Adventures with Jane and her Legacy 01 Jane Austen Ruined My Life (15 page)

I nodded, struck mute. Hester Golightly had frosty blonde hair cut in a pixie style, and she wore trendy jeans with a neon-print hoodie. She indicated that I should take a seat on the sofa. I did so with fear and trembling. I could only hope I hadn't picked up anything on the train that would transfer onto this paean to spotlessness.

"How was your journey?" She lifted the teapot and prepared to pour. "And, please, call me Hester."

"Yes. Fine. Of course." I wasn't prepared for this ... normalness, if that was even a word. I carefully sat down on the sofa.

Hester laughed. "You're gobsmacked!" She reached over from her perch on a chair next to me and patted my knee. "They always are, poor dears, when they come here after spending time with Mrs. Parrot. We couldn't be more different, could we?"

I decided that was a rhetorical question. Miss Golightly hardly paused for breath before she continued. "Well, you've made it this far, so that's a good sign. Mrs. Parrot never sends me anyone she's not absolutely certain of." She started to hand me the cup and saucer and then drew it back. "I forgot to ask. Milk? Sugar?"

"No, thank you." I reached for the china cup, in need of the unadulterated caffeine.

"So, you've come here and are no doubt full of questions." She smiled mysteriously. "That's the best part, you know, of being a Formidable. So many delicious, juicy questions."

I took a sip of the tea, which scalded my tongue. Tears of pain stung my eyes, but I persevered. "My understanding is that I have to complete a task that you give me."

She leaned back in her chair and sipped her own tea without flinching at its heat. "Of course. That too. It wouldn't be nearly as much fun without them."

As much fun for whom?
I wanted to ask, but I didn't. "Mrs. Parrot seemed to discourage questions, or else answer them cryptically."

"Yes, well, she rather enjoys her role as the gatekeeper. Sometimes she enjoys it a bit too much, the rest of us think."

The rest of us?
Just how many of them were there? Before I could ask, she continued. "So, I take it you've put the pieces together about Jack Smith."

"I think so." My tea had cooled enough so that I could take a careful sip. I was so afraid of spilling a drop on that sofa, my hand trembled. "He was a student of her father's, and they must have developed a fondness for one another at Steventon. At least there was a fondness on her part, given what she wrote in the parish register."

"Yes. Very good. Then you're ready for the next step."

"What's that?"

Hester set her cup on the table. "What did Jane Austen love more than anything?" she asked with a smile.

I paused, searching for the right answer. She had loved her family, reading, visiting friends. And writing novels, obviously. But she had adored one thing above all else.

"Dancing," I replied. "She loved dancing." Her published letters, as well as those of family and friends, all corroborated the belief that Austen had been an inveterate dancer.

"She may have disliked Bath," Hester said, "but she loved the balls at the Assembly Rooms." With a flourish, she reached for an envelope that sat next to her teacup. "You may read this now."

"Before I complete the task?"

"Yes."

With eager hands, I took the envelope from her and ripped it open with all the eagerness of a kid attacking a pile of presents under the Christmas tree.

"Careful, there," Hester warned me. "That's the original."

My hands stilled instantly. "The original?"

"I thought you might be weary of copies."

"
Um
, yes. I mean, are you sure?" I looked up at her, and she was smiling at my confusion.

"Mrs. Parrot tends to fuss over the letters as if they're holy writ, but I find it far better to allow my visitors to handle them." She shot me a warning look. "Very carefully, of course."

"Yes. Certainly." Now I was as cautious as I had been impatient only a few moments before.

I thought of the letter I'd seen in the British Library-- encased behind glass, exposed only to the dim lighting of the gallery. Perhaps Hester Golightly was being a bit reckless with such a treasure, but that didn't stop me from reaching inside the envelope and drawing out the yellowed piece of paper there.
The familiar, even handwriting made my heart beat more quickly. My breath caught when I saw the inscription at the top.

My first thought was that it was a forgery. The paper fluttered in my shaking hands. "She can't have written to him," I said to Hester, who was watching me with a bemused expression. "Not unless--" I fell silent at the implication of the piece of paper in my hand.

"Not unless she was engaged to him," Hester finished for me. "The plot thickens, as they say."

I looked again at the date on the letter. It had been written from Bath shortly after her family moved there in May 1801. I knew, without having to consult any of my research books, that no Austen letters survived from the period between that move in May and the autumn of 1804, a lengthy gap that had never been adequately explained.

Most scholars attributed her silence to Austen's dislike of Bath. But it had never made sense to me that an avid correspondent like Jane Austen would simply abandon the practice because she was unhappy with her living situation. In fact, the opposite seemed more likely to me--that she would have
written a greater number of letters in her attempts to stay connected to Steventon and her Hampshire friends.

"But if she wrote to him, surely they would have been engaged?"

If nothing else, Jane Austen had been rather a stickler for propriety, as an impoverished gentleman's daughter had to be to safeguard the only thing of value she possessed--her reputation. I thought of Marianne in
Sense and Sensibility
and the flurry of letters she sent to the duplicitous Willoughby.

Marianne's mother and sister had taken the letters as tacit proof of an engagement. But they had been mistaken. Was I mistaken, too, to assume that Austen would only correspond with a gentleman if she were betrothed to him?

"One would think so," Hester Golightly said with a lift of her eyebrows. "Yet that letter contains no undying declarations of love. Perhaps she was a bit more scandalous than we have been led to believe."

I did some quick mental math. Jane Austen would have been twenty-six or so when she wrote the letter. From the contents, I surmised that Jack Smith was expected to come to Bath
shortly after she and her parents arrived. They were to dance at the Assembly Rooms. And then what had happened? I turned the letter over to see the address where she had sent it.

Sidmouth
. A resort town Austen and her family had visited in the summer of 1801. Had they gone there purposely so that she could see her fiance? Lieutenant Jack Smith would have wanted to stay near the coast so that he could appear quickly when ordered to duty on his ship.

"There's no way a generally known engagement could have been kept quiet," I said, half to Hester Golightly and half to myself. "Cassandra might have excised and hidden away her sister's letters, but she didn't have the ability to censor everyone else's correspondence."

"So it must have been a secret engagement, then," Hester said with a smile. "Or a shocking impropriety."

"I wouldn't have expected it of her."

"Perhaps it is in the unexpected that we are truly known." Hester made the pronouncement as if she were the oracle at Delphi.

"I'm so confused." I carefully refolded the letter and slid it back into the envelope. "I don't know what to believe anymore."

"Have some more tea, dear," Hester said, reaching for the pot and refilling my cup. "I always find that helps."

"So what's my task, then?" I asked before she had finished pouring. I couldn't imagine what they would pair with that letter that would match it for import and surprise.

Hester looked up. "Why, you must dance at the Assembly Rooms, of course."

Dance? At the Assembly Rooms? I laughed. "You're joking."

She set the teapot back on the tray. "Oh no, dear. I would never joke about dancing."

"And who am I supposed to dance with?" I could picture myself now, twirling in the middle of a gaggle of tourists.

"You must dance with a handsome young man, just as Jane would have done. Then will you have an inkling as to how she felt when she was here in Bath."

"Miss Golightly--"

"Hester, dear. And really, this task isn't all that difficult. Do you know any men in Bath?"

I thought of Adam, wandering around and waiting to meet me at Sally Lunn's. "The one I came here with," I said with great reluctance.

"That's perfect, then." Hester clasped her hands together in delight. "I could drum one up for you, of course, but it's much better if it's someone you know. Someone you're attracted to."

"I'm not attracted to--"

"But of course you must be." She waved a dismissive hand. "You brought him to Bath. Now finish your tea, dear. The Assembly Rooms await."

"What do I do afterward?"

"Afterward?"

"Yes. Do I come here? Will you give me another letter?"

"Oh, dear me. I suppose you go back to London and see Mrs. Parrot again."

"You don't seem very sure."

"Well, to tell the truth, dear, this is the point where most of our ... inquirers decide that we're a bunch of batty old geezers and tell us to go stuff ourselves." She laughed. "You're a refreshing change of pace."

Great
. So I was not among the sensible majority. "Miss Golightly--"

"Hester, dear. Now run along with you." She stood up, and I automatically did the same. "You'll want some lunch before you make the trek up the hill to the Assembly Rooms."

I didn't even know if they were open. I certainly didn't know if Mrs. Parrot and Hester Golightly were part of some sort of bizarre Austenian conspiracy. And I definitely didn't know how I was going to persuade Adam to dance with me, but the sight of that envelope, still lying on the table beside the tea tray, galvanized me.

Besides, I really had no other choice. I'd put all my eggs in the one basket. I was out of options.

"So nice to meet you, dear," Hester said as she escorted me to the door. "I hope you and your young man have a lovely day in Bath."

"Thank you." I didn't know what else to say.

"No need." She reached out and gave me a quick hug. "I'm
sure you'll do very well. Just follow your heart. I've always found that to be the very thing for getting what I wanted."

I didn't want to argue with her, to tell her that so far in my life, following my heart had led me down the road to disaster, so I simply nodded, said my good-byes, and turned toward the center of town.

O
bviously there was only one thing to do. I had to meet Jack ... I mean, Adam. I had to meet Adam and drag him to the Assembly Rooms and persuade him to dance with me. But first I would butter him up with lunch.

Sally Lunn's house on Parade Passage was the oldest in Bath, a remnant from pre-Georgian times. Local legend had it that the young French woman appeared in the town in the late 1600s and began selling her eponymous buns. The restaurant still served the famous bread, along with all manner of sweet and savory toppings. I'd read about Sally Lunn buns but never tried them.

I arrived at the restaurant at the appointed meeting time, but there was no sign of Adam. I was afraid to go looking for him, afraid he would turn up if I wandered away, so I stood by the front window of the restaurant, shifting from one foot to the other, trying not to look as if I was being stood up.

Five minutes passed. Then ten. And after half an hour, I knew that Adam wasn't coming. My heart sank lower, inch by inch, until it rested somewhere around the soles of my shoes.

Adam seemed so trustworthy, and he'd been so keen to help me. Had he hopped a train back to London? Found a better lunch date there in Bath? I had no idea, and no way to get in touch with him.

With a sigh of resignation, I turned away from Sally Lunn's and struck out toward the abbey. I would skirt it and then find one of the long streets that would take me up the steep hill to the Upper Assembly Rooms. Even if I couldn't find a dancing partner, I still wanted to see the place and at least imagine what Jane Austen must have felt when she danced there.

The climb to the top of the hill was not an inconsiderable one, and long before I reached the top, I was huffing and puffing. No wonder genteel women in Austen's day had waited for a sedan chair so that a couple of burly porters could provide the necessary muscle. At last, though, I found myself in front of the Assembly Rooms. The main entrance looked like a small Greek temple with its triangular pediment and supporting columns. I stepped underneath and let myself inside.