out to shore.
“And how do you know that I make these opinions?” she asked, interested in his observation of her despite her desire that he be elsewhere.
“Oh but your face charmingly betrays you. When you witness some behaviour of which you disapprove, you look away and it is like a cloud briefly passing before the sun, and when you look back the cloud has passed and it is sunny again. Your disapproval is like that; hard to detect unless you look for it.”
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