Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict (17 page)

Twenty-seven

A bout half an hour later, Mary timidly peeks in at the doorway to my room, and I jump up, motioning for her to come in. I’ve been waiting for her, figuring that once she’s cried herself out she might want to talk.

Her face is blotchy, and her eyes are rimmed in red. I move toward her, wanting to give her a hug, but she holds me off, her palms up.

“No, Jane. I do not deserve your pity. I, who have turned you against my brother. Charles spoke the truth about Will, but I refused to see it.”

“You’re too hard on yourself.”

Mary starts pacing the room, becoming more agitated with every step. “How could I not see how odd it was that Will never renewed our friendship, even after I came of age? How could I see only cruelty in Charles, rather than the natural feelings of a brother?”

She pauses in her pacing and flushes to the roots of her hair.

“And now I can hardly look you in the eye, dearest friend. For did I not accuse Charles of fathering my servant’s child, and did I not try to convince you of his guilt as well?”

“What does that have to do with Will?”

“Can you not see that nothing is what it seems?”

All I can see is the recurring image of Edgeworth brushing bits of straw from his coat, the pretty auburn-haired woman emerging from the stables, and the way she touches his arm. True, Edgeworth didn’t mistreat Mary or her boyfriend, as it turns out. But as for that incident at the stables, I’m afraid the evidence is more than circumstantial.

And then it hits me. What would Edgeworth have thought if he saw me sneaking around the house to kiss James, if he saw me using another man—and a man under my power; isn’t that the term Mary used?—to get over him, or maybe even get back at him? Would he have tried, convicted, and sentenced me on that evidence? Is there anything remotely innocent about what I have done? Am I any better than what I think Edgeworth is?

I, I, I. Is there really any separation left between Jane and me? Am I losing my mind?

I jump when I realize that Mary is staring at me, waiting for my reply.

“What about what you witnessed with your own eyes?” I finally say.

Mary resumes pacing, twisting her handkerchief in her hands with frantic energy. “Yes, of course that was wrong. But that does not mean that he, that they—If I could be so wrong in my estimation of Will’s character, how can I trust my conclusions about Charles?”

That I can certainly relate to. When have I ever been a good judge of a man’s character, especially a man I found attractive? All the more reason to stay on my guard, despite my wish to second guess what I saw, and despite anything Mary thinks. I cannot allow myself to trust Edgeworth, not after all I’ve been through. I trusted Frank—and Wes; of course I trusted Wes—and look where it got me. Every time I let down my defenses, that image of Edgeworth at the stables intrudes. It has to mean something, despite any guilt I might feel over what I did with James.

I attempt a smile. “Don’t worry about having influenced me, Mary. I can assure you that I’m incapable of making a fair assessment of a man’s character, with or without assistance.”

Mary looks even more distressed.

“That was a joke, Mary.”

“I see,” she says woodenly, sinking into the sofa and massaging her temples.

“Headache? Shall I get you something for it?” Though what’s on offer I can hardly imagine. Leeches? Eye of newt?

“I am well, I assure you.” She smiles weakly, as if to convince me. “But if only I could rub these thoughts out of my head, I would feel much better.”

“Let’s see. What do I do when I want to stop obsessing?” And lord, do I need to stop obsessing right now. I mentally flip through the usuals, if I were home, that is: a chilled bottle of the finest vodka and a jar of green olives; one of the Xanaxes I stole from my boss’s desk drawer, but only for dire emergencies; Googling old boyfriends; calling Paula to offer a sympathetic ear for her latest man woes, which she spews out in a nonstop stream-of-consciousness rant, thus obliterating any thoughts of my own; going to the shops on Vermont…

“That’s it: shopping!”

Eyes wide with fright, Mary shrinks into herself and hugs her shawl to her shoulders, as if I’ve just suggested she dance naked in Sydney Gardens.

“Sorry, no, of course not.” I slap my hand against my forehead. Stupid, stupid. That would involve leaving the house, and risk our running into the angel of death again.

“I know!” I jump up and rummage through my armoire, retrieving the first precious volumes of each of Jane Austen’s first two novels and triumphantly holding them aloft. How could I have forgotten the best and most foolproof cure there is? “Let’s read Sense and Sensibility! Or better still,” I say, thinking that perhaps Willoughby’s villainy might be too reminiscent of Will Templeton’s, “Pride and Prejudice. Nothing beats the blues better than P & P.”

“Thank you, but I have already read them both.”

I try to hide the shock and disappointment that must be apparent on my face by busying myself with replacing the books in my armoire. Poor Mary. I cannot imagine a world in which one can read Jane Austen only once. Perhaps I can persuade her of the unnecessary poverty of such an existence…and then, I notice something at the very back of the wardrobe, a glint of gold and lace. I reach in and—

“I’ve got it!” This time I am holding up what appears to be an eighteenth-century coat, encrusted with pearls and gold embroidery. “Let’s play dress-up!”

Mary’s expression is less than enthusiastic, but this time I’m not letting her get away with it.

“Let’s see,” I say, holding up the jacket against her. “Perfect.”

“But it is a man’s coat.”

“So what? We’re not leaving the house in it, we’re going to play right here. Didn’t you ever go through your mother’s clothes and jewelry when you were a little girl, and parade around in her things?”

“Well, I—”

Instead of giving her time to answer, I grab the coat and Mary’s hand and pull her down the hall till we reach the bedroom of Mary’s aunt. Apartment, more like it, is what I think when I open the double doors and enter the carpeted expanse and head straight for the first of three wardrobes.

“No, Jane! I cannot go through my aunt’s things.” Mary quickly closes the doors behind her and flattens herself against it, lest any of the servants see us engaged in such a scandalous activity.

“Well, I can. And I trust that with everything you’ve told me about your aunt’s kindheartedness and generosity and devotion to you, she would not object to a little harmless game of dress-up and—”

Wait. What’s that on the top shelf? It’s a group of jars and brushes that look suspiciously like cosmetics.

“—and makeover!” I open one of the jars to reveal something that could indeed double as blush and lip color. Yes!

“Especially,” I say, steering Mary to a cushioned seat before a mirrored vanity table and pushing her gently down into it, “when its purpose is to divert the thoughts of the brokenhearted.”

“But Jane—”

“Hush. You’re in my hands now. I am going to transform you. And you, my dear, are going to have fun.”

And with that, I get up and lock the bedroom door.

T wo hours later, with the help of a couple of glasses of sherry or whatever alcoholic reddish stuff is in the Venetian glass decanter in the aunt’s bedroom, I have transformed a now giggling Mary into a goddess, some kind of throwback to early Prince music videos. Maybe not a throwback, come to think of it, since Prince is in the future. But anyway, she is wearing a sort of half-male, half-female, and definitely all femme fatale costume: hair back in a low ponytail, knee breeches and fancy stockings with a floral design at the ankle, the embroidered, golden coat with lace cuffs and pearls everywhere, the latter open over her stays, which I insisted on once I got her to take off her dress and saw that she actually has a gorgeous, voluptuous hourglass figure that her empire waists completely obliterate. And the best part is that I’ve made up her face. I’ve reddened her lips and cheeks and even improvised heavy eyeliner with a brush and some coal dust. Talk about smoky eyes. She looks staggeringly sexy, and I tell her as much, which makes the rest of her face red before she collapses in giggles on the sofa.

I am also sort of half dressed in one of her aunt’s gowns, which was my means of persuading her to cooperate in the grand makeover/dress-up party. I told her that if I was already in her aunt’s clothes, there wasn’t much more harm in her wearing them as well. Besides, I said, most of what I wanted her to put on must have belonged to her uncle, who is long dead and surely wouldn’t mind.

I look absolutely ridiculous in the aunt’s dress, which is so enormous on me that it keeps falling off my shoulders. Its only saving grace is that it has a waistline. Unfortunately, the circumference of said waistline is probably twice that of mine.

I realize that one of my necklaces would be the perfect finishing touch to Mary’s outfit, and I am about to run down the hall and grab it, then change into my own dress, per Mary’s request, so that I can order tea from Mrs. Jenkins; God forbid she should see either Mary or me in Mary’s aunt’s clothes. I close the aunt’s bedroom door behind me and sigh. Mary still has some loosening up to do. But I’ve certainly made progress.

I think I hear a bustle downstairs in the foyer, but am almost instantly distracted by the sound of the aunt’s door opening.

“Jane,” Mary says, now in the hallway, “do ask Mrs. Jenkins for some sandwiches, too. And—”

At that moment we both hear the front door closing, and down in the foyer we see that Mrs. Jenkins has just let in Edgeworth and his friend Stevens. They are both looking up at us in our full costumed glory.

Mary gasps. “Do excuse me!” she says and darts back into her aunt’s bedroom, but not before grabbing my wrist and pulling me inside with her.

“Oh dear!” Mary says, her face flushed as she looks at herself in the mirror. “Embarrassing enough if it were only Charles. But Mr. Stevens, too.”

Mrs. Jenkins is instantly at the door, an anxious expression on her broad face. “I beg your pardon, miss. I had no idea you were—” She trails off and looks down at her shoes, clearly at a loss to describe just what it is we’ve been doing.

“You are not to blame,” says Mary. “For I did tell you to admit Mr. Edgeworth no matter what. How were you to know that we were engaged in, in”—she clears her throat—“private theatricals.”

Mary turns to me, her wide brown eyes asking for my confirmation.

“Exactly so, Mrs. Jenkins,” I say. “We are rehearsing the new play by”—I cast around in my mind for the name of a playwright, but I’m ignorant in this department—“Sir David Mamet.”

Mary gives me a quizzical look and then, “Do show my brother and his friend into the drawing room, Mrs. Jenkins. Bring tea and sandwiches, and tell them that I will be with them in a few minutes. And have Hortense come up at once.”

As soon as Mrs. Jenkins is out of the room, Mary says, “You will come downstairs with me? And do me the honor of witnessing my efforts to make amends to my brother?”

My stomach goes into freefall at the thought. “I think you two need some privacy.”

“That is hardly likely with Mr. Stevens here. Besides,” she says, her gold-and-brown eyes imploring, “I will keep you only for a few minutes. Then you may make any excuse you wish.”

O ne of the maids buttons and laces me into my dress with lightning speed while I try to slow my breathing. Casual, just be casual. He has no power over you, I tell my reflection as I give it a once-over in the mirror. What’s with the blue-and-white checks on this fabric? Why am I wearing a tablecloth instead of a dress? I should have put on my yellow dress. And washed my hair.

What am I thinking? I can’t go down there.

As soon as the maid leaves me alone, I give myself the respectable version of Regency-era makeup, which consists of biting my lips and pinching my cheeks. It figures that I was just about to make up my own face when we were so rudely interrupted. So close, yet so far. Did I just say “my own face”? It scares me how quickly I’m getting used to thinking of it as such.

I search for a shawl to camouflage the hideous fabric, then throw it down on the sofa. Who cares how I look (or how Jane looks, for that matter), let alone whether we look good enough for a man that neither one of us should want to see anymore.

Maybe I’ll slip into the yellow dress after all. Not a good idea. Mary might notice the change in clothing and read too much subtext (or even worse, exactly the right amount) into it. Besides, the idea of “slipping into” one of these dresses is a laughable impossibility. Tablecloth it is.

I begin to make my way toward the drawing room, gripping the banister and steadying myself inwardly with the thought that wearing table linen more than makes up for any hint of color I might now have summoned to my lips and cheeks, and therefore I have little chance of appearing alluring or looking like I wish to appear alluring.

I take a deep breath, willing my hands to stop trembling, and open the door to the drawing room.

Twenty-eight

E dgeworth smiles at me, cheek dimpling, and bows his greetings. Stevens stands up and mumbles something.

Mary, whose face is scrubbed of all traces of my ministrations, is just unlocking the tea caddy. I still haven’t figured this one out.

What do they think is in there anyway, controlled substances?

Mary looks up from her high-security operations and smiles at me. “Jane, I was just telling my brother how sorry I am to have been out when he was kind enough to call on us. And how glad I am that he was persistent in his efforts.”

Edgeworth arches an eyebrow. Can’t say I blame him for being skeptical.

But what he says is, “I hope to have the opportunity to repeat the pleasure many times,” and then looks at me as if for a clue to his sister’s apparent personality transplant.

“Shall I see you both at the ball this week?” he says.

Mary darts her eyes at me before answering her brother. “I cannot say. You see, I—that is, I find that Bath does not agree with me, and I am thinking of asking Miss Mansfield,” and now her voice breaks a little, “if she would mind cutting short our visit here.”

Stevens, who has been staring at Mary with undisguised admiration, gasps and looks as if someone just punched him in the gut. Then he starts coughing.

“Are you well, Mr. Stevens?” Mary asks.

“Perfectly,” he croaks, pointing at his sandwich plate. “It seems to have made a wrong turn.”

Edgeworth pats him on the back. Mary pours him some more tea.

“I am ready to leave Bath whenever you are,” I tell Mary.

Her eyes fill. “You will not be disappointed?”

“Not a bit.”

Edgeworth looks from me to Mary and back at me again. “That is a pity. Stevens and I were just saying that the cooler weather has made Bath a much pleasanter place to be, were we not, Stevens?” He looks at his friend encouragingly.

Stevens blanches, apparently realizing we all expect him to speak, then promptly flushes to the roots of his hair. “Y—es.”

Edgeworth glances at his friend, then fills in the ensuing pause. “I have spent entire summers wondering why the geniuses of fashion were not as kind to men as they are to women.”

“You can’t be serious,” I say, conscious of what feels like a stiff piece of wood inside the front of my stays. “Besides, I don’t think you would look well in a gown.”

Edgeworth smiles at me mischievously. “I shall take that as a compliment, Miss Mansfield. But I speak of fabrics, not of forms.” He fingers the material of his green coat to underscore his point, then looks at his friend. “What say you, Mr. Stevens?”

“I—that is…indeed. A coat is abominably hot in summer. I would not wish its encumbrances on anyone who—” At this Stevens turns bright red again and looks at Mary, and then at me, his eyes imploring. “Forgive me. I did not mean—”

Poor Mary’s own cheeks are flaming as she busies herself with the sandwich tray, no doubt imagining the picture she must have presented in her costume. “Not at all, Mr. Stevens,” she says, her tone barely audible. “Miss Edgeworth and I were merely engaged in private theatricals when you arrived.”

“I would not for the world have intruded on your privacy,” says Stevens, looking down at his shoes.

“What a pleasure it was to see you both at the ball,” says Edgeworth, apparently eager to turn the conversation from embarrassing topics. “I do believe I never enjoyed a dance as much as I did that night.” And this with a significant smile at me. “What say you about the number of people, Mary?”

And just like that, the tension dissipates. Edgeworth takes over the bulk of the polite discourse, clearly eager to put both Mary and Stevens at ease. Mary visibly relaxes, and Edgeworth even coaxes a few words out of his friend.

As for me, every time Edgeworth looks in my direction with those hazel eyes, all I can think of is how much I want to put my arms around him.

It’s exactly how I felt after Frank got his stuff from my apartment. Instead of making sure I wasn’t at home, I had watched him pile clothes and books and CDs—including my Bjork Debut CD and my copy of Mrs. Dalloway, among other ancient treasures—into ratty cardboard boxes from Von’s, probably because he was too cheap to buy new boxes from a packing store. But instead of exploding with indignation over his thievery (surely salt in the wound of infidelity) I kept gazing at the taut curves of his ass in faded jeans as he bent over to abscond with more of my belongings, wishing he would turn around and smile his crooked smile to tell me it had all been a mistake. But of course he didn’t. All he did was mumble “I’m sorry,” shrug sheepishly, and walk out the door. And all I wanted to do was talk to Wes when he rang me for the tenth time that day, instead of letting the machine pick up again. “I have to talk to you, Courtney. Please.” I wanted to cry into his shirt, feel his arms around me, hear him murmuring soothing words into my hair, like he did after my work Christmas party, most of which I had spent watching Frank flirt with other women. I didn’t even have to tell Wes what had happened, and he was good enough not to ask.

No. If I barely had the strength to resist Wes, who had unquestionably betrayed me, then I certainly do not have the strength to resist a man whose injuries to me might not even be real.

At that moment Edgeworth hands me a cup of tea that Mary has just poured, and his fingers brush against mine, sending a thrill through my body. I mumble something about a letter I have to answer, and dash out of the room.

About an hour later, which seems like three hours because I’ve spent most of it pacing the room and reliving the touch of his fingers on mine and replaying every sound he uttered and searching for meaning in every word and gesture, I hear a soft knock at my door. Mary comes in, her face swollen and tear-streaked, but smiling nonetheless.

“I could do with some tea,” she says, pulling the bell for Mrs. Jenkins and settling into a chair. “I did not even remember to drink mine.”

“You told him.”

She nods. “Mr. Stevens left the house shortly after you went upstairs. What an embarrassment. I do not wonder at his wishing to escape after seeing me in such unladylike attire. That look on his face I shall never forget. Charles was not in the least discomposed, of course, but then again…” She blushes and looks confused, perhaps thinking about all the preconceived notions she had of her brother. “In fact, he was quite sorry to have unwittingly turned the conversation to what I would not have alluded for the world.”

Mary looks down at her hands. “I would have kept Charles here longer, as there is still so much I wish to say to him, but he had an engagement he could not break.”

“And?”

“He said very little, but what he did say was more than kind. And no doubt more than I deserve.”

She reaches into a pocket for a damp handkerchief and wipes her eyes. I move to comfort her, but she waves me away.

“No, Jane. It is right that I feel the weight of my own foolishness. How else am I to have any hope of amendment?”

The tea arrives, and Mrs. Jenkins has made up a tray with some thick slices of dark bread, plus a sharp white cheese and cold beef. For a few minutes we eat and drink in silence.

Mary takes a bite of her sandwich, and a big blob of mustard falls out on her chest. She looks down at the offending stain on her white dress, then at me, mortified.

“Yellow suits you,” I say, dunking my napkin in water and blotting the spot. We both laugh.

“And so does strength,” I add. “You’re handling this whole thing beautifully.”

Mary starts crying again. “How very blessed I am. My brother, to whom I have been barely civil for years, instantly forgives all, and my dearest friend, whose heart my brother might have won had it not been for my vicious tongue, sees nothing but goodness in me. How do I deserve this?”

“Mary, you are not responsible for how I feel about your brother.”

“But it was I who told you—”

“True, but you haven’t considered the possibility that I might have made my own observations.”

“What do you mean?”

I cast my eyes into the dark dregs of my cup.

“Jane?”

“Let’s not talk about this now.”

“Dearest friend—”

“Listen to me. You are not responsible.”

I am not about to tell Mary what I think I saw or remembered. I don’t even know if it’s real, and even if it is, what good would it do Mary? She’s just begun to repair her relationship with her brother, and why should the quality of their relationship be dependent on the quality of mine? Couldn’t he be a perfect brother to her and a perfect liar to me? Wasn’t Frank always doing favors for his sister and bailing her out of trouble? Did that make him a better boyfriend to me?

“Jane, do you really not mind leaving Bath? I did not plan on broaching the subject to you with Charles in the room; it just came out unbidden.”

“Do you think I could enjoy myself in this town, knowing you were constantly worried about running into Will?”

“If we stay, it is inevitable that I shall. In time I will be stronger, and it will not signify.”

She smiles sheepishly. “Do you know that of the thousand things that were going through my head today when I saw Will, the one that clamored loudest for my attention was the thought that I looked a perfect fright?”

“You did not, but I know what you mean. Which is why we need to keep you out of harm’s way.”

Which is exactly what I tried my best to do after Frank depleted my CD tower and bookshelves along with my self-esteem. I did everything in my power, short of leaving town—the slight inconvenience of my job preventing that from being an option—to avoid seeing him. Or Wes. Any restaurant, bar, or store we ever went to together, any place I thought I might have the chance of running into either of them, I avoided. And except for the one time I saw Wes on Vermont, and the one time I bumped into Frank at the farmer’s market two weeks after we broke up, I’d been successful. Like Mary, all I could think of when I came face to face with Frank was how I looked, my unwashed hair held up in a clip and no mascara, my body, eight pounds slimmer from the heartbreak diet, completely and unjustly hidden in a pair of shapeless overall shorts. What I should have been thinking was how he deserved to die a slow death at my hands, and that I would not wish to ruin a good outfit while doing it.

Yes, leaving town is the best thing I could do for myself as well as Mary. Except suddenly it hits me that leaving town means going back to Mrs. Mansfield. The thought of being stuck in a room with her and enduring endless questions about Edgeworth and Bath (for surely she would have found out by now that Edgeworth was in Bath) is unbearable; there’s no way I can handle that.

I feel Mary’s eyes on me. “What is wrong, Jane?”

Everyone’s always told me that I wear my feelings on my face, and I suppose having a different face hasn’t changed that about me.

“I was just thinking how much fun it would be if we could extend our trip to another destination.”

“What a splendid idea. I would offer my brother’s house in London as our next destination, were it not in the midst of improvements. At present it is not fit to be seen. I do, however, have a cousin in town who has been urging me to be her guest. We could go there at once and delay our return home.”

“Are you sure she wouldn’t mind my coming along?”

Mary laughs. “Mind? Louisa loves nothing more than to surround herself with as many people as she can. My dear cousin’s biggest fear is being alone with her husband, so I must warn you that if it is peace you seek, you will not find it in London. And certainly not at Louisa’s. Would a few days there suit you? I fear you may not be able to tolerate much more than that.”

I hug her. “It sounds perfect.”

“Such gratitude does not come from one who savors the thought of returning home.”

“Believe me, Mary—”

“No, do not say it. You are making a sacrifice by leaving here, and I am sensible of it. So, I will do everything in my power, both in London and at home, to make it up to you.”

But Mary won’t have to make up anything to me. I’m so excited about not having to face Mrs. Mansfield and the boredom of her house I could scream. Plus I’ll get to see London, not the London I saw briefly as a twenty-first-century tourist—a three-day blur of jet lag, somnolent sightseeing from atop a double-decker bus (I have a vague, bleary-eyed memory of barreling past the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben while battling the leaden weight of my eyelids), and a Dramamine-less, barf-bag-less nightmare of a Thames boat excursion.

No. I am going to the pre-Starbucks, pre–Madame Tussaud’s London. I am going to see the London of two hundred years ago, the London of Jane Austen. Not the London of Edgeworth, or Wes, or anyone else who pees standing up. What are men to shops and theaters, Gray’s of Sackville Street, or even the wild beasts at Exeter Exchange?

Mary kisses me on the cheek. “And now, dearest friend, I must write a note to Louisa. And change my clothes yet again.” She smirks, indicating the splotch of mustard on her dress.