Bad Austen (20 page)
Authors: Peter Archer
Ooh! He angered her so with his crotchetiness that her chest would heave at the very thought of him. He, with his bad taste and conservative ways, was no match for a wild and untamed thing such as herself. one would be unwise or unobservant to say that her motivations for this visit, though murky with the unhinged emotion of a single woman who was inebriated and had not been to bed in several weeks, might have included a plan lesser than to kill him with kindness.
But, oh my, how her bitter tune changed once she caught sight of his palatial pleasure dome! The velvet fainting couch! Rotating bed with optional harness and chains! Purple and leopard-print window dressings—the height of her own tastes and such magnificent display of the man she did not know he was! And his bookshelves! They were filled to the brim with stories that had captured her youthful heart:
The Kama Sutra
,
The Story of O
, and—gasp!—
The Happy Hooker
.
His place was the perfect blend of sass and sexual ambiguity she had been secretly waiting for her entire life! She hadn’t considered marriage before (particularly not to a man after finding emma), but after a night with his frisky servants and olympian-like playmate, how could she not consider?
When he finally arrived at the party, he serenaded her with a lovely song about from whence he came. She had never been serenaded before and felt a ping of jealousy from emma. But she would do well to find her own man now and live the kind of life that Elizabeth now cherished, with white picket fences adorned with velvet drapery and electric barbed wire.
There was such a fuss between the two girls on the car ride home concerning Elizabeth’s newfound fondness for Dr. Darcy.
“Surely, you don’t take the professor seriously. I mean, think of your family.”
“I wouldn’t think they’d mind much, since he has a large house and servants. What do you have?”
“I think he must have put some kind of spell on you. It’s as if you’re dreaming.”
“Oh, I shouldn’t not say but that I felt as if I might be. Could it be the effect of some kind of magical spell or power that Dr. Darcy has me under? Could it be I have fallen in love?”
“Most likely it’s the poor mock imitation of Pimm’s we consumed during the revelry last night. given the host’s affinity for madness, I’d not be surprised if he hadn’t heightened our drunk with hallucinogens.”
“I say it’s not a crime, to dream and to want more. That’s what I say, ‘Thou shall not dream it, though must be it.’”
“Now you’re being just plain childish and foolish. Really, get your feet on the ground and look at the rational evidence. What has he done to you?”
“I don’t know, but I definitely feel different. Wait—what’s this? Could it be?” She lifted the hem of her jacket and skirt to reveal a fishnet-stocking-clad leg. “I doth believe I feel quite sexy.”
V
irtue and
V
oracity
J
ENNIFER
H
ARGIS
Eleven men stood on each side of one of the lines that had been drawn on the lawn. The gentlemen on one side were wearing red regimentals, while the others wore white. As they assembled in an orderly manner and bent over, those who wore white snarled at those who wore red and the men in red did likewise.
Mr. Jonathan Higney-Pickering looked straight ahead at Mr. Andrew Wilerman and said, “good day, Mr. Wilerman. I have it on excellent authority that your mother is of questionable reputation.”
At which point Mr. Wilerman became warm and stated that Mr. Higney-Pickering was of no consequence and his information was unsound.
Further down the line Mr. Henry Fitzgammon took the opportunity to express the following to Mr. Thomas Badhus-band: “good sir, I will shortly run toward you with great speed, thrust you to the ground, and trample upon your hindquarters.” Mr. Badhusband took no offense, but rather smiled and invited Mr. Fitzgammon to try.
There was an oddly shaped ball on the ground, and one of the gentlemen in red reached down to touch it as the gentleman behind him, who was standing erect, began to shout with little concern for such ill behavior as would not befit a gentleman of his position. The man with his hand on the ball thrust it between his legs so that the gentleman behind him was forced to put his own hands out to catch it, lest he be injured.
This insufferable act set the gentlemen in white propelling themselves toward the men in red, as if all those in red were equally as responsible for holding the ball as the two gentlemen who had actually touched it. As promised, Mr. Fitzgammon did indeed thrust Mr. Badhusband to the ground and trample his hindquarters.
The gentleman in red, who had the ball, fearing for his safety, threw it to Mr. Higney-Pickering, who proceeded to run around, over, and under all of the men in white who stood before him and did not stop until he reached the area at the end of the lawn that had been colored red. Having ended his journey, he threw the accursed ball down and began to walk around it in much the manner that a chicken might.
Several men, who had been staying out of the way of the men in regimentals, began shouting and throwing yellow handkerchiefs on the lawn. It had become evident that Mr. Badhusband, now able to stand, had elected to retaliate against Mr. Fitzgammon, had grabbed the lower portion of Mr. Fitzgammon’s head-dress, the part which he wore across his face, and pulled with such abrupt force as to cause injury to him. Because Mr. Badhusband was wearing white, the gentlemen in red determined that this incident was of less importance to them than the happy occasion that had been precipitated by Mr. Higney-Pickering’s achieving the end of the lawn.
There was a great deal of excitement, which grew even more unseemly when Mr. Wilerman’s mother ripped away the bodice of her gown and ran across the lawn, thus reinforcing Mr. Higney-Pickering’s statement that she was indeed of questionable reputation.
D
ID
Y
OU
K
NOW?
Many good writers are bad spellers, and Austen didn’t have the benefit of computer programs to check her work for errors. But spelling was also not completely standardized in the eighteenth century, and people were more accepting of variations. Even proper names were sometimes spelled—or “spelt”—in different ways. In a famous reference to
Pride and Prejudice
, Austen wrote that she had “lop’t and crop’t” it—where we would insist on “lopped and cropped.”
It might be distracting to read whole novels in which common nouns were capitalized in the old-fashioned style Austen frequently used, but some modern editions of Austen’s texts bring every instance of her erratic and charming spelling into line with current usage, and so we also lose “Swisserland” and “ancle.” Somehow Sophia’s dying warning to Laura in
Love and Friendship
, “Run mad as often as you chuse; but do not faint,” loses something when the spelling of the word “chuse” is updated. (Fanny Price, too, is amazed to find herself “a chuser of books.”) The flavor of a different era is subtly retained with such details, whereas many writers of sequels to Austen’s novels today, in the mistaken belief that such words are authentically “period” terms, use language that was archaic even in her time!
Because she wrote before the age of certain strict—and rather pedantic—grammatical rules, Jane Austen also makes what many today would deem grammatical errors, using “which” for “that” and “they” as a singular pronoun. (Many today are careful to say “he or she” rather than fall into that agreement “error.”) However, we should also note that Austen cared enough about correct language to make use of it in her novels as a way of signaling character.
In
Northanger Abbey
, Henry Tilney jokes about ladies who have a “a very frequent ignorance of grammar,” and his sister complains that he is always finding fault with her “for some incorrectness of language.” He wittily complains about how the word “nice” has completely lost its original precise meaning and “now every commendation on every subject is comprised in that one word.” (We might note that his complaint has lost none of its relevance.) Although he is being playful rather than serious and pedantic when he makes these remarks, he clearly does care about the way language is used. Henry Tilney is very closely identified with the author’s attitude and opinions throughout the novel, so we can infer that Austen entered into his feelings on this subject, too.
One of the things that impresses Emma (to her surprise) about Harriet’s would-be lover Robert Martin is the quality of the writing in the letter containing his marriage proposal: “There were not merely no grammatical errors, but as a composition it would not have disgraced a gentleman.” Of course, Emma must talk herself out of this approbation in order to keep her predetermined opinion of him as “illiterate and vulgar.” Lucy Steele in
Sense and Sensibility
truly is vulgar, and her speech is littered with grammatical errors: “It would have gave me such pleasure,” “It would have been such a great pity to have went away,” and “Anne and me are to go.”
Lydia Bennet has grown up in the same household as articulate, eloquent Elizabeth and Jane, whose speech is grammatically correct, but she is quite different from her sisters in a number of ways. It is no coincidence that Lydia, who risks ruining herself and disgracing her entire family by living with a man outside of marriage, also says things like, “Mrs. Forster and me are such friends.”
Incorrect, imprecise, vulgar language is a clear reflection of character in Jane Austen’s writing, but the same cannot necessarily be said regarding speech that is entirely but merely correct, which might indicate nothing more than a good education.
P
ride and
P
aparazzi
W
ENDY
S
IMARD
When Paris and Nicky were alone, the former, who had been cautious in her praise of Justin Bieber before, expressed to her sister how very much she admired him.
“He is just what a young man ought to be,” said she, “sensible, good humoured, lively; and I never saw such happy manners!—so much ease, with such perfect good breeding!”