Jane Actually

Austen, a woman I have known for nearly a hundred years.
    To say that I am embarrassed and hurt by this revelation would be an understatement. In fact I am so shaken that I must resort to explaining this to you in a letter, rather than confront you in a chat. You see, even my choice of verb–confront—indicates what tone I would take were we to chat. I would confront you; I would accuse you of hiding the truth from me; I would demand an explanation.
    And so I must take refuge in an email, so that I can choose my words carefully and examine exactly how you have represented yourself to me, to see whether I have just cause to censure you.
    You have never claimed to be Jane Austen, except by your choice of username and you have never claimed not to be Jane Austen, except by your choice to refer to your corporeal existence in the third person. That, however, is a common enough custom among the disembodied, so I cannot judge it intentionally disingenuous. And you have always been a harsher critic of your work than I, an unabashed admirer, but that may be a trait common to any author. Upon our first meeting, in that now defunct chat room, you certainly had no obligation to purport to be Jane, and had you actually claimed to be Jane Austen, I almost certainly would have dismissed you.
    Taken separately then, you are guilty of no overt act; nevertheless I am hurt and ashamed and saddened by what I cannot help but perceive as a pattern of deception. It has been ten months since the news that you have reclaimed your identity and in all that time, you failed to tell me of your good fortune. Friends share their good fortune, Jane; that you failed to do so makes me wonder as to our friendship.
    You also misrepresented the nature of your “employment,” which I almost thought you had invented as an excuse to reject my offer of paying for your admission to the AGM. And now with some embarrassment, I think how ridiculous was my offer to a woman who is probably wealthy beyond my poor ability to imagine. I must also re-evaluate all the times that you failed to meet me for a chat or failed to suggest we schedule a meeting.
    I do not wish to lose your friendship, Jane, but I fear I already have. I can only conclude you no longer desire the friendship of a simple wuzzer. 1 And if that is the case, then perhaps I must re-examine my good opinion of the one bright star of my lonely existence. That this revelation has robbed me of the friendship of a good woman from Hampshire is a tragedy that I can endure, but to be robbed of my esteem and admiration for that Jane Austen who sustained me in my darkest days is a tragedy from which I may never recover.
    Albert Ridings
    PS I will be leaving Fort Worth presently. I can’t remain at the AGM; everything here reminds me of you.
    Despite her incorporeal state, it still felt to Jane as if her stomach turned and although she did not faint as she had done in the dentist’s office, she moved quickly to the bed and allowed herself to fall. She lost the AfterNet field as she moved away and the image of Albert’s letter dissipated, but the words still lingered in her thoughts.
    At first, the shame that suffused her eclipsed the hurt caused by the letter, which was considerable. The hurt was intensified by the fact that Albert’s accusations were all true and justified, but for the moment her shame was more intense. She even made it worse for thinking for one second: “If only I had confessed to Albert sooner,” but she knew that would not make her crime any the less.
    Oh what have I done?
she asked, and then felt a little foolish for both asking the obvious and for the drama of it.
You know very well what you did and even had you apologized before Albert discovered the truth, it still would have lowered you in his estimation
    But my deception was not unkindly meant,
she argued,
even if it was self-serving. He himself said we would not have formed our friendship if I had represented myself as Jane Austen.
And so, like any person confronted with a hurt largely self-created, Jane did her best to deny herself some of the blame.
    In all her thoughts, however, she did not address the question of why she should feel so devastated. She did not ask herself if she feared the loss of a friend or that of a person for whom she felt an even stronger emotion.
    1 In Hampshire, a wuzzer is a local, a word not much used anymore

A terrible mistake
Albert tells Stephen what he’s done
    Stephen arrived a few