Day 13
Jane didn’t make it down to breakfast that morning.
She took her time in her room, bathing and dressing herself in her favorite blue-gray day dress with the embroidered bodice, going without a corset, and leaving her hair down to air dry, loose and wavy.
She packed up her toiletries and her paint supplies but left behind the still-wet paintings.
Maybe they would end up hanging in Pembrook Park’s gallery.
Or more likely, in the rubbish bin. She felt no sadness about this.
The real joy had been in the process of creation, not in the end results.
Besides, she liked that a part of her would remain in Austenland, a link in the chain of the Jane she had been and the Jane she was becoming.
She wasn’t sure what the future would hold, but she felt a rare sense of calm that it would hold something good.
She wouldn’t give up her art again, that was certain.
The lack of meaning in her job no longer felt worth the security it provided.
Perhaps she could transfer to another imprint at the publisher who was hiring an art director.
Maybe in children’s books. And if she kept working at it, she might eventually make a living not just directing art but creating it. What a hopeful thought. What a dream.
When she tiptoed downstairs at last, she found the entire house had a sad, sleepy air of after-party.
The ballroom was quiet and cold, the floor stained with tread marks, sticky pools of spilled punch in the corners.
In the morning room, greasy and crumb-stuck breakfast dishes were abandoned on the table, cold meats and collapsing pastries sat on the sideboard.
She smiled at the still-present bowl of rotten olives.
Colonel Andrews was alone in the drawing room, reading. She didn’t disturb him. Captain East and Miss Heartwright were taking a goodbye stroll through the park. Jane thought if she strolled that park one more time, it would permanently damage the sane part of her brain.
She passed Miss Charming in the corridor.
“Off you go, then?” asked Miss Charming. “Cheerios. I’m staying an extra day to get an eyeball of the new recruits and make sure they know my colonel is taken.”
“I don’t blame you.” Jane looked around and exhaled as slowly as her breath would go. “It’s for the best that I’m forced to go, or I’d be tempted to stay longer. If I could get away with it, I might just stay forever.”
“Forever sounds spit spot.” Miss Charming hooked Jane’s arm, they leaned into each other, taking in the beauty of the house with complete solidarity.
“This really has been wonderful. Thanks for being my friend here, Lizzy, sister of my bosom.”
“They’re real, you know.” Miss Charming placed her hands beneath her breasts and gave them a hearty shaking.
“Really?” Jane said, gaping openly.
“Y’all better believe it. People always ask, so I thought I’d save you the wondering. As a parting gift.”
“Thank you,” Jane said, and she meant it sincerely. It was good to know what was real.
They said their goodbyes, and on her way out, Jane passed by the library. There in a corner sat Inflexibility. He raised his eyes when he heard her footfalls.
“Oh,” said Jane, antsy with embarrassment. “Good morning, Mr. Nobley.”
“You weren’t at breakfast,” he said.
“I’m off.” She indicated her bonnet and spencer jacket. “Just saying goodbye to the house. It’s a lovely old house.”
“New, actually. Built in 1809.”
“Right.” His insistence on maintaining the charade chafed her.
She had a surging and ridiculous desire to plop down beside him and shake him and make him talk to her like a real person.
Her foot lifted as if it would take a step, but she placed it firmly back down.
A small fear was fizzing through her that if she got close enough to touch him, she would grab him and never let him go.
And since letting go of him—that is, letting go of the dream of Mr. Darcy—was her entire mission, she couldn’t scuttle it now.
“Well, since I ran into you, I can thank you in person for a great vacation.” She was embarrassed by her words, so thin and insubstantial and not getting close to conveying how grateful she was for him, for the magnitude of this experience, all the ways he’d made her feel and all he’d done to help start her return to herself.
Mr. Nobley shrugged, and she was surprised to detect anger in his eyes. Still playing the jilted man? Or had she wounded his actor’s ego? Maybe he was denied a paycheck bonus for not getting engaged.
“It has been a pleasure to have you here, Miss Erstwhile. I might miss you, actually.”
“Really?”
“It is possible.”
“Well, if you’ll allow me one last impertinence, Mr. Nobley, I don’t want to miss you, but I’m pretty sure that I will anyway.”
He didn’t smile at that, simply holding her gaze, a line between his brows.
Any further awkwardness was cut off by the sound of an approaching carriage.
Jane stepped out the front door for the last time, and she and Miss Heartwright, gratefully and mournfully, took their leave.
Aunt Saffronia stood by the door, waving her handkerchief and shedding rather impressive tears.
Colonel Andrews strolled out to wave goodbye with the stately line of house servants in their white caps and white wigs.
Captain East smiled knowingly, his eyes earnest with whatever fake promises he and Amelia had made.
Mr. Nobley didn’t bother to join the farewell.
Jane looked for Martin, but he was absent. No matter. After she got her phone back, she was to call him and arrange a meetup. The anticipation of it strangely made her hands shake.
As their carriage pulled away, two men Jane had never seen before emerged from the house—one young and handsome enough to be fresh meat for the new girls, and the other a portly, red-faced gentleman who looked mildly sloshed.
The new Sir John, she realized, and felt oddly delighted that without her the story would still go on.
Amelia cast off her bonnet, leaned back on the carriage bench, and reclined against Jane’s arm.
“What a time!” she said in an American accent. “The best so far.”
“You’re not British?”
“No, no, but after my first visit here—this is my fourth—I got some private drama tutoring. My first character was scatterbrained and immature, and my drama coach helped me refine my Austenian self and get the accent down. It makes all the difference. If you live in the Bay Area, I could hook you up with my coach. He’s divine. ”
“No, that’s okay, I won’t be coming back.”
“Not come back? Your husband put up a squeal about the price, did he? Well, you just steamroll over his protests. Those men want pretty wives but aren’t willing to put up the cash to make us happy. Tell him to talk to my therapist if he needs convincing. Or my lawyer. I’ll give you their cards.”
Jane shifted a bit to her right, feeling as though she were cuddled up to a stranger. “Actually, I’m not—”
“Did you see my face when Captain East first arrived? What a thrill! Honestly, I didn’t know that they’d bring back the same actor for me.
This year I asked to stay in the cottage because I had to come a couple of days late, plus last year the other women at the big house were so annoying.
But I was eyeball-stabbingly bored until George showed up.
Uhh, he’s such a hunk. A locked hotel room with him spread out on the bed is almost worth the alimony risk, if you know what I mean.
Wattlesbrook can bring him back next time and I’d be hap-hap-happy.
But if not, no big deal. He and Miss Heartwright are already engaged, and that’s the fun part.
I might like to try someone new next year and alter my character, become a bit more Elizabeth Bennet–y.
You ended up with Nobley, didn’t you? Is he a good kisser?
He seemed tedious to me, but he did a good job of being into you.
You know, it was Nobley who asked me to pretend your phone was mine.
He said Wattlesbrook would send you home, asked me to do it as a favor.
He was in my cast last year, and we nearly had a romance until George East swept me up.
It was ill-fated at the time, of course, but that’s half the fun.
Ah, here we are! It’s always a bummer when the vacation ends, but frankly, I’m dying for a massage. ”
While Amelia sprang out of the carriage and into the White Stag/Donkey, Jane sat a few moments longer.
The carriage still seemed to rock, but Jane was the one reeling.
So, Amelia Heartwright had been as in disguise as the gentlemen.
Surely the actors assumed Jane had also been playing a character throughout.
And it’d been Mr. Nobley who’d saved her from expulsion.
And . . . and . . . and it was over. Time to get out of the carriage and into her own clothes, meet up with Martin (hooray!), and be herself again.
No more Mr. Darcy. Needy, anxious Jane dead; confident, vibrant Jane rising from the ashes.
She sat in the inn’s main room while Mrs. Wattlesbrook and Amelia had their last-day-of-school chat.
Her bag was packed, all remnants of Miss Erstwhile hanging back in the wardrobe.
The old Jane would’ve stashed her ball gown, secretly imagining it could be her wedding dress if she married Martin.
But the new Jane was set on just enjoying the noncommittal early part and the memory of last night’s kissing.
She was still as self-possessed as she had allowed herself to be when she was Miss Erstwhile.
It felt strange—sharp and interesting but also a little dizzying, like getting used to a new eyeglass prescription.