The Austen Escape

by Katherine Reay

  “Happiest song ever, and every time I played it my dad crooned the vocals off key and at about ninety decibels—lawn mower loud.”

  “Sing me some?”

  “No way.” The lyrics filled my head, but I pressed my lips tight against their escape. Where seldom is heard a discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all day . . .

  I switched songs in case he asked again, segueing into Scott Joplin’s “The Entertainer.”

  “I haven’t heard that in years.”

  I played on. “My mom and dad used to two-step in the living room to it . . . Or how about . . .” I switched again.

  “‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’ . . . That one always made me sad, especially the Israel Kamakawiwo’ole version.”

  “Me too . . . Here.” I shifted to that interpretation. At the last note I could remember, which landed us somewhere in the middle of the song, I dropped my hands into my lap. I wondered if he understood what I was trying to share. I barely did.

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, eyes locked on mine. “I had no idea . . . Is there anything you don’t do?” His question came out on a whisper.

  “Cook.”

  “Ahh . . . Lucky for us, I do.” Nathan smiled, then tapped a treble key. “How’d you learn to play?”

  “When I was ten, my dad traded my babysitting skills for piano lessons with the woman next door. He wanted me occupied and she had a three-year-old terror.” I tapped another key with one finger to create a complement to his note. “I can’t smell Lysol and Febreze without being transported back to that tiny, hot house. Those first weeks were torture . . . Then one day, none of that mattered. I got it.”

  I trilled out a few more notes. “Music is math, and once you understand that . . . How can anyone not be in awe? It’s the audible expression behind the laws of the universe. It feels like the only thing, apart from God, that lives outside time. Once released, it lives on and it can make you laugh and cry, rip you apart and heal you, all within a few discrete notes strung together. And while it follows rules, expression is limitless.”

  Nathan remained silent, and doubt crept in.

  He turned to me, his face inches from my own. “I don’t know if it’s this place, or, as you suspect, the dress, or maybe it’s that we’re not at work, or perhaps it’s this . . .” He flickered two fingers between an A and B at the top of the scale. “I feel like I’m seeing you for the first time, this fuller version of you. The best version of you.”

  “You’ve figured me out then?”

  “Never, but I almost missed this. I almost missed you.” He looked across the empty room toward the arched door Isabel and Grant had exited. He stood. “Dance with me?”

  He tugged my hand to pull me with him, then led me a few steps behind the piano to within the open doorway to the patio.

  “There’s no music.”

  “Debatable.”

  Until I reached the threshold, I hadn’t realized how stuffy the ballroom had become. But here, dry inside air mixed with the outside damp. I felt warm, but as the cool air touched my skin, suddenly chilled too.

  Nathan twisted his hand within my own and, palm to palm, he pulled me close and wrapped his other arm around my waist. I looked down. I couldn’t find where his blue coat ended and my dress began.

  “Isabel said you never dance,” he whispered.

  “She said that to me too. She wasn’t talking about me.” I felt Nathan’s head shift in an unasked question. “Anne Elliot from Persuasion. She plays the piano and doesn’t dance.”

  “You’d think the role play, this getup, the stilted mannerisms, not to mention the fact that I’m saying words that should only be used in college essays, would be hard. But I’m finding it all very easy.”

  We stepped a full waltz rotation in silence. The breeze rustled my dress’s hem. “Do you smell it?”

  “What?” I felt his breath on my ear.

  “Electricity.” I heard the word and felt my face warm. I pulled an inch away. “I mean a storm. There’s one nearby.”

  I’d been right during our walk to the stables; my head reached within that tender space between shoulder and chin.

  “Is that your favorite smell?”

  “I found a new one recently.” I closed my eyes. I felt his head shift the minutest of degrees. The tiniest movement on my side and . . . I couldn’t move. I smelled bubble gum and something fresh, like grass and sunshine, and I didn’t want it to end. I closed my eyes and wished this moment was so significant, so weighted and so massive, that we could test Einstein’s theory—bend time and freeze it.

  Chapter 21

  The best version of you . . .

  The words, the feeling, and the anticipation of all it might mean played within my dreams.

  We had danced, and sat by the dying fire in the Day Room to talk. Then, when the ashes grew cold and the room dark, he held my hand as we walked up the stairs and along the gallery. Outside the Green Room he’d laid a soft, lingering kiss at the edge of my jaw. Just off center enough to send chills up my spine.

  “Until tomorrow, Miss Morland.”

  I must have leaned against the inside of our bedroom door for a half hour, savoring every memory and studying Isabel. She was tucked tight under her covers on her stomach. I could only see a mass of black curls against the white sheets. Would she wake soon? And how would everything change when she did?

  I looked around the room. Isabel was gone, and once again I had not heard her wake or dress. One of the reasons I’d hesitated about this trip was my fear that our quarters would be too tight and confining. We didn’t have enough space in our friendship for our adult selves, much less if we were stuck in a room together. Yet here we were, sharing that room, and I didn’t even see her on waking. I no longer felt compressed or defined by her. We were divided by schedules, centuries, and the great distance between fact and fiction.

  A brown wool dress lay across the foot of my bed with a note.

  Good morning! Join us at the stables when you wake. I pulled this out for you. It’s chillier outside this morning.

  I set the dress aside and opened my wardrobe. There was a dress that had caught my eye the afternoon we arrived—a deep purple, a royal purple. I’d passed it over as too bold, but now I pulled it down and fingered the fabric. It had a slight bumpiness to the texture, probably a silk and cotton blend, with matching ribbons of velvet. It was the purple on purple that gave the dress impact. It wasn’t frilly or frumpy. It had crisp pleats, right angles at the neckline, and fell in one-color splendor all the way to my toes.

  I pulled my hair back in the same high bun Isabel had fashioned. This time I left no loose tendrils or curls. It felt dramatic and bold too. Soft leather boots and a black shawl, taken from the wardrobe’s lower drawers, completed the outfit. I headed to the stables.

  The gravel on the drive surrounding the house shifted and scraped under my feet. Rain had pattered the windows in the night and left the gravel moist and gripping and the grass glistening with drops in the morning light. But the air was dry. All the dampness had been pulled out with the rain, and the air was also cold, crisp. Each breath made a little puff of steam, and I almost turned back for a heavier dress or a jacket. Instead I tucked the shawl tighter around my shoulders and picked up my pace along the path.

  “You’re here.” Duncan stood brushing Tennyson.

  “Am I late?”

  “They went for a walk. Isabel was keen to go, Nathan keen to stay, but she won in the end.”

  “I don’t doubt it.” I felt my buoyancy deflate with a slow leak.

  Duncan pointed the brush down the path. “If you hurry you might catch them.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Is anyone else around?”

  “The Muellers are on a gig ride with Goliath. The Lottes are fishing on a north stretch of the stream, if you want to join them.”

  “I think I’d rather walk.” I pointed down the path, the opposite direction he’d said Isabel had taken. “Will y
ou tell Nathan I headed this way?”

  I passed the spot where Nathan and I had fished. I walked to the stream and looked down into the cranny right by the bank. I wondered if any fish were hiding there today. Then I lifted the skirt of my dress and lengthened my stride . . . Time to walk. The path split. I headed down a small slope and, circling a hedgerow, ran into Gertrude.

  “Good morning.” She seemed surprised to see me. She was dressed in black pants, her bright-pink rubber boots, and a black sweater. “Forgive me for not being in dress. I was visiting Mr. Chessman and thought I wouldn’t be seen.”

  I waved away her apology. “Grant?”

  “His grandfather.” She joined me. “He’s been here longer than I have.” She smiled. “If ever the world went sideways, a visit to his cottage always set it right—ever since I was a little girl. When I lose my patience with the Stanleys, I remember they let him keep his cottage and his salary, and I stop.”

  “Isabel met him yesterday.”

  “He mentioned that. He thinks his grandson is quite taken with her.” Gertrude looked at me. “This is where these escapes can get dangerous.” Her tone held a warning.

  “I can imagine.”

  “Life often doesn’t look the same. Can’t look the same afterwards.”

  I wondered if Gertrude was talking about Isabel, me, or herself. It was hard to tell. “I’m beginning to think I don’t want it to.”

  Gertrude pressed her fingers to her lips, as if she was trying to stop a smile or tears. I wasn’t sure which.

  “I need to get back to the house.”

  She went on up the path as I headed down. The realization of what I’d just said struck me. I didn’t want life to return to what it had been. It wasn’t just Isabel. It wasn’t just Nathan—as much as he seemed to be smack in the middle of everything. It was about music, fear, voice, running away, and tucking close. It was about family and swirling emotions I couldn’t name but felt in my heart as it pounded with each step. Everything was already different.

  The path met up with the stream again. It was wider here and rushed faster. There was a log over it and a verdant sloping hill on the other side. I stepped onto the log and made it halfway across when it shifted beneath me.

  The time-space continuum distorted. Space compressed. Time elongated. It took me three full sentences to fall.

  1.That water will be freezing and, wow, it looks deep.

  2.I’m going to ruin this dress.

  3.This is really going to hurt.

  The last sentence got my attention, and I twisted so that my shoulder and not my wrist crashed first. I landed in the icy water while thinking up sentence four.

  4. Oufff.

  I pulled myself upright but couldn’t find solid ground on which to plant my feet. I slipped and landed smack on the stones. One ruined dress. One bruised shoulder. It reminded me of a scene I’d read in one of Austen’s novels, but I couldn’t place it and now wasn’t the time to ponder. I reached forward to start my crawl to shore.

  “Mary! What happened? . . . Wait.” Grant sprinted across the log to get to my side of the stream. Without pausing he waded in and pulled me up and out.

  Grant. Military. Captain Wentworth. Persuasion.

  “I thought you went for a walk.” I felt my teeth chatter. “I was just thinking I needed one of you.”

  He stood me on the ground and pulled the drenched shawl away. “One of me?”

  “A Captain Wentworth to pull me out. Thank you.”

  Grant chuckled. “Right.”

  “I was trying to cross.” I pointed to the hill. “I thought I’d get a good view up there.”

  “You would, and when you’re warm and dry, there’s a bridge about a quarter mile that way.” He pointed farther downstream.

  “I’ll remember that.”

  He stepped close and rubbed my arms with both hands. We stood inches apart. There was something formal, strong, and almost sad about Grant. I hadn’t gotten a good look previously or even had a good conversation. He and Isabel were always off and away. I’d heard she’d helped him check the fence line, feed the horses, even helped his father select plantings for spring.

  He caught my stare, and a slow smile crept across his face, dispelling the sadness. He dropped his hands and patted at his sides, and his eyes widened as if surprised by something. “I took off my coat at the stables . . . I’m sorry. I don’t have it to give to you.”

  “I retract my comment.” I meant it as a joke, but my chattering teeth made him grimace rather than laugh. “I thought you were walking with Isabel and Nathan.”

  “I left them. I needed to get something done.” Grant looked down the path as if figuring out the fastest way to get me back and dry, and yet he didn’t take a step. He shifted his weight from foot to foot. “You and Isabel are best friends. You know her better than anyone.”

  Thinking back on the past six months and Nathan, I almost laughed. “Yes.”

  “I wanted to talk to you, to ask you . . .” He watched the water before shifting his gaze back to me. Then he nodded, crisp and decisive, the way I’d expect a soldier to do once a decision had been made. “My wife left me during my last deployment. The separation proved too hard for her; she said she wasn’t cut out to be a soldier’s wife and that no one could be expected to endure that fear. She had an affair, filed for divorce, and cleared out before I got home. I know she had her own issues, but—” He stopped abruptly and gripped the back of his neck.

  “You’re falling in love with Isabel.”

  “I don’t even know her,” he scoffed. It didn’t fool either of us. “I don’t want . . . I don’t—”

  “Want to get hurt again.” It was my turn to shift my gaze to the water. “Believe me, I understand. And I don’t blame you. Fear can make us do stupid things.” I glanced to him. “I’ve got my own experience in losing someone you love, even letting them go first. It all hurts.”

  “Every day.” His nail beds whitened with the pressure at his neck, then reddened with the release.

  Twenty years had taught me that Isabel’s pragmatism, almost disdain for love, was a cover. She wore boyfriends like fashions; they changed with the seasons and she attached a certain pride to that. She was shy to show what she really felt. She needed safety. In many ways, I’d done the same.

  Yet with Grant, I’d seen more. I’d never seen her so in love, so free. So true to herself. Maybe that’s where she went in these episodes. Maybe she, too, became her best self. I looked down at my sopping purple dress. It clung to my legs. Perhaps Isabel and I were more alike than I thought.

  Grant’s mouth lifted in a wry smile. “I should be talking to Isabel. Believe me, I would . . . I will . . . but . . .”

  “No one can talk to her right now, not really.”

  He nodded. “Who is she, Mary? Who is the true Isabel?”

  Oddly, it was Missy Reneker, not Isabel, who materialized in my memory. I could feel her hands push me off the lunch bench and the sticky linoleum beneath me as I landed.

  Then came Isabel . . . I felt her strength, and even greater determination, as she held her breath to haul me up. I recalled the notebooks full of lists she carried around as she helped my dad plan every birthday party and even the rehearsal dinners for my brothers’ weddings. I thought of her dad and the question she asked every Friday night, until we both knew it so well it no longer needed articulation: If he’s coming home, he’ll be here by six o’clock. If not, can I spend the night?

  “I’m not speaking for Isabel. I have no idea what she feels, but I can tell you who she is.”

  “Okay.” He drew the word out in invitation to continue.

  “She is the bright, fun, and whimsical woman you see now—that’s her without armor. In many ways, you have met the truest Isabel there is. Isabel with armor up can hide all that really well. But if she loves you, maybe it’ll come down. She is loyal, fierce, and she can endure. She’s tough. If you live for her, she can endure the separation of a deployment.�
�� I looked around at the stream, the hill, the path leading back to the house. “Considering where we are, you’ll understand that allusion.”

  He raised a brow.

  I smirked. “It’s an idea from Persuasion. Anne Elliot says it, but don’t think Isabel is your Anne Elliot. That’d be a mistake. She is not that compliant.”

  Grant laughed with a mixture of embarrassment and relief. “Even now, that’s not an adjective I’d use to describe her.” He then saw me, really saw me, and his face fell. “Forgive me. You’re shivering. We must get you back.”

  He started down the path with such long strides I had to run to keep pace. We’d covered about a hundred yards before he stopped.

  I heard it too—the clopping of horse hooves.

  “I have a better idea. That’s where my coat went. I took it off when setting up the gig.”

  The Muellers came into view. Goliath pulled them in a small carriage that had only two wheels, set side by side.

  Grant smirked at me now. “By the way, that’s Admiral and Mrs. Croft approaching. Helene explained it to me this morning—she said you suggested a change of characters.”

  Herman pulled on Goliath’s reins and stopped beside us. “What happened here?”

  “Miss Morland,” Grant said with wry formality, “decided to take a dip. Could you take her back to the house? She’s shivering.”

  “Of course, and we come prepared. We have a blanket.” Helene squished up against her husband. “Do let us have the pleasure of taking you home. There is excellent room for three.”

  Grant took the blanket she offered and led me to the back of the gig, where he lifted me onto the bench. “There wasn’t room for three up there,” he whispered. In a louder voice he called, “She’s set back here. Walk on, Goliath.”

  We bounced away.

  “Isn’t this delightful?” Helene called. “Not that you are cold and wet, but that this is happening just as it is? I took your suggestion.”

  Before I could answer, Herman called, “Are you comfortable back there?”