Attempting Elizabeth (6 page)

The letter. A light bulb went off in my head with a blinding flash. A very disconcerting, troubling, blinding flash.

I had been reading Darcy’s letter to Elizabeth when I fell asleep last night. Or maybe it wasn’t last night, maybe it was only about an hour or so ago—I’d been here for about that long. Tori had dropped me off after we’d seen Ashley at the pub, I‘d cried myself silly, changed into my ratty sweats, had a glass of wine and started reading
Pride and Prejudice
at the first proposal scene and had drifted off during Darcy’s explanation of the events in Ramsgate.

Which is where I now literally, physically was.

Okay, perhaps not physically. There was still the possibility that I really was nuts. Does the time in hallucinations run quite so linear? I couldn’t speed it up by wishing. Having absolutely no previous experience with hallucinations, I had no idea if they were something that happened minute for actual minute or not.

But why pick to hallucinate as Georgiana? Why wouldn’t my sad, scrambled little brain choose to be Lizzy, as
she
was reading the letter? Even insane I’d have to prefer to be Lizzy. If I was honest I’d have to admit I’d wanted to be her for most of my life, ever since reading
Pride and Prejudice
for the first time when I was twelve.

And here was the kicker—the realization that I’d been reading Darcy’s explanation of the aborted elopement right before I opened my eyes as Georgiana—I was starting to think it
wasn’t
a hallucination. I’d opened my mind to the possibility, no matter how far removed and remote and impossible a possibility, that I had actually somehow jumped into the pages of my favorite novel. Into Darcy’s letter.

I tightened my grip on Wickham’s arm. His arm felt so real. He looked down at me and smiled and I felt my stomach turn. He was so dreadfully handsome and he looked absolutely nothing like any of the actors that had played this character in any of the movies or television productions. Mrs. Younge didn’t look anything like the actresses that had played her either. Wouldn’t I have used the likenesses of those actors in my hallucinations? Why would my brain go to the trouble of creating whole new faces? I’m just not that creative.

But what if this is what they
really
looked like? Okay, obviously they aren’t real people, they are characters in a book. But what if this is what Austen had envisioned them as—how they appeared in the pages of the book?

What if this was all
real
?

We finally reached the steps leading up to the townhouse and I allowed Wickham to help me up the steps, leaning on his arm more heavily than I had been. I was beginning to feel lightheaded. I was cruising, at a very high rate of speed, toward a complete Austen fangirl meltdown.

I was in
Pride and Prejudice
.

Mrs. Younge and I dispensed with our bonnets and parasols, handing them to a maidservant, and Wickham guided me back over to the settee. I noticed he sat a lot closer to me this time, reaching forward and holding my hand earnestly.

“Darling, I have had a splendid idea! Oh what fun it would be!” Wickham began as he flashed his dimples at me once more.

I just bet he did. Let me guess: it has to do with Gretna Green, a quickie marriage, and his ultimate control over my money.

“What if, instead of writing to your brother directly, we surprised him with our good news?” Wickham continued.

“How would we do that?” I asked, furrowing my brow for good measure.

“How exciting would it be if we went to Gretna Green to be married, and then joined your brother in London and I could introduce you as my wife?”

“Gretna Green?” I allowed some shock to seep into my voice. “Do you mean elope? Oh no,” I shook my head decisively, “I could never do that. I cannot think that Fitzwilliam would be pleased. He would want to be present for my wedding, surely?”

“But darling,” and here Wickham lowered his voice seductively. “We would have to wait for so many months, there is so much to be done to prepare for a large wedding. I confess I am so entranced by you that I cannot stomach the idea of waiting so long—” he paused for effect, looking deeply into my eyes as he caressed my hand suggestively, “to make you my wife.”

Hmm, outright seduction seemed like an obvious, but effective, ploy. He was so handsome, that even though I despised him as a person and character, I found myself momentarily entranced by the intensity in his eyes and voice. For her part, Mrs. Younge was busying herself with the sewing she hadn’t been able to spare a minute for before Wickham arrived while he set out to seduce her charge right in front of her.

“I am not sure—” I started.

“But, sweet Georgiana, do you not want us to be man and wife as soon as possible?” Wickham’s voice was now basically just a purr.

“Of course,” I replied in little more than a whisper, “but I cannot hurt my brother like that.”

Wickham actually surprised me by laughing. I could tell right away that he’d decided to change tactics. “Hurt him? Georgiana, surely you do not think it would be hurtful to him at all? He would likely be relieved to be free of the expense and tiresome duties of marrying you off. You cannot think a man his age is overly concerned about the romantic life of a younger sister. He would think it all a good joke, I assure you.”

Even though I’d been expecting him to eventually change tactics when the seduction ploy failed, his abrupt change in demeanor took me aback.

“Somehow I doubt that,” I commented drily. Too drily. I saw Wickham’s eyebrows lift slightly.

Mrs. Younge looked up with a piercing stare, finally becoming involved in the conversation. “Miss Darcy, we cannot presume to understand the inclinations and pursuits of a young gentleman your brother’s age. Things that seem very important to us women are only trifling matters to them.”

“I think that Fitzwilliam would be concerned enough over an elopement not to find it a ‘good joke,’” I said pulling my hand out of Wickham’s and placing it back on my own lap.

He must have felt his prey slipping through his fingers. “I do not think, my dear, that you know your brother very well at all. You are, after all, much younger than him, whereas I have been his friend for years. We practically grew up together while you were still in the nursery.”

For some reason this made me angry. I didn’t really expect much from Wickham; in fact, what I expected was for him to be a complete and total tool and manipulate Georgiana mercilessly. I figured he would use whatever tactics seemed to work best, and it shouldn’t have surprised me that he’d switch so quickly from seduction to trying to destroy the self-esteem of this poor fifteen-year-old girl and make her believe that the one person left in her immediate family not only didn’t really care about her, but was completely beyond her understanding or comprehension because she was just a silly, young girl.

Maybe it was because these speeches were being given directly to me. Being present for the manipulation was a hell of a lot different than just sort of wondering, as a completely removed reader, why Georgiana had allowed herself to be swayed. As said reader, I knew that she was shy and often uncertain, and here was Wickham ruthlessly using those parts of her personality to get his own way. Manipulating bastards are frustrating enough (see Jordan as a case in point) but ones who prey on underage teenagers are the worst sort of creeps. I was suddenly filled with rage for fifteen-year-old girls everywhere (and, admittedly, the naïve awkward girl I had been at that age).

I didn’t have to play along. I wasn’t a real character in this little drama.

“Actually,” I said imperiously as I stood up. “I think, my dear Mr. Wickham, that you are full of it.”

Wickham gaped up at me. “I do not know what you mean,” he sputtered.

“Don’t you? Let me lay it out for you then.” I abandoned all attempts at speaking with Regency diction as I picked up steam. “You’re after Georgiana’s, er,
my
money. Do you think I don’t know that you’ve got no money of your own? And that you haven’t spoken to my brother in years?”

I felt a thrill at the twin expressions of shock on Wickham and Mrs. Younge’s faces. “I appreciate your attempts at deception here, truly I do. It must have been horrible to have to spend time convincing an innocent, unworldly teenager to fall in love with you and agree to hand over her freedom and her fortune to you. Well, sorry, Bud, that little fantasy ends here. I don’t suppose it matters, because surprise! Fitzwilliam Darcy is going to show up here and ruin your little run away plot anyway, so there isn’t really any point in getting me to agree to something so patently stupid and against my interests. You lose in the end, Wickham. So you might as well just go now and save me the trouble of pretending to be interested in this any longer.”

Sometime during my speech Wickham had stood up as well, his cheeks were flushed dull red with anger. He opened his mouth, but before he could say anything I cut him off.

“Save it.” I walked regally to the door of the sitting room. I had no idea where Georgiana’s room was, but I figured either my feet would find it eventually or I could ask a servant. I was hoping I could lie down and sleep off the rest of this interesting little experience.

I was starting to doubt my earlier belief that I really was inside
Pride and Prejudice
. Mostly because that opened up a whole world of problems I wasn’t ready to deal with. But if this was just a hallucination then it could only last for so long, right? I was suddenly very tired of playing along. As I reached the door, I turned my head and shot over my shoulder, “Oh, and Mrs. Younge? My brother will be firing you as soon as he gets here, so you might want to start packing.”

With that I swept out of the room and into the hallway. I could hear the consternation I’d caused as the conspirators voices began to be raised, accusations over Georgiana’s uncharacteristic behavior flying furiously. I couldn’t really bring myself to care. I just wanted to be done with Wickham and the odious Mrs. Younge. And nice though I’m sure she was, I really wanted to be done being in Georgiana’s body.

I was right, my feet knew exactly where to go. I entered Georgiana’s room, done in soft pastels and cream, with a relieved sigh. I leaned against the door, glad to be away from other people. There was an open door on one wall of the room, and I was curious enough to investigate—it opened into a small dressing room, complete with vanity and mirror. I sat down on the padded stool in front of the vanity and stared into the mirror.

Georgiana stared back at me. Her thick dark hair was pulled back into a loose bun with a few curls framing her pale, thin face. She had overly large brown eyes ringed with thick lashes and high cheekbones. In my world she would probably be a high fashion model. In hers she probably was thought of as too thin and sallow. She was so, so very young. Her face and body still had that sort of coltish look that so many teen girls struggle through. You could see the beginnings of womanhood, but it hadn’t been fully realized yet. Seeing for myself how young and innocent she was physically fired up my anger against Wickham even more. I muttered a curse under my breath and went back into the bedroom. Flinging myself onto the bed, I threw one arm over my eyes to block out the sunlight streaming in from the two windows that faced out toward the sea, and prayed that I would wake up soon. As myself.

“Well, what if there is no tomorrow? There wasn't one today.”

My sleep was
restless. After hours of tossing and turning, the strange whooshing and sucking noise started again. This time I could almost feel it, like invisible waves pulling and tugging at my body.

Then I felt the warm sunlight on my face. I opened my eyes, blinking in confusion against the brightness.

“...and I must say, he was paying you particular attention yesterday during our stroll. Did you not notice it? Such charming manners, and so handsome.”

Not only had I not gone to bed and awakened back at home, in my own body, I was right back in the sitting room on the settee with Mrs. Younge yammering to me about Wickham. I glared down at my sewing sampler in impotent rage and confusion. What. Was. Going. On?

It was time to face some facts. I had never before exhibited any signs of mental illness. I would assume (not that I have anything beyond one general ed undergrad psychology class from which I remember less than nothing to base this assumption on) that such a complete psychotic break would have some sort of precursors or warnings. Like depression or moodiness or something, right?

It could be caused by a traumatic event. But honestly, though I’d cried after seeing Ashley at McKinney’s, being cheated on by Jordan was less traumatic and shocking than one would hope. I felt a distinct lack of sadness over losing Jordan and was more just pissed off at being lied too. Could breaking up with someone that you secretly had already admitted to yourself that you didn’t love involve enough trauma to send an otherwise steady and sound person into a complete tailspin two full months later?

So, if I were to rule out a complete break with reality that left me where? With this being reality? Was I actually physically in a fictional world created in the mind of a British woman two hundred years ago?

It wasn’t like I could even claim I’d time travelled (and sadly, that seemed more probable to me than my current situation). Yes, this was Regency England—I’m guessing I was in 1810. Based on my understanding of the timeline of
Pride and Prejudice,
it mostly takes place in 1811 and Darcy says in his letter to Elizabeth that Georgiana’s near elopement had taken place the summer before. I suppose if I’d known I was going to end up trapped between the pages of the book I’d have paid a bit more attention to details like dates.

But it wasn’t really 1810. It was 1810 as written about in a novel by Jane Austen. A novel populated by fictional characters. And I was one of them. And apparently time hadn’t moved forward at all, because this all felt very
déjà vu
.

I decided to test my “time has not moved forward” theory. “I was just thinking what a lovely walk we had yesterday with Mr. Wickham.”

“Yes, it was quite a nice walk. Mr Wickham is such a great walker,” she replied.

“Oh, er, yes,” I answered cautiously. “It was quite a lovely walk, though perhaps the conversation was a bit, um, unusual.”

Mrs. Younge looked at me with one eyebrow raised. “Was it? It seemed quite normal to me, although Mr. Wickham did pay you several pretty compliments.”

“So then, you don’t remember Mr. Wickham proposing marriage to me yesterday?”

“I—I—beg you your pardon?” Mrs. Younge sputtered. “Wickham...No, surely he would have—”

“Would have what, Mrs. Younge? Told you ahead of time? You’re co-conspirators after all.” My theory was correct. I was right back where I’d started. And I’d already blown my demure Georgiana act before I’d even gotten it started. “So is he supposed to propose today, then?”

Mrs. Younge took a deep breath and schooled her features into a placid expression. “I do not understand,” she said carefully, “what you are speaking of.”

“Don’t you?” I asked sarcastically. My sense of
déjà vu
was now so strong that I was secretly glancing around for a glitch in the Matrix. “Me. Wickham. Eloping. Thirty thousand pounds. Any of these ringing a bell?” I crossed my legs and leaned back against the settee in a very unladylike manner “What’s in it for you? Is he paying you off with part of my dowry?” Mrs. Younge’s pale blue eyes shifted to the side, refusing to meet my direct stare. “Or is he already paying you off, so to speak?”

A flush, whether of anger or embarrassment, I couldn’t tell, infused Mrs. Younge’s cheeks.

“Oh,” I said knowingly. “He
is
already paying you, and not just in money.” I wondered how much I could get away with...maybe if I was just totally as un-Georgiana as possible I would somehow jar myself out of this craziness. “So, is George good in bed?” There was a small gasp of shock from Mrs. Younge, but I was on a roll. “I’ve always wondered why so many women fall all over themselves for him. I mean Georgiana, um, me, I get, and even Lydia—she’s young and stupid—but why would a woman like you hitch your wagon to that mess? You could have a real and respectable job doing this companion thing, or even the boarding house thing you do later, why waste all this effort on Wickham? Is the sex really that good?”

By this time Mrs. Younge was shaking with rage. Her face had contorted, her lips curling into an unattractive snarl. “Be quiet! Stop it this moment.”

“Hitting a little to close to home there, huh, Younge? I find myself kind of morbidly curious about you’re sordid little affair with Wickham. How much younger is he than you do you think? Ten, fifteen years? Does he make you feel all young and desirable and all that?”

Mrs. Younge stood up quickly from her chair. “You little viper,” she spat. “I thought you were just a spoiled, stupid girl but you are —”

“Yeah, yeah, appearances can be deceiving.” I rolled my eyes with deliberate insolence. “Take you, for example. And now this is going to be all awkward—you storming around, alerting Wickham that the plan has gone horribly awry,
yadda yadda yadda
. I’m not spending the rest of the day hiding in my room again, so save us all the trouble and stay out of my way. Pack your bags and get out of town and all that, but I don’t want to see you, okay?”

“You do not have the authority to fire me.”

“Did I forget to mention that my brother is already on his way here? Oh, oops! Silly of me. Yeah, my brother is on his way here to throw you out on your ass, so might as well beat him to the punch. Have a nice life. Tell Wickham to go screw himself. I hear the Militia is hiring, he might want to get an actual job as the heiress stealing seems to not be working out.”

I thought for a minute she was going to leap across the room and throttle me. Instead, she turned with a strangled scream of frustration and fled the sitting room.

I crossed my arms behind my head. It was really quite satisfying to verbally abuse her like that. I supposed that made me a horrible person, I’m sure she had circumstances in her life that I knew nothing about that had turned her into the person she was—every character has a backstory—but I didn’t really care. She was about to throw a fifteen-year-old girl under the bus so she and her lover could benefit from said fifteen-year-old’s money. And she was going to use her influence as a woman in authority over Georgiana to convince her to run away from her family and marry this guy. It basically amounted to child sex-trafficking in my mind. And I was not okay with child sex-trafficking. Especially when I was the child involved.

After a moment of basking in my bad-ass glory, I decided to investigate the rest of the bottom floor of the townhouse. I’d really only seen the sitting room, the short distance between that room and the front door, and the stairs that led up to the second floor where the bedrooms. I wandered from room to room taking in the gracious furnishings. I’m sure it was nothing compared to Pemberley, or even the townhouse Darcy kept in London, but to me it was pretty awe inspiring. Both of my parents worked and were relatively well off, but the kind of money this house spoke of was beyond my comprehension. And it wasn’t ostentatious at all, nothing screamed
“Hey look at me; I cost lots of money!”
the way some houses did back home. The house and furnishings and fabrics just sort of whispered of the wealth that provided them. Obviously the Darcys had taste. Classy, moneyed taste.

Eventually I ran out of rooms to wander through. I hadn’t heard much from Mrs. Younge, other than some crashing and banging upstairs and the occasional concerned looking maid running up and down the stairs. One could only hope it meant she was packing her stuff and getting the heck out of Dodge. I felt bad for the maids though. There seemed to be three of them, and they were all very young. Then there was the butler, Hodges, who I’d met before our little walk the day before.

I meandered back to the sitting room. Georgiana’s sewing sampler was sitting on the settee where I’d dropped it during my verbal sparring match with Younge. None of the stitches that I’d set “yesterday” were placed. While I’d been sitting there for that half hour mindlessly letting Georgiana’s hands work away on the sampler an entire row of small roses to the left of the verse had been filled in. Now, the pale pink thread that I’d used was threaded through the needle, but only two stitches had been set in that color.

I sighed. I didn’t want to have to think through what was actually happening. My brain hurt.

It was time I face it. There was no other explanation. I was living some sort of freakish Austenesque redux of
Groundhog Day
. I was Bill Murray. But like a chick, Regency era version of Bill Murray. I couldn’t remember for the life of me the name of his character in that movie...Phil something or other I think...just the fact that he had the hots for Andie McDowell, was stuck reliving the same day over and over, and that each morning was heralded by the musical stylings of
Sonny and Cher
singing
I’ve Got You Babe
on the radio. Well, I didn’t have a radio, or any electricity at all, nor was I even allowed to “wake up” in the traditional sense, so I’d been spared
Sonny and Cher
. I suppose I should be thankful for small favors.

My strongest memories of
Groundhog Day
were all of the attempts of Bill Murray’s character to kill himself as he relived the day over and over. I distinctly remembered him throwing a toaster in the bath (again, no electricity) and stepping in front of a truck (not gonna happen in 1810, but perhaps I could throw myself in front of a carriage or something). Killing himself hadn’t worked for Phil Whatever-His-Name-Was, and there was no reason to assume it would work for me either. I mean, what if by killing off Georgiana I did somehow rend the fragile fabric between novel and reality and permanently alter
Pride and Prejudice
. I couldn’t live with myself if I screwed up my favorite book! Or maybe I wouldn’t have to live with myself, maybe if I killed myself here I’d be dead in real life too.

It could be that even now I was still lying asleep or comatose or something on the couch in my apartment. And if I walked down the street and drowned myself in the ocean, or climbed up to the roof and threw myself down to the cobblestones below, I’d die here
and
there. Tori would find my cold, lifeless body on the couch. Oh god, I was wearing my rattiest sweats when I fell asleep. How humiliating would it be to die in those? I didn’t want the coroner or the crime scene people (I mean, they’d call out CSI right, a perfectly healthy twenty-three year old dying randomly on her couch seemed suspicious, didn’t it?) to see me in those sweats. Pathetic.

I didn’t realize I was clutching the sampler in a death grip until the needle poked my thumb viciously. I cursed and dropped the offending fabric, sticking my thumb into my mouth even though I knew that it was a stupid thing to do. Good, maybe Georgiana had some sort of horrific bacteria in her mouth and I’d get gangrene and die.

But I’d still be in those damn sweats. Why couldn’t I have fallen asleep in a really flattering outfit? Even the jeans I’d had on earlier would have been preferable.

Stupid, stupid, stupid Kelsey.

Okay, I needed to get a grip. A serious grip. I wasn’t sure that this same day was going to replay over and over
à la
Groundhog Day
. All I knew for sure was that I’d gone to sleep twice now, once in the real world, and once in Georgiana’s bed, and awakened in the sitting room at 1:30 p.m.

There was nothing that said I had to sit around and wait for tomorrow to come anyway. Killing myself was out, but why jump to that extreme? I hadn’t killed myself to get into the book. I wouldn’t have to kill myself to get out.

I hadn’t, until just the moment, realized that my brain had fully embraced the concept that I was, in fact, inside the pages of
Pride and Prejudice
. That I’d let go of the hallucination explanation (I fully admit the odds of me being certifiable were still good, but the odds of this just being a hallucination were seeming slimmer and slimmer with every moment that passed).

I’d fallen asleep...and then here I was. What if all I needed to do was fall back asleep to get out. But I’d fallen asleep last night...just in Georgiana’s bed. At home I’d fallen asleep on the couch. Perhaps I needed to do that here.

I stretched out, sprawling in a very unladylike manner, across the settee, propping my dress-clad legs up on the armrest and laying my head on the opposite headrest. It was not entirely comfortable. I lay there for a few minutes, not feeling sleepy at all. I kicked off Georgiana’s shoes. Pretty sure I’d had my shoes off when I fell asleep. It wasn’t like I could go find a pair of ten-year-old fuzzy sweatpants here, so this was as close as I was going to get.

I stared up at the ceiling, praying for sleep. Nothing. It was the middle of the day and I wasn’t exactly a nap kind of person. I counted backward from a hundred, then from a thousand. Nothing.

I got up and went in search of some alcohol. There had to be some somewhere, right? I’d had wine before I went to sleep, maybe that would help. I remembered a promising looking cabinet in another room. It was set up kind of like a study or office, with a desk and a few chairs. It was probably intended to be used by the man of the house. Though I doubted that Darcy visited Georgiana here in Ramsgate that often, I had a slight hope that it had at least been stocked in case he chose to visit.