Writing Jane Austen (17 page)

Bel was disappointed her friend would be disappearing so soon, but Georgina promised her she’d make a longer visit when she’d finished what she was working on. Meanwhile, before she left, there was something she needed to do. “I’m going out to take a few photos.”

Georgina raced up the hills, round the crescents and down the walks at a tremendous speed, snapping this and snapping that. She wasn’t going for composition or cute pictures, all she wanted was something to remind her of the physical presence of this strange city where the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries seemed more real than the twenty-first.

As she let herself out of Bel’s house into the cold dawn of an October morning, she reflected on the strange turn her life had taken. She was constantly on the run, and this getting up before first light looked like it could become a habit. A bad habit. She was going to catch the train to London, or might do so if she walked a bit faster, and once there, she was going to stay put. She was not going to be hounded by any Yolandas or Dans or Livias. Enough was enough.

At bedtime the evening before, Jane had hugged her, wrapping skinny arms around her neck and drumming hard heels into her back. “I’ll send you some more of my stories,” she promised. “I’ve got lots more you haven’t heard. There’s one about Jamie growing in a flowerpot, until along comes Jane the gardener and lops off his head, snick-snack.”

“You don’t suppose she was a tricoteuse at the guillotine in a previous existence?” Georgina asked Bel.

“Freddie reckons she comes from another planet. He may be right. Or perhaps she’ll just grow up to be her generation’s Jane Austen—don’t forget she was a fairly violent little girl, who saw no need for wrongdoers to get their just deserts.”

“And look what a model citizen she grew up to be,” said Georgina with bitterness. “Pretty frocks and charming husbands and everything dandy for ever.”

“Go read her letters again, if that’s what you think.”

Again? Forget the letters, six long novels were more than enough of a challenge.

“Borrow any book to read on the train,” Bel had said. “Just send it back when you finish it, or better still, bring it back.”

Georgina had reached out for an enticing volume entitled
Widows and Orphans—the Dark Underbelly of Victorian England
. As she bought a hasty cup of coffee at the just opening station café, she contemplated the next hour with a sense of peace. Coffee, a book, the English landscape passing by outside the window, her phone off, sitting in the quiet carriage.

What was it about quiet carriages? This one was full of men in suits talking in loud voices about the dire state of the market. Georgina retreated to Coach C and snatched a seat from under the nose of an earnest-looking man with a folding bike. While he wrestled with the handlebars, she sat down beside a woman with cropped hair who was reading a fat tabloid, let down the table in front of her, placed her coffee on it and opened her book. The first sentence jumped out at her:

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

Huh?

With a sense of foreboding, she slammed the book shut and looked at the title embossed on the spine.
Pride and Prejudice.
How in God’s name had she got hold of that? Where were her widows and orphans?

This was a critical moment. This was where she gave in, took a deep breath and read on.

No, maybe not. The woman beside her was getting up to go. She
rose, let her out, moved into her seat. A window to look out of, and she had left her morning paper tucked into the table.

Saved.

What on earth had that copy of
Pride and Prejudice
been doing among Bel’s history books? First thing when she got back to London, she’d pack it up and post it back. Not that it would be more than a gesture, Henry’s house was stuffed with copies of the Austen novels, and sooner or later, sooner, think of those weeks, that word count, she’d have to give in and get reading.

Only not now. Now was her time, now was a moment in between, now was the modern world, now was two centuries away from the then represented by that red-bound book presently burning a hole in her tote.

Mr. Musgrove is away on holiday, Mr. Killick is looking after his patients. Have a seat, you’ll have to wait a bit as he’s doing root canal work, so painful, those spikes and jabs, I had an abscess last year, they say cloves take away the pain, and some people swear by sage but then fresh sage can disagree with your stomach, I had an uncle who was in a terrible way if he ate fresh sage. Anything to read? There should be, but we’ve had a temp in, she came yesterday as I had the afternoon off, I don’t know what’s happened to the magazines, usually so many I’m never sure about the magazines, I read them but they do depress one, all those air-brushed beauties or if you read another type all those middle-aged women who’ve made fortunes out of bottling jam in their kitchens, not that I approve of jam, no one who cares about dental health can approve of jam. You’re American aren’t you? I can tell by the accent I went to America once, but it rained, lovely white teeth, the Americans, they all have lovely white teeth they say the whitening isn’t good for you in the long run but I’m no expert and Mr. Musgrove does a lot of whitening work, a smile is a woman’s fortune, although I had a friend, Deirdre, although she wasn’t Irish as far as I know, and she had a terrible mouthful of teeth, not a single one where it should be and she married a millionaire so you can’t ever say, I expect it was sex appeal although I couldn’t see it myself, then I wouldn’t, not being that way inclined. Hello?”

To Georgina’s relief it sounded as though it was a friend and not a patient at the other end of the line. The flow of words washed over her: “The green one only in size two, sizing’s such a delusion. What’s that? In blue? I always think blue’s an unlucky colour for me, don’t ask me why, mustn’t comment on how it looks on you, I’m lucky really because I can get away with any colour, and so…”

From inside the surgery came the whine of a drill. Gina shut her eyes and pressed her hands against her eyeballs. She probed her loose crown with her tongue; surely it could wait a bit longer?

No. She was here, she’d have it done. She’d decided on the train from Bath that her crown was more than an excuse, it was becoming an irritation. Besides, time spent at the dentist was time she wouldn’t be sitting at her computer, feeling helpless and hopeless.

The receptionist was still prattling away on the phone. No wonder the surgery was empty, by the time a patient managed to get through to make an appointment, his tooth would probably have dropped out anyhow, and if he did make it to the surgery, he’d have to be in real need not to remember urgent business elsewhere.

The receptionist was winding to the end of her stream-of-consciousness conversation. Then, unless the phone rang again, the flow of words would once again be directed over to Georgina. Quickly, she opened her book. Eyes down. Read.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

That was the one sentence of Jane Austen Georgina didn’t need to read, not only because it had sprung at her on the train, but also because it was up there in the top ten of famous openings. The receptionist’s beady eye was upon her. It was as though she were telepathic, as if she knew Georgina wasn’t actually reading the book. Concentrate, she told herself, as her eyes travelled on down the page. She reached the bottom, turned over and read on.

What a family. How swiftly and deftly sketched those characters were, how the hell did Jane Austen do that, get them jumping off the page in just a few words?

The voice came to her as though from a great distance. “You all right?” The receptionist was looking at her with a keen and hopeful expression, as though Georgina might be about to pass out, or was in some kind of mystic trance. “Not afraid of the dentist, are you? Not too many people are, these days, with all the new techniques, and you’ll find that Mr. Killick never causes any of his patients a moment’s pain. Unless you’re having root canal work, poor thing, did you see him as he came out? White as a sheet.”

Georgina hadn’t noticed the surgery door opening and the dentist’s previous patient coming out.

“Go on in. He’s waiting for you.”

Reluctantly, Georgina stood and went slowly into the dentist’s surgery. He greeted her with a cheery smile, flashing a formidably perfect set of teeth and waving her towards the chair.

“Sally here will take your things,” he said as the slender, fair-haired dental nurse smiled brightly at Georgina, revealing another set of perfect teeth. “What are you reading?” the dentist went on as he tilted the chair backwards.

The nurse, who had taken charge of bag and book, answered for Georgina, who by this time had her mouth open, with the mirror and the nasty little probe feeling around her gums.

“So you’re a Jane Austen fan, are you? Rinse, please.”

“Not really,” Georgina began, but the dentist wasn’t listening.

“Sit back. Now, I’ll tell you a good author if you’re keen on historicals, and that’s Patrick O’Brian. Wonderful tales, plenty of action, I can’t stand those novels where women just sit about and talk. I had to study one of Jane Austen’s novels for school and I was never so bored in all my life. Wider, please. There’s a loose crown here, that’s why you’ve come of course. It’s not helped by the fact
that you’re a jaw clencher, did you know that? Have you been under a lot of stress lately? What do you do for a living?”

Why did dentists always ask you questions when your mouth was full of instruments?

“We’ll soon fix that.” The dentist settled down for a one-sided literary discussion as he set to work. He was one of those people who recommend a book by giving you a tangled web of the plot, interspersed with hearty and inaccurate recollections of incomprehensible funny bits. Georgina made a mental note never to read any Patrick O’Brian.

“Of course he’s writing about the same period as Jane Austen. All the stuff that she left out. It’s extraordinary that she wrote when all that fighting against Napoleon was going on, and she had brothers in the Navy, you know. She hardly ever mentioned the war. She was supposed to be Patrick O’Brian’s favourite author, but I don’t get it myself. Rinse, please.” After what seemed to Georgina to be an inordinate amount of time, and with bits of blue plastic still adhering to her mouth, he released her from the chair. “I’ll see you next week, make an appointment with Miss Bates as you go out.”

When Georgina went out into the office to pay her bill and make an appointment, the receptionist was on the phone again. She nodded to Georgina, and flickered her fingers over the keys, she spirited up the bill, accepted Georgina’s credit card and made the transaction, all while continuing to talk, apparently without drawing breath.

Georgina came out of the surgery into watery sunshine and hesitated for a moment, deciding which way to go home. Bus? She looked across the road to the bus stop and saw a huge group of Japanese tourists, all students by the look of them, in matching T-shirts, baseball hats and lanyards with electronic devices dangling from them. Possibly they had all been issued special iPods, but more likely these were tracers or pagers so that none of the tourist guide’s flock could go astray.

There were other people waiting at the stop, and since the two other buses which used the stop had just pulled away, it was a fair assumption that the entire crowd was waiting to board the bus she wanted. She could go by underground, but it was a complicated journey from here and she wasn’t in the mood to dive into the bowels of the earth. She would walk.

She had only gone a few paces when the temptation became irresistible; a second later the book was open in her hand, and she was walking along the pavement only just aware enough of those around her to stop bumping into them, her attention almost entirely focused on the words on the page. There she was, in the assembly rooms at Meryton, music in her ears, and here was Mr. Darcy, what an odious, arrogant man, how was he going to turn into any kind of a hero? And good for Elizabeth, laughing at his bad manners, finding his behaviour ridiculous.

She came to with a start, as a police car went past, siren wailing. She couldn’t believe what she was doing, she hadn’t walked along with her nose in a book since she was a student.

Her walk home took twice as long as it should have done, since the reading slowed her walking pace down considerably, and also caused her more than once to take a wrong turn. When she finally arrived at the house she fumbled with her key, still reading, chided herself and reluctantly closed the book.

Good heavens, what a family! What an enchanting creature Lizzy Bennet was, and why had nobody told her how laugh-out-loud funny it was? She opened the door and went in. The only sound was the sonorous tick-tock of the grandfather clock with sun and moons and stars which stood in the hall. The house was empty. She headed up the stairs to her room, flopped down in her chair and opened the book again, anxious not to lose a minute in carrying on with the fascinating narrative.

Maud found her there four hours later. She came bursting into the
room in her usual rumbustious way, saying that she and Henry had been to see another school, which wasn’t too bad, only they didn’t want her after they’d rung up that cow at St. Adelberta’s and got the low-down on her. When had Gina got back? Did she know that the Livia woman had been on the phone day and night? What was she reading?

Georgina came to, blinking and astonished to find herself in her room in twenty-first-century London. She gazed at Maud as though she were an alien who had just arrived from a strange planet. “What?”

“Sharpen up,” said Maud, staring at her. “Why are you looking at me as though you had seen a ghost?”

“Sorry, it’s just my mind’s elsewhere.”

Maud was quick on the uptake. “You’ve done it!” she shrieked. “I know what you’re reading, you’re reading Jane Austen, and you can’t put it down. Henry,” she bellowed at the open door.