“You see how agitated I am,” he said.
She waited, and her heart set to thumping without her permission.
He wildly combed his hair with his fingers. “I can’t bear to be out there with you right now, all those indifferent people watching you, admiring you, but not really caring. Not as I do.”
Jane: (hopeful) Really?
Jane: (practical) Oh, stop that.
Mr. Nobley sat in the chair beside her and gripped its arm.
Jane: (observant) This man is all about arm gripping.
“Well do I remember the first night we met, how you questioned my opinion that first impressions are perfect. You were right to do so, of course, but even then I suspected what I’ve come to believe most passionately these past weeks: from that first moment, I knew you were a dangerous woman, and I was in great peril of falling in love.”
She thought she should say something witty here.
She said, “Really?”
“I know it seems absurd. At first, you and I were the last match possible. I cannot name the moment when my feelings altered. I recall a stab of pain the afternoon we played croquet, seeing you with Captain East, wishing like a jealous fool that I could be the man you would laugh with. Seeing you tonight . . . how you look . . . your eyes . . . my wits are scattered by your beauty and I cannot hide my feelings any longer. I feel little hope that you have come to feel as I do now, but hope I must.”
He placed his gloved hand on top of hers, as he had in the park her second day. It seemed years ago.
“You alone have the power to save me this suffering. I desire nothing more than to call you Jane and be the man always by your side.” His voice was dry, cracking with earnestness. “Please tell me if I have any hope.”
After a few moments of silence, he popped back out of his chair again. His imitation of a lovesick man in agony was very well done and quite appealing. Jane was mesmerized. Mr. Nobley began to test the length of the room again. When his pacing reached a climax, he stopped to stare at her with clenched desperation. “Your reserve is a knife. Can you not tell me, Miss Erstwhile, if you love me in return?”
Oh, perfect, perfect moment.
But even as her heart pounded, she felt a sense of loss, sand so fine she couldn’t keep it from pouring through her fingers. Mr. Nobley was perfect, but he was just a game. It all was. Even Martin’s meaningless kisses were preferable to the phony perfection. She was craving anything real—bad smells and stupid men, missed trains and tedious jobs. But she remembered that mixed up in the ugly parts of reality were also those true moments of grace— peaches in September, honest laughter, perfect light. Real men. She was ready to embrace it now. She was in control. Things were going to be good.
She stared at the hallway and thought of Martin. He’d been the first real man in a long time who’d made her feel pretty again, whom she’d allowed herself to fall for. And not the Jane-patented-oft-failed-all-or-nothing-heartbreak-love, but just the sky-blue-lean-back-happy-calm-giddy-infatuation. She looked at Mr. Nobley and back at the hallway, feeling like a pillow pulled in two, her stuffing coming out.
“I don’t know. I want to, I really do . . .” She was replaying his proposal in her mind—the emotion behind it had felt skin-tingling real, but the words had sounded scripted, secondhand, previously worn. He was so delicious, the way he looked at her, the fun of their conversations, the simple rapture of the touch of his hand. But . . . but he was an actor. She would have liked to play into this moment, to live it wholeheartedly in order to put it behind her. An unease stopped her.
The silence stretched, and she could hear him shift his feet. The lower tones of the dancing music trembled through the walls, muffled and sad, stripped of vigor and all high prancing notes.
Surreal, Jane thought. That’s what you call this.
“Miss Erstwhile, let me impress upon you my utmost sincerity . . .”
“There’s no need.” She sat up straighter, smoothed her hands over her skirt. “I understand completely. But I guess I just can’t. I can’t do it anymore. I did my best, and this place was really good for me, you were really good for me. But I’ve come to the end. And it’s okay.”
Something in her tone must have caught at him. He knelt beside her, taking her hand. “Are you? Are you okay?” he asked in more honest, feeling tones than she had ever heard from him.
The change startled her. Despite his austere looks, he had an openness about his expression that she could only account for in his eyes. Dark eyes, focused on her, pleading with her. But it was all just a game.
“I don’t know you,” she said softly.
He blinked twice. He looked down. “Perhaps I spoke too soon. Forgive me. We can speak of this later.” He rose to leave.
“Mr. Nobley,” she said, and he stopped. “Thank you for thinking kindly of me. I can’t accept your proposal, and I won’t ever be able to. I’m flattered by your attentions, and I have no doubt that many a fine lady will melt under such proclamations in the future.”
“But not you.” He sounded beautifully sad.
What an actor, she thought.
“No, I guess not. I’m embarrassed that I came here at all as though begging for your tormented, lovesick proposal. Thank you for giving it to me so that I could see that it’s not what I want.”
“What do you want?” His voice nearly growled with the question.
“Excuse me?”
“I am asking sincerely,” he said, though he still sounded angry. “What do you want?”
“Something real.”
He frowned. “Does this have anything to do with a certain gardener?”
“Don’t argue with me about this. It’s none of your business.”
He scowled but said, “I truly wish you every happiness, Miss Erstwhile, whom I will never call Jane.”
“Let’s toss the pretense out the window, shall we? Go ahead and call me Jane.” He seemed saddened by that invitation, and she remembered what it meant to a Regency man to call a woman by her first name. “Except it won’t imply that we’re engaged or anything . . . Never mind. I’m sorry, I feel like a fool.”
“I am the fool,” he said.
“Then here’s to fools.” Jane smiled sadly. “I should return.”
Mr. Nobley bowed. “Enjoy the ball.”
She left him in the dark library, startling herself with the suddenness of yet another ending. But she’d done it. She’d said no. To Mr. Nobley, to the idea of Mr. Darcy, to everything that held her back. She felt so light, her heels barely touched the floor.
I’m done, Carolyn, I know what I want, she thought as she approached the palpable strokes of dancing music.
A HAND TOUCHED HER SHOULDER. “Miss Erstwhile,” Martin said.
Jane spun around, guilty to have just come from a marriage proposal, ecstatic at her refusal, dispirited by another ending, and surprised to discover Martin was the one person in the world she most wanted to see.
“Good evening, Theodore,” she said.
“I’m Mr. Bentley now, a man of land and status, hence the fancy garb. They’ll allow me to be gentry tonight because they need the extra bodies, but only so long as I don’t talk too much.”
His eyes flicked to a point across the room. Jane followed his glance and saw Mrs. Wattlesbrook wrapped in yards of lace and eyeing them suspiciously.
“Let’s not talk, then.” Jane pulled him into the next dance.
He stood opposite her, tall and handsome and so real there among all the half-people.
They didn’t talk as they paraded and turned and touched hands, wove and skipped and do-si-doed, but they smiled enough to feel silly, their eyes full of a secret joke, their hands reluctant to let go. As the dance finished, Jane noticed Mrs. Wattlesbrook making her determined way toward them.
“We should probably . . .” Martin said.
Jane grabbed his hand and ran, fleeing to the rhythm of another dance tune, out the ballroom door and into a side corridor. Behind them, hur
ried boot heels echoed.
They ran through the house and out back, crunching gravel under their feet, making for the dark line of trees around the perimeter of the park. Jane hesitated before the damp grass.
“My dress,” she said.
Martin threw her over his shoulder, her legs hanging down his front. He ran. Jostled on her stomach, Jane gave out laughter that sounded like hiccups. He weaved his way around hedges and monuments, finally stopping on a dry patch of ground hidden by trees.
“Here you are, my lady,” he said, placing her back on her feet. Jane wobbled for a moment before gaining her balance.
“So, these are your lands, Mr. Bentley.”
“Why, yes. I shape the shrubs myself. Gardeners these days aren’t worth a damn.”
“I should be engaged to Mr. Nobley tonight. You know you’ve absolutely ruined this entire experience for me.”
“I’m sorry, but I warned you, five minutes with me and you’ll never go back.”
“You’re right about that. I’d decided to give up on men entirely, but you made that impossible.”
“Listen, I’m not trying to start anything serious. I just—”
“Don’t worry.” Jane smiled innocently. “Weird intense Jane gone, new relaxed Jane just happy to see you.”
“You do seem different.” He touched her arms, pulled her in closer. “I’m happy to see you too, if you’d know. I think I missed you a bit.”
“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“I’m certain I could think of something nicer.” He looked up, thinking before turning back to her again. “I’m sorry about what I said before. All the other women I’ve seen at Pembrook Park seemed to be toying with ideas of affairs while their husbands were on business trips. I couldn’t reconcile what I knew of the women who come here and what I knew of you. When I saw you that day walking with Mr. Nobley and the others, I realized you’re here because you’re not satisfied—you’re looking for something. And when I finally realized that, can you imagine how lucky I felt that out of everyone, you would choose me?”
“Thanks,” she said. “That was honest and encouraging, but Martin, you were going for nice.”
“I wasn’t finished yet! I also wanted to tell you that you’re beautiful.”
“That’s better.”
“Unbelievably beautiful. And . . . and I don’t know how to say it. I’m not very good at saying what I’m thinking. But you make me feel like myself.” He swept a loose lock of hair from her forehead. “You remind me of my sister.”
“Oh, really? You have that kind of sister?”
“Yes, confident, funny . . .”
“No, I meant the kind that you want to smooch.”
Martin swept her up again, this time in a more romantic style than the over-the-shoulder baggage. She fit her arm around his neck and let him kiss her.
She pressed her hand to his chest, trying to detect if his heart was pounding like hers. She peered at him and saw a little frown line between his eyes.
“No, my sister doesn’t kiss half so well.”
He walked her around, singing some ludicrous lullaby as though she were a baby, then set her down on a tree stump so they were nearly the same height.
“Martin, could you lose your job over this?”
He traced the line of her cheek with his finger. “At the moment, I don’t care.”
“I’ll talk to Mrs. Wattlesbrook about it at our departure meeting tomorrow, but I don’t think my opinion means much to her.”
“It might. Thank you.”
Then there was silence and with it a hint of ending, and Jane realized she wasn’t quite ready for it. Martin was the first real guy she’d ever been able to relax with, turn off the obsessive craziness and just have fun. She needed to be with him longer and practice up for the real world.
“I’m supposed to leave tomorrow,” she said, “but I can stay a couple more days, change my flight. I could find a hotel in London, far away from Wattlesbrook’s scope of vision, and I could see you. Just hang out a bit before I go home, no weirdness, no pressure, I promise.”
He smiled broadly. “That’s an offer I can’t refuse because I’m simply mad to see you in pants. I have a feeling you have a very nice bum.”
Boyfriend #13
Jimmy Rimer, AGE THIRTY-EIGHT
Jane had lost most of her social life with the departure of boyfriend #12 and the dog, so pretty much she stayed at home. Every night. Unless she worked late. Oh, joy.
A year hobbled by and Jane was still avoiding eye contact with the opposite sex. Molly tried to set her up with friends of Phillip’s, but Jane blindly spurned them all.
Then, Jimmy. They walked the same path through Central Park every day, and despite her iron-willed reluctance, the romance just happened. It felt like a tiny, perfect miracle that she was allowing herselfa chance to fall in love again. They decided not to burden each other with psychiatric profiles or travelogues through past failed relationships and instead just experienced each other. So refreshing! Such a graceful way to begin loving! For five months, Jane wondered why she’d never tried this before.
Then one fateful spring morning, Jimmy snorted while laughing. What’s wrong with that? Absolutely nothing. It should be a cute idiosyncrasy in the man you adore. But it stung Jane like a hornet, and it swelled and itched and bothered her till she sat up in bed at two a.m. and thought aloud, Mr. Darcy would never snort.
She altered her route through the park.
day 21
JANE DIDN’T MAKE IT DOWN to breakfast that morning. She packed casually, wistfully, refusing the help of her maid, plopping her well-used hairpiece into the trash.
She looked out the window a lot. Then she twisted a decorative strip of metal from the lamp beside her bed and used it to carve Catherine Heathcliff to the underside of the windowsill. After hanging her self-portrait in the bathroom, she went back to the windowsill, adding the words and Jane.
When she tromped 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 sweet breads sat on the sideboard.
Colonel Andrews was alone in the drawing room, reading. She didn’t disturb him. Captain East and Miss Heartwright were taking a good-bye 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,” Miss Charming said. “Cheerios. I’m staying an extra day to get an eyeball of the new recruits and make sure they know my colonel is taken.”
Jane air-kissed her cheek. “This is farewell, then, 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.
“Oh, yes, real as steel. 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 good-byes, 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 good-bye 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.
“Well, since I ran into you, I can thank you in
person for a great vacation. I feel sort of sheepish that it didn’t turn out differently.”
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.”
“Hey, I’ve been wondering something . . . What is Mr. No-bley’s first name?”
“William. You know, you are the first person to ask.”
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 Amelia, 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 good-bye 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 the driver left her at Heathrow, she was to change her ticket and meet him at a certain pub.
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 Templeton, she realized, and felt oddly delighted that without her the story would still go on.
Amelia cast off her bonnet, leaned back, and snuggled 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 myself 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.”