‘I miss you,’ replies Spike matter-of-factly on the other end of the line.
I get that lovely warm feeing inside. ‘Miss you too,’ I say happily, and then mouth, ‘Ouch,’ as Stella grins and elbows me in the ribs. Trust me, she has very bony elbows.
‘OK, now we’ve got all that slushy stuff out of the way, how’s the sign looking?’
‘Amazing,’ I say proudly, using Freddy’s adjective. ‘You’ll see it soon.’
‘I know, I can’t wait. Two whole weeks with you in New York.’
My smile gets even wider. ‘Hey, by the way, will you manage to finish all your articles in time?’ I ask him.
‘Yeah, should do – I’ve just got a few loose ends to tie up on a couple of pieces . . .’
‘What about the Mr Darcy piece?’
‘Oh, didn’t I tell you?’
‘You finished it and the editor loved it?’
‘Well, yeah, there’s that,’ he says modestly, ‘and the fact that now he wants to hold it back for the Valentine’s Day issue . . .’
We both groan.
‘. . . but, no, there was something else. When I came to do all the name-checks, I called up the tour company and asked to be put through to Miss Steane, and they said there was no Miss Steane at that company. That in fact they’d never heard of her. I checked the number a couple of times, but I’d definitely got the right company. Isn’t that just the weirdest thing?’
‘Wow, yeah,’ I say, puzzled.
Just then I hear someone asking Spike a question in the background, and he comes back on the line: ‘Hey, Em, I’m going to have to go – work stuff. Can I call you later?’
‘Yeah, of course. Bye.’
‘Bye.’
I hang up and stare at the phone for a moment, deep in thought.
‘Something up?’
Stella reappears from the back carrying two mugs of fresh coffee and passes me one.
‘Thanks,’ I murmur absently, staring at the handset a little longer, before putting it down on the counter. ‘He’s right. That is really weird,’ I say, thinking out loud.
‘What? What? Tell me what?’ demands Stella, her interest now fully piqued.
‘The tour guide on my trip,’ I explain. ‘Apparently no one at the company’s ever heard of her.’
‘Oooh,’ says Stella, her eyes wide. ‘An imposter.’
I roll my eyes sardonically. ‘Honestly, Stella, you watch too many crime shows.’
She tuts and takes a gulp. ‘So who did she say she was? This tour guide?’
‘Her name’s Miss Steane. Hang on, I think I’ve got her card here somewhere.’ Putting down my mug, I grab my purse and rifle through my wallet. Sure enough, there’s the small rectangle of cream parchment. I hand it to Stella.
‘That’s it? Those are her details? Just her name, no number or anything?’
To be honest, I haven’t looked at it before, I just put it in my billfold, but now, looking at it, I see Stella’s right.
‘Huh, I guess so.’ I nod.
‘Una J. Steane,’ reads Stella, tracing her finger across the black embossed calligraphy. ‘Well, that’s obvious.’ She shrugs.
‘Is it?’ I ask. It’s not being very obvious to me.
‘Yeah, it’s an anagram of Jane Austen.’
I look at her dazedly. ‘What?’ I whisper, my voice not seeming to work properly. ‘No, it can’t be . . .’
‘You mean you didn’t work it out? Honestly, Em, you of all people . . .’
Stella continues talking but her voice fades into the background as I dive over to the bookshelves and snatch up a copy of Persuasion. I flick to the back cover. No, nothing. I grab Emma. Again nothing. What about a different publisher . . . ? Spotting a hardback volume of Pride and Prejudice, I seize it and turn straight to the back.
Holy shit.
I’m staring at a portrait of Miss Steane, only it’s Jane Austen, circa 1811. No wonder I kept thinking she looked familiar. Apart from the clothes, they’re identical. Same nose, same eyes, same amused smile. Out of nowhere I suddenly remember the woman in the biography section before Christmas, the lady who bought the book about Jane Austen that I’d never seen before, who left the flyer for the tour on the counter – the resemblance is uncanny . . . My mind starts whirling. And yet they can’t all be the same person – it’s obviously just a coincidence with the anagram and the likeness . . .
But already I’m thinking about all the advice Miss Steane gave me about men and relationships, that strange comment she made at the lake when I saw Mr Darcy swimming and outside Winchester Cathedral when I found his scarf. Could she see him, too? And what about the balldress? Was it from her? I suddenly remember Stella’s comment. Was she some kind of fairy godmother, a matchmaker, bringing Spike and me together?
I catch myself. Oh, c’mon, Emily. No way! That’s crazy!
Yeah, right, I’ve heard that before.
‘Is it something I said?’
I glance up from the picture to see Stella looking at me expectantly, clutching her coffee mug to her chest. Oh, shit. I have no idea what she was just saying. I didn’t hear a word.
‘Oh, no . . . no,’ I manage composing myself. ‘Just noticed a few books weren’t in order.’
Stella relaxes her shoulders and smiles in admiration. ‘Jeez, you really do love this place, don’t you?’
I smile as I start putting the books back on the shelves.
‘So when’s your boyfriend arriving? I can’t wait to meet him.’
‘Friday,’ I say, feeling that familiar beat of excitement.
‘So what’s he like, this Spike?’ She grins. ‘Is he like Mr Darcy?’
I pause to glance down at the copy of Pride and Prejudice in my hands, at the picture of Jane Austen, and it’s as if Miss Steane is smiling right at me.
‘No,’ I say, shaking my head.
And as I think about Spike, with his sloppy clothes, hot temper and crazy sense of humour, a huge smile breaks across my face.
‘He’s absolutely nothing like him.’
The Daily Times, 14 February 2007
Mr Darcy: The Dream Date
Mr Darcy, the dashing hero of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, has topped a survey of men women would most like to go on a date with. Regular bloke Spike Hargreaves, goes on a literary tour and asks, What does Mr Darcy have that he doesn’t?
Austen’s creation beat other fictional heroes, such as James Bond and Superman, in the poll, run by the Orange Prize, of more than 1,900 women. Which seems strange to me, as surely he’d spend the evening glowering at you across the restaurant table and being rude to all the waiters?
Men just don’t get Mr Darcy, and how could we? For Darcy is the anti-man. He is everything a man is not and therefore women adore him. For us blokes, he’s a pain in the arse. Over the years I’ve been compared unfavourably with him many, many times. He’s the perfect gent. A sex-machine to all the chicks. He burns with sullen intensity and does so while wearing a frilly white blouse and tight breeches. And, excuse me, but no one complains about his fashion sense!
So what is it about Mr Darcy that sends women wild? What’s the secret of his lasting appeal? And, more importantly, what can I learn from him?
In search of an answer, my editor ‘suggested’ I spend a week on a Jane Austen literature tour with die-hard fans. Now, the last time I encountered Mr Darcy was when I was forced to read Pride and Prejudice for my English GCSE and I didn’t particularly like him then. So this time round, when I found myself cancelling plans to spend New Year skiing in the Swiss Alps to visit museums in the British countryside, our relationship went from bad to worse.
Understandably, and somewhat fittingly, I was rather prejudiced when I interviewed his fans. Made worse by the simple fact that women love him. And that’s not just a plain and simple ‘love’ him, that’s a Barry White ‘lurve’ him.
‘He’s just so sexy,’ Rupinda Ali, a yoga instructor told me. ‘All that smouldering and moodiness
– phwoar – I know what I’d like to do on my date with him.’
Add jealousy to my list of complaints against him.
Me. A man who doesn’t have a jealous bone in his body. And here I am feeling envious of a fictional character.
But it appears that’s where I’ve been going wrong. Because for most women on this tour, this literary bad boy is as real to them as Santa Claus is to the under-fives. He’s been their first love, and it’s been an enduring love. They don’t want to give him up. Through all the ups and downs of relationships, the heartbreak, the disappointment and even the happy mundaneness of marriage, Mr Darcy is always there. Brooding, dashing and full of integrity, he’s tall, handsome and, a bonus here, extremely rich. He is also aloof, moody, detached and more than a little ‘complicated’.
When it comes to women, I’ve learned this is a completely irresistible combination.
‘He’s just looking for the right woman to fix him, to unlock all his passion and allow him to love,’ Hilary Pringle, a retired lawyer and devoted Darcy fan informs me. ‘And let’s be honest here, the man oozes sex appeal. Show me a woman who wouldn’t want to sleep with him.’
I tried, and I couldn’t. Every female interviewed would, given the opportunity, jump into bed with Mr Darcy. Even Maeve Tumpane, who blushed when she said, in her soft-spoken Irish accent, she imagined he would be ‘the type to respect you in the morning’.
Maybe this is the key to his unique appeal: he’s sexy. He’s also, let’s face it, a bastard and although they will hate me to say this, women love bastards. Just look at Heathcliff, Sex and the City’s Mr Big or even Jack Nicholson’s character in Something’s Gotta Give.
Jane Austen knew this. She knew that women like a challenge and would be intrigued by ‘the proudest, most disagreeable man in the world’. Mr Darcy was most definitely not a new man. Women might say they want their partners to do the dishes and help them put the duvet cover on but these are not the attributes they have sexual fantasies over.
And women wonder why we men are confused.
I did, however, learn a few things from Mr D. In keeping with these mixed messages, women might have embraced feminism, but they still adore a show of chivalry. So the next time you’re tempted to bag that seat on the Tube, stand up and let the lady sit down – a few open doors, it seems, go a long way . . .
Then there’s all that repressed passion. Women, it seems, lurve repressed passion. Pride and Prejudice is a whopping 350 pages long and yet Mr Darcy and Elizabeth never kiss. Which means, if you’re watching the BBC adaptation, that’s six hours of foreplay. Even in the film version, it’s over two.
Now I’m not sure there is a man alive who can keep a woman excited for that long without so much as loosening his cravat (unless of course you’re Sting. Who can ever forget his boasts of Tantric sex?), and even if you could, in today’s culture, if you didn’t try to kiss a woman on the first date, she wouldn’t think you chivalrous, she’d accuse you of being gay.
But that’s the whole point. Mr Darcy is, as Emily Albright, an attractive twenty-something New Yorker on the trip confessed, ‘a wonderful fantasy. The embodiment of everything hopeless romantics desire in the man of their dreams.’ He loves passionately. Is unimpressed by looks and clothes and charm. Is full of integrity. And, most importantly, didn’t choose the prettiest girl but went for personality.
Now can you see why I want to kill him?
In short he can do no wrong. He is the perfect man. Or is he? As Ms Albright went on to point out on our first date, ‘He’s not actually real – you are.’
And so it seems I have the final advantage. Because although I might not be every woman’s fantasy (OK, I’m not any woman’s fantasy) and I’m certainly far from perfect, it’s ultimately the real guy who gets the girl.
So stick that in your breeches and brood about it, Mr Darcy.
About the Author
Alexandra Potter was born in Bradford. She has lived in the USA and Australia, and worked as a features writer and sub-editor for women’s glossies in the UK. She now writes full-time and divides her time between London and Los Angeles. Her previous novels are Do You Come Here Often?, What’s New Pussycat?, Going La-la, Calling Romeo and the widely acclaimed Be Careful What You Wish For.
Table of Contents
Me and Mr Darcy
Praise for Alexandra Potter
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Epilogue
Mr Darcy: The Dream Date
About the Author
Me and Mr. Darcy Page 34
