Death and Sensibility

by Elizabeth Blake

  “You noticed it, too?”

  “I don’t see how you could miss it. They seemed pretty intimate.”

  “I wish I knew what his meltdown at the bar last night was about,” Erin said, looking around to see if anyone was listening, but people appeared to be otherwise engaged.

  “I know—that was weird,” said Khari.

  “I was trying to figure out how to ask him without being rude.”

  “He might just lie about it anyway.”

  “Yeah,” Erin said as the people began to emerge from the previous panels. She spied the same nerdy man with the Indiana Jones hat and matching vest. Today he sported what looked like a bone necklace on a leather strap. His skin had the pasty hue of someone who spent a lot of time indoors. He nodded at her and pulled a ham sandwich from a pouch at his side, as if he always traveled with his own food. This was odd enough in a fancy hotel renowned for its cuisine, but was by no means the strangest thing about him.

  “I like your poetry, by the way,” he told Erin.

  “You’ve read my poems?” she said, astonished.

  “You aren’t by any chance related to Samuel Taylor Coleridge?” he asked, chewing. A bit of lettuce dangled from the side of his mouth.

  “As a matter of fact, I am.”

  “I knew it! Artistic inclination—it’s in the genes, you know,” he said with a satisfied smile. “Charles Kilroy, at your service,” he added with a little bow.

  “Where did you read my—” she began, but he shoved the rest of the sandwich into his mouth and headed toward the rapidly emptying room.

  “Sorry, but I’d better find a seat,” he called over his shoulder.

  Erin followed, but by the time she pushed past the people spilling into the hallway, he was already seated along the far wall in the audience area.

  “So you’re a poet as well,” Khari said as they took their places at the long table in front of the room.

  “Sort of,” Erin said, straightening the card with her name on it so it was parallel to the edge of the white linen tablecloth. She disliked asymmetry. In her dresser at home was a little box of single earrings whose mates she had lost. She kept them intending to wear unmatched pairs, but could never quite bring herself to do it.

  “You’re published,” said Khari. “I’d say you’re a proper poet.”

  “I don’t know about that. My work has appeared in fairly obscure literary magazines and journals.”

  “But you have fans.”

  Erin laughed. “One fan. I have one fan.” She glanced at her watch—it was nearly eleven, time to start, but they were still missing two panelists, Judith Eton and Terrence Rogers. As Erin was contemplating what to do, Judith hurried into the room, her face flushed, trailing an aroma of Chanel No. 5. She was elegantly dressed in an expensive-looking charcoal-gray pantsuit and crisp cream-colored blouse with silver pearl broach fastened to her lapel. But she looked harried and out of breath as she sank into her chair next to Khari.

  “So sorry to keep you waiting,” she panted, wiping her forehead with an embroidered handkerchief.

  “We were just about to start,” Erin said as the door flung open and Winnifred Hogsworthy stumbled into the room.

  “Sorry,” Winnifred said, ambling up to the front of the room, lugging her giant bag, which seemed unusually heavy. “Carry on,” she added, plopping down in the front row, setting her bag next to her chair. Erin imagined what might be in it—an apple tart, a baguette, an entire roast turkey?

  Just as she was leaning into her mike to introduce the panel, the door opened, and Terrence Rogers swept into the room. He wore a monogrammed burgundy jacket and bow tie, his gray hair neatly combed and moussed. Unlike Judith, Terrence looked utterly poised, as if he had just emerged from brunch with the president of Trinity College.

  “Sorry,” he said breezily. “I was detained.” Not altering his regal bearing, he walked calmly to the far end of the table and took his place next to Judith Eton, who appeared to stiffen in his presence. Straightening his cuffs, he leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Right, then—carry on.”

  Erin took an instant dislike to him. He exuded the kind of overeducated, upper-class arrogance she had moved to Yorkshire to escape. Bending close to her mike, she introduced the panel.

  “Good morning, and welcome to Jane Austen—Adaptations and Imitations.”

  The first half hour went smoothly, with the panelists opining on the various screen versions of Pride and Prejudice and other novels. When they came around to Sense and Sensibility, it was widely agreed Ang Lee’s 1995 movie was the best screen adaptation.

  “I know it’s sacrilege,” said Khari, “but I liked it better than the book.”

  Erin thought she heard a few gasps in the audience.

  “It’s a very good movie, obviously,” said Judith Eton. “But don’t you find it’s a completely different experience from the more personal one of reading a book?”

  “Quite true,” Terrence Rogers agreed. “In the end, there’s nothing quite like the printed word, is there? I discuss that in the new edition of my book, The Plot Thickens: The Evolution of the Modern Romance Novel.”

  “I don’t disagree,” said Khari. “But the fact remains—I thought the movie was an improvement on the book.”

  “What movie adaptation do you all most think captures the spirit of Austen?” asked Erin.

  Khari again put her vote in for the Ang Lee film, while Judith nominated the 2005 Pride and Prejudice with Keira Knightly. When met with a storm of protest from the audience, who strongly favored the 1995 version, she dismissed the famous Colin Firth-in-a-wet-shirt scene as obvious and needlessly cheesy, scurrilously adding, “It’s not really all that hot.”

  The discussion continued in a lively fashion, with the audience demonstrating as much knowledge of the Austen canon as the panelists. Erin was glad she was moderating, a job in which being meticulously well-informed wasn’t as important as having a knack for asking good questions. She might be better read in general than some of the other conference attendees, but was by no means a specialist in Jane Austen. In her experience, fans tended to not respect panelists who couldn’t match their own extensive knowledge.

  “I’ll tell you what I think,” Judith Eton said. “If Jane Austen were alive today, she’d be writing screenplays and teleplays.”

  “Or stage plays,” said Terrence.

  “Or maybe both, like Tom Stoppard,” Khari suggested.

  “Why do you think she wouldn’t be writing novels?” asked Erin.

  “Because character and dialogue are her great strength,” said Judith. “She’s not much on description or poetic use of sensory details. I think she wrote novels because that’s what was available to women at the time.”

  “But there were female playwrights in nineteenth-century Britain,” Khari pointed out.

  “Maybe it’s because novels were more profitable than plays,” said Terrence. “She did write a few short comedies as a teenager, but seems to have regarded novels as a surer road to financial gain. I have a chapter on that in the new edition of my book.” Judith rolled her eyes at this; Erin agreed that Terrence was plugging his book pretty aggressively.

  “Still, she had to publish anonymously,” Khari pointed out, “because she was a woman.”

  “Good point,” said Erin.

  “For one thing, women didn’t even have the right to sign contracts—they had to have a male, perhaps a family member, do it for them.”

  “But why publish anonymously?” Erin said.

  “It wasn’t considered ladylike to focus on a career,” said Judith. “It was thought of as degrading their ‘femininity,’ the proper role of women being wives and mothers.”

  “So much for the good old days,” said Khari.

  Terrence sighed. “I for one will be very glad when I’m no longer considered part of the criminal class.”

  “You mean men?” said Erin.

  “Yes, and white men in particular.”


  “You’re white?” said Khari, and laughter rippled across the room. The tension that had been building in the room dissipated, and everyone looked relieved.

  “Why haven’t we talked about the zombie books?” said Erin’s new fan, Charles Kilroy.

  “Well, they’re not really proper adaptations, are they?” said Terrence.

  “Still,” said Kilroy “We might have discussed them.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Erin, “but we’ve run out of time.”

  “Thank God,” Terrence muttered.

  Charles Kilroy adjusted his bone necklace and clicked his tongue in a disappointed way, and Erin wondered if she had lost her first—and perhaps only—fan.

  “I want to thank all our distinguished panelists for coming, but most of all I’d like to thank you,” Erin told the audience. “We couldn’t have this conference without you.”

  Her remark was met with enthusiastic applause, but as Terrence passed her on the way out, he murmured, “Bit of pandering to the hoi polloi, eh?”

  She gave him a weak smile, uncertain if he was criticizing her or just making a joke, but she noticed his accent suddenly sounded much less posh. Was he putting on the lower-class accent, or was the refined persona fake?

  As the panel room emptied, Winnifred Hogsworthy intercepted Judith Eton on her way out.

  “You were wonderful,” Winnifred said, tagging along behind Judith, who seemed to barely notice her. “I loved what you said about women having to publish anonymously in the nineteenth century.”

  “It’s not exactly that they had to,” Judith corrected her. “It’s more that—”

  “Yes, yes, I know—you made that quite clear,” Winnifred interrupted. She followed Judith out of the room, her enormous bag banging on her knees.

  “Looks like Judith Eton has an acolyte,” Khari remarked as Erin tidied up. There was a break for lunch until the next panel at two, and she wanted to leave the room clean.

  “Or a stalker,” Erin muttered. There was something unsettling about Winnifred Hogsworthy, and Erin could imagine her as a rabid fan intent on destroying the object of her adoration.

  “Speaking of stalkers,” Khari murmured as Charles Gilroy lumbered toward them.

  “I happen to have a copy of last month’s edition of Negative Capability,” he said to Erin. “The one with your poem in it.”

  “Oh yes,” said Erin. The bit of lettuce from earlier had lodged itself in his front teeth, and she was reminded of a seaweed-covered barnacle clinging to an old whale.

  “I wonder if you would be so kind as to sign it?”

  “I would be honored.”

  “It’s up in my room. If I could just—”

  “Tell you what,” she said. “I’m going to have a quick lie-down, so if you don’t mind, we could meet at five in the bar and I could do it then.”

  His face fell, but he recovered and gave a wan smile. “That would be fine. I know you’re busy. Much appreciated,” he said, and waddled out of the room.

  “You know,” said Khari as they left the room, “a nap sounds like a good idea. Breakfast was so massive that I don’t fancy lunch. I think I’ll retire to my room.”

  “Catch you later,” Erin said as Khari walked through the crowd of people in the hall. She really stood out, not because of the color of her skin, but because of her bearing—she was tall and regal, with the longest neck Erin had ever seen on a person. She had never met a princess—but Erin imagined that she might look very much like Khari Butari.

  A few feet away, Terrence Rogers and Judith Eton were having an argument in front of the coffee urn. They were apparently trying to keep their voices down, but as they were quite nearby, Erin could hear them quite clearly.

  “Always plugging your work, as usual,” Judith was saying. “Some things never change.”

  “You should talk,” he retorted. “No one ever accused you of being indifferent to money.”

  “There are ways to be discrete,” she replied.

  He snorted. “Since when has discretion been your strong point?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough,” she said. And with that, she turned and walked away without looking and back.

  Watching her, Erin made a note to herself to keep an eye on Judith Eton.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Come in,” said Farnsworth in response to Erin’s knock on her door. On her way to a nap, Erin had decided to look in on her friend to see if she was still out of sorts.

  Erin entered the room to see Farnsworth sprawled across the green armchair next to the bed, her stockinged feet resting on the matching stool, watching television. The air was thick with the aroma of fresh popcorn. Onscreen, an unreasonably cheerful young blonde woman in a red overcoat was walking down a charming, snow-covered street so heavily decorated for Christmas that it appeared to be an advertisement for a holiday boutique—except that she wasn’t so much walking as waltzing. Or floating, her elegant boots barely touching the snow-covered ground. And no wonder, given the opulently festive surroundings. Smiling reindeer pranced atop lampposts wound with fresh greenery and frosted ornaments; houses were festooned with tasteful fairy lights nestled amid perfectly symmetrical holiday wreaths. Cheerful red bows on front doors fluttered in the softly falling snow. The spirit of Christmas radiated from every inch of the town, no less from the young woman’s face, which expressed the kind of blissful joy and goodwill that could only be the result of an endorphin overload induced by a surfeit of hot chocolate and butter cookies in front of a roaring fire, while background choirs softly hummed “The Little Drummer Boy.”

  Farnsworth was watching a Hallmark Christmas movie.

  “Have a seat,” Farnsworth said without taking her eyes off the screen.

  “What are you watching?” Erin said.

  “I’m conducting a sociological investigation.”

  “Into what?”

  “I can’t imagine why these movies exist, let alone thrive. They are mindless, they are bland, and they are overwhelmingly popular. Have some popcorn,” she added, pointing to a large bowl on the coffee table.”

  “Buttered?”

  She gave Erin a withering look. “How long have you known me?”

  Erin dug into the bowl and pulled out a generous fistful. “This doesn’t taste microwaved.”

  Farnsworth shuddered. “Good lord, no. Dreadful stuff.”

  “How did you pull this off without a kitchen?”

  “Sam, of course. He can’t do enough for me. For the price of a twisted ankle, I’m being treated like a queen. If Sam had a tail, he’d be wagging it constantly.”

  “You’re onto a good thing. You should sprain your ankle every time you travel.” Farnsworth seemed to be over her pout, but Erin still felt she should tread lightly. “This is delicious.”

  “So?” Farnsworth said. “What do you think? Why do these movies exist?”

  “Decoration porn.”

  “What?”

  “Look at the optics,” Erin said through a mouthful of popcorn. “Every inch of the frame is filled with Christmas decorations.”

  “You mean an entire genre of films has sprung up based on holiday wreaths and Christmas lights?”

  “That and the wistfully optimistic storyline.”

  “Which is always the same.”

  “Exactly,” said Farnsworth. “Part of me wonders why this absurdity exists as public entertainment, whilst the other, more wistful part asks why real life can’t be like this.”

  “Wouldn’t it be boring after a while?”

  “No. No, it would not.”

  “Do you want to hear what I learned today at the panel?”

  “Wait just a minute. I want to see the meet-cute. We don’t even need the volume,” Farnsworth added, muting the sound. “Watch.”

  Onscreen, the fetching young woman in the stylish boots was chasing down an apparently escaped dog before it ran into traffic. The dog was small and white and fluffy, and unbearably adorable. A long leash trailed from its n
eck.

  “How do you know this is the—” Erin began, but Farnsworth silenced her.

  “Shh! Just wait.”

  The young woman caught the dog, and was just lifting it up in her arms when a girl of about ten sprinted around the street corner with the quaint hardware store across from the old-fashioned pharmacy, both sporting an excess of perfectly tasteful Christmas décor.

  “Wait for it,” Farnsworth said as the girl broke into a smile when she saw the woman holding what was apparently her dog.

  “But—”

  “Shh! And … now,” Farnsworth said as the two of them rounded the corner together, bumping into a perfectly dressed, impeccably coiffed young man. His jaw was so square it could have been sanded down to make a table top. He wore a dark-blue pea jacket with a matching cap on his thick, wavy brown hair.

  “Ah, going with the nautical theme, I see,” Farnsworth murmured, helping herself to more popcorn.

  There was much merriment and laughter among the three attractive people onscreen as they dusted snow from their coats, their eyes sparkling with holiday cheer as the little girl explained to the man what had happened.

  “You see?” said Farnsworth. “You don’t even need the sound. In fact, you’re better off without it, since the dialogue is utter drivel.”

  “How did you know they were about to meet?”

  “Oh, pet, these movies are as preordained as a Greek tragedy. Fifteen minutes in, the heroine will have met the Man of Her Dreams Only She Doesn’t Know It at First Because She’s So Busy Sorting Out What She Thinks Is Important in Life.” Farnsworth sighed. “And to think Jane Austen started this mess.”

  “But Jane Austen is full of wit and social satire.”

  “These movies exist in the Irony-Free Zone, pet. They wouldn’t know social satire if it bit them in the big, cheerful ass. Children and dogs,” she added as all three characters onscreen hugged the little white dog, which seemed confused by all the attention. “They make a great fulcrum in the meet-cute, you see, because anyone who loves children and animals can’t be all bad.”

  “And in this case, rather dreamy, I’d say,” Erin remarked, as the young man laughed, his teeth sparkling like freshly fallen snow. “What’s she saying to him?”