Austenland (Austenland 1)

“I do, yes.”

“I know they are naughty things, but I devour novels. The Castle of Otronto had me in chills.”

“Yes, how can I forget that giant helmet?” Jane had done her homework on gothic romances a few years ago, thank goodness, in an attempt to appreciate Northanger Abbey. “But Mrs. Radcliffe’s writings are my favorite, particularly The Mysteries of Udolpho.”

Miss Heartwright clapped her hands with delight. “Wonderful! We’ll have so much to talk about. I hope you will call on the cottage often during your stay.” Jane was spared an answer when the maid announced that the gentlemen had returned from the fields.

“Show them in, thank you,” Aunt Saffronia said.

The gentlemen entered, looking smart in their sporting attire, rough and handsome in grays and browns, redolent of grass and animals. Jane stood before them, thinking about whether an 1816 woman would arise for men, and then fumbled her embroidery, sending it to the ground. Colonel Andrews bent to pick it up. On his breath she caught a whiff of tobacco, which only slightly damaged the pleasing effect of his charming smile up close.

The gentlemen remembered Miss Heartwright from last year, of course, and there was a cordial reunion. Cordial? Jane admitted that they both seemed awfully pleased to see her. Well, the colonel was effulgent and Mr. Nobley was polite—but wasn’t there a knowing look that passed between them? Did they, the enchanting Miss Heartwright and cold Mr. Nobley, have a history?

“You are looking well, Mr. Nobley,” Miss Heartwright was saying. Jane nearly gasped. Who said such things to that man? “I hope your arm is quite recovered from the accident last year.”

And Mr. Nobley nearly smiled! His eyes did anyway. “You remembered. One of my less graceful moments.”

Colonel Andrews guffawed. “I had forgotten!” He turned to Jane. “Nobley here was trying to show off on the ballroom floor— for some lady, no doubt—and he slipped during the minuet and broke his arm! Or was it a sprain?”

“Not a break,” Mr. Nobley said.

“Do not be so hasty to spoil it, Nobley. A broken bone makes the better story.”

“Indeed you are right, Colonel Andrews,” Miss Heartwright said. “And I am near expiring, Mr. Nobley, to see what charming bit of fun you will come up with this time. You must, of course, outdo yourself, or what will we have to talk about next year?”

He bowed, polite but by no means offended. “I am your willing servant and shall have no other object than to seek your amusement.”

“Well, that is neatly settled then.” Aunt Saffronia was all grin. “What a breath of fresh air you are, Miss Heartwright! You must visit the house every day, as often as you like.”

Jane glanced at Miss Charming, who in the past half hour had withered like a carrot forgotten in the back of the refrigerator. She was hunched in the sofa, glaring at her embroidery, twisting her foot around, around, around.

Boyfriend #2

Rudy Tiev, AGE FIFTEEN

Rudy was hil-ar-i-ous and so fine. Wherever he went in school, crowds scooped back, forming into spontaneous audiences, waiting with ready smiles for his wit. Or maybe, Jane considered later, drawing back out offear?

After four months of school dances, mall movies, and after-homework phone calls with Jane, Rudy’s repertoire began to suffer for lack of a fresh subject. Without warning, the heat of his humor veered toward her.

“We were making out, and suddenly she licks my mouth like a cat!” he told a group lunching on the lawn. “Lapped me up like milk. Meow, little pussycat.”

In the dizzying weeks that followed, Jane read Pride and Prejudice for the first time.

At her ten-year high school reunion, three people remembered Jane as “tiger tongue.” Good old Rudy was there, sporting an impressive potbelly and spouting jokes that just couldn’t bring in the laughs.

day 4, continued

THAT EVENING (TO MAKE HERSELF feel better after the embarrassing breakdown, not to mention the Heartwright intrusion), Jane donned her favorite evening gown, pale peach with a flattering V-neck and cap sleeves. These last three days, she had been seesawing between giddy headlong rush into fantasyland and existential terror, but sometimes when she slipped into a new dress, the only word that really applied was huzzah.

The addition of a fourth woman threw a wrench in the precedence. Aunt Saffronia declared she would dine upstairs, and then it was Jane’s turn to say that was nonsense and that she would simply walk from the drawing room to the dining room unescorted. At the back of the line. Like an unwanted puppy. Well, she didn’t actually say the part about the puppy. She did enter alone, behind Miss Heartwright and Colonel Andrews, but she told herself she did it with style.

When the gentlemen joined the ladies in the drawing room, Miss Charming was quick on the draw—“I’ll pout all evening if you don’t,Mr. Nobley, and I’m a very effective pouter”—and secured both the single gentlemen at the whist table. Quite a coup. Miss Heartwright, as the guest that day, naturally made up the fourth.

Jane tried to amuse herself by starting a new embroidery sampler, though the product itself was soon much more amusing than the occupation. Sir John, usually too engaged with his drink to do more than grumble to himself, was particularly attentive to Jane. He stared at her until she was forced to acknowledge him and then topple into his staccato conversation.

“Do you shoot much? Mm? Birds? Miss Erstwhile?”

“Uh, no, I don’t hunt.”