A Walk with Jane Austen (17 page)

I met Bev and Jordan on a ladies retreat for our church where I was giving a short testimony on Saturday night. It was during the winter when I was unemployed. I didn't want to be on the retreat, and I didn't want to meet them. I was just coming back from a conference in Tennessee; I was particularly exhausted; I felt like I had too many friends that I couldn't keep up with, that I was always disappointing people by not being able to get together with them, that I didn't have the energy for more friends—for more people who would call expecting things from me, forcing me to be social.

I went through several periods when I stopped returning calls. Talking on the phone is one of my least favorite activities, it drains my energy, and I didn't want to talk to anyone. So I might wait a week or two before calling back. Maybe there were times I didn't call back at all.

Bev and Jordan persisted. They taught me something about the nature of friendship, taught me to expect grace from my friends, that I
didn't have to be perfect, that I could be struggling to figure out what to do with a nagging depression and they would still want to hang out with me.

We are so different. Jordan loves to talk. If she is not talking to someone she's with, she's likely on the phone—she calls people every day during her commute to and from work. She has more energy and concern for her friends than just about anyone I've ever known. Bev loves to shop. She has been known to buy a $150 shower curtain and declare it a bargain. She was born with expensive genes—she knows where to find the best quality kitchenware, the latest trend in Italian kitchen cabinets, the best places in Florence for leather bags. She could list cooking schools from various countries.

The three of them sat on the bed with me before I left, praying for me, earnest and thoughtful prayers. I know that I am important to them and they love me, and they've asked God to watch over me, and I'm so thankful. I need them. I know it now.

Then there are others more deep and longstanding—Suzanna, whom I've known for more than ten years, goes berry picking with me in the summers and used to go with me to crazy singles dances and to the beach, driving home singing every hymn we knew with all the old words. Now she lives in Maryland with her husband and three little ones. And Kristine, my writing friend, who first bonded with me over mutual heartbreak about seven years ago. Dear Catherine, who is so gracious and kind. And Leigh, my entrepreneurial business and movie friend. But these separate groups, these one-off friendships, sometimes feel like a random assortment of planets, an off-kilter solar system orbiting around me, and sometimes I fear that I cannot hold them together, and sometimes I feel alone in the middle.

Margaret and I looked through all the pictures from my digital camera on her TV. I told her about Jack and asked, “What do you think it means that he said we will get together when I get home?” and she said, “Well, it means he wants to see you, I suppose.”

Her thinking is very straightforward, and mine is all jumbled. And I would like answers, thank you very much.

I am interminably weak. I keep thinking that I will just stop thinking about him, but the frequency with which I think that alone is sign enough of how little success I'm having.

We put together a merry party for Box Hill this morning—me and Margaret and her daughter Christine and her granddaughter Lucy. Unfortunately, in the tradition of Box Hill parties, it was not entirely a laughing affair. Box Hill is the setting for the picnic scene in
Emma.
Jane probably came to visit when she was staying with her cousins in Great Bookham. Today is cool with clouds, but you could still see enough of the view to admire it.

We walked around a bit—there are hiking trails enough to stay for a whole afternoon, but I was exhausted. Lucy wasn't feeling well, and Margaret was very sad about something going on in the family. So none of us was in the mood to be merry. We had coffee and then ate lunch at the picnic tables at the top—bacon and cheese muffins. (Everything is better when you eat it outside, especially on a day like this that feels almost like fall.) Lucy had part of a tuna sandwich with cucumber and
then threw up, and I spent the ride home alternately sleeping and attempting to be sympathetic without being so sympathetic that I began to share her symptoms. (But really, the thought of cucumbers and tuna together is enough to make me sick.)

Emmas picnic at Box Hill, of course, is disastrous. Frank Churchill is there, secretly engaged to Jane Fairfax but flirting outrageously with Emma. Together Frank and Emma manage to be rude to nearly everyone, but the final straw comes when they are trying to find some kind of entertainment. Frank declares that Emma declares that everyone must provide something to entertain the group—“either one thing very clever…or two things moderately clever; or three things very dull indeed.”
¹

Sweet, nervous Miss Bates replies, “I shall be sure to say three dull things as soon as ever I open my mouth, shan't I? Do not you think I shall?”
²

Emma cuts her off: “Ah! ma'am, but there may be a difficulty. Pardon me, but you will be limited as to number—only three at once.” Public humiliation ensues for poor Miss Bates.
³

Others in the party are content to flatter Emma for her perfections, but dear Knightley (as the obnoxious Mrs. Elton calls him) simply cannot let this go. Walking Emma to her carriage, he scolds her the way only a dear friend can:

Emma has developed character faults natural to being spoiled and the center of everyone's attention. She has grown accustomed to thinking very well of herself, but with this she is broken, and all of Mr. Knightleys other gentle remonstrances—that she should be kinder to Jane Fairfax, that she should not have led Mr. Elton on so, that she should not be giving Harriet Smith grand ideas about herself—begin to ring true. She has been pretty and well situated, only sometimes kind, and not always good, and now she knows and feels it deeply.

Ultimately, this confrontation plays a large part in Emmas realizing her love for Mr. Knightley (that and Harriet's determination to have him). She mends her ways, determines to be kinder, begins to realize she is not entirely deserving of all the praise she receives. And discovers that she loves him.

The pattern is repeated in almost all of Austens books—not exactly, but in some way each book is about a failing, the characters are confronted with their own faults, and for Austen the greatest good is being willing to recognize these faults and change. I can't help but wonder—
and I imagine this is true—if she didn't consider herself guilty of each of the failings she created within her characters, particularly Emmas harsh wit and inability to genuinely love some of those in her circle. Jane wrote to Cassandra of neighborhood friends with a sarcasm that could be particularly harsh. “Mrs. Hall of Sherbourn was brought to bed yesterday of a dead child…” she writes, “oweing to a fright.—I suppose she happened unawares to look at her husband.”
⁵
And later, “I respect Mrs. Chamberlayne for doing her hair well, but cannot feel a more tender sentiment.—Miss Langley is like any other short girl with a broad nose & wide mouth, fashionable dress, & exposed bosom.”
⁶
All that to say, I think she understood Emmas failings.

Jane saw these progressions happening in the context of relationship. It was sisters, lovers, dear friends who would help work out the rough patches in one's character.

These are the kinds of relationships I crave and one of my highest priorities in a man, to find someone willing to lovingly correct me, willing like Mr. Knightley to say the difficult things without necessarily enjoying saying them. Someone both kind and strong. Perhaps this is one element of every good relationship; perhaps it is not as rare as I imagine.

I am afraid, though, that I will have to find someone with more emotional depth than Emma's dear Mr. Knightley.

Dom Nicholas loves
Emma.
He said it is about being truly elegant. He said there was a quote about Mrs. Elton being “as elegant as lace and pearls could make her.”
⁷
I love that. Mrs. Elton, I'm sure, had horrible taste in lace and pearls anyway, so I imagine she was completely hopeless.

By London, my adventure had become mundane; I was growing weary of stalking Jane. I was determined not to be afraid, but the ride down the escalator to the Tube at Charing Cross station gave me plenty of time to consider how deep into the earth I was going, and how difficult it might be to get out, and how horrible it would be if something happened.

Margaret tried to talk me out of this, thinking that since terrorists walked on and blew up multiple trains during rush hour two weeks ago, perhaps the Tube should be avoided. She was also determined to go with me. “Now, if we get off here we can catch a double-decker bus. We would have to walk across the street, but it's not very far. And that would take us right to… Where is the library again? Do you know the address? Of course, we could just take a cab. It wouldn't cost that much, I suppose.”

Its sweet really, her wanting to take care of me. She felt responsible for me, even though I am thirty-three. I was determined to talk her out
of it though—not that my decision really came easily. Everyone said before I left, “At least it happened just before your trip. They never strike in the same place twice.” And then there was Andrew at the monastery, his wonderful voice telling me to be careful, that there had been another incident. So I was fully aware that I could get on the Tube only to have the whole thing explode and be blown to bits or—perhaps worse—be stuck in a tunnel full of smoke with no way to get out, waiting for some kind of end or some kind of rescue, unsure which it would be. Still I thought it unlikely. I refused to be perpetually afraid. And Margaret, who is claustrophobic and hates the city anyway and would be bored to death by the things I'm seeing, stayed home where she will be much more comfortable.