Jane heard a muted whine of distress and realized it had come from her own throat. This was supposed to be a playful goodbye to everything that had been holding her back. But she was no actor. How could she get through two weeks role-playing with a straight face? She was used to having clothes that touched her waist and her hips, hair loose around her face, pants with a back pocket to hold her phone, shoes that allowed her to run. She felt so ridiculously phony riding up in a carriage in this Halloween costume, pretending to be someone of note, all those servants and actors knowing she was just a sad woman with lamentable fantasies. She felt naked and pale in her empire-waist dress.
The carriage lurched to a stop and gave Jane a sinking feeling in her middle. She balled her hands into fists, trying to stop the shaking, and her throat tightened. The fear was so suddenand unexpected she didn’t know how to trace it to its source. Was she scared of the carriage horses? Of the waiting servants? Could some animal instinct be warning her of a rare incoming English tornado?
No, she realized, she was afraid of committing to this experience. It meant too much to her. It meanteverything. What if she messed it up? What if it wasn’t as wonderful as she hoped? But even worse, what if it was? And when she had to leave, she became so incapacitated with grief that she completely lost her mind and joined a cult where she spent her days weaving really ugly baskets no one wanted to buy and—
One of the manservants had opened the carriage door and was holding out his hand to aid her, but Jane was too embarrassed to take it with her own shaking hand. She took a bone-deep breath and caught an anachronistic whiff of Polo cologne wafting off the servant. Somehow that smell was grounding.
Okay, okay, I will do this, Jane said to herself. Not only do I know this world inside and out; I am used to making a fool out of myself. Just two weeks and then I can leave this part of myself behind and get on with my life. And maybe it’ll be fun. It might even be fun.
She finally took the servant’s hand, stepped down from the carriage, and into Austenland.
“My dear Jane, you are very welcome!” A woman of perhaps fifty years approached the carriage on the arm of a red-cheeked, chubby man, holding an umbrella over both of them. Her blue dress and the scarlet umbrella were bright and inviting against the dreary backdrop of servants and rain. She placed a gentle hand on Jane’s elbow and pulled her out of the sprinkling.
“I am your aunt Saffronia, though of course you do not remember me as I haven’t kissed your cheeks since you were two and your widowed mother married that American and took you off to the New World,” she said neatly in one breath. “How we mourned your loss! My, but it is so good of you to come and visit at last. This is my husband, Sir John Templeton. He is near expiring in the anticipation of your arrival.”
Sir John blew up his cheeks and chewed on some invisible cud.
“Go on, Sir John, say hello,” Aunt Saffronia said.
Sir John at last fixed his wandering gaze on Jane. “Yes, well, hello,” he said.
He blinked lazily, and assuming he meant it as a nod of greeting, Jane curtsied as Mrs. Wattlesbrook had taught her.
“Hello, Uncle. How are you?”
“I had some ham for breakfast. I do not get ham much, what with pigs such dirty beasts and not on the property.”
Jane was near enough that his breath easily confirmed his declaration. She tried to think of some appropriate response to that and came up with, “Hooray for ham!”
“Yes, lovely,” said Aunt Saffronia. “Lovely, indeed. You are lovely. It has been a long time since we have had lovely young people at Pembrook Park . . .” Her voice trailed off and she lifted a fingernail to her mouth, then pulled back abruptly. Jane thought it was a small error—the actor bit her nails, but Aunt Saffronia did not.
Sir John cleared his throat with more phlegm involved than made Jane comfortable. “Young people? Lady Templeton, you forget Miss Charming.”
“Ah, yes, of course! How could I forget Miss Charming? She is the daughter of a dear friend and only arrived yesterday.What fortunate timing for you. It is so nice for young people to share each other’s company. Now let us get out of this damp. We do not want you to catch consumption and risk missing the ball!”
Aunt Saffronia took Jane’s arm and led her up the front steps and into the great hall. Jane gaped. Marble tiles led to a grand staircase with carved banister and scarlet carpeting, an impressive chandelier twinkling above. She caught glimpses through open doors of equally elegant rooms, but before she could investigate, a pair of servants entered carrying her trunk, and Aunt Saffronia followed them, leading Jane up the stairs to the second floor of bedrooms.
Her assigned room was comfortably sized, with a canopied bed and baby blue walls. It was exactly the kind of room Jane would have imagined. She couldn’t think why this discovery was tinged with disappointment. She supposed she still yearned for surprises, delights beyond her imagination. Spotting a power cord dangling from the “kerosene” lamp by her bed provoked an unintentional laugh. Aunt Saffronia looked at her in surprise, and Jane reflexively curtsied.
“Thank you so much. It’s perfect.”
Matilda, her properly taciturn maid, unpacked Jane’s trunk and hung her clothes in the wardrobe. When her maid’s back was turned, Jane speedily dug out her smuggled phone and stuffed it under her mattress. When Matilda’s work was done, Jane eagerly dismissed her, saying she would rest until dinner, since the jet lag was making gravity feel alarmingly heavy. She spent a fidgety hour on a soft mattress, and then poked around in the attached bathroom and found a flush toilet and bathtub with running water. It was a relief not to have to use a chamber pot, but it also made her feel more guilty than ever. The lesshistorical vigor observed, the more difficult it was for Jane to pretend this whole exercise wasn’t mere wish fulfillment.
She felt too riled up to rest. The day continued to drizzle, so she walked the long corridor outside her room. The housewasperfect. It even carried the old, clean smell of a museum. Her heart pounded, and she felt as if she had sneaked away from a tour guide. She matched gazes with the portraits—men and women in stiff costumes and old jewelry, their backgrounds faded landscapes, their eyes imperious. They were marvelous. She wondered if those rich people had naturally looked on the world with such assurance of their own worth or if the painter had forced those expressions onto their faces. An itch inside her hand made her want to give painting in that style a try, but she scratched the desire away. She hadn’t picked up a brush in years, not since Boyfriend #11.
She ran out of upstairs, so down she went, only to be stopped fast by voices coming from a sitting room. Jane wasn’t ready to face real people yet, not as Miss Erstwhile. The portraits had been intimidating enough. Footsteps scared her through a dark antechamber full of statues and wallpapered in black, and into an open doorway. It was like crawling through a dirt tunnel into sunlight, as she found herself in a large, square room with no furniture. The ballroom. The place where magic happened. The floors were intricately laid hardwood, the walls an impatient green, and the crystals on the chandeliers winked in the daylight from tall, narrow windows leading to a veranda. If she were the type of person who looked for signs, Jane would have thought the room was shivering in anticipation of something momentous.
She turned around, her head back, examining the carvings of cupids on the ceiling, and laughed aloud in wonder. Amotion caught her eye. In a doorway farther down, she saw the dark outline of a man. She couldn’t see his face, but his outline was all Regency gent.
“Pardon,” he said in a low voice.
The sound did something strange to her. Maybe it was just the effect of being startled in a great house while wearing an empire-waist dress. Maybe it was some kind of ballroom spell. But she felt a rush of coolness start at the top of her head and whoosh down across every cell of her skin, pricking goose bumps and sinking so deep that she visibly shivered.
She was about to ask if she wasn’t supposed to be there, but he turned and left.
She stood staring at where he’d been, relieved at first that she hadn’t been forced to make conversation yet, and then sorry that he’d gone. The coolness warmed, settling into her belly, rising up to prod her heart to pounding. The feeling was delightful. How long had it been since she had feltdelight? And there was so much more to come.
Goody, she thought, relishing the still lingering thrills.
