Day 3, Continued
That evening, to make herself feel better after her embarrassing breakdown plus the beginning of the Heartwright Era, Jane donned her favorite evening gown, pale peach with a flattering scoop neck and fluttering short sleeves.
These last three days, she had been seesawing between giddy headlong rush into fantasyland and existential terror, but sometimes when she slipped into a new dress, the only word that really applied was huzzah.
She practically skipped down the stairs, eager and ready to reengage.
But she was met almost immediately with a sort of “you’re one too many” problem, as the addition of a fourth woman with only three gentlemen threw a wrench in the precedence.
Aunt Saffronia declared she would dine upstairs, and then it was Jane’s turn to say that was nonsense and that she would simply walk from the drawing room to the dining room unescorted.
At the back of the line. Like a cast-off puppy.
Well, she didn’t actually say the puppy part.
She did enter alone, behind Miss Heartwright and Colonel Andrews, but she told herself she did it with style.
When the gentlemen joined the ladies in the drawing room after dinner, Jane was hoping for charades or some group activity where she could try banter and coy flirtation, but Miss Charming was quick on the draw—“I’ll pout all evening if you don’t, Mr. Nobley, and I’m a very effective pouter”—and secured both the single gentlemen at the whist table.
Quite a coup. Miss Heartwright, as the guest that day, naturally made up the fourth.
And so Jane sat board-straight on a sofa and pretended to be perfectly fine and in fact enchanted by her own thoughts.
That lasted about three minutes. Next, she attempted to amuse herself by trying her artistically rusty hand at a new embroidery sampler, though the product itself was soon much more amusing than the occupation.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t entirely alone. Sir John, usually too engaged with his drink to do more than grumble to himself, was particularly attentive to Jane. He stared at her until she was forced to acknowledge him and then topple into his staccato conversation.
“Do you shoot much? Mm? Birds? Miss Erstwhile?”
“Uh, no, I don’t hunt.”
“Yes, of course. Quite, quite.”
“So, uh, do you shoot much?”
“Shoot what?”
“Birds?”
“Birds? Are you chirping about birds, Miss Erstwhile?”
Aunt Saffronia wasn’t as quick as usual in detecting uncomfortable situations. She sat by a lamp, an open book on her lap and a glazed expression in her eyes. It made Jane wonder how many breaks the poor woman got. The men were often off doing man things, but Aunt Saffronia always had to be on.
“Aunt Saffronia.” Jane sat beside her so the others wouldn’t hear. “Can I persuade you to retire early? You do so much for all of us, all day long. I don’t think anyone would deny you a little rest.”
Aunt Saffronia smiled and patted her cheek. “I think I may, just this once. If you promise not to tell.”
It was gratifying to see the woman go get some me-time, but of course it meant Jane was left alone in the sitting area with Sir John and the sloshing of his cud. She tried to drown out the sticky sound by concentrating on the voices in conversation at the card table.
Miss Charming: “Crikey, Mr. Nobley, but that was a barmy play!”
Mr. Nobley: “I beg apology, Miss Charming.”
Miss Charming: “Apology? Don’t you know that means it was good? Right smashing?”
Mr. Nobley: “As you say.”
Colonel Andrews: “You must take care with Miss Charming, Nobley. She is a sharp one. I wager she could teach you all sorts of things.”
Miss Charming (giggling): “Why, Colonel Andrews, whatever do you mean?”
And whenever the speed of conversation slowed a tad, Miss Heartwright was there to buoy it back up.
“Oh, good play, Colonel! I didn’t see that one. Well done, Mr. Nobley. You have a fine hand, I wager. Valiantly played, Miss Charming, and what lovely skin you possess.”
Miss Heartwright wasn’t just nice. She was astonishingly engaging.
Even Mr. Nobley seemed more responsive than normal.
He still hadn’t spoken with Jane since she’d broken character, and she watched him now, wondering if he’d tell Mrs. Wattlesbrook how her break muddied up the Experience.
He glanced at her once or twice, his dark eyes considering her, his mouth serious. That was all.
With no opportunity to spring, all Jane’s wound-up enthusiasm for this evening had slowly wilted to slushy doldrums. How was she managing to spoil absolute perfection?
An intrusive memory: Boyfriend #11 saying, “Oh, Jane, you always find a way to spoil everything.”
Maybe he’d been right, or maybe he’d just been mean. But in all the years Jane had fantasized about living in Austen’s world, she never considered that, once inside its borders, she might feel like an outsider.
The room began to feel unnaturally crowded, the lamps too bright but the light they made too dim. Jane caught a glimpse of herself in the gold-framed wall mirror, propped up in that suddenly ridiculous dress, gawky and silly, a clump of brown curls pinned to her head.
“What a clown,” she whispered to herself.
Mr. Nobley’s thoughtful eyes pinned her from across the room. He spoke something low, and Colonel Andrews turned toward her.
“I say, Miss Erstwhile, nothing would set the mood better than a song. I believe that you promised me a serenade on the pianoforte.”
Jane was quite certain that she had never promised any such thing. His bold declaration made Jane feel a little bolder herself, and if she was a clown, she might as well perform like one. Jane rose and made her way to the piano.
“If you insist, Colonel Andrews, but I must beg you to forgive me at the same time. And you, too, Mr. Nobley, as I know you are particular to music played well and no doubt a harsh critic when a piece is ill-executed.”
“I believe,” said Mr. Nobley, “that I have never been witness to a young lady about to play without her excusing her skill beforehand, only to perform perfectly thereafter. The excuse is no doubt intended as a prelude that sets up the song for deeper enjoyment.”
“Then I pray I do not disappoint.”
With professional suavity, Jane arranged her skirt, spread out the music, poised her fingers, and then with one hand played the black keys, singing along with the notes, “Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater, had a wife but couldn’t keep her, put her in a pumpkin shell, and there he kept her very well.”
She rose and curtsied to the room.
Colonel Andrews smiled broadly, if a little stiffly. Mr. Nobley coughed against the back of his hand, almost as if he was trying to disguise a laugh.
“That was . . .” said Miss Heartwright to the silence.
“I knew that song,” Miss Charming whispered loudly to the colonel. “I can play it on the jaw harp. Do you have a jaw harp handy?”
“Oh, er, I don’t believe so . . .”
Jane sat back on the lounge and picked up her absolute train wreck of an embroidery project. No one asked for an encore.
When Sir John started to snore beside her and the card players’ attention had turned firmly back to their game, Jane stuffed her not-safe-for-work sampler under a pillow and slipped out.
She should have gone to her room. There was that Regency rule that single women weren’t supposed to walk out alone except in the morning, but Jane had a headache, and nothing goes worse with a headache than rules. She had no destination except—away.
The night air sloshed on her bare skin and nudged her into shivering.
Jane rubbed her arms and imagined Mrs. Wattlesbrook’s voice crying out in Obi-Wan Kenobi tones: “Remember to wear a wrap and bonnet when you go out!” Some part of her hoped that the older woman would find her now and just send her home to put an end to the greasy shame rising up in her.
Another tiny part half-heartedly wished Colonel Andrews would notice she was gone and come cheer her up.
She wandered the garden path (so as not to get grass stains on her hem) and when her teeth began to chatter gave up hoping for relief by either exiling Wattlesbrook or diverting Andrews. Without hope, it was impossible to fantasize.
Jane reminded herself that an excess of hope was largely her problem. If only she were more of a pessimist, she wouldn’t have to grapple with these impossible whimsies and wouldn’t be here now, forlorn and pathetic in make-believe Regency England.
Her path wound around to the smaller second building that housed the servants.
A first-story window flickered with the unmistakable blue light of a screen, and it drew her nearer, a moth to flame.
She could hear an announcer burble, “New York Knicks” and “Pacers,” though she couldn’t make out any details.
The real, gritty, urban, twenty-first-century clamor of U.S.
basketball sounded as good to her as chocolate soup.
That’s right—she remembered now that those teams were opening the NBA season in a game on October 30, which meant if someone was watching it tonight in England they must have played yesterday in New York, making today—
“Halloween,” she said aloud. “How appropriate.”
The cold and the dark night rubbed against the blue light and the sound of the game, and the thought of going back alone to bed or returning to watch the whist game made her want to scream. She stepped up to the door and knocked.
The television voice cut off, replaced by the sound of pattering activity. “Just a moment,” said a male voice.
The door opened. It was Martin, aka Theodore the gardener, in pajama pants and no top, a towel hanging around his neck. Unclothed, he had the kind of build that made her want to say, Yow. She was glad she was wearing her favorite evening dress.
“Trick or treat?” she said.
“What?”
“Sorry to interrupt.” She indicated the towel. “You’re working out?”
“Miss, uh, Erstwhile, right? Yes, hello. No, I just couldn’t find my shirt. Are you lost?”