Hello. Have you read Pride and Prejudice by any chance? I thought it was a splendid book, wonderfully written. What few people know is that not only was Jane Austen a literary genius, but she also had extra sensory perception. I'm sure of it. It is the only possible explanation for why her characters so closely resemble people I know in my life almost two hundred years later. I say characters because she didn't get everything right. Some things were twisted around, added and omitted, understated and exaggerated, but the main points are still there and I suppose she did have artistic license. The following true story begins when I am seventeen.
Hello, my name is Anne de Bourgh. Have you heard of me? You may have, but of course, I wouldn't expect you to remember. I'm nobody special. In fact, I'm practically invisible. Oh? You have heard of me? My mother… Of course. I hear you now. Oh boohoo, you're saying. Poor little rich girl. Well, I'm not asking for your sympathy. Just listen. Now, I could give you a long, detailed description of my life, but for now let's keep it simple.
First of all, that woman is not my mother. My mother was an incredibly warm, generous woman. She convinced my father to invest his inheritance in some of the poorer areas of the city, so he bought about two dozen apartment buildings, got them cleaned and fixed up, lowered the rent, and ultimately made them a nicer, safer place to live. He also funded a community garden, a youth center, and a few food pantries and shelters. Sadly, my mother was killed by a drunk driver when I was just a baby.
After that, my grief-stricken father hired a nanny to take care of my brother and me and buried himself in his work. Over the years, he made up for this absence by showering us with presents. I might have become a spoiled brat if it hadn't been for Mrs. Jenkinson. She had just retired after over forty years of teaching and raised over a dozen children as a foster parent. Before I could speak in complete sentences, she was teaching me to read, write, and do basic math. Some people spend countless dollars to give their children an edge early on. She just gave her time. My life was strictly structured. I did not eat junk food, watch television, or read anything that had not been approved by my father, which left mostly newspapers and Time magazines. I had very little contact with children my age. So yes, I was shy, socially awkward, and extremely boring.
That year, my father married Lady Catherine Fitzwilliam. Yes, Lady is her real name and not just a title. She was very controlling and highly critical of everything. Then in her early thirties and completely obsessed with status, she decided to put the de Bourghs on top of the social ladder. First, she redecorated the house, replacing anything remotely sentimental, like family photos, with expensive antiques. Then it was decided that my brother, Henry, who was five years older than me, would go to an elite, faraway boarding school. Next she joined all the ladies' groups in the area and hosted weekly tea parties, when I was required to dress up in frilly pink dresses and quietly sip my tea while the adults said, Oh, what a dear little girl! What delightful manners!for half an hour or so before gossiping about everyone they knew. Now I tried, believe me, I tried, but the little respect I had for her was completely wiped out after I saw her waste my father's money and… Well, let's just say she's not a very nice person.
At twelve years old, my father and stepmother decided it was finally time for me to go to school. A series of tests all reached the same conclusion: I was ready for high school. I was admitted to Cherryfield Preparatory Academy for Young Ladies, the finest, most prestigious school in the Northeast. Think showy displays of wealth and mean rich girls whose goals in life seemed to be making everyone else miserable and finding even richer husbands. I was lost. As a child, I was taught good manners, which consisted of saying please and thank you and sir and ma'am and mostly being seen and not heard. I had been taught how to make polite conversation, talking about the weather and all that. That's it. No real-world social skills whatsoever. On top of that, the brochure claimed that the curriculum was challenging and engaging. What it failed to mention was that after four years, the heavy workload would nearly kill my love of reading. Seriously. I haven't read for fun since.
Still, I gained a bit of independence and slowly but surely developed my own style and opinions. My style was the exact opposite of Lady Catherine's. While she was extravagant and ostentatious, with silk, lace, frills, feathers, pearls, and diamonds everywhere, I was simple and understated. I became skilled in fitting in, at least as looks were concerned. I was tall for my age and thin, with the right clothes and a bit of makeup to make me look older. Quiet and passive, some might even say antisocial, I stayed under the radar. And with a full load of early college courses my junior and senior years, I didn't have much time for socializing.
The next major event was my sweet sixteen in early December. I knew that if Lady Catherine had her way, it would be a completely over-the-top, tasteless spectacle. She did, so it was. All I could do was bribe the party planner, cake designer, hairdresser, and makeup artist she hired to deviate from their very specific instructions and make a few slight alterations for the better. It was still excessive but not completely overwhelming. I wore a bright red designer dress that was too tight, too short, and too low-cut for my taste and the most uncomfortable high heels ever. They were ridiculously overpriced, but I felt cheap wearing them. The lighting was too dim, as were the guests. The music was too loud. The cake was as tall as I was and looked more like one of the Faberge eggs on our mantelpiece than dessert. Lady Catherine had made a list of the men I had to dance with and the women I had to speak with during the night. I did not like any of them. My father claimed he had to work late and only made a brief appearance near the end of the night. For half the night, I thought I would cry. Around midnight, I got to open my presents. I hated being the center of attention. I received clothes, shoes, jewelry, purses, makeup sets, gift certificates, and other things. It was all very expensive. Like, wow.
Afterward, I meticulously sorted everything out. First, I put everything I had gotten from Lady Catherine or close "friends" of the family in the closet. I would wear it all once and forget about it. No one wondered at this, because of course, it is considered a major faux pas to wear something more than once. Yes, that was sarcasm. From the remaining things, I found the things I actually liked, including some black ballet flats with silver stitching, a matching skirt, and a soft pink cashmere sweater from Mrs. Jenkinson, an old scrapbook and some of my mother's jewelry from my father, and the gift certificates from Henry, and put them in my dresser. Everything else would be worn once before being donated to Goodwill or, if it was too hideous to possibly help the less fortunate, sold at a consignment store at a later date. I heard somewhere that in the Middle East, because women are financially dependent on their husbands, they collect jewelry as a sort of insurance policy in the event that they are left widowed. That was the plan. Among my collection, I now had one hundred pairs of earrings, rings, bracelets, and necklaces in silver, gold, and platinum and with all sorts of precious stones and pearls, all of which were so large and ornate that they looked like costume jewelry but were valuable nevertheless.
I started college. No, not at a prestigious university, but a community college. Surprisingly, post-secondary education has never been one of my parents' main priorities for my life. They decided I would study culinary arts. My father, because it's what my mother had done. Lady Cat, because she thought it would help me get a husband. Weird, right? Of course, it didn't matter what I wanted to study, because I would never have to work anyway. That year, to the surprise of the household staff, I began to take an interest in housekeeping, cooking, and accounting. I had no idea what I actually wanted to do with my life but by now, I had begun to look for a way out. My parents, clueless as to how much things actually cost and highly competitive with other parents, gave me fifty dollars a week for an allowance. I also learned to use Lady Catherine's, and to a lesser extent, my father's, obsession with appearances to my advantage. The trick was to a) agree with whatever they said, b) make subtle hints as to what "everyone else" was doing, and c) let them think they came up with the ideas. When I became interested in environmentalism, I simply mentioned that everyone I knew was into it, and a week later, we were reducing, reusing, and recycling.
My father was killed in a car accident. Soon, Henry fully took over his company, which was founded by our great-great-great-grandfather. That is really all I have to say about that.
Wow. So much for keeping it simple, right? Anyway, now, at seventeen years old, with dark, curly waist-length hair and pale skin, I wake up at five in the morning, brush my teeth, get dressed, and put on just enough makeup to add some color to my cheeks and cover the dark circles under my eyes. No, I am not ill. Lady Catherine might disagree, but really, I'm fine. The dark circles are there because guess what? College is stressful, especially when you've been taking too many classes for way too long without even coming to a full stop in the summer. And maybe I would look better if Lady Catherine didn't act as if food and sunshine were the plague. With black hair, very dark eyes, pale skin, and sharp features, she does look a bit like a vampire.
I brush my hair, make my bed, and grab my backpack, then stand in the doorway for a second and look around my room. It is relatively small, with bare, light yellow walls. There are two other doors on the right wall, one to my walk-in closet and another to my bathroom. In the middle of the wall opposite me, there is a large window with thick white curtains overlooking the small garden where I planted some herbs, roses, fruit trees, and vegetables. Then there is my pink canopy bed a little to the right, my dresser on the right of that, and a desk and chair on the left. No books or stuffed animals or knickknacks. Clutter annoys me. It is in complete contrast to the rest of the house, a Victorian mansion with about twenty-five rooms in the outer suburbs of New York City, a quarter of a mile off from the main road and partly hidden by trees.
I quietly go downstairs to the kitchen and grab some yogurt out of the fridge before running out the door straight for the train station about a mile away. Lady Catherine would be appalled if she knew I was taking the train instead of being driven by our chauffeur, Jonathan, a nice older man who has been secretly teaching me to drive. He understands that I want to be independent, and really, he doesn't want to get up so early, so he helps me out. I suppose I could simply tell Lady Catherine that everyone is into public transportation these days, and she wouldn't say a word against it, but then why take the risk? The ground is wet from all the rain we've been getting lately. We've had several late summer storms this year, following a dry spell that lasted a few weeks. But today the sky is clear and a cool breeze is blowing gently, promising an end to the rain and the unbearable heat wave. I can almost imagine the leaves changing colors and the first snowflakes falling.
So I get to the train station, go into the bathroom, and check my clothes. I take off my black high heels and put on light pink and gray sneakers, raise my long black skirt a few inches, and take off my frilly silver designer blouse, revealing a pink plaid button-up shirt. It may not seem like such a big deal, but in Lady Catherine's eyes, this would be tantamount to going to church in a swimsuit. Absolutely mortifying, a poor reflection on our family, etc. Whatever. I get on the train and sit between a teenage boy with a neon green Mohawk listening to music and a businessman with a suit, tie, and briefcase reading the paper. I make a mental list of other things Lady Catherine doesn't know.
I love baking and country music. Rock is okay too. Sometimes I go to the movies between classes and buy tons of candy. I have many opinions. I do not like her friends or her friends' children. I hate the way she treats me like a fragile doll to display when anyone comes over. Then when they say anything about their children's accomplishments, she always butts in and says, Oh, Anne would do that too, if her health had allowed it. Really, I'm fine. I had a few fainting spells several years ago, most likely due to the fact that I skipped a few meals and got dehydrated on some really hot days, and now she treats me like an invalid or something. Even after several doctors told her that I was perfectly fine. One even said I was one of the healthiest people he had ever seen. I hate how she has impossibly high expectations but still treats me like a child. I hate how she is always gossiping and putting people down behind their backs, and sometimes to their faces. I hate that she is so obsessed with appearances and critical of everything. I hate how her idea of giving back to the community is going to extraordinarily wasteful, expensive, over-the-top "charity" balls, with caterers, live bands, and star appearances.
Two stops later, someone takes the seat across from me. I sneak a look and see a young man with light brown hair, wearing a dark red sweater and jeans, carrying a dark blue backpack and reading a paper. He looks up suddenly and I see he has bright blue eyes. He smiles, and I smile, then look away. After a few seconds, I look again. He is reading the comics. I like that. Eventually we get off the train and I run to the campus.
I go to class. Same old thing. Then I go to the nearby café, order a tropical fruit parfait and iced tea, and go to the park. I sit at my usual picnic table under a tree and start reading. About half an hour later, SPLASH! A football comes flying out of nowhere and hits what is left of my tea. A man runs over and apologizes. Oh…wow. It's the guy from the train. His name is Thomas. We end up talking for an hour and find out we go to the same school. He is twenty-one and in his last year, studying social work. He is taking the train because his motorcycle is getting fixed. What would Lady Catherine say? But I don't care. He is far more pleasant and polite than any of the other young men of my acquaintance and has none of their airs or pretensions. He is very easy to talk to. We talk about anything and everything we can think of and find we have a great deal in common. Too soon, we have to go to our classes, but we plan to meet again at the train station. Until then, I am inexplicably anxious and distracted. Is it love? Too soon to say, but I certainly look forward to our next meeting.