Bespelling Jane Austen

by Mary Balogh

  “No,” he said. “But she did.”

  “Then she does remember,” she said. “She was so very happy, Robert. Her little face was beaming with pleasure. She was not just out to make mischief, though that is what I thought at first. She really believed what she said.”

  “About your daughter,” he said.

  She sighed audibly and watched the progress of a bee as it visited several flowers with a businesslike buzz.

  “She did not just speak of poor Mary,” she said. “She spoke as her. It is absurd, I suppose, what comfort I took from her words days after she had spoken them. She told me that she—that Mary had fallen into the river, that she had not deliberately thrown herself in. A child said that. Do you believe it is possible she was right, Robert?”

  “I do,” he said.

  She reached out to squeeze his hand.

  “And she spoke of a lovely light that drew Mary into the darkness and made her death quite painless,” she said. “She told me he was beckoning her to the light. I suppose she meant the Marquess of Wigham. He died before she did, you know. I like to believe the story, foolish as it seems. I was fond of that young man. It hurt me deeply when he so callously abandoned Mary and broke her heart.”

  “Perhaps,” he said, “the story Miss Jane Everett told was not foolish.”

  “I wish you had known Mary,” she said. “She was a warm and lovely girl. Strangely, Miss Jane reminds me of her, though she looks nothing like her. And you remind me of the marquess—Peter, his name was—though I do not know why. He was very blond and only of medium height. Perhaps it is the smile and the blue eyes. Perhaps I watch the growing attachment between you and Miss Jane because I can dream that you are Mary and her Peter having a second chance at love.”

  “I would like to think, though,” he said, “that I could never be as heartless and cowardly as Wigham was.”

  “I deeply resented him for a long, long time,” she said. “I was even glad that he was dead. And of course I blamed him for Mary’s death. But it is not in my nature to hate indefinitely. We all have reasons for what we do. I suppose he had reasons that made sense to him. And perhaps he regretted them before he died. Perhaps Mary did not kill herself. I wish I could know that for sure. It would make such a difference.”

  “Did she love you?” he asked.

  “I believe so,” she said. “Well, of course I know so. She was an affectionate girl and we enjoyed a close relationship.”

  “Then,” he said, “I do not believe she would have done that to you, Aunt Dinah. She would have understood how killing herself would hurt you.”

  “You are a good, kind boy,” she said, patting his hand. “And look who has come.”

  Her face lit up with pleasure as she looked toward the back door, through which someone had just stepped.

  Jane.

  She was looking pink-cheeked and self-conscious. She also looked as pretty as any picture dressed in white muslin liberally embroidered with pink flowers and a straw hat trimmed with the same flowers and pink ribbons. Her eyes darted to Robert before she looked fully at his great-aunt and smiled.

  “I have been calling upon Mrs. Hancock,” she explained. “She is recovering very well from her confinement, and the baby is thriving. And since I was in the village anyway, I thought I would call here to return your handkerchief, Mrs. Mitford. You left it at the hall last evening.”

  “And so I did,” Aunt Dinah said as Jane bent over her chair to set a cheek against hers while she handed her a folded handkerchief. “I missed it last night after we arrived home. I thought someone might be kind enough to bring it to church for me on Sunday.”

  But there was a certain twinkle in her eye that made Robert suspect that it had been done deliberately. Great-Aunt Dinah was playing matchmaker.

  He drew forward a chair for Jane.

  “Oh,” she said, darting him another look, “I must not stay.”

  “Do have a cup of tea,” his aunt said. “And then perhaps Robert will walk you home. You did walk into the village, I suppose?”

  “I did,” she said, the color deepening in her cheeks, and she sat and allowed Robert to pour her a cup of tea. “Actually, everything else was an excuse to bring me here. I need to tell you something. I can say it before Captain Mitford because he knows what happened all those years ago. Did I hurt you dreadfully on that occasion? I suppose I ought not to have waited seventeen years to ask, ought I?”

  “When you told me I had once been your mother?” the older lady asked. “You shocked me by knowing so much about Mary’s death when you were only three or four years old and it had happened long before your birth. And you shocked me by speaking of it as though it had happened to you. But hurt me? No, my dear. If anything, I took comfort from what you said. I chose to believe as much as I could. I liked to think that she was happy as she passed over, and even that she was reunited with that faithless lover of hers. Perhaps he treated her better in the afterlife.”

  Jane’s cup rattled against the saucer as she set both down on the table, her tea untouched.

  “Forgive me,” she said, “if I am about to shock you again or reopen old wounds. I have wrestled with myself all morning, trying to decide if I should tell you or not. But I think I ought. Something has been trying to grab at my memory for the last couple of days—since your birthday, in fact. And it came to me suddenly in the middle of last night. I woke up knowing it, though tantalizingly only part of it. And memory is perhaps the wrong word. Everyone used to say it was merely an overvivid imagination.”

  Robert wished he could lean across the table and take both her hands in his. She was pale and agitated. Something, he knew, had started for her when he came into her life two days ago—or come back into her life. And it was something she could not stop.

  “Tell me, Miss Jane,” his aunt said.

  “I was told,” Jane said, frowning, “that he abandoned me. I am sorry—that he abandoned your daughter. I cannot even remember—I do not even know his name.”

  “The Marquess of Wigham,” Aunt Dinah said. “Peter. He was the eldest son of a duke.”

  “Peter.” Jane closed her eyes briefly. “I think it was my mother who told me that he abandoned me—her. I suppose it was what everyone believed, even you. But it is not true. I remembered that last night. He left without me, but he was coming back. He was going to speak with his father, and then he was coming back for me. But he died.”

  Robert glanced quickly at his great-aunt. Her mouth was formed into an O, but she said nothing.

  “Perhaps,” Robert said, “he was talked out of coming back. Perhaps his father—”

  But she was shaking her head slowly, still frowning.

  “It was not the misery of abandonment I was feeling,” she said. “It was grief pure and simple. I fell into the river because I was blinded by my tears. I tried to fight the coldness and the weight of my clothes, but then there was the light and the sight of him—Peter—beckoning.”

  She spread her hands over her face.

  “Perhaps it was a form of suicide, after all,” she said. “I could not lose him again. Oh, but I did not want to die. I wanted to come home to you, Moth— I am sorry. I am so very sorry. I ought not to have said any of this. Mama was right all those years ago. I should have confined my imagination to nursery games. This cannot be real. And now I have shocked and hurt you all over again.”

  She got abruptly to her feet and Robert scrambled to his. His aunt, he could see, was gazing at her fixedly.

  “Is it possible, Jane?” she asked. “Is it really possible? Are you my Mary?”

  “No.” Jane shook her head. “I am Jane Everett. But I think I was once Mary Mitford. I believe we are the same soul.”

  She bit her lower lip.

  Robert took one of her cold hands in his, and his great-aunt’s eyes moved to him.

  “And are you Peter?” she asked. “Were you?”

  “I have no memories of him, Aunt Dinah,” he said gently. “But I have l
ived other lifetimes with Jane. I have seen them in a sort of trance an Indian guru was able to induce in me. We belong together. We always have and always will.”

  She looked from one to the other of them, tears brightening her eyes.

  “I am glad,” she said and got slowly to her feet, waving off the help Robert would have given her. “I am going inside now to lie down. You must not worry that you have said the wrong thing, Miss Jane. You have said the right thing. I think I may at long last be able to stop grieving for my daughter.”

  Robert and Jane watched her make her slow way indoors.

  “Why is all this happening?” Jane asked when they were alone together. “What if the things I have just said are all imaginary? What if there is no truth in them at all?”

  “You know,” he said, “that there is.”

  “And she is happy,” she said. “I could not make up my mind whether it was best to tell her or not.”

  “You did the right thing,” he said. “She is happy.”

  Jane smiled rather wanly.

  ROBERT DID, OF COURSE, walk home with her. She had come into the village to see Mrs. Hancock and bring her some baked goods from the hall. More important, she had come to tell Mrs. Mitford what she had remembered last night—if remembered was the right word.

  And overriding both motives for coming was her need to see Robert again. She ought to have waited for him to call upon her, as he surely would have done at a more seemly hour of the afternoon. But, armed with two perfectly good excuses, she had come in search of him.

  It was something the usual Jane Everett would never do. She was not a schemer. And she never ran after gentlemen. Not that she had ever before known one she would wish to run after.

  As soon as they had left the village behind them and were walking along the secluded shade of the driveway inside the park, he set an arm about her shoulders.

  “I love you,” he said.

  She had always believed men found it difficult, even impossible, to say those words. But Robert Mitford was not as other men were.

  Jane rested the side of her head on his shoulder.

  “Do you not find all this as dizzying as I do?” she asked.

  “At least that much,” he said. “We need something to clear out our heads. Let’s go swimming.”

  “What?” She raised her head again and laughed.

  “You told me yesterday,” he said, “about the shallow end of the lake. I could not see it from the summer pavilion. It must be well out of sight of the house or anyone taking a stroll in the inner park, then. It must be quite private, in other words.”

  “I do not swim,” she protested. “Besides, it would be very improper.”

  “Your favorite word,” he said with a chuckle. He looked down into her face. “You are afraid of water?”

  She was about to deny it. But it was true and had been all her life. She also realized the significance of both his question and his searching look.

  Mary Mitford had died of drowning.

  “Yes,” she said. “I am. And that is not about to change. I do not want it to change.”

  “Coward!” He grinned at her and suddenly looked very boyish and hopelessly attractive. “I will hold your hand and not allow you to go even nearly out of your depth. I will show you what fun it can be to frolic in the water.”

  “Fun!” she said derisively and then surprised herself by laughing. “Swimming has never been allowed.”

  “How old are you?” he asked her. “Five?”

  “Besides,” she said, “we have no towels.”

  He grinned again and said nothing.

  “Oh, very well, then,” she said because she desperately wanted to prolong her time with him and to spend it doing something wild and carefree. “But it will not be fun at all.”

  He laughed aloud, took his arm from about her shoulders and laced his fingers with hers as they turned among the trees to find the short route to the lake.

  Her father and Louisa had gone twenty miles into town in order to shop and dine at the finest hotel. Edna was spending the day with the Burton sisters. No one would miss her, Jane thought. They would not even if they were all at home. They considered her an oddity, uninterested as she was in appearance and fashion and gossip. They had become accustomed to her frequent absences visiting neighbors or simply tramping alone about the park. They rarely asked her whereabouts.

  What would they wear into the lake? Oh, dear, this was all very… Well, improper.

  Robert was moving at a smart pace despite his cane. She found herself laughing as they dodged trees. He turned a grinning face to hers, and suddenly she felt happier than she could ever remember feeling before.

  It was a feeling that gave way to apprehension, though, when they reached the far bank of the lake and she looked across the wide expanse of water, sparkling in the sunshine.

  “Perhaps,” she said as he dropped his cane to the grass and began peeling off his coat without further ado, “I’ll sit here and watch you this time.”

  “And perhaps next time,” he said, “you can stand at the edge and watch me.”

  “Y-yes.” She looked at him suspiciously.

  “You have two minutes,” he said, “to remove your dress and your shoes and stockings. After that you go in, ready or not.”

  She laughed nervously. And for the moment the water was forgotten. He expected her to undress in front of him? His coat and waistcoat were already on the grass, on top of his cane. He was pulling his shirt free of the waistband of his pantaloons.

  But she could not go into the water fully clothed. Out of sheer vanity she had worn her favorite dress today to call at the vicarage. And her new silk stockings.

  She kicked off her shoes.

  Two minutes later she felt very naked, even though her shift covered her almost decently from above her bosom to her knees. He was wearing only a pair of drawers, which sat on his slim hips and just revealed his knees. Her eyes were drawn for a moment to the terrible scars that marred his right leg, but only for a moment. A bare male chest, well-muscled and dusted with dark hair, was a powerful distraction. The sun had surely grown hotter.

  He reached out a hand for hers.

  “We will wade in,” he said, “and enjoy the coolness of the water. I promise not to take you out of your depth or let you fall in. Trust me?”

  “I will,” she said, smiling ruefully, and they stepped together into the water, which was a safe ankle-deep by the bank.

  “Oh!” they both exclaimed together and danced from one foot to the other as they accustomed themselves to the coolness of the water.

  They walked and then waded deeper, until the water reached almost to her shoulders and to his chest. It was beginning to feel warmer—and Jane was beginning to feel more fearful.

  He stopped and turned to her and held her firmly by the waist with both hands. They were warmer than the water. So were his lips when he set them against hers.

  She must be growing into a wanton. She was becoming accustomed to this—and to the rush of hot desire that came with the kiss. She wrapped her arms about his neck and then, when the kiss had ended, she braced her hands on his shoulders and jumped up and down a few times because she had too much energy simply to stand still.

  He jumped with her, and after a minute or two they were both laughing helplessly as water splashed over their shoulders and up into their faces.

  “Hold your breath,” he said, “and duck your head under. You will be quite safe.”

  “No,” she said.

  “Watch,” he said, and he did it himself without letting go of her waist.

  He came up looking sleek with his hair plastered to his head and water streaming off his face and shoulders.

  “I am an incurable coward,” she told him.

  “And with good reason,” he said. “But this is a different lifetime, Jane. Let’s do it together. Keep your hands on my shoulders.”

  She would regret her loss of courage tonight if she did not do it
now, she knew.

  She gripped his shoulders more firmly, sucked in a deep breath, shut her eyes tightly, and allowed herself to go under with him until she could feel the water closing over the top of her head and shutting her into a different world. A world without air. She shot back to the surface and gasped for air and scrunched her eyes more tightly closed. She was probably gripping Robert’s shoulders hard enough to leave bruises.

  “My brave Jane,” he said, laughing and squeezing her waist.

  She opened her eyes and smiled. Her coiffure, over which she had labored with far more that usual care today, must be sadly ruined.

  “Try it again,” he said. “But open your eyes this time.”

  Now he was asking the absolute impossible. But she did it again, and when they were below the surface, she opened her eyes and did not experience the terrible pain she had been expecting.

  She was looking at him beneath the water, and his eyes looked back into hers with warm admiration as his hair waved in a halo about his head.

  And then they were back up on their feet again, the sky stretching blue from horizon to horizon above their heads, the sun beaming down brightly on them, the lake floor firm beneath their feet, the air sweet and fresh. Back in the world.

  But something had changed.

  Everything.

  She turned to wade back to the bank, and he came after her, no longer touching her.

  “I am sorry,” he said as they neared the bank. “I broke my promise and frightened you.”

  “No,” she said. “You did not take me out of my depth, and if I was frightened, I also knew I was perfectly safe, Robert.” She stopped walking, and they stood facing each other. She reached out one hand to cup the side of his face. “It is you. It really is. But this time, instead of beckoning me deeper into the light beyond death, you were warm and human and brought me up into the light of the sun. Oh, Robert, you are human. We both are. It is a wonderful thing to be. Love can be experienced so much more… Well, so much more when one is in human form.”