Austenland (11 page)

Man, Jane loved him. Sure, he wore an unnecessary tie to work and “weekend casual” meant khaki slacks, but who’s perfect? She’d once made a list of “must-have attributes in future husband,” and Kevin even made most of the “nice-to-have but not nonnegotiable” items. In retrospect, he’d had some kind of Darcy appeal about him from the very beginning, just in his mannerisms, his cool indfference, his falling for Jane despite the fact he hadn’t wanted a serious girlfriend

He played guitar, modestly. They did the Sunday crossword together. He loved his mom. He loved Jane. Until he told her over the blaring of a local car dealershzp ad that maybe he never really had.

“It’s just gotten too hard, hasn’t it? I mean, are you still having fun?”
Once in high school science, Jane’s teacher had dipped an orange in liquid nitrogen and then thrown it on the floor, cracking it like glass. That’s the only way she knew how to describe the physical sensation in her heart—cold and shattered She tried to play it cool, to say, “Yeah, it’s fizzling out, isn’t it? Well, let’s still be friends.” She tried, but she ended up pleading, her nose running, making promises, splaying out her emotions in a desperate way that would haunt her long after she’d forgotten Kevin’s smell.
They’d been together for twenty-three months. She’d gone wedding-dress browsing on the sly. For a week, she curled up in a corner, crying and consuming ice cream by the pint. At last, Emma-esque, she burned Kevin mementos one by one in her wok lid
Frankly, it didn’t help much more than the ice cream.

Mr. Nobley was wearing his pleasantly snug hunting breeches, and though that
was
incentive, spending an afternoon as the third wheel sounded beyond tiresome. But Jane was a tad curious to watch the pair. She couldn’t ask Amelia directly about Mr. Nobley (for some reason, it seemed to be forbidden in Austenland—but really, in
Sense and Sensibility
, couldn’t Elinor have asked her younger sister if she was engaged to Mr. Willoughby?
That
silence had seemed a touch extreme). So she spied for clues. Mr. Nobley never touched Amelia, didn’t so much as lean, step in closer, whisper in her ear (or just breathe!), any of the subtle, Regency-approved PD of A that Colonel Andrews gallantly drizzled over Miss Charming. Really, if Mr. Nobley had already declared his love for Amelia, then he was a pathetic lover.

Or was he the kind of man who loved too much, who only left his crazy wife because he wanted that much to be a father? Wait, that wasn’t Mr. Nobley, that was Henry Jenkins. But were they the same? It was all getting very confusing.

Jane tightened her bonnet ribbon, hoping it might help keep her thoughts snug in her head. She was certainly dressed for something rough in her pink morning dress (the bottom three inches stained from her surreptitious speed walks), with outdoorsy spencer jacket and her action bonnet, and had nothing to get her out of the ride, except maybe claiming a fake headache, but that was so cliché.

Soon thereafter she was clambering into the ever-intimidating sidesaddle and whispering, “Easy, there, donkey friend,” when Captain East appeared.
“Going for a ride, Miss Erstwhile?”
“Yes, and I wish you would come.
He had agreed before Amelia walked her horse into view Captain East flinched but couldn’t back out now.
Jane was determined to keep distant from the couple and have a little alone time with prince charming. Captain East didn’t make her heart patter, but he was beyond high school quarterback cute, and being fake-courted by him would make for an interesting vacation at the very least. Then, like a bumbling fool, Mr. Nobley kept letting his horse trot forward, separating Jane and Captain East, and leaving Amelia riding alone. Jane would correct it, and Mr. Nobley would mess it all up again.
She glared. And still he didn’t get it.
Then he was glaring, and she glared back the why-are-you-glaring-at-me glare, and his eyes were exasperated, and she was about to call him ridiculous, when he said, “Miss Erstwhile, you look flushed. Will you not rest for a moment? Do not trouble yourself, Captain East, you go on with Miss Heartwright and we will follow straightaway.”
When the other two were out of hearing range, Jane turned her glare into words. “What are you doing? I’m just fine.”
“Pardon, Miss Erstwhile, but I was trying to allow Captain East and Miss Heartwright a few moments alone. She confided in me about their troubled past, and I hoped time to talk would help ease the strain between them.”
“Okay,” Jane laughed, “so I’m a little slow.” She knew she didn’t sound the least bit Austen-y, but for some reason she just couldn’t make herself try to approximate the dead dialect around Mr. Nobley.
After she swore herself to secrecy and did her best to seem trustworthy and closemouthed, Mr. Nobley revealed that those two had been more than fond acquaintances. In fact, last year he’d proposed and she’d accepted.
“Her mother disapproved, as he was merely a sailor. Mr. Heartwright, her brother, informed East that he was dismissed from being her suitor, and Miss Heartwright never had an opportunity to explain that it hadn’t been her wish. She fears it is too late now, but I don’t believe her heart ever let go of the man.”
“Ah,” Jane said, now fitting their story into the correct Austen novel context—
Persuasion
, more or less. And that was a real bummer. Captain East had offered Jane the best shot at curative love. Oh well. Two down . . . one to go? She studied Mr. Nobley and wondered why she had the impression that he was dangerous—or would be if he didn’t so often look tired or bored. Was he a sleeping tiger? Or a sack of potatoes?
“And how do you feel about this, Mr. Nobley?” she asked.
“It does not matter how I feel about Miss Heartwright.” He nudged his horse forward, and hers followed.
She hadn’t been talking about Miss Heartwright, but, okay. “Wait, are you heartbroken?” She knew Miss Erstwhile shouldn’t ask the question, but Jane couldn’t help it.
“No, of course not.”
“Not about Miss Heartwright, anyway.” Jane watched Mr. Nobley’s face closely for signs of Henry Jenkins. His mouth was still, unrevealing, but his eyes were sad. She’d never noticed before. “Maybe you’re not heartbroken anymore, maybe you’ve passed that part, and now you’re just lonely.”
Mr. Nobley smiled, but with just half of his mouth. “You are very good at nettling me, Miss Erstwhile. As I said, it does not matter how I feel. We are speaking of Miss Heartwright and Captain East. I think it nonsense how they have kept silent about it these past days. They should speak their minds.”
“You approve of speaking one’s mind? So, do you approve of me?”
As it appeared Mr. Nobley had no intention of answering the question, and Jane was stumped at how to restart the conversation, they rode on in silence.
Of course just at that moment, she
would
see Martin by a line of trees, looking her way. Why couldn’t she be chatting and laughing and having a wonderful time? She smiled generously at the world around her and hoped that Martin would think she was enthralled with Mr. Nobley’s company and perfectly happy.
Mr. Nobley turned to ask her a question, but when he saw her grinning without apparent cause, the words hung in his mouth. His eyes widened. “What? You are laughing at me again. What have I done now?”
Jane did laugh. “I’m sorry, but I can’t seem to help myself around you. You are so tease-able.” Which was precisely not true, and yet saying it somehow made it so.
Mr. Nobley looked over his shoulder just as the line of trees hid Martin from view. Jane wasn’t sure if he saw him.
“I’m sorry I annoy you so much,” said Jane. “I’ll stop. I really will.”
“Hm,” said Mr. Nobley as if he doubted it. He looked at his hands thoughtfully, not speaking again for several moments. In the silence, Jane became aware of her heart beating. Why was that? When he spoke again, his tone had changed, innocuous, chitchatty.
“How do you find Pembrook Park, Miss Erstwhile?”
“Do you mean the house itself? Well, it’s beautiful, no question, friendly and yet too grand to be really comfortable. Like wearing a corset, I like how it looks and feels, but I can’t relax in it.” She shook her head. How did she keep slipping up? Saying things to this man that the Rules said she shouldn’t. She tried to think of something more innocent to say. “I love the paintings. The ones hanging in the gallery, they’re all in the grand style of portrait art, luminous with natural light. The artist isn’t just concerned with outer beauty but takes pains to express the virtue of soul in the subjects and catch that gleam of importance in their eyes. I don’t care how portly or drastically thin, how sickly or sad, all the people in those paintings know that they’re significant. You have to envy that kind of self-assurance.”
Jane stopped herself, realizing that she’d gotten carried away in the subject and her audience probably wasn’t the least bit interested. A glance sideways at Mr. Nobley— he was watching her, intently.
“You’re a painter.”
Jane blinked. “I used to paint, but it’s been years. Now I . .she paused, not knowing how to translate “graphic design” into Austen lingo. “It’s been a while since I’ve used that medium.”
“Do you miss it?”
“You know, I do, just lately. Maybe it’s because my head’s all mixed up,” she nodded, acknowledging her awkward breakdown days ago, “but all the new things I’m seeing are bugging me, becoming images, and my hands twitch, wanting to work out those images on paper. I think drawing and painting used to be a way of thinking for me. Until I came here, I’d almost forgotten about it.”
“Here I am!” Captain East was cantering his mount toward them. He rode beautifully, confidently. Molly’s family spent their summers in the country, and she used to say that the way a man rides a horse could give you a pretty good idea how he would do something else. Jane eyed Mr. Nobley on his mount, noted that he was a smooth, gentle rider. The surprise of thinking this while wearing a bonnet made Jane choke. Her breath snarled in her throat, and she laughed.
Mr. Nobley’s eyes widened. “What’s funny? You often have some secret laugh, Miss Erstwhile.”
“The way you have some secret displeasure?”
“No, not displeasure,” he said, and she realized he was right. Sadness, or heartbreak, or grief that there was nothing to give him hope, perhaps. She was pretty sure now that he was Henry Jenkins, poor sop.
Captain East reined in beside Jane. “Miss Heartwright had a headache and went inside. So sorry to neglect you, Miss Erstwhile. You must tell me what I missed.”
“I’ve discovered that Miss Erstwhile is an artist,” Mr. Nobley said.
“Is that so?”
“It’s been years since I picked up a paintbrush.” She glared at Mr. Nobley, and
zing
, there was his smile again, brief, urgent. When his lips relaxed she wanted it to come back.
“That is a shame,” said Captain East.
That evening when Jane retired from the drawing room, she found a large package on her side table wrapped in brown paper. She ripped open the paper and out tumbled neat little tubes of oil paints and three paintbrushes. She saw now that an easel waited by the window with two small canvases. She felt very Jane Eyre as she smelled the paints and ticked her palm with the largest brush.
Who was her benefactor? It could be Captain East. Maybe he still liked her best, even after his tête-a-tête with Miss Heartwright. It could happen. Even so, she found herself hoping it was Mr. Nobley. Instinct urged her to stomp on the hope. She ignored it. She was firmly in Austenland now, she reminded herself, where hoping was allowed.
Did Austen herself feel this way? Was she hopeful? Jane wondered if the unmarried writer had lived inside Austenland with close to Jane’s own sensibility— amused, horrified, but in very real danger of being swept away.
Ten days to go.

They met in the elevator. He worked on an upper floor, an ad exec, young for the position so obviously a genius. Smartness had always attracted Jane, that and hands and jawline and butt. And eyes. Also, integrity of character—she wasn’t shallow. Peter fell for her at once, he said, because she was stunning. That’s the word he’d used—
stunning
. It’s a difficult word to dismiss. She longed to be that word to someone.

They went out every Friday night for five weeks, and she felt her heart plummeting a long way. Boyfriend #9 was still raw, a sore that wouldn’t heal because she kept picking at it, but wouldn’t Peter be such a way to come back from that catastrophe! She fantasized of the day she would casually bump into nasty ex-boyfriends with Peter on her arm. And then . . .

“What is it? You’re married, aren’t you?”
“No, no, nothing like that.” He paused, leaving Jane to imagine. “I have a girlfriend I’m sorry. I’m not cheating, she’s right over there, at the table by the window. She made me a bet that I couldn’t make the first girl I asked out fall in love with me. Some movie she saw, thought it would be romantic, then it went too far . . .
Jane’s language would have made Britney the longshoreman blush down to her boots.

THE NEXT MORNING, RAIN BLURRED the hard edges from the world, transforming things into forms, like Christo’s fabric-wrapped bridges, nudes, and trees. Jane had been painting since daybreak. Yellow, red, orange, blue. The colors made her hungry, but she was too infatuated with paint on canvas to dress for breakfast. When Matilda came, Jane shooed her away.

She had forgotten the thrill she used to feel when buying a new paintbrush, squeezing all those colors onto her palette, smelling the clean natural odor of the oils, the reckless unknown of first spoiling a white canvas. These past years, she had become comfortable with her mouse and computer screen, creating corporate art, lazy and dull. And now, smearing green and gray together, interrupting it with orange, she realized she had loved her last boyfriends as a graphic designer would. But she wanted to love someone the way she felt when painting—fearless, messy, vivid.

In honor of Miss Eyre, Jane did a self-portrait. When she caught just the right shading of a cheek, her heart bumped her ribs as though she were in love. What she was after was that self-assurance in the eyes that those old portraits in the gallery had, a knowing gleam that insisted she was worth looking at. It was tricky to achieve. She wanted to ask someone else’s opinion about her painting, but not the traitor Matilda. Aunt Saffronia? No, she was too eager to please. Martin? Oh, stop it. Mr. Nobley? Yes, but why him?