Jane in Love

by Rachel Givney

  Fred laughed. ‘You don’t know what a movie is? You’re acting in one.’

  Jane inhaled sharply, aware she had again hinted at her unorthodoxy. She scoured her brain as quickly as she could. Mov-ie. Sofia had mentioned it, she remembered now. The theatre production, but fancier. ‘Yes, I know this thing!’ she declared eagerly, hoping it was enough to remedy the situation.

  He laughed and shook his head. ‘You are a strange one,’ he said. He did not say it derisively or cruelly, but still, it bothered her. In fact, it made her irrationally angry.

  ‘I am not strange, thank you. I am entirely normal,’ she insisted, breathing heavily. She of course detested this line of conversation, well aware of how strange she truly was. An author who had travelled through time: on a scale of strangeness, that likely sat towards the end. More than that, however, she disliked being called strange by him.

  He laughed again. ‘Sure, whatever you say.’ He crossed his arms and leant on the doorframe.

  She eyed him suspiciously and felt relieved. He seemed not to have discovered her secret just yet. But she also felt outrageously annoyed at his teasing. What had happened to the rapprochement of yesterday, the deliverance and intimacy of sharing in his writing? It had gone back to him making fun of her, and her reacting with indignant anger.

  ‘Want to go to one?’ he said. He cleared his throat and looked at the floor. ‘A movie, that is.’

  Jane scowled. He clearly disliked her, yet once again he seemed to be inviting her to some sort of event. She shrugged; he must be a glutton for punishment. ‘Oh. I don’t know,’ she replied.

  ‘We can go this afternoon, when I get home from school.’

  She stared at him. ‘Are you sure? You’ve made it quite clear I infuriate you each time I open my mouth.’

  He smiled at her and scratched his head. ‘You do infuriate me each time you open your mouth. That’s why we’re going. You have to be quiet at the movies.’

  She narrowed her eyes. ‘Actually, no. I cannot go outside,’ she replied in a haughty tone. She spoke the truth. Sofia had been firm on this. She felt glad for the excuse to refuse him: she did not want to go now he was obnoxious once more.

  ‘That’s the beauty of the movies – they’re inside.’ He coughed again.

  ‘I see.’ She found herself unable to think of another reason to say no. She could not tell him the truth, obviously, so she decided the safer option was just to accept his invitation. ‘All right, then,’ she said. ‘I will go with you.’

  ‘Looking forward to it already,’ he said.

  ‘And I,’ she shot back. She shook her head again, confused as to why this man, who clearly found her disagreeable, kept inviting her on outings. She had never understood men before and seemed on no path to reaching further comprehension anytime soon.

  Later that day, they walked to some sort of theatre house at the corner of one of the laneways behind the main square of New Bath. They entered the foyer.

  ‘Who are they?’ Jane exclaimed, gasping at a curious sight which stood inside. A group of ten women, laughing and chatting, walked towards her in muslin gowns, à la Grecque, as she wore herself in her own time. They wore bonnets, gloves and pelisses, and giggled and gossiped as though they made their way to a ball or an assembly. She thought she had stepped into 1803 once more.

  Fred looked to where she pointed and smiled. ‘Hey, man. What are the costumes for?’ he asked a young person who swept the floor with a wooden broom.

  ‘We’re hosting a Jane Austen film festival,’ the sweeper replied. ‘To celebrate the new movie being shot in town, we’re showing all her old films.’

  ‘Cool,’ Fred replied. ‘This is one of the actors from the shoot.’ He pointed to Jane.

  The young man put down his broom and held his hand out. ‘Nice. What part do you play?’

  ‘Oh, I, um . . .’ Jane stared at him, wide-eyed, and scrambled for a suitable answer. The only line she could recall was the line Sofia had taught her; she spat it out in a strangled voice. ‘I am an actress. I am from the twenty-first century,’ she said.

  The man stared at her with a smile and seemed to wait for her to elaborate. She did not. ‘I get it. Top-secret, huh?’ he said. ‘You could tell me but then you’d have to kill me?’ Jane stared back at him and sighed, understanding nothing, then nodded dumbly and hoped it was sufficient. ‘Okay then,’ he said mercifully, and returned to his sweeping.

  ‘Shall we see a Jane Austen movie, then?’ Fred said to her.

  ‘Yes,’ Jane said, burning with curiosity, and then, ‘No!’ almost as quickly. ‘Sorry, no, I don’t want to,’ she added. She was aware she acted rather strangely, yet again, but this time it could not be helped. She felt well-versed by now in the risks of exposing herself to her own creative output, and as she was already breaking one of Sofia’s rules by venturing outside, she did not feel the need to violate another for the sake of something as silly as a movie.

  ‘That’s okay, we’ll see something else. Not a fan of Jane Austen, huh?’ Fred said with a smile. ‘You don’t like her stuff?’

  ‘No,’ Jane said, keen to maintain the ploy. ‘Dreadful stuff.’

  Fred nodded. ‘Probably feels a bit like work, I guess.’ He purchased tickets and ushered Jane inside a darkened theatre.

  ‘What is this place?’ she asked him.

  ‘The movie theatre?’ he replied with a resigned laugh, pointing to the stage area. ‘As I said. You are a strange one.’

  Jane glowered at him again and went to provide him with a rebuttal, but she found herself too astounded by the sights around her to argue further.

  A huge screen of fabric, 20 feet high, stood across the stage, from which a sort of theatre production beamed out to them with lights and sound. Jane gasped. They sat down and the theatre grew dark. The crowd hushed; the main show began. Jane watched the actors move and perform in the frame. ‘It’s like tele-vision, only bigger,’ Jane whispered to Fred.

  He turned to her and chuckled. ‘That’s right.’

  The story unfolded over various scenes. A ship moved through the universe, past planets and the sun. The ship’s crew rivalled Odysseus and his men for their prolific touring and adventures. Jane hung on every word. During a quiet moment in the story, she looked around the theatre. The audience all stared up at the screen, as she did, bound by its spell.

  A realisation came to her. In the theatre next door, those women, dressed in their muslin gowns, watched a production in the same vein as this, with the terrific sounds, actors and theatre sets. Only across the way, the theatre played a story from Jane’s own head. Jane inhaled. Her mind leapt in circles.

  ‘I see now!’ she cried out in the darkened theatre.

  ‘Do you mind?’ a young man in the row of seats behind them said.

  ‘A thousand apologies,’ she said. She turned to Fred. ‘They watch a Jane Austen story next door!’ Multiple audience members turned in their seats this time and hissed angry shushes at her. She apologised again.

  Fred nodded to her with a laugh and whispered, ‘Yes, a Jane Austen film plays next door.’

  Jane inhaled. She looked once more at the audience who watched the screen, and then thought of the women in the muslin dresses and bonnets. They were there for her. The idea required such leaps of her mind and stirrings of her soul that she could barely grasp it fully. Seeing her books in print, the museum built in her honour, now this . . . it all contributed to a growing suspicion that she might not know the half of what she was to become – what she meant now. Jane closed her eyes for a moment, before watching the rest of the story in awed silence.

  When it ended, the audience stood to leave. ‘Did you like it?’ Fred asked her.

  ‘Can we see another?’ she asked him.

  Fred chuckled. ‘Sure. Whenever you like.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Jane said to him. ‘That was extraordinary.’ She felt too filled with wonder to argue with him now, so she settled for genuine feeling. She looked over, expectin
g him to be laughing at her, but he was not. His face bore a look of joy.

  ‘Good to get out of the house,’ he said. They walked home and spoke at length of the story, the ship on its journey through space, the characters. They did not argue; there were other things of which to speak.

  He came to her later. ‘Now that you’re well enough to go outside’—he still believed this lie, bless him—‘do you not want to explore Bath?’

  ‘I have been to Bath before,’ she answered.

  ‘Bath is beautiful, even if you have already been here.’

  ‘I do not care for it,’ she replied. She spoke the truth.

  ‘Yes,’ Fred said. ‘You’ve said so, a few times.’

  Jane bristled. ‘I have not.’

  He nodded. ‘Once yesterday, you said how much you disliked Bath. The day before, I think you may have sneered when I mentioned Stall Street.’

  ‘Utter nonsense,’ Jane scoffed. She was dismayed, both that her dislike of Bath was so obvious, but also that he recalled things she had said, as though he was interested in what she had to say and had made note of them.

  Fred laughed. ‘What do you not care for? The buildings? Not the people, I hope.’ He raised an eyebrow.

  ‘While I am loath to criticise the town of your birth, it is the most incurious place in England,’ she said. ‘Some of its people have charm, I grant you,’ she added quickly.

  Fred leant on the door. ‘It’s not all bad.’

  ‘Name one place in Bath that is at all clever or interesting.’

  ‘How about the Pump Room?’

  ‘The worst place of all!’ Jane cried. ‘Tea-drinking and schemes. A forum for gossips and blockheads.’ She heard her voice rising. She stared at the floor.

  ‘Oh. I found it quite nice. The bath itself is incredible,’ he said.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Jane said. ‘I could not say. I have not been inside.’

  ‘Unfair, then; you cannot critique it. That’s as bad as burning a book you haven’t read.’

  ‘You make a good point,’ Jane said begrudgingly. ‘It was not that I did not want to go,’ she said in a soft voice. She stared out the window and hoped he did not detect the pain in her voice and pity her. ‘I never had reason to go there. I am not the type they like in their establishment.’

  ‘I find that hard to believe,’ Fred said.

  She swallowed. ‘I was invited once,’ she said.

  He looked at her. ‘What happened? Why didn’t you go?’

  ‘The gentleman . . . it never eventuated,’ she said. ‘I am not welcome there,’ she added quickly. She stopped talking then, commanding herself to stop feeling pain over such an idle memory.

  Fred looked surprised. ‘Trust me,’ he said. ‘You’d never say you hate Bath again, once you’ve laid eyes on the Roman baths. The original foundation is almost two thousand years old. The emperor built it for his sweetheart. It’s romantic.’

  Jane was well aware of the story; she had been told the same thing herself many times. She may have even read one or two books on the subject, on the baths and their history, on how romantic, magical and beautiful the place was. This was all well and good, and not for her.

  ‘I do not care for the concept of romance,’ Jane stated flatly. ‘Romance is fakery. Flowers from the hothouse and sweets do not equal regard.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Fred. ‘Those things aren’t romance.’

  Jane frowned. ‘What is romance, then?’

  ‘Romance is being thoughtful. It is rubbing someone’s feet after their long day. Even if their feet stink.’

  ‘Sounds dreadful,’ Jane declared, though secretly she found the image lovely.

  ‘Romance is knowing someone’s secret desires and fulfilling them,’ Fred said.

  Jane swallowed.

  ‘Will you go somewhere with me?’ he asked then.

  ‘Where?’ Jane asked. Her heart still thumped from his last remark.

  ‘It is a surprise. Something I want to show you.’

  Jane shook her head in frustration and found herself unable to contain herself any longer. He infuriated her. ‘I am sorry, sir, but I must say, your behaviour confuses me.’ He raised an eyebrow and laughed.

  ‘How do I confuse you?’ he asked.

  ‘I struggle to see why you persist in inviting me on outings,’ Jane said to him. ‘You have made clear your dislike for me,’ she began.

  ‘Have I?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she insisted, flinching. ‘You tease me and laugh at me and you have mistaken my character. You don’t know who I am. You do not see me at all.’

  ‘I see you perfectly well.’

  ‘What do you see?’ she said, squinting.

  ‘I see a person of intelligence, so much that it scares me,’ he said.

  Jane swallowed. ‘Really,’ she said incredulously.

  ‘I see a cold person with a warm heart. A judgemental person, but with good reason. Someone who has been hurt so is watchful now.’ Jane stared at him. ‘Someone who doesn’t suffer fools, and why should she? I see someone who loves people, despite what they may have done to her. I see an optimist—’

  ‘An optimist?’ Jane interrupted. She scoffed. ‘Hardly.’

  ‘An optimist, yes,’ he said. ‘Someone who pretends they hate the world, when really they see such beauty in it that they want to live as long as they can, try everything, see everything.’ He scratched his shoulder. ‘I see a person so beautiful it takes my breath away.’ He paused and looked right at her. ‘Which part of what I have said is wrong?’

  Jane found herself gripped with such astonishment that she felt unable to speak. She could not meet his eye. No one had ever said such things. She glanced at the ceiling, then the floor.

  A minute might have passed, or maybe an hour. Finally, he spoke again.

  ‘So, will you go with me?’ he said.

  She remained stunned to silence. She could still move her head, though, so she nodded.

  ‘Meet me downstairs, tomorrow,’ he said. ‘At a quarter to midnight.’

  ‘A quarter to midnight?’ she asked. ‘What purpose requires such a late hour?’

  ‘You’ll see.’ He looked at her with a conspiratorial eye that made her swallow again. ‘Until then, Jane.’

  ‘Until then,’ she replied.

  Jane returned to the book of sermons and forced herself to read once more. She heard herself inhale and exhale loudly and told herself to be calm. She coasted dangerously close to something – she was not quite sure what – and although she wanted to stop, she felt like there was not a force on earth which could do so.

  When Sofia arrived home that night, she said, ‘I’m so sorry, Jane. My voyage to the library was a disaster. I found no information on how to return you home. You’ve been waiting patiently inside all day with nothing to do and you entrusted your future life and happiness to me. I tried to find help and failed miserably.’

  ‘You did not fail, Sofia,’ Jane replied. Sofia’s face looked pained.

  ‘I had a rough day. But I promise I will keep trying.’

  ‘Thank you, Sofia. I appreciate everything.’

  ‘Unfortunately, you won’t be returning to your own time today. I hoped to have better news. You’ll have to stay here another night. I’ll try again tomorrow. Don’t hate me.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Jane replied. ‘I could never hate you.’ She looked across the way as Fred walked into the kitchen. She turned back to Sofia quickly, hoping she hadn’t seen. Jane swallowed. She felt gripped between anxiety that her chances of returning home were slipping away, and relief that she was allowed to stay one more day.

  A chime of oddly metallic bells sounded from Sofia’s clothes and broke her reverie. ‘Is there a bell in your pocket?’ Jane asked.

  Sofia scowled. ‘Oh. It’s my phone.’ She turned to Jane and squinted. ‘Don’t ask me how it works.’ She pulled a thin steel box from her pocket, the same as those everyone seemed to possess in this time, and studied it. ‘I don
’t know this number,’ she said with a grimace, then stiffened. ‘It must be Jack! He must have a new phone. I feel sick. Why does he call me?’ She paused. ‘He is calling to apologise!’ She turned to Jane. ‘Quick, what do I say to him? How about this voice? Hellooo,’ she said in a deep, husky voice.

  ‘You sound like you have consumption,’ Jane said.

  ‘Okay, a little brighter,’ Sofia said. She practised again. ‘Hell-oh!’

  ‘Better, I suppose,’ Jane said, confused.

  The box rang on. Sofia shook her head. ‘I used to be good at this stuff. Okay, here I go.’ She put the box to her ear. ‘Hello, sexy man,’ she purred.

  ‘Is this Ms Wentworth?’ asked a shaky male voice. The voice came from the steel box. Jane leant in closer to listen, eyes wide.

  ‘Yes. Who is this?’ Sofia removed the attempted huskiness and resumed her normal voice.

  ‘It’s Dave Croft. From the library.’

  Sofia sank into her seat. ‘How did you get this number?’

  ‘You gave it to me,’ the voice in the box said.

  ‘Oh. What do you want?’

  ‘I wanted to apologise for before.’

  Jane stared at the box. Sofia spoke into it the same way the woman had on the train. How did it produce sound? Did the voice inside it belong to a person? Jane moved even closer to the magical thin rectangle, eyes bulging.

  Sofia shrugged and waved her arm in the air. ‘No need. I wasn’t bothered,’ she said.

  ‘I hope not. Because I did a little digging of my own. About your witch problem,’ the voice replied.

  Jane sat up in her chair.

  ‘Funny,’ Sofia scoffed. She rolled her eyes. ‘You found the crazy lady’s witch, well done.’

  ‘As a matter of fact,’ said the voice, ‘I did.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Sofia entered the University of Bristol law library. Dave the librarian was waiting for her in the foyer. ‘Why are we meeting here?’ she asked him.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘Mrs Sinclair is inside.’ He held the door open for her, then pointed to her clothes. ‘New threads?’