The Last Gift #2
Jane laughed. “Oh, my dear, you do not require any introduction, not to me. I have known you for years. You are Elizabeth Bennet of Longbourn. I will admit to being somewhat disoriented, having just arrived.” Jane glanced around.
“Where is Longbourn? You are fond of a good ramble and must be a fair distance from your estate. Might you point its direction so I can orient myself?”
Elizabeth blinked. “You are new to our patch. This is Longbourn, although one might argue that for a house to become Home depends on how you look at it.”
The young lady waved her hand at the building behind Jane and continued her explanation. “The others live in grander places, although they are no less Home to them. Miss Woodhouse could never mistake this for her papa’s Hartfield, nor Miss Price for her Uncle Bertram’s sugar-money Mansfield Park.”
“Nor Sir John’s Barton Park,” a melodic alto interrupted Miss Bennet.
Jane turned toward the newcomer and raised an eyebrow. Older and dressed plainly, this woman bore herself with a quiet dignity reflecting a pragmatic acceptance of her station, albeit not the one of her birth. Her manner was perplexingly familiar, but Jane could not recall why.
Her face must have reflected her study, for Miss Bennet stepped in to undertake a Briton’s favorite task. “Miss Austen, may I present Miss Elinor Dashwood of Barton Cottage in Devon to you? Miss Dashwood, may I introduce you to the Founder, Miss Jane Austen?”
A wide smile brightened Elinor’s face as she curtseyed. “Miss Austen, it has been so long since we last met, although I do recall with fondness our times together.”
Then she threw a sly look at Jane. “I particularly enjoyed watching you struggle with poor Marianne’s love life!
How many geese lost their pinions so you could fletch that despicable rake and the noble soldier?
A prideful part of me much prefers your working title, Elinor and Marianne.
Then, I might have a chance of being remembered for posterity.
However, I will embrace the Sense moniker for all it’s worth. ”
Her shoulders slumped with her sigh. “As for what I see when I look at this building -and Miss Bennet and I have had debates about this- I see my home. No, not Norland Park, which my half-brother and his wife have turned into something my dearest Papa would never recognize, but Barton Cottage, a cozy place that fits my reduced family’s needs.
I wholeheartedly agree with my friend Elizabeth about what turns a house into Home: it is the place where you put your heart, where love is allowed to flourish.
Thus, I see Barton and Lizzy sees Longbourn. ”
“And I see Steventon although,” Jane tipped her head, “in a certain way, it bears some resemblance to Chawton.”
At this, Miss Dashwood nodded decisively and turned to Miss Bennet. Cocking her head to one side with a knowing look, she said, “Lizzy, now that you have greeted Miss Austen, perhaps you can continue with your plans.”
Taken aback at the apparent dismissal, Elizabeth jolted slightly, her face clouded, before collecting herself.
“Indeed, Elinor,” she paused, remembering they were a party of three.
“I must apologize, Miss Austen, for mindlessly addressing Miss Dashwood by her Christian name as if you were not standing there. Mayhap I ought to get my mother involved. She is forever crowing about entertaining the four-and-twenty families in the neighborhood.”
Elinor gave her younger partner a stern look. “Mrs. Bennet’s talents may have once lay in that direction, but I am sure you will agree that your mama is different from the lady many believe they know her to be since she returned from her journey searching for your sister.”
“Miss Austen and I will continue here and not delay you longer.” Jane caught the wide eyes the Dashwood sister used to emphasize her declaration. Elizabeth gave a curt nod and hurried around the corner and out of sight.
As Miss Dashwood took her arm and guided her away from the house and down the incline toward the lake, Jane’s agile mind turned the conversation over in its invisible hands.
Some answers, indeed, but I have more questions about this place peopled by my creations.
***
As they walked in companionable silence, Jane thought to test Elinor, if only to learn just how much autonomy the kind woman had.
I have seen hints of a more profound awareness than what I laid on the page. This Elinor is no dullard. She and Elizabeth Bennet are surely plotting something. I will find out about that at the proper time.
If my destiny is to spend my days here in this realm, I hope its denizens are of Monsieur Descartes’ persuasion, thinking beings capable of rational and even irrational reasoning. The opposite would be dreadful -a world existing as God’s dreams, devoid of choice- as posited by earlier philosophers.
Jane prodded as they stepped onto the lake path’s packed gravel. “Miss Dashwood...”
“Elinor, please: we have known each other forever.”
“Elinor,” Jane conceded, “you must allow me to express my amazement. Within five minutes of opening my eyes, I meet two of my favorite characters -you and Miss Elizabeth. That both of you freely spoke of others, including Miss Woodhouse and Miss Price, leads me to ask if I have crossed my feet and tripped over Hatchard’s threshold and am suffering fantasies of the mind.
Even so, I did leave you married to Mr. Edward Ferrars. Yet, I see no rings.”
The Dashwood spinster applied pressure on Jane’s forearm to guide her to a bench above the water.
“In this here/now, we assume the forms with which we are most comfortable. While talking with you, I prefer to be unmarried as I was throughout our book. However, if I cross over the hill, my Edward guides his gig along Delaford’s lanes, expecting to share a small sherry with me before dinner. ”
“Is he not going to wonder where you are?”
Elinor shook her head. “This is a peculiarity of how this world works. I am here with you; Edward is not. Our meeting does not affect his life, and we are out of his ken. His where/when is directed toward his parishioners as I am absent from his frame of reference. However -at least this is how I understand it- as soon as I slip over the invisible boundary and find myself closer to the rectory than you, I will become a married lady. My husband will finish his last task before setting out for home. The difference between realms is imperceptible.”
Jane fell back against the bench’s back, winded by the complications. “How can you keep from getting confused? Would not Mr. Ferrars wonder why his list of petitioners was unfinished until suddenly it was?”
“Time and the information it bears, my dear Miss Austen, works quite differently here. You just said, ‘Within five minutes.’ Can you be sure those five minutes you apprehended were the same length as five minutes before you transitioned?”
Jane sketched a wry look. “My last five minutes, any five minutes since I became ill, seemed like five hours”.
“I assure you,” Elinor replied, “you will never again experience such a trying period.”
A writer’s life is the sum of all her experiences. “Is Mr. Ferrars ever to meet me? I would dearly like to see how he turned out after I put Fine at the bottom of your last page.”
Elinor chuckled. “Oh my: of course you will encounter Edward throughout your residence here -today, perhaps. He will be Delford’s unmarried rector if you greet him on this side of the hill, although unbetrothed to me or any other.
We prefer to leave the uncomfortable Lucy Steele episode behind.
She has vanished with her husband. Although it may be uncharitable for a parson’s wife, I say good riddance to bad baggage. ”
Jane nodded. “I disliked that conniving young woman and how she toyed with your Mr. Ferrars. Her ink flowed thinly, clogged my pen, and left nasty blotches.”
After pausing to frame her next thought, she looked intently at Elinor. “Do you remember what you do and say here when you are there?”
Shrugging one shoulder, Elinor replied, “Oh, I recall everything, but it is different somehow, almost as if it was happening to someone else. I just accept it. Here and there are what they are.”
A soft draft ruffled the water, pulling Jane’s attention away from her companion.
One thought glowed more brightly than the others in the colliding, confused mass.
“I can accept your explanation about how this land works, but it is less important than other considerations. Why cries out for an explanation.”
Elinor’s hand slid across the seat to capture Jane’s.
“The answer is as simple as it is astounding. This is a world filled with your creations. It exists because you imagined it and wrote it. ’Tis a gift the Old One gives to every author, that the fruits of their labors take form and flight in a universe all their own. ”
Her blue-gray eyes bored into Jane’s brown.
“This all rises from Herr Kant’s philosophy of solipsismus -solipsism- the idea that person living it defines their reality.
A crusty American author -I will not grace him with the appellation of gentleman although he was a naval officer- named Robert Heinlein gave it literary meaning.
He called it ‘World as Myth’, which argues that writing fiction creates a universe where that story is reality.
Thus, Jane, this place found life because you wrote it. ”
“Heinlein? I am unfamiliar with that name,” Jane showed perplexed.
“Let me see...,” Elinor tapped her chin, “he was a speculative fiction author over a century after you. Mrs. Wollstonecraft’s daughter, Mrs. Shelley, first penned that sort of tale. The young woman was the subject of no small scandal shortly before...”
Jane completed the thought. “My death. I had heard talk of her unwed antics with that poet, although I usually ignore town gossip. I had no idea she wrote, too.”