Austenland

by Shannon Hale

  “I’d rather not lie about my age,” Jane said, then immediately winced. Here she was entering Austenland where she’d pretend the year was 1816 and that actors were her friends and family and potential suitors, and she worried about shaving a few years off her age? Her stomach shrank, and for the first time she feared she might not be able to see this through.

  Mrs. Wattlesbrook was watching her shrewdly. Jane gulped a breath. Could she know? Did she have that uncanny Carolyn intuition, did she sense that Jane was here not as an idle vacationer but because she had a nasty obsession? Or did she assume even worse—that Jane was seeking a fantasy in earnest, that she believed she might find him, find love, on this It’s a Small World ride?

  Jane’s mother often told the story of how until Jane was eight years old, when asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, she still answered with conviction, “I want to be a princess.” Perhaps because of her mother’s pleasant mockery, by her adolescence, Jane had learned to hide her desires for such wonderful impossibilities as becoming a princess, or a supermodel, or Elizabeth Bennet. Bury and hide them until they were so profound and neglected as to somehow be true. Sheesh, she was feeling ready to stretch herself out on a Freudian couch.

  No matter. Mock her if you will, but Jane was determined to dig up those weedy issues and toss them out. She would enjoy this last trip to fantasyland so utterly that it’d be easy in three weeks to put it all behind her—Austen, men, fantasies, period. But in order for it to work, she had to be Jane, experiencing everything for herself, and so she clung stubbornly to her actual age.

  “I could say ‘I’m not yet four and thirty’ if you prefer.” Jane smiled innocently.

  “Quite,” said Mrs. Wattlesbrook with firm lips, insistent that there was no humor to be had. “For the duration of your stay, there will be one other guest at Pembrook Park—a Miss Charming, who arrived yesterday. When Miss Amelia Heartwright arrives, she will stay at Pembrook Cottage, so you shall see her often as well. I expect all of you ladies to maintain appropriate manners and conversation even when alone. In other words, no gossip, no swapping university prank stories, no yo’s and ho’s and all that. I am very strict about my observances, hm?”

  She seemed to expect a response, so Jane said, “I read your warning in my social history notes.”

  Mrs. Wattlesbrook raised her eyebrows. “A reader? How refreshing.” She made a show of sorting through Jane’s papers, humming theatrically, then looked up, half her eyes hidden under the flap of her cap. “I know why you are here.”

  She knew!

  “We receive extensive financial statements, and I know you did not pay your own way, so let us put that drama out of the way, shall we?”

  “Is it a drama?” Jane said with a laugh, relieved the woman was just referring to Carolyn’s bequest.

  “Hm?” Mrs. Wattlesbrook would not budge from her intended course of conversation. Jane sighed.

  “Yes, my great-aunt left me this vacation in her will, but I don’t know what you mean by drama. I never intended to hide—”

  “No need to make a fuss.” She waved her arms as if wafting Jane’s exclamations out the window like a foul odor. “You are here, you are paid in full. I would not have you worry that we will not take care of you just because you are not our usual type of guest and there is no chance, given your economic conditions, that you would ever be a repeat client or likely to associate with and recommend us to potential clients. Let me assure you that we will still do all in our power to make your visit, such as it is, enjoyable.”

  Mrs. Wattlesbrook smiled, showing both rows of yellowing teeth. Jane blinked. Economic conditions? Usual type of guest? She made herself take two deep-rooted yoga breaths, smiled back, and thought of men in breeches. “Okay then.”

  “Good, good.” Mrs. Wattlesbrook patted Jane’s arm, suddenly the picture of hospitality and maternal tenderness. “Now, do have some tea. You must be quite chilled from your journey.”

  In fact, the temperature of the limo, unlike this pseudo-inn, had been quite comfortable, and in the blazing heat the last thing Jane wanted was hot tea, but she reminded herself to play along, so she sweated and drank.

  Mrs. Wattlesbrook settled down to quiz her on the items of study—how to play the card games whist and speculation, general etiquette, current events of the Regency period, and so on. Jane answered like a nervous teenager giving an oral report.

  Then off to the wardrobe where she put on a calf-length, nightgownlike chemise and over it tried on a series of push-up bra corsets. This exercise made swimming suit shopping seem like a walk in the park. Eventually they did find one that didn’t dig her under the arms but gently encouraged posture and did her the voluptuous justice all Regency breasts demanded.

  “I’ll just keep these for you until your return,” Mrs. Wattles-brook said, picking up Jane’s purple bra and panties at arm’s length and handing her an awkward pair of white cotton drawers. To properly enjoy “the Experience,” Jane was to understand, even the underwear must be Regency. A lot, apparently, must be sacrificed to fully benefit from the Experience, except makeup. The Rules of Pembrook Park, Jane was realizing, were not overly concerned with creating a true historical setting.

  The proprietress opened a wardrobe and revealed that Jane’s measurements had been transformed into four day dresses, three evening dresses, a ball gown in white and lace, two short “spencer” jackets, a brown fitted overcoat called a “pelisse,” two bonnets, a bright red shawl, and a pile of chemises, drawers, stockings, boots, and slippers.

  “Wow. I mean, wow,” was all Jane could say for a few moments. She wiggled her fingers like an evil miser at a horde of riches. “They’re all for me?”

  “For your use, yes, though not to keep, mind. Your great-aunt’s payment did not cover wardrobe souvenirs.” Mrs. Wattles-brook extracted a dress from Jane’s eager fingers and packed it tenderly into her trunk. “This is an evening dress. You should wear a day dress now, the pink one there.”

  The pink one was hideous. Jane took the blue one off its hook, ignoring Mrs. Wattlesbrook’s offended sniff.

  In a few minutes, the dressing-of-Jane was complete: blue print day dress trimmed in dark blue ribbon with elbow-length sleeves, stockings fastened to thighs with garters, black ankle boots, and there she was. She stood sideways, looked in the mirror, and experienced a silly, naughty feeling, like she hadn’t had since the sinful pleasure of playing Barbie dolls with her younger cousin when she was twelve and should’ve been too old. Here she was, a grown woman playing dress-up, but it felt so good.

  “And there she is,” Jane whispered.

  “I must have any electronic thingies now, my dear.”

  Jane turned over her MP3 player.

  “And?” Mrs. Wattlesbrook tipped her head up to look at Jane through the spectacles resting on her nose. “Nothing else?” She paused as though waiting for Jane to confess, which she did not. Mrs. Wattlesbrook sighed and removed the player from the room, carrying it between finger and thumb like something dead to be flushed down the toilet. While she was out, Jane hid her cell phone in the bottom of the trunk. She’d already gone to the trouble to set up international service with her provider because it would be unbearable to be without e-mail for three weeks. Besides, it gave her a little glee to sneak something illegal across the border. She wasn’t the usual type of client, was she? Then she certainly wouldn’t try to act like it.

  Jane dined that night with Mrs. Wattlesbrook and practiced manners during the longest two-hour meal she had lived through since attending the eighth annual Researchers for a Better Paper Pulp (RBPP) banquet with boyfriend #9 (keynote address: “The Climax and the Downfall of the Wood Chip”).

  “When eating fish, use your fork in your right hand and a piece of bread in your left. Just so. No knives with fish or fruit, because the knives are silver and the acids in those foods tarnish. Remember, you must never talk to the servants during dinner. Don’t even mention them, don’t make eye contact. Thi
nk of it as demeaning to them, if you must, but find a way to obey this society’s rules, Miss Erstwhile. It is the only way to truly appreciate the Experience. I need not warn you again about behavior with regard to the opposite sex. You are a young, single woman and should never be unchaperoned with a gentleman indoors and only out-of-doors so long as you are in motion—riding, walking, or in a carriage, that is. No touching, besides the necessary social graces, such as taking a man’s hand as he helps you down from a carriage or his arm as he escorts you into dinner. No familiar talk, no intimate questions. I am to understand from past clients that when romance blooms under the tension of these restrictions, it is all the more passionate.”

  After dinner, Mrs. Wattlesbrook led Jane into the main room of the inn, where an older woman in a brown Regency dress waited at the piano.

  “As you will have opportunity to attend informal dances and a ball, you must perfect a minuet and two country dances. Theodore, come in here.”

  A man in perhaps his late twenties came into the inn’s main room. Jane caught a glimpse of a worn paperback novel in his hand before he stashed it behind the piano. He wore his hair a little long, though he didn’t sport the midjaw sideburns Jane liked so well, and he was, she thought, taller than a man should be if he doesn’t play basketball.

  “This is Theodore, an under-gardener at the estate, but I’ve taught him the dances, and he stands in for a gentleman on the first night so our guests can practice.”

  She put out her hand. “Hi, I’m Jane.”

  “No, you are not!” Mrs. Wattlesbrook said. “You are Miss Erstwhile. And you are not to talk to him, he is just a servant. For the sake of the Experience, we must be proper.”

  Mrs. Wattlesbrook was reminding Jane of Miss April, the spiteful, tight-bunned, glossy-lipped, stick-cracking ballet teacher of her elementary school years. She hadn’t much cared for Miss April.

  When Mrs. Wattlesbrook turned her back to give instructions to the piano player, Jane mouthed to Theodore, “Sorry.”

  Theodore smiled, a fantastically broad smile that made her notice just how blue his eyes were.

  “The minuet is a ceremonious, graceful dance,” said Mrs. Wattlesbrook, closing her eyes to enjoy the music the pianist drew from the keys. “It commences each ball as a means of introducing all the members of the society. Each couple takes turns in the center performing the figures. Curtsy to the audience, Miss Erstwhile, now to your partner, and begin.”

  With Mrs. Wattlesbrook calling the motions, Jane wove, swerved, minced, and spun. She had thought it might be awkward dancing with a man a foot taller than her, but this was no waltz or high school slow dance. It was a smooth combination of figures, of taking hands and releasing, turning and returning.

  Jane found herself giggling when she missed a step or turned the wrong way. It was a bit embarrassing, but she took comfort in the fact that she didn’t snort. Her partner smiled, apparently amused by her own amusement. Though at a formal ball they would be wearing gloves, in this informal setting their hands were bare, and she felt the calluses on his palm when he took her hand, felt him get warmer as they danced on. It was strange to touch someone like this, touch hands, feel his hand on her back, on her waist, walking her through the figures, and yet not know him at all. Never even have heard the sound of his voice.

  He wrapped his hand around her waist. She blushed like a freshman.

  After the minuet they practiced two country dances. The first was spunky, and she had to learn how to “skip elegantly.” She had square-danced for a sixth-grade assembly once (a tragic affair involving boyfriend #1), and the second number reminded her of a sedate Virginia reel.

  “The top couple moves up and down the center and the rest wait,” explained Mrs. Wattlesbrook. “In a ball with many couples, one dance can take half an hour.”

  “So that’s why Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy had time to talk,” Jane said, “as they stood there waiting their turn at the top.”

  “Indeed,” said Mrs. Wattlesbrook.

  Blunder, Jane thought, glancing at her partner. What must he think of her? A woman who memorized Austen books and played dress-up? She’d enjoyed a bit of flirting as they danced, but she was too embarrassed to meet his eyes again. When they finished, he left the way he’d come in.

  Jane sat that night on her hard mattress in the inn’s guest room, feeling loose and pretty in her clean white chemise, her arms around her knees. The English countryside was framed by her window as though it were a painting, blue and purple, abstract in the low light. She grimaced as she thought about the dance, remembering how fun it had been until she’d spoiled it at the end. She didn’t want that for this experience. She needed a good ending, the best ending, though her imagination couldn’t dredge up exactly what that should be.

  The endings of all her relationships had displaced any previous loveliness. In memory, the jokes faded, the personalities of the various boyfriends blurred together, weekend trips were truncated in thought to as long as it took her to scratch her neck. The entire relationship was condensed and reformed in her mind to be solely about its ending.

  Here she was at the beginning of something, her toes curled over the edge of the diving board. She was ready to plunge. Good-bye to her awkward list of numbered boyfriends and her mutated, Austen-inspired intensity that had pushed her from one ending to another. She was determined that this vacation, this holiday, unlike any of her relationships, would have a very good ending.

  Let’s glance back a moment and remember: Jane’s First Love

  Alex Bipley, AGE FOUR

  Alex declared to Jane’s preschool teachers, both their parents, and Cindy (the girl with self-cut bangs) that he and Jane would marry. After a rousing Easter egg hunt in the park, he ran with Jane behind a tree.

  “I want to give you something that means we’ll be together forever.”

  He kissed her on the lips seven times. It reminded Jane of a chicken pecking. A soft chicken.

  That summer Alex’s parents moved to Minnesota. She never saw him again.

  day 1

  THE NEXT MORNING AFTER A huge, meaty breakfast, Jane climbed into a carriage (A carriage! she thought), her trunk fastened to the back. Mrs. Wattlesbrook stood in the doorway, dabbing a handkerchief to her dry eyes.

  “Do have a good time, Miss Erstwhile, and remember to wear a wrap and bonnet when you go out!”

  The day was gray, and patchy rain nudged the carriage roof. Jane watched the hilly country bounce by, a row of river trees huddling in a line. The fresh landscape encouraged her artist’s eye to see in paint colors—leaves of sap green, the distant roofs of a small town in burnt umber and cadmium red, the sky cerulean blue. They passed a gate and guard station, and rolled up an unpaved private drive. The carriage slowed then halted in front of a stately Georgian manor, yellow bricks, white gables, and sixteen facing windows. It looked clean and square and full of something secret and wonderful, a solidly wrapped present.

  “That’s a fair prospect,” Jane breathed, giving herself chills.

  The front doors opened and a dozen people filed out. Despite the weather, they stood patiently in two lines, blinking against the thin rainfall. From their attire, Jane guessed they were mostly house servants plus a few gardeners in rougher clothes. Theodore was difficult to miss, a head taller than any other.

  The carriage lurched to a stop and gave Jane a sinking feeling in her middle. Now that it came to it, she didn’t know if she could role-play with a straight face. She was used to having clothes that touched her waist and her hips, hair loose around her face, pants with a back pocket to keep a few bucks handy, shoes that allowed her to run. She felt so ridiculously phony riding up in a carriage in this Halloween costume, pretending to be someone of note, all those servants and actors knowing she was just a sad woman with odd fantasies. She felt naked and pale in her empire-waist dress.

  One of the manservants opened the carriage door and held out his hand. Jane made a muted whine in her throat, then hoped he
hadn’t heard her.

  Okay, okay, I can do this, Jane said to herself. Of course I can do this. I should be used to making a fool out of myself by now. This will be the last big one. Just three weeks and then I can leave this part of myself behind and get on with my life. And maybe it’ll be fun. It might even be fun.

  She took the servant’s hand, stepped down from the carriage, breathed in a steadying breath, and caught an anachronistic whiff of Polo. Somehow that smell was reassuring.

  “My dear Jane, you are very welcome!” A woman of perhaps fifty years approached the carriage on the arm of a red-cheeked, chubby man. Her blue dress and red umbrella were bright and inviting against the dreary backdrop of servants and rain.

  “I am your aunt Saffronia, though of course you do not remember me as I haven’t kissed your cheeks since you were two and your widowed mother married that American and took you off to the New World,” she said neatly in one breath. “How we mourned your loss! My, but it is so good of you to come and visit at last. This is my husband, Sir John Templeton. He is near expiring in the anticipation of your arrival.”

  Sir John blew up his cheeks and chewed on some invisible cud.

  “Go on, Sir John, say hello,” Aunt Saffronia said.

  Sir John at last fixed his wandering gaze on Jane. “Yes, well, hello,” he said.

  He blinked lazily, and assuming he meant it as a nod of greeting, Jane curtsied as Mrs. Wattlesbrook had taught her.

  “Hello, Uncle. How are you?”

  “I had some ham for breakfast. I do not get ham much, what with pigs such dirty beasts and not on the property.” His gaze wandered.

  Jane tried to think of some appropriate response to that. She came up with, “Hooray for ham!”

  “Yes, lovely,” said Aunt Saffronia. “Lovely, indeed. You are lovely. It has been a long time since we have had lovely young people at Pembrook Park . . .” Her voice trailed off and she lifted a fingernail to her mouth, then pulled back abruptly. Jane thought it was a small error—the actress bit her nails, but Aunt Saffronia did not.