“I know.” The thought had haunted Jane many times, and it was a favorite weapon of anti-Austen enthusiasts.
“Not that there’s anything wrong with spinsters,” Carolyn said, patting the fragile folds in her neck.
“Of course not,” Jane agreed vehemently. She would have battled a dragon to defend a friend’s right to honor her career and independence over marriage. But Carolyn was right. For Jane, that would never be enough. A husband, a child or three, a pet cat. A home. Afamily. That was a dream too beautiful to admit aloud.
“Jane, sweetie, my story’s told. I’ve had my dancing days, and I’m facing my own The End. But sky and stars know how your story will turn out. So go make your happily-ever-after happen.” Her voice had a Little League coach enthusiasm andwas veering into sweetly patronizing. Time to change the subject. Very nonchalantly.
“Why don’t you tell me about your childhood, Aunt Carolyn?”
Carolyn laughed, soft as room-temperature butter. “Tell you about my childhood, and just in the nick of time. Well, don’t mind if I do. I was a limper from the time I could walk. Our folks were poor and your grandma and I shared a bed that leaned to one side, though I can’t be sure if that cursed bed was the cause . . .”
When Shirley returned from the restroom, Carolyn was quoting the price of milk when she was a child, and Shirley gave her daughter an approving smile. Thanks be she hadn’t overheard the revelation that her daughter was haunted by an impossible fantasy.
Jane felt so tired of her own self she could scream. Seriously, a thirtysomething woman shouldn’t be crushing on a fictional character in a two-hundred-year-old world. Or, for that matter, setting all the hopes in her glass-blown heart on some daydream husband and an equally fictional home and family. Of course she shouldn’t.
Jane crunched down on a piece of arugula.
6 Months Ago
In the spring, Great-Aunt Carolyn died.
“And you’re in the will, dear!” her mother said over the phone, throwing in uncommonly affectionate language. “Apparently our last-minute lunch did the trick. The lawyer will be in touch. Call me the moment you learn the amount. Well done, darling!”
Jane sat down and breathed, spending a few moments with the thought of the woman who’d loved Harold’s face, who’d wasted decades of loving, who’d ripped open Jane’s chest and laid out what she saw. Jane hadn’t known Carolyn well enough to grieve, only to feel softened by her death and mystified by the strangeness of any ending.
And yet, Carolyn had thought of Jane enough to scratch her name into the will. Whatwouldshe leave a near-stranger relative? Harold’s side of the family was large, and surely Carolyn would leave the bulk of the estate to his blood relations. Butthe rumors of Harold’s seafood fortune were legendary. Would there be enough to move Jane into an apartment with air-conditioning? Enough to retire?
On the subway ride to the attorney’s, Jane balked at that thought. She didn’t actually love her job. She’d applied for it straight out of college, armed with that always-in-demand BA in art. Commuting from Connecticut for interviews, she’d quickly realized how little traction a degree from a state college got her among New York City’s few art-focused jobs. So when she was offered a position as Assistant to the Art Director at a publisher of illustrated nonfiction titles, she seized the noncompetitive pay and rock-bottom benefits. At least she would be working in illustration! Almost ten years later, there was still an “asst.” before her title, and her main tasks continued to involve scrolling through stock-photo databases.
I think I know what you’ve put your life on hold to wait for, Aunt Carolyn had said. Was her nowhere job yet another symptom of her obsession?
Hey, at least she had a job, she reminded herself. So what that it didn’t fill her heart with joy and satiate her creative yearnings. She couldn’t knock such a nice piece of stability, something (unlike men) that didn’t periodically rip the rug out from under her and send her sprawling.
Jane nearly missed the subway stop with wondering—if she was tempted with a huge sum, was she at risk of becoming some alternate version of herself? Would she quit working, buy a house in the Hamptons with a dedicated Pilates room, and adopt a miniature poodle named Porridge?
These questions (and alternate names for the poodle) kept her mind busy as she walked into the law firm’s sleek graybuilding, up into the conservative cream-and-tan office, and down into a stuffed leather chair to hear the extraordinarily pale lawyer say, “You’re not rich.”
“Sorry, what?”
“In fact, she didn’t leave you any money at all.” His every blink was slow and deliberate, reminding Jane of a frog. “People often hope, so I like to get that out up front.”
Jane laughed uneasily. “Oh, I wasn’t thinking that.”
“Of course.” The attorney sorted through a stack of papers with no wasted movement. He was saying something in lawyer-ese, but Jane was distracted. She was trying to figure out what besides the measured blinking made him seem so amphibious. His wide-set eyes, she decided. And his pond-green tone. (Okay, he wasn’t actually green.)
He was still talking. “Our client was . . . eclectic . . . in her will. She made purchases for a few friends and family members and left the bulk of her money to charities. For you, she arranged a vacation.”
He handed Jane a glossy, oversized brochure. On the cover was a photograph of a large manor house. A man in jacket, cravat, and breeches, and a woman in an empire-waist dress and bonnet were walking in the foreground. They seemed awfully content. Jane’s hands went cold.
She read the elegantly inserted text.
Pembrook Park, Kent, England.
Enter our doors as a houseguest, come to stay a fortnight, enjoying the country manners and hospitality—a tea visit, a dance or two, a turn in the park, an unexpected meeting with a handsome gentleman, all culminating with a ball and perhaps something more . . .
Here, the Prince Regent still rules a carefree England. No scripts. No written endings. A holiday no one else can offer you.
“I don’t get it.” She really didn’t, and yet part of her was already hoping and humming and spinning forward into a blank but surely idyllic unknown.
