My Jane Austen Summer

by Cindy Jones

  The line buzzed, several women pushed their blushing men to the fore, but my attention fixed on a tall, blustery man who announced, "Count Cassel, at your service." He removed his hat and executed a deeply dramatic bow. He reminded me of self-important Mr. Rushworth.

  "Come with me," I said, taking his arm and leading him to the music room.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  We ran through Count Cassel's lines and played vinyl LPs in the music room while volunteers served the three courses in the ballroom: scones, sandwiches, and tea cookies. The ballroom filled with noise of conversation, people laughing, enjoying themselves at our tea, excitement building for the entertainment. Once the play began, I watched from the butler pantry as Mrs. Russell embraced her long-lost son, Stephen Jervis. I saw how convincingly Mrs. Russell admired her son's physique as he said, "I will never leave you. Look, Mother, how tall and strong I am grown. These arms can now afford you support." Of course, we'd seen him without his shirt.

  "I think Mrs. Russell has a crush on Stephen," I remarked to Omar, but he was busy looking over his lines. Just then Sixby walked in and stood at the back of the room, the spot Magda usually occupied during productions. But no Willis.

  Omar and I took the stage to perform the scene where Anhalt, the tutor, is sent to instruct Amelia, who is secretly in love with him, on the good and the bad aspects of matrimony. Amelia manages to wrangle a proposal of marriage out of him before the scene ends. Omar looked a bit green. He spoke his first line and I knew we were in trouble. I wished Sixby wasn't watching, nor Nigel and Vera. Omar's eyes never left the floor. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and his fingers fiddled with the side seam of his breeches as he forgot to ask why my character had been crying. "If you please, we will sit down," he said. I feared he would not remember the next part of his line but it came to him. "Count Cassel is arrived."

  "Yes, I know," I said.

  Omar took a deep breath, looking sideways at nothing. Then he skipped the next ten lines, proceeding directly to his very long line about matrimony as "the meeting of sympathetic hearts" which I knew he would never finish. I wanted to stop the show. I saw myself interrupting the scene with an apology or tears. I couldn't look at Vera. Magda was right; I should have bought a Eurail pass. As I scrambled to improvise and stop Omar's misery, I saw Sixby walking through the tables with a wild look in his eye. Perhaps he would stop the show for me.

  "Miss Wildenhaim," Sixby said, dismissing Omar with a flutter of his hand. "I come from your father with a commission. Count Cassel is arrived."

  "Yes, I know," I said.

  "And do you know for what reason?" Sixby asked. My hero. He knew all the lines, of course, and we sailed along, improvising where he wasn't familiar with our condensed script.

  Willis walked in. My heart jumped as our eyes met and he sat in a vacant chair near the door. The room came to life. "You may tell my father--I'll marry," I said.

  "I must beg you not to forget that there is another picture of matrimony," Sixby said. "When convenience and fair appearance joined to folly and ill humor forge the fetters of matrimony, they gall the married pair with their weight," Sixby continued, "till one of them sleeps in death. The other then lifts up his dejected head, and calls out in acclamations of joy--Oh liberty! Dear liberty!"

  "I will not marry," I said.

  "You mean to say that you will not fall in love," Sixby said.

  "Oh no!" I said. "I am in love." We sorted through Sixby's professed confusion until reaching the line where I accept his unintended proposal of marriage. "If you love me as you say, I will marry; and will be happy," I said. "But only with you." I glanced at Willis over Sixby's shoulder. "It will soon be known that I am your bride, the whole village will come to wish me joy, and heaven's blessing will follow."

  The skit succeeded from the moment Sixby joined in. My Jane Austen especially enjoyed the baron, played by a volunteer's husband, who turned out to be an improv comedian, roasting the guest who played Count Cassel. The rhyming butler closed with his moral:

  Then you, who now lead single lives,

  From this sad tale beware;

  And do not act as you were wives,

  Before you really are.

  The audience finally cleared out so the volunteers could pack up the china. As Stephen carried Mrs. Russell's boxes to her car parked behind the Carriage House, I ran to the attic.

  "A smashing success!" Willis said. "You must be very happy."

  "I can't believe it."

  "It was every bit as professional as anything Magda's ever put on a stage."

  "Vera and Nigel loved it. Vera said Lady Weston would have enjoyed it immensely. Perhaps a less formal approach was what Lady Weston envisioned in the first place."

  "I had no idea you were such a good actress."

  "Neither did I!" I laughed.

  "So, you'll do it again?"

  "Every Wednesday at four. We've already got a waiting list for next week. Vera says we need to add more tables or do a second seating." Willis joined me on the window seat. "I'm so glad you were there," I said. "I wanted you to see it."

  "I enjoyed it very much," Willis said. I watched as his face assumed a more sober expression, evolving into a question. "I thought you said Omar was playing opposite you as Anhalt."

  "That was the plan." I smiled. "But we had to let him go before he fainted on stage."

  Willis straightened. "I was surprised to see Sixby."

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  The next time I went to the attic, ratty green cushions had been stuffed into the window seat for my comfort. We met almost every day except Wednesday afternoons. Attic time operated on a different basis than the lower floors of the manor house, a phenomenon I assumed would transfer to any venue where I experienced intense pleasure. Whoever controlled time had decreed that if I were allowed to be happy, I would be allotted half the normal time in which to be so. Each day I anticipated Willis's casual greeting, hunched over his keyboard in the afternoon light when I arrived--the comfort of being expected, as if we were a married couple living in an attic. When he got to a stopping point, he would hand me the laptop and sit back to listen while I read what he'd written. My Jane Austen seemed equally content, sitting beneath some cobwebs in a shadowy corner compiling an alphabetical list of all the male heroes of her books--she'd gotten as far as Edmund Bertram.

  "You'll have to dedicate your book to Lady Weston," I said, "in gratitude for her attic."

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  I wrote to Karen, telling her of the tea-theatre's success. After selling out the first event, we added more tables at the second tea, and cut the scones smaller to feed more people, easily seating sixty. Magda threw a fit when tea patrons lined up in the hall and made noise before her scene was over. In fact, the tea-theatre attracted more people than her professionals-only scene. I told Karen about Willis, leaving out the parts about meeting in the attic and the vampire novel. The only thing bugging me was that I really didn't know what Willis was deciding about. I assumed it had to do with his ordination, but he'd never come right out and said so. I'd replayed the conversation many times in my head, unsure what he meant, afraid to bring it up again for fear of provoking a decision that might go against me. I told Karen I was in love. She replied in bold letters: BE CAREFUL.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  "What exactly is the decision you have to make?" I asked him one afternoon.

  My Jane Austen fell violently off the stack of boxes she occupied nearby, sending a cloud of attic dust into our midst. His face fell as if I'd broken his laptop and I instantly regretted my impulsive question. If only I could rewind the conversation back to a comfortable subject, like my childhood in Texas and his at boarding school, me being chosen last for the softball team and Willis claiming speed reading as a sport. His gaze left me as he focused inward to form a response. Willis rose from his desk and joined me on the window seat, another sign that something bad was coming. Why hadn't I left things alone, happily learning of his master's
in theology at St. Stephen's House, Oxford, and how he'd written only two pages of his thesis, now displaced by the vampire novel? This was starting to feel like the time my dad apologized for missing my high school graduation. I didn't want pity. "I'm afraid I haven't been fair to you," he said.

  My blood froze. Dust particles paused on their inbound sunbeam. This was about me.

  "I haven't been thinking clearly," he said.

  I shivered. My future as Elizabeth Bennet, assured twenty seconds ago, vanished. "What is going on?" I whispered, searching his face.

  "There is someone else," he said.

  Someone Else. The room spun as his words reverberated and pain spiraled downward in awful glory. I stared at the cushion; its particular shade of lime green seemed so unfair, then folded my arms and held myself. "I can't believe it," I said.

  "You must understand, my situation is complicated." He gestured. "I've known her for years; I've known you for weeks."

  I didn't know what to say. At first he looked past me, out the window. When I didn't speak, he stood as if he might leave. "I don't want you to go," I said. The news was too difficult to accept, it circled around me, retreating as denial prevailed and then reappearing for another punch in my gut. "I'm so confused," I said, shaking my head as he stood at his desk, packing his things. "Why didn't you tell me?"

  He faced me, his hands in his pockets. "I think that's obvious."

  "Does she know about me?"

  "No." He shook his head. I imagined her asking why he seemed so distant and Willis reassuring her everything was fine as he silently resolved to stop the attic meetings before things got even more difficult. Only he didn't stop the attic meetings.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  He was gone for two agonizing days. On the third day, I ran into him, as if by accident, as I entered Newton Priors. "Will you be up later?" he asked. I went as soon as I could and every day after that, holding my questions and staying on safe topics in his company. We never spoke of the Someone Else but she was present, looming in the background, raising the stakes. My Jane Austen sat frozen in her corner, observing my cautious behavior, flinching when she thought I might fall off my wagon. He behaved like a monk; his reserve over the past weeks made sense now. We talked about his vampire novel and my tea-theatre, and we never touched. But the longer we carried on in this "trial basis" manner, the closer I felt to him emotionally, the more I began to think he might ditch the Someone Else. If Willis wanted to be with her, why was he with me? I spent every minute of my workdays calculating when I could go to him. Precarious life flourished in the attic. Fed a diet of forbidden fruit, everything around Willis grew, from the story under his fingertips to the organic matter thriving beneath the damp boxes and rotting wood, to me.

  "Doesn't this place remind you of Anne Frank's attic?" I asked. "Nobody knows we're up here." When we got hungry I snuck into the music room where the volunteers kept leftover tea refreshments, filling napkins with scones and cookies to eat in the attic. I helped myself to bottled water kept in reserve for festival speakers. I borrowed a lamp from one of the parlors and set it on an upturned box we used as a table. Willis brought a green plastic chair for me so that we could both sit with our feet on the bench and look out the window. "Why is there a window seat in this attic?" I asked.

  "So the imprisoned heroine can look out the window and see her lover approaching." A smile played around Willis's mouth and we shared The Look. But I was thinking: My prince is always in the attic. Had I imagined that kiss so long ago? Our interaction was so restrained that any light touch of his hand, the contact of our fingers when we passed the laptop, or lingering glance when I looked up to find him watching me at the end of a chapter, carried a force far greater than its own weight. I cherished each subtle gesture, hoping they would eventually accumulate into something tangible again. I didn't push. I proceeded with cautious optimism based on the fact that Willis felt like my best friend and he no longer left town. The regular absences to London stopped occurring. I didn't ask why, just allowed myself to hope.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Until one Sunday, as Newton Priors buzzed with festival activities, everyone seemed mildly peeved. Patrons lining up for tickets stomped away mad when they learned the tea-theatre had sold out a week in advance. Nigel expressed irritation that someone had put Mrs. Russell onto the mystery of "several letters still in private hands." Claire said a thief was helping herself to water bottles, and Bets complained of nasty perfume on her favorite black blouse. I didn't tell Bets that the nasty perfume came from her own cosmetics bin. Finally, Mrs. Russell barged into the office complaining that the lines in the scene had been changed and someone needed to do something about it--Fanny Price and Sir Thomas were explicitly discussing slavery. I escaped to the attic.

  Opening the door triggered the conversion from one world to the next. Once past the door, I inhaled the musty damp brick-and wood-scented air. I heard the tick-tack of his keyboard--confirming Willis's presence--as I ran up the steps, each stair creaking under my footfall.

  "Did Father Kitt bite her yet?" I asked routinely.

  "No." He put a hand out to touch me as I passed, the casual gesture I'd come to love and anticipate. I could pretend nonchalance at the contact of our fingers, but goose bumps on my bare arms gave me away. I sank into my window seat, opened my copy of The Monk, and read while Willis bent over his keyboard. I'd had no idea when Omar gave me The Monk, saying I couldn't possibly understand Ann Radcliffe's novels without reading it, that it would be so racy--an abbot seduced by a woman disguised as a monk. Taking care to hold my book so My Jane Austen couldn't read over my shoulder:

  The woman reigns in my bosom, and I am become prey to the wildest of passions. Away with friendship! 'tis a cold unfeeling word. My bosom burns with love, with unutterable love, and love must be its return.

  Willis spoke and I jumped, caught reading a racy novel. "Do you think Luna is a convincing female?" he asked. He turned in his chair to face me and I put The Monk facedown on my bosom, my heart pounding, while I focused on his question.

  "Luna?" I took a deep breath and stretched my arms languorously, the way that had always distracted Martin from ESPN. "You might make her a bit more affected by Father Kitt."

  Willis nodded, encouraging me to elaborate. "What do you mean?"

  "Luna's passion is not convincing because it's all intellectual; she's not engaged enough." I paused, hoping I wouldn't have to spell it out for him.

  "I'm not getting it."

  "Physically."

  "A cheesy love scene?" Willis looked at me. "You don't want them to have sex in my book, do you?"

  "Well," I said slowly, "why don't you let him hold her hand and see where it goes from there."

  He looked back at his screen and I resumed reading. I hadn't finished another page when Willis turned to me again, "Don't you think there's a metaphor in there for marriage? Doesn't everyone have to make a decision to take the bite? Plunge into the unknown abyss with one person, or be lonely forever?"

  "Willis." I laughed. "That's such a pessimistic view for a priest."

  He smiled. "I suppose you prefer happy endings." Willis turned back to his computer.

  I closed The Monk and sat up to look out the window. Three stories below, all was quiet. Far down the lawn a young couple posed for a photo, the abyss of the pond in their background, swans slinking in and out of the picture. Willis hadn't noticed I'd stopped reading, so I sighed aloud.

  "Everything okay over there?" he asked without turning.

  "No," I said, wanting more than anything to drag him to my window seat and replay the black blouse incident once more with feeling.

  Willis stopped typing and turned to face me. "Something the matter?"

  "Are you sure you want to be a priest?" I asked.

  His face changed and he smiled to himself as if I'd stumbled on an inside joke. "You don't waste time on small talk, do you?"

  I shrugged. "I'm just curious." I was intensely aware of the textu
re of the foam cushion under my fingers, the sensation of my feet touching the dirty floor. My stomach clutched in nervous anticipation.

  "Just curious," he repeated playfully, rising from his desk, taking the four steps to join me on my cushion, my stomach fluttering with each step. "Just probing a man's deepest thoughts and fears is all."

  "You've dropped a few clues." I faced him, my head tilted back, presenting an extended view of my neck and cleavage.

  "Such as," he said, stretching.

  "Well, there is the vampire novel for one." He was so close I could smell him, soap mingled with perspiration.

  "Yes." He smiled.

  "And the consideration of impending doom and the business of the abyss."

  "You've got me there."

  "So, I just thought perhaps there's some discontent generating these ideas." I struck the pose that always made Martin kiss me, but Willis looked out the window. Inching closer, I looked out the window with him so that our faces were perfectly positioned to touch when we turned back. But he moved away so it didn't happen.

  I left early that day.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  On Monday, I thought about not going to the attic. I dressed slowly and took my time reading a story written by one of Omar's workshop participants. The festival was closed that day, Newton Priors deserted when I arrived in the attic much later than usual. Willis met me at the stairs as if he'd been waiting.

  "Did he bite her yet?" I asked.

  Willis almost took my hand. "No," he said. "But he's giving it serious consideration."

  "That's progress." I touched his arm as he moved away.

  "I want to show you something." Willis led me between boxes to a place halfway down the room where he pulled a rope hanging from the ceiling.

  "Are we going to escape from this attic?" I sighed.

  He smiled as a wooden ladder unfolded, not unlike my attic stairs at home. "They forgot to lock it the other day." Climbing, he lifted the heavy trap door in the ceiling, exposing us to the wan light of the outdoors, and then reached down for my hand.