Adventures with Jane and her Legacy 01 Jane Austen Ruined My Life (9 page)

He nodded. "Cool. We can make a plan from there."

I glanced at my watch and pretended to be surprised. "Oh, it's later than I thought. I've got to go."

"Back to the mystery cousin?" He was warming to the challenge already. It had been a long time since I'd been a challenge to anyone, and I had to admit that it felt pretty good.

I stood up, and he did the same. "I'll see you tomorrow," I said.

"Great." He reached out, and we shook hands again. At his touch, a little zing traveled up my arm. "See you tomorrow."

I made my escape as fast as I could. How on earth had I jumped from the frying pan into the fire so quickly? And now
I would have to meet Barry again and spend more time with him, right after receiving my next task from Mrs. Parrot.

Mumbling a few choice imprecations under my breath, I turned uphill and began the climb back to Anne-Elise's town house, wondering when in the world I was ever going to learn.

When I walked in the door, I could hear Adam's voice coming from the kitchen. I thought about sneaking upstairs to my bedroom but decided that would look like I was avoiding him. Which I was. So of course I couldn't actually avoid him, or he'd know.

He was on the phone. I stood in the kitchen doorway and cleared my throat to get his attention.

"Yes, ma'am. No, ma'am." Whomever he was talking to, he could barely get a word in edgewise. Then he saw me, and his face sagged with what I could only describe as relief.

"It's your mom." Adam mouthed the words, his hand over the receiver of the handset.

I shook my head. Vigorously. "I'm not here," I whispered. "Tell her I'll call her back."

"Why don't you want to talk to your mom?"

Honestly. Couldn't the man just follow instructions? I made a slashing motion across my throat and jerked my head, indicating the phone.

"You should talk to her," he hissed again. Then he thrust the receiver toward me, and I took it automatically.

How could I explain to him that my mother was the last person in the world I wanted to talk to at that moment? I'd been too embarrassed, too devastated to tell my parents the whole truth about my marriage. "It's just not working out," I'd said to them over the phone, and they'd sounded shocked at first, and then betrayed, as if I'd personally deprived them of the joy of a happy ending for their daughter.

I put the receiver to my ear.

"Emmie, honey, we've been so worried." My mom's voice, familiar and irritating all at once, poured through the phone line. "How are you?"

"Have you been to church?" my dad asked.

"Dad?" Adam hadn't mentioned that my father was on the line as well.

"Not now, Howard," my mom said. "Honey, what do you need? What can we do for you?"

It's strange how even in your thirties, knowing your parents would still bail you out helps you feel better, even if you know you could never take them up on the offer, not without sacrificing every iota of adult independence.

"I'm fine, Mom."

"What about financially?" That was my dad. I could picture them, my mom on the portable handset and my dad in the kitchen, tethered by a fifteen-foot cord to the oldest functioning rotary dial phone in America.

"We can put some money in your account," my mom said. "If you need it."

And there it was. A way out of my difficulties, at least my financial ones. I was so tempted. But I was also a grown-up.

"No, thanks," I said, kicking myself for my stupidity even as the words came out of my mouth. "I'm fine. No problem."

"Well, if you're sure." My mom sounded relieved. "Call us every week, okay? Or e-mail."

"I'll e-mail," I said, seizing on the cheapest option. "Anne-Elise has Internet access here." A fact for which I was profoundly grateful.

"All right, then," my dad said. "Go to church, okay, honey? For me?"

"I'll do my best, Dad," I said, which kept me from adding another lie to my list of sins.

"Honey," my mom said, "why is Adam there? That just seems a little, well, coincidental."

I couldn't have agreed more. "Apparently Anne-Elise doesn't keep very good track of who she invites to visit, so we're sharing. No big deal."

"Still ..." My dad paused. "I'm not sure I like the idea of you being alone in a house with him."

"Dad, he's an English professor, not Frankenstein's monster." My parents were old-fashioned, to say the least. "Our bedrooms aren't even on the same floor. It's okay, really. And Anne-Elise should be back any day." This wasn't untrue. Just not precisely ... precise.

Dad harrumphed, which meant he wasn't happy with the situation, but he wasn't going to make a federal case out of it
either. Of course, I was a thirty-three-year-old woman who'd been married for years. It was a bit late to start lecturing me about my virtue. Besides, in my whole life, I'd never given them any reason to worry about my morals. It was Edward's morals we should have all been worrying about.

We said our good-byes, and when I hung up the phone, I expected to feel a huge sense of relief. Instead, I was swamped by another surge of loneliness and grief. At some point, I was going to have to tell them the truth about the breakup of my marriage, and how I was now unencumbered by gainful employment. How, in all likelihood, I might be moving in with them again in the near future.

But that would wait. For now, I had plenty to keep me occupied, like figuring out why in the world I had agreed to a rendezvous with Barry the next day. But mostly I needed to decide what in the world I was going to say to Mrs. Parrot, because I wasn't sure that my conjectures about the mysterious Jack Smith were what she'd sent me to Steventon to find.

My head now in as much turmoil as my heart, I bid Adam a quick good-night and climbed the stairs for the refuge of my bed. With any luck, things would look better in the morning.

After all, they could hardly get worse.

F
ortunately for me, my return trip to Mrs. Parrot's house included an invitation to lunch. I thought of her home, crammed to the eaves with books and furniture and bric-a-brac, and wondered where she possibly had room to store any food. But these days I was grateful for anyone willing to feed me.

"Very well done. You're right on time," she said when she greeted me at the door. This time, she didn't take me into the lounge but led me farther back into the house.

"I hope you don't mind if we don't use the dining room." She ushered me into a small sunlit room barely large enough to hold a table and chairs. "Once upon a time, this was a butler's pantry, but I find it does well for my meals."

The walls, papered in familiar faded cabbage roses, boasted a wealth of early nineteenth-century prints. Fashion plates, mostly, from the ladies' magazines of the time, showing day
dresses, evening gowns, riding habits--everything a woman of quality might need. Jane Austen, or more likely her sister, Cassandra, would have studied them and adapted the ideas to their own tastes and means.

"Here. Do sit down. I'll fetch the lunch."

"Please. Let me help."

"No, no. I won't be a minute."

Given her shuffling gait, Mrs. Parrot was going to need more than a minute to bring lunch from the kitchen. I settled in to wait. I'd have much preferred helping her, of course, but my mother had drilled me in the social graces at a young age, and doing as your hostess instructed had been at the top of the list.

The pantry windows looked out on the small garden at the back of the house. The landscape was as jumbled and curious as the inside of the house. No formal parterre here, but rather a mishmash of roses, fruit trees, trellises, and archways. The foliage was lush and vibrant, though. Mrs. Parrot employed an excellent gardener.

The door opened, and Mrs. Parrot reappeared. "Here we are, my dear." She carried the tray with surprising ease, but I still stood up and reached out to take it from her. "Oh, thank you. Just put it there on the table."

The tray contained a plate of sandwiches, two packets of chips much like the ones Adam had furnished for our picnic, and a bottle of sparkling water. I set the tray on the table. Mrs. Parrot settled into her chair, and I did the same.

"So," she said, reaching for a sandwich and placing it on the delicate bone china in front of her, "you've been to Steventon?"

"Yes, ma'am." I hesitated, unsure whether to offer any further answer.

"Here, take your crisps along with that sandwich," she said, referring to the potato chips by their British name. "They're murder on the arteries, but I never can seem to resist."

I hid my smile and did as instructed.

"What did you think of the church?" she asked as she reached for the bottle of sparkling water and poured it into the waiting glasses. "Quaint, isn't it?"

"Yes. And peaceful. I'm glad it's not mobbed by tourists, although I wish the rectory were still there. That empty field was a bit anticlimactic."

She nodded. "Yes, it is, isn't it?" She took a sip of her water. "And the parish register?"

I decided to lay my cards on the table. "I'll be honest, Mrs. Parrot. I'm not exactly sure what you sent me to Steventon to find. But I studied the page from the register, and I read the letter you gave me." I paused. "Is it really authentic?"

Mrs. Parrot smiled. "Of course, dear."

I waited for her to say more, but she merely bit into her sandwich.

"As I said, I'm not sure what you sent me to look for ..." My words trailed off. "I know I'm supposed to figure it out, but all I could think of was--"

"Was what, dear?"

"Well, after looking at the mock entries in the parish register and then reading the letter, all I could come up with was that maybe Jack Smith was a real person. Not like the first two."

Mrs. Parrot was nodding. "Very good. Yes, very good. I knew you were a bright girl."

Since I was on the wrong side of thirty, I should probably have objected to being called a girl, but I rather liked it.

"So I'm right? Jack Smith was a real person, not a figment of her imagination?"

"Well, now, that would be telling, wouldn't it?" Mrs. Parrot popped a crisp into her mouth and munched away happily.

"There's nothing wrong with telling, is there?" I wasn't above begging if it came down to it.

Mrs. Parrot patted her mouth daintily with a cloth napkin. "Where would the fun be in that, my dear? No, no. Patience is the order of the day. All will be revealed in time."

Was she playing me? The thought popped into my head, and I couldn't immediately quash it. I really had no proof of her claims, other than my own unsubstantiated belief in the authenticity of the letter she'd given me. Maybe I was only seeing what I wanted to see.

"So, did I pass the first test?"

She sighed and laid her napkin on the table. "A task, dear. A task. And, yes, I would say you completed it quite satisfactorily." She paused. "I'm surprised, if you're an Austen scholar, that you've never been to Steventon before. Is this your first visit to England?"

I shook my head. "No."

I didn't elaborate. I was beginning to see how my answer to the question looked from other people's points of view. I'd been to England several times but never for my own purposes. Always for Edward's. Funny how when I'd been in the midst of my marriage, I really hadn't had a very good perspective on it.

"
Hmm
" was all Mrs. Parrot said. "Well, then, it's time to set you about your second task."

"But what about Jack Smith? Am I right? Was he real?"

Mrs. Parrot's eyes twinkled. "My dear, as I said, that would be telling." She stood up and crossed to the sideboard behind me. "Your next task requires less in the way of traveling. In fact, you can complete it this afternoon if you like."

I suppressed a sigh of relief. No travel expenses for the moment, thank heavens. "What is it?"

"A trip to Hatchards, my dear. On Piccadilly. Do you know it?"

"The bookshop?" It was where Jane Austen had been reputed to buy books when she visited London.

"Yes. It's owned by that chain Waterstone's now, but at least they've kept it intact."

"What do I do there?"

"Why, buy a copy of a Jane Austen novel, of course." She smiled, her face lit with good humor. "
Emma
, to be particular. And then you must read it."