10
Oliver departed early the next morning for his trip, leaving Aurelia sipping tea by herself at their dining room table.
From outside in the square, he looked up at the window and waved to her.
She waved back and he pointed at the ground, reminding her that soon they’d be standing right there, getting married.
She nodded and grinned back at him, but as he turned to walk toward the Tube station, her smile faltered.
Was her intuition telling her something would happen to him?
To her? To them? Or was everything really alright?
Later, in the shop, Aurelia tried to keep her spirits up so as not to worry Julia. Business was slow in the afternoon, and the humid air wafting in from the street seemed to slow everything down, including Julia’s unenthusiastic attempts to dust the bookshelves.
“What do you think of Jane Eyre so far?”
“What?” Julia asked.
“The book—Jane Eyre. What do you think of it?”
“It’s alright.”
Aurelia had been hoping for a little more of a discussion, so she pushed ahead.
“What do you think about Jane?”
“She’s okay.”
“Do you think you’d be friends if you met her?”
Julia snorted. “Probably not.”
“Why?” Aurelia decided to fight Julia’s flat responses with a flat question.
“She’s plain… and she’s kind of boring. She says so herself.”
“I know Jane describes herself as being very plain and unattractive, but she’s not, really.
Esther from Bleak House—that’s another great book I’ll have you read one of these days—she does the same thing, but she’s also very pretty.
It’s good to remember that you can’t always trust a narrator, especially if they’re talking about themselves. ”
“How do you know?”
“How do I know what?”
“You said they’re pretty, so how do you know that? Did someone paint a picture of them, or something?”
Aurelia caught her breath. How could she have been so careless?
She’d have to be more alert to what she said about the characters in front of Julia.
Oliver tended to assume she was just getting carried away and didn’t usually question her odd statements, but Julia apparently would.
She’d tell her about the shop’s midnight visitors when Julia was older, of course—she didn’t want her to experience the same fear and surprise that she had—but not yet.
“I just mean… in my imagination. When I’ve seen them in my imagination.”
“Well in my imagination, Jane is ugly.”
“Julia! That’s not very nice.”
“She says so in the book,” Julia said innocently.
“You have to take what they say with a grain of salt. You know how some girls will say things like—‘oh, I know I failed that test’ but then they get an A. Or ‘oh, this dress makes me look hideous’ but they look fabulous.”
“Some girls, yeah,” Julia agreed. “Others can be like, ‘Interesting shirt, but if you like it, I guess it’s fine.’”
“Ouch,” Aurelia said, shaking her head. She paused, then added, “Blanche is kind of like that, isn’t she? Cutting and mean.”
“Who’s Blanche?”
“Haven’t you read that far? She comes to Thornfield Hall to visit Rochester for a few weeks.”
“Um, I guess I’m not there yet.” Julia kept dusting for a moment, then dropped the feather duster to her side and turned around, her head thrown back. “It’s so slow, Aunt Aurelia. Please don’t make me read anymore!”
“What?”
“It’s like torture—slow torture. Nothing happens. She’s just in this big house and that’s it.”
“That’s not it. You’ve got to keep going! Bronte is building dramatic tension. You’ve got to get through the slow bits since they’re building to something bigger.”
“Ugh!”
Julia let out a long sigh, looking to Aurelia as though she might relent. Aurelia raised an eyebrow, making it clear that she lacked any mercy whatsoever when it came to books.
“Fine. I’ll keep reading. But I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to finish it. I’ll be lucky if I can get through a word a minute.”
“Here,” Aurelia said, holding out her hand. “Give me the duster. You go up to the window seat and keep reading.”
Julia dragged herself upstairs, the book hanging loosely from her hand, then dropped onto the window seat and started reading. Aurelia smirked in satisfaction and then began her own halfhearted attempts at dusting.