Justice Is Served

“Such dark and brooding good looks, I’d say!” exclaimed my Aunt Margaret Martin as she swooned over a loaf of gingerbread before slathering it with spiked marmalade. “It’s a pity that I decided to share it with our neighbor Mrs. Elton,” she continued, her voice adopting a more abrasive tone. “At least that means that there won’t be enough for you, Miss Elizabeth, so you’d better find some form of gainful employment.”

Selfishness must always be forgiven you know because there is no hope of a cure. Those were the words that flooded my mind as I stormed out the front door for the second time that morning. I plunged into the windswept drizzle, armed with my purse, a book tote and an umbrella that bore the look of my tattered spirits. Having lived elsewhere for so many years, the Martins’ house no longer felt like home to me: It was cramped and noisy; they had more children than they could care for; and I felt increasingly reduced to someone who was neither an insider nor an outsider. There was no place there that I could call my “nest of comforts.” I had gone to university to better myself but upon completing my studies had found it more difficult than ever to make ends meet. No one could understand me. I was like some foreign term that resisted all mechanisms of translation. I was weary of my aunt and uncle – their insults, their villainous glances. “Her ins and outs are beyond me,” Mrs. Elton loved to chide while stroking Frizz, her fluffy Pomeranian, and inhaling her cake and tea. “She’s flopped as badly as Mrs. Bates’s lemon of a soufflé. What a disgrace to the family name!”

If only the wings of financial freedom would land in front of me, for I could not work any harder than I was while going against the wind. But perhaps I was being too romantic. I had no family worth mentioning, as my parents had passed away when I was a small child, leaving me essentially penniless and dependent on the charity of my aunt and uncle; my friends were thousands of miles away; and my connections, though high ranking, were too self-centered to lend a helping hand to an accomplished young woman who was struggling to make her way in the world. Literature had been my saving grace, and writing had always been my passion – something that my relations found utterly detestable. Whenever Uncle Frank spied me through his crooked glasses, he would splutter out that I had the look of someone who had read too many novels, not that he had a physiognomy worth poeticizing. “Anyone who wants to write n-n-novels is full of arrogance and conceit. You’ll be out on the street if you can’t do something n-n-normal. Reading n-n-novels is most dangerous, especially for young women who can’t control their insolent imaginations.”

“I dissent!” I would scream, proud to be ruthlessly notorious in that way.

“Obstinate, headstrong girl!” he would lash back, brandishing his empty pint glass too close to my head for comfort. I brushed his remarks aside, transformed his labels into compliments and made up my mind to spite him by authoring my own happily-ever-after.

My anger at my situation enabled me to charge through the raging elements with inconceivable ease. Before I knew it, I found myself already through the glass doors of the law library that stood some 20 minutes down the road. “What a picturesque portrait I must present,” I thought to myself, looking around at the line-up of individuals donning immaculate attire. The hem of my dress was muddied, and I could only envisage the spectacle that my dark eyes must make with their blazing emotions. My umbrella’s disheveled silhouette did no advantage to my figure as I tiptoed down the red carpet. Attempting to be discreet, I seated myself in the most remote corner of the library so as to shield myself from penetrating gazes. “Such are the trials of trying to mind my own business,” I sighed as I laboriously pulled out the jury instructions manual that I had agreed to index. Needless to say, this type of work was not my cup of tea. I quickly found my mind wandering to the more captivating subject of ballroom dancing. But how could I think such thoughts in a law library, of all places? I nearly laughed aloud at my own absurdity. My ruminations then turned to my friend Emma, who had just gotten engaged after refusing ever to marry.

At that point, I could feel that I was being watched. Being of a highly sensible disposition, I turned around ever so gingerly and grabbed a nearby stack of pamphlets from the 1930s from which to hide behind. Anyway, I needed something that was capable of deafening the surrounding chorus of scribbling and typing. I grimaced at the fact that I was only on the letter “I.” That segment of the index was going to be a nightmare. My brain had barely survived the entry for “Heat of Passion.” I was dubious that I had the stomach to make it to “Z” as in “Zombie.”

Out of the blue, I heard something thud to the ground behind me. Trying not to attract more attention to my unpolished appearance than I undoubtedly already had, I spun around and spotted a handsome paperback on the floor. I reached down to pick it up after failing to make out the title in the shadows. The book had the aura of content more novel than substantive law. My first impressions were correct: It was the pulp-era edition of Pride and Prejudice with “Lock Up Your Daughters … Darcy’s In Town!” emblazoned on the cover. “How outlandish,” I thought to myself. “How on earth did such a title land here, even if it had already received at least one U.S. Supreme Court citation?”

Not feeling particularly inclined to come up with more subentries for “Identity Theft,” I thought that I would instead page through Pride and Prejudice. I could not remember when I had last read a proper novel. Besides, I was an ardent Anglophile at heart. With my current workload, leisure was nonexistent. Numbers alone seemed to be the only things that counted in life. Before I knew what I was doing, I found myself deeply engrossed in the world of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. (I had definitely been born in the wrong era.) The law library and my indexing project faded pleasantly into page-turning oblivion. I had just entered the Netherfield Ball scene when a man’s British accent brought my focus crashing back to reality.

“Excuse me, madam, may I take a look at the title of the book that you are reading?”

My heart was pounding. I could feel the blood rising to my cheeks while my eyes remained focused on the only speck of mud on the floor. “Absolutely not. It would be of no interest to you.”

“It’s only that I believe I misplaced my book. At least permit me to see the cover.” Unaccustomed to such a union of profound cordiality and pronounced terseness, I raised my eyes and fainted, struck with the resemblance between the cover star and the man before me. The last thing that I remembered was looking at the clock on the opposite wall as it struck half-past three.

When I recovered my senses, which must not have been too long thereafter, as the minute hand had only advanced by five paces, I noticed that the novel had vanished along with the man. “What a selfish jerk!” I exclaimed to myself. If Mr. Debonair was going to display any shred of decency, he could have at least suggested some subentries for “Identity Theft” while he was trying to pass as Mr. Darcy.

I looked around furtively and was relieved to discover that my suited compatriots had not budged from their respective positions; their scribbling and typing appeared to be resistant to all sources of distraction. My anxiety about “Identity Theft” had clearly affected my senses. Still recovering from the drama that the last five minutes had witnessed – whether in fact or in fiction – I considered the possibility that it had all been a dream. This would not have been the first time that I had dozed off in a library.

Just when I was about to return to work with the intent of accomplishing something before the library closed, my eyes caught sight of a handsome yet mysterious black book with rounded corners and a suspicious-looking bill. And by bill, I mean one that had nothing to do with law-making. Upon closer inspection, I saw that the object that had ensnared my attention was a £5 note strapped to the cover with elastic. “How dare that man leave me such a worthless souvenir, even if the book won’t remain fastened shut for long! He could have at least saved me the trouble of having to exchange the currency.”

I pulled out the plastic fiver, opened the book and discovered that, while blank, it bore a carefully placed yellow sticky note over the “in case of loss” notice on the first page. “He does have good taste in color,” I reflected. (I had a prejudice for all things yellow.) “And his penmanship is indeed frame-able,” I concluded. In a hand that bore the elegance of Palladian proportions, the note read:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single woman in possession of vast potential may be in want of a small fortune.

Yours in haste – and until we meet again,

F. D.

At that point, I was starting to question my own sanity. Which century did he think I was in? Suddenly, I remembered reading about the four £5 notes containing minuscule portraits of Jane Austen engraved in gold. They were reputedly worth a minimum of £50,000 apiece. Needing no further incentive, I pulled out my bookmark magnifier and scoured the space to the right of Big Ben. In the process, I rubbed my finger over the pound sign. And there it was! A portrait of the famed authoress herself, encircled by what I knew to be a quotation from Mansfield Park: “A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.” I could scarcely believe my luck, but then again, it’s best not to over-analyze miracles.

My reverie was suddenly interrupted by a pointed “ahem.”

“Um, yes?” I stammered, quickly stashing the five-pound note in my little black book.

“Are you the at-will indexer of our project?”

“Yes, I suppose that would be me,” I mumbled, my voice quivering slightly, as I had not made any progress worth speaking of.

“We actually won’t be requiring your services anymore. Sorry to disappoint you,” said the man with a profusion of feigned sincerity. Before I could respond, he was already out of earshot. If he had stayed long enough to observe my reaction, he would have noticed that I was beaming with delight rather than definitive displeasure.

My mind was spinning. My dreams had been answered. Justice had been served, and the key to financial independence was at last within the safety of my purse. I could see myself packing up my few belongings and leaving the Martins’ household for good, never to deal with such incurably selfish relations again. Given the Austen-tatious provenance of my riches, I was of the persuasion that if adventures will not befall a young woman in her own city, she must seek them abroad. And that was exactly what I planned to do with my extra funds. If all went according to the novella that I would be recording in my little black book, Mr. F. D. was out there waiting for me at the crossroads of literature and life.