Writing Jane Austen (11 page)

Prig,
said a voice in her head, startling her. What harm did it do for people to feel involved with characters from the past or historical figures? Academic rigour and clear-headedness had never belonged to more than a small percentage of even the literate population.

Twice prig,
said the voice.
Maybe the non-academics have more fun,
it went on.
Maybe Jane Austen and Dickens would have laughed at all the serious papers and tomes pronouncing on their writing.

Odd how a writer like Dickens made you laugh as well as cry, and those commenting on him with the full rigour of trained academic minds seemed mostly to have had humour bypasses.

“The Assembly Rooms are where the balls were held. During the season, these were held almost every evening. There were two sets of Assembly Rooms in Jane Austen’s day, the Lower Rooms and the
Upper Rooms. It was here that Catherine Morland was introduced to Henry Tilney, and danced with him at subsequent balls. Jane Austen herself loved to dance, as we know from her letters.

“Situated in this building is the Bath Costume Museum. We make another stop here, so that you may visit the Assembly Rooms and the Costume Museum.”

Hastily, Georgina got out her map. Yes. If she got off here, she’d save herself a long trek back up the steep streets, Bartlett Street must be just down there. She jumped off the bus as it was moving away, and heard the guide calling after her. “The next pickup…”

“Will be in two hours,” Georgina shouted after the departing bus.

It had begun to rain again, a slanting rain that aimed for her face and hands, and trickled down the back of her neck. Georgina looked at her watch. Half past four. Bel had said she would be home by six. She had given Georgina a key, so she could go back to the house on Bartlett Street, read a book. Read the life of Jane Austen, make some effort to get to know more about the damned woman.

To hell with Jane Austen. The Costume Museum sounded interesting. She’d go and spend an hour or so there, then meet up with Bel at six.

She almost turned away at the door, where a large sign proclaimed a dazzling new exhibition that had just opened, of, guess what, Georgina muttered to herself, Jane Austen costumes. Not as actually worn by the author, but as worn by actors playing her characters in TV and movie adaptations.

“The shirt that Colin Firth wore in
Pride and Prejudice,
” a large notice said.

Shirt? Georgina had seen Colin Firth in various films, though never playing a Jane Austen role, and she admired him as an actor. But did she want to look at a shirt he had once worn? Wasn’t this getting close to relics, a saint’s finger here, a piece of the True Cross there?

“Do you want an entrance ticket or not?” the woman at the till demanded.

“Do I have to do the Jane Austen exhibition? Can’t I just get an entry into the rest of the museum?”

“One ticket admits you to the permanent exhibition and to the special exhibition,” the woman said. “Do you want a ticket or not? There are other people waiting, you know.”

Georgina bought a ticket, and hung back as an eager party of teenagers swept past her. They all wore short tartan kilts, and were accompanied by a keen-eyed teacher, calling out to Amelia to make less noise, please.

There was always an Amelia in every school group. The Amelia in Georgina’s class had been Lucy-Ann Gore. Blonde, pretty, a cheerleader, dated by the jocks, beloved of teachers, elected homecoming queen. Where was Lucy-Ann now? Georgina had been the one hanging back in class outings, hating being in a group, scoffed at by Lucy-Ann and her clique when the teacher had pounced, as she or he inevitably did, telling Georgina to keep up and pay attention, she’d have to turn in a paper like everyone else, and it wasn’t like she needed another D.

In those days she’d spent her time making up stories. They came back vividly to Georgina as Amelia laughed too loudly and made a vulgar remark about a pair of breeches displayed in a cabinet on the wall.

She had cast Lucy-Ann as a helpless victim, terrorized by anything from beasts from outer space to giant rats coming out of the sewers to get her. Lucy-Ann had come to a thousand terrible ends, unmourned, unlamented, unmissed. Was that dark girl at the back of the gaggle even now plotting an encounter between Amelia and a serial killer, a hooded assassin, a false step into a pit of snakes?

The teacher called her group together. “Gather round, girls, and pay attention.”

A plump, pretty girl stood at the back, whispering to a friend.

“Harriet Smith, stop talking and listen to me.”

“Yes, Miss Goddard, sorry, Miss Goddard.”

The young voices faded into the distance, and Georgina was alone in a dimly lit room, with all the light coming from the displays, where the costumes were arranged on black silhouettes, set against a pale grey background. It was effective, no question about it, and the mannequins were grouped as though in conversation or at a party. Here a girl in a white muslin gown, high-waisted and demure, sat at a piano, while a gentleman in a blue coat stood ready to turn her music. There were sound effects, too: strains of Haydn filled the room. These gave way to snatches of conversation, laughter, and then more music. Hoofbeats, the sound of a carriage drawing up, and here in the next section were the servants, a coachman in a drab coat, a round woman in lace and pinafore, a boy in a smock, a dairymaid with a basket of eggs.

Pretty. Unreal.

Scenes from a film were being flashed across a screen, a gentleman’s house which was oddly occupied by both a gentleman and a pig, while in the corner an irate woman was screeching and exclaiming. Some flummoxed director trying to breathe some real life into all this pretty nothingness, Georgina said to herself.

She never did find the shirt, but she was entranced by the clothes of the nineteenth century, with their faded glory and tarnished trimmings. People had actually worn these garments, this gown, that shawl, this riding coat, that fanciful waistcoat. No illusions here, no contrived and artificial re-creation of a world that had never existed outside the imagination.

Gorgeous embroidery, fragile lace, and tiny satin shoes, pointed, impossible to think of anyone wearing them, walking and dancing. And the hats, extravagances of velvet and silk and feather and flowers. Not originals these, the notice informed her, but made by historical milliner Virginia Hepton from original illustrations in fashion magazines of the period.

What had it felt like to go tripping out in those delicate half-boots, muslined from neck to ankle, a parasol in your hand, hair dressed and bonneted, and stays pressing your ribs every time you breathed? What a restricted life these women had lived, these members of the gentry. These were clothes for men with inherited land and money, and women whose only purpose was to marry, whose function was to bear children and run a household. Ah, here was a woman with a difference, a woman in a travelling cloak. Mrs. Rudkin, the text said. A formidable traveller, who’d been to Turkey and even accompanied her husband to China. That was more like it; clothes that had belonged to a named person, with a purpose in life and a history. And here was one Sarah Jenner, who had run a brewing business and owned two inns in Bath.

Attagirl, Georgina said to the silhouette. She could fancy writing a story about Sarah, brewer and innkeeper. Perhaps Sarah had started with nothing, been forced into a disagreeable marriage to a man who drank and gambled away his wages, so that his wife had to make a living for herself. Back to the middle classes, here was a pelisse which had belonged to Mrs. Roper, who had died at the age of thirty-one after giving birth to her eleventh child.

There was a lot to be said for living in the twenty-first century. How would these people, if miraculously transported into modern times, cope with cars and planes, internet and telephones, films, sex on demand? Those girls giggling over a codpiece probably had no idea how much they owed to contraception, how liberated they were because of it. They were sweeping past her again now, with Amelia proclaiming that Mr. Darcy was hot and lucky Lizzy to get laid by him.

Mr. Darcy. Even Georgina knew who Mr. Darcy was, the Ur romantic hero, tall, dark and handsome, the archetype for generations of curling-lipped heroes sweeping girls off their feet with their arrogance and hard sexiness. Another unreal figure, and sure to be
a bloodless figure in comparison to a Heathcliff or a Mr. Rochester. How depressing that such a figure could still arouse teenage enthusiasm. Had anyone written a book where Mr. Darcy turned out to be a vampire? That would neatly tie up two genres, and would undoubtedly head straight for the bestseller lists. Perhaps she should suggest a fanged element to
Love and Friendship…. 

Alarmed, she reined in her unruly imagination. Back to reality, back to Jane Austen, back to the task she faced, quite daunting enough without bringing vampires into the equation.

The children were tucked up in bed, wonderful smells were wafting up from the basement and Georgina, slumped in a generous armchair, had never felt more exhausted. How could Bel look so lively and alert?

The six-year-old twins were a boy and a girl with blond curls, taking after their mother.

“This is Jane, and this is Alan,” Bel said.

Alan looked Georgina up and down, said a shy hello and then vanished to some higher region. But Jane didn’t go. Jane had taken a liking to Georgina. She tugged at her arm. “Sit down, and I’ll tell you a story.”

“Let Gina read you a story,” Bel said. “Gina writes stories.”

Jane wasn’t interested. “She can listen to my story.”

It was a far from coherent narrative. Jane seemed able to speak on the in breath and the out breath and the words tumbled out of her, her expressive little face lightening and darkening with her tale.

Which was, Georgina quickly realized, as dark a story as she had ever heard. The heroine was a girl of six who was a witch.

“Too much Harry Potter,” said Bel, coming into the room with Thomas in her arms.

“Not Harry Potter,” said Jane with dignity. “This is my story, about my school.”

“I think your daughter’s given me nightmares,” Georgina said,
when Jane was cajoled and bribed to go upstairs for bath and bed.

“She does have a rather gothic imagination,” Bel admitted.

“Is she in trouble at school?”

“Perpetually. I’m always getting notes from her teacher or the head. They think she ought to see a psychologist. I think she just has a rebellious nature. Anyhow, I’m not going to worry about it at the moment. I want to talk to you, I want to know exactly what you’re doing. How’s your love life? Is there a significant other? I heard about a rich lawyer, are you still with him?”

Georgina didn’t want to talk about herself. “What’s this shop, Bel? What are you up to?”

“The shop. Well, it’s a business I run. No, I shan’t tell you about it, come with me tomorrow and you can see for yourself. If you don’t want to talk about the men in your life, what about work? What are you writing now? A follow-up to your first book, or something different? Why are you in Bath? I don’t believe you were suddenly, after all this time, struck by an urgent desire to see me.”

That was the thing about friendship. Years passed, and when you met again, it was as though you had last met yesterday.

“I’m in Bath to do research on Jane Austen,” Gina said.

“Jane Austen? Why? Surely she’s clean out of your period, aren’t you late nineteenth century and historical gloom?”

“It has a bearing on what I’m doing. And research is too grand a term, I just wanted to get a feel for a place where she lived.”

“Bath is super-charged with Jane Austen, I’m glad to say. Full of fans and filmmakers. They’re filming right now, in fact, a new version of
P and P
.”

“Pride and Prejudice
?”

“Yes. Myself, I like the BBC version the best. Colin Firth makes a wonderful Darcy, whereas the more recent versions go in for neurasthenic youths with no sex appeal. I know he was twenty-eight, but
twenty-eight then was a man, whereas now actors of twenty-eight look like adolescents. Odd that, and it’s recent, you know. If you look at Freddie’s college photos and compare them with the ones he has from his father’s and grandfather’s time, you see the difference. Men then, boys now. That’s what makes Darcy so interesting, he’s a grown-up.”

“Hmm,” said Georgina non-committally. She neither knew nor cared how old Mr. Darcy was. Although presumably she’d have to make her hero the same age as Jane Austen’s. Which would be young; she could just imagine Dan and Livia’s reaction if she turned in a script featuring a fifty-year-old protagonist getting it together with a twenty-year-old, or even a woman of his own age. “Romance is for the young,” a friend of hers who wrote romantic novels told her. “They say the market is there for stories about the love lives of women in their forties, but don’t you believe it. Romantic comedy equals youth.”

She missed Bel’s next words, about the dream of every intelligent woman that she would meet a Darcy of her own. Not Georgina, who could truthfully say that Mr. Darcy had never featured in her dreams, good or bad.

She should come clean, this was the time to do it, to confess her sins on the Jane Austen front, and Bel, after a burst of ribald amusement and disbelief, would take pity on her, would fill her in, answer all her questions.

“You’re still keen on Jane Austen, I gather,” was what she actually said.

“Once you get the bug, you don’t lose it. Every time I read her novels, I find something new to admire or laugh at, some new insight into her characters, and therefore into the
condition humaine
. I can’t wait for Jane to be old enough to start reading her; I was deep into them at eleven. She’s named for Jane Austen, did I tell you that? Alan was Freddie’s choice, after his father, Jane mine; no way would
I name her after my mom. How old were you when you read
Pride and Prejudice
for the first time?”

Twenty-seven would be an honest answer, given that she’d have to bite the bullet and read the damned book before she was many weeks older, Georgina thought but didn’t say. She changed the subject. “Is that why you live in Bath? Because of its associations with Jane Austen?”