Jane Actually

his seat and said, “No, thank you Dr Davis for agreeing to see me.”
    “It’s no great favour, Mr Blake. I am understandably interested in meeting someone who’s written such a book.”
    He looked at her to see whether her face betrayed any distaste at what he’d written but he saw nothing other than her dark brown eyes staring directly back at him. He wanted to look away to avoid their penetration but he held firm.
    “Please call me Court. And ‘such a book’ is a noncommittal phrase,” he said. “I wonder if it masks a dislike or …”
    “I do not mince words, Court. I dislike your book for the same reason I dislike any book that tries to re-evaluate Jane—or any historical figure for that matter—based on the pop psychology of the present day. You have to view people in the context of their times and so I detest your argument for the same reasons that I dislike attempts to cast Abraham Lincoln as gay, claims the pyramids could only have been built by aliens or doubts that Shakespeare wrote his plays.”
    Courtney was taken aback by her blunt words and he realized he must be equally blunt to gain her respect.
    “But it’s OK to cast Austen as a feminist or a social commentator? Let’s face it, Dr Davis, we’re both using Austen for our own purposes. I want to give Austen a sex life so I can sell books; you want to give Austen some noble purpose so she’s not just some sad spinster who writes romances without ever having had one. So let’s not pretend indignation, considering you asked me to meet you.”
    Davis said nothing for a beat and then answered, “Point taken, Court. I admit I dismissed you when I received your first email. I thought you were exaggerating the threat posed by the person claiming to be Austen, but now …”
    “You mean her challenge on austenonly?”
    “Yes, I never expected …”
    The bartender interrupted her reply. “Do you want food?” he asked from behind the bar.
    “I recommend a Swiss burger,” she said to Courtney, “but the brats are good too.”
    “Uh, yeah,” he said. “The burger, medium rare.”
    “Two Swiss burgers,” she called out to the bartender, ignoring the cooking instructions.
    “Where was I?” she asked. “Ah, the truth is that six months from now I will find myself in your position. I have a book ready for publication and although I will not be making your extraordinary claims, nevertheless I now have the prospect of having the subject of my research raise objections to what I have written. It’s very disconcerting.”
    Courtney shifted uncomfortably when he realized his assumptions were incorrect. “I guess I’m confused. I thought you were on the committee that identified Austen. I would think that would give you some … that she might be indebted to you …”
    But she was shaking her head no. “I was not a member of that committee, Court. I was not asked.”
    “Oh, I presumed you were.”
    She sighed. “You and everyone else. It’s very annoying. Everyone thinks I approve of …”
    Courtney waited for her to finish the sentence and when he realized she wouldn’t, he asked, “And do you?”
    “I have to respect my peers, whoever they were. They take their secrecy very seriously, I’m afraid.”
    “So you have no idea how Austen proved her identity?”
    She looked away from Courtney and to the two students nursing beers at the bar. “None at all, other than the rumours of her producing
Sanditon
from memory, but I presume there had to be some piece of concrete evidence. That’s why your most recent letter intrigued me.”
    “I thought that was the reason you finally answered me.”
    “It was intriguing. If you actually think you’ve found an Austen letter that Cassandra didn’t destroy then perhaps we can use it to …” Davis was reluctant to finish her sentence.
    “To expose Austen as a fraud?” Courtney suggested. “Yeah, I thought of that. If I can find it and if we can prove it’s genuine and if we’re sure faux Austen has never seen it … It’s dangerous and it could backfire on us. If she doesn’t know what it says, we’ve exposed her and maybe made a lot of Janeites mad at us. If she does know the contents of the letter … well then it looks like we were attacking her.”
    To hear Courtney elucidate the risks shook Davis, but then she thought of Austen’s reply to her posting at austenonly.
    “Then we have to make sure we’re absolutely certain of the authenticity of the letter before we