* Editor’s Note: Below is an excerpt from Chapter 4 of Jane Austen’s Persuasion. Select phrases and words have been revised to be more accessible for young and hip modern audiences.
He was not Mr. Wentworth, the young schoolteacher who had returned to teach at Monkford High School after being unable to find a job in the workplace with his art history degree, but his brother, the Captain Wentworth who, like any budding musician on the verge of a breakthrough, had been persuaded by his well-meaning agent to cast aside his old-fashioned birth name in favor of a dashing stage name that would particularly charm the female fans. Yet, it was not Captain Wentworth, lead singer of the Grammy-winning band The Captains – but simply the young man by the name of Frederick Wentworth whom Annie first met in the summer of 2002. Freddie, as he had been called at that time, was a remarkably handsome young man, with a great deal of intelligence, spirit and brilliancy; and Annie an extremely pretty girl, with beauty, brains, and a benevolent heart to boot. Half of the sum of attraction, on either side, might have been enough, for he was like any other jaded attractive young man looking for a summer fling, and she, having never been kissed in high school, had been harboring fairy-tale-inspired expectations of romance in anticipation of her freshman year in college; but the encounter of such lavish recommendations could not fail. They were gradually acquainted, and when acquainted, rapidly and deeply in love. It would be difficult to say which had seen highest perfection in the other, or which had been happiest; she, in receiving the affections of the charming eyecandy whom all the girls drooled over at the public pool, or he in having them reciprocated by a girl completely out of his league.
That summer was a short period of exquisite felicity, and but a short one. Troubles soon arose. When news that a local community college student was courting his Duke-bound daughter reached the very important desk of Mr. Walter Elliot, he with great coldness threatened to remove his financial support for her secondary education. He had always considered shunting his least favorite daughter into a corporate alliance via marriage to the heir of a rival company, and the idea of this very degrading alliance with the young aspiring musician was abominable. Her godmother Mrs. Russell, though less concerned with corporative strategies but equally concerned with money, received the relationship as a most unfortunate one.
Annie Elliot, with all her wealth, beauty, and brains, to involve herself at eighteen the summer before her college career with a young man, who had nothing but himself to recommend him, and no hopes of attaining affluence, but in the chances of a most uncertain profession, and no connections those in the entertainment business to secure even his farther rise in that profession; would be unthinkable! The heiress Annie Elliot, to be canoodling with a stranger without fortune or promise; or rather be sunk by him to the life of a starving artist, of scrounging together tips from waitering and waitressing jobs in order to pay the bills!
Such opposition, as these feelings produced, was more than Annie could combat. Her father and sisters, who had no taste for any sort of music and could not have been expected to take a liking to her musical boyfriend, Annie could have ignored; - but Mrs. Russell, whom she had always loved and relied on, could not, with such steadiness of opinion, and such tenderness of manner, be continually advising her in vain. Those summer months marked the beginning and end of their romance; but, not with a few months ended Annie’s share of suffering from it. She entered Duke University with an early loss of bloom and spirits, with no interest in going to Shooters or party-hopping on a Saturday night. Nearly eight years had gone since this little history of sorrowful interest had reached its close, and Annie Elliot, at her late twenties, remained as unlikely to ever wed. She did not blame Mrs. Russell, she did not blame herself for having been guided by her; but she felt that were any young person, in similar circumstances, to apply to her for counsel, she would direct them to a copy of Avril Lavigne’s song "Sk8er Boi" and let them discern the lesson to be gleaned from the lyrics. All of his expectations, all of his confidence had been justified. His talent and passion had paved the way to his road to stardom. He had, very soon after she ended the relationship and set off for Duke, gotten signed with a music label; and all that he had told her would follow, had taken place. He and his fellow The Captains bandmates, known universally by their “Captain” stage names Captain Harville and Captain Benwick, had distinguished themselves and early gained the ranks of the music charts – and must now, by successive albums and hit songs, own multiple mansions across the globe. She had only People and Rolling Stone magazine for her authority, but she could not doubt his being rich; - and, in favor of his constancy, she had no reason to believe him to be the playboy canoodling with Hollywood starlets on the cover of every tabloid.
She had been forced into prudence into her youth, she learned romance as she grew older – the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning.
No comments:
Post a Comment