Day 1 #2
The maid opened a wardrobe and revealed that Jane’s measurements had been transformed into four day dresses, three evening dresses, a ball gown in white and lace, two short “spencer” jackets, a brown fitted overcoat called a pelisse, two bonnets, a bright red shawl, and a pile of chemises, drawers, stockings, boots, and slippers.
“Wow. I mean, wow,” was all Jane could say. Unexpected joy burst in her middle and was spreading outward. “They’re all for me?”
“For your use, yes,” Mrs. Wattlesbrook said, reentering, “though not to keep, mind. Your great-aunt’s payment did not cover wardrobe souvenirs.
” She extracted a gray silk dress with gathered neckline from Jane’s eager fingers and packed it tenderly into her trunk.
“That is an evening dress. You should wear a day dress now, the pink one there.”
In pink, Jane resembled a premature piglet. She took the blue one off its hook, ignoring Mrs. Wattlesbrook’s offended sniff.
In a few minutes, the dressing-of-Jane was complete: stockings fastened to thighs with garters, black ankle boots, blue print day dress trimmed in dark blue ribbon with elbow-length sleeves, and there she was.
She stood sideways, looked in the mirror, and experienced a silly, naughty feeling, like she hadn’t had since the sinful pleasure of playing Barbie dolls with her younger cousin when she was twelve and should’ve been too old.
Here she was, a grown woman playing dress-up, and it felt so good.
“And there she is,” Jane whispered.
While the maid’s back was turned, Jane hid her phone in the bottom of the trunk.
She’d already gone to the trouble to set up international service with her provider because it would be unbearable to be without any real-world contact for two weeks.
Besides, it gave her a little glee to sneak something illegal across the border.
She wasn’t the usual type of client, was she?
Then she certainly wouldn’t try to act like it.
That evening, Jane dined with Mrs. Wattlesbrook and practiced manners during the longest meal she had endured since attending the eighth annual Researchers for a Better Paper Pulp banquet with boyfriend #14 (keynote address: “The Climax and the Downfall of the Wood Chip”).
“When eating fish, use your fork in your right hand and a piece of bread in your left. Just so. No knives with fish or fruit, because the knives are silver and the acids in those foods tarnish. Remember, you must never talk to the servants during dinner. Don’t mention them, don’t make eye contact.
Think of it as demeaning to them, if you must, but find a way to obey this society’s rules, Miss Erstwhile.
It is the only way to truly appreciate the Experience.
I need not remind you again of proper behavior with regard to the opposite sex.
You are a young, single woman and should never be unchaperoned with a gentleman behind closed doors and only out-of-doors so long as you are in motion—riding, walking, or in a carriage, that is.
No touching, besides the necessary social graces, such as taking a man’s hand as he helps you down from a carriage or his arm as he escorts you into dinner.
No familiar talk, no intimate questions.
I am to understand from past clients that when simulated romantic experiences bloom under the tension of these restrictions, it is all the more diverting. ”
After dinner, Mrs. Wattlesbrook led Jane into the main room of the inn, where an older woman in a brown Regency dress waited at the upright piano.
“As you will have opportunity to participate in informal dances and attend a ball, you must perfect a minuet and two country dances. Ah, here is Theodore. Entrez.”
Theodore appeared to be in his late twenties.
He wore his hair a little long, though he didn’t sport the mid-jaw sideburns of the men in Austen movies, and he was, she thought, taller than a man should be if he doesn’t play basketball.
Jane caught a glimpse of a worn paperback novel in his hand before he stashed it behind the piano.
“Theodore is just an under-gardener at the estate, but I’ve taught him the dances, and he stands in for a gentleman on the first night so our guests can practice.”
She put out her hand. “Hi, I’m Jane.”
“No, you are not!” said Mrs. Wattlesbrook. “You are Miss Erstwhile. And you are not to talk to him, he is just a servant. For the sake of the Experience, we must be proper.”
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, felt his 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 a good 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—this holiday—unlike any of her relationships, would have the very best ending.