The Persuasion of Miss Jane Austen – Part 1

Weekly installments of The Persuasion of Miss Jane Austen begin today, so you’re just in time! Have you ever wished Jane Austen had herself experienced the romance and happy ending she so carefully crafted for all of her wonderful heroines? She SO deserved it! That’s really why I wrote this novel. It’s dedicated to all of her fans who, like me, would wish her a better fate. But it was also my attempt at giving a little something back to Jane for all the enjoyment she has given me over the years. (To read more about the inspiration for TPoMJA, see my post on 1/28/19 here at Austen Variations.)

I hope this story captures your imagination as you read, just like it did mine as I wrote it. I believed in it, and I was anxious to see how things would turn out for Jane. (You see, I hadn’t exactly figured that part out yet when I started!) Trust me, though; all ends well. How? Well, that’s a mystery, and I think the answer will surprise you. Now here’s the blurb, followed by the Prologue and Chapter One. Happy reading!

IMPORTANT UPDATE 2/12/20:  It was never my intention that the entire book (The Persuasion of Miss Jane Austen) should be available free online forever. Now that a year has passed, I have  reduced the chapters posted here at Austen Variations to the first five.  SW

The Persuasion of Miss Jane Austen

A Novel, wherein she tell her own story of lost love, second chances, and finding her happy ending

By Shannon Winslow

What if the tale Jane Austen told in her last, most poignant novel was actually inspired by momentous events in her own life? Did she in fact intend Persuasion to stand forever in homage to her one true love?

While creating Persuasion, Jane Austen also kept a private journal in which she recorded the story behind the story – her real-life romance with a navy captain of her own. The parallel could only go so far, however. As author of her characters’ lives, but not her own, Jane Austen made sure to fashion a second chance and happy ending for Anne and Captain Wentworth. Then, with her novel complete and her health failing, Jane prepared her simple will and resigned herself to never seeing the love of her life again. Yet fate, it seems, wasn’t quite finished with her. Nor was Captain Devereaux.

The official record says that Jane Austen died at 41, having never been married. But what if that’s only what she wanted people to believe? It’s time she, through her own private journal, revealed the rest of her story.

Prologue

December 1817

La Comtesse de la Fontaine basked in the sun’s afternoon rays with eyes closed, listening to the varied music of daily life and commerce afloat on the Grand Canal twenty feet below. Venice, for all its antiquity, remained as novel to her as the day she arrived months before, following her marriage to the count.

“There you are, my darling,” said her husband, pushing aside the heavy drapery to join her on the iron-railed balcony.

She reached out to invite him closer, but he was already at her side. A now-familiar thrill raced through her as he bent to brush her lips with his kiss. Then, their faces only inches apart, they exchanged a knowing look, a flicker of a smile passing from one to the other.

“What have you got there?” she finally asked, hearing the crackle of paper in his hand.

“Ah, yes. I was momentarily distracted, but I came to show you this item in the news. When I saw it, I recognised at once that it would be of singular interest to you. Just there,” he said pointing to a small paragraph near the bottom of the page.

Madame la Comtesse addressed her attention to the article he indicated in the English language paper:

Author of Popular Novels Identified Posthumously

It is now known that the well-received novels Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, and Emma (as well as two more titles only now coming to light) were written by the daughter of an obscure English clergyman. Unfortunately, she will write no more, having succumbed to an undetermined illness at the age of one-and-forty. She reportedly died five months ago on the 18th of July, and was subsequently buried at Winchester Cathedral. Thanks to the efforts of her brother, Mr. Henry Austen, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion have recently been published in a four-volume set prefaced by his biographical notice identifying the authoress as his deceased sister, Miss Jane Austen.

“Your favourite authoress, dead,” said the count. “Sad news indeed, my darling.”

Madame frowned and slowly shook her head. “If it were true, but I cannot believe it. I will not! Surely there has been some error.”

“What? Do you think the newspapers invent these things?”

“I daresay they do not. More likely, they are simply mistaken in this case… or misinformed. No, this report does not upset me, I assure you. Although I am glad to be told that there are now two more of her books out in the world, I am quite certain that this business about Miss Austen herself is a gross falsehood. I feel it in my bones. In fact, I would wager anything you like that she is every bit as much alive as I am. Will you take my bet?”

“O-oh, no!” he laughed. “Be so foolish as to make a wager against you? Not likely – not when I see that particular gleam in your eye. I perceive, my darling, that you know much more about this business than you are telling.”

“You think me clairvoyant, then? What if I told you that I have already dismissed this report about Miss Austen as of next to no importance, and that the gleam you see in my eye is entirely for you, husband.”

“If that be the happy case, madame, then I will call you a mind-reader instead, for you seem to know my thoughts as well as I do myself.” He took up her hand and brought it to his lips. “So then, come with me, my darling exile,” he said, helping her rise and leading her inside through the cinnamon-coloured velvet curtains.

 Chapter 1

August, 1815

It is time.

I could not have done it even a few years ago. But now the pain – though never far from my mind – has eased to a familiar, settled presence that I can bear without distraction, and the memories are objects I can view with more tenderness than despair.

Sitting at my writing desk at our beloved Chawton cottage, I gaze out the window toward the path that leads to the door. No one is there; no one ever is, at least not the one most fondly looked for. And yet looking has developed into a habit of longstanding duration, an unconscious exercise in futility over the twelve years since he went away.

Now the wars against the French are finally at an end, and still he does not come.

So, it is time to lay aside any lingering hopes I have secretly cherished in that regard. My fires are at last tolerably quenched, and I have reconciled myself to the prudence of never fanning the remaining embers ablaze again. Instead, I have determined to steep the warm essence of my recollections into a novel about youthful errors, mature love, and second chances – to write the story I would have preferred for myself, one which embodies all the early promise of the genuine article but a more felicitous conclusion than providence has seen fit to authorise.

I shall call my captain Frederick Wentworth, and his lady will be Anne Elliot.

My breath catches in my throat as I hold my pen, suspended over the sheet of pristine paper. This is the moment that both thrills and terrifies me, the moment before commencing a new novel when all things are possible but nothing has yet been achieved. To begin is to risk everything – crushing defeat, utter failure or, worse still, mediocrity. However, not taking the risk is unthinkable. I have come through successfully before, but that hardly signifies. With each new work the familiar doubts and niggling questions resurface, chiefly these. Do I really possess whatever genius it takes to do it again? And if so, what is the best way to go about it?

With the hero of my story, the heroine, and their early meetings, I am already well acquainted. Having their basis in life has given these things an early birth in my mind. I know all about how the two met, every detail of their falling in love, and in what cruel manner their happiness was cut short. And yet the tale will not end there – not with the regrets of the past, but rather by redeeming the promise of what might still lay ahead. First, however, it is my job to set the stage, to construct a world of persons and conditions that will give their story substance – a worthy backdrop against which Anne and her captain will act out their poignant play.

The lady’s family should bear scant resemblance to my own, I have already decided. At its head, I will situate a vain and rather foolish baronet instead of a sensible country parson. There is no need – nor any advantage – to mirroring the real circumstances, long gone by, too closely. Not that I fear discovery. Few indeed are those who know the particulars of my… my disappointment. That is what Mama persists in calling it, although “disappointment” seems such a singularly inadequate word for describing what transpired. When I consider the pain and the peace of mind it cost me –

No. I must put such feelings to one side for the sake of the task I have now set for myself – the twin tasks of recording in this book my recollections and, at the same time, writing alongside it the novel they inspire.

Moreover, despite what knowing the man took from me, it gave me far more. It gave me a true knowledge of what it means to be in love and, therefore, the ability to translate that consummate wonder into my stories. Without it, where would I be? Experience is vital to a writer, and painful experience even more valuable. Or so I have heard it said. I pray it is true, that not one moment of anxiety or one shed tear has been wasted; that would be the greatest tragedy of all.

I shake off these contemplations, and my suspended pen at last touches paper. I begin the work with these words:

Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch-hall, in Somerset-shire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage; there he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one; there his faculties were roused into admiration and respect, by contemplating the limited remnant of the earliest parents; there any unwelcome sensation, arising from domestic affairs, changed naturally into pity and contempt, as he turned over the almost endless creations of the last century – and there, if every other leaf were powerless, he could read his own history with an interest which…

A familiar creak of the door interrupts my progress, alerting me to someone’s approach.

“What? Are you writing again, Jane?” asks my mother, bustling into the room. “I thought you finished that tiresome book weeks ago.”

“This is a new one, Mama,” I answer evenly.

“A new one! Good gracious, girl, will you never be satisfied? A little poetry now and again, such as I myself have written, would do you no harm, but I cannot understand this obsession with the novel. How many will it take to get this fever out of your brain once and for all?”

“Writing novels is not an illness that need be recovered from. It is my work; it is what I do.”

“Yes, so you have told me. But all the same, I thank heaven no one much beyond the family knows of it. Though your father may not have objected, I cannot think it a perfectly fit occupation for a young lady. I never have. It is far too taxing on the mind and it will one day ruin your health completely; mark my words. You see how my own health has declined, and you are so thin that I sometimes worry you cannot be quite well either.”

“My constitution is perfectly sound, Mama, as is yours. Besides, my earnings help to put food on our table,” I remind her.

“Nevertheless, I should have put an end to the business years ago had I known the mischief to which it would lead. Sensible girls stop believing in fairy stories when they grow up, else how are they to marry ordinary men and be happy? That was always your problem, Jane: expectations set too high. You had your chances – suitable men, any one of whom would have made you a very satisfactory husband – but nobody could measure up to Mr. Darcy or Mr. Knightley, I suppose.”

Experience has taught me that arguing this recurring charge would be pointless. So I bite my tongue and wait for Mama to continue on her way and out of the room.

She is entirely wrong, of course, as to where the problem lies. Mr. Knightley and Mr. Darcy are not to blame, for it is against quite a different gentleman that every other whom I meet with is measured and found wanting. Although through subsequent revisions I have imbued each of my literary heroes with portions of his character, not one of them embodies the original completely. Perhaps Mr. Bingley best portrays my captain’s amiability, Darcy his essential integrity and aristocratic air, and Mr. Knightley his spirit of true nobility. Poor Colonel Brandon has the misfortune to share the same haunted expression of having witnessed first hand too much of the cruelty of which men are capable.

Each one of these sketches is an incomplete portrait, however; it is only in Captain Wentworth that all the true qualities will at last be united. In him I will duplicate what I remember from our early meetings and add the traits I have ascribed to the gentleman since. Whatever else, I must believe him on some level constant to me even now, in life or in death. At this juncture, only God knows if he has survived the war. At least I have every reason to believe he long since forgave me my weakness at the critical moment. I could not bear it if he were alive in this world and still thinking ill of me. Or is it possible he no longer thinks of me in any way? Is that why I have never heard one word from him?

These are home questions – ones I will have to take courage and address eventually as the chapters of my book progress. For the moment, however, I intend to entertain myself with other, less perplexing personalities.

Anne Elliot’s family begins taking shape on the page before me. I write of a foolish father whose extravagance has sunk the family’s finances, a prudent mother who died far too young, an imperious older sister, and no brothers at all – everything my own family is not. Only Lady Russell bears a tolerable likeness to a person of my own circle. In her, I revive something of my former friend and mentor Madam Lefroy, now ten years gone and more.

So many of our family and friends have left us: my father, Madam Lefroy, Eliza, Anne, Elizabeth, and Fanny, as well as Cassandra’s Mr. Fowle. Although gone from sight, they remain in my mind and a few live again and forever on the page, thanks to my pen. It is one type of immortality, or is that presuming too much? Books come and go much like people do. And, even with the degree of success I have been so fortunate as to achieve, it is not to be supposed that the humble literary efforts of a clergyman’s daughter will make much of a lasting impression on the world. Doubtless a hundred years from now, no one will remember a sea captain called Wentworth or have read his story.

And yet, I must try.

Continuing at my labour, I introduce William Walter Elliot, Esq., and name him heir presumptive to the Elliot estate of Kellynch. Surely, had the young man any manners at all, he ought to thank me for the gift of his one day being made a baronet, as he has clearly done nothing to earn the honour and much to disparage it. Still, it is for the current baronet that I reserve my greatest scorn and severest censure – for his absurd airs, for his monetary irresponsibility, and for his failure to value the one of his three daughters truly worth esteeming. To make clear the father’s faulty views on his offspring, I now write…

Elizabeth had succeeded, at sixteen, to all that was possible, of her mother’s rights and consequence; and being very handsome and very like himself, her influence had always been great, and they had gone on together most happily. His two other children were of very inferior value. Mary had acquired a little artificial importance, by becoming Mrs. Charles Musgrove, but Anne, with an elegance of mind and sweetness of character, which must have placed her high with any people of real understanding, was nobody with either father or sister: her word had no weight; her convenience was always to give way; – she was only Anne.

 Poor Anne is consigned to the shadows – by loss of bloom and by neglect of her own family. She must bear her sorrows and their disregard a little while longer, but not forever. Her true radiance will eclipse them all in the end; I will see to that.

The hours pass without my noticing, and soon my first chapter rests before me – complete if not yet perfected. It is a good day’s work, an excellent beginning, and I know I will enjoy pleasant dreams tonight. But will they be dreams of Captain Wentworth or of Captain Devereaux? In truth, it makes no difference, for to my mind they are one and the same.

Continue reading Part 2 here.

The Persuasion of Miss Jane Austen is available in paperback, e-book, and audio.