Chapter Eight #3
‘Anything,’ I said, looking down into the eyes that looked back at mine with a serious expression.
‘You must never go there on your own … never without a chaperone.’
I thought it a strange thing to say, but I nodded and made my solemn promise. Of course, I would never dream of going anywhere on my own, least of all to a house where no one knew me, and the very idea amused me.
Thomas took me round the field half a dozen more times, though he was always careful to make sure we didn’t go too fast. When at last he said it was time to go back he encouraged me to take the reins myself.
I saw him watching me from a safe distance, and I couldn’t help admiring him in his country clothes.
He’d taken off his coat, and stood in his shirt sleeves and waistcoat with his hands on his hips.
What it must be to have that kind of assurance, I thought, and enjoy the freedom to kick about in breeches and boots.
Next to my darling brothers, I think he makes a very good substitute.
***
Caroline
Bath, Somerset
November 1975
OH, COULD IT REALLY BE TRUE???!!! The deduction I’d made had me tingling with excitement, though a part of me didn’t want to believe the thoughts I was having. And yet, all things considered, I couldn’t reach any other conclusion.
I felt completely absorbed by and immersed in the words and the pictures made in my head after reading the journal.
Though I’d never been to Sevenoaks in Kent, I knew that if I were taken there, I could find my way to Great-Uncle Francis’s house, and even to Knole.
In my mind’s eye I’d visited the past, and experienced every event.
I could feel the soft summer breeze, feel Allegro’s mane under my hand, and the rhythm of the horse’s hooves cantering in fragrant grass.
Thomas’s face was so clear I could almost reach out and touch him.
I thought him such a kind boy to his cousin, with a most affectionate heart.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that Thomas called Jenny by the name she claimed was hers by birth - Jane. Coupled with the fact that Jenny/Jane had mentioned Steventon in Hampshire, along with the familiar names of her brothers had my mind completely racing, and my heart beating fast.
It was too fantastic to be true, but the fact that word play and puzzles seemed to fit so well with every suspicion I had made about the author of the journal had me turning back to the beginning, to the page where Jenny had written her name.
There it was in a neat hand written in faded brown ink - Jenny A.
Weston. And, as I was giving myself brain ache just by looking at it, I took up my pen and started doodling in my own journal, not really thinking as such, but writing down the letters and scattering stars, flowers and diamond shapes, intertwining my doodles as I wrote.
On one line I wrote out her name in lower case letters - jenny a weston, on another I substituted the jenny for Jane, encircling the name with a wreath of daisies.
Now, the other letters stood out, and this time I read them quite differently.
The remaining letters seemed to merge together and leap off the page - I didn’t read a weston, this time, but Aweston instead, and when I read it out loud, I realised what had been hidden there before my eyes all the time.
The obvious connection with the name Austen seemed to make complete sense, though I wondered if I was reading too much into it.
Yet, if the journal belonged to Jane Austen, as I was coming to believe, she must surely have written her name like this on purpose - perhaps she’d wanted to keep her diary secret and hadn’t wanted anyone knowing about or reading her innermost thoughts.
I wondered how the journal had come to be in a townhouse in Bath, and had a vague recollection of reading that she’d lived in the city for a while. I couldn’t help wondering about the name Jenny - perhaps it had been a family name used instead of Jane?
I wasn’t sure how I could find out, although it crossed my mind that a trip to the library might help.
I was so excited; on second reading I convinced myself that I’d been right all along, that the journal used to belong to Jane Austen, my favourite novelist. If only there was a way of knowing for sure, though I felt reluctant to carry out too much research in case the enchantment I’d been experiencing was broken.
It was impossible to understand all that was happening - the discovery of the diary in the first place, coupled with my strange experience in the house made me wonder why it was happening to me.
I could only put it down to the fact that perhaps I was somehow in tune to the vibrations of the past, and because of my great desire to learn about that time and see it, I’d been helped to do so.
I imagined that reading the journal made me more susceptible to feeling the emotions and visualising the images that its writer saw all those years ago.
***
I can’t believe how quickly time seems to pass here and behaves in such strange ways that I must write down everything as it happens or I know it will just disappear equally quickly from my mind.
I’ve just spent the last week finishing off the Christmas shopping and enjoying some lovely meals out in the evening with Ellen and Roger.
Everywhere is starting to look and feel very seasonal.
Overnight, it seems, the shops are all displaying festive windows with garlands of holly and ivy, or brightly coloured paper or foil chains of decorations, and the streets are strung over with bright lights declaring the Christmas season to be in full swing.
I half expected to see Harry when we were out and about, or his sister Elsa, but I haven’t seen any sign of them, and though on one occasion we walked past the Pump Rooms and I looked hard through the long windows, I didn’t see his curly head with that friendly smile or catch a glimpse of him dashing through the restaurant with a tray of Bath buns.
I wondered if he might call when we were out, and I was cross I hadn’t given him our telephone number, but he hadn’t asked for it, so I knew the phone would never ring.
It wasn’t as if he could look us up in the telephone directory, but I felt sure I’d bump into him sooner or later.
Writing about my everyday doings helps to make sense of the world, even if the other mysterious and magical happenings I’m about to record seem just as real, and equally false, though I know that doesn’t sound logical.
It’s been enough to feel haunted by the journal and its enchanting properties - slipping between this existence and one conjured up out of dreams. But, sometimes I’ve had the strangest feeling that I’m not quite on my own, and now I’m convinced this very house is playing its part.
I must record it all if I’m to believe the whole experience isn’t just a twist of my imagination, though deep inside I know what I’m experiencing isn’t a trick of my mind, but another parallel in time, completely out of this ordinary existence.
The weather has turned very cold, and then this morning I woke up with the feeling that something was very different.
The brightest light filtered through the edges of the curtains and when I pulled them back I had the loveliest surprise.
Great Pulteney Street was covered in a blanket of snow, which was still falling from the leaden sky in spirals of white feathers.
It was very early - everywhere was still and silent, all sound muffled by the snow drifting up the railings and steps of the houses and settling on the pavements.
I had the strangest sense that I was the only person in the world, there wasn’t a soul about or anybody curious, like me, to see what was happening through the window.
And then as I stared, mesmerised by the scene below the snow melted before my eyes, and the bright freezing light changed to one of hot sunshine.
It all happened very rapidly as if the snow was being sucked back into the sky by a summer sun intent on blazing every ice particle away.
The road outside became busy with life, but not as I knew it.
For one thing the cars all disappeared, and a series of horse driven carriages took their place, trotting down the street at a gentle pace, some open to the warm breezes, their occupants looking very pleased to be out and watching everyone walking along.
The wide pavements seemed to be full of people, dressed from one of the illustrations in Northanger Abbey.
It was as if the book had come to life itself, and I rubbed my eyes in disbelief.
Nothing was changed when I opened my eyes again, and I became aware that it wasn’t just the view outside that was different, though the shock had me gasping for air.
The surprise made my heart start beating so fast I thought it would leap out of my rib cage, and I could hardly get my breath at first. A little more familiar this time, I recognised the room in front of me as the one I’d seen before with its Georgian furnishings, and four-poster bed.
And then I heard the sound of the door opening, and it swung back on its hinges with a bang.
I clung to the window frame - I couldn’t think what to do and stood like a hare caught in the headlamps, unable to move.