Day 11
The next morning, Jane painted in her chemise.
It was strange. She’d spent much of her life wishing for an experience like Austenland, and then spent much of her time here fearing she couldn’t immerse herself enough, get enough out of it so that it would change her.
And now here she was, wasting hours of her precious time alone with paint and canvas.
Even so, it didn’t feel like a waste. It felt right.
She was satisfied with the self-portrait except for the eyes, which still looked back uncertainly. Since she’d only just taken up a brush again, she was not good enough to force the paint to do what it didn’t want to do.
She meant to make it down for the end of breakfast, but she didn’t have a timepiece and mislaid several hours tumbling through the second canvas, coming up for air again with a sprawl of the view from her window.
At first she’d intended to make the painting pastoral and realistic, but she followed the colors into a spare, expressionist style that somehow felt even more real.
She put down the brush, stretched, and realized that she was ravenous, so she dressed, ate a cold breakfast, and walked outside to hunt the gentlemen.
With only two days left, her pulse clicked in her neck, Hurry, hurry!
She was feeling more confident here, no question.
But what did she still have to do to feel resolved? How was she going to conquer Mr. Darcy?
No one was in the park. As she strolled by the servants’ quarters, Jane stopped, guilt gnawing at her. Last night, Martin had called her name twice, and in front of Mrs. Wattlesbrook and everything. What would he have said? The unknown of it nagged at her.
Jane strolled casually to the servants’ building and rapped on his door.
No answer. What a relief.
She rapped one more time and sauntered away, seeming not to wait.
Just the thought of Martin made her feel antsy enough to skip, and yet she kind of craved the idea of him.
Besides the painting, nothing had felt realer to her in a long time than Martin.
And nothing had felt more exciting and blissful than Mr. Nobley—but he was all fantasy.
As she paced toward the end of the building, she overheard conversational tones.
From behind the camouflage of a climbing rose vine, Jane peered around the side of the building and caught sight of Colonel Andrews smoking a cigarette and speaking to someone else just out of sight.
The colonel was nodding and smiling, and seemed quite content.
He passed the nearly defunct cigarette to the unseen person, who took a drag and then flicked the butt to the ground.
Colonel Andrews checked his pocket watch and sighed.
“Well, time to get back to work.” His smile vanished.
Jane wondered if he had a meetup planned with Miss Charming.
She didn’t love that he seemed exhausted by the idea.
Part of her had hoped that, even if it was pretend, the actors enjoyed the ladies’ company.
She edged away from the servants’ quarters and was ambling toward the front door when she heard someone overtake her.
“Ah, Miss Erstwhile,” said Colonel Andrews. “I was just coming after you to join me in the stables.”
“You were looking for me?” She waited for him to change his story. He didn’t. “Uh, what about Miss Charming?”
“Miss Charming is resting in her chambers, but I cannot be idle. I must have some diversion.”
“Are you sure she is? I mean, aren’t you looking for her?” Jane felt a little dizzy.
“She told me of her plans after breakfast. You seem surprised that I was seeking you. Don’t tell me that I’ve been so neglectful as to cause you this astonishment.”
“Nap,” she said. “Yes. I think I’ll follow Miss Charming’s example and rest myself. Perhaps, Colonel, you need a break too.”
She left with a quiet swish of her skirt.
Back to work. She was the work. She’d harbored a sweet little hope that the man behind Colonel Andrews actually did like her.
That she wasn’t a labor to be around. And yet, hanging out with Miss Erstwhile was reason to sigh with exhaustion.
Did all the gents feel that way? Or was there any chance Mr. Nobley might actually, really, truly—Stop it, Jane.
She felt four years old again with scraped knees, reaching to her mother, hoping to be picked up and held and . . . and wanted.
Hope hurt too much. Probably Mr. Nobley was the unseen smoker, and he too couldn’t wait for his downtime away from needy, demanding guests like Miss Erstwhile.
She shook her head, trying to clear out the sticky thoughts.
None of this should matter! She wasn’t here to find love and acceptance, for pity’s sake.
She had to keep her eye on the ball. In fact, tomorrow was the actual ball.
There she must face the fantastical idea of Mr. Darcy and somehow . . . somehow just know what to do?
The ball had to be her closure, her triumph.
This reminder that she was a day at the office for these actor men kind of tugged the Persian rug from beneath her slippered feet.
Part of her wanted to scream that she wasn’t who they thought she was.
But then again, maybe she wasn’t who she’d thought she was either. No one was.
When she got back to her room, her self-portrait’s eyes stared back, startled, even more unsure.
“Worthless art,” she said.
Glum, glum, glum. That was the sound her feet made as she descended to the drawing room that evening. Glum, glum, as she walked alone at the back of the line of precedence into the dining room. It sure felt cold back there. She sniffed and rubbed her arms.
“Mr. and Mrs. Longley will be coming from Granger Hall and the two older Miss Longleys as well,” Aunt Saffronia was saying, her conversation as endlessly full of names as the biblical lists of who-begot-whom.
“Oh! And Mr. Bentley. Miss Heartwright, you recall Mr. Bentley? Still single and has four thousand pounds a year. Takes such good care of his mother.”
Jane click-clacked her fork on her plate, pushing her food around.
Her mother would’ve been apoplectic. It was not often that Jane was truly and absolutely despondent, and tonight she felt enslaved by that word.
It shouldn’t matter what they thought of her, she reminded herself.
This was her game, and when she finished, it would be her victory.
She just had to dig in her heels and keep playing.
But the reality of the men being bored by her, paid to pretend to like her, intruded too much on her fun tonight, coupled with the dread that she wouldn’t be able to conquer her obsession before her time in Austenland was up.
And then, what was the point? To this? To anything?
Jane tried to keep the despondency to herself, though Mr. Nobley seemed to be keeping a pretty good eye on her, per usual.
She took another bite of . . . poultry of some sort?
. . . and decided she’d pull the headache excuse out of the bag and dismiss herself to bed as soon as the dinner torture was over.
She hated to waste a single moment of her last days, but she felt pulled inside out and couldn’t figure out how to right herself.
She returned Mr. Nobley’s gaze. His eyebrows rose, and he leaned forward slightly, his mannerisms asking, “Are you all right?” She shrugged. He frowned.
When the women stood to leave the gentlemen to their port and tobacco, Mr. Nobley rose as well and made his unapologetic way to Jane’s side.
“Miss Erstwhile, too long have you been asked to walk alone. May I accompany you to the drawing room?”
Her heart jigged.
“It’s not proper,” she whispered, the fear of Wattlesbrook in her. She didn’t want to be sent home, not before the ball.
“Proper be damned,” he said, low enough for just her ears.
Jane could feel all eyes on them. She took Mr. Nobley’s arm and walked that negligible distance as stately as a bride. He found her a seat on a far sofa and sat beside her, and except for the fact that she couldn’t kick off her shoes and tuck her feet up under her, all felt pleasantly snug.
“How is the painting going?” he asked.
Of course. It had been Mr. Nobley who gave her the paints. It was always him.
“How do you do it? How do you make me feel so good? I don’t like that you can affect me so much, and I find you much more annoying than ever. But what I mean is, thank you for the paints.”
He wouldn’t acknowledge the thanks and pressed her for details instead, so she told him how it felt to play with color again, real color, real paint.
How it felt like the joy in her muscles stretching after too long sitting.
She talked about artists she admired, paintings she’d done when she was young and dramatic and how cowed by false emotion they seemed to her now, how the embarrassment of immature art had chased her away from the canvas for too long, (not to mention the judgment of boyfriend #11).
And how grateful she felt, how chock-full of happy things just for having returned.
She didn’t worry that she was boring him, as Old Jane would’ve.
It didn’t matter, she reminded herself. He was paid to listen to her and make her feel like the most interesting person in the world, and so, by George, she would be.
His lips pressed into a small smile that stayed. A very small smile. Sometimes almost imaginary. Jane wished that it might be bigger, that it might beam at her, but she supposed that wasn’t the Nobley way. Then when she’d decided that his smile was a figment, Mr. Nobley said—or whispered, rather—
“Let’s go look at your paintings.”
What a delight, this man. How he kept surprising her, tossing aside his uptight propriety for her sake, murmuring plans for meeting in secret, fibbing to the others that he would withdraw early, and then waiting upstairs for her to do the same.
What a thrill to look around for watchers and scramble into her chamber, shutting the door behind them.
Jane stood with her back to the door, her hands still on the knob, breathing hard and trying to laugh quietly.
He was leaning against the wall, smiling.
The moment was giddily awkward as she waited to see what he had in mind, if he would suddenly shed Mr. Nobley and become some other man entirely.
If he would break any other rules. The wait was agonizing.
She realized she didn’t know what she wanted him to do.
“I would love to see those paintings,” he said, his voice still proper.
“Of course,” she said. Of course he was still Mr. Nobley, of course the man, the actor, was not falling in love with her.
And a relief it was, too, as she realized she wasn’t ready to let go of Pembrook Park yet.
She still wanted to play the game, even if she had to be done by the day after tomorrow.
She presented the first painting, and he held it at arm’s length for some time before saying, “This is you,” though the portrayal was not photorealistic.
“I couldn’t quite get the eyes,” she said.
“You got them just right.” He didn’t look away from the painting when he said, “They are beautiful.”
Jane didn’t know whether to thank him or clear her throat, so she did neither and instead handed him the second painting, of her window and the tree.
“Ah,” was all he said for some time. He glanced back and forth between both paintings.
“I like this second one best. Beside it, the portrait looks stiff, as though you were too cautious, measuring everything, taking away the spontaneity. The fearlessness of this window scene is a better style for you. I think that you do very well when you trust yourself and let the color fly.”
He was right, and it felt good to admit it. Her next painting would be better.
“I should let you retire.” He held the self-portrait a minute longer, gazing at it as she had sometimes felt him look at her—unblinking, curious, even urgent.
She peeped through the keyhole to make sure no one was in the corridor before opening the door and letting him slip out. After a moment, she peered again and could see nothing, and then Mr. Nobley reappeared, his shoulders stiff as if nervous.
“Miss Erstwhile?” he whispered.
“Yes, Mr. Nobley?”
“Tomorrow evening, will you reserve for me the first two dances?”
“Yes, Mr. Nobley.” She could hear how her voice was full of smile.
“Miss Erstwhile, may I come back in a moment?”
She yanked him back in and shut the door.
Now he was going to grab her and kiss her and call her Jane, now she’d witness the pent-up passion that explodes behind Regency doors!
But . . . he just stood with his back to the door and looked at her.
And smiled in his way, the way that made her stare back and wish she could breathe.
“I will not stay long and put you in danger of Mrs. Wattlesbrook,” Mr. Nobley said, “but I suddenly had to see you again. I know that seems ridiculous, but I look at you, and I feel sure of something. Things are changing, aren’t they?”
“Yes,” she said, and they were, right at that very moment.
He took her hand and looked at it, and then turned it over.
He lifted it to his mouth and kissed her palm. She inhaled an audible breath and failed to suppress a shiver.
With his mouth still lingering over her palm, he said, “Tomorrow, then.” Reluctantly he let her hand go, and he left.
If only he was real! She stood and pressed her palm to her chest and breathed her pulse back into submission and thought she’d rather fancy a swoon.
To her self-portrait, Jane whispered, “This is the best therapy ever.”