Bad Austen

by Peter Archer

  The Eldest, the Youngest & Matchmaker.com

  TAMI ABSI

  Elizabeth drew her favorite china teacup from her lips and rested it on the saucer. The delicate plate protected the articles on her drawing table: a quill pen, some ivory stationary, and a computer.

  She searched for Matchmaker.com and scrolled through the competition first. The titles before the ladies’ names were impressive, but a reader learned little else past the maidens’ monikers. The comments posted revealed the ladies to be empty-headed with nothing worth saying. Elizabeth imagined those women received several invitations from equally unimpressive suitors, no less than knights.

  Lydia sauntered into the room, hoping to search for the latest fashions, for which Elizabeth showed perfect unconcern. When Lydia saw the screen, she stopped dead and grew pale. “My dear sister, why are you looking at the women?” she said with an indelicate amount of concern. “Surely, you’re not indeed.” Her voice trailed off, too horrified to speak of it.

  Elizabeth hid an impudent grin. “Why, no, not that. I wanted to see with whom I might compete before profiling.”

  “You haven’t profiled? You are almost twenty-one. Do you not fear spinsterhood?” gasped Lydia. “Let me help you. There is no reason to scroll and look at each and every one of them. See? Thus, you order the women by rank, inheritance, numbers of servants, and the orderliness of their homes. With the last category, I suppose the webmasters were want of a rank for the lower-class women with no real basis for breeding.”

  Elizabeth commandeered the mouse. “The men, my dear Lydia, can they be thus arrayed?”

  “Certainly, but with the men, their pictures speak volumes, and only the eye can categorize them to my liking,” Lydia stated while smoothing her best, silken gown.

  “Ah,” Elizabeth sighed. “You are the youngest. Is it proper for you to be cataloging men? Prudence dictates you should be the last to marry.”

  Lydia pulled powder from her purse and dabbed her forehead. “I could not wait for all four of you, especially at your pace. The light is good this time of the evening, and with a lit candle beside the monitor, you’ll take a fine profile picture. Let me show you how to take a romantic-looking portrait.”

  In the midst of her comments, she pushed up her corset and forced her sleeves a bit farther down her shoulders. Elizabeth could hear stitches popping, and she knew Mother would be annoyed.

  After Elizabeth had profiled for the first time and after Lydia updated her picture, Elizabeth shared another concern. She said, “There is so much more about a man than one can assess through these pages.”

  “How so, sister?” Lydia challenged.

  “What of the way he moves, especially on the dance floor? How will he interview me as we stroll across the park to visit the neighbors? Is there no way to line them up according to their love for art, knowledge of music, singing, or, perhaps, tone of voice?”

  DID YOU KNOW?

  On March 23, 1817, five days after laying aside the manuscript of Sanditon for good, Jane Austen wrote to her niece Fanny: “I certainly have not been well for many weeks, & about a week ago I was very poorly, I have had a good deal of fever at times & indifferent nights, but am considerably better now, & recovering my Looks a little, which have been bad enough, black & white & every wrong colour.” In addition to fevers and facial discoloration, Austen also suffered from gastrointestinal distress. She often felt weak—sometimes very weak—and one of her early complaints was of back pain. These symptoms grew more and more severe over the next few months, although there were periods in which she rallied.

  In May, Jane was taken to Winchester to be treated by doctors there. Although she had good days, her doctor, Mr. Lyford, held out no hope.

  On July 17 Cassandra and Mary Austen, James’s wife, saw Jane’s condition change. Mr. Lyford pronounced her close to death, saying a large blood vessel had burst, and gave her laudanum to ease her suffering. Cassandra asked her if she wanted anything, and she replied, “Nothing but death.” She lost consciousness and at half past four in the morning, with her head on a pillow in Cassandra’s lap, she died. Jane Austen was forty-one years old.

  In a 1964 article in the British Medical Journal, Sir Zachary Cope diagnosed Austen’s fatal illness, based on the record of her symptoms, as Addison’s disease, a tuberculosis of the adrenal glands. A letter in response to this by F.A. Bevan suggests that a lymphoma such as Hodgkin’s disease was the likelier cause of her death. There is continued debate and speculation about what Jane Austen’s fatal illness really was, and no doubt there always will be.

  Lydia glared at her sister once again. “The qualities you mention are womanly qualities. No man would admit to your list, especially on the Internet. Besides, as I told you before, a stupid man is probably better than an ugly man. To choose, look at the pictures, and later, when you are with one of them, you must use your imagination to make him a whole being. I have never met a living man comprised of all your qualities. No one man would appear in every category if you could search so.”

  The next day, the sisters checked Elizabeth’s Matchmaker account. A Mr. Wickham, who looked handsome enough, invited her to dinner. He added, “Although I am often shy and awkward in crowds, those who know me the best, my servants and my sister, will attest that I am a kind, good man. My silence in public has been mistaken for pride, yet I hope for a fortunate chance to show my true self to you.”

  A Mr. Darcy wrote, “Nothing pleases me more than a good amount of company. Please come with me to the upcoming ball.”

  Lydia proclaimed, “Oh, Mr. Darcy’s countenance is pleasing.” Elizabeth rushed a reply before she lost her nerve. She accepted both invitations. To Mr. Darcy she wrote, “I should like to dance with a man handsome as you. Such a partner will keep me from feeling jealous of other women the entire evening.”

  To Mr. Wickham she wrote, “In private, I should enjoy a man with depth of soul, for marital ongoings remain concealed by discreet people.”

  Lydia was not unamused.

  “We shall see,” Elizabeth answered, “which one is prideful, and against him I shall be prejudiced.”

  Samosas and Sensibility

  SAYANTANI DASHGUPTA

  The family of DashGupta had been long settled in Parsippany, New Jersey. Well, since Mr. DashGupta got sponsored for his green card back in 1988 and managed to convince the INS to grant Mrs. DashGupta a spousal visa, that is.

  Their residence had initially been in the Indian enclave of the Sussex Gardens Apartment Complex off Route 46, but as Mrs. DashGupta was from a distinguished and old, if ridiculously impoverished, Bengali family, the rough society, marked by the sounds of Punjabi bhangra booming through souped-up car stereos, was quite more than her poor nerves could bear. Having a healthy respect for his wife’s nerves, Mr. DashGupta transferred his wife and infant daughters posthaste—or rather, as soon as he was financially able, to the decidedly middle class subdivision of Norland Estates. There, for almost two decades, the DashGuptas had lived in an unremarkable medium-sized McMansion, in so respectable a manner as to be completely unknown by their surrounding acquaintances.

  On weekends, in the dank basements of South Jersey community centers, the DashGupta daughters acquired all the requisite accomplishments of young Bengali ladies. They gained a thorough knowledge of Rabindra Sangeet music, singing, and dancing; they learned to read, write, and naturally speak their mother tongue; but besides all this, they gained something in their air, their manner of walking, their tone of voice, and expressions so as to suggest an impeccably South Asian, if slightly anachronistic, capacity, application, and elegance. And while these traits may have left lesser young women adrift in the rigid society of American high school, the DashGupta girls had such a pleasantness of manner and address, such a generosity of spirit, as to endear them to at least a close circle of their classmates.

  Which is not to say the sisters resembled one another entirely. Ellora, the elder daughter, possessed a strength of understan
ding and quickness of intellect that placed her consistently on the Parsippany High School honor roll, in addition to granting her the pleasant success of several state championships in debate, elocution, and mathematics. And while such qualities might have relegated most young ladies to guaranteed spinsterhood, Ellora possessed as well a pair of fine, dark eyes in a remarkably pretty face. Though only seventeen, her teachers predicted early admission to any of several distinguished universities. Her mother, meanwhile, rested her hopes on an early marriage to a man of rank and fortune, which, for Mrs. DashGupta, meant a doctor or an engineer, naturally.

  Mallika’s abilities were, in many respects, quite equal to her sister’s. She was sensible and clever, although her extracurricular activities tended toward the dramatic and performing arts. At sixteen, she had an excessive fondness for vixenish nail polish, glittery body powder, and temporary henna tattoos. Although her face and form held less classical grace than Ellora’s, she made up for this potential deficit with extravagant joie de vivre and a violence of emotion. She either loved or despaired, delighted or wept. In other words, she was quite at the mercy of her hormones, much to the affliction of the less-likely-to-get-pregnant Ellora.

  And so the sisters might have finished their high school careers—one full of sense, the other, sensibility—if fate had not intervened in the form of a massive myocardial infarction that resulted in the ill-timed death of their beloved father, Mr. DashGupta, whilst at his software company desk. To compound the family’s bereavement, it was soon discovered that, consistent with extended family traditions, the house and all their worldly assets had been left, not to Mrs. DashGupta or her daughters, but rather, to her porcine-proportioned brother-in-law, one Mr. Mohondash DashGupta—to whom his younger brother had naively entrusted the care of his beloved wife and offspring.

  But the elder Mr. DashGupta was a man of mean understanding and meaner temperament, whose fortune had been made in the unseemly business of (gasp) trade. Indeed, although Mrs. DashGupta was loath to mention it in her decidedly white-collar social circles, her brother-in-law in fact owned the largest chain of Indian beauty salons in the tristate area.

  No sooner were the funerary rituals over than did Mr. Mohondash DashGupta arrive at Norland Estates, with his dyspeptic wife, delinquent children, and cantankerous mother-in-law in tow. So acutely did Mrs. DashGupta feel this ungracious behavior, and so did she despise the mother-in-law for making her cook all the time, that she determined to quit the house immediately.

  “It was my brother’s last request to me,” said Mr. Mohondash DashGupta with something like a leer in his eye, “to assist his widow and daughters.”

  “He did not know what he was talking about, that lightheaded loafer!” exclaimed the mother-in-law with a gaseous belch. “What better assistance than jobs for these three good-for-nothings in one of your beauty salons?”

  And so it was that Ellora, Mallika, and their distraught mother became employed as beauticians at Eyebrows-R-Us, the latest of their uncle’s empire of beauty salons, specializing in eyebrow (and, for the exceedingly hirsute, upper-lip, chin, and whole face) threading.

  Beauty was indeed in the eye(brow) of the beholder.

  DID YOU KNOW?

  There are around 160 letters written by Jane Austen that are still in existence today, and most contain everyday family news, much of it about small domestic matters—new furniture, dress material, plants in the garden, weather. The health and welfare of various family members is related and discussed seriously or comically as the situation dictates. This being Jane Austen, the playful remarks are imaginative and witty. There is gossip about neighbors, some of it quite sharp. Some rude, even vulgar, jokes have survived. Austen sometimes reveals exasperation and depression, sometimes optimism and joy. The letters contain frequent expressions of deep affection for family and friends that are eloquent and moving.

  As R.W. Chapman, the great editor of Jane Austen’s writings, points out, Jane’s letters to Cassandra are more focused on the “business of news,” whereas other correspondents more fully inspire the “flow of fancy.” Indeed, the letters to her nieces and her nephew James-Edward are delightfully imaginative and amusing. Even the trivial everyday matters found in the letters are fascinating reading for anyone with an interest in Jane Austen.

  Destitute in Dubai

  RABAB HAMZA

  It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Dubai building, in possession of a superlative height, must be the most sought-after address in town.

  However little known the merits or conveniences of such a building may be on its first entering the market, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the jet set, that no sooner were plans for the world’s tallest building, the Burj khalifa, announced than it was considered as the rightful property of one or other of Dubai’s elite.

  It was the year 2006, and among the more glittering of Dubai’s haut monde was a young couple by the name of elton. Brad and Angie elton, clever, handsome, and rich, in possession of lucrative jobs and indulgent bosses, and always on the lookout for ways to best showcase their wealth and standing, were just the kind of people to be impressed by the marketing campaign for the world’s highest man-made structure.

  “My dear soul mate,” said his lord to Angie one day, “have you heard that Burj khalifa apartments are to be sold at last? Though the building is not to be completed until 2009, they have put up the residential units for sale.”

  Mrs. Elton replied that she had not heard.

  “But they have,” returned he, “and the Burj is being described as a vertical city; an engineering marvel. What a fine thing for our reputation.”

  “How so? How can our reputation be affected?”

  “My dear angel,” replied her husband, “how can you be so tiresome? You must know that I am thinking of our buying one of them.”

  Mrs. Elton readily agreed, and happy for all their material feelings was the day they got rid of the best part of their fortune and became the proud off-the-plan owners of a one-bedroom apartment at the most prestigious address in Dubai, and consequently the whole of the UAe.

  With what delighted pride they afterward visited their friends, and talked of the design plans for their newest acquisition, may be guessed. “It is just what an apartment ought to be,” said Mrs. elton, “grand, spacious, luxurious, and I never saw such happy surroundings! So many swimming pools and amenities, with such perfect architecture!”

  “It also seems handsome,” said her friend, elizabeth, “which an apartment ought likewise to be, if it possibly can. Its excellence is thereby complete. I give you leave to like it. You have liked many a stupider investment.”

  Armed with the lavish praise of most of their friends and acquaintances, and not at all deterred by the apparently envious calls to prudence and caution by the rest, the eltons, possessed of a dual income and no encumbrances, decided that their happiness only needed the purchase of an adjoining apartment in the same building to be complete.

  Not possessed of the wherewithal to effect such a purchase on their own, the two had no option but to approach the banks, which were only too happy at that time, in the year six, to finance all the extravagant whims and profligate fancies of the real estate speculators.

  Heavily burdened by debt, and struggling to make their mortgage payments on time, the young couple was yet hopeful of the future and looked forward to a time when their investments would appreciate in value and fulfill all their aspirations.

  Alas, it was not to be. The economic recession of the year eight, the crumbling real estate market, and the global financial crisis were all equally against them. The value of the apartments plunged by half, they lost their jobs, the banks threatened to foreclose, their maxed-out credit cards offered no solace, and the two had no choice but to abandon their bank-financed BMWs at the airport and flee to the faraway shores of their home countries.

  Time passed, and though inadvertently delayed, the opening of Burj khalifa was held in the year ten. As t
he eltons watched the glittering opening ceremony on their television screen, which featured an extravagant display of fireworks, sound, and light and water effects, they breathed a sigh of regret and wished that they had heeded their friends’ advice and limited their ambition within the bounds of what was practicable and feasible.

  However dismal might be the end to the promised brilliancy of their career, the developers of the property yet succeeded in what they had set out to do. I therefore leave it to be settled, by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend fiscal prudence in individuals or reward extravagant ambition in developers.

  Pursuit

  PATRICIA RICHARDS

  It is a fact very rarely vocalized that a wealthy, divorced gentleman will be pursued—in a dignified manner—by any recently divorced female greatly in search of a more salubrious experience of matrimony, and that this gentleman will also be pursued by any single female with an eye keenly on the lookout for a prospect who might lead to potentially comfortable circumstances.

  Such is the situation of Mr. Howard, whose circumstance, whispered to be considerable, has attracted the quite speculative attentions of one Miss Harrington-Davis, who, certain of her attractions and quite determined, has decided that she must be the next Mrs. Howard. Miss Harrington-Davis, it might be noted, is quietly rumored to have moved from the far reaches of the county to be within close hailing distance of Mr. Howard’s not-inconsiderable residence, and such industriousness begged quiet, prompt attention from those members of a society concerned with such interesting happenings.