“Um, sure. I guess.”
I followed him out of the seminar room and down the stairs until we emerged into Tom Quad. He walked a little way down the cloister and then stopped.
“Claire, I owe you an apology.”
I’d been studying the straps on my sandals, but his words made my gaze shoot back up to his face.
“You? Owe me an apology?” Even after everything that had happened, he still made me blush like a schoolgirl. “I don’t think so, James. I think it’s the other way around.”
He reached out and took my hand in his. That was the last thing I would have expected him to do. But even though I still found him incredibly handsome, I didn’t feel a single zing at his touch.
“Claire, I need to make a confession of my own.”
“Oh?” Whatever it was, he could hardly top me in the duplicity department.
“It’s about Jane Austen.”
“What?”
Now his cheeks were tinged with red, and he shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
I understood then. Maybe he really was a Jane Austen fan after all, a big, goopy romantic, but he ’d been too ashamed, too worried about his reputation or his manliness to own up to the truth.
“It’s okay, James. A lot of guys like Jane Austen. I mean, look at Martin.”
“No, that’s not what I mean.”
Now I was confused. “What do you mean?”
I could hear the other seminar participants pounding down the staircase in the building behind us. Whatever James needed to say, I realized he ’d better say it fast if we were to have any privacy.
“I didn’t pursue you because I was romantically interested in you.” I could see the muscle in his jaw strained tight with tension.
“But you asked me out,” I said. “And that kiss—” His fingers tightened around mine. “I was using you.”
“What?”
His shoulders slumped. “I pursued you only after I found out about your friendship with Harriet.”
Whatever I had expected him to say, that certainly wasn’t it. “I don’t understand.”
The others were almost at the doorway. James pulled me a little farther along the walk.
“I thought you would be the easiest way to get to the manuscript.”
“The manuscript?” It was almost as if he were speaking to me in a foreign language.
He put his hand over his mouth and chin and then wiped downward as if he thought he could wipe away his words as well. “Harriet’s manuscript.” He said the last word as if it were poison.
And then I understood. “You want to publish it.”
“I thought I’d hit the jackpot. Eleanor went to school with an editor who works for me. He was visiting her here, and she had a little too much to drink and spilled the beans. Once Oliver told me about the manuscript, I knew we ’d struck gold. Eleanor tried to get it from her mother, but she wasn’t having any luck. I signed up for the seminar to see if I could get anywhere with Harriet. Then you waltzed in, and she was practically shoving it into your hands.”
“And I was an easy mark.” A strange tingling crept through my limbs, and humiliation poured in after it. I had been conned. Completely and utterly tricked. A handsome face, a little bit of attention, and I had been putty in his hands.
“It was you, wasn’t it, who broke into my room?” I had suspected Mrs. Parrot, but it had never occurred to me that the intruder might have been James.
“You should hate me,” he was saying. “I won’t blame you if you do.”
“Why are you telling me this now?” I wanted to sink through the paving stones beneath my feet. I was an even bigger idiot than I’d thought, not to have seen through him. I wanted to melt into the earth and never see the light of day again.
He dropped his grasp on my fingers. “I thought you deserved to know the truth. Especially after what happened with—what was his name?”
“Neil,” I supplied automatically.
“With Neil.” He paused. Now James looked even more serious than he had to begin with. His dark eyes had gone almost black.
“What?” I wasn’t sure I could stand any more revelations. I’d had too many shocks to my system already.
“Well, the other part of the truth is that”—he looked me squarely in the eye—“whatever my intentions were at the start, somewhere along the way, well_” He drew a deep breath. “The truth is that somewhere along the way, I fell for you.”
As little as forty-eight hours earlier, those words would have thrilled me beyond human comprehension. Now I simply found them depressing. Yes, I was flattered. But I was also aware of just what an idiot I had been over a man I barely knew, and I was also aware of just how much that idiocy had cost me.
“I just wanted you to know,” James said.
Was he trying to start something again? I couldn’t tell from the granitelike set of his jaw.
“Thank you,” I said, unsure of what else to say. “For telling me.”
“If you thought you could forgive me_” He trailed off, a hopeful expression in his eyes, but I shook my head. “It’s over, James.”
He shrugged. “Okay. I have to respect that.”
“Yes. You do.”
He reached out and squeezed my shoulder. “Take care. I hope you find the right person for you.”
“Yeah. You too,” I said.
I watched him walk away, but I felt none of the pain I’d experienced as I’d watched Neil leave. Amazing how twenty-four hours could change a person so completely, and how completely a person’s feelings could change in that same amount of time.
“I hope I find someone too,” I said to the back of James’s head as he disappeared from sight.
I wanted to forget everything that had happened in the past week, but something Eleanor said that morning stuck in my head. To find insight into Austen’s work, she said, go back to the page. And I realized that if I ever wanted to know the truth about what might have changed between Austen’s first version of Pride and Prejudice and the final one, I was in the perfect place to find out.
I remembered from the Joining Notes that one of our privileges as seminar participants was access to the reading rooms at the Bodleian Library. I made my way to Broad Street and found the entrance. From there I found several helpful librarians who submitted a request for the books I needed and then helped me settle into the Lower Camera Reading Room.
While I waited for the books to be pulled from the stacks and sent up, I gazed around the circular room and looked wistfully at the packed shelves, the students bent over their work, the atmosphere of academic pursuit. I’d never known that kind of life and always felt I was missing something.
But an hour and several Jane Austen biographies later, I wasn’t sure I was cut out for scholarly efforts. My head swam with dates and descriptions and differing accounts. I’d scribbled notes on the tiny pieces of paper provided, and as I looked back through them, I thought they seemed like pieces of a puzzle that was eluding me.
Martin was right. A lot had occurred in Austen’s life in the years after First Impressions. Tom Lefroy’s return to the neighborhood and his failure to pay a call on the Austens. Her father’s retirement and their removal to Bath. Then her father’s death and a long, unsettled period when Austen and her sisters lived with various of the brothers or occasionally in rented lodgings. Years without any new writing. And finally, happily, a more permanent home in a cottage near their brother Edward’s home at Chawton. It was there that she began to revise her earlier work.
But did any of what I’d read really have to do with the differences between First Impressions and Pride and Prejudice? Could it account for the very different Darcys?
And then as I moved the little slips of paper around on the desk in front of me, arranging them and rearranging them in hopes of making sense of it all, I caught a glimmer of an answer. A small window into another woman’s soul. And perhaps a peek into my own as well. I saw the truth about Fitzwilliam Darcy,
and the effect of loss and the passage of time on a woman’s ability to love. I saw why Jane Austen had changed her mind, and I respected her all the more for it.
I fled the Bodleian Library, clutching those slips of paper, and raced down the river path to Harriet’s cottage. The rain the night before had broken the grip of the punishing heat wave, and now Oxford lay in warm, but not stifling, summer stillness.
Harriet was as glad to see me as always, and I felt a pang as I followed her into the sitting room.
“No tea today,” she said and waved a hand at the tray on the low table in front of the sofa. It contained a bottle of sherry and two glasses. “Today, we celebrate.”
“Yes, we can, but I needed to—”
“Catch your breath, dear. Really, we’ve all the time in the world.”
“Yes, but Harriet—”
“One thing at a time, Claire. One thing at a time.”
My smile must have been pretty weak, because she leaned over to pat my arm. “Cheer up, dear. I have a very good feeling about today.”
I was glad that one of us did.
“I don’t want to say good-bye to you,” I said, my throat tight. “You’ve been the best part of the week.”
She laughed and reached to pour the sherry. “That’s not what Eleanor tells me.”
So Harriet did know about my romantic drama. She handed me a glass, the amber liquid catching the light from the window like a jewel.
“How are you? Really?” she asked, before taking a sip from her own glass.
I hadn’t planned on telling her everything that had happened, but as it turned out, I did. She cooed and sympathized and poured me more sherry. Half an hour later, I was feeling decidedly better, if a little woozy.
“So your young man has gone home, and now you’re seeing this James more like the original Mr. Darcy.” She made a clucking noise like a mother hen. “You’ve had quite a trying week, haven’t you? And I suppose I haven’t really helped.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but she ignored me and rose from the sofa. I wanted to make sense of it all. I wanted to keep talking about it until an answer became clear.
“I spent some time at the Bodleian. I wanted to know more about Jane Austen. To try and understand her.”
Harriet looked at me with pleasure. “An excellent idea. A lovely place, too, for finding answers. Almost as good as my cottage,” she said with a teasing smile. “Tell me what you learned.”
“I’m sure you already know what happened,” I said.
“Yes, but tell me your interpretation.”
I drew a deep breath. “She learned the full effects of being a woman with no financial means. I always thought she must have been quite wealthy from her writing, but she barely made any money at all.”
“Yes. Very different from what would have happened if she ’d been alive today.”
“And she and Cassandra were so dependent on their brothers’ whims. As was their mother. Of course, it probably never occurred to the men in the family that their female relations would have liked a home of their own. A permanent home.” I paused, considering the thought. “It was only when Jane had finally settled down that she could really do the work she was meant to do.”
“The place was important, yes,” Harriet said, “but I think she must have finally decided that she would work on her writing no matter what happened.”
“Have you been there? To Chawton?”
“A long time ago.” Harriet’s eyes grew misty. “I remember being quite moved. I could just picture her at her little writing table by the window, pulling First Impressions out from some hiding place and beginning to rework it.”
“I do think she started the book because of Tom Lefroy. Originally, I mean.”
“Her most famous flirtation,” Harriet said with a smile.
“Yes. I can’t tell that she really loved him, but he certainly seems to have inspired Mr. Darcy.”
Harriet nodded. “What else did you learn?”
I thought about what I’d read at the library. “I would imagine that ten years later, her perspective on Mr. Lefroy might have undergone some changes. I think she became a little more understanding of his family’s concern over the affair and why he never came to see her again.”
“Do you think he was the love of her life?” Harriet asked.
I shook my head. “No. I think he could have been, if circumstances had been different.”
“If one of them had been rich, you mean,” Harriet said with a twinkle in her eye.
“Among other things.”
I sipped my sherry and Harriet leaned forward. “Is finding the right person just a matter of luck, then?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Perhaps. But I think there’s something sort of…divine going on as well.”
“Divine?”
“A purpose. Some unseen hand. That sort of thing.” I wasn’t sure what I was trying to say exactly.
“Do you think that’s what Austen was doing when she rewrote the book? Playing God?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know that she was playing God. Maybe she was more inclined to hope, after she had grown up. To see the possibility of redemption in a hero who’d fallen short.”
Harriet smiled. “I have something else for you to read.”
She crossed to her usual chair, the one in front of the window. I hadn’t noticed before, but there was something in it. Something flat, tied with a red ribbon.
“I’d forgotten about the old trunks in the attic, you see. Spent most of yesterday going through them, one by one, but it was worth it in the end.”
She returned and laid the bundle in my lap.
By now I had no trouble recognizing Jane Austen’s handwriting. And even if I hadn’t, the familiar aged look of the paper would have told me everything I needed to know.
She smiled at me. “This is definitely the last bit. But I think you’ll find it was worth the wait.”
My heartbeat picked up its pace. “May I read it right now?”
Harriet chuckled. “Of course, dear. Of course.”
First Impressions
Chapter Twenty
Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner’s house in Gracechurch Street, Cheapside, was respectable enough but far from the fashionable part of London. Elizabeth rejoiced in that distance, for she might rest secure in the knowledge that she would never encounter any of the Rosings party when she and Jane were abroad on errands for their aunt. She did admit to some trepidation when they ventured into Bond Street on a commission to the drapers’ shop Mrs. Gardiner favored, but they returned unscathed. London, to be sure, was a very large place, and one might remain there in anonymity for weeks on end.
Elizabeth took great pleasure in every hour of the days she spent with her older sister, for they were fleeting. After a fortnight’s respite, she found herself ready to book passage on the mail coach to Brighton. Her mother’s letters, which had begun to flow in an unceasing stream when news of Elizabeth’s disgrace reached her, would only be stopped by her quitting London and arriving in Brighton to tell all.
But what could she tell her mother? Certainly not the truth.
She and Jane were spending the morning, her last in London, doing such mending as might be necessary for her journey. Mr. Gardiner’s sitting room faced east, and so the light proved excellent for any work involving needle and thread. Their aunt had excused herself to settle a crisis with the cook, and the Gardiner children were ensconced in the nursery under the good offices of two of the housemaids.
“I wish you would stay,” Jane said as she plied her needle in an attempt to salvage a well-worn stocking. “You are not yourself, Lizzie. Mama will understand.” She said the last bit with less conviction than she’d shown with the first.
“You know I cannot. I have presented myself at the employment agencies here. Something will turn up soon, I am sure. I can read their letters as easily in Brighton as in London. In the meantime, one of us must make certain that Lydia has not twisted Mama compl
etely around her finger.”
“But—”
Jane was interrupted by a knock at the front door. The two sisters sat, listening with great interest, while Mr. Gardiner’s man answered the summons. A masculine voice was heard in the hallway, and then Simmons, the manservant, opened the sitting-room door. He bowed to Elizabeth.
“A gentleman, ma’am, for you, Miss Elizabeth.”
“A gentleman?” Jane dropped her needlework into her lap. “Pray, who is it, Simmons?”
Elizabeth feared she knew, but she schooled her features into calm regularity. She would not panic. Neither would she tremble.
“A Colonel Fitzwilliam, ma’am.”
Elizabeth shot up from the sofa. “What?” Jane’s hand reached out to pull her back down. “Mr. Darcy’s cousin, Lizzie? But why?”
Elizabeth regained her composure as quickly as she had relinquished it. “Please show him in, Simmons.” She rose again from the sofa, but slowly this time, and Jane with her. They faced the door, and Elizabeth’s pulse drummed in her throat as if the colonel had come to bid her march with his regiment.
And then he was there, framed in the doorway. He wore a morning coat of blue superfine, and the leather of his Hessians gleamed with polish.
“Miss Bennet,” he said with a bow to Jane. “Miss Elizabeth.”
“Colonel Fitzwilliam.” Elizabeth stepped forward and made a curtsy. “Please allow me to present you to my sister Jane.”
The two exchanged pleasantries, which gave Elizabeth a moment to settle her thoughts, if not her feelings.
“I am sorry to impose upon you, Miss Bennet,” he said to Jane, “but I had urgent business in town and did not have time to send a note. Thank you for your patience.”
Jane looked bewildered but beautiful as always. “Certainly, Colonel. Pray, tell us, how may we be of assistance to you?”
The colonel hesitated for a moment and then took a deep breath, as if to fortify himself for battle. “Miss Bennet,” he said to Jane, “might I have a word with your sister?”
Jane smothered a smile and cast a reproving glance at Elizabeth. “Colonel, it is not at all the thing—”
Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart Page 17
