Jane looked up at him. She felt too enraged by the situation to decline, so she placed her own hands in his. His hands felt large and warm. ‘That’s the cue,’ Fred said. The music swelled. He grabbed Jane and towed her down the line. Jane skipped and stumbled and almost tripped over. She missed every step and stood on his toes once or twice. Fred laughed. ‘You’re terrible!’ he said. ‘After all that.’
Cheryl rushed over to them with an angry look on her face. ‘One, two, forward, back, round and behind your partner,’ she commanded to Jane in a staccato voice, like she beat a drum. ‘For a professed expert on the Grimstock, you leave much to be desired. This is your final warning!’ She stormed off.
Jane turned to Fred with an anguished look. ‘I am lost, sir. I do not know my purpose here.’ She felt tears well in her eyes.
‘Well, it’s not dancing, that’s for sure,’ he said with a laugh. ‘You’re even worse than me.’
Jane ceased her tears and grew irrationally mad. ‘How dare you laugh at me in my moment of distress!’ she said. ‘I do not know the steps!’ she added.
‘I can tell,’ he said.
She stared at him in utter shock. She had never come across a more odious dance partner in her life. True, she had danced with some shocking people, men who stepped on her toes, who had breath stinking of rum or gravy, or who conducted terrible conversation, but this man reigned as the champion over them all. Her toes remained un-stepped-on and his breath was fresh – perhaps the freshest she’d ever smelled, curiously – but this man committed a more annoying crime than any of the others: he was arrogant. He wore a dry, self-satisfied grin at all times, like the whole world was a joke to him. ‘I assure you I know how to dance,’ she said. ‘Stop laughing. What will happen if I do not manage these steps? I do not understand this.’
‘You will get the sack for sure,’ he said. ‘Cheryl’s a terrifying woman. She made a stuntman cry.’
Jane scowled at him. She barely understood what he was saying, but she could tell from his tone that he was teasing her. She felt furious. The woman in the trousers barking orders had mentioned Fred’s handsomeness but Jane noticed little accuracy in the appraisal. He was not handsome at all, certainly not. His age exceeded thirty. A short brown beard covered his face, golden whiskers lined his lips, his hair was unkempt, and he was obnoxious.
‘Your hair is pointing every which way,’ she said, motioning to his head. ‘I wonder if it has ever seen a comb.’
‘First you hate my britches, now my hair. Anything else about me you have a problem with, while we’re here?’
Jane stared at him. ‘I cannot think of anything right now, but rest assured, I will let you know. Now, teach me the steps.’
‘I’m not sure that will help,’ he said, laughing.
‘Congratulations, sir,’ Jane said. ‘You are the most disagreeable person I’ve ever met. And that includes my mother.’
‘Your mother is disagreeable?’ he replied. ‘Then I see the resemblance.’
Jane glowered at him. ‘If you give me even the slightest hint of instruction, if that is at all possible within your small brain, I guarantee I will catch on,’ she said. ‘You do know the steps to this dance?’
‘I suppose so,’ he said with a shrug.
‘Then please show me,’ Jane said. She waited.
He rolled his eyes, but then he did a surprising thing. He took her arms and moved them into place. ‘I think it goes like this. One, two, forward, back . . .’ he said in a soft voice. He placed his hand on her hip. The placing of it rendered Jane silent. She let him move her forward and back, down the line of dancers, across the room. She felt infuriated about him guiding her but said nothing. Instead she trained her concentration on him, following his every direction, trying not to feel distracted by his hand on her.
He spoke the steps to her in a whisper as they went. ‘One, two, good, good,’ he said. For all his obnoxious posturing, he actually made for a patient instructor. He guided her gently, sensing as she progressed, approving when she got things right, helping when she faltered. They reached the end of the line and Jane exhaled.
‘Well, then?’ Jane asked him.
‘Not bad, I suppose,’ he said. ‘Better than the first time, at least, though that’s not difficult,’ he added, jettisoning his earlier patient tone and resuming the obnoxious one.
They turned to dance again. Fred curled his fingers at Jane’s side. She stiffened and hoped he did not notice. The way he held her disarmed her. A familiarity seemed to grace the embrace, though lasciviousness did not define it. He merely held her closer than she was accustomed to.
‘Sorry. You’re a small person,’ Fred said. ‘I hope I don’t snap you in two.’
‘As do I,’ Jane said.
Fred laughed, and she smiled, admittedly pleased it was her doing. ‘Ready for round two?’ he asked. ‘If you can manage it? Once more and then it’s all over.’
‘An ending to which I heartily look forward,’ Jane replied.
The music reached its cue. The strings swelled, the melody quickened, and the sad tune rose to a crescendo. They danced through the corridor of people for the second time.
Fred pulled her gently down the line and their bodies moved in unison. Jane knew the steps now and danced well. But something else occurred which would stay with her for a long time. Every time she moved her arm, his was there to catch it. Every time she turned, he was waiting to hold her again. One body began the sentence; the other finished it. She could feel his breath on her neck, the arch of his collarbone through his shirt. Jane had never danced like this with anyone. It was infuriating and confusing.
How had this obnoxious person moved her about so, commanded her body? He held her tenderly; it maddened her. Despite his claims to the contrary, he was, in fact, a fine dancer, moving smoothly and in time. Jane would breathe this detail to no one, especially him. They reached the end of the line once more and the rest of the dancers cheered and applauded. She smiled in spite of herself. She had not noticed before, but she was panting with the exertion. Fred took a bow as a joke and Jane joined him. He did not look at her, but his warm hand rested on the small of her back.
Cheryl nodded to them. ‘I’ve seen worse, I suppose,’ she said in a begrudging tone.
Jane loved to dance. When she was nineteen, she had never wanted for a partner. She had flung her bashful companions around the room in boisterous joy, pointing at silly hats and ugly sashes and flirting outrageously. People attributed her outspoken manner to the charm of youth. But as she arrived in her twenties and other girls were marrying around her, the offers to dance thinned. By twenty-five, she felt lucky to be asked once in ten dances. She stood by the wall and inhaled as men approached, then felt crushed when they asked her younger neighbour. Sometimes men asked her to dance two dances, then moved off after the first when, she supposed, they realised her age. She let them go with a smile, keen not to show they had hurt her, watching the couples spin around the assembly room, and resolving to temper her conduct. She observed the women who were asked to dance every dance, with their bosoms exposed and their mouths shut, and tried to replicate their behaviour.
Cassandra, who had a sweeter temperament, gently counselled her to smile more, to encourage an approach. But it was no good. The more she tried to be quiet, the more of a scowl she wore. By twenty-eight, she sat in the corner and joked of being an old maid. She’d leave in a grim state, muttering about the disappointing society, while her heart ached.
Jane glanced at Fred. He seemed to stare at her with an expression Jane did not recognise. Jane was used to men looking at her a number of ways. Confusion, for certain, when she spoke of a philosopher she enjoyed. Pity, of course, when she spoke of her love of walking alone in the woods. Her favourite was probably derision, when they moved close enough to see the lines formed around her eyes, realised her age, added it to her poverty and found themselves offended to be in her company, wasting their time. But this man looked at her none of those wa
ys. Jane could not place it at all. It was almost as though . . . yes, like he was trying not to look at her. Like he gave too much of himself away.
Jane felt her own face doing a peculiar thing also. It was trying to move itself closer to his, as though trying to hear what the infuriating man said, or scrutinise his facial expression, though he spoke clearly and his visage sat in full view. Perhaps she was eager to hear what he said, to be close to him so she could offer a quick rebuttal to any inane thoughts he produced. Yes, that was it. She commanded her face to stop, but the order rang hollow in the muscles of her neck, which elected to continue the mission of their own volition.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘Thank you, darlings. That’s a wrap on rehearsal,’ Cheryl called to the group. The dancers clapped and cheered and embraced each other.
Fred shrugged at Jane. ‘Look at that, you survived,’ he said.
‘I suppose I should thank you for your help,’ she said, but then paused and said no more.
Fred placed his hands in the pockets of his coat. ‘A bunch of these guys go to that café up on May Street after rehearsal. I’m not an actor, but I guess I could slap on a beret and sit in a smoky corner. We could sip lattes and talk about “craft”?’ He coughed and looked away.
It was Jane’s turn to laugh. Jane did not understand ‘beret’ or ‘latte’, but she understood she was being invited somewhere. ‘I’m sorry, do you request my company in this café?’ she asked.
He stared at her, then shook his head violently. ‘Of course not,’ he replied. ‘I’m just saying that’s where I’ll be. If you’re going there as well, I’ll probably run into you.’
‘I thought I was disagreeable, and a terrible dancer,’ she said.
‘You are,’ he replied.
‘Well, then?’ Jane said, maddened. ‘I think you are indeed inviting me somewhere, sir,’ she challenged him.
‘Forget I said anything,’ he said.
‘I’ll go,’ Jane said quickly without thinking. ‘I have nowhere better to be,’ she added. She crossed her arms.
He looked at her. ‘Fine. We should probably go together, unless you know the way?’ he said in a tone of such unenthusiasm, Jane regretted the whole idea once more.
‘As I’m unfamiliar with the tea house you mention, you will have to escort me,’ Jane replied, frustrated. She looked at his face again. He breathed a little heavily, though he was standing still. This Fred person was nothing like Mr Withers – nothing at all. Mr Withers laughed and conversed with ease and smoothness. This man’s manner resembled more her own: awkward. Jane shook her head. She did not want to go somewhere with this individual; she wanted to go somewhere with Mr Withers. She was stepping out with the wrong person! But she had already agreed now, and after her grand speech earlier about the importance of keeping one’s engagements, she had no choice but to go through with the infernal plan.
He shrugged. ‘I’ll go change out of my costume, then,’ he said. ‘Do you want to change out of yours?’
Jane looked down at her attire. ‘Change, sir? I have no other clothes.’
He scoffed. ‘You’re going to walk around dressed like that?’
Jane shrugged. ‘Yes? Do my clothes offend you?’
‘No,’ he said with a resigned sigh.
Jane scowled at him. He was such a strange person.
‘Back in a sec,’ he said, walking away quickly. By the time Jane had deciphered the meaning of the hyperbolic and inaccurate sentence, he had moved halfway across the hall – in the direction of his other clothes, she supposed – cutting a lean silhouette across the floor. The tails of his coat moved back and forth as he walked. He wore his brown hair short; a few light tufts rested on the back of his collar, messy and rebellious. She tutted at the sight. He resembled a naval man in his coat. She wondered if he sailed the seas, like her brothers did. It would be the only thing to recommend him amongst a multitude of flaws.
He moved behind the curtains. Jane shook her head. She had never seen him at any of the Bath assemblies, though Mama had dragged her to many. She did not recognise anyone here from the usual Bath crowd, in fact, though she supposed these comprised another group on holiday.
She glanced around the room again. The confusion of waking up in the curtains had departed, but still, certain objects did not sit right with her senses. This ball’s guests were such an odd assortment of people, her dance partner included. Their speech differed – not in accents, which remained as she knew, hailing from the south of England, Kent, Somerset, London – but more in the words they chose. These people employed an assortment of contractions and idioms which she could grasp if she thought about them but had never heard before. One dancer beside her said Cheryl ‘was on the warpath tonight’ which she liked, though did not fully understand.
The decor of the assembly hall alarmed her, too. One of the paintings on the wall, for instance. A man smiled in front of what appeared to be Bath Abbey. The painter had rendered the expression of the man, the light and the landscape in so lifelike a fashion she thought the subject might sit up and talk to her. She still could not figure where the music had come from; she viewed not a single violin, or cello or piano, though the sounds of each still rung in her ears, the music having been so loud it could have only originated from inside the room. The room also smelled of paraffin or some lethal disinfecting agent; it was the cleanest air she’d ever smelled. No fireplace or smoke blemished the air, yet the room was warm. She raised an eyebrow in confusion.
A man dressed in undershorts walked up to Jane and offered her some paper. ‘Well done, love,’ he said to her. ‘Call sheet for tomorrow. Another dress rehearsal.’
Jane accepted the page and scoured it. It was a list made by a very good printing press of names and places and numbers. The date printed at the top of the page contained an absurd, make-believe number. ‘I do not know what this is, sir,’ she said. She handed it back to him. ‘For what am I rehearsing?’
He turned back to her and frowned. ‘What is your name?’ He consulted some list which rested in his hand.
‘As I told the others. It’s Jane Austen.’
‘Your real name, thanks.’
Jane shrugged and said nothing.
‘What agency are you with?’ he asked, squinting at her with suspicious eyes.
‘I do not know what that means,’ Jane said in a friendly voice.
The man checked his piece of paper. He shook his head. ‘Are you supposed to be here? How did you get in?’
‘I came from the wings,’ Jane said. ‘I am unsure how I got inside the building.’
That seemed to enrage him, for he grabbed her arm. ‘You’re another one of those Austen loons, aren’t you? Here to tell us we’ve sewed the costumes wrong. You’re wasting the time of busy people. This is the most ambitious production in years. You need to leave.’
‘But I must wait for my dance partner,’ she said reluctantly. While she certainly did not care about leaving Fred so rudely, she was not a barbarian, and even an obnoxious person such as he deserved an explanation before she disappeared on him.
‘I don’t care about that,’ the man replied. ‘You’re lucky it’s just minor cast and extras here tonight. If Jack Travers were here, you’d never work in this town again. You’d best bugger off before I call security.’ He pushed her towards the door.
Jane shuddered. No one had ever addressed her so, let alone put their hands on her! ‘Please. I must tell my . . . companion,’ she tried. But the man tipped her out the door and into the darkness. The door shut behind her and the click of a lock echoed in the dark. Jane turned back and knocked on the door but received no reply. She turned out to face the night air and looked around. She walked a loop around the building and found another door at the front; she tried but could not open it. Jane stood in front of the building, inert. She waited at the door for Fred to come out, but thirty minutes must have passed and he did not appear. No sounds or lights came from inside the building. Everyone seemed to hav
e left.
She wished to wait longer, but the case seemed quite hopeless. Fred had clearly departed already to the next destination without her. On top of this, the hour by then must have reached a hideous number, and Mama likely tore hairs from her head. Eventually, she sighed and realised she must give up the cause. It was time to return home to face the scandalous fate that awaited her. If she saw Fred again at another assembly, she would force out an apology and attempt to sound sincere.
Jane walked down the laneway towards town and sought her bearings. The black iron spire of St Swithin’s rose up into the sky in the distance. Jane walked towards the landmark. She arrived at the brick steps to the church and looked around. A cobblestoned road led to Pulteney Bridge. She followed it, then turned left and crossed the bridge. The Avon rushed below her in a soft current. She scurried down Great Pulteney Street. The grand houses of the row loomed above her in shadows of blue and black. She reached Sydney Place and turned left again and walked towards her house. She sighed with relief. The crowd of concerned townsfolk had dispersed from Sydney House, at least. No one walked in the street.
Jane knocked on the main door. No one answered. ‘Margaret,’ she called up to the first-floor window. The housemaid did not come, but a man opened a window.
‘What do you want?’ he called down to her, startling Jane. He wore nothing but underclothes, and from the window he stood at, he seemed to be standing in her bedroom.
She scratched her head. ‘I am Jane Austen, sir,’ she called up to him. ‘I live in this house. Please let me in.’
‘Please leave,’ he called down to her. ‘I’ve told you groupies before, if you come around here at night, I’ll call the police.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Jane said to him. ‘I’m cold. Won’t you please let me in? Or fetch Margaret, at least – she will open the door for me.’ She felt her face make a forlorn look.
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