Mrs. Wattlesbrook was reminding Jane of Miss April, the spiteful, tight-bunned, glossy-lipped, stick-cracking ballet teacher of her elementary school years. She still had nightmares about Miss April.
When Mrs. Wattlesbrook turned her back to give instructions to the piano player, Jane mouthed to Theodore, “Sorry.”
Theodore smiled, a fantastically broad smile that made her notice just how blue his eyes were.
“The minuet is a ceremonious, graceful dance,” said Mrs. Wattlesbrook, closing her eyes to enjoy the music the pianist drew from the keys. “It commences each ball as a means of introducing all the members of the society. Each couple takes turns in the center performing the figures. Curtsy to the audience, Miss Erstwhile, now to your partner, and begin. Curve sideways, meet at back, forward to middle, holding inside hands, let him wheel you around, then sideways to corner . . .”
With Mrs. Wattlesbrook calling the motions, Jane wove, swerved, minced, and spun. She had thought it might be awkward dancing with a man nearly a foot taller than her, but this was no waltz or high school slow dance. It was a smooth combination of figures, taking hands and releasing, turning and returning.
Jane found herself giggling when she missed a step or spun the wrong way. Her partner smiled, apparently amused by her own amusement. Though at a formal ball they would be wearing gloves, in this informal setting their hands were bare, and she felt the calluses on his palm when he took her hand, felthis fingers warm in hers. It was strange to touch someone like this, feel his hands in hers, brush her bare upper back, press on her lower back directing her through the figures, and yet not know him at all. Never even have heard the sound of his voice.
He wrapped his hand around her waist. She blushed like a freshman.
After the minuet they practiced two country dances. The first was spunky, and she had to learn how to “skip elegantly.” She had square-danced once for a fifth-grade assembly (a tragic affair involving boyfriend #2), and the second number reminded her of a sedate Virginia reel.
“The top couple moves up and down the center and the rest wait,” explained Mrs. Wattlesbrook. “In a ball with many couples, one dance can take half an hour.”
“So that’s why Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy had time to talk,” said Jane. “They were standing there, waiting their turn.”
“Precisely,” said Mrs. Wattlesbrook.
Blunder, Jane thought, glancing at her partner. She normally managed to hide her geekiness from men of her acquaintance, especially if she hoped they might be attracted to her. What must he think of a woman who memorized Austen books and played dress-up? She’d been enjoying their dance, but she was too embarrassed to meet his eyes again. As soon as they performed the final bow and curtsy, he left the way he’d come.
That night, Jane sat on her hard mattress in the inn’s guest room, almost too jet-lagged to sleep and feeling forlorn in her white chemise. The English countryside was framed by her window as though it were a painting, blue and purple, abstract in the low light. She grimaced as she thought about the dance, remembering how fun it had been until she’d spoiled it at the end. She didn’t want that for this experience. She needed agood ending, the best ending, though her imagination couldn’t dredge up exactly what that should be.
The endings of all her relationships had displaced any previous loveliness. In memory, the jokes faded, the personalities of the various boyfriends blurred together, weekend trips were truncated in thought to as long as it took her to scratch her neck. The entire relationship was condensed and re-formed in her mind to be solely about its unfortunate conclusion.
Here she was at the beginning of something, her toes curled over the edge of the diving board. No more time to prepare, no more ways to evade. The only way off was to lean forward and plunge. Goodbye to her awkward list of numbered boyfriends and her mutated, Austen-affected intensity, which had pushed her to one ending after another. She was determined that no matter what it took, this vacation—thisholiday—unlike any of her relationships, would have the very best ending.
One by one, let us go through Jane’s Numbered List of Boyfriends before she lets them go forever.
Boyfriend #1
Alex Ripley, age four
Alex declared to Jane’s preschool teachers, their mothers, and Kildara (the girl with self-cut bangs) that he and Jane would marry. Her heart thrilled. She felt like a princess for real.
After a rousing Easter egg hunt in the park, he ran with Jane behind a tree.
“I want to give you something that means we’ll be together forever,” he said.
Forever sounded wonderful to little Jane. She closed her eyes, and he kissed her on the lips seven times. Kissing wasn’t as thrilling as she’d hoped. She felt like she’d been pecked by a chicken. A soft chicken.
That summer Alex’s family moved to Minnesota. She never saw him again.
Day 2
The next morning, after a huge, meaty breakfast, Jane climbed into an actual horse-drawn carriage and thought she might die on the spot from happiness. Servants fastened her trunk to the back while Mrs. Wattlesbrook stood in the doorway, dabbing a handkerchief to her dry eyes.
“Do have a good time, Miss Erstwhile, and remember to always wear a wrap and bonnet when you go out!”
The day was gray, and patchy rain nudged the carriage roof. Jane sat on the cushioned seat looking out a water-streaked window, watching the hilly country bounce by. A row of river trees huddled in a line, and beyond, a glimpse of a village. The fresh landscape encouraged her artist’s eye to see in paint colors—leaves of sap green, raw sienna, and burnt umber; the distant roofs in brown ochre and cadmium red; the sky a pale wash of Payne’s grey.
Soon they passed a gate and guard station, and rolled upan unpaved private drive. The carriage slowed, then halted in front of a majestic Georgian manor of Naples yellow stone and thirty facing windows (she counted). To an American girl who had never so much as stepped foot in a mansion, it looked like a castle, and her breath caught. The edifice was more than impressive architecture—it seemed to radiate an expectant energy, as if full of something secret and wonderful, a solidly wrapped present.
“Now that’s a fair prospect,” Jane breathed, giving herself chills.
The front doors opened, and a dozen people filed out. Despite the weather, they stood patiently in two lines, blinking against the thin rainfall. From their attire, Jane guessed they were mostly house servants plus a couple gardeners in rougher clothes. Theodore was difficult to miss, a head taller than any other.
