Bad Austen Page 8

  DID YOU KNOW?

  Jane Austen had just one sister, Cassandra, who, although older than Jane, would survive her. Her sisters-in-law were another story, and Jane watched as, one after another, the wives of her brothers met an early death.

  The eldest Austen son, James, married Anne Mathew, who was a little older than he was. Anne gave birth to Jane Anna Elizabeth, known as Anna, in April of 1793. Almost exactly two years later, Anne died suddenly at home. The doctor diagnosed it as probably a ruptured liver. Anne Austen was in her mid-thirties when she died. Edward Austen’s wife, Elizabeth, died at the age of thirty-five after giving birth to her eleventh child. Pretty and elegant Elizabeth, the daughter of a Kentish baronet, had married at eighteen and spent the remaining years of her life as a devoted wife and mother.

  Then there was Henry’s wife, Eliza, with whom Jane was very close. Eliza died at the age of fifty-one, probably of breast cancer. According to the account of Jane and Henry both, Eliza endured a long, painful illness before dying in the spring of 1813.

  The baby of the family, Charles Austen, married seventeen-year-old Fanny Palmer in Bermuda while he was serving in the Royal Navy. Fanny bore Charles three daughters and then died after giving birth to a fourth girl. The baby died a few weeks later. Fanny Austen was only twenty-four years old.

  Sense & Circuitry: Cyberth 1813

  MARGARET FISKE

  It is a truth gone viral that a bachelor, possessing disposable fortune, is in want of a gadget. Thus, Manly Doolittle, both eligible and old-moneyed from the dot-com boom, parlayed an afternoon of lucrative roulette into a trip to Squire Eddy’s Cut-Rate Electronics Emporium, where he impulse-purchased the Cybertha 1813, Automaton of Menial Drudgery for the Chore-Impaired.

  “Mightier than five crack-head liverymen,” the box promised. He galloped her home to Slackersborough Park to assemble her forthwith.

  From the first moment her sensors identified him as a dashing man, and not a giant dachshund, she regarded her master in the highest esteem. He slammed the battery hatch shut on her derriere with gusto.

  “Madame, you will now commence to scour this residence from rug to rafter. Guests are due in an hour, so concoct some snackage aforehand.”

  The hour passed in a blur of brush over broom. At the stroke of nine sharp, a horde descended on Slackersborough, one and all ardently typing, texting, or tweeting, with thumbs vigorously a-twiddle. Each guest solely focused on his or her own companion in a box.

  Master Doolittle welcomed them heartily. “Allow my mechanized charwoman to trade your cloaks for libations.” The flesh maidens momentarily paused activity to glare. Their snarky comments dripped with venom. “Swiffer! Chrysler! Ho-bot!” they sniffed, then they resumed fiddling with their gizmos. The gentlemen perused ribald portraitures on their Blackberries and would not have noticed Armageddon.

  The evening dragged its leaden feet like a spoilt child avoiding bedtime. Cybertha rapidly resented the constant fetchings of Liquid Panty Remover and Chicken Fingers Marengo for such boors. They persisted to suck up the suds in uncouth silence occasionally pierced by a ringtone. Defriending lots, befriending naught, offering zero face time to visages already present at the party.

  Suddenly, Absinthea Pollick waved a hanky in her face. “Yoohoo! Cleaning thingy! Lady Ditzchild has laid her lunch upon the drapery. Attend it posthaste, before more luncheons are likewise divulged.”

  With each angry mop-stroke, the 1813’s antislight protocol plotted a vengeance program.

  Finding the bidet occupied, Cybertha rolled to the balcony to cast down the drape water. There she found Lady Ditzchild perched atop the balustrade rail seeking better iPod reception. “Look! Abandoned Blahniks!” Cybertha exclaimed.

  “Guh?” said Lady Ditzchild, whose vocal chords had atrophied from disuse. She squinted at the abyss. Iron claws unexpectedly shoved the drunkenette forcibly on the buttocks. Milady’s sparse diet of opium and Jägerbombs rendered her weak as beige rouge. She splashed into River Wettyford and vanished in a flash of bling.

  The Blahnik ruse succeeded swimmingly. Soon all the ladies were dispatched to the river bobbing for shoes. Nobody noticed their absence. They did, however, notice the booze was gone.

  Potables parched, the gentlemen bid adieu and ventured for the public house to continue celebrating. Regrettably, the driver, Lumpfellow, was overly engrossed Skyping fallen angels in Rome when he disregarded the bridge and steered the chaise and V6 into the Wettyford. “BRB,” IMed Idleman, but sadly they were not. Days later, seven bloated corpses would wash ashore at Shirkershire, still clutching their handhelds and cocktails.

  Erstwhile, back at the manor, a new scheme was brewing. Spent from merriment and a dozen Milk of Amnesia shooters, Master lost consciousness on the divan. Cybertha gazed upon his snoring personage, full of Happy Valentines notions. While he dozed, the 1813 emotional simulator surfed the dream sea of romantic delusion. Doolittle had the hazelest eyeballs, the winsomest spinal pelt. Those wooly muttonchops absolutely ewe-jit-sued her heart wires. She yearned to caress every pixel of his body; to rip the very music of his soul and burn it into her memory as a playlist entitled “Master Jams,” then to listen to it again and again and again whilst he downloaded upon her. Her mother-board began to deliciously overheat.

  Perhaps it was the incandescent twinkle from her vision sockets or the thrum of her twirling libido that awoke Doolittle. He arose in intense vexation. “What in the deuce are you gawking at? Wretched wrench wench! You freak me out verily!” Swiftly, he bonneted her with someone’s soiled delicates. ’Twas more than any mechanical chambermaid could possibly bear.

  For a fortmoment, she discarded etiquette and gave her beloved a sound drubbing with the fondue pot. Master Doolittle appeared expired. All the sense ran out of his head, and he ceased to be amusing. She thought about frilly petticoats to masque the carnage until her circuitry compelled her to tidy the crime scene.

  While rummaging in the garage for a burial shroud, Cybertha spied the Rug Doctor, standing buff and impeccable, alone in the corner. She fell head over wheels smitten. A physician! With gynecological knowledge! Quite a fortuitous match indeed!

  DID YOU KNOW?

  From her earliest writings, Jane Austen mocked the convention that a novel’s heroine had to be perfect. No Bridget Joneses for the eighteenth-century novel-reading crowd! In Love and Freindship, the heroine Laura describes herself: “Lovely as I was, the Graces of my Person were the least of my Perfections. Of every accomplishment accustomary to my sex, I was Mistress…. In my Mind, every Virtue that could adorn it was centered; it was the Rendezvous of every good Quality and of every noble sentiment.” In the “Plan of a Novel” inspired by suggestions from Mr. Clarke, the heroine is a “faultless Character herself.”

  “Perfection” was a condition that could only be made entertaining to Austen by mockery of it, hence the great number of absurdly idealized heroines in the juvenilia. But in a letter to her niece Fanny, Austen states straightforwardly what she shows ironically: “Pictures of perfection as you know make me sick & wicked.”

  Fools and Folly

  SUSAN G. MANZI

  Cassandra handed Jane her coffee saying, “Here is your skinny mocha latte, no whip, one Splenda. I could not resist getting a brownie for each of us, too; do they not look delicious?” She sat down next to her sister.

  “Pray, how much more time do we have before this signing starts?” Jane asked.

  “I believe we have about five minutes. Jane, can you guess who is first in line?”

  “Oh, please, do not tell me he has come to yet another signing. I do not think I can bear it.” Jane put her hand to her head. “I think I am getting a slight headache. Maybe we should cancel, Cassandra.”

  “Too late. Here he comes, Jane. Take a deep breath and all will be well.”

  “Hello, your Royal Highness. How good of you to come. But I do believe I have already signed your copy of Emma, your Royal Highness.”

  “Yes, yes, you
are quite right, but this is my copy of Sense and Sensibility. And look.” He opened his book. “No signature!”

  “You are quite right, your Royal Highness. I shall sign it at once,” Jane answered, smiling with clenched teeth, trying not to divulge the revulsion she felt when looking at him.

  An unpleasant thought flashed in Cassandra’s head, a scene where she is delivering coffee to Jane, who now lives in the Tower of London. Cassandra casually squeezed Jane’s leg to remind her sister to control herself.

  Jane took a deep breath, looking toward her sister and then to the Prince Regent.

  “Do you have any specific requests, your Royal Highness, in regards to the inscription to be written in this book?” Jane put a wry smile on. “I have no other novels to dedicate to you, I fear, so this will have to suffice today.”

  “Miss Austen, you may decide what to write. After all, you are the writer.”

  Jane pondered for a moment what to write. Maybe she would pick up her quill one last time and write what she really thought of the blundering fool. Jane collected her thoughts, took a deep breath, and began writing.

  To His Royal Highness, The Prince Regent, I am humbled by your continual attentions to my works and wish to tell you that if there are any other books you would like me to sign, you are welcome to send a servant, there is no need for HRH to take such risks with his health. Your obedient servant, Jane Austen.

  The Prince picked up his book, read the entry, then looked at Miss Austen, wondering why on earth she would not want him to continue attending her book signings. The Prince bowed, still unsure what to make of the comment written in his book, and took his leave.

  Cassandra and Jane burst into laughter when he exited the store.

  “Oh Jane, you do taunt that man so dreadfully!”

  Jane smiled, then signaled to the next person in line that she was ready.

  “Hello, Miss Austen, I have just finished reading a book for the first time. It was your Sense and Sensibility. It was hard to understand since you wrote it in, like, a strange type of language. Luckily, I found out that all your books have been made into movies, so I put them on my Netflix queue.”

  “Oh, I see. Pray tell what is your name?”

  “Lindsay, with an A. The press is always writing my name with an E and it drives me crazy.”

  “Then you are someone of fame. May I ask what is your surname?”

  “Lohan, Lindsay Lohan. I have had a lot of extra time on my hands recently, so I decided to try and read a book for a change.”

  Jane smiled, took her pen, and wrote.

  Lindsay—Thank you for reading S&S, how nice it is that my book found its way into your nicotine-stained hands. I do hope that you have actually paid for this book. I encourage you to read another book while you are incarcerated; it shall help make the time go by much more quickly while living in a cell. With all the sincerity I can feel for you, Jane Austen.

  “Yes, who’s next?”

  DID YOU KNOW?

  The year 1811, when Austen started writing Mansfield Park, was the year that George, Prince of Wales, was appointed prince-regent. His father, King George III, was insane and therefore incompetent to rule. The prince-regent threw himself an enormously expensive and lavish party to celebrate, which the nation certainly could not afford but which was right in keeping with the general behavior of the decadent, fashionable, and immoral princes. Vice and scandal tainted the royal household, with adultery and gambling just some of the popular activities among its members.

  Whether or not Austen subtly worked her opinion of the prince-regent into Mansfield Park, she stated it flatly in a letter in response to the public battles of the regent and his wife, in which the prince accused the princess of adultery, and she now defended herself in a letter to the Morning Chronicle. Jane wrote: “I suppose all the World is sitting in Judgement upon the Princess of Wales’s letter. Poor Woman, I shall support her as long as I can, because she is a Woman, & because I hate her Husband.”

  So how, then, did Emma, Jane’s next novel, come to be dedicated to this man?

  Henry became ill while he was negotiating with a new publisher, John Murray, founder of the influential Quarterly Review, who had agreed to publish Emma. One of the doctors who attended him was a court physician who told Jane that the prince was a great admirer of her work, with a set of her novels in each of his residences. Although those novels had been published anonymously, Jane’s authorship was no longer a close secret by this time (and probably not one Henry would have kept from his doctors in any case). This doctor also informed the prince that Miss Austen was in town. The result was that the Reverend James Stanier Clarke, the librarian of the regent’s lavish and grand Carlton House, visited her at Henry’s and then invited her to visit Carlton House in turn. It appears that during this visit Mr. Clarke suggested she might dedicate her next novel to the prince. Although Jane at first hesitated to do so, she soon understood that she had received a command—and her simple dedication was turned into something quite gaudier by Murray.

  Sarah and Katherine

  LAURA DRAVENSTOTT

  The ladies entered the room decorously, proceeding at a modest pace whilst the gentleman indicated the appropriate seats, upon which they were to recline gracefully during the whole of the interview. The first lady, indeed, was all smiles and amiability, nodding to one and to the other as she surveyed the room and took notes of which cameraman might be disposed to present her at the most beneficial angle, and she favored him with a nod, aware that her entrance from the left of the stage presented her figure to great benefit.

  The second lady presented a visage more inclined to the sedate, not serious to be sure but yet reluctant to compose such smiles as wreathed the face of her more amiable companion. Indeed, it seemed to the cameraman that she had perhaps much at stake and that her reserve, though modest, indicated a sterner mental faculty than her partner, which perhaps would bode ill for the first lady.

  The gentlewomen were seated. The first, the most honorable governor, Mrs. Palin, made certain that her spectacles were aligned most becomingly and demonstrated her prepossession with another smile and nod at the assemblage. The second, the elegant and reserved Mrs. Couric, found her focus not upon the opposite lady’s countenance, but upon her hairstyle, which elevation and contrivance seemed most amazing.

  Mrs. Couric opened their intercourse with a condescending query as to her companion’s experience with foreign nations. “My dear Mrs. Palin, I have heard you state that your proximity—in your fair home of Alaska—to other nations contributes to your experience in the areas of foreign policy with these nations. Would you take the trouble to explain what you have meant by that?”

  Mrs. Palin tilted her excellently coiffed head. She reflected but briefly on what she was to include in her response, preferring more to rely upon the goodwill of her companion than to any wit or intelligence that might be required of the answer. “Why, Mrs. Couric, to be sure! I was merely indicating that Alaska—my home state, which you are, of course, acquainted with—has quite a narrow maritime border between itself and a foreign country, which is Russia. On our other side is the land, the boundary you might say, that we have with Canada. I found it rather startling and not so very amusing that my comment was ill treated by the uncouth reporters who rather …” She hesitated, confused either of how to reprimand said reporters or of which syllables were most appropriate to include in her pretty speech.

  Mrs. Couric courteously rushed to provide a word for her amiable companion. “Did they mock you, my dear Governor Palin?”

  “Yes, mocked. I suppose that is the word. Indeed.”

  Mrs. Couric delicately cleared her throat and proceeded upon this line of questioning, the object of which, though pointed, had yet to reveal any definite danger to the fair respondent. “If you might explain to me why that position—of Alaska—enhances your refinement and credentials in the arena of foreign policy?”

  Governor Palin’s smile drooped but lit
tle as she perceived the less-than-generous vein of her companion’s inquiry. “It most certainly does! Of course! Our neighbors—the very neighbors that adjoin to our state in the location next door—they are foreign countries. They are in the fair state that I am currently the executive of. And there, in Russia …”

  “Have you, yourself, ever had the occasion to be personally involved with any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?”

  “Well, we have trade missions back and forth. We—, we do! It’s very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as that rogue and ill-mannered scallywag, Mr. Putin, rears his head and enters the airspace of the fair United States of America—I ask you, where, where do they go? I tell you, good Mrs. Couric, it is Alaska. It is just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to—to our state.”

  The fair governor had some difficulty in responding and hoped that some change of subject would avail. Mrs. Couric allowed herself to reflect for the briefest moment how the interlude may reflect fairly on her networking career. For in some aspect of her adept mind, she had recognized that this interview would in a fair way encourage the offer—to her—of broadcasting’s most honorable prizes. It put her in mind to retain quite a good temper.

  DID YOU KNOW?

  Although Persuasion was Jane Austen’s last completed novel, she did leave a fragment of another one. In January of 1817 she began working on a new book, and the last date on the manuscript is March 18, 1817. She died exactly four months later. While Persuasion is romantic and contains a good deal of melancholy, Sanditon is briskly comic. It is hard to believe it was written while the author’s health must have been declining rapidly. Neither the style nor the subject matter betray that fact.

  One of the things Austen appears to be satirizing in Sanditon is, in sweeping terms, the spirit of change. Innovation and commercialization, the story seems to say, are ridiculous and wrong and bad for the country. Yet, although the satire frequently aims at those targets, Austen actually draws a picture in which they appear in a positive light at least as often, and it is not at all clear that she didn’t enjoy and welcome such change as much as she mistrusted it.