Jane Actually

members of the dance group nodded enthusiastically; they had been dancing several hours and about half the members were of a certain age and half were much younger. It was mostly the younger dancers who appeared winded.
    Mary went to her chair for water and a towel to mop her sweat. She sat down exhausted.
    “You might have said something,” Mary said silently to Jane.
    “You said you wanted to do this on your own,” Jane replied, impressed at how easily Mary was now using the terminal. They had maintained a running commentary while Mary stepped through the dance, which might have led to Mary’s inattention.
    “This is a lot more tiring than I would have thought,” Mary said, still silently. “I’m sweating like a pig.”
    “That’s hardly something Jane Austen would say, Mary,” Jane admonished her avatar, even though she remembered saying something similar at an assembly dance.
    “Sorry,” Mary said. She’d gotten used to making apologies the past few weeks of training, which involved everything from English country dancing to deportment to honing her accent with an actual Hampshire native. She was bone tired, and yet she enjoyed it all in a way she had never enjoyed her acting lessons. Having Jane beside her gave her a confidence that she lacked before.
    “Why aren’t the old people … I mean the elderly … tired?” she asked, noticing that the older members had not sat down.
    “They move with a minimum of effort and keep better time to the music, while you are always late or early. And for now, be more aware of your partner; he knows this dance well and keeps trying to help you, but you are too absorbed in your mistakes.”
    “Well, aren’t we the expert,” Mary said, although she smiled when she said it.
    “I’ll have you know I was dancing when your I don’t how many times removed grandmother was still in nappies.” Jane instructed the terminal to convey her words with the laughing digitized voice, a sound so awful that Mary grimaced.
    “Oh God, Jane, never use that voice again,” she said out loud and attracted the attention of those sitting nearby.
    “Sorry,” she said again, pointed to her earbud and shrugged her shoulders. She pretended to be on the phone rather than be seen talking to a disembodied person. Austen’s agent had asked her to remain inconspicuous and to pretend that she was a movie star who’d landed a role that required she learn country dancing. Melody wanted to keep Mary’s identity a secret. Mary suspected Melody wanted to be able to quietly pick a replacement avatar should she prove unequal to the task.
    “What is wrong with that voice?” Jane asked.
    “It makes you sound like a drunken hyena. A male drunken hyena. On laughing gas.”
    “Oh, I … I didn’t know that.” Jane was a little flustered. She’d chosen the voice based on a recommendation from a disembodied support group. She’d learned the coding necessary to switch into different voices and had downloaded the voice into the terminal. She’d been so proud of her technical skills and so it was a let down to learn that she still didn’t fully appreciate the limitations of communicating with her avatar.
    “All right, everyone, that’s enough of a water break,” the instructor said. “We still need to teach Ms Crawford a triple progression and do it flawlessly.” She then turned aside to Mary, “And if you would pay better attention to your partner instead of talking to your disembodied friend, we might just get this done today.”
    “Yes, ma’am,” Mary said, surprised to learn the instructor recognized that she was an avatar. The revelation so surprised, in fact, that she didn’t notice Jane’s silence for the next half hour.
    1 English country dancing generally consists of two or more pairs of couples who exchange positions in a series of figures or movements. At the beginning of the dance, partners face each other in two lines. There are odd and even couples and usually at the end of a set series of movements, a couple moves (progresses) up or down the line. When a couple reaches the end of a line, they must wait a turn until they can progress back through the line. Specific music accompanies each dance. Country dancing was popular in Jane Austen’s time, but after the Napoleonic Wars was largely supplanted by new forms such as the quadrille (which became square dancing) and the waltz.

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