Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict

by Laurie Viera Rigler

  “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Don’t you understand? It’s like Captain Wentworth.”

  He looks completely baffled.

  “From Persuasion, Wes. By Jane Austen? If I am to judge by what I saw in that poor girl’s eyes, then they are not so very different at all. You see, in Persuasion Captain Wentworth has to marry Louisa Musgrove. After all the attention he has paid her, her family expects them to marry. And so he is bound to her by honor if she wants him, lest all the world think he has rejected her because he—or someone else—has ruined her. And even if you did not”—and here I feel myself blushing furiously—“ruin her, others might believe you did. Which would ruin her marriage prospects with anyone else.”

  Wes looks at me, openmouthed, as if unable to speak. He shakes his head. “You really believe that a man would think a woman ruined because he, or someone else, slept with her? That is the most antiquated thing I’ve ever heard.”

  So he is just as bad as Willoughby. Or Edgeworth. Or Frank. “If I’m wrong, then why are women writing conduct books—excuse me, self-help books—in which they lament the common practice of men seducing and abandoning them? If that isn’t proof of how little has changed since my day—”

  “Your day?”

  “Does that really matter?”

  “It does to me. Because you’re not from another time, Courtney, no matter how hard you hit your head or how often you read those books of yours. No man expects his wife to be untouched. Maybe our grandparents might have, but even that I doubt. Birth control changed everything.”

  “Doesn’t look to me like much has changed.”

  “Oh, so I suppose we can just ignore the entire women’s movement.”

  “Movement? Towards what—a lack of respect for oneself?”

  “I’ve never heard you talk like this, Courtney. I thought you were a feminist.”

  “If that means I am a defender of my sex against blackguards like you, then yes, I suppose I am a feminist.”

  “Courtney . . .” He reaches for my hand. “This is crazy. Can’t we just go inside and talk about this?”

  I pull my hand from his grasp. “I wish to be alone.” I turn and run up the last few steps to the door of my apartment. He follows me, and my hands are shaking so hard I cannot even put the key in the lock.

  “You know why I told Morgan I couldn’t get involved with her?”

  I turn to meet his intense gaze. He reaches out his hand to touch my face, but I back up out of his reach. “No. I won’t believe anything you have to say.”

  He chokes out the words. “It was because of you.”

  “I won’t listen. It’s all lies.” Oh, this blasted lock. I have to get away from him. “Step out of my way, if you please.”

  “I don’t care how many men a woman has slept with. But what no man wants to see is his woman stoop to the likes of someone like Frank. Or have such low self-esteem that she would consider a life with him. To think that she can’t have better than that. Because she can.”

  “You have no right—”

  “Courtney, when I met Morgan, you weren’t even speaking to me. You wouldn’t see me. You wouldn’t return my calls.”

  “All I know is that men desire what they cannot have. But once they possess it, the object of desire loses its value.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Will you step aside, please, or have you forgot yourself entirely?”

  “Courtney, I—” He presses himself against the side of the staircase, enabling me to pass and descend the stairs, which I do, two at a time.

  I head towards the street.

  “Let me walk you back to the café so you can get your car,” he shouts.

  My car.

  And with that I am sprinting towards the brown car that is mine, putting the key in the lock, slamming the door shut and closing him out, turning the key and guiding the vehicle smoothly and effortlessly into the street, to the traffic light, and then right, and then gliding soundlessly down the lit-up street, in tandem with dozens of other cars. I am driving all on my own and it is easy and effortless and these hands and feet know exactly what to do. And a sense of calm and peace floods me, and I make my way down a street that is at once familiar and new. I cannot think, I cannot question, I cannot stop, I simply drive.

  Twenty-five

  I find myself on a winding, hilly road that is strangely familiar. I know this road somehow, just as I know the flatter city roads below. On this particular stretch of road, I can feel some of the tension in my shoulders releasing as I ascend the gentle rises. I am soaring above my troubles, leaving them behind. And then I am steering the car off the road, to a little paved spot at the edge of the cliff, overlooking the city. My body, my senses, remember this place as a place of refuge. And I know that I have been here many times before. I emerge from the car and sit on the hood, in the stillness of the night, looking out upon the glittering city below, its vastness arrayed in millions of fairy lights, twinkling with promise and secrets.

  But that promise is not for me. And those secrets I shall never grasp.

  For I do not belong here. I do not belong in a world where there are no rules yet too many of them to comprehend. I do not belong in a place where the person whose society was dearer to me than anything is not who I thought he was.

  He chose to protect Frank rather than protect me. He bedded and abandoned a young woman. And he has a very low opinion of me.

  No man, he said, wants to see a woman stoop to someone like Frank.

  It is in all ways humiliating. Of course he believes me as ruined as I feared he would. And to think I had begun to believe him attached to me.

  There is much work to be done here is what the fortune-teller said. Look at the state of this life you have inherited.

  If truly I was brought here to put this life into a better state, then I have failed indeed. For I am as crossed in love here as I was in my own time.

  How shall I face him again?

  And then I know where it is that I most wish to go. And I pray that there is one who might help me to get there.

  Within twenty minutes I am in front of Awakening.

  I park the car—I am astonishingly proficient at maneuvering this machine, provided I do not think about what I am doing—and as I disembark and plunge into the jostling, jocular crowd of young men and women, I cannot help but compare my initial reaction to their outrageous hair, jewelry, and mode of dress with my detached observance now. I give my name to the hulking man at the door, who wears a tight black shirt and bright violet streaks in his cropped blond hair, and his frowning concentration on the list before him becomes a polite smile.

  “I’ll let Deepa know you’re here,” he says, and waves me in.

  I wade through the press of people towards the bar; I’m parched, and I need something to drink. The loud music is a blur, but suddenly the words capture my attention:

  . . . they were as strangers; worse than strangers,

  a perpetual estrangement.

  Once so much to each other; now nothing!

  A perpetual estrangement . . .

  I know these words—but of course I do; I only just read them last night. They are from Persuasion.

  I am marveling over the fact that a singer is singing words from a novel I am reading, when a tap on my shoulder causes me to turn round, and there is Deepa.

  “Darling.” She kisses me on both cheeks and shouts into my ear, above the music, “I think those words would be lost on just about everyone but a true Janeite.”

  Janeite. What a lovely word.

  I am so happy to see her—my dear Janeite friend—that I put my arms around her and hug her. She returns my embrace, then pulls back to regard me carefully.

  “What is it? You look like hell.”

  And then I feel the tears rising unbidden to my eyes, and all I can do is shake my head.

  “Come.” She grabs my hand and steers me through the crowd, past th
e band, down a passageway to the ladies’ room. Once inside, the sounds from outside are somewhat muffled.

  “A little cool water on your face might make you feel better,” she says.

  I regard this face which has become my face in the mirror, and it does indeed look frightful. My hair is completely unruly after my run through the hot streets and then driving with the windows open. My face is shiny and blotchy from the heat. The back of my shirt is damp with perspiration, and I imagine it also smells as if it needs to be washed.

  “I have an extra T-shirt in my bag,” says Deepa. “Always carry one when I’m working in case I spill a drink on myself. Or someone else does it for me. Which is not an infrequent occurrence.” She smiles. “I’ll get it for you, if you like. And one of my special drinks. How does that sound?”

  I can only nod, my eyes brimming over.

  “It’s all right,” she says. “You have a good cry and let it all out, okay? And then you can tell me all about it if you like.”

  She slips out into the club, and I set about the business of washing my face, neck, and under my arms. It’s not as convenient as the lovely shower at home, but it’s still better than the pitcher and basin I had at Mansfield House.

  By the time Deepa returns with a spotless white T-shirt, a little white towel, and a tall glass of a pink liquid, I am feeling and looking a thousand times better than I did a few minutes ago. I thank her and dry myself with the towel, and exchange my soiled shirt for the fresh white one, which fits perfectly and looks very well indeed. I take a sip of the sweet raspberry/lemon drink, which I believe also has vodka in it, tug a comb through my hair, and dig through my bag for makeup, which I start applying. I am actually beginning to look presentable.

  Deepa regards me in the mirror as she leans against the wall. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  I sigh. “I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

  “Fair enough. But perhaps there’s someone else you might like to talk to?”

  My heart leaps in my chest. “Is she here?”

  Deepa shrugs. “No idea, darling. But there’s only one way to find out.”

  She looks at me questioningly, I nod my readiness, and she leads me by the hand, past the band, and through a door, down a passageway, and then through another door. And there we are, in that same dimly lit corridor, and my heart pounds with anticipation.

  “I’m here, if you want me later,” says Deepa, and with a quick kiss on the cheek, she turns to leave me on my own, but I reach for her hand, pull her to me in an embrace.

  “Thank you for everything, Deepa. Your friendship has meant the world to me.”

  She looks at me and arches an eyebrow. “Has meant? I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”

  “It does mean the world to me.” And I look down for a moment, unable to withstand her questioning gaze.

  She appraises me with her large brown eyes and smiles wryly. “Say good-bye before you leave.”

  And then she disappears behind the door, leaving me trembling. For my future depends on the lady, on her being here, and I am by no means assured that I will find her behind that door at the end of the corridor.

  And if I do? Everything rests on her ability—or willingness—to help me.

  I reach the door at the end of the corridor; there is no sound from within, no light issuing from the tiny opening at the bottom. I put my head against the smooth black surface and strain to hear, but my ears can distinguish nothing from within; all I hear is the muffled music from the club.

  I rap on the door; no answer. I lean my cheek against the surface of the door and endeavor to calm my breathing. I knock again.

  I put my hand on the doorknob and turn it; the door opens easily. It is all darkness in the room; I can make out nothing.

  “Hello? Is anyone here?”

  I turn around but can see no opened door; all is blackness in the room. I put my hands before me to feel my way around, but there is nothing to bump into, nothing at all except blackness and emptiness.

  “Hello?”

  My hands touch a curtain of rough canvas; I fumble till I find an opening, slip through it to the other side, and suddenly all is a white, blinding glare.

  I can make out nothing but this bright white light. “Hello? What is this about? Are you here?”

  Then the scene slowly resolves itself into fuzzy white shapes moving about, and I begin to smell familiar scents of earth and horses and unwashed clothes, of perfume and ale and gingerbread. And the fuzzy white shapes become sharper until they are people and horses and tents and peddlers’ stalls and gentlemen and ladies and farmers and workingmen and children, all strolling and sauntering and skipping about happily. And I am no longer in that strange world I have been inhabiting, or in that body, or in that future time.

  I am myself again, at a fair. The fair where I first met the fortune-teller—dear heavens—I am back!

  Twenty-six

  I feel Mary’s arm linked through mine, and I turn to her and she smiles at me. And at the edge of everything around us, there is a sort of shimmering quality, as if everything I see is a reflection in a pool. And Mary speaks, and it is as if I am in a dream, for I know every word that her voice, that deep, throaty, well-loved voice, will say before she utters it.

  “Shall we try our luck, Jane?” says she. “Oh how delightful to have our fortunes told!”

  We are walking towards the brown tent of the fortune-teller, the same tent where I sat that day which seems so long ago. It is all happening again, all happening as it did before.

  “Shall I go inside with you?” she says. “Or shall I wait for you here?”

  And I say to her now, just as I said then, “Would you mind at all if I went in alone?”

  She laughs and taps me playfully with her fan. “Of course not, silly girl.”

  I part the flaps of the tent and enter, and the sweet scent of roses fills my nostrils, the same scent as before. And she is there, as she was before, an elderly woman in a simple yet elegantly cut black gown, a fringed shawl over her shoulders, greeting me with a bow and a wave of her hand to the chair which sits before her table.

  “What may I do for you today?” says she.

  I want to answer, but not in the way I did before, for I do not wish to relive what has already occurred. And though I am back here, in my own time, which is what I realized I wanted most fervently as I sat on my car atop that hill, I do not wish to retrace my steps with every word and breath. I wish to go forward. I open my mouth to say so, but the words will not come out.

  I wish to be here, in my own time, in my own country, I say inside my mind to the lady, her wise face impassive. But I do not wish to repeat what happened before.

  And I hear her voice inside my mind, answering me: Ah, but this is the price of your wish.

  Could I not awaken after my fall, in my own bed in Somerset?

  Courtney Stone has done that for you. All you could do is go back to your own time and repeat what you have already lived through.

  But knowing what I now know, I would not wish for a different life. I would not ride Belle that day. I would do things differently.

  But don’t you see, if you never took the ride, then you would never have had the fall, and so all that you have seen and done and learned in the future world and all whom you have met and known and all to whom you have become attached would fade away like this. . . .

  And I am walking through the fair with Mary as before, her arm linked in mine, and it is as if the curtains of my mind are closing, and behind them, fading from view, till they are nothing but blackness and dust and void, are Deepa and Paula and Anna and Frank and the streets of the wondrous city and the tall palm trees and airplanes and movies and all that I have seen and known and Wes, yes, even Wes. All are fading till they are but thin shadows and dust and nothingness and still Mary is by my side, chattering away in her deep, throaty voice, and my own voice inside is crying out No! No! I want to remember! But even that fades into the hum and mu
rmur of the fair-going crowd and the lilting tones of the flute and the sound of children laughing until it is only a nagging worry at the back of my mind, like something I know I should remember but have forgotten to do, and even that fades to nothingness. . . .

  Which means there can be nothing known differently, nothing remembered. . . .

  And once again I am back inside the tent, looking into the kind eyes of the fortune-teller.

  But I don’t belong in that strange future world, I say to her in my mind.

  “Now answer me. Even if I did possess such powers as to bring you back to what you call your own time and to do things differently,” she says, and now she is speaking aloud, and the world of the fair has vanished and I am in complete darkness again, “would you leave before you finish what you have started?”

  “I do not understand.”

  “Shall I explain it to you?”

  “May I see you, please?”

  “Where would you like to see me?”

  “In the little room in Deepa’s club. Please. I wish to talk to you and not be bound by the past.”

  And all at once, I am in the room in the club with her again, and she is no longer the elderly fortune-teller from the fair but rather the young woman in the fine muslin gown, brown curls framing her lovely face and her golden-brown eyes regarding me kindly. She is again sitting before her little table, offering me a cup of tea.

  “It will do you good, Miss Mansfield,” she says, and a fire burns cheerfully behind her within a marble chimneypiece, and the fact that it is high summer is of no consequence.

  “Are we truly back in the club?”

  “Does that really matter, my dear? A fire is most comforting, I find.”

  “What did you mean by my finishing what I have started?”

  “Consider,” she says, “all the good you have done in Courtney’s life. For one, she would probably not have left her situation as David’s assistant, as you have done. For another, it is quite possible that she might have chosen to be so charmed by Frank’s apology and admittance of guilt that she could be packing her things even now to move in with him.”