I Was Jane Austen's Best Friend (31 page)

In a minute Captain Williams is bowing over my hand. He kisses it and the kiss seems to last a long time. I feel his lips on my hand. The backs of my fingers feel hot. I know that I am blushing, but I don’t care.

‘I’ve been thinking about you every day this week,’ he says. ‘I wanted to come to see you again, but I had to go
to Southampton. We are recruiting men for a voyage to the East Indies; I’m so busy that I mostly only have the weekends to myself.’

I hardly hear him; nothing seems to matter except that he is with me and that he has missed me during the week. I don’t need Jane to tell me that I am in love. My heart is beating very quickly and I want to go even closer to him; I want to feel his arms around me.

‘Let’s dance,’ he says.

And we dance.

I don’t know who is beside me, or who is opposite me when we cross over. I am conscious of only three things: a pair of brown eyes that are looking into mine, a hand that touches my waist as we walk down to the end of the line and a voice as smooth as chocolate in my ear.

And then the dance is finished. Everyone is standing in the line, breathless and laughing.

‘I think Jenny is the prettiest name in the world,’ says Captain Williams. In quite a natural manner he keeps his hand at the back of my waist. I don’t move away from him; I don’t care who is looking at us.

‘I like your name too,’ I say.

‘Don’t call me Tom, though, will you? I hate Tom. Everyone is called Tom; I much prefer Thomas.’ There is laughter in his voice as he speaks. I so love his voice. I laugh too as I think of Jane and her two Toms. We are both still laughing when we reach the buffet table and he says, ‘Would you like an ice?’

I nod. I have never eaten an ice, but at this moment I would agree to anything he suggests.

There is quite a crowd there; I am squeezed up against some very fat lady with a large fan and a hat full of swaying feathers. She is much taller than I am, and on my other side is Thomas, tall and broad-shouldered, towering over everyone in the room. No one can see me. Thomas glances around and for a moment he bends towards me. I think he is going to kiss me, but he just touches my cheek with his finger and then he is gone.

‘Let’s get out of this crowd,’ he says when he comes back with two plates. So we go and sit under the palm-filled colonnade at the side of the ballroom.

‘How do you like your ice?’ he asks.

Anything he had brought to me would have tasted good, but the ice is especially delicious. I have never tasted anything like that. It is frozen and yet sweet.

‘Sweet.’ He just murmurs the word. I find myself wondering whether he is talking about me or the ice.

‘Let’s dance,’ he says when I finish. He takes my hand and tucks it around his arm, and gently sweeps a stray curl away from my face with his other hand. I wonder whether it is improper, but no one seems to have noticed. We join the line that is forming and he releases me with one of his ravishing smiles – the flash of white teeth drawing attention to the smooth colour of those very high cheekbones and the softness of his brown eyes.

He is a very good dancer. He keeps perfect time with
me – all the Austens are good dancers, and so are their pupils, but Thomas is the best partner that I have ever had. Up and down the row, crossing hands, whirling around, marking time, my train with its lovely blue beads swirling behind me – I want that dance to go on forever. From time to time I remember his shoulder and am careful not to put my weight on his arm during left swings, but mostly I just enjoy myself. My busy, worrying brain has gone silent – only my body is working.

‘Like another ice?’ he asks when the music has finished and he has led me to a seat under the colonnade of marble pillars. And then he is gone before I can even answer. I look after him, admiring the way he makes his way so quickly and neatly through the crowd that’s clustered around the laden supper table, how he smiles and nods and says a few words here and there but never allows himself to be slowed or diverted from his task. He is the most handsome man in the room, I think, as he comes back smiling with a bowl of pale pink ice in his hand.

‘What about yourself?’ I ask.

‘I’ll finish yours if it’s too much for you,’ he says. It sounds rather improper, I think, but there is no one near enough to hear.

And then we talk, mostly about our childhoods. He tells me that he went to a naval college when he was only twelve years old – his uncle, the admiral, paid his fees, and his mother was glad that her brother took such
an interest in her son. Then, when his mother died, his uncle became guardian to both him and his sister.

‘Tell me about your family,’ he says then. And so I start to tell him about Augusta. I wish that I could make it sound funny, as Jane would have done, but my feelings are too strong for that, and from time to time I hear my voice wobble. I am only about halfway through telling all the things that she used to say to me, when it occurs to me that I am sounding childish and silly so I stop abruptly, take another spoonful and say, ‘Tell me some more about your sister.’

‘You should stand up to her, you know,’ he says, ignoring me. ‘People like your Augusta are just bullies. If you stand up to them, they back down, but if you give in to them they get worse and worse.’

‘That’s easy to say.’ I surprise myself by saying that quite loudly, and he looks a little surprised too. And then he grins. ‘That’s the spirit,’ he says with another of his devastating smiles. ‘I know it’s not easy.’ His voice is very gentle now and the tone of it sends shivers down my back. He stretches out a hand and I place mine in his. He runs a finger of his other hand up and down the stitching on my glove, just between my own fingers. His eyes are not looking at me though, but gaze unseeing into one of the potted palms. ‘I know when I was about your age I tried to stand up to the admiral and insisted that my sister should be brought home from that awful boarding school that she hated, but he just told me to
leave the room, and I’ll never forgive myself for going off with my tail between my legs.’ His smooth voice deepens and roughens and his eyes harden. And then he says, ‘That’s the last time that I ever allowed anyone to push me around. Girls died in those boarding schools, you know. If my sister had died from lack of food or care, I would have killed the admiral.’

I give a little shiver and hand him the rest of my ice. I don’t know whether it is the ice making me cold or the expression on his face.

For a few minutes nothing is said while he moodily spoons the rest of the ice into his mouth, but then he touches the curl that hangs down over my forehead and smiles at me.

‘There’s no need for you to be scared of anyone.’ His voice is very gentle now, and his brown eyes are soft again. ‘If Augusta scolds you, stand up to her. If she finds out about Southampton – and it doesn’t really matter if she does; she or anyone else – then just say that you did the right thing and you saved your cousin. And if that doesn’t work, send for me – night or day, I’ll come riding to the rescue with my two pistols at the ready.’

And then he laughs, and I laugh at the thought of Augusta being threatened with two pistols.

And after that it is time to line up again. This time Jane, partnered by Tom Lefroy, is beside me. I see her looking up at Thomas as they cross hands together in the middle of the line.

‘Oh heavens, my dear, what a very fine beau you have found for yourself. I do declare that he is almost as fine as Valancourt in
The Mysteries of Udolpho,
’ she murmurs in my ear when she returns to my side. I am not embarrassed. I just chuckle. Suddenly I feel full of confidence. The most handsome man in the room is my partner and I feel as though I am in heaven. I see Lady Portsmouth staring at me, but I don’t care. Nothing matters except Thomas.

‘Jenny, let’s not dance the next dance,’ he says.

I have lost count; I don’t know whether it is the fourth or the fifth dance, but I don’t mind as long as Thomas is with me.

‘Let’s go and sit out in the colonnade again.’ He leads me over to a small stone bench beside one of the tall marble pillars. I sit down and cool first one cheek and then the other against the cold marble of the pillar. He sits down beside me. There is barely room for the two of us.

‘Are you tired?’ I ask.

He shakes his head. ‘I just want us to talk,’ he explains.

He tells me about the East Indies, and about the tigers and elephants that he has seen and about his voyages to the other side of the world – to the West Indies. I tell him a bit more about my life in Bristol – about my brother and his wife and about my life before that. I tell him about my mama, and tears come into my eyes. He puts his arm around me and holds me very close to him
for a minute. When he releases me I know I am blushing, but it doesn’t matter. Here under the palms no one can see my hot cheeks.

And then, as the music slows and the dance is finishing, he says, ‘Perhaps you will come and see my home one day and meet my uncle and my sister – will you do that?’

I can’t say anything. He doesn’t seem to want an answer. He can probably read it in my smile.

‘Sitting under these palms makes me feel as if we are on one of those islands near Barbados that you were telling me about,’ I say.

‘I wish we were,’ he answers. ‘You can’t imagine what the islands are like, Jenny. The sea is so blue and the sands are so white. The sun is dazzling.’

‘Mama would say that is bad for the complexion,’ I say, smiling. It’s strange, but it is the first time since Mama died that I am able to mention her without pain.

‘You would sit under the shade of the palm trees during the day,’ he says, taking my hand to pull me to my feet. The master of ceremonies is calling everyone to take their places for the next dance. ‘And by moonlight you could bathe in the warm sea,’ he whispers in my ear as he escorts me across the ballroom so that we can join the long line of gentlemen and ladies.

I’ll remember this all my life, I think: the candles flickering in the cut-glass chandelier; the sudden scent
of lavender water wafted on the hot air; the pungent smell of hot wax and of buckskin gloves; the musicians playing very softly, the voices murmuring, exclaiming, laughing; the gentlemen handsome in black coats, but more dashing in the red coats of the army or in the royal blue of the navy; the pretty whites, pinks, blues and yellows of the muslin gowns as we all cross and cross back from partner to partner.

Saturday night, 2 April 1791

I’m sitting here thinking about the ball — trying to put off the moment when I must write down what happened after those first most wonderful, magical few hours …

Everything was going well.

And then I had to spoil it all. I think it started when he said, ‘Don’t stand there; that candle is drooping; you’ll get hot wax all over you,’ as I took my place beside Elizabeth Bigg. His hand was on my arm and he moved me down a little, just as someone would move a child.

‘Don’t pout,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t like to see the candle drip on your curls.’ He was quite casual about it. A minute later he was looking with a puzzled frown on his face at someone at the top of the room, near the doorway.

I could see that Elizabeth Bigg had heard what he said and I felt very embarrassed. I felt annoyed that he was treating me like a child. I remembered all the things that Jane told me, and what Eliza told me. I wanted to behave like a sophisticated woman and I tried to flirt with him, but it didn’t seem to work. He just looked amused and the frown disappeared from his forehead. He took no notice when I used my fan and cast down my eyelashes and then peeped up at him. I even tried saying, ‘Oh la …’ but he didn’t
seem to respond. He just danced with a faint smile on his face and a look as if his thoughts were far away.

When we sat out after this dance, it seemed as if Thomas was still thinking of that terrible night again. He started questioning me about it. In a way it was a relief to pour it all out — I often had nightmares about it still. I told him all about the sailors who shouted, ‘Look at that little beauty!’ and called to me to join them, about the inn full of drunken men, and the lady who stared at me with such disapproval and then pulled down the blind. When I had finished he took my hand and kissed my fingers, but his face was very serious and his brown eyes were dark and hard.

‘Promise me that you will never do a thing like that again,’ he said.

I took my hand away from his and shrugged my shoulders. He was treating me like a little girl again, I thought. Men should fall at your feet — if I could believe Eliza and Jane — not order you to do things.

‘I don’t know,’ I said, and I thought I sounded grown-up and sophisticated. ‘I suppose it was rather an adventure.’

I could see a flush come to his cheekbones — it surprised me that I could see it as his face was so tanned and his colour so good already. His eyes were still very hard. I looked down and played with my fan, placing it into the ‘maybe’ position. Already I was
wishing that I had not said that. It sounded silly. When I looked up he was not even looking at me. He was looking quite away from me.

‘Excuse me for a moment,’ he said, and then he walked away from me. I was left sitting by myself, eating my ice; after a minute I pushed it away. It had begun to melt and the taste was too sweet. What was he doing? He had gone towards the door and had now completely disappeared. There was a crowd of naval men near the door, all laughing, and I wondered whether he was among them. But no, he was so tall that he would have been head and shoulders over most of them. He must have gone out. But why? And where had he gone? Surely he wasn’t so offended by my silly remark that he was going to leave me alone here.

‘Are you all right, Jenny?’ It was Frank passing by. He stopped, looking concerned. I smiled up at him, thinking how nice he was.

‘Yes, I’m fine, Frank,’ I said, trying to sound normal.

He hesitated for a moment, and then his eyes went to a tall figure approaching — two figures. Frank nodded to me and then walked away as Captain Williams and his companion drew near.

‘Miss Cooper, may I introduce First Lieutenant Price?’ I got up and curtsied, and Lieutenant Price gave me a splendid bow.