by Peter Archer
Twilight at Northanger
ANNE GLOVER
Inheritance is not always a boon. A penchant for too many cakes, the propensity to freckle under the slightest provocation of sun, and the habit of being a spendthrift were all traits one might inherit. The discovery of such inheritance was seldom as grave as the reading of a will; the recognition of such a family trait was realized when in connection with conflict.
Cathy Morland, nee tilney’s youngest sister, Jane, had inherited her dusty old collection of novels and along with it a great passion for the macabre. Like Catherine, Jane was wont to spend a whole day idle with a book ignoring her daily tasks and exasperating poor Mrs. Morland who, in her advancing years, had little more patience for a whimsical girl.
It was so that when Catherine’s letter came announcing the demise of Captain Wentworth and Mr. tilney’s sudden inheritance of Northanger Abbey, her pleas for a spare sister to be sent in assistance of the great move was a welcome relief to the beleaguered Mrs. Morland.
Jane was bundled into Mr. tilney’s carriage, sent after the receipt of Mrs. Morland’s response, on a brisk March morning. The journey was not overlong so that the tilneys had sent Coachman and a groom to protect the young traveler.
Thrilled beyond anticipation, Jane tucked herself against the squabs and into a deliciously ghoulish novel.
Enraptured by the terrifying tale, Jane did not even notice when the carriage came to an abrupt halt.
It took moments before she looked up, finally noticing that the comfortable pace had ceased.
“Hello?” she called. The only answer was silence.
Jane set her book aside and slid toward the window. “Hello?” She asked again, her voice meek and a little afraid. The silence was deafening.
Craning her neck out of the open window, she looked both ways and saw nothing but a green thickness of trees.
Like an apparition appearing from thin air, a pale face was suddenly in front of her. Jane gasped, and with her hand on the carriage latch, fell forward and tumbled out of the carriage.
Suddenly strong, muscular arms were grasping and holding her.
Jane blinked and stared up into topaz eyes. Shocked beyond speech, Jane was hypnotized by the face staring down at her.
He was pale, almost sparkling, and cold to the touch. Impossibly handsome, like something out of a dream, the boy who couldn’t have been more than ten and eight looked more of a man than Jane had ever seen before.
Without warning, he released an arm beneath her, allowing her feet to come crashing to the ground.
“Who are you?” she murmured.
“Are you alright, miss?” he persisted harshly in a musical voice. It was as if the heavens had opened up and the angels were singing, the sound coming from his mouth was so beautiful.
Jane gasped as she realized his eyes were changing color. The brightest spot in his flawless, dazzling cold face, they had somehow turned to a shallow green.
“What are you doing here?” she continued. “Where is everyone else?” Jane whispered. His icy fingers were suddenly wrapped around her wrists.
Without warning, the boy-man was lifting her into the carriage and closing the door behind her. He uttered a low oath before stalking toward the front of the carriage.
And almost as if awaking startled from a dream, Jane jerked back as the carriage began to move.
“Who are you?” she cried, her hand still icy from his touch now opening upon her heated cheek.
The sight of Northanger Abbey at twilight looming in the distance was mystical and menacing. Jane squirmed uncomfortably in her seat, willing the journey to be over, as she looked out the carriage window once more. She had hoped to catch view of the mysterious stranger again, now wondering if it wasn’t a dream.
When the carriage finally came to a slow roll in front of the large stone building, Jane blew out a sigh of exhausted relief.
Shortly, she was gathered into her sister’s waiting arms. “Jane, how glad I am to see you,” Catherine exclaimed as her arm went around her sister’s shoulder.
“Cathy, the strangest thing has happened.”
Catherine raised an eyebrow in anticipation.
“The carriage was stopped by this boy—this man. His eyes changed color and he was so cold to the touch….” Jane’s voice trailed off in wonder.
“Jane, do you like scary stories?” Catherine asked, helping her sister up the steps of Northanger.
Jane nodded dully.
“Then I will tell you about him. But only if you promise never to go near him again.”
DID YOU KNOW?
It does not appear that Jane Austen pursued publication of Lady Susan, her completed novel in letters. Rather, we have her nephew, James-Edward Austen-Leigh, to thank for its publication. He included the text, taken from an untitled manuscript transcribed in 1805 (a “fair copy”), in the second edition of his Memoir of Jane Austen, published in 1871. It is a fascinating work from Austen’s early period, probably written between 1793 and 1795. The consistently high emotion and the melodramatic events and speech in Lady Susan also mark it as an early work. There is none of Austen’s brilliant re-creation of the ordinary and everyday, which is everywhere in the later novels. It is, however, an astonishingly impressive work for any writer, never mind a girl not yet twenty years old.
Austen’s bad mothers in the major novels are mainly guilty of neglect and foolishness, but Lady Susan is downright wicked in her treatment of her daughter Frederica, whom she is determined to marry off very much against her will. This wickedness is also shown in Lady Susan’s cool, remorseless indulgence in adultery and her manipulation of others for her own convenience. However, she is also dazzlingly attractive to men and to many women—beautiful, strong-willed, witty, spirited, unsentimental (some of which traits are usefully hidden when necessary under a sweet, gentle exterior).
Lady Susan is, as many readers have noted, a kind of immoral version of Austen’s witty, spirited heroines Elizabeth Bennet and Emma Woodhouse—and perhaps, even more, of the endlessly debated figure of Mary Crawford from Mansfield Park. Just as she does in the case of the winning Miss Crawford, however, Austen makes her disapproval of Lady Susan clear when she has that character say, “I take town in my way to that insupportable spot, a country village.” Austen loved the country, and those characters in her novels who do not like it and prefer the “town”—London—must and do have the wrong values.
The Bennet Bunch
EILEEN MITCHELL
It is a whimsically acknowledged truth that Mrs. Bennet was a lovely lady who was bringing up five very lovely girls. Some of them had hair of gold like their mother, the youngest one, Lydia, bedecked in curls.
Coincidentally, through fortuitous proximity, there was a man named Bingley, dispatched from London with five sisters of his own. They were six siblings sojourning all together, yet they were much alone.
Till the one day when the Bennets met the Bingleys, and they surmised that it was much more than a hunch that this assemblage must somehow intermingle, if not at tea, if not in town, perhaps at lunch.
But before even a few lines of formal invitation had been extended to the bachelor Bingley, Mr. Bennet announced his intentions to throw in a good word for his daughter Lizzy, much to the consternation of his wife.
“Lizzy, Lizzy, Lizzy!” Mrs. Bennet exclaimed, quite disconcerted. “We have five daughters with much to recommend them. Why must you always give Lizzy the preference? Her sister Jane is twice as handsome.”
“Much to recommend them?” Mr. Bennet parried with his usual endearing, misogynistic charm. “Jane is handsome, indeed, with the lantern-jawed profile of a longshoreman. kitty is an inconsiderate consumptive whose hacking disturbs my revelry.Lydia is a glandular case of freakish height, suitable for employment in a traveling circus, and that other daughter—her name escapes me at the moment—scarcely makes a memorable impression. At least Lizzy has a quickness about her.”
Lizzy, Lizzy, Lizzy! Ja
ne echoed her mother’s protest in silent pique. Her father’s effusiveness toward elizabeth was a source of constant vexation, thereby inspiring Jane to concoct a plan. She would outshine Lizzy on the croquet field, and then perhaps her father would admire her cleverness and Mr. Bingley would favor her hand in marriage. For she had overheard, through closed doors, that there was nothing a gentleman fancied more than a quick girl who knew how to handle a mallet.
Within a fortnight, an invitation to luncheon had been dispatched to Mr. Bingley. He first declined and then capitulated at the urging of his friend Mr. Darcy, who extracted an invitation when he learned croquet was on the agenda. It was not so much Mr. Darcy’s love of the game, but rather his supercilious delight in watching the designing females comically entangled in stakes and hoops, and felled by mallets. Nothing like a good stumble to brighten his day. How his eyes sparkled with pleasure at their feminine posturings on the manicured lawns, never more so than when an errant swing upended a player. His inability to stifle merriment at such moments often turned the tide of his popularity, despite his good looks.
When the day of the party arrived, Mrs. Bennet’s nerves were jangling like porcelain marionettes. Vexed from the preparations, she forthwith instructed her servant, Alice, to attend to the remaining details: drawing up the menu, going to market, slaughtering the ox, polishing the silver, assembling the croquet field, and renovating the manor. enervated at the sight of her servant’s exertions, Mrs. Bennet took to her bed. Amidst fluffing Mrs. Bennet’s pillows and turning the roast, Alice was kept exceedingly busy attending to the ox.
When at length the guests arrived and were assembled on the lawn, a healthy rivalry ensued among the ladies to capture the attention of the eligible gentlemen. Those left standing after the melee were entreated to play croquet. Jane seized the moment to make a favorable impression on Mr. Bingley by driving the croquet mallet with such vigor as to send the ball flying into the air.
“My nose!” cried Lizzy, upon being struck in the face by her sister’s misguided enthusiasm, not to mention the wooden missile that had once been a croquet ball.
If Jane’s ambition was to outdo the others, she succeeded handsomely as Mr. Bingley was indeed impressed by her unmatched boldness with the mallet, Lizzy’s maiming notwithstanding. The question of whether the shot was mere gusto or repressed envy would never be answered, but Mr. Bingley was nonetheless captivated by the rather unconventional display of coquetry.
Elizabeth made a full recovery and harbored no ill will toward Jane in the event that Mr. Darcy’s attentions were drawn to her over the mishap. Where he had once overlooked her entirely for what he considered her ordinariness, he later reconsidered, not coincidentally, after a misplaced guffaw at her misshapen countenance threatened his reputation in town. encouraged by Bingley to call upon her with roses, a full-blown courtship took flower along with the bouquet.
The bloodlines, that day, were destined to comingle, ultimately inspiring a saucy jingle: The possibilities were pregnant at lunch, and that’s the way they all became the Bennet bunch.
DID YOU KNOW?
When she was just sixteen, Austen wrote a brilliantly funny “unfinished Novel in Letters” called Lesley Castle, this time dedicating her work to her brother Henry. Here we can see the beginnings of one of her comic specialties, the monomaniacal talker who thinks of the world as it relates to just one subject and turns all events and all discussions back to the one thing dearest her heart. Mrs. Allen, from Northanger Abbey, with her obsession with clothes, is the finest example of this type in the novels. Like Jack & Alice, Lesley Castle also contains some improper matter for a young girl (never mind a clergyman’s daughter) to be writing about—for example, adultery and child abandonment go unpunished.
Dead and Loving It
CATHY TAVERNIER
Mr. Charles Bingley and Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy were both dead, but they had not given in to discouragement. Rather, they made for themselves a remarkable posthumous life that included many of the same entertainments they enjoyed while living: eating, drinking—as they particularly needed to drink still—and courting young ladies—this, too, being a pastime as much required as it remained pleasurable. It rarely occurred to them to bemoan their glorious past lives; for being deceased, while liberating in several ways, also allotted them many similar experiences they had grown accustomed to while living.
“What am I to make of this ball to which we are heading, Darcy?” asked Mr. Bingley one fine spring evening. He trotted down a dirt path upon his black horse beside his fellow mounted partner.
“It is the perfect scenario for us,” replied Mr. Darcy, unusually interested in this ball, despite not being fond of them in general. “I have it on good authority that hardly an eligible man—nary a card-playing group of old chaps—is in attendance. We would be fools for passing on such a unique opportunity.”
“That is capital, indeed! Well done, Darcy. We shall dine finely this evening,” said Mr. Bingley, pulling down the brim of his hat. He felt relief, for he recalled recent dances he and Mr. Darcy had attended, uninvited, with a fair amount of gentlemen present. Unfortunately, as a result, drastic measures to purge them from the engagements by those overseeing men were undertaken. If anything, this evening would prove significantly easier for the two of them to retain their persons amongst the ladies present.
Moments later, they dismounted from their steeds. Much noise and merry-making escaped outside the windows of the large manor, and, as Mr. Darcy had been informed, there certainly stood mainly fine young maidens laughing and chattering inside.
“As I said earlier, hardly a man to be seen,” repeated Mr. Darcy after peering in through a foggy window. Mr. Bingley could not help but quicken his step as they approached the entrance. He was glad he wore his favorite blue coat! As soon as the two stepped inside, all the prattle and racket ceased, replaced by gasps and awestruck expressions.
With all the attention immediately diverted to the two, Darcy grabbed the lapels of his coat and flapped out his elbows. “good evening, young ladies without gentlemen! We are lords of the finest social order of the Undead, and we have come here to suck your blood,” announced he, bowing with all formalities. two distinctive fangs hung out over his lower lip for all to see.
“And, to drink it, as well!” added Mr. Bingley, bowing and exposing his own fangs also, but sporting a happy smile.
“Va-vampires!” screamed a young girl, pointing in their direction, as if it were necessary. Suddenly, the room erupted into a cacophony of yelps and shrieks. Yet something about the tone seemed oddly untainted by fear.
“They are so … handsome!” shouted another young woman, whipping a fan in front of her face. The excitement of the maiden crowd grew higher, as expected, but not more fearful.
“Suck my blood, vampires!” shouted a few ladies in a synchronized fashion, as they all dashed at the two men-of-the-moment. “No! Not hers! Mine! You may drink as much of my blood as you wish, good sirs!” Such were the commands howled by the animated crowd, as they tore off shawls and craned their necks to the side to ease the two vampires’ imbibing.
“How very courteous of you all,” remarked Mr. Bingley over the roaring cluster of maidens, as they stepped and trounced on one another to draw near him.
“This is the way, is it not?” asked an uncertain, shy girl, directing her unveiled ivory neck at Mr. Bingley.
“Why, yes, that is the correct position we vampires require when feeding,” he assured her. His delight grew more fervent with each exposed limb shoved within his vicinity.
“You see, Bingley,” began Mr. Darcy, “we may have been dead for a time, but, as is quite evident, we are as popular as ever.” A handful of women swarmed him all at once as he nearly winked at Mr. Bingley.
“I will drink to that. I dare say we were never quite this popular before! And, let it not be said that Darcy and Bingley went out of this world without leaving an impression of some sort, including the kind we make upon the maiden neck
!” shouted Bingley, as he bit ardently into one such eager neck.
And, thus, the grand feast ensued for the evening, as the two deceased—yet, still undoubtedly popular—young men drank the crimson fluid to their hearts’ content.
DID YOU KNOW?
In May of 1779 the third Austen boy, Edward, was twelve years old. Thomas Knight, a distant Austen cousin (and the landlord of Steventon), visited the parsonage with his new wife, Catherine. Apparently they became so fond of Edward that they asked permission to take him with them as they continued their “honeymoon” travels. This seems to have been the beginning of their extraordinary attachment to the boy, which culminated in their actually adopting him a few years later. The Knights were very wealthy, and since they were also childless, Edward stood to inherit their fortune, including several large estates.
Once again, this may seem to show a cold-heartedness toward their children on the part of the Austens—another chance to give them away as they did when they sent them as infants to foster families in the village—but the truth is that the adoption scheme was a great success in every way. The Knights were not only wealthy, but good. Jane was very fond of Mrs. Knight, who was actually the writer’s only patron, giving her some kind of annual allowance. And Edward remained very close to the Austen family throughout his life. We may have Mrs. Knight to thank for Jane Austen’s novels on much stronger grounds than her bestowal of the “usual Fee” on Jane, for it was Edward’s inheritance that ultimately supplied Jane with the comfort and security of the house in which she wrote and/or revised her novels: Chawton Cottage, one of the world’s greatest literary landmarks.
Jersey Shore Does Brighton (or, If Jane Scripted Jersey Shore)
SHELLEY RUSSELL
We find our friends of questionable rank on holiday at Brighton. Alas, this holiday is of little distinction from past seasons, with many members of the group frequently casting up their accounts as the girls prove again quite able to elevate their demimonde status whilst frequently imbibing body shots and other libations at the local pub and inspiring frequent displays of swordplay amongst the local rakes.
