by Peter Archer
“Oh, what a wonderful welcome we have received. I presented myself at a fine establishment on the evening of late. to be sure, I shall find my perfect gorilla in the UK.” Snooki had ensured that her signature poof was of greatest proportion prior to her introductions the evening before.
“My dear Snooki, I pray you find me not indelicate to your feelings, as I am compelled to converse with you on a matter most sensitive to your good, if not questionable name,” began J Woww. (You are familiar with J Woww, the irascible chit whose own moniker aptly denotes her more than ample and artificial décolletage?)
“Surely, you mean not to refer to the kindly escort provided to me by the gentle constable who transported me to the pokey on the Jersey Shore. He afforded me every consolation and comfort following the faint I succumbed to, which found my visage planted in the sand.”
“To be sure, it is the continuance of your lack of prudence that lays fear upon my soul. I find it necessary to confer upon you a matter in need of your most urgent attentions. I shall speak plainly, dear Snooks, that you find yourself too often, too far in your cups.”
Sensing the demise of the well-intentioned advice afforded by J Woww, the paternal “The Situation” deems it prudent to speak his mind and devise some sense of order. “The concerns you share for Snooki may well be deferred by way of GTL (Gym, Tan, Laundry) as it always returns me to an affable condition. Come, ladies. Let us trifle no more over these matters, which, to be sure, affect us all.”
Considering the weakened pallor experienced by even less sunshine than the Jersey Shore can afford, the girls concede and the happy party departs. Once again, a tragic consequence has been averted by “The Situation.”
The Weasleys Visit Netherfield Park
KIMHPARK
“Did you get it? Did you pick up the dance tonic like I asked you to?”
“Yeah, I got it,” moaned Ron, showing Hermione the bottle he picked up from the apothecary. “But must we do this, Hermione?”?
“Oh, stop grousing. You promised. You can’t back out on me now. Besides, I’ve already bewitched the book to make space for us in the story, and we mustn’t keep the pages waiting.”
“Yes, but I didn’t realize it would be a Jane Austen story. I thought it would be a Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. You know, something with a little rough and tumble? Remember last week? Wasn’t that fun?”?
Hermione glared at Ron, folding her arms across her chest. Ron looked down at his shoes. “How ’bout a nice dinner out?” he tried. “Wouldn’t that suffice?”?
“No, a dinner out would not suffice, Ronald. It’s our first wedding anniversary, and I want it to be elegant. I want to dance with you at Netherfield Park, alongside Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy. Now put your jacket on, please. It’s time to apparate.”?
Ron shrugged into his dinner jacket. Hermione took Ron’s hand in hers, tapped her worn copy of Pride and Prejudice with her wand, and pop! the two of them vanished into the pages of Austen’s nineteenth-century England. The neigh of horses, crunching of carriage wheels on gravel, and giddy salutations of the arriving guests echoed across the lawn to where the pair stood under the trees, taking in the scene. They had a good view of the great house—its windows thrown wide, tapestries pulled elegantly aside, and servants making the rounds with silver trays of champagne and hors d’oeuvres.?
“Oh, isn’t it lovely?” said Hermione. Ron frowned. It might be, he thought, once I get a hold of those choice meats and cheeses. Ron and Hermione made their way through the arriving guests and into the great hall. Ron grabbed two glasses of champagne, swallowed the first in one gulp and poured his dance tonic into the second. He was just about to put the second to his lips and swallow when Hermione gasped and grabbed his arm, “Oh, Ron! It’s Elizabeth Bennet! See? In the ivory gown? And look! Mr. Darcy is applying for her hand to dance. See how she’s caught off-guard by his request and says yes without really thinking it through?”
“Uh huh. That’s nice,” said Ron, stepping in front of a servant passing with an hors d’oeuvres tray. Ron put his full glass in the middle of the tray and proceeded to gobble up the sweets surrounding it. The attendant stood holding the tray, waiting, eyes bulging, for Ron to pause for breath; the poor man had never seen anyone take such liberties with the meats and cheeses.
“Oh look! Here comes Mr. Darcy!” said Hermione. Fitzwilliam Darcy glided toward them, and seeing the full glass of champagne on the now-empty hors d’oeuvres tray, he promptly picked it up and drank it down. Ron frowned and Gulped.?
“Let’s go,” said Hermione. “The dance will be starting soon, and I want to be as near to Lizzie and Darcy as possible.” The dancers took their places on the floor in two long lines across from each other. Ron stood next to Darcy, the man himself, who appeared to be no worse for wear from consuming the tonic. That’s good, thought Ron. I didn’t want to drink that stuff anyway. That witch may have given me a dud for all I know.
No sooner had Ron finished this thought than the musicians began playing and Mr. Darcy skidded across the floor on his knees, turned a somersault, and spun on his head. No one else moved. Jaws dropped wide as Mr. Darcy grabbed his partner around the waist and spun the unsuspecting damsel across the floor with a flourish and pomp unlike anything Hertfordshire had as yet seen. Ron watched in shock. Hermione’s eyes bulged. Stealthily, she withdrew her wand from her handbag, preparing to fix the situation when most unexpectedly Darcy threw Elizabeth into a low dip, and the crowd applauded uproariously. The dancing partners blushed and bowed and then withdrew from each other.
“Lizzie, what have you done to poor Mr. Darcy?” asked Charlotte Lucas.
“I have no idea,” replied Lizzie, who looked after Mr. Darcy with more earnest intrigue than the story should have allowed at this point.
Hermione turned a suspicious eye on Ron. “What did you do?” she asked.
“Nothing. Honestly. You know, there’s really no accounting for how English gentry will behave.”
“Yes,” grinned Hermione, brushing away the last stray bits of meat and cheese crumbs from Ron’s lapel. “No accounting, indeed.”
DID YOU KNOW?
With all her intellectual sophistication and a satirical wit that would have shone in the most urbane of London salons, and despite the pleasure she found in visiting London and other cities, Jane Austen was at heart a country girl. She deeply loved the Hampshire countryside where she grew up, and she was overjoyed to return to the country once again in later life. Like her heroines, she was a great walker, and country walking is much more pleasant exercise than city walking—at least when the roads are dry. When the roads were wet, the Austen girls wore pattens—inelegant but practical overshoes designed to keep the feet dry on sloppy roads. Austen’s pleasure in this activity calls to mind Pride and Prejudice, in which Elizabeth Bennet, another witty country girl, walks alone to Netherfield, “jumping over stiles and springing over puddles with impatient activity, and finding herself at last within view of the house, with weary ancles, dirty stockings, and a face glowing with the warmth of exercise.”
Mr. Collins (Part I)
TAMI ABSI
Elizabeth invited Charlotte on a walk around her family’s estate.
“Elizabeth, you mustn’t scold me,” Charlotte whined. “I am twenty-seven and fear spinsterhood.”
“Oh, my dear,” Elizabeth replied, “how could you marry Mr. Collins? Never has a man possessed such a countenance. His jowls grew as a scaffold to sustain his overly large, square, turned-up nose, and the jowls continue in the endeavor.”
“I must remind you,” Charlotte said, “he owns your family’s estate; it is legally his as your eldest male cousin. You choose to insult him; though, he has no inclination to greedily turn the seven of you out in the streets. He only wishes to provide and care for you. In return …” Charlotte’s voice trailed off.
“My reason for alarm is sound, I assure you. His demeanor makes my blood run cold. When he came to our house a month ago,
he ate nothing. He talked with pomposity through the dinner, and he stared at each and every one of my sister’s necks,” elizabeth said.
“Necks or necklines?” Charlotte questioned.
“Oh, I respect him as a minister. I must say I meant necks, not bodices.”
“Odd,” Charlotte said, crossing her arms over her chest. “He was drawn to my general neck area the other night, and his demeanor changed.”
“When?” Elizabeth asked.
Charlotte scurried along with Elizabeth’s long strides and spoke between gasps. “Let me remember. Yes, the moon was large and low; it was the night of the full harvest moon. He began to inhale around my neck, not like a man enjoying a scent, but like a dog hungering after meat. When I questioned him, he claimed to be fasting, and the lack of food had made him lightheaded.”
“How long does he fast?” Charlotte continued. “In his whole life, and even as a child, have you seen your cousin eat?”
“No,” Elizabeth stated. “No, now that I think of it, I haven’t. Never have I thought much on the matter—why he makes me feel as he does. Neither have I seen him eat nor has my father allowed him access our pigs. Recently, when he came to dine, Father directed our servants on the matter saying it wouldn’t be wise to allow Mr. Collins in the barn.”
Charlotte and Elizabeth had arrived at the barn. Leaning on the fence rails, they both considered the pigs in the pen. Charlotte said, “What harm could he do the pigs?”
“I recall when we were children and Mr. Collins was not yet in knickers, Mr. Collins and his father, my uncle, came to visit. My father found one of our suckling piglets dead, and Father blamed my cousin. It was the last time they visited during my uncle’s life.”
“How could a very young child battle a 350-pound sow to gain access to a piglet? The sows are fierce when protecting their young,” Charlotte said.
With the sun waning, Elizabeth shivered a bit, and after suggesting they return home to the hearth, she said, “Charlotte, I know the wedding is three months away. Please come and stay with us for a time before the wedding. Mr. Collins is generous in his visitations throughout the rectory. We expect to see him often, and if you stayed here, he could call on you in an appropriate manner without raising gossip.”
Charlotte accepted the invitation to stay with Elizabeth Bennet and her family. Soon after her arrival, a screech wafted from the barn. Mr. Bennet remarked, “Sounds as if a servant discovered something amiss.”
Mr. Bennet threw a cape about his shoulders and had almost arrived at the barn with Elizabeth and Charlotte scurrying behind, working against the wind to both sprint and tie bonnet strings in the same moments.
The servant woman ran from the pigpens and shouted to Mr. Bennet, “Oh, dear sir, what sort of minister is Mr. Collins? Has Lady Catherine misunderstood the man’s calling?”
On the ground, in the pen, a dead piglet lay. The sow rested while feeding her young, and amidst the piglets Mr. Collins lay. He drank heartily, attached to one teat. He raised one finger, dripping in mud, to direct whoever stood behind him to wait, for he showed no inclination to rise and bow properly.
Charlotte fainted, and fortunately, Mr. Bennet caught her. Mr. Bennet shook his head as he murmured to Elizabeth, “This I have feared for years. Mr. Collins longs for a child, and I fear if he has his way, the child will have nothing to eat. His mother did her best, giving him suck for years and hiring wet nurses thereafter. Now, his diseased desires have brought him again to this.”
Elizabeth watched Mr. Collins’s legs twitch with delight in the mud. “I am not unashamed,” she exclaimed.
Mr. Collins (Part 2)
TAMI ABSI
The next day, Mrs. Bennet spent the remainder of the day soundly in bed. Her remonstrations kept the servants too busy to attend to truly important matters. Elizabeth knew dinner would include but one course. They would probably eat common meat pie—it being all the kitchen staff could manage between their fanning and fawning over her mother.
Near dinnertime, Mrs. Bennet called for Elizabeth and Charlotte. Charlotte looked earnestly concerned, for she did not know there was no need for worry. Elizabeth, well aware her mother’s nervous fits could easily be cured by a turn in events, sat at the bedside and dutifully patted her mother’s hand.
Mrs. Bennet adjusted her bed cap down to cover any stray hairs. “Oh, my dear Charlotte, I am sure this news concerning your fiance has provided you with quite a shock. This event has torn my nerves apart.”
Mr. Bennet had joined the trio, feigning distress for his wife. “It is my concern, my dear, that one of these days when your nerves are torn apart, they may not rejoin. Over twenty years, I have been distressed to see the puzzling apart of your nerves. I await the parlor trick to see a whole nervous system functioning once again.”
Elizabeth said, “Father, teasing Mother now is not sane.” She turned toward Charlotte and said, “Shall we focus on matters of greater weight? Surely, you will not marry Mr. Collins after learning he is discontent to break bread in the natural sense.”
Mrs. Bennet sat upright for the first time that day. “oh, but the wedding must go on. Should my dear nephew’s instability be publically canvassed, all might be lost. Think of it. our Lady Catherine will take the pulpit from him. His Majesty would hear of the dishonor, and our family would lose our estates. I beg you, Charlotte; do you wish us to be without hearth and home?”
Charlotte leaned forward and glanced at both women, but then rested her eyes out the window toward the copse. “No, nor do I wish to be without.”
Elizabeth alighted from her chair and stood in front of the window, thus regaining her friend’s full attention. “Charlotte, how could you marry a pompous, monstrous man to whom the entire community gives respect and admiration? Would you allow your life to be a lie?”
Mrs. Bennet yanked on her bed cap, causing it to sit askew. “Mr. Bennet, please help our daughter to see that Charlotte’s marriage would keep our lives tidily together; there would be no sin in it. taking a man from his appointed pulpit should not be our doing. If god puts him there, we are doing the good Lord’s work to keep him there. Don’t you agree, Mr. Bennet?”
Mr. Bennet exhaled a married man’s sigh. “I agree that keeping the truth from those in power gives them little ammunition to fire in our direction. Simply because one keeps the truth, one doesn’t become a liar, my dear.”
Charlotte took an opportunity to speak and seated herself amidst the crossfire of glares and glances. “Let me compare evils. Would it be better to marry a man like Mr. Darcy? The whole of society has recognized his narrow-minded and indecent behavior. I would marry a man respected by the whole, and for the other part, when he says that of which I might be reasonably ashamed, I can join the whole and look away. For it has been established he is respectable, though sometimes lacking the right words for a situation, but respectable. We only need to agree with him to manage his instability. He mustn’t make known to the whole that which would draw indivertible attention.”
Mrs. Bennet exhaled a married woman’s sigh. “You only need be a good girl for the next ten years, and then you will be an old married woman, allowed a day in bed every now and then.”
Elizabeth stood and only her father heard her stamp a stubborn foot beneath her skirt. “I guess it has been settled, and although I believe it to be settled poorly, the heaviest weights do sink first. Is Mr. Collins joining us for dinner to watch us eat it?” Elizabeth asked.
“My nerves will not have it, I’m afraid,” Mrs. Bennet declared. “The servants have orders to bring my dinner to my bed.”
Mr. Bennet arose, too, and took Elizabeth’s arm. “We are not to speak of this at dinner. Now that my brother has died, only the four of us are privy to this matter, and we must keep it. Tomorrow, we will join Mr. Collins in the library for an interview. Miss Charlotte, I will enlighten you how nourishment might be provided to your husband, and we shall not speak of it again.”
DID YOU KNOW?
&nbs
p; Some readers of Persuasion, Austen’s last completed novel, believe there is still something “incomplete” about it. It is quite a bit shorter than any of the other novels with the exception of the early Northanger Abbey, and the William Elliot plot thread has been seen as slightly underdeveloped. Austen started writing The Elliots—her working title for Persuasion—in 1815, and by the time she completed it, her health had begun to fail. It is possible that she wasn’t able to do everything with this novel that she would have liked to do. Still, many people choose Persuasion as their favorite Austen novel. While no one could deny that the dazzling Emma was more technically brilliant, Persuasion is surely the most moving of Austen’s novels, and that might explain its special place among them.
Jane Austen finished Persuasion on July 18, 1816. Or, rather, she wrote “Finis” at the end of the manuscript but then felt dissatisfied with the ending and rewrote it, discarding one chapter entirely, revising another, and adding new material. Because of this, we have two manuscript chapters—the only original manuscript pages from the finished novels.
The original ending, which is usually appended to modern editions, was first published by Jane’s nephew, who included it in the second edition of his Memoir in 1871. As he so correctly notes, the manuscript chapters are inferior to the revision but in themselves are quite worthy pieces of writing. In them, Anne Elliot plays a more passive role in letting Captain Wentworth know her feelings for him, which happens when she assures him she is not engaged to William Elliot. Admiral Croft has insisted that Wentworth ask about this because he wants to vacate Kel-lynch Hall if she and Mr. Elliot have any desire to live there before the Crofts’s lease is up. But Anne is the one responsible for the original separation between herself and Wentworth, and she deeply wounded him when she broke off the engagement, so it is fitting that her words should affect their reconciliation in a more active way than this.