Jump to new as of January 21, 2000

Chapter 1 - I Fall Asleep Reading Pride and Prejudice

Posted on Tuesday, 18 January 2000

Nineteenth century English novels have always held a particular appeal for me: their beauty of language, adherence to a fundamental code of morals and the elegant manners of their characters are not often found in works of our own century. Not long ago, I began rereading the novels of Jane Austen, whose trenchant satire of everyday English gentry life during the first decade or so of the 19th century is often terribly funny, and whose heroines, though often flawed, are wonderfully real and usually loveable, though sometimes rather too clever for their own good. Miss Austen's painstaking development of character and relationship, reflecting with gem-like brilliance the many-faceted nuances and foibles of real human beings, set a literary standard only rarely surpassed.

My favourite of Miss Austen's novels is "Pride and Prejudice," which I had not read for many years. Eliza Bennet is the most dazzling and articulate of all Miss Austen's heroines, and also her most outspoken. I took up the book late one evening, went to bed with it and got as far as Chapter XV, where the two youngest Bennet daughters, Lydia and Kitty, make plans to walk to nearby Meryton next day to visit the milliner's and, no less important, to flirt with officers of the local regiment of militia quartered on the town. The two could think of hardly any thing else, and had not yet become sufficiently accomplished in other female pursuits -- lacework and tatting, painting, piano playing, singing or netting purses -- to have any thing else as satisfying to occupy their time, of which they had a superabundance inasmuch as they were not attending an academy and had servants enough so that they need not even brush out their own hair should they chuse not to do so.

I began to reflect on the lot of the girls and women of Miss Austen's time (and class) -- on the apparently narrow scope of their lives and on how very fragile was a girl's reputation: merely being alone in a room with an unmarried man -- not one's brother -- could ruin a girl for life, even though nothing less innocent may have transpired than a polite discussion of the weather or the crops. Trying to penetrate the elegance and propriety of Miss Austen's prose, I wondered what life really must have been like for a proper young lady of the era -- unable, as she was, to own property, to vote, to bring an action in a court of law, to inherit, to initiate the first step in a romantic relationship (at least overtly), and for whom marriage to a man with more property than she was the ultimate consummation, a consummation, which, if not achieved by age twenty-five, would consign her to spinsterhood and a miserable desiccated existence, dependent on the grudging charity of niggardly relatives.

As I reflected on these things, I grew drowsy and felt the book slowly slip from my fingers onto the coverlet. I drifted off and slept soundly, dreaming of gray stone houses set about with rose trees, green fields, and narrow country lanes flanked by ancient and impenetrable hedgerows. I saw visions of mists rising from languid streams, their deep banks overhung with mosses and ferns, of thick and spreading English oaks in June with red-and-white spotted Alderney cows lying placidly in their shade, chewing cuds of rich English grass and clover and lazily twitching away flies with their tails. Of fluffy white cumulus clouds drifting across a ludicrously bright robin's egg blue sky. Of small Saxon churches whose apses hold knee-high sepulchres topped by brasses of sad-eyed armored knights and elongated ladies in brocaded gowns.

So I was at first only half-surprised to awaken to an unusually peaceful morning devoid of the slightest mechanical sound: no sound at all, in fact, save for the distant lowing of cattle, the flat clanking of cow bells and the tapping of a woodpecker -- my half-surprise turning to alarm the moment I opened my eyes and found my self in a small, whitewashed bed chamber, a plain unpainted and unvarnished wooden stand with an ewer and bowl, and a rather too upright, warped and black-flecked looking-glass, opposite my bed. From my left, bright yellow early morning sunlight streamed through a casement window set into a wall at least two feet thick. On the uneven wall to my right, facing the casement, stood a wooden clothes press with a narrow set of drawers built in to one side. Above the washstand and looking glass hung a time-darkened oil portrait, in a blackened wood frame, of an unsmiling old woman holding a bible. The portrait hung quite high, secured by a cord where the wall joins the ceiling, and was tilted downwards, the better to keep an eye on the bed's occupant, no doubt.

What had actually awakened me was not the soft mooing of cows, however, nor a woodpecker, but a smart tapping of fingertips at the white wooden door of my bed chamber -- a door fashioned of five vertical boards and three horizontal cross-pieces studded with heavy black hand-wrought iron carriage bolts, a door with a black iron lever-latch and lock-bar, which, as I watched in mute stupefaction, lifted: the door began hesitantly to open with an agonizing creak, admitting the bonneted face of a pale and freckle-faced serving girl.

The bonneted face addressed me:

"Idth only me, Ethther, Mith Lydia," lisped the girl, displaying a prodigious gap between her two top front teeth. One of her almost browless and watery blue eyes looked askance, so I was not quite sure whether she was addressing me or some other person at the opposite end of the room.

She continued, "You mutht bethtir yourthelf. Mithter Bennet your father hadth already ridden off to London. Mittith Bennet your mother and your thithters have been awaiting you in the breakfatht room now thith latht quarter hour, and not theeing you at table nor hearing you thtir, and idth being theven o'clock and the day fatht waythting away and the regimental parade in Meryton being at eleven and you not even up yet nor even drethed, and your wanting to thee Captain Shaftworthy in hidth red coat and on hidth white horth, your mother dethired I should wake and dreth you with dethpatch, if it pleathe you. You mutht needth make haythte, mith!"

Miss Lydia? Mr. Bennet my father? My mother Mrs. Bennet? A regiment on parade? Captain Shaftworthy? Redcoats? Meryton? I looked in the direction of Esther's wayward eye and saw no one else in the room. She was clearly speaking to me.

I stared, speechless and goggle-eyed, at the apparition in the doorway, but the gap-tooth and freckled maid, apparently fazed neither by my reaction nor by my failure to reply, opened the door fully and swept briskly into the room in her floor-length serving-maid's dress of coarse-spun and crudely printed calico. She glanced with an experienced eye beneath the washstand at a covered porcelain vessel, then scooped up the heavy stoneware basin and ewer without evident effort, and exited the room, saying, "I'll be back, mith, in two shakes, with warm water." She neatly pulled the door closed behind her with one slippered, almost prehensile foot, and was gone.

Chapter 2 - I Discover Who I Am

Posted on Tuesday, 18 January 2000

Alone once again, and now wide-awake, I threw back the bedclothes, and sat up on the edge of the bed. I found my self clad in a tight fitting night-bonnet and full-length white muslin night gown with a wide blue satin ribbon encircling me just below my bust, a gown none too smooth, either: it felt coarse against my skin. Needless to say, such was not my usual nightwear. Then every thing clicked: I had awakened in the middle of a Jane Austen novel -- "Pride and Prejudice," to be exact: I had become the youngest (and tallest and most buxom) of the five Bennet sisters -- Lydia: all of fifteen years of age, vapid beyond all imagining, whose only interests in life were ribbons, bonnets, bonbons and Redcoats, in that order, though shortly to be rearranged, which, of course, I had no inkling of at the moment.

'Well now,' I said to my self, 'If I am really a character in a novel I have read several times over and know tolerably well, why is it that I have no recollection of this particular chapter?' "Pride and Prejudice" has, of course, no maid named Esther, nor does the reader ever encounter Lydia in her own bedchamber. There is no male character named Shaftworthy. And I seemed to be having my own thoughts at the moment, not those of the vacant youngest Bennet sister, who could barely reckon sums exceeding the number of her fingers, and, though she could write in a fair hand, had the vocabulary of a dull ten year old child and never took the least pains to restrain her shallowest thought from finding immediate utterance, no matter the company or the occasion. Just like her mother.

Now I was she! Rotten luck! Why did I have to become this particular character? Why the empty-headed Lydia? Why not Eliza her self, or even Jane? How much Lydia's foolishness and scant mental powers would suppress my own intelligence and strong sense of self was of instant concern, to be sure, for Lydia was the archetypal empty-head. And she elopes with an officer, the cad Wickham, and marries him! All at age fifteen! I was in for serious trouble, and very soon, too. I would have only a few chapters to get my bearings.

Such considerations, however, would have to wait until I had at least seen my self in a looking-glass: I sprang out of bed with all the vitality of a fifteen year old girl (only to stumble, as if from missing the last step on a staircase, because my bed was so unexpectedly high), and rushed to the bare wooden wash stand, which held the room's only looking-glass -- a small and imperfect one. The looking glass was, as I have said, not on a swivel, so I had to stoop down to see my reflection, and then only by bits, because the looking glass was small. But it was not too small for me to regard the reflection of my pale and oval English face: a glowing peaches-and-cream complexion, like living velvet; a short but straight forehead; dark, delicately tapered brows over long-lashed, dark blue, almost violet eyes -- set just a trifle too closely together to betoken any thing but a dim intellect within; a small nose; fine lips (my upper one so thin it may as well not have been there); and a delicately pointed chin. A small, oval, and extremely pretty face, tho' one lacking any real depth.

I could see neither my ears nor my hair because of my tight-fitting frilled muslin night-cap, so I undid its satin bow tied under my chin and yanked it off, releasing cascading ringlets of chestnut brown curls that spilled to my shoulders and bounced several times with springy resilience. I smiled at my self in the uneven glass, and saw that my lower incisors overlapped, so I brought my lower lip a bit higher up, as if by long habit, to conceal the imperfection -- a little maneuver that made me look a trifle brighter than my close-set eyes might imply, for otherwise Lydia would most likely have gone about open-mouthed like the empty-head that she was.

But my amazement at having been transformed into Miss Lydia Bennet of Longbourn, Herts., aged 15 years, in the year 1811, was eclipsed for the moment by my most un-Jane-Austen-like need to empty my bladder, a natural bodily function to which Miss Austen gives only the scantiest attention, if any at all. I could not recall -- in any of her novels -- even an oblique reference to a privy, her sensibilities being far too delicate even to hint at the existence of any thing so coarse for the performance of unmentionable bodily functions. So I knew better than to expect any thing as fancy as a flush toilet, which would not, in any event, see the light of common usage in the best English households for at least the next fifty years -- and, in the countryside, more likely for the next one hundred.

Recalling Esther's attentive glance at the odd utensil stowed under the wash stand, I, too, had a look, and was rewarded by the discovery of a white glazed chamber pot with a smooth and close-fitting wooden cover. I bent over, gingerly slid it out from under the stand, and uncovered it (finding it, thankfully, empty and clean). I stood upright to hike up the long skirt of my nightgown, then squatted until I felt the cold rim of the pot on my bottom. I let my weight settle down onto the pot...

Suddenly the room grew dim, its furnishings flickered, faded, then vanished, the sunlight was snuffed out and I found my self suspended, without my body, in the cold darkness of interstellar space. I was no where at all and had ceased to exist.

This chapter, with many words struck out and with marginal emendations to make it read in the third, instead of the first, person, was abandoned unfinished, along with the chapter preceding, torn in two, crumpled and thrown into the dustbin. It was rescued and preserved by Miss Austen's maid, whose great-great-granddaughter discovered it in a London attic in 1922.

Chapter 3 - A letter from Jane Austen to her sister, Cassandra Austen

Posted on Tuesday, 18 January 2000

Tavistock-crescent
London
July 17, 1811

My Dearest Cassanda,

I TRUST THIS letter finds you in good health & the hay ripe for the second mowing. The heat in London is unbearable & the stench of horse-urine every where can barely be suffered, tho' Henry never complains of it. You are fortunate, indeed, to have remained in the salubrious air of Hampshire where you can get fresh milk & butter every day. The London butter is rancid & even the freshest milk tastes half sour when compared to what comes from our own dairy.

I had hoped, my dear sister, that by distancing my self from the endless distractions of keeping the cottage & farm at Chawton & caring for Mama, that I would be the better able to put pen to paper & get on with revizing "First Impressions," which has languished in its note book these past dozen years buried in the chest I keep under my bed. I have shewn the manuscript to no one in all that time. But, with the forth-coming publication of "Sense and Sensibility," & our growing need for income, I pulled it out & found it has great merit for selling well, provided I can revize it to reflect the changes that genteel society has undergone in the last decade. Novels must be topical & up-to-date if they are to sell! The novel's satire of middle-class morals & values is a bit old, & must needs be brought up to present times if it is still to amuse -- & to sell.

In my last letter, I told you the heroine is called Elizabeth -- Lizzy, Liza or Eliza -- Bennet, she is the second eldest of five children, all of them girls. The family lives in the imaginary village of Longbourn in Hertfordshire; they are a genteel, landed family, but with limited income from rents, a number of farms having been sold off two or three generations before to settle the gambling debts of a profligate forebear. As Mrs. Bennet has produced only daughters & is now past child bearing, the estate is entailed, in default of heirs male, to a distant male cousin, a ill-looking prelate named Collins (a dull-witted, pompous, obsequious fool), & will pass to him upon Mr. Bennet's death -- a fine state of affairs for the five sisters! Tho' the father is as yet hale & hearty, the entail is, none the less, a constant thorn in the family's side. The situation gives me ample scope to ridicule Collins & all petty, sycophantic clergymen of his ilk: Collins is torn between his acquisitiveness and his sense of guilt that he will inherit something which common sense holds is not rightfully his. He hopes to make it all up to the Bennets -- and assuage his conscience -- by marrying one of the daughters, but of course none of the girls will have any thing to do with such an ill-favoured clod-poll.

The mother is a dreadfully silly, uneducated & pretentious creature with a patina of fine manners, who is a constant source of mortification to Lizzie (her least favourite daughter) & prattles without surcease about marrying off her girls into favourable situations (as such women do); & her father, Mr. Bennet, is clever, witty, well-educated, capricious & thoroughly ineffectual -- after all, he married Mrs. Bennet! Lizzie is her father's favourite child, & like him, she is more than clever, but unlike him, is unflinchingly resolute & keeps her eye fixed on the mark until she has got it. Lizzie's most formidable mark is, of course, a husband for her self: when she at last discovers that she has fallen in love with the prideful & arrogant Mr. Darcy, after having spent the first half of the novel savouring her intense dislike for the man, she directly swallows her own pride with typical feminine practicality, succeeds in sinking his, too, & so they are married in the end. That Darcy has an income of ten thousand a year does not, of course, figure in Eliza's conscious deliberations, as she is far above such pecuniary motives -- or, at the very least, she considers her self to be above them.

I have changed the title to "Pride and Prejudice," as it more accurately reflects the principal flaws in both Eliza & Darcy, flaws which must be surmounted & purged before their love can blossom. But, alas, I am hopelessly stalled in my revision! I cannot sleep nights, tho' I doze off now & then at my escritoire & each time find my self dreaming a most disturbing dream, about a time where I have never been, where people rush madly about in noisy metal carriages, not drawn by horses, but somehow propelled from within by an invisible fire, buildings are prodigiously tall & all windows & London is smothered in a pall of nauseating brown haze. The men have bad teeth & spotty complexions & carry black furled umbrellas, whilst the women, garishly made up as if for the lime-light, roam the streets wearing dresses so short that at least half their legs are exposed, or else wearing breeches just like the men! It is revolting even to imagine!

When I awaken from this unsettling dream, I can not concentrate any more on my writing, but, unaccountably, find my self thinking terrible thoughts about what married men & women do together in private -- thoughts that have entered my mind from Heaven knows where! I have never had such shameful thoughts, yet I am somehow compelled to think them, just as I seem compelled to dream this frightful dream. These unsavoury thoughts have found their way into my work as well, like rainwater seeping in through a bad roof, affecting my stile no less than the content, & I am tearing up chapter after chapter as I deviate from my intended theme. I blush, dearest Cassandra, to tell you of this, but it is the plain truth & I am afraid that, should these strange dreams & unhealthy thoughts persist, I shall go mad!

For an instance, the youngest Bennet girl, Lydia, (who is only fifteen, but whom her mother would as quickly marry off as she would Jane, her eldest), was not intended to play any great role in the early part of the novel, but was meant to be merely a fluffy counterpoint to the rich depths of her elder sister Eliza's character & personality. But when I can write, I am compelled to write entirely new chapters about Lydia alone, which only divert me further from my main narrative. I just now, a bit earlier, tore in half & crumpled up two chapters wholly about her & consigned them to the dustbin. Had there been a fire in the grate, I would surely have burned them! And these horrid chapters all come out written in the first person, as if Lydia was inventing her self as she goes along, instead of my inventing her! It is uncommonly strange, sister, to be no longer mistress of my own pen!

Nights in bed, unsleeping, I find my self thinking back to young Thomas LeFroy, & of that summer evening at Steventon in '96 when he took me into the stables to shew me his prize Irish mare, but it was to an empty stall with fresh straw that he took me & did unspeakable but wonderful things with me that I can never forgive, (nor can wholly wish to forget), but all the same I would have flown to Ireland that night with the good-looking rogue had he asked me -- I was twenty-one that year and, as ever, a poor prospect for marriage for want of even a meagre annuity. However, he did not ask me, for, having defiled me, he wanted only to get away fast: the cunning devil had packed his effects beforehand & had saddled his mare & hitched her to a tree in the meadow below the creamery, & so rode off directly he had done with me, & I twisted my ancle in the field running home in tears to the Rectory & told every body I had twisted it earlier & that is why I was late, as it was too painful to walk on (which was true). Of course, I never saw Thomas LeFroy again, nor did he ever, by all reports, return into our country, & I was exceedingly relieved when the flux came that month, tho' I had a bad fright, for it was more than a se'night late. But then, I was never as regular as you.

You will not, of course, tell any one of this, dearest Cassandra -- I am hardly certain of why I am telling it to you, as I have never imparted it to another living soul. It is as if the Forces of Darkness, unleashed by Thomas LeFroy all those years ago, have come back to torment me again!

I will remain here in Tavistock-crescent a fortnight more & endeavour to complete at least one half of the novel's revision. Then I shall return to Chawton by public stage, for I can not possibly hire a carriage, as much as the dust & the crowding & the rank onion breath of the other passengers is offensive to me: Henry has been importuning Crosby to advance me a royalty on the first printing of "Sense and Sensibility," but extracting money from book publishers, who are all calculating rogues, is like squeezing blood from turnips. Better said, from last year's turnips!

Kiss Mama for me & do not forget that next Monday is Susan the dairymaid's birth day. In the bottom of my workbasket you will find a pair of new tortoise shell combs for her, which I bought at the fair at Nether Coppington, almost a twelvemonth ago. You will also find several sheets of fine Florentine tissue paper in the same place, & some Flemish red velvet ribbon for tying up the package. Do make certain to cut the ribbon long enough so that Susan can use it later for her hair. She uses four ribbons. And do not neglect to tell the mowers there is a new scythe-blade in the loft of the barn, just come from the blacksmith in June. One of the blades always seems to go bad by the second mowing. There is a spare snath, as well, stored with the blade, but no bees' wax has yet been applied to the handles.

With all sisterly love & affection, I am, as ever, your own, &c., &c.,

JANE

Chapter 4 - I Resume My Existence and Am Dressed in the Peak of Fashion

Posted on Tuesday, 18 January 2000

I remember squatting on the chill porcelain pot -- and then all went blank and the next I knew, I was back in my sunny bed chamber again and Esther was lacing me into my under bodice as I held my arms over my head to keep them out of the way. The room, as I said, had no full-length looking-glass to allow me to observe my self being dressed, but I could see plainly enough, by glancing downwards, that I was wearing white lisle stockings gartered just above the knee with plain poplin ties. The tops of my stockings almost met the legs of my long and rather puffy white pantalettes, about the length of what you, Dear Reader, in your time would call Bermuda shorts.

"Ah!" exclaimed Esther, "thith tie idth about to tear, Mith Lydia -- you are growing tho large in the bosom that you are the envy of all the girlth for leagueth round! When thith one tearth, it will be the third tie thinth March that'th got weakened by too much pulling! I declare I never thaw a girl grow tho fatht, and in all the right places, too. I've got your new blue cambric dreth -- the one that idth tho daring in front, all ready and ironed. It will give you joy to wear it today...breathe in deeply now, Mith," Esther commanded, "...That'th better...there!" She tied the bow. "You look thtunning! Thee for yourthelf," she said, stepping back to assess the effect of her handiwork. I was so tightly laced I thought I'd break a rib if I took another deep breath!

I crouched a bit to gauge the result in the tiny wash stand looking-glass and was rewarded with a view of a statuesque décolletage, pushed up and out by Esther's skilled lacing. I wanted to stare at my self a while longer, but instead, against my volition, I turned back round to face the wall-eyed maid, opened my mouth and heard the following words pass my lips:

"La! Esther, how you do prate on about my daring blue cambric dress! Do you take me for an hussy? I shall be wearing a shawl, of course, so that I shall not be on display to all the sweaty farmfolk we may meet on our way in to Meryton. Should the sun be hot, however, I may find reason to remove it, but not unless we meet with some officers." I looked reprovingly at the maid.

Esther colored a mild crimson. "Thorry, Mith, I wath only trying to praithe."

Despite my protestations of modesty, however, I found my self craving to see my self clad in my new blue cambric dress, which I had not put on since its final fitting in Meryton now nearly a month ago, when it was still all just pinned and basted. I could not wait! I was almost about to stamp my foot with impatience, but instead, drawing on my meagre reserves of self-control, I asked, in a tone edged with petulance:

"And what, pray, is my sister Kitty wearing to-day?"

"Why, Mith, she idth wearing her yellow gingham and underneath, her betht mauve-colored top-petticoat."

Kitty, my seventeen-year-old sister, was quite flat chested and rather too broad in the beam, but she had an exceptionally sweet face and dressed with great care, making the most of her assets. She was better spoken than me as well, tho' that only went so far with a man. I did not, however, wish to be upstaged by her for any reason, and my new low-cut blue cambric with its tight-laced under bodice would be ample assurance that I would not be: on our last foray together into Meryton, I went green with envy to see the attention Captains Cox and Peckham were paying Kitty (tho', I admit, I was engaged in rapt conversation with Captain Shaftworthy at the time -- we were considering the merits of the latest wig-powder from Paris) -- I am galled unless every man for fifty feet round has his eyes fixed intently upon me, no matter I am engaged with only one of them at a time! I want the attentions of all! But Kitty's yellow gingham was no rival for my blue cambric. Kitty may as well stay in the shade to-day! I wanted Shaftworthy -- and Cox and Peckham too -- all to myself, and felt like gouging out the eyes of any other girl who got in my way -- sisters included!

My spiteful reverie was interrupted by Esther's peremptory command, "Armth up again, Mith," and, still musing on just how provocatively a shawl might be removed in front of an officer (or officers), I clasped my hands behind my head and brought my elbows closely together, hugging my self, as it were, as Esther dropped petticoat after petticoat down over my shoulders, tying each about my waist. The outer petticoat, in very pale blue satin, was ruffled in front in a mass of horizontal frills. Then came the dress, in sky blue Birmingham cambric, low and square-cut in front, with a froth of white lace, and short, puffed shoulder sleeves that showed off my plump arms to advantage. The skirt fell open in an inverted V-shaped gap from the high, wrap-over waist, exposing rows and rows of satiny frills of my outermost petticoat. It was a delectable dress!

I sat on a stool before the washstand and extended each foot for Esther to pull on my dainty blue satin slippers -- suitable for parlour wear, but which would be dusty by the end of our walk and would need cleaning. And, if it rained, well, then I would go barefoot rather than ruin them! A girl simply can not afford to spoil a good pair of satin shoes, not even an empty-head like me!

Then Esther easily brushed out my curls (my tight fitting night-cap had a good purpose, after all!) and tied my hair back just in front of my ears, using ribbons of the same pale blue satin as my frilled petticoat. I hesitated for a moment, thinking Lydia had forgotten some thing -- make-up perhaps? But, no, of course not, only whores and actresses (and the nobility) used make-up: it was forbidden to all other women. But I remembered the rosewater, several drops of which I spread with a fingertip, between my breasts. Now I was dressed and my toilette complete. And I was ravenously hungry.

As if reading my thoughts, Esther propelled me towards the door, saying:

"There! You're all ready to go down to breakfatht. You mutht be thtarving, so down you go, mith!" And she gave me a gentle shove. I had to pull in my skirts to get through the doorway, and, as I scampered down the steep stairs, I had to hold them up so that I could see my feet and not lose my footing. The rustling of my petticoats made such a racket that my descent was hardly unheralded, and I heard irritated expressions of "At last!" and "She is finally coming!" emanate from the direction of the breakfast room, followed by murmurings of which I could catch only the words "Lydia" and "that dress!"

Chapter 5 - A Sisterly Spat with Eliza

Posted on Wednesday, 19 January 2000

The chatter I had heard as I ran down the stairs abruptly ceased the moment the rustling of my petticoats announced my imminent arrival in the breakfast room. My cheeks started to burn as I realised I was the object of their doubtlessly unfavourable discussion of my myriad faults. I paused in the hallway, where hung the household's only long looking glass. I stopped to listen, to hear if the awkward silence would endure. Let them wait a bit longer! I admired my comely reflexion, tested my best smile and regarded my self from various perspectives (even looking over my shoulder to see how I would appear from behind). Pleased with what I saw, and with my best smile on my lips, I made my grand entrance, bold as a brass weathercock in an electrical storm. Let the lightening strike!

Five pairs of female eyes greeted my arrival into the sunny breakfast room, then each pair went its separate direction. Liza and Jane glanced meaningfully at one another with an 'I told you so!' look on their censorious faces, then simultaneously cast their eyes upwards in scornful condemnation. Kitty shot one glance at me and immediately looked down to stare fixedly at her place setting, with a sour, resigned expression, muttering something inaudible under her breath. Mary merely raised her eyebrows and blinked in my general direction, no doubt preparing in her mind one of her boring moral platitudes for the improvement of the female sex. Mama gazed lovingly at me, cocked her head to one side and smiled, seeing no faults at all and merely wishing she could still wear such a dress.

"You look lovely, Lydia, my darling," she exclaimed. "Come give your poor Mama a kiss!" Eliza and Jane, always in league together against me, puffed out their breath in derision and shook their heads in disbelief, Kitty examined the flatware and sullenly turned her spoon over and over again, whilst Mary continued to blink myopically in my direction, her gaze misdirected a bit to my right.

"Really, Mama," cried Eliza," breaking the sisters' silence, "Lydia has kept us all waiting this half hour and more, and all you can say is how lovely she looks! Slug-a-beds such as she should not receive rich rewards! Better that she should be sent back upstairs to her chamber until tea time so that she may reflect on her sloth and forego her precious excursion into Meryton to-day."

"Hold your tongue Lizzie," Mama harshly responded. I was Mama's favourite, for we were the most alike, in looks, temper...and want of understanding, whereas she found Lizzie endlessly irksome, mostly because she was unable to follow her reasoning: Lizzie was logic personified, Mama and I, pure impulse -- and we understood one another perfectly.

"We must all make allowances for youth," continued Mama, as I put my nose in the air and undulated across the room, holding my skirts up and out of the way so as not to catch them on the backs of the chairs, and flaunting my wares as if I was the buxom figurehead of Brittania on a 72-gun ship of the line. I planted the requested daughterly kiss on Mama's cheek, she patted mine and then pinched it. "Lydia still needs her beauty sleep," she declared, "and to-day, at the regimental parade, she may snare a husband, so she must look her best!" Of course, we all knew Mama was not quite sixteen when Jane, the eldest, had been born, so that she quite clearly considered fifteen to be the ideal age for a girl to be married.

Jane practically choked at the word 'husband,' but it was, to be sure, Eliza who rendered the first opinion on my new dress, which had been, of course, the object of their conversation before my entry. With that haughty, needling tone of hers, she opened hostilities:

"Speaking of allowances for youth, Mama, surely you shall not allow Lydia to go in to Meryton in such a gown as this! Why, she is fairly spilling out of it and probably shall, too, should she reach for a hat on a shelf at the milliner's! Neither Lydia her self, nor the rest of the family, need any such scandal as this unseemly display of bosom will doubtless occasion. I am quite shocked that Signora Palchetti should have cut it so low! I will certainly take my own patronage elsewhere henceforward. Such a dress may be worn, perhaps, to a private ball without inciting excessive opprobrious comment, but not into town on a weekday! And to a regimental parade, no less, with common soldiers marching by! What will people think of us when they see we have allowed Lydia to sally forth so scantily clad?"

"You are merely envious, Lizzie, because you could never wear such a dress," I cried, colouring. "You haven't the half of what it takes!" (This was the truth, and for this reason, Eliza usually favoured high-necked dresses.)

Eliza's dark eyes flashed in anger. "Mama," she cried, "It is intolerable for Lydia to address her elders with such impertinence! She must make instant apology!"

I adored teazing Lizzie on the subject of her less-than-generous endowments, so I was gratified not only to have drawn her fire, but to have returned it with such happy effect. One could almost smell burning gunpowder in the breakfast room! Now, to advance my counter attack, I stuck my tongue out at her. This was going to be a lovely breakfast, I could see, and we had not even begun to eat yet!

Mama was trying to conceal her laughter with her hand, for I knew she had liked my retort and was not-so-secretly pleased to see Lizzie discomfited. "But Eliza," Mama began, unable any longer to suppress an outright smirk, "Lydia has merely spoken the truth -- indeed, we all know you could never wear such a dress. Older women," Mama continued, (Lizzie had attained the advanced age of twenty, so in Mama's mind she was practically an old maid already), "Older women must, of course, dress less attractively once the full bloom of youth has passed them by. And besides, one can not be made to apologise for telling the truth, now, can one?"

Lizzie's eyes flashed again, her nostrils flared and she bit her lower lip so hard I thought she'd draw blood. She clenched her fists and drew them under the table and in to her lap. But she remained silent, glaring alternately at Mama and at me. I was ecstatic.

Now Mary weighed in: "I agree with Elizabeth. A parade is not a dance party, neither should soldiers be distracted from duties military by young ladies who expose themselves shamelessly. Modesty in dress is ever a virtue in Maid, and is consistent with rectitude in all else. Lydia ought to wear something less daring."

Flashing a momentary saccharine smile on my lips, I acknowledged Mary's predictable aphorism with a slight inclination of my head to one side and a mock curtsey. No one ever paid the slightest attention to Mary, not only the plainest of us five girls, but always as bland and boring as white pudding. She was not quite so stupid as Kitty or me, but she had none of Lizzie's or Jane's quick silver intellect, either. Mary provided the marginal notes for the family, in a manner of speaking, which gave her -- and no one else -- immense satisfaction. Mary, who was nineteen, lived in her own little world: because she was so short-sighted, she almost never went out of doors and spent most of her time reading morally edifying religious tracts, or writing uplifting homilies she would then commit to memory, for recitation when ever an occasion presented, or doing crewel work. Mary did excel at crewel work, I was constrained to admit. Mine was horrible, like the web of a spider who has fallen into a glass of strong brandy, but Mary's was perfect.

Mama always sat at the head of the table when Papa was gone, so I took the chair to her right, usually Lizzie's when Papa was home, but which Mama reserved for me when he was gone -- to Lizzie's great mortification, for it galled her no end -- each time -- with all the force of the first time Mama did it, just as it pleased me no end -- each time. I thrust my bosom outwards as I settled my self in my chair, sniffed and lifted my nose a bit to the side. Such meals were always a particular pleasure for me. I daintily held my serviette up, by one corner, at shoulder level and let it unfurl with a negligent flick of the wrist (my little finger extended): this was the signal that the temporarily fatherless family was now officially at table and that breakfast could commence.

Breakfast proceeded in silence, save for the chinking of flatware on china and the sounds of plated covers being removed from, then replaced over, various dishes. The meal was exceptionally lavish: thick slices of fresh white bread slathered in sweet butter, rich fruit preserves or fragrant honey; milk, slightly yellow and almost as thick as cream; a big pot of delicious Jamaica coffee; hot scones and muffins; thick rashers of bacon; endless links of short, plump sausages, their crisp skins bursting with fat; three or four kinds of smoked fish, including Scotch salmon; a red earthen pot of steaming oatmeal with a great gob of butter melting on top; wedges of yellow and orange melon of a kind I had never before seen or tasted; sliced fried potatoes smothered in melted Cheshire cheese; eggs cooked many different ways -- boiled, roasted, poached, fried, shirred and coddled. In short, it was a breakfast I never possibly could have countenanced eating in my former existence, yet here I was, as Lydia, greedily shoveling forkful after forkful into my pretty little mouth -- and my mother and sisters not exactly stinting themselves, either. I was amazed that we were not all uncommonly fat. But, with the possible exception of Kitty, whose derriere was definitely on the hefty side, none of us could be considered any thing but well-nourished women, tho' I was certain that, for my self, at this rate, I would be somewhat more than full-figured in less than ten years.

I took advantage of the silence to marvel at what a strange family I had been thrust into, and I the youngest and by far the most attractive, too! But what a spoiled creature was I -- a mother's pet lording it over her less well-favoured sisters. And I was so comfortably and obnoxiously stupid! It had taken all of my mental powers to come up with that crack about Elizabeth's less-than-astonishing bust, and even now, as I concentrated on analysing the characters of my mother and sisters, I was having considerable difficulty restraining my mind from returning to just how I was going to remove my shawl later in the day: precisely when and before whom. And even worse, my brain was cluttered with vivid images of red-coated officers strutting about in tight white breeches tucked into high black riding boots.

How vexing! These dual (and discordant) trains of thought were so very confusing! It was like having two separate persons within me: I still remembered with undiminished clarity who I had been in my former existence. But, at the very same time, I was the silly, spoiled, stupid and spiteful Lydia -- an accomplished little vixen and flirt! I could observe my self -- as Lydia -- in action, and critique her performance, as it were, with all my former intellectual powers, yet, as Lydia, I was barely articulate.

The cool and dispassionate appraisal of my family on which I had just now embarked was utterly derailed by Lydia's obsessive imaginings of red-coated officers in tight white breeches. Suddenly, as before, the room grew dim: my mother and sisters faded into nothingness, and I, too, was shortly extinguished like a spark flying up a chimney and out into the night air to become a cold, dead cinder.

These last two chapters also were torn from their notebook, crumpled and thrown into the dustbin, where they were retrieved by Miss Austen's maid and saved with the earlier ones.

Chapter 6 - A letter from Jane Austen to her sister, Cassandra Austen

Posted on Wednesday, 19 January 2000

Tavistock-crescent
London
July 19, 1811

My Dearest Cassandra,

The oppressive heat here has somewhat abated, but now we are plagued by dust & blue-bottle flies -- big ones that settle ever where in necrotic profusion. Oh, how I long for Chawton! Only a little more than ten days, & I shall return to you!

A traveller to London from our parts told of a dreadful hail-storm yesterday. I do hope that it passed you by & did no damage to the oats, which are so frail at this season. Losing even one field of oats could break us this year, you know. But as hailstorms are so very local I figure it is most unlikely that the one the traveller mentioned could have damaged our crops.

I am afraid, dearest Cassandra, that I have made but little progress in my revisions of "Pride and Prejudice." The willful & stupid Lydia has almost completely aggrandised the novel: I sit down at my escritoire to write about Eliza and from my pen flows another chapter about Lydia! She is ill-bred & manipulative, without moral virtue, and is nothing of my creating, tho' what I write of her comes from my hand. She is a carnal creature whose mind flies to imagining officers in tight breeches: I dread to think what will happen when I bring Lydia to Meryton, and to the very officers she can not get out of her head!

So each day it is Lydia, Lydia, nothing but Lydia! I know not where she comes from -- perhaps from the Devil -- but it is without question that she is perfectly corrupting my writing! And not my writing alone, dear sister, but my life as well! I am obsessed with memories of Thomas LeFroy -- I think of him nightly: I can not get him out of my mind. And, when I do sleep, in fits, during the day, I am returned to that frightening & noisy London with the fetid brown air (tho', to its merit, it has no blue bottle flies).

Our brother Henry has, of course, taken notice that all is not well with me, (tho', to be sure, I could not tell him the truth!), so only yesterday he brought me for a consultation with Sir William Blythe, in Wigmore-street. Sir William is, as you may know, physician to the Duke of Cumberland & to Admiral Nelson as well. Sir William listened to me in confidence and diagnosed an acute involutional melancholia (in former times known as the black bile), complicated by insomniac tendencies, for which he compounded a tincture of opium of which I am to take six drops in a small glass of port wine each bed time. I took the draught last night, but it had no effect besides making my recurrent dream all the more vivid, so I know not whether to halve or double the dosage to-night! At all events, Sir William will bleed me on Wednesday a week should my symptoms persist unabated. I have every faith in the man: it is said that Nelson suffered horribly from night-mares until he sought Sir William's help, and now he sleeps like a babe.

I shall close now, dearest Cassandra, & hope that the wild onions are not profuse in the meadows this summer; by August last year, both milk & butter tasted like chives!

With all sisterly devotion, I remain your own, &c., &c.,

JANE

Chapter 7 - I Find My Self in Meryton and Make an Assignation with Two Officers of the Regiment

Posted on Thursday, 20 January 2000

When next I resumed my existence, succeeding the second Hiatus of Darkness, I found my self standing with my sisters Kitty and Lizzie on the sunny side of Meryton High Street, staring into the confectioner's window. How had we got there? Where had I been in the mean time? Lydia did not seem at all troubled by such questions, for I found her profoundly absorbed -- and then in a trice my identity was drowned by hers once again and I found my self profoundly absorbed -- in deciding which and how many of the sweetmeats displayed in the window I could purchase for tuppence. I was clutching a frothy blue-and-white parasol; about my white shoulders was a fine blue silk shawl pinned at my bosom with a corsage of violets. I could see in the window's reflexion that, as promised, my cleavage did not show.

Kitty held a yellow parasol, finer than mine, but she, having next to nothing to conceal (or display), wore no shawl and consequently looked cooler than I felt, for the day, advancing on eleven, was already sultry. Lizzie appeared her usual immaculate self in her plain white dress and primrose Empire sash; she had neither shawl nor parasol, but for protection from the July sun wore a bonnet of finely woven pink-dyed straw with a delicate cluster of fragrant lobelia depending from the brim at one side. Lizzie carried a small leather primrose snap purse, and was in the process of opening it even as we materialised.

"Here is tuppence apiece, sisters," she said, bestowing a coin into each of our expectant palms. "But we haven't all morning, so make up your minds and conclude your purchases with dispatch, or we shall miss the parade," she admonished, closing her little purse with an efficient snap. Lizzie delighted in treating Kitty and me like five-year-olds when ever the opportunity presented -- which was often -- in this instance, doling out small coins to each of us (who could not yet be trusted by our doting mother to manage our own pin money).

Kitty, closing her fist about the copper and frowning in concentration, cried, "I can not decide between the licorice pastilles and the lavender ones! Which do you favour, Lyddie?"

"O. That's easy, Kit. Neither one," I giggled. "I shall spend my tuppence on crystallised ginger, which shall sweeten my breath. Men are not partial at all to licorice, and lavender makes one's mouth taste like perfume, which I find disagreeable."

Lizzie cast her eyes heavenward as if seeking forbearance, and tapped her toe on the narrow pavement. "I shall give you girls no more than ten minutes to conclude your purchases. In the mean time I shall stop at the mercer's; Mrs. Fothergill promised Thursday last to save me some scraps of scarlet calico I want for my quilting. If I am not waiting for you when you are done, you shall find me round the corner," and, so saying, she briskly walked off with that prim little mincing strut of hers that she knew I found so infuriating.

Whilst Kitty was still pondering her choices, a dazzling glint caught my eye. I glanced up to see two officers in regimentals just entering the High Street at the low end of the town: the mirrored surface of one of their scabbards had reflected the sun. Lizzie already had her back towards them as she walked towards the mercer's, and Kitty was still absorbed in the confectioner's window, so I alone was cognisant of their approach. They took to the shady side of the street and were strolling indolently in our direction, gazing in shop windows, at a pace that would bring them opposite us in about five minutes' time. I could not make out, at this distance, who they were, but I was reasonably certain one of them was Captain Shaftworthy. The High Street was otherwise empty, save for several shop boys running errands and a drayman driving a waggon piled high with hay, drawn by two plodding oxen.

My heart began to race: I would have to act quickly! I furled my parasol with a soft snap, gripped Kitty's elbow, and almost dragged her into the shop, where, like a moth at a candle, she immediately began to flutter before the glassed counter display, filled with ever so many more choices than the windows had held. I knew Kitty would be paralysed by indecision for at least five more minutes. Whilst she gazed abstractedly at the variety of sweetmeats, indecisiveness already breaking out like a rash on her pretty young brow, I advanced to the counter and plunked down my coin.

"Twopenny worth of crystallised ginger, if you please, Mrs. Banks," I cried, sliding the copper towards the far edge of the counter, behind which the stout proprietress, or, better said, the proprietor's wife, was standing, beaming with the sort of smug indulgence one usually reserves for pets, small children and half-wits.

"Certainly, Miss Bennet," she responded, with that special inclination of the head used to acknowledge the precise and unvarying gulf between trade and gentry. Yet, as my elder, and one who had known me all my life, she could not resist being familiar:

"So, all decked out today in our finery for the regimental parade, are we?" she asked, her indulgent smile slowly spreading. "I am sure every young lady in Meryton..."

Anxious to get out of the shop directly -- without Kitty -- I had no desire to engage Mrs. Banks in small conversation, so I merely coloured (by a little trick I had learnt from an actress who had passed through Meryton in the spring), and nodded with feigned enthusiasm, saying:

"My crystallised ginger, if you please, Mrs. Banks."

Sensible of having been rebuffed, she frowned, but then straightaway reached into a wide-necked blue glass jar with a scoop to retrieve the ginger, which she wrapped in a small square of green waxed paper and placed in my hand.

"Thank you, Miss Bennet," said Mrs. Banks with a faintly petulant air, picking up the copper and dropping it into her apron pocket. I smiled, gave a small curtsey, turned away and headed for the door.

"I shall wait for you in the street, Kit," I said, rustling precipitously out of the shop and tinkling the spring bell over the door as I did so, but Kitty was too enmeshed in the toils of decision-making to have heard me. As the door swung to behind me, I extracted a piece of crystallised ginger from the packet and popped it in to my mouth; as the sharp, spicy flavour of the ginger began to make my tongue tingle, I thrust the paper with the other pieces in to one of my dress pockets,

Yes, Dear Reader, dresses had large slit side pockets in those days! Indeed, my the skirts of my gown were so loose and airy, hanging free from the tight and high-waisted bodice and held out by several long petticoats, that they could well have concealed a full-term baby beneath them -- and indeed, such concealment was not wholly unknown -- take Susan Dunbar, the miller's sixteen year-old daughter, for one -- who surprized both her family and Tim Reddington, the ostler's son, as well, last year at Michaelmas, when she all on a sudden went into hard labour and delivered a nine-pound daughter before the midwife could be fetched!

From my opposite pocket, I removed a pair of light blue fine kid skin gloves and drew them slowly on, my furled parasol tucked up under one arm. As I pushed the fingers of one hand down between the splayed fingers of the other, to settle the gloves, I slowly raised my eyes to glance round me with studied indifference, and was rewarded to see that the officers had closed half the distance that had lain between us when they had first entered the town. I further observed that my presence had been detected, for one of the pair, having looked in my direction, quickly turned away, to his companion. In a trice both faces looked towards me and then, after the briefest of glances, turned in unison to gaze, with rapt attention, into a convenient shop window. The shop they had paused in front of was the poulterer's, whose windows, filled with trussed fowl hanging by the feet, held nothing of interest for dashing young officers. Clearly, they were taking counsel and biding their time. A lively discussion ensued, one of the two gestured broadly, and I was aware of a faint rhythmic thwack every few seconds, whose source I could not determine. I fancied I discerned the flash of a coin being tossed, but, at this distance, I could not be certain of it.

To throw my self in their way and, because it was less obtrusive for one, rather than two, to cross the High Street, I popped open my parasol and, shielding my self from the sun -- and from the officers' gaze -- stepped off the pavement and sailed blithely across the High Street to the milliner's shop opposite, where I promptly engrossed my self in this week's window display of the latest ribbons and bonnets from London.

Within a minute I heard the approaching murmur of masculine conversation and the musical jingling of spurs, punctuated by the same rhythmic thwack. Tho' I was now on the shady side of the street, I kept my parasol open, tilted towards the young men, so that my head was concealed. The murmur and jingling got louder but the thwack ceased; then there was silence. I could tell from the fuzz prickling up on the back of my neck that someone was standing close behind me.

"Could it be one of the Misses Bennet, concealed beneath a superfluous parasol?" inquired a smooth baritone voice. "You are standing on the shady side of the street, Madam, so I rather doubt your complexion will irretrievably suffer should you close up your sun-shade and expose yourself to us."

With a coquettish smile prepared on my lips, I turned round to find my self gazing up into the smiling blue eyes of none other than Captain Shaftworthy, who bowed formally from the waist, removed his tall black shako and tucked it under his arm. He took my proffered hand in his.

"And Miss Lydia Bennet, no less, the most fair of the five fairest sisters in Hertfordshire!" he cried, bowing a second time. "This is indeed a singular pleasure."

"You are very kind, Shaftworthy, I am sure," I replied, fluttering my lashes and furling my parasol, "you know that flattery will get you every where with me!" I giggled, coughed to regain my composure and regarded his companion expectantly, a sharp-featured young man of medium height, dark red, almost purple, hair, (slightly disheveled), and eyes like a squirrel's: so black that their pupils were not visible. His thin lips were twisted in a small, wry smile as he awaited his introduction. Seeing me look intently at the stranger, Shaftworthy took his cue:

"May I present Captain Seamus O'Connor, the newest member of our regiment?" O'Connor removed his shako and bowed gravely. "Captain O'Connor, lately transferred from the Irish Horse Guards, has come into Hertfordshire only three days ago. I have undertaken to introduce him into the best of Meryton society, so I am doubly pleased to have encountered you Miss Bennet. Miss Bennet: Captain Seamus O'Connor. Captain O'Connor: Miss Lydia Bennet!"

I languidly extended my gloved hand, which Captain O'Connor, bowing again, brought to his lips, looking me straight in the eye all the while. I detected a faint whiff of gin on his breath, but poor, innocent Lydia, knowing nothing of strong spirits, took it for eau de cologne and quite fancied the fragrance, which she considered dashing and soldierly.

"Your servant, Miss Bennet," said O'Connor, at last releasing me and smartly clicking his heels as he straightened. Now I understood the source of the strange thwacking sound: O'Connor carried a short riding crop, its black leather tip splitting and frayed; I could see that his right boot-top was dulled and worn from being continually struck in a sort of nervous habit. At the moment, however, he had slipped the looped handle negligently over his wrist, and the crop dangled idly at his side. I wanted to examine the crop more closely, to ask O'Connor about it, but instead, to my consternation, I found my self admiring the men's uniforms!

Now, a handsome officer in uniform is quite one thing, but two handsome officers in uniform is more than twice as good -- and such uniforms, too! A black shako with a curved white ostrich plume, the ***shire regimental emblem of a mailed fist over crossed sabers affixed at the front, and a patent-leather strap going under the chin; scarlet cutaway coats with double rows of gleaming silver buttons, ornate black-and-gold frogging at the breast; black-and-gold epaulettes; three heavy gold braids worn round the right shoulder; a white blouse and high starched white stock; and -- best of all -- those immaculate white breeches stuffed into high black leather riding boots, silver spurs at the heel.

For my part, I was less interested in their breeches than in their swords, which hung in mirror-bright scabbards from their belts: I wondered how sharp they might be, and whether either blade had ever drawn blood. But Lydia's imaginings again overwhelmed mine: my lids closed half-way in rapturous contemplation, a silly smile spread over my face and I thought I would go mad!

"Are you attending the regimental parade this morning, Miss Bennet?" Shaftworthy asked.

"Of course, Sir," I replied, "I would not miss a parade for any thing in the world!"

Another whiff of that eau de cologne! Lydia was suddenly overcome by the sheer proximity of these two handsome young officers, and I thought I would swoon. My eyes grew round and I tottered; with a little "Oh!" I laid my fingertips lightly on Shaftworthy's arm for support.

"Are you ill, Miss Bennet?" he asked, with really genuine solicitation in his voice.

"Not at all, Sir, I am quite well. It was merely the hiccough: I do beg your pardon."

I removed my hand from his arm, and the captain continued.

"Willingly granted. If the hiccough persists, however, may I suggest a teaspoon of granulated sugar? I am certain one may be had at the confectioners across the way." (Heavens forfend!) Shaftworthy paused, to make sure I was really not ill. Seeing I was not at all pale, but had, in fact, more than my normally high colour, he resumed:

"Well, then, you must join O'Connor and me in the officers' refreshments tent afterwards. There will be lemonade and sorbet. Then, should you wish to attend, a private cold luncheon will be served in our rooms at the George and Dragon, to be followed by a small entertainment. Only a few people will be there and you are particularly invited. We would be delighted to have you."

"The delight, Captain Shaftworthy, will be mine entirely," I replied, sensible of the distinction being shown me by a particular, rather than a general invitation, and hoping not too many other girls -- or any other girls -- had been invited. I felt quite grown up indeed! But I tried not to betray my excitement, and merely asked:

"But is not the parade in barely ten minutes, gentlemen? And are not you riding in it?"

"Why, what is the time?" Shaftworthy inquired.

"It is nearly eleven, I should think; when we entered the town the church clock was striking the half-hour." As I spoke, the church clock, as if on cue, struck the three-quarter-hour.

Shaftworthy turned to his companion and cried, "I told you that was not the quarter-hour, but the half-hour we heard striking whilst we were still on Mulberry Hill, O'Connor! Now we must hurry or we shall be late and incur Colonel Mulholland's displeasure! He is a right tartar when officers are late! Excuse us, Miss Bennet, but we must be off directly."

So saying, they bowed to me once again, donned their shakos and hurried off, hands upon their swords' pommels to keep them from swinging wildly about as they ran, and taking the first turning off the High Street. When O'Connor had turned away from me, I noticed that the rowels of his spurs were fouled with dried blood and horsehair, whilst Shaftworthy's were clean. What, if any thing, Lydia made of this observation, I could not determine, for she did not reflect upon it, but it certainly caused me excessive uneasiness. I did not care for O'Connor in the slightest, but Lydia, child that she was, found him the more attractive. She fancied his odd, red hair, and thought his carrying a riding crop to be quite manly.

No sooner had the officers disappeared than I heard the tinkle of the confectioner's doorbell as Kitty exited the shop. At the same moment, Lizzie came round the corner from the mercer's; the two, joining up and locking elbows, crossed the High Street together and approached me. My timing could not have been more fortuitous!

"I settled on the licorice, after all," Kitty declared, as she stepped up on to the pavement.

Making no reply, I took another piece of ginger from my pocket and popped it in to my mouth.

I hardly noticed the sharp taste, for I was preoccupied with divining the precise nature of the 'small entertainment' to take place after the luncheon, and wondered what part, if any, Lydia -- or I -- was to have in it. Lydia was, of course, too ignorant and stupid to be frightened, but not I.

But why frightened? First, because I felt myself blending more and more into Lydia's identity and was having increasing difficulty distinguishing my perceptions -- and thoughts -- from hers. Second, I was now fairly certain that a coin had been flipped, and that O'Connor had won the toss. Third, because I considered O'Connor untrustworthy and quite possibly dangerous. But, last, and more to the point, I was by now becoming aware that each time the plot of Miss Austen's novel took too carnal a turn, we were all of us likely to vanish in to oblivion. So, as my existence as Lydia Bennet was far superior to no existence at all, I tried my very best to think lofty thoughts acceptable to Miss Austen, tho' how long Miss Austen would let Lydia to go on with her lewd imaginings before pulling the plug once again was any one's guess.

This time it was Lizzie who interrupted my musings. "No gaping at ribbons and bonnets, girls, or we shall miss the start of the parade!" she chided, pulling Kitty in the direction of the town green, where the festivities were to be held. I eagerly set out with them, hooking my elbow in Kitty's, so that the three of us girls, arm-in-arm, occupied the whole width of the pavement.

As we followed in the two officers' footsteps, I realised with a start that I had forgotten to remove my shawl! Oh, well! There was nothing for it now! I supposed I would have opportunity enough at the luncheon, to which I was looking forward with eager anticipation, as I skipped along the pavement with my sisters.

Chapter 8 - A Regimental Parade

Posted on Friday, 21 January 2000

Meryton Common was filled with people, which explained why the High Street had been so deserted. The Common was a flat, grassy quadrangular area of six acres or more, running roughly east to west, and surrounded by elms on three sides; the fourth side, on the south and facing the town, was never planted with trees, having been left unobstructed for readier access. In olden days, the Common served as grazing land held in joint-occupation by the tradesmen and shop owners of Meryton who still kept a few cows, but, for at least the last hundred years, after growth of the populace, livestock would have reduced the greensward to powder, so the Common was given over to public and civic functions. Fetes and fairs, election rallies, tournaments of lawn bowls or skittles, religious revivals, outdoor plays, concerts and puppet shows -- and even a hanging or two -- all were held on the Common. With the commencement of Buonaparte's wars and consequent fear of invasion from France, militias had been raised all over England, and numerous regiments billeted in market towns, particularly in the Southern Counties. A regiment of militia, the ***shire Lancers, had been quartered in Meryton since '06. Hence, Meryton Common was now not infrequently used for military drills and parades, as well.

To-day the south side of the Common was divided by an outer picket of stakes and ropes and an inner picket of short poles interwoven with dull-red burlap, a common entry to both enclosures being left open in the middle. Within the inner picket had been erected a reviewing stand of fresh-sawn deal, facing north, so that the sun would not molest the eyes of the spectators, and so that they could enjoy a superb view of Chalk Hill, Barrington Heath and the gently rolling uplands beyond. The stand was festooned with Union Jacks and red, white and blue bunting. At its west end was a long green-and-white striped tent -- the officers' refreshments tent -- a Union Jack flew from the tip of its tall central pole, whilst bright purple and yellow regimental pennants snapped and fluttered from the tips of the others in the inconstant hot summer breeze. A whitewashed railing, as at a race course, had been set in front of the stands and ran the whole length of the Common to separate spectators from the parade grounds proper.

The area between the two pickets, farther from the parade ground, was for apprentice laborers, farm folk, servants and menials, whilst the inner area, delineated by the burlap, was reserved for journeymen and master artisans, merchants and gentry. Admission to the reviewing stand, however, was by invitation only. Lizzie held three tickets to the stands, in the twelfth tier, (signed by Col. Mulholland himself), high enough to look down on the action, but still not so far away from it that we would be unable to recognise the officers we knew and wished to see on their horses.

Our elegant dresses readily distinguished us as belonging to the inner concourse, so, no sooner had we arrived at the outer barrier, all out of breath from having run as fast as we could, than a tall, young subaltern in regimentals saluted us smartly, and said, "This way, Ladies, if you please!" He ushered us through the crowd, crying "Make way there! Make way there, do you hear? Make way!" As he sliced through the mass of people with us in tow, Lizzie tugged at his elbow and displayed him our tickets. Without breaking stride, he nodded, and conducted us right to the stands and up in to our places. With another crisp salute, and not allowing himself the least smile, he was gone, no doubt in quest of other pretty young girls to escort.

The deal benches in the stands had been covered in yellow sailcloth to keep the resinous sap from spoiling our dresses, but it could not cover the scent of the new-sawn wood, which was quite strong in the sun. The piney fragrance, the heat of high summer, the sustained buzz of the crowd and the whinnying of horses in the near distance, as they were being readied by their riders and grooms, all combined to produce an air of urgent, but gay, excitement. Kitty and I remained standing, craning our necks and scanning the inner crowd to see who was there and who was not, but Lizzie, always less affected by a common atmosphere, calmly sat, removed her bonnet and fanned her self with it to cool off: always so very practical! After a few minutes, during which she twice admonished me not to remove my shawl under any circumstances what so ever, she again donned her bonnet and began composedly to read her programme, which the subaltern had handed to each of us.

"Oh, look, Lyddie," Kitty cried, pointing with her programme, already rolled up tightly, (never to be read), "There's Cissy Chatsworth, down at the railing, playing the grand lady. What a ghastly bonnet she is wearing! Do you not suppose she has grown quite a little fatter since the last parade she attended, in May?"

I did not care a fig about Cissy Chatsworth, her bonnet, nor how fat she might have become since May: I was scanning for officers -- two in particular -- but none were in view except for some very ancient ones, in the forties, perhaps, with gray hair, attending to ladies in the first two rows of the stands. I saw one who looked young, from his figure and carriage, but his back was towards us, so I could not tell whom he was.

"Yes, I dare say she is grown a bit fatter, and her bonnet is rather ghastly, Kit," I perfunctorily replied, glancing in the direction indicated by Kitty's rolled programme. Just then the officer I had had my eye on turned round, looked over the stands, and suddenly began waving his hand. "But, see! There is Wickham, waving at us!" I exclaimed, as I recognised whom he was.

This intelligence brought Lizzie to her feet, for she quite fancied Wickham, the only officer in the regiment who could engage her in deep conversation. Lizzie was excessively fond of elevated discussion, but had little patience for talk of bonnets and dresses, dances...or of red-coated officers -- unless it was Wickham!

"O! Where is he?" she asked impatiently, casting her eyes every where but in the proper direction. I pointed him out to her, and directly she waved back. In response, Wickham bowed and then made an elaborate pantomime with his hands, accompanied by exaggerated facial expressions, gesturing towards the refreshment tent, by which we understood he desired to meet us there after the parade.

Further intercourse by dumb show was curtailed by a deep and deafening boom from the west end of the Common. All the ladies jumped; the men grimaced. A vast cloud of dense, white smoke rose slowly from the direction of the report: it was the blank cannon-shot, signalling the start of festivities. The crowd's murmuring quickly died down, all in the stands not already sitting, sat, and heads expectantly turned to the right, from which direction the regiment would be entering the field.

On a sudden, and far, far louder than any one would have imagined, the regimental band, as yet out of sight, struck up with "God Save the King," so we all stood again; the men removed their hats and looked solemnly straight before them, whilst the ladies blinked in the sunlight. Then the band broke into a lively march, we all sat once more, and the band came on to the field, in a close quick step, until they were opposite the stand. There they halted, and, polished instruments sparkling in the bright sunlight, rendered several stirring patriotic airs. The clear, sweet chime of the triangle, and the pure, shrill notes of the fife, heard above all else, were like an effervescent tonic, as bright as the very day it self.

The band struck up yet another sprightly march, and the regiment came on to the field like a mechanical clock work: first horse, then foot: the former preceded by Col. Mulholland, on his dapple gray, high-stepping charger, the latter by the drum-major marching backwards without a single glance over his shoulder, whilst marking time by thrusting his truncheon high into the air. The men's uniforms were brilliant in the bright July sun -- scarlet coats and white breeches, pipeclayed to perfection, and black boots gleaming. The soldier's muskets and powder-canisters, the officers' scabbards, and the buttons and buckles of all, were polished to a high state of mirrored effulgence, so that the combined effects of the music and the precise display of uniformed men bearing arms, as well as the sharp smell of hot deal in one's nostrils, was no less than dazzling: I was quite giddy with excitement, for I had never yet seen such a pleasing display of scarlet-coated, masculine pulchritude in all my fifteen years! I felt like Kitty before the confectioner's display-case: overwhelmed with desire, but unable to make any decision.

With these thoughts and sensations careening through my being, I soon lost all sense of time: before I knew it, the parade was ended and Lizzie and Kitty were pulling me to my feet.

"Why, Lydia, you have been staring off into empty air this last quarter-hour like a moon-struck calf! The parade is now done; we must hasten to the refreshments tent whilst there are still tables to sit at. On your feet, you silly dreamer," Lizzie chided, snapping her ungloved fingers before my eyes, whilst prodding me in the shoulder with her other hand. I stood and followed my sisters off the reviewing stand...

By the time we wove our way to the refreshment tent through the press of people, all tables were occupied. The atmosphere in the tent was close, for people were packed cheek-to-jowl. Lizzie soon descried Wickham at the far end of the tent, for he was more than six feet tall and easy to spot; she and Kitty made for him, but I held back, looking about me for Shaftworthy and O'Connor. I could not see them anywhere, and was on the verge of giving up on them and plowing through the crowd to join Wickham and my sisters when I heard my name called from behind.

"Miss Bennet, would you care for a cold lemonade?" asked O'Connor. I turned to face him; he had been standing just behind me, two glasses of lemonade, one in each hand, held high above his head the better not to spill them. He had stuck his riding crop in to one boot so that only its handle protruded.

I batted my eyes, smiled, then replied, "You are very kind, Captain O'Connor, for I am really quite hot and thirsty. A cold lemonade would do me a world of good at the moment." I gratefully accepted a glass and practically inhaled its contents in three gulps, for I was indeed parched; the lemonade, tho' soothingly cold, was strangely bitter, but I attributed it to the lemons themselves and thought no more about it.

"But where is Captain Shaftworthy?" I asked, licking the sticky beverage from my lips.

"Oh, Shaftworthy is gone ahead to the George and Dragon to oversee the laying out of the luncheon and to prepare the entertainment. He asked if I would find you here and conduct you thence when you have satisfied your thirst."

O'Connor smiled disarmingly, and took a long draught of his own lemonade. His explanation of Shaftworthy's absence seemed plausible enough to Lydia, tho' I had the deepest suspicions of the Irishman. My supposition was that the toss of a coin had determined which of the two officers would be alone with me afterwards -- and, as it turned out, I was correct in this. But what I did not suspect, and could not know, and did not discover until afterwards, when it was far too late, was that O'Connor, the third son of the Earl of Kilbeggan, was a notorious womanizer: he had made a career of the army, as third sons often do, and had left behind broken hearts -- and not a few babies -- at almost every one of his postings. His father's money, however, had kept him, on more than one occasion, from being cashiered.

At his last posting before transferring to the ***shire Lancers, O'Connor had been court-martialed for taking advantage of an inn-keeper's daughter in Roscommon; he had been acquitted of the charge, however, tho' some said it was because his father had paid the girl to withdraw her testimony, and had arranged a generous stipend for care of the baby.

I also did not know that O'Connor saw no pressing need to mend his foul ways, which were often nefarious in the extreme, relying upon deceit -- and upon arcane love potions. At all times he carried with him, secreted on his person, an obsidian phial containing a distillation of Mandragorda and Calabar. The former, from the root of the Mandrake (Mandragorda officinarum), is, in small doses an effective aphrodisiac (and conceptive); the latter, from the calabar, or ordeal bean, (Physostigma venosa), a potent anamnestic, but in any thing except the minutest amounts, can paralyse. This doubly insidious distillation had been compounded at O'Connor's direction by a dishonest Limerick apothecary. O'Connor had instilled several drops of this mixture in to my lemonade, which is what had made it taste bitter. As I have already related, however, I knew nothing of this at the time, tho' it all came out later.

At all events, I quickly finished my lemonade, and he, his. Presently I felt flushed and disorientated; I lost sight of Wickham and my sisters across the tent. And then suddenly...Lydia was gone! I mean her persona was gone -- her shallowness, her girlish emotions, her petty jealousies and spitefulness, her memories of her self -- had all utterly vanished. I was no longer subjugate to her will and desires, as I had been since awakening this morning to find my self in her body and bed. Lydia, for all her deficiencies, had been a sheet anchor of sorts all through this tumultuous day, and now I should have to fend for myself!

I had but little time for reflexion, however, for within moments of the onset of his potion, whose early effects he could no doubt detect by certain signs, perhaps the size of my pupils, O'Connor had cut me out of the crowd as one cuts a chosen heifer from the herd to be serviced by the prize bull in the paddock adjoining, and had led me, dazed and confused, from the tent and into the bright summer sunlight.

My first instinct was to run -- but without Lydia all was foreign and unfamiliar so I knew not where to go. In any event, my next step was taken out of my hands, for no sooner had we exited the tent than all was eclipsed in darkness again and time was suspended. I had, it would seem, displeased Miss Austen once more...

The preceding two chapters, like all the ones before them, were ripped from their note book, crumpled and thrown in to the dustbin, from which, like the others, they were retrieved and preserved by Miss Austen's maid, to whom posterity is forever indebted.

Chapter 9 - A Letter from Jane Austen to Her Sister, Cassandra Austen

Posted on Friday, 21 January 2000

Tavistock-crescent
London
July 21, 1811

My Dearest Cassandra,

I KNOW NOT HOW to begin, dearest sister, so distraught am I. Every thing has gone from bad to worse with my writing: not only does this Lydia -- this vile usurper! -- continue to define her self, as if she were a real, live creature of independent volition, but my writing has become no less than salacious: penny novels are more elevated in subject & tone than what pours forth from my pen in an endless ribbon of filth!

In the two chapters I have just now torn up, Lydia has made an assignation with two officers of the ***shire regiment of militia, who have dishonourable designs upon her, which, to the extent that she suspects such designs, she is a willing conspirator in them! Imagine! One of my characters -- fifteen years old & unmarried -- happily contemplating carnal relations with officers! I am quite fearful of taking up my pen again, not knowing the disgraceful depths to which it may lead me. Yet take it up again I must, for I am as compelled to keep writing this novel as I am to live & breathe. The best I can hope for is to keep my stile from becoming corrupted as well. So far, the false Lydia has not succeeded -- not yet -- in spoiling my stile; it is an almost superhuman struggle for me to keep my words on a respectable plane, even if what they impart to my readers deserves to be thrown in a privy!

Neither a half nor a double dosage of Sir William's draught has brought me sound, dreamless sleep. In truth, my unsettling dream becomes ever more vivid and appears to me in ever finer detail with each passing night: last night I found my self shut up in a huge windowed, bright red coach of sorts, so large it had two storeys as well as an interior stair case! The machine belched clouds of foul black smoke from the back. It was moving at a foot's pace through a sea of those metal carriages I have told you about. I was seated in the top storey, which held perhaps twenty rows of hard, bench-like seats, like church pews, made of a smooth dark-gray material -- neither wood nor stone, but of some substance unknown to me. A narrow aisle ran between the benches down the length of the coach; it was strewn with bits of paper, many of them silvered. In rows along both walls, near the roof, were posted coloured handbills depicting meaningless objects: adverts of a sort, I imagined.

A Black African woman, dressed in a dark blue uniform with unpolished brass buttons, was lurching down the aisle demanding money of passengers -- a motley assortment of men & women of unusually sallow complexion and drab, ugly clothing. The African wore a vizored cap, and, slung about her neck was a small silvered apparatus, not unlike a diminutive barrel organ, with a crank-handle which she would turn to produce a small slip of paper. This she would tear off and exchange with each passenger for a coin. As she approached -- I was sitting in the rear of the conveyance -- I hoped she would take no note of me. But alas -- she reached me and inquired my destination in strangely accented English I could barely comprehend. I was unable to respond, she demanded an answer and, receiving none, commenced to shout at me like a Billingsgate fishwife. Whereupon all faces turned in my direction and I was stared at with incredulity by the other inmates of this machine, in the most ill bred way conceivable, as if I was a rare animal displayed in a menagerie! Only then did I awaken; the bedclothes were all knotted about me, damp with frantic perspiration.

O, Cassandra, I do feel as if I am losing grip on my own mind! Days, my hell-sent character, Lydia, is writing my novel, & nights, whilst waiting for sleep, I think the same sorts of lascivious thoughts she is thinking, and when fitful sleep at last arrives, I am straightaway plunged into my frightening dream! Thank heavens that in only two days I shall see Sir William again: I shall implore him to bleed me, or to compound some other draught that will banish these unhealthy thoughts & dreams!

Please pray for me, sister.

I am, as ever and always, your devoted and loving, &c., &c.,

JANE