"Ah, my dear cuz, there you are!" The dumpy, florid-faced man rose from his chair, took Lizzy's hand and kissed first her left, then right cheek.
"Sure you want to do this?" he whispered, then guided her slowly to her own chair at the far end of the table, the rightful place as tonight's hostess.
"I know what I'm doing, stop fussing," Lizzy murmured through her teeth so only he could hear.
"I'm sure you have everything in order in the kitchens," her cousin babbled on to the room, as the other table guests stared at Lizzy, "however you've been missing some more stories about the Americans."
The dowdy housekeeper that the table had been expecting, normally in plain grey, had appeared wearing a fine emerald-colored outfit with court-style three-quarter puffed sleeves, her hair decorated in netting set with small pearls, all of it set off by the widow's cross around her neck.
"You know everyone here . . . "
Oh, for goodness sake!
Lizzy had made sure the invitations had gone out some days ago, and nodded politely to nine or ten neighbors. She also noticed the seating plan had altered, and Mary Weasenham had wormed her way into the seat next to the main event.
God help us.
" . . . apart from our guest, Lord Sir John. My lords, ladies, sirs, Reverend—I'm afraid we've been running a bit of a scheme these past few months, hiding my cousin here in plain sight, and for which I take full responsibility. Thankfully, we expect it is needed no longer.
"Sir John, my good friends—may I introduce you all to my cousin, Elizabeth, the countess of Essex?"
1811
Just as the bag hit the floor, her brother bounded out of the sofa like a rubber ball. "Jenny dear, sometimes your mouth is so sharp that I believe one day you'll turn into a wasp." He dashed across the room to open the door.
"Rick! Rick, can you come through, please?" Henry called into the kitchen.
Jane dropped the handle of the bag, composed herself quickly as best as she could, checking her hair by touch, and wished she had a dry lace cap to wear today with a visitor in the house.
Soon enough a smallish, swarthy man, slightly untidy, and of indeterminate late-middle-age stood about three yards from her.
"Jane, let me introduce Mister Richard dePaul, a copywriter from London recommended to me by John Stoddart, the editor at The Times."
Jane curtsied slightly. "Sir."
"Rick, can I introduce my sister, Miss Jane Austen?"
"Miss Austen," the London visitor gushed. "Delighted, most delighted to meet you at last."
As he bowed, Jane noticed a pencil tucked behind the man's left ear. How strange.
"My apologies you find us a little disorganized today. My brother didn't tell us to expect a guest."
"Don't think on it. I understand the ways of writers, and have seen much worse in my time. Actually, the next time you're in London you should see my offices at the newspaper. Most of the time it's an explosion of paper everywhere."
"Hennnnry . . . " Jane started panicking, eyes and nostrils flaring, "I thought we agreed family only . . . "
" . . . would know our little secret, I know, I know. But Rick has been working for me in the strictest confidence on a short project, well, for us . . . "
Jane's eyebrows raised higher, the look of disbelief wide in her expression. "What project?"
"Your book."
"What? This?" Jane pointed at the pile of paper on the floor. "We just talked about this, and it's nowhere near ready!"
He reached into his bag on the floor "No, this book." He produced a manuscript with a flourish, tied with a single purple ribbon.
Jane snatched away the only copy of First Impressions, retreated into her chair, furious, and wrapped her arms around, protecting herself and her past work. My dear child. Her younger self's first attempt; naive, badly written, with never-ending sentences and awful grammar. Her rejected first attempt that should be locked away right now at the bottom of her own hope chest upstairs.
"Henry, if you weren't my brother," she warned. "Sometimes I just don't believe you'd do things like this! You thieving, two-faced . . . "
Mister dePaul tried to placate the room. "Miss Austen, Miss Austen, the story is almost there," then made the mistake of smiling, "Of course publishers are no longer accepting epistolary works . . . "
"You mean he's read it?" Jane bawled, hurriedly undoing the ribbon, flipping through the pages in wild outrage at the blue pencil marks scribbled all over her precious clean copy.
"And if you'd look at my notes, you'll have to update some of the scenes. Make them more in-the-moment. As the London publishing houses say less Epistle, more Apostle."
The copywriter's voice faded away slowly, seeing the scowl in her visage.
1635
The other diners, flustered at the sudden change in Lizzy's status, sprang to their feet; bowing and curtsying, acknowledging her superior position.
She bowed and nodded slowly one at a time to the others around the table. The shocked expression on the face of Mary Weasenham was a tasty morsel to bury in her secret heart. Play with candles, little moth, expect to get singed.
"Your Grace, may I express my condolences at the sad news of the death of Milord Essex."
Oh wonderful, just wonderful. That's all I need. Another say nothing, mean nothing, fast-talking courtier.
"And Elizabeth, this is my brother by my first marriage, Viscount Sir John Savage, Charlie's uncle and godfather."
Lizzy turned to Lord Sir John, refusing to strain her eyes and focus on the man's face. The shape bowed slightly, some highlights of red-brown hair reflecting the candlelight.
Platitudes, the usual social verities. Time to get back on the horse, girl!
"My Lord Savage, and mine to you. I understand your wife, Lady Kitty, was also lost some months ago? Such a great shame. She was a breath of fresh air at court, and shall be missed." Lockjaw, and snapped her spine in agony. A filthy, messy death a month after childbirth. God rest her poor soul.
The spider's web that is the network of the noble ladies of England knew most things that went on in each other's houses; through letters, salon gossip, and social connections between trusted ladies' maids. Honora had been keeping her up to date.
"Please be seated." She indicated to the steward to serve wine suitable for the next course. She knew how to play this game, four years in the practice in London.
Defend.
"So, Sir John, please continue. My apologies for my late arrival at table."
Parry.
"You were telling us about the Americans? I assume you've visited their town, their United States."
Deflect.
"Have you formed some opinions? What's your view, Providence or Perdition?"
"Well, my lady." A large hand reached for the wine in front of him, three small keys dangling from a bracelet clinking against glass.
Lizzy paused, her own glass halfway to her lips. God's Teeth! Three keys—a senior factor with wide freedom to act on state business, answerable only to the Lord Chancellor, the privy council, and the king.
Well, that explains why Charlie's never met his uncle. England's agents had been busy these past few years with Americans and war.
"Yes, I've visited their town. The stories are all true, in the main, and it's an interesting place. But I'll leave any earth-shattering religious revelations and defer those to the reverend here."
Sir John nodded at dour-clad Higgons directly across the table, the holder of the neighboring manor of Greywell and a doctor of divinity who made known at every opportunity he was at odds with the bishop of Winchester and unhappily without a parish.
"Enough American stories. I can be a bore about the topic, I know. Now Your Grace is at table, I'd like to hear more about the character of my godson."
Sir John sipped his wine, raised an eyebrow. "Hmmm . . . greengage and apple?"
"Of course." Lizzy acknowledged.
Sir John smiled quickly in her direction, paused
a little, then continued to the room, "So then, since we shall be picking through the character of my godson with the next course, and what might be expected from him, let me then finish off quickly my last American tale.
"As I was starting to tell you before, it is my observation that Americans take more care and attention in their imagined fortunes from the daily horoscopes in their newspapers, but little care in the naming of their children."
"Come now, John. That sounds completely ridiculous!"
Her cousin was a traditionalist. The whys and wheres of naming English children of the landed and noble classes and the giving of first names repeated in a pattern that had been unchanged for centuries.
As the children's rhyme had it:
A Father's Father's grandson, the heir first in line
A Mother's Mother's granddaughter, a Lord's Lady in time
A Father's Brother's nephew, a spare just in case
A Mother's Sister's niece, who will know her place
A King's Lord Courtier, to bribe and to fawn
A Queen's Lady's Chambermaid, to flatter and to song
A Father's loyal pride to mould as his own
A mother's fair consolation, to preserve the home
A Godfather's loyal prince, to earn the estate
A Godmother's sweet blessing, to learn good grace
A Saint's godly son to pray for salvation
A Saint's dutiful daughter, to cloister in seclusion
And that was the clean version, sung by children in recitals. Lizzy had heard all kinds of variations, some filthy (in taverns), some bawdy (in theatres), some unmentionable and hurtful (unfortunately in larger family gatherings, cousins with axes to grind).
But all true. Young Charlie was a king's courtier, named after the current king; his two older brothers had died of various misfortunes. She was a saint's daughter—and her mother often bemoaned the lack of nunneries in the Church of England. "Oft suggested, oft rejected," Ma used to say.
"I mean it; these Americans have some strange ideas, and do not see the hazard in their recklessness." Sir John took another sip. "You've heard they mix religions, many churches and many faiths in one place?"
"Deeply troubling" said the Greywell reverend.
"Well, they seem to muddle along together well enough, after a lot of shouting. But the children—of all faiths, mind—they name some of their children using something they call the cult of the celebrity."
"The what?" exclaimed the mayor of Basingstoke's wife, sitting next to the marquis' left side.
"Wellll . . . " Sir John stretched his phrasing for effect, waving his glass back and forward. "Some parents call their children after famous leaders of state, or generals of the armies, or admirals of the sea, as if the power and personality will rub off on the child."
"Slightly unusual—tawdry, and tempting providence," the reverend proclaimed, "but not unknown even here."
"Agreed. And so—" The guest nodded in agreement, the voice dropped half an octave. "—and so, I'll go further."
At this point Lizzy knew that Sir John was playing with the room. Of course, one of the first duties of a guest was to entertain, and this man was quite the wordsmith, using the most simple of words but still commanding attention from the table. The cadence and delivery of his voice was like a well-delivered sermon, reeling in the weak-minded.
Lizzy knew this particular game—Shock and Awe was played in salons all over Europe as a way of titillating an audience with strange American ways, seeking explosions of amazement, despair, and expletives. That was the Shock.
Sir John set to some more. "I've met some children; even from families of their most Puritan of beliefs, a proselytizer sect called the Church of the Later-Day Saints. In one example, I have met one young man named after a famous troubadour in the future, a public singer of songs named DonnyOsmond."
"Are they mad? A singer—that's just like inviting the devil in the door!"
"Oorrrr . . . there are others named after professional players of games."
A hubbub of sad disapproval rolled around the room.
"Now let me tell you, most of these men whose working life was set exclusively to play for entertainment every week a version of football . . . "
Football, as everyone knew, was a violent and deadly English pastime banned for almost a hundred years; too many casualties, too many public riots, too many deaths. Old King Hal had put an end to it, on pain of death. Some idiots occasionally attempted to flout the law, of course. During the reign of Queen Bess, Lizzy's great-great-grandfather had executed the match organizers of a game somewhere in the Midlands.
" . . . or rounders, which these Americans insist in calling baseball. Now I should explain that these teams in the future were paid a thousand-fold and more each and every week, compared with what an honest man would earn in a month."
"Beware Ye, the sin of Avarice!"
Lizzy, the observer on the sidelines, watched the to and fro around the room. There was even a scoring system to the game.
" . . . named after actors."
Mutterings built around the table, "wretched whoremongers" was one of the mildest reproofs.
"And with my apologies to the ladies, even actresses."
The mayor's wife was struck dumb.
"Yes, female actors!" Sir John was enjoying egging on his audience, she could see.
Reverend Higgons was becoming belligerent, a mixture of blue and red in his face as he exclaimed, "Whores of Babylon!"
Lizzy wondered if Sir John was going for maximum points—a "Full-On Gulf War," whatever that was? She had no idea of how some of these phrases came about. They certainly were colorful.
"By God, these Americans tempt their children's destruction!" the marquis' firm opinion roared with a thump of his hand on the table.
Her cousin was not a complex man, but certain in the ways an English lord should behave, and had a strong faith to shepherd and protect his staff and estate workers.
In response, Sir John gently wiggled his glass at the wine steward, and when he reached out his arm, Lizzy saw more clearly the bracelet from which the keys dangled, made of woven russet hair with a latch finished in gold.
Lizzy coughed and spluttered as Sir John continued his examples. A small amount of her own wine had gone down the wrong way as a scene from a dance during the last Parliament flashed—Lady Kitty Savage co-opting the men at court for a turn around the floor during an afternoon dance, copper-red hair flying, and blue eyes the color of sapphires laughing at the gossips.
"Sorry." Lizzy coughed again into her kerchief. Well, that's about as subtle as being hit on the head with a brick! The mourning bracelet: "I'm a widower, leave me alone!" And the keys: "I have power—mess with me, I'll mess with you."
Lizzy smiled savagely to herself behind her napkin. Ohh, this is going to be interesting. So I'm not the only one around here sick of being arranged into their next marriage by society. Mistress Weasenham, I think you're caught between an anvil and a hammer this time. I think you'll find your geese are not playing.
"Which is interesting," Sir John's tone changed again, "we're all agreed Our Lord brought the Americans here? Three hundred and seventy years, give or take a few months. A miracle—by His favor—yes?"
Oh here it comes. Awe . . .
Nods, and general agreement from the others around the table. That had finally been proclaimed from the pulpits.
. . . the homily that shows Americans are so different, and yet the same in some amazing way.
"Now I'm just a simple soldier, with solder's ways . . . "
Liar, liar, pants on fire, as Honora's new book How to speak American, might say.
Now, Lizzy knew Sir John was a king's agent, and most probably a spy. The latest rumors she had heard herself had had him stuck in Birmingham until recently, working on new cannon for the king's armies at the Proof House. How she knew this was her own business. As an American might say, Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies.
" . . . sooooooo, if Americans have no care at all for onomancy, and care less for the true meaning of names, can any of you here tell me why their leader happens to be named Michael, a namesake of the Archangel?"
That garnered a return volley of bemused expressions around the table. The faults, values, and attributes of Americans had been violently discussed almost non-stop for the past three years. No one Lizzy knew, though, had brought up and considered this aspect of the Prime Minister of the United States of Europe . . .
"I spent some time this afternoon at your village church."
Lizzy sat back surprised, then peered under the table. The same small dog from earlier in the day stared back, sitting at its master's feet, pointy ears straight up.
"And I had a long talk with the saint in question."
The atmosphere broke, and small giggles of laughter pealed in the room. Even the so-far impervious face of the wine steward twitched.
Now she wished she had her glasses to look at the man's face properly, but this wasn't the occasion to perch a pair on her nose in front of guests.
The fisherman sat up straight, looking into the eyes of each diner in turn, making sure the little fishes were properly on the hook, "In my view, so far Michael Stearns has been sweeping all their opponents before him with Our Lord's flaming sword."
He chugged a large gulp of wine, smiling widely. "I'm so pleased England is no longer at war with the United States of Europe." Sir John plonked his empty glass on the table, letting his words die away just short of heresy. "Speaking personally, I'd rather be on the side of the angels."
1811
It took Henry half an hour to talk his sister down from her high dudgeon. It took most of that time for her to see the sense of his plans.
"So, if we want to hit the publisher's first draft submission date by Easter, so we can get the money by Christmas next . . . " he prompted.
"I have to stop Mansfield Park," Jane recounted the list so far, "Rework this whole manuscript in the first person, drop the picnic, lose the argument in the stables, and make the aunt more fearsome."
"Don't worry too much with the grammar and sentence structure. Your publisher has agreed to tidy that up as we go."