Bad Austen (11 page)
Authors: Peter Archer
Mr. Bennet ruffled his feathers, brushed off a few mites, and sat on yesterday’s copy of the
Times
. “If you insist, but I think our Quelizabeth is just as good a match as Quane. Not that we play favorites here, of course.”
“Please, Mr. Bennet. My nerves. I shall start quacking about my nerves if you don’t get off that paper and swim over there. You know how
my
nerves can get on
your
nerves.”
“Quite right, dear. Quite right,” Mr. Bennet said as he hopped into the pond and started swimming toward the slightly foppish figure of Mallard Bingley. He turned toward his ducklings only once and, for a brief moment, wished they were already flying south for the winter.
Nothing is worse than a pair of young ducklings making a last-minute attempt before the pond freezes
, he thought.
It’s how I ended up with Mrs. Bennet. She had a shinier beak then, and a quieter one
.
Mallard Bingley waded back and forth, waiting for Mr. Bennet to formally introduce himself. Mr. Bennet did, and Bingley dipped his head in a low bow, bringing up an offering of lake moss.
Quite the gentleman
, Mr. Bennet thought as he devoured the treat.
“Sir,” started Mallard Bingley. “I dare say that your lovely ducklings are among the most becoming on the pond. It would be an honor to invite you and your ladies to a wading ball this coming Saturday. I have some friends flying in from out of town, and I am sure that your ladies would be quite the welcome sight to them as well.”
Mallard Bingley spread his wings and showed his under-feathers in a gesture of friendship. He was becoming quite agreeable to Mr. Bennet, who thought that perhaps one less duckling to worry about on the flight south would not be such a terrible circumstance after all. He could part with Quane; she wasn’t that interesting to talk to anyway. Or perhaps Bingley might take Quydia; she could be quite the handful during a long flight.
Anyway
, thought Mr. Bennet,
the ducklings could certainly do worse than this overappeasing mallard
.
Mr. Bennet quacked a goodbye and promised to escort his ducklings of marriageable age across the cooling pond on Saturday.
Upon his return to the Longbourn side of the pond, Mrs. Bennet, Quydia, and Quitty immediately flocked upon him. A plethora of quacks filled the air, and Quane and Quelizabeth would have turned quite red in embarrassment, had their feathers the ability to turn colors. Quary, however, never turned her beak from her Bible and secretly prayed that all of her sisters would go off with the mallard and his friends. It was unnatural the way her sister ducks wanted to dance and take tea together.
Simply unnatural
, she thought as she burrowed further into Genesis.
“Well, Quelizabeth,” said Mr. Bennet when the quacking had died down. “I pray that you find the mallard agreeable, but I hope indeed that you shouldn’t leave me for him. Your mother has it in mind to push Quane on him. I think she’d be agreeable to it; he’s got too much sense to take Quydia or Quitty.”
D
ID
Y
OU
K
NOW?
Jane’s nephew, James-Edward Austen-Leigh, wrote this now-famous description of his aunt’s habits of composition at Chawton:
She had no separate study to retire to, and most of the work must have been done in the general sitting-room, subject to all kinds of casual interruptions. She was careful that her occupation should not be suspected by servants, or visitors, or any persons beyond her own family party. She wrote upon small sheets of paper which could easily be put away, or covered with a piece of blotting paper. There was, between the front door and the offices, a swing door which creaked when it was opened; but she objected to having this little inconvenience remedied, because it gave her notice when anyone was coming
.
Quelizabeth looked toward her dear sister Quane, and then across the pond to Mallard Bingley. “He seems rather awkward and dull. I am sure she shall like him very much. For my part, I’ll make sure Quane is available for as many dances as possible. I shan’t like any of his friends, I’m sure. City ducks are all the same.”
“Quite right,” Mr. Bennet said. “Quite right. No city ducks for you indeed, my Quizzy.”
P
ride,
P
rejudice, and
R
evenge
W
ESLEY
S
ILER
It is most fitting at this day and time that I be writing to you in this, your hour of need, my dearest Fitzwilliam Darcy. How I have missed you! I hope that this letter finds you in good stead, and I can only hope you think of me as pleasantly as I have thought of you. I know that your recent incarceration is much troubling, and I have hope that I will be able to bring you some joy in spite of this as you look upon my writing.
Everyone around me tells me you are of dastardly reputation and that it would thusly be better for me not to think more on you, or your recent transgression, which has unfortunately landed you into jail, but I find that I cannot. For I know there is no heat and very little in the way of clean water and facilities in such places. I wish there was a way to make your time there more pleasurable, until the most unfortunate thing which must come to pass has.
I wonder, what is your cell like? Has anything of interest happened as you have looked through that small window of yours with the vertical iron bars? I know it must be dreadfully dull. I myself have been asked to attend a fancy dress party. And have it on most good authority that everyone who is anyone will be there. Would that you could be there as well … if only … if only. I remember the night was beautiful, that rich full moon shining like the sun as we had gone out onto the veranda. I loved the way that your hand dwarfed my own and how your warm lips brushed against mine. My breath quickened as you nuzzled your bearded face against my skin. My heart leapt as you brushed your fingers against the silkiness of my gown, and I knew then I needed to be next to you. After all, I was a woman of five and twenty years, far too long for anyone to be without the comforts of adult company.
But you were not to give me any further interest, no matter how much I played with my hair, batted my lashes, nor even when I had gone so far as to “accidentally” brush my hand across your inner thighs. Nothing … nothing…. It was then, thirty and three nights ago, I paid a visit to the local apothecary and obtained a sleeping draught. You, my sister Catherine, and I then met some nights later in the pub. I slipped the draught into your mead as you were looking over at Catherine and not at me … the one that you should have been concentrating on. The draught took hold, and I helped you from the pub and into a waiting carriage under the auspices of getting you abed and driving us back home.
D
ID
Y
OU
K
NOW?
We don’t know how many copies of
Sense and Sensibility
were printed—750 or 1,000—but the first edition had sold out by July of 1813. Jane Austen had made a profit of 140, and the few reviews in the press were good. Also good were word-of-mouth reviews: It was discussed at gatherings in high society, and people raved about it in letters to family and friends. Even the royal family was impressed. Fifteen-year-old Princess Charlotte wrote, “I have
just finished
reading; it certainly is interesting, & you feel quite one of the company. I think Maryanne & me are very like in
disposition
, that certainly I am not so good, the same imprudence, &c, however remain very like. I must say it interested me much.”
Now, after so many years and so many trials, Jane Austen was seeing her first “child” in print and what’s more, she was learning that people were buying it, and reading it, and finding it interested them much.
It was then that I ripped my own clothes and kicked my knickers off, unbuttoning your breeches as well. When my scream echoed throughout the night, and everyone came rushing to my aid, the draught was then starting to wear off and you were only slightly aware of your faculties. With my histrionics, it was all the easier to make people think that you had done the deed that I myself had contrived. I am thereby sending you a little memento along with this letter, my soiled knickers so that you might enjoy them in the moments before the morrow’s hanging.
Sincerely yours, elizabeth Bennet.
E
mma
I
nterrupted
J
OCELYN
A
RCHER
Emma Housewood, greedy, crafty, and far too wealthy for her own good, was blessed with a somewhat-less-than-sour disposition and the possession of an estate, which many somewhat-better-than-lesser men would happily marry for and united in her form the many blessings of the slightly more than mediocre.
The youngest of nineteen daughters of a most doting and liberal father, Emma had little but that of her own making to ever distress, vex, or otherwise frustrate her. Her mother had died at a young age, mainly of exhaustion, and so Emma kept house for her father once her sisters had married suitable young men of the most noble professions with handsome estates of their own, or at least so was Emma’s impression, though she retained little memory of those things which pertained to beings other than herself.
As her mother was dead, Emma herself had been raised by the most kind of governesses, a woman whose laziness and love of distraction never allowed her to show Emma unkindness in the form of harsh words or deeds. The two were more like sisters than teacher and pupil, or so they were considered, mainly due to the fact that Emma’s rich diet caused slight pockmarks and a less-than-delicate figure which gave her an air of one twice her own age.
When her governess married, Emma was not sure how she could bear the loss. What would she do without another being in the house entirely lacking in any desire to better or edify Emma? How could she live without a friend to verify her own high opinions of herself and low opinions of others? No one but Emma herself could ever esteem her as Miss Tyler had. Sadly, Emma accepted the fact that her one true friend and sister would be the great distance of one hour’s carriage ride away and set upon a most important task, to find one closer whom she could impart her wisdom on and whose will was easier to bend to her own. By luck, the very next day she met the toady and obsequious Hester Merwin, and her newest of projects began.