The Dashwood Sisters Tell All (9 page)

“We’ve seen what foot travel was like in Jane Austen's day. We’re grateful for dry weather and dry roads, aren't we?” Tom asked. The Austenites nodded in unison. “I thought you might like to get a sense of what traveling in a carriage feels like.”

The Austenites laughed and hooted with approval when the conveyance pulled up next to us. Tom clearly knew how to keep his clientele happy. The driver was even dressed in period costume, complete with a top hat.

“We’ll have to go in shifts,” Tom said. “Just to the end of the lane, about half a mile down.” He motioned to Ellen and me. “Ladies, would you like to give it a try?”

I had to get Ethan to join me in the carriage. I hated to let that opportunity for romance slip by unclaimed. This was far better than a ride in Central Park. I maneuvered carefully, and to my delight, Ethan wound up in the carriage with us, although Ellen sat next to me and he sat opposite us, wedged into the seat with one of the married couples.

“There you go.” Tom closed the door and nodded to the driver. “Just wait for us at the other end of the lane.” And then we were off.

The driver flicked the reins, and the horse began to move. It wasn't my first time in a carriage, but this was different. Maybe it was the secluded country lane where the tree branches arched so high overhead that they formed a tunnel. Maybe it was having Ethan facing me, flashing a smile from time to time. Or perhaps it was simply the Austen-inspired moment. I imagined that the road and the woods couldn't look much different than they would have two hundred years ago.

The carriage had pretty good shock absorbers, or whatever they called them in the old days. We flowed along with barely the occasional bump or jostle. I turned to look at Ellen, only to find her smiling back at me, and we exchanged a look of delight. It was a rare moment of mutual joy in our relationship.

All too soon, we reached the other end of the lane. Ethan hopped down from the carriage and offered me his hand, which I gladly took. I felt a zing worthy of a full-fledged Austen heroine, but then he let go and offered his hand to Ellen, who was scrambling from the carriage behind me. I stepped to the side of the road to give the others room to find their footing. It didn't take long before the carriage was empty and the driver took off on his return trip. The five of us were left to stand in the shade and make conversation.

“Will you stay at the museum and take the van back to lunch, or will you keep walking?” I said to Ethan. I didn't realize until I asked the question that it sounded a bit like I was trying to find out his plans so I could follow them. Oops. “I’m going to walk myself,” I said, even though my feet would have far preferred the other option. Ethan could call the next shot. If he wanted to spend time with me, he would choose to keep walking as well.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “I think I’ll see how I’m feeling when we get there.”

“Have you been to the museum before?”

He nodded. “Several times. But I’m keen to see the new visitors’ center. They’ve also recently refurbished the kitchen to its original state.”

“Oh.”

Frankly, I couldn't have cared less about the kitchen or the visitors’ center, but if it meant time with Ethan, I could manufacture some interest.

“But you came here to walk,” he said with a kind smile. “I wouldn't want to interfere with that.”

Ouch. If he’d really wanted to spend time with me, he would have interfered up one side and down the other.

“To each his own,” I chirped. Like a bird, I chirped. It even nauseated
me
. I felt as if I had been riding in the back of the tour-company minivan.

What had happened to our easy camaraderie of the night before? He was certainly still pleasant, but that connection, that feeling of having known him forever…well, it had vanished almost as quickly as it had developed. Almost as if it had been a dream.

I moved closer to Ellen and left him to chat with the other three.

“What?” she said. “I thought the whole point was to cozy up to Ethan.”

“Don't be mean.” My throat grew tight, and tears threatened to spill over. I was so tired, and not just physically. I was sore too, and I wasn't just talking about my blisters. I’d spent so many years trying to find Mr. Right that I had battle fatigue, or whatever the romantic equivalent of it was.

“Sorry.” And she was, I could see. “Do you have enough water?”

I nodded and then turned to face the field, as if I were admiring the view.

“He's not worth it, Meems.” The old nickname was nearly my undoing.

“That's the problem, Ell. He is worth it.”

She shook her head. I could see that much out of the corner of my eye. “Someday, you’ll learn.”

“Someday, so will you.” But I at least managed to accompany the words with the hint of a smile. “Do you see the rest of them yet?”

“They’ll be here any moment. In the meantime, we’ll just stand over here and talk.”

For most of my life, I had despised being indebted to my sister, but now I was simply grateful for her presence. And her kindness.

“That would be nice,” I said, and to my surprise, I found that I meant it.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

A
fter the carriage ride, I left Mimi to walk with some of the others and stayed behind with Daniel. We passed through a succession of fields that rolled gently over the surrounding countryside. We had made it to the other side of the open space when I faced my first real obstacle of the walking tour.

This stile was seriously daunting. Stinging nettles lurked on either side of it. I made a face at the rickety contraption, took a deep breath, and prepared to conquer it on my own. I made it up the first two steps, but the third one stymied me. And then I saw the hand stretched out toward me. Daniel's hand. He stood beside me and smiled with encouragement.

“I know, I know,” he said. “You’re perfectly capable. But maybe just once you can let me give you a hand.”

I looked down at the ground from my perch, and dizziness overcame me. Instinctively, I reached for him, and he steadied me.

“Breathe,” he said, and I complied.

“I think I’m stuck.” I hadn't meant to say the words out loud. I never admitted weakness to anyone other than myself.

“No. You’re just resting.” I could hear the smile in his voice.

“It's not funny.”

“Of course not.”

I looked at him, and he was grinning at me. “You’re enjoying this, aren't you?”

The smile moved to his eyes, which lit with glee. “Absolutely.”

That was all the challenge I needed. “Here I go.” I lifted one foot, swung it over the top of the fence, and found my footing on the other side. Now came the hard part. I had to swivel so that I faced the direction from which we’d come, maintain my balance on that one precariously placed foot, swing my other leg over the fence, and then find the step below with that foot.

“You’ve got this,” Daniel said.

“Here goes nothing.” I gripped his hand, flung my other leg over the fence, and prayed my foot would hit the four-inch-wide board that served as a middle step.

My boot scraped the wood, and I teetered in midair for one very long moment, but then Daniel moved our hands so that I could regain my balance, and my foot caught hold. I clambered down the remaining step and was grateful to find myself on solid ground once more.

“See?” He stepped up to the stile and practically vaulted over it. “Nothing to it.”

“Easy for you to say.” We moved away so that the others could take their turns climbing over.

“But you did it.”

I smiled at him. I couldn't help myself. No matter how many years had passed, we still had that easy camaraderie that sucked me in every time.

“Come on,” he said. “Let's walk to the end of the path. The others will catch up.”

We had emerged from a field alongside someone's backyard. A trampoline and a child-sized version of a marquee dominated the fenced yard.

“Some things are universal, huh?” Daniel said, following my gaze. “My girls beg me for a trampoline on a regular basis, but I won't get them one.”

“Why not?”

“Do you know how much a pediatric orthopedist costs?”

I laughed, and then we moved along in companionable silence, skirting the house and emerging into a very ordinary cul-de-sac. “Look, Dan. It's the suburbs.”

A ring of brick homes, taller than my brick ranch back in Dallas but still with a cookie-cutter sameness to them, testified to the ordinariness of the street. We waited there for the rest of the group, and then Tom led us to the connecting road. Across the street was a large, open park.

“That belongs to Chawton Great House,” Tom said. “We’ll be visiting there this afternoon. It was owned by Jane Austen's brother Edward, who was adopted into a wealthy family.”

We made our way up the street past more quaint cottages and beautiful gardens. “Look.” Daniel pointed to a plain, square brick house that stood thirty yards in front of us at a junction in the road. “That's it.”

“That's what?”

“That's Chawton Cottage. Jane Austen's House Museum.”

I wasn't sure what I was expecting, but this ordinary structure wasn't it. The large house sat practically on top of the road, and an irregular pattern in the brick showed where a large front window had been filled in. Where were the climbing roses? The charming thatched roof? This was a solid bulwark against the weather, not the graceful home I’d imagined.

We moved closer, and Tom gathered us on the sidewalk opposite the house in front of a tea room that bore the sign Cassandra's Cup. The garden to the left of the cottage was gorgeous, to be sure, and whoever ran the place obviously did so with a great deal of care. But I’d expected Jane Austen's home to be more…romantic.

“As I said earlier,” Tom continued, “we only have twenty minutes or so before we need to set out on the second part of our walk. Otherwise we’ll be late for lunch. For those of you who would like to stay longer, Mrs. Parrot will be here in an hour with the van. She will drive you back to Upper Farringdon to the pub.”

“C’mon,” Daniel said. “Let's check out the holy ground.”

The visitors’ center was in the small stable block to the right of the cottage. We decided to forgo the introductory video and the peek into the bake house. Signs led us in a loop around the back of the cottage to the visitors’ entrance on the far side. Here we found the separate kitchen where the Austen ladies and their servants had prepared their meals. It was attached to the house, but there was no door leading into the rest of the interior.

“I bet that was a pain in bad weather,” I said, envisioning the Austens’ maid-of-all-work ferrying a soup tureen out the kitchen door and into the adjacent side entrance in the midst of a gale.

We followed the route of my imaginary maid and found ourselves in the sitting room of the cottage. It was about the same size as my living room at home and contained, among other things, a piano from the period.

We crossed the vestibule, and there was the dining room. Again, it was about the same size as mine at home. By the window stood a small table and chair. The table had a plastic shield around it.

“What's that?” Daniel asked.

“My mother used to talk about this. The holy of holies. That's the table where Jane wrote most of her novels.” It was about eighteen inches in diameter and looked more decorative than functional. At home, I would have put a potted plant on it.

“Not very impressive,” Daniel said in a low voice. “Why the Plexiglas?”

That much I also knew from my mother. “So that all the devoted Austenites won't rub their hands all over it.”

“Really?” He looked at me as if he thought I was joking.

“Really,” I said with a wink.

After that, we made our way upstairs. I felt a small pang that my mother wasn't there to see this with me. “Here's her bedroom.” Daniel nodded to the left as we reached the top of the stairs.

Again, it was a normal-sized room, rather low-ceilinged, with a fireplace and exposed wooden beams overhead. Two cupboards occupied recesses on either side of the fireplace. The room contained a small canopied bed and a chair.

Daniel looked down at one of the information placards. “It says she shared this room with her sister.” He looked up in surprise. “You’d think with a house this size, they would have had separate bedrooms.”

I eyed the rather narrow bed. It was bigger than a twin, but hardly big enough to be considered a double in American terms. “No wonder they were so close, if they had to share that.”

I knew that I was being snarky. It was more than likely my way of holding this whole experience at arm's length. Seeing Jane Austen's home made me miss my mother with an intensity that I’d thought had abated over the past couple of months. She should have been standing here with me.

“Ellen? Are you okay?” Daniel asked.

“Yes, yes. I’m fine.” But I wasn’t. I’d have sat down in the chair if it hadn't had a dainty little nosegay of lavender wrapped in ribbon on the seat. It was a very genteel way of discouraging visitors from collapsing on the antiques.

“I don't think you are.” He took my elbow. “Do you need some fresh air?”

“That's probably a good idea.” My vision blurred, and I felt off-balance, but I refused to faint in Jane Austen's bedroom.

Daniel helped me down the stairs and back outside. He led me to a bench under an enormous tree in the garden. The shade felt wonderful. He pulled the water bottle from my pack and pressed it into my hands.

“Drink,” he ordered.

I was only too glad to oblige. “I’m sorry. I don't mean to be weird.”

He was quiet for a long moment. “It's your mom, huh?”

His gentle question popped the cork that had been holding back my bottled emotions. I burst into tears. At least the other visitors would think I was just an Austen nut overcome by the experience of being in her house.

I retrieved a tissue from my pack and wiped my eyes. “I wasn't expecting this.”

“Why not? I would have been.”

“I just didn't think…I’m only here because my mom made me come. I don't really care about all these Jane Austen sites.”

“But you do care about your mom. I remember how obsessed she was. When we were in college, she kept telling me I looked just like she imagined Mr. Darcy would.”

I cringed. “She didn’t.”

“Oh, she did.”

That, at least, made me smile. “I guess it just hit me that I’m here to say good-bye to her.”

“Which was what she wanted.”

“I’m not sure what she wanted. I thought it was for Mimi and me to form some kind of bond.” Not to mention deal with that stupid diary.

“Maybe your mom didn't have that detailed an agenda. Maybe she just wanted the two of you to see why she loved Jane Austen, and each of you, so much.”

“Maybe.” At least our conversation had stemmed my tears.

“Did you want to see the rest of the house?” He glanced at his watch. “We need to find Tom if we’re going to do the second half of the walk.”

“It's okay.” I picked up my backpack and stood up. “I think I’ve seen what I needed to see.”

Daniel looked down at me, concern etched into the lines around his eyes and mouth. “Ellen…”

“Yes?”

“Would you have dinner with me tonight?”

I wasn't ready for this. I so wasn't ready for this. I didn't even know if I could really trust Daniel, and I certainly didn't know if I could trust myself.

I gave him a faint smile. “I don't think we get to pick where we’re sitting. Tom mentioned using place cards to kind of mix things up.”

“No, I don't mean with the group. I mean just you and me. I’ll get the kitchen at the hotel to fix us a picnic.”

“Can we do that?”

He smiled softly. “Given what we’ve paid to be on this trip, I think we can do whatever we want.”

“But Tom has someone coming to sing Jane Austen–era music.”

“I think he’ll understand. I’ll speak to him.”

I’d run out of excuses, except for the ones that really mattered. I looked into Daniel's eyes. He’d been a kind and helpful companion all morning. He hadn't pressed me at all about the diary, leaving any discussion up to me. What would it hurt to spend time alone with him? I wasn't a gullible college freshman who was going to fall for the first good-looking guy she met.

“Okay.” I surprised myself with the answer.

“Great,” he said. “I’ll make the arrangements.”

“Look. There's Tom on the sidewalk.” We could see him across the street with a few members of the group gathering around him.

“Time to go,” Daniel said. We walked back through the visitors’ center and across the road. I cast one last glance back at the cottage.

“Do you think she would mind?” I asked Daniel. “All those people tromping through her house all day long?”

He patted my shoulder. “I think she’d be proud of all the happiness she's brought to people. Isn't that what we want to be remembered for, in the end?”

“I guess so.” But I had to wonder: Was it enough simply to make others happy? Or should our lives leave some other lasting mark?

My mother's death left me distinctly aware of my own mortality, but Daniel's words made me wonder: What would I leave behind when my time came? At the moment, not much. That sobering thought was enough to keep me quiet as we made our way back across the street to find Tom.