And then she realized that she had—for a moment—taken this man’s book seriously. She realized the danger that such a book might do. After all, even without Courtney Blake’s book, the Jane Austen she thought she knew wasn’t the Jane she’d come to know. The Jane who was her client could never be simply described as a spinster author. She’d often wondered at the thought that Jane had died a virgin and like many, considered the idea tragic. So another part of her hoped that Jane had found some sexual release, which just spiralled back to a basic disgust of having to talk about Jane having sex.
Melody walked back to her office but rather than go inside and see her boxed belongings, she decided to lock up and go for coffee. Perhaps caffeine would help her find a tactful way to tell Jane the news of the book.
English country dance
Some experience required
“No, you’re the first couple, but you have to wait one go round with your partner because we have an uneven number of pairs,” the instructor said patiently, despite Mary’s frequent mistakes. Mary had gotten confused when she reached the end of the line and wanted to immediately re-enter. It was the goal of the afternoon that Mary should complete one dance without any glaring error.
“Sorry,” Mary said to the instructor, who nodded pleasantly, probably because of the substantial amount of money the dance group was being paid to teach Mary English country dancing.1
“Why don’t we take a break?” the instructor suggested. “I think some of us could use water.”
Some of the members of the dance group nodded enthusiastically; they had been dancing several hours and about half the members were of a certain age and half were much younger. It was mostly the younger dancers who appeared winded.
Mary went to her chair for water and a towel to mop her sweat. She sat down exhausted.
“You might have said something,” Mary said silently to Jane.
“You said you wanted to do this on your own,” Jane replied, impressed at how easily Mary was now using the terminal. They had maintained a running commentary while Mary stepped through the dance, which might have led to Mary’s inattention.
“This is a lot more tiring than I would have thought,” Mary said, still silently. “I’m sweating like a pig.”
“That’s hardly something Jane Austen would say, Mary,” Jane admonished her avatar, even though she remembered saying something similar at an assembly dance.
“Sorry,” Mary said. She’d gotten used to making apologies the past few weeks of training, which involved everything from English country dancing to deportment to honing her accent with an actual Hampshire native. She was bone tired, and yet she enjoyed it all in a way she had never enjoyed her acting lessons. Having Jane beside her gave her a confidence that she lacked before.
“Why aren’t the old people … I mean the elderly … tired?” she asked, noticing that the older members had not sat down.
“They move with a minimum of effort and keep better time to the music, while you are always late or early. And for now, be more aware of your partner; he knows this dance well and keeps trying to help you, but you are too absorbed in your mistakes.”
“Well, aren’t we the expert,” Mary said, although she smiled when she said it.
“I’ll have you know I was dancing when your I don’t how many times removed grandmother was still in nappies.” Jane instructed the terminal to convey her words with the laughing digitized voice, a sound so awful that Mary grimaced.
“Oh God, Jane, never use that voice again,” she said out loud and attracted the attention of those sitting nearby.
“Sorry,” she said again, pointed to her earbud and shrugged her shoulders. She pretended to be on the phone rather than be seen talking to a disembodied person. Austen’s agent had asked her to remain inconspicuous and to pretend that she was a movie star who’d landed a role that required she learn country dancing. Melody wanted to keep Mary’s identity a secret. Mary suspected Melody wanted to be able to quietly pick a replacement avatar should she prove unequal to the task.
“What is wrong with that voice?” Jane asked.
“It makes you sound like a drunken hyena. A male drunken hyena. On laughing gas.”
“Oh, I … I didn’t know that.” Jane was a little flustered. She’d chosen the voice based on a recommendation from a disembodied support group. She’d learned the coding necessary to switch into different voices and had downloaded the voice into the terminal. She’d been so proud of her technical skills and so it was a let down to learn that she still didn’t fully appreciate the limitations of communicating with her avatar.
“All right, everyone, that’s enough of a water break,” the instructor said. “We still need to teach Ms Crawford a triple progression and do it flawlessly.” She then turned aside to Mary, “And if you would pay better attention to your partner instead of talking to your disembodied friend, we might just get this done today.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Mary said, surprised to learn the instructor recognized that she was an avatar. The revelation so surprised, in fact, that she didn’t notice Jane’s silence for the next half hour.
1 English country dancing generally consists of two or more pairs of couples who exchange positions in a series of figures or movements. At the beginning of the dance, partners face each other in two lines. There are odd and even couples and usually at the end of a set series of movements, a couple moves (progresses) up or down the line. When a couple reaches the end of a line, they must wait a turn until they can progress back through the line. Specific music accompanies each dance. Country dancing was popular in Jane Austen’s time, but after the Napoleonic Wars was largely supplanted by new forms such as the quadrille (which became square dancing) and the waltz.
Business decisions
A large income is the best recipe
for happiness I ever heard of
“The latest offer is from Miramax, the Weinsteins,” Melody informed Jane. They were sitting in Melody’s apartment, she in her old lady BarcaLounger that was out of place in Tamara’s chic decor, and Jane sitting on the couch, just barely in range of the terminal on the coffee table.
Tamara was already in bed after a vexing day at work. Jane had tried to console Tamara about the inequities of women in the workplace, but the topic was so out of her ken that she feared she offered little practical advice. And yet Jane admired and even envied a little Tamara’s life as a professional woman.
Jane and Melody, however, had also spent a busy day at the avatar agency, with Jane and Mary perfecting their skills and Melody pretending to be an interviewer. Melody thought Jane and Mary had improved tremendously. Mary no longer looked as if she were hearing a Who and managed to simply look thoughtful while waiting for Jane to tell her what to say. Mary also had gained enough confidence to start talking before Jane completely finished her reply, although that predictably resulted in a few missteps.
Jane’s performance was still uncertain and this puzzled Melody, until Mary suggested that perhaps Jane could start employing texting shorthand.
“Every one of her responses is grammatical and well thought out, with the proper punctuation, but it takes a while,” Mary said, which for her was close to complaining. Actually, Melody thought Mary’s skill considerable and her attitude exemplary. She never complained at the demands placed on her, which Melody attributed to her theatrical training. She felt chagrin at having objected to Mary.
Jane, however, was getting crankier and crankier. Jane had assumed she could assemble her thoughts quickly and coherently, not unlike her ability in various chat rooms and instant messaging. She prided herself on forming complete, complex sentences that Elizabeth would be proud to utter, or pithy epigrams—“My good opinion once lost, is lost forever”—that Darcy would toss.
“You’re trying too hard,” Melody said later, after Mary left. “Stop trying to write dialogue and just talk like you normally do and let Mary make it sound clever.”
“What?”
“S
he’s pretty good at the accent and we’re Americans. We’re programmed to think anyone with a British accent is smarter than us.”
“Do I have an accent? I really don’t know what my digitized voice sounds like.”
Melody laughed, which Jane saw but of course could not hear. “Yes you do, because I downloaded and installed a new voice for my terminal. It’s called ‘Elizabeth’ appropriately enough, and it does kinda sorta have a British accent.”
Melody looked a little embarrassed at this revelation.
“You can change my voice, whenever you like?” Jane asked.
“Yes, although I’ve only changed it the once. The default voice and the other voices that come with the terminal … well none of them sounded right.” The admission made Melody recall the shock the first time she heard Jane’s digitized voice come through her terminal. She’d emailed and chatted with Jane and become friends and then took her on as a client without ever hearing her voice. She’d accepted Jane’s claim that she was the real Jane Austen almost from the first. She had to admit she’d made her decision on purely subjective and emotional reasons that were happily later substantiated by fact. But the first time she heard the flat digitized voice, she suddenly doubted her support of Jane.
Which led to the search for a better-digitized voice and specifically one with a British accent. “Elizabeth” was a rather posh, frosty voice and was correspondingly expensive, but the first time Melody heard it, she knew she’d found the perfect voice for Jane, and her misgivings vanished.
“What voice does Mary’s terminal use?”
“Gosh, I don’t know,” Melody replied. “We should ask. It makes a big difference.”
Jane was silent for a space, thinking ruefully of her recent attempt at programming the terminal and Mary’s reaction. She returned to their previous topic: “Sorry, I was just looking at the transcript. You said we had another movie offer for Sanditon from Miramax. That is another production company?”
“Well, it’s essentially Walt Disney nowadays, unless they sell it off, like all the rumours say will happen. They make a lot of the ‘quality’ movies—including several of yours.”
“Oh, which ones?”
“The Gwyneth Paltrow Emma.”
“I liked that one.”
“Mansfield Park, the ’99 one.” Melody made a face.
“The slavery one? I did not care for that.”
“Neither did I. And the Weinsteins were trying to make a movie out of Becoming Jane Austen … did you ever read that?”
“No, I did not, although I understand it was well received.”
“I bet Spence wishes he’d had you to talk to. Then again … anyway, it never got made, but God knows what they would have done with it. So now they’ve made an offer for Sanditon.”
“And what is your thought?” Jane asked.
Melody paused before answering. “You do know I’m out of my depth here. It really would be a good idea …”
“We are not having this discussion again, Melody. You are my agent; I will consider no other. Hire whomever you need and increase your commission.”
“Jane, you can’t just … if I make a mistake … it could cost you millions.”
“What difference does it make? I hardly need the money. As long as I see my name on the title or in the movie’s credits and … well, naturally I wouldn’t want my name associated with …”
“You see? It is important. And talking about hiring people, I am getting you a publicist.”
“A what?”
“Someone to promote you in the press, who makes sure your name is out there.”
“I thought you did that?”
“Not really. I sell you to publishers and movie studios and if someone wants to sell a Jane Austen perfume and so on, but I don’t really promote you the same way a publicist would.”
“Why ever would I want this?”
Melody sighed. She knew this would not be an easy task. “Your name, your reputation … well there’ll be people who’ll want to tarnish it, or who want to leverage off your fame for whatever reason. Look, you of all people should know there are some nasty people out there; you certainly created some fine examples.”
Jane did not respond so Melody continued. “Let’s say somebody unearths some scandal about you. Maybe something about Tom Lefroy and you …”
“There is … there was nothing salacious about my relationship with Mr Lefroy, and surely that is ancient history.”
“I don’t know how someone would spin it to make it … tawdry … or relevant. But believe me, there are nasty people out there who could. If you have a publicist, well it’s someone who can …”
“Lie for me?”
“Massage the truth. Or at least someone who can draft a response for you. You can get snitty, Jane, and occasionally you can say …”
“Is there something you are withholding from me, Melody?”
“Well, yes, there is. There’s a book coming out from someone named Courtney Blake. It’s a biography of you.”
“It is unflattering?”
“I don’t know, I haven’t read it, but I did get word what it’s about.”
“Which is?” Jane prompted after Melody fell silent.
“It re-evaluates you … and all your novels … from a psychological basis … and a sexual basis. It speculates if you had sex and if so, with whom you had it.” Melody spoke the last sentence quickly.
“What, like that horrid book from the nineties?”
“You knew about that?”
“Not at the time, but after the discovery of the afterlife. I gather it made a little furore coming about the same time as the BBC miniseries. I was dismayed that the same old prejudice against spinsters prevailed, but it was not well received and is largely forgotten, although I know you have a copy.”
Melody looked embarrassed and she rushed to defend herself. “How did you … it was … it made you … I never believed it.”
“It doesn’t matter. And now this person has revisited those accusations.”
“No, it’s much more than that. Apparently he’s examined everything you’ve written, things your characters say. He’s talked to psychiatrists and FBI profilers to make up a picture of you. I’ve also heard, and this is largely rumour because the book isn’t out yet, that he speculates you rejected Harris Bigg-Wither … because you preferred the company of women.”
Jane was silent for a second before answering. “Ah well, at least he doesn’t accuse me of congress with my sister. I can assure you, Melody, I was no Gentleman Jack or lady of Llangollen,1 but even if I was, surely it no longer matters today. Why I even believe my best friend prefers the company of women.”
Melody paused before answering. “I don’t really know, Jane. There’re a lot of people who read you because there’s no sex in your books. I mean you’re a clergyman’s daughter. You might lose some readers if they thought you were a lesbian. And then there’s the whole spinster thing. You’re not such a tragic figure anymore if you … you know, did it. I don’t really know how this will play out. I mean if this book came out at any other time, it would probably disappear like the other one, but you can bet they’re going to capitalize on your book launch. This is why it would be a good idea to get you a full-time publicist.”
“Very well, Melody, I certainly cannot fault any of your decisions to date. If you think it necessary, then I agree.”
Melody looked to the empty couch and asked, “You’re not being sarcastic, are you?”
“No, if I were being sarcastic, I would have wrapped my comments with sarcastic tags.”
Melody didn’t understand and simply said, “Whatever,” and then sighed deeply and relaxed into her decrepit armchair. She’d managed to convince Jane of the need for a publicist and broke the news to her about Courtney Blake’s book, two tasks she’d dreaded that had gone reasonably well. I am Jane Austen’s agent, and I think I’m finally getting the hang of it.
1 The Ladies of Llangollen (in W
ales): Eleanor Charlotte Butler and Sarah Ponsonby were two Irish women who lived during the reigns of George III and IV. There was speculation as to the nature of their relationship. Gentleman Jack: Anne Lister was a contemporary of the Ladies and earned her sobriquet for her manly interests and the fact she had female lovers. Coming from the landed classes and being wealthy, the peculiarities of these women were tolerated and to a certain extent even celebrated. There have been speculations that Austen was a lesbian and that she had sexual liaisons with her sister, but these speculations came about because of a misunderstanding of the intent of a review of a book on Austen’s letters.
The secret fear of Janeites
“Will the AGM become the equivalent of a Star Trek convention?”
Jane left Melody’s apartment early, even though she wouldn’t be meeting Mary at the avatar agency until late that afternoon. She needed to walk after spending the night in the living room while Melody and Tamara slept. She had spent the whole night researching Courtney Blake and reflecting on the unlikely home and friends she’d found in light of her offhand remark that “her best friend prefers the company of women.” It was something of a surprise that she considered Melody her best friend and yet it was true nonetheless. Despite the different worlds that had shaped them, Jane considered Melody her friend and felt indignation that in some way, Courtney Blake’s book was an attack on both her and her friend.
Jane had to admit that when she first learned Melody was a lesbian, she was taken aback. The concept was hardly unknown to her, however, and in time, she came to recognize the love that existed between Melody and Tamara. There was also nothing like the experience of the afterlife to make clear that love, no matter what form it took, was a precious gift.
And from her investigation of Blake’s book, it became clear that it took a prurient interest in her supposed sexual liaisons. From her study of his previous books, it was clear this was his preferred tactic—to expose the deviant behaviour of famous authors including Lord Byron and Charles Dickens. Why she deserved the same attention was a mystery. He did say I was a particular favourite of his—lucky me.
Jane, Actually Page 11
