Austenland: A Novel

by Shannon Hale

  “If it keeps raining all the time,” Miss Charming was saying, “I’ll go crazy. Can’t we do something more than play cards and walk around?”

  She squinted at Colonel Andrews to detect if he approved of her suggestion.

  “Just so,” he said, and Miss Charming beamed. “I’ve brought the very thing from London, a script from some little play or other called Home by the Sea. There are six parts, three pairs of lovers, just right for us, and it will give us something to pass the time before the ball, so let’s rehearse and put it on for Lady Templeton.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Miss Charming, clasping her hands at her chest, “jolly good, rather.”

  “I’ll bet our Miss Erstwhile would be keen on it as well, right? Miss Heartwright would never disappoint me, I know, and East is a seafaring man—always ready for an adventure. What do you say, Nobley?”

  Mr. Nobley did not answer immediately. “I think it inappropriate to stage a theatrical in the house of a respectable lady.”

  Miss Charming whined.

  “Oh, come now, Nobley,” the colonel said.

  “I won’t be entreated,” he said.

  Jane blew air through her lips like a horse. She’d liked the idea.

  “Way to spoil it, Mr. Nobley,” Miss Charming said. “Too bad Sir Templeton isn’t here to play the third fellow. Will he be back soon, do you think, what-what?”

  “I think not,” Mr. Nobley said coolly.

  “That’s the pits. Hey Jane, what about that guy, I mean, bloke, I saw you talking to once in the garden? Do you think he’d play the part?”

  Jane felt her toes go cold. “I don’t know who you mean, Miss Charming.”

  “Sure you do, that tall bloke in the garden, one of the servants, maybe. I thought he looked pretty good standing next to you. He’d be better for your partner than Mr. Nobley.”

  “M-maybe it was one of the gardeners? I don’t know.” Jane peeked at Mr. Nobley’s face. He was staring dead ahead, the shadows under his eyes making him look sleep deprived.

  “Never mind,” Miss Charming said, already bored with the idea.

  The walkers tried various other topics on for size, but the Weather fit too loosely, Mr. Templeton’s Disappearance was too short, and What Might Be for Dinner pinched a bit tight in the midsection. Then Colonel Andrews hit upon it—the fast-approaching Pembrook Park ball. They discussed the musicians that would be there, the guests arriving from other estates, the food, and the opportunity for romance. Miss Heartwright even put aside her melancholy to confer about gowns.

  Jane’s heart beat impatiently. A ball—things happen at a ball. Cinderella happened at a ball. Jane might happen. She felt hopelessly and wonderfully fanciful. The sun on her face, the bonnet ribbon under her chin, a wrap around her arms, and a hatted-and sideburned-man at her side, all lent itself to perfect suspension of disbelief.

  She was so proud of herself! She really was diving into the world. Looking over Mr. Nobley, she wondered how this would end. It certainly was looking like East and Heartwright might kiss and make up, leaving Jane to Nobley. Or perhaps to no one. The puppet mistress Mrs. Wattlesbrook wouldn’t go to any great lengths to ensure an engagement. And without his boss insisting on it, would Mr. Nobley even bother to woo her? It didn’t seem likely.

  Just ahead, the path was drenched in a puddle that could not be bypassed. The men walked through fearlessly. Colonel Andrews took Miss Charming’s hand and helped her step across. Mr. Nobley placed his hands around Jane’s waist and lifted her over. As he set her down, their bodies were much nearer than was seemly in the early nineteenth century. They held still for a breath, their faces close together. He smelled good enough to kiss. Her thoughts raged—I hate him and he hates me. It’s perfect! Isn’t it? Of course, he isn’t real. Wait, am I supposed to be falling for someone or avoiding it? What was it again, Aunt Carolyn?

  He was the first to step back. She turned away, and there was Martin. She’d forgotten Martin. Off and on, she realized now, she’d been forgetting the entire real world in order to let herself sink into the fantasy.

  He was on his knees among some rosebushes. His face was shaded by his cap, but she could feel his eyes on her. As the party started to walk again, Martin rose and removed his cap as though the walkers were a funeral barge. None of the others seemed to notice his presence, and they disappeared into the full trees that leaned over the path.

  Martin took a step forward. “Jane, can we talk?”

  She realized that she was still standing there, staring at him, as though begging to be rejected again. She started to walk away. “Martin, no, I can’t. They’re waiting for me, they’ll see.”

  “Then meet me later.”

  “No, I’m done playing around.” She left him, that awkward line buzzing around her head like a pesky insect. And Jane thought, Done playing around, she says, as though she’s not wearing a bonnet and bloomers.

  Then she saw that Mr. Nobley had stopped to wait for her. His eyes were angry, but they weren’t on her. She looked back. Martin had lowered his hat and thrust his hands back into the upturned earth.

  Her heart was teeter-tottering precariously, and she almost put out her arms to balance herself. She didn’t like to see them together, Martin, the luscious man who’d made her laugh and kept her standing on real earth, and Mr. Nobley, who had begun to make the fake world feel as comfortable as her own bed. She stood on the curve of the path, her feet hesitating where to go.

  Then, the light became perfect.

  After Jane’s LASIK eye surgery, her perception of light had changed. In too bright light, she saw burned spots on her retina like one-celled creatures seen through a microscope; in high contrasts of bright and dark, both blurred together, the glow of car headlights bleeding into the night. But there was a certain kind of light that made the whole world 20/20—late afternoon when the sun is on a slant, pushing through the world instead of down on it. Just now, everything was distinct. Above her, all the leaves ringing like bells were individuals with cracks and curls, veins and prickly tips. Below, every blade of grass stood up in its own shadow, sharp and hotly green.

  And she saw Mr. Nobley clearly. The thin wrinkles just beginning at the corners of his eyes, the whiskers on his chin darkening already after his morning shave, the hint of lines around his mouth that suggested he might smile more in real life. He had the kind of face you wanted to kiss—lips, forehead, cheeks, eyelids, everywhere except his chin. That you wanted to bite.

  Jane thought: I wouldn’t kick him out of bed for eating crackers.

  Miss Erstwhile thought: My, what a catch. How the society page would rant!

  “I think you should stay away from him, Miss Erstwhile.” Mr. Nobley turned his back on Martin and took her arm, returning her to the path.

  “I don’t know why you care, sir,” she said, doing her best to sound Austen-y, “but I certainly will, if you’ll do me a favor. Perform in the theatrical.”

  “Miss Erstwhile . . .”

  “Oh, come on! It will please me to no end to see you so uncomfortable. You’re not afraid, are you? You seem so stuck on being proper all the time, but there can’t be anything really wrong in doing a little theatrical. This is, after all, the nineteenth century. So perhaps your protests stem from your fear of appearing the fool?”

  “You accuse me of vanity. It may be that the enterprise simply does not seem to me amusing. And yet in part you are right. I am not much of an actor.”

  “Aren’t you?” She looked at him meaningfully.

  He flinched and recovered. “My true concerns, however, are in regards to the delicate sentiments of our good hostess.”

  “And if we propose the recreation to her and she approves, will you participate?”

  “Yes, I suppose I must.” He tightened his lips, in annoyance or against a smile, she wasn’t sure. “You are infuriatingly persistent, Miss Erstwhile.”

  “And you, Mr. Nobley, are annoyingly stubborn. Together we must be Impertinence and Infle
xibility.”

  “That was clever.”

  “Was it? Thanks, it just came to me.”

  “No forethought?”

  “Not a lick.”

  “Hm, impressive.”

  Jane jabbed him with her elbow.

  When they caught up to the rest of the party, Miss Charming was engaging Colonel Andrews in a discussion on the “relative ickiness of tea” and Captain East and Amelia were either walking in silence or whispering their hearts’ secrets.

  “We’re going to do the theatrical,” Jane announced to the others. “Mr. Nobley is clay in my hands.”

  Boyfriend #11

  Clark Barnyard, AGE TWENTY-THREE

  Still not over boyfriend #9 and humiliated by #10, Jane declared she would shed her victimhood and become the elusive predator—fierce, independent, solitary! . . . except there was this guy at work, Clark. He’d make her laugh during company meetings, he’d share his fries with her at lunch, declaring that she needed fattening up. He was in layout at the magazine, and she’d go to his cubicle and sit on the edge of his desk, chatting for longer than made her manager comfortable. He was a few years younger than her, so it seemed innocent somehow. When he asked her out at last, despite the dark stickiness of foreboding, she didn’t turn him down.

  He cooked her dinner at his place and was goofy and tender, nuzzling her neck and making puppy noises. They started to kiss on the couch, and it was nice for approximately sixty seconds until his hand started hunting for her bra hooks. In the front. It was so not Mr. Darcy.

  “Whoa, there, cowboy,” she said, but he was “in the groove” and had to be told to stop three or four times before he finally pried his fingers off her breasts and stood up, rubbing his eyes.

  “What’s the problem, honey?” he asked, his voice stumbling on that last word.

  She said he was moving too fast, and he said, then what in the hell had they been building up to over the past six months?

  Jane sized up the situation to her own satisfaction: “You are no gentleman.”

  Then Clark summed up in his own special way: “Hasta la vista, baby.”

  days 14–18

  AUNT SAFFRONIA, OF COURSE, DID not mind, and rehearsals began. It was a sentimental romance that even Jane in her present state of extreme open-mind/heartedness could not “ooh” at. But it made for several amusing days. She painted in the mornings and felt that artist instinct begin to yawn again inside her. In the afternoons she rehearsed with Mr. Nobley in the library, pacing outside under the apple trees (she didn’t see Martin), or in the north drawing room with the others, wrapping themselves in fabric that was meant to suggest Roman togas.

  And Mr. Nobley watched her. He had always watched her, of course. That was part of his character. But did she fancy that he did so even more now? And that in his side glances and half-smiles gleamed a touch of slipped-character, a break, a sliver of the man himself?

  Jane’s thoughts: Oh, stop it.

  Jane’s other thoughts: But then again, movie actors fall in love with each other on the set all the time. Is it so outlandish to suppose it might happen to me?

  Jane answered Jane’s other thoughts: Yes, it is. Stay focused. Have fun.

  And, miraculously, she did! She bantered and laughed and smiled coyly over one shoulder. Her mornings painting imbued her with a fresh energy that made her feel pretty, and in the afternoons and evenings with Mr. Nobley, she felt relaxed. In the past, Jane would be so beset by stumbling doubts she’d lose the capacity to enjoy his eyes on her. But now, she looked at him right back. Here there was no anxiety, no what-ifs. Just good clean flirting.

  One night as she snuggled into her sheets, giggling at herself and remembering all the delicious moments from that day, she decided that she was able to go for broke because she wasn’t really Jane here—not obsessive, crazy Jane. Fairy-tale land was a safe place to roll around in, get into trouble, figure yourself out, and come out unscathed.

  The night of the theatrical, Jane and Mr. Nobley secreted themselves behind the house for the final brush-up. The mood of late had let a bit of Bohemia into Regency England, the usual strict social observances bending, the rehearsals allowing the couples to slip away alone and enjoy the exhilarating intimacy of the unobserved.

  Mr. Nobley sat on the gravel path, leaning back on his elbow in a reluctant recline. “Oh, to die here, alone and unloved . . .”

  “That was pretty good,” Jane said. “You genuinely sounded in pain as you said it, but I think you could add a groan or two.”

  Mr. Nobley groaned, though perhaps not as part of the theatrical.

  “Perfect!” said Jane.

  Mr. Nobley rested his head on his knee and laughed. “I cannot believe I let you railroad me into this. I have always avoided doing a theatrical.”

  “Oh, you don’t seem that sorry. I mean, you certainly are sorry, just not regretful . . .”

  “Just do your part, please, Miss Erstwhile.”

  “Oh, yes, of course, forgive me. I can’t imagine why I’m taking so long, it’s just that there’s something so appealing about you there on the ground, at my feet—”

  He tackled her. He actually leaped up, grabbed her around the waist, and pulled her to the ground. She screeched as she thudded down on top of him.

  His hands stiffened. “Whoops,” he said.

  “You did not just do that.”

  He looked around for witnesses. “You are right, I did not just do that. But if I had, I was driven to it; no jury in the world would convict me. We had better keep rehearsing, someone might come by.”

  “I would, but you’re still holding me.” His hands were on her waist. They were gorgeous, thick-fingered, large. She liked them there.

  “So they are,” he said. Then he looked at her. He breathed in. His forehead tensed as if he were trying to think of words for his thoughts, as if he were engaged in some gorgeous inner battle that was provoked by how perfectly beautiful she was. (That last part was purely Jane’s romantic speculation and can’t be taken as literal.) Nevertheless, they were on the ground, touching, frozen, staring at each other, and even the trees were holding their breath.

  “I—” Jane started to say, but Mr. Nobley shook his head.

  He apologized and helped her to her feet, then plopped back onto the ground, as his character was still in the throes of death.

  “Shall we resume?”

  “Right, okay,” she said, shaking gravel from her skirt, “we were near the end . . . Oh, Antonio!” She knelt carefully beside him to keep her skirt from wrinkling and patted his chest. “You are gravely wounded. And groaning so impressively! Let me hold you and you can die in my arms, because traditionally, death and unrequited love are a romantic pairing.”

  “Those aren’t the lines,” he said through his teeth, as though an actual audience might overhear their practice.

  “They’re better than. It’s hardly Shakespeare.”

  “Right. So, your love revives my soul, my wounds heal . . . etcetera, etcetera, and I stand up and we exclaim our love dramatically. I cherish you more than farms love rain, than night loves the moon, and so on . . .”

  He pulled her upright and they stood facing each other, her hands in his. Again with the held breaths, the locked gazes. Twice in a row. It was almost too much! And Jane wanted to stay in that moment with him so much, her belly ached with the desire.

  “Your hands are cold,” he said, looking at her fingers.

  She waited. They had never practiced this part and the flimsy play gave no directions, such as, Kiss the girl, you fool. She leaned in a tiny bit. He warmed her hands.

  “So . . .” she said.

  “I suppose we know our scene, more or less,” he said.

  Was he going to kiss her? No, it seemed nobody ever kissed in Regency England. So what was happening? And what did it mean to fall in love in Austenland anyway? Jane stepped back, the weird anxiety of his nearness suddenly making her heart beat so hard it hurt.

  “We
should probably return. Curtain, or bedsheet, I should say, is in two hours.”

  “Right. Of course,” he said, though he seemed a little sorry.

  The evening had pulled down over them, laying chill like morning dew on her arms, right through her clothes and into her bones. Though she was wearing her wool pelisse, she shivered as they walked back to the house. He gave her his jacket.

  “This theatrical hasn’t been as bad as you expected,” Jane said.

  “Not so bad. No worse than idle novel reading or croquet.”

  “You make any entertainment sound like taking cod liver oil.”

  “Maybe I am growing weary of this place.” He hesitated, as though he’d said too much, which made Jane wonder if the real man had spoken. He cleared his throat. “Of the country, I mean. I will return to London soon for the season, and the renovations on my estate will be completed by summer. It will be good to be home, to feel something permanent. I tire of the guests who come and go in the country, their only goal to find some kind of amusement, their sentiments shallow. It wears on a person.” He met her eyes. “I may not return to Pembrook Park. Will you?”

  “No, I’m pretty sure I won’t.”

  Another ending. Jane’s chest tightened, and she surprised herself to identify the feeling as panic. It was already the night of the play. The ball was two days away. Her departure came in three. Not so soon! Clearly she was swimming much deeper in Austenland waters than she’d anticipated. And loving it. She was growing used to slippers and empire waists, she felt naked outside without a bonnet, during drawing room evenings her mouth felt natural exploring the kinds of words that Austen might’ve written. And when this man entered the room, she had more fun than she had in four years of college combined. It was all feeling . . . perfect.

  “This is ridiculous,” she said, then changed her mind. The last time she had confessed her real feelings to this man, it hadn’t gone well. “Our lines, I mean, in this play. But I hope you will choose to enjoy it a little.”