Sara Waters - Dancing with Mr Darcy - Stories Inspired by Jane Austen

‘Pray where does Miss Austen ever show a woman who is at once old, virtuous and wise? I contend, nowhere. Is not this omission a gross calumny upon the worthiest of our sex?’

‘Would it be fair to add, ma’am,’ the right-hand judge surveyed Mrs Norris through a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles, ‘that Miss Austen is not entirely gentle in her dealings with old men either? Mr Woodhouse’s extreme preoccupation with his health is perhaps less than edifying, and the gluttony of Dr Grant nothing short of contemptible. But neither gentleman lays charges against her. Is it really worth coming to court for the sake of Miss Austen’s teasing?’

‘But—’ all six accusers rose protesting and Lady Catherine’s voice carried through the court. ‘Do not trifle with us, sir. You would not say such things if you were a woman.’

With a sigh, he subsided, but no sooner had he leant back than Jane found his colleague in the middle of the dais addressing her.

‘Well, Miss Austen, you’ve heard the prosecution’s evidence. What have you to say?’

These ladies – their bodies either stiff inside their corseting or else fleshy and sagging under their righteous fury – ought to make her laugh, not tremble, but when she rose to reply she found her knees were not quite steady and she had to grasp the dock’s wooden surround to stop her hands from twisting together in alarm. Taking a deep breath, she made herself speak slowly as though she were calm.

‘Ladies, your indignation is great indeed. You accuse me of having defamed you. But I repudiate your charge. When I wrote Emma, did I not take my impetuous heroine to task for her thoughtless behaviour? When my Mr Knightley asserts that Miss Bates’s age and indigence should arouse Emma’s compassion, not her flippancy, do I not speak out on behalf of every old woman who has ever found herself a target for youth’s barbs?’

‘Not so, dear.’ Lady Russell had risen. ‘For the fact is, your creations enjoy a more vigorous life than the sentiments they utter. We all admire Mr Knightley’s integrity, but actions speak louder than words. In preparing to come to court, I had to remind myself of what he says that day on Box Hill. My memory requires no such prompting to recall how my friend Mrs Norris refuses to let Fanny have a fire to warm that chill East Room. Further, I cannot set eyes on a green baize surface without recalling Mrs Norris’s effrontery in appropriating the curtain intended for the Mansfield theatricals. You may claim that respect is our due, but so often you show us forfeiting it by our conduct.’

‘Is this assertion true even of Mrs Jennings?’ Despite the deep breaths, her question came out in a gasp.

‘Mrs Jennings who pours heartbroken Marianne Dashwood a glass of Constantia wine because it helps soothe colicky gout? Now really, that is as much a blending of the good and the ridiculous as anything you achieve with Miss Bates. Mrs Jennings doesn’t help you at all.’ Lady Russell’s voice became stern. ‘When, in the future,’ she asserted, ‘Mr D. W. Harding of London University will come to join us here, he will seek to convince you that in your heart you hated – his word, dear, not mine – your society and that in order to make your life bearable, you regulated your hatred by turning it to ridicule. Now, none of us much cares to be made to look ridiculous. That is why we press our charge and ask the judges of the dead to punish you by consigning your books, your letters and all evidence of your writing to Lethe. When everything is forgotten, we shall consider ourselves vindicated.’

Forgotten? When those works were so dear to her? Even if she could not refute the charge, surely she might frame some plea in her own mitigation? If she might only return to earth once more, she would create an elderly woman who combined such benevolence and sagacity that the whole world would love her and long to be as old and as clever and as kind as she. Jane opened her mouth to speak.

‘Silence,’ announced both the usher and the court clerk in the same second, and the judge at the left-hand end of the dais rose with upheld hand.

‘Before the bench pronounces judgement,’ he said, ‘it behoves us to consider our powers. To suppress these books through all eternity when they stand published by Mr John Murray in elegant demi-octavos and when some of them have attracted the favourable opinions of royalty, no less, is quite beyond our remit. The court’s learned advisers, Mesdames Clotho, Atropos and Lachesis, have already shown us future generations enjoying them. Sit down, please, Mrs Ferrars. Even the judges of the dead cannot fight fate.

‘But neither, prisoner in the dock, can we acquit you of the charge that Mrs Norris and her co-prosecutors bring. However we have, we believe, found a way forward. Your books, Miss Austen, shall be spared and read until the end of time.’

She closed her eyes in relief.

‘But listen, young woman,’ the judicial voice went on, avuncular but resolute, ‘to our sentence. You have, throughout your life, maintained regular correspondence with your brother Vice-Admiral Sir Francis Austen, have you not?’

Frank? An Admiral? How wonderful!

But—

‘Yes, indeed, sir,’ was all she said.

The judge nodded.

‘Francis Austen we know to be fond of you. Throughout his earthly life – which will prove long – he will cherish every letter you ever wrote him.’

Every letter? There must be hundreds. She had kept no journal, but her writings to Frank served a journal’s purpose. They held her innermost thoughts.

‘He will often re-read them to catch in their sentences the cadence of a favourite sister’s voice.’

At the thought of it, she wanted to laugh for pure pleasure.

‘He knows you opened your heart to him as you did to no other creature upon earth.’

It was true. The novels were witty in their way, but all her happiest teases and shrewdest remarks lay in the letters to Frank.

‘Your confidences,’ the grave voice pronounced, ‘will delight him all his days and bring him a little consolation for your early death. Further, he will harbour the hope that in time your letters’ wisdom and shrewdness will reach and delight other readers too. But they never shall.’

He paused.

‘Francis Austen’s daughter, Fanny, shall burn them in bundles on her father’s death. With them will vanish a fair part of yourself, Miss Austen – perhaps the pithiest, most compassionate part; the part that speaks through Mr Knightley rather than Mrs Norris. But your books shall remain. You may stand down.’

At the time, the thought of all her exchanges with Frank passing into oblivion left her wretched. As she departed from the court, she had to steel herself not to cry. But in the fullness of eternity, she met her niece Fanny under the white cypresses surrounding the Elysian Fields. She recognised her at once.

‘What thought was in your mind,’ she asked, their greetings done, ‘when you destroyed my letters to your father?’

‘Oh,’ said Fanny, ‘did I really do that?’

She frowned, as though scouring her thoughts. At last she sighed and shook her head.

‘When I arrived in this place,’ she said, ‘I was thirsty and they gave me water of Lethe to drink. It is extraordinary that I should even know who you are, Aunt Jane, for of my earthly life I can remember nothing.’

My inspiration: Jane Austen is strong on rebarbative women. I wanted to show them turning the tables on her, and had a suspicion that Mrs Norris would take the lead.

She had said yes. Yes, I will. She had felt his hand briefly touch her shoulder; his lips lightly graze her check. When she opened her eyes, he had turned away. Had he any notion that she had avoided his eyes?