Mary, of course, was still reeling from the news. By extension, she felt complicit in this attack against Jane, but she also knew that Stephen had no hand in it. He was undoubtedly a Jane supporter. Everything he’s ever said …
But that thought stopped her. Naturally they’d often speak of Jane and she had confided to him some of her frustrations and anxieties and challenges of representing the author. She’d told him numerous funny stories about Jane’s personality. What if he told them to Dr Davis? Did something I say make her doubt Jane?
Then Mary remembered some questions Stephen had asked on their drive to the mountains in Colorado. She couldn’t remember the exact words, but she thought he’d asked her if she ever had any doubts of Jane. She felt a stab of panic that fortunately went unnoticed.
Mary’s guilt, however, was nothing in comparison to Melody’s. How did I miss this? I thought Davis was on board.
She had kept up a regular correspondence with the eminent Janeite, although it had been largely one way. Melody had often tried to arrange a meeting between Jane and Davis, but their schedules had never meshed—not even when Jane and Mary were in Chicago. And Davis had demurred when asked for a book plug, although that was in response to a request from Random House. Oh God, I should have asked directly.
But that was one of the tasks that had gone undone, first because she had taken on too much on her own and then because of her retrenchment after Tamara’s revelation.
Their thoughts explained their silence while Mary distractedly chewed the cardboard bagel. Seattle no longer seemed like the victory lap before the AGM they had anticipated.
Beauty is truth
A whole new perspective on life
“Can I just say how exciting it is to meet you, Miss Austen, and how amazing Sanditon is?”
“Why I think you just have, my dear,” Mary said with a forced laugh she hoped wasn’t too dismissive. She added the laugh because Jane had surrounded her remarks with the [laugh] code. The result was an improvement on Jane’s earlier efforts; at least now the laughter was in the upgraded Elizabeth digitized voice, but it still sounded like someone playing a Beatles song backward.
“Oh, yes, so I have,” the unmistakable graduate student said, with a laugh and a little shake of her head left and right, reminding Mary of the blonde joke involving shoulder pads.
“However I am uncertain how you can know that Sanditon is amazing as you have only just purchased it.”
“Oh, I’ve already read it on my Kindle. But I had to come here to buy a real book so you could sign it.”
“Then I must think of something very special to write for someone who has bought two copies. May I have your name?”
“It’s Alethea … with a TH … and an EA … and another E.”1
“Yes, I think I know how to spell it. Let me think.”
Then Mary heard in her ear, “Mary, sign it …
‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty —
and Jane is her friend. That is all
Alethea need know for now.’”
Mary signed it slowly, Jane repeating the words. She added the signature far faster from long practice and handed the book back to the bubbly woman.
“Oh thank you, Miss Austen, thank you.”
“What was that quote?” Mary shot back to Jane.
“It was me doing rubbish to Keats.2 I hope I won’t be meeting him online. Was she the last of them?”
The bookseller approached them. “Well, I think we’re finally done, Miss Austen,” she said. She still had a frozen smile on her face, borne of her awe of meeting Austen and the novelty of speaking to an avatar.
“Ms Fentriss, how can I express my gratitude for this turnout?”
“Oh, please, I’m only sorry your … that you had to sit here two hours. Isn’t your, aren’t you …”
“I admit I am tired and should enjoy the tea you had spoken of earlier. I wanted to discuss your post about visiting Bath and your delightful visit to Sydney Gardens and thought you might enjoy a story or two about my recollections.”
The bookseller’s eyes lit up, any reserve now lost. “I would be … ecstatic, Miss Austen.”
“Please Miss Fentriss, call me Jane, that is if I might call you Laura.”
“There’s a teashop just a few blocks from here … Jane. And if it’s all right with you, perhaps a few friends …”
“Of course, I would be delighted,” Mary responded with a smile that masked her true feelings. Ms Fentriss left them momentarily to call her friends.
“Oh great, I thought tea would be in the store. Now it’s high tea with a bunch of Janeites,” Mary said. “And we already have dinner tonight with those movie executives Melody arranged.”
“I am sorry Mary, but Miss Fentriss has been very supportive and her blog is influential.”
“I’m sure she’s a lovely woman, Jane, but I had wanted to talk to you about … I wanted to explain … to apologize about Stephen.”
“Oh don’t be tedious, Mary. You have no need … oh, that was quick.”
“They were just waiting for my call,” Ms Fentriss explained as she returned. “Shall we go?”
The teashop was just a few blocks away and was charming. Ms Fentriss had only invited two friends to join them and they arrived in short order. All three were passionate Janeites and Mary told them several stories about Godmersham Park, the other home of Jane’s brother Edward. One story led to another and another and soon the other patrons realized Jane Austen was in their midst.
After an hour of captivating her audience, Ms Fentriss had to remind Mary, “Oh my goodness, the time. I had promised to return you to your hotel by four.”
There were general cries of disappointment at this and even Mary would remain, but Jane reminded her, “Melody was very insistent we be on time.”
Mary made her goodbyes to the other women and patrons and then she and Ms Fentriss went back to the bookstore to obtain the bookseller’s car.
“Thank you so much for meeting my friends, Jane,” she said as they drove back to the hotel.
“It was my pleasure,” Mary said, and genuinely meant it.
“I just want you to know … I don’t agree with Alice Davis … with what she said in that Daily Beast article.”
“That is very kind of you to say, but she only expressed understandable doubt,” Mary said, at Jane’s request.
“Has she even met you?”
“No, we haven’t met.”
“Then that explains it. If she were to meet you, she’d know.”
The store was only a short distance to Jane’s hotel and she was delivered in good time. After a heartfelt parting with Ms Fentriss, Mary and Jane returned to their empty suite.
“She’s not even here yet,” Mary complained.
“We are a few minutes early. Doubtless Melody is busy planning her campaign against Dr Davis.”
“You know you’re taking her attack against you pretty calmly,” Mary said as she removed her costume and prepared to take a shower.
“Did you know that after Emma, I kept a sort of journal where I recorded everyone’s opinion of my books? In fact it was the only journal as such that I ever kept. I tried to pretend I treated each comment equally, that I valued the negative opinions as well as the positive, but truthfully I despised every slur and slander against my children. That is what I called my novels. Isn’t that silly?”
Mary did, of course, know this, as she knew almost everything about Jane, but she only answered, “No, I don’t think that’s silly at all.”
“Being dead does offer a whole new perspective on life, Mary, depend on it. I have had the most amazing months of my life. Just think of that, of this world for more than two hundred years and the last several months have been the most amazing.
“I will not pretend that Dr Davis’s comments are unwelcome, but what of it? She is entitled to her opinion.”
1 Alethea and Catherine Bigg were sisters of Harris Bigg-Wither, Jane’s fiancé for a day. His d
ifferent last name came about because his father had decided to honour the cousins whose property he’d inherited, Manydown Park. Harris’s father changed his son’s name to reflect that, but not his daughters. Jane and the sisters were good friends, even after Jane broke the engagement. Alethea and another sister, Elizabeth, visited Jane frequently during the author’s final days.
2 John Keat’s Ode on a Grecian Urn
Regret
“Oh God, I went too far”
Stephen walked with ever slowing steps to his advisor’s office, his resolve fading with each step. It’s not that he was scared of Dr Davis, although he was; as his advisor, she could make his life hell. It was more that once he confronted her, he couldn’t make allowances for her anymore. He’d put up with her obsession that Jane wasn’t Jane, because at least it was … academic. At first it was fun rummaging through Virtual Chawton and he’d even found information for his own thesis, but lately Dr Davis seemed consumed by the topic.
He stopped just outside the door, reluctant to enter and confront her. He was about to leave when he heard: “For Christ’s sake come in already.”
So he took off his backpack and tried to enter as nonchalantly as he could.
“Hey, Doc,” he said, while trying to casually toss his bag onto a chair, and missed. He grimaced at the sound of his iPad inside the bag hitting the floor. He took a seat, picked up his bag and put it primly on his lap.
Dr Davis looked up from the website she was visiting, peering at Stephen over the top of her reading glasses.
“You came because of that story,” she said matter of factly.
“Well, yes, and because we have a standing appointment,” he said, just as casually.
Neither said anything for about half a minute. Stephen fingered the zipper on his backpack while she pretended to resume reading the website.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.
“No, not particularly.”
“It’s just that it made me look rather stupid in front of Mary and Jane.”
Finally she looked up from her laptop and asked, “Oh, I am sorry, but did it ever occur to you that maybe she’s not Jane Austen?”
“No, it never occurred to me. The AfterNet vetted her and that’s good enough for me. I’ve read Sanditon and it’s good, maybe it’s not Pride and Prejudice but it’s funny and it’s warm and it’s different and pretty much everyone loves it but you.” Everyone but you, you miserable old cow, he thought.
The look she gave him left him with the uncomfortable feeling she had intuited his “miserable old cow” thought. “You don’t see how it’s completely different from everything she’s written?” she asked.
“Sure, but that’s how I feel about all her books. And this book is the product of someone who’s been dead two hundred years so of course it’s going to be different.” He said this with his first note of anger. It wasn’t as if he’d expected her to apologize for making him look bad with Austen, but he had hoped she might acknowledge she’d gone too far in the interview.
“Well, I am sorry I made you look bad in front of your girlfriend,” she finally said.
“Look, Dr Davis, forget about that. The fact is, there’s an official Jane Austen now, and nothing you can do is going to alter that fact. You don’t want to be on the wrong side of this. They’re going to crown her at the AGM, you know it. And if you start bad mouthing Jane …”
“Thank you very much for your advice, Stephen. I shall take it under advisement. And now that I know your opinion, I think it would be wise to not speak of the matter. I would not want to jeopardize your standing with the Austen camp.” She returned her attention to her laptop.
“Fine. I already sent you what I found this week. Then we’re done.”
“For now. I am actually rather busy, so perhaps we can give it a miss today.”
He nodded, rose from his chair, collected his bag and left her office, thinking he’d just thrown away the last two years of his life.
She looked up after he left. She’d actually been looking over the email he’d sent with his latest findings. As usual his work was impeccable and his email filled with little jokes and asides, obviously created before he’d learned about the article.
Stupid woman! You’ve gone too far, and now you’ve antagonized a good student … and you’ve lost your spy.
Her last thought made her feel a little guilty and more than a little sad. She hadn’t known when she’d crossed the line from being annoyed at the idea of an Austen claimant to being an obsessive crank. She still had enough presence of mind to know that’s what she’d become. Literary scholarship was full of obsessive cranks and she cringed at the idea she was now akin to those who questioned the identity of Shakespeare.
But I can prove it if the letter and journal are authentic. And if I’m wrong, then Stephen’s right and I’ve alienated everyone who’s bought into this stupid I Believe in Jane nonsense. Oh God, I went too far.
VOLUME III
Titbits III
Heard outside a JASNA AGM during the street promenade
PASSERBY: “What’s going on? Why’s everyone dressed up?”
JANEITE: “It’s the annual Jane Austen convention. This is the promenade where we walk around in period costume.”
PASSERBY: “Who’s Jane Austen?”
JANEITE: “She was a Regency author. She wrote Pride and Prejudice? You know, Colin Firth, wet shirt.”
PASSERBY: “Oh yeah. Sure, sure. Is she here?”
A large spanner
Davis’s accusation causes anxiety
Cindy walked back into her living room, still in a state of panic over the conversation she’d just finished with Dr Davis, one of the scholars who would be presenting a breakout session. She had called Davis because of what she thought must be baseless rumours of bad feelings between her and Jane Austen.
Unfortunately the rumours weren’t baseless, which she would have known if she’d bothered to pay attention to the Internet, but she’d been too busy with organizing. She and the other North Texas members had been working nonstop to prepare for the AGM, and she hadn’t been following the news of Austen’s book tour.
Then yesterday she started getting calls from Ajala Johnsson and Joan Ray and even Davis’s former colleague Elisabeth Lenckos,1 warning her there could be trouble at the AGM.
And so she didn’t know until yesterday that Davis had publicly challenged Austen’s identity. She quickly looked up the articles and even saw a BBC video of Davis doing so. She was obviously uncomfortable at being questioned directly on the matter and tried to pull back from directly calling Austen a fraud, but clearly she was challenging the author’s identity.
“Cindy, do you have the address for the streaming site? JASNA New York wants it,” Beth Ann asked.
Megan also took advantage of Cindy’s return: “Caroline can’t pick up Austen at the airport. Should I call Barbara?”
Cindy realized all eyes were on her as she stood there, unable to make any sort of response.
“Hon, what’s wrong?” her husband asked. He stood and walked to her and took her hand.
“Somebody died,” Megan said, her automatic reaction whenever someone looked shocked.
“No, nobody died,” Cindy said. She looked around her home, at the three people in the dining room using her table to finish stuffing the goodie bags and at her kitchen where her two sons were making sandwiches. From the open door to the garage she heard the sounds of people making up the information packets.
“Megan, Beth Ann, let’s go in the backyard.” She didn’t mention her husband but kept a grip on his hand and they all left through the sliding glass doors and onto the deck. It was still pleasant outdoors, with just a hint of coolness from the shadow the late afternoon sun cast onto the wooden deck. She took a seat at the table that was weighted down with the placards and banners that would direct participants to the AGM.
“Are you sure nobody’s dead?” Megan asked again.
“Nobo
dy who wasn’t dead already,” Cindy said. She just had the sudden thought that if she died she’d still be able to attend the AGM, and then remembered the uncomfortable talk she’d had with her husband about what they would do if either did die.
She gave a slight shudder that alarmed her husband. “What is it, hon?”
She explained the situation to her two coordinators and to her husband, who in these final days was at her beck and call.
“So we’ve gone from Two Hundred Years of Sense and Sensibility to I Believe in Jane and now it’s what, I Don’t Believe in Jane?” Beth Ann asked.
“What exactly did she say, hon? Did she really say she would denounce Austen?”
“She said … something like … she said she has a document and if Austen would identify it, it would satisfy her. I don’t know what’s gotten into her. I tried to explain the AGM’s not the place to make an accusation like this.”
Her husband disagreed: “I don’t know, maximum exposure and all that. I’m just saying.” Cindy gave him an irritable look. He was a defence attorney and always looked at things from the wrong side.
“Is there anything we can do?” Beth Ann asked. “Well, not us … the larger us. Can somebody try and talk her out of it.”
“I don’t know. She said she wouldn’t publicly challenge Austen at the AGM, although she’s practically done that online. I’m going to call everyone I can think of; maybe somebody can convince Davis this is not a good idea. The other possibility, I guess, is if we can get Austen and Davis to meet before the breakout sessions.”
“How does that help?”
“Well, it only helps if Jane can convince Davis she’s wrong … I mean convince her she’s really Austen. Oh God, this is just awful.” She took a deep breath and continued. “OK, no sense in crying about it. Beth Ann, we need to get everyone in a room together, away from everyone else. Can you find out if there’s a conference room at the hotel we can use?”
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