I vaguely remembered reading those details about Austen’s life in the introduction to my copy of Pride and Prejudice. “And you’re related to her—”
“Through the uncle. The papers were passed down through that branch of the family.”
They were probably nothing, of course, those papers. Grocery lists. Or forgeries. Wishful family thinking.
“You haven’t told me your name,” the woman said, interrupting my thoughts. “I’m Harriet. Harriet Dalrymple.”
My heart sank. She didn’t remember that we’d introduced ourselves only moments ago. Clearly her mental faculties were on the decline. All her talk of being related to Jane Austen was obviously a delusion.
“Mrs. Dalrymple—”
“Harriet, please.”
“It’s awfully warm here, even in the shade. Wouldn’t you be more comfortable at home?” I wondered if there was anyone there, waiting for her, or someone who might be looking for her. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find that she’d wandered away from a nursing home or some kind of assisted-living facility.
Harriet glanced around as if she were only just then noticing her surroundings. “Oh yes. I suppose so. Do you think I should go home?” She looked down at the cards in her lap. I could see now that they were pen-and-ink renderings. Quite good ones, really. I recognized Tom Tower and the tree-lined King’s Walk where we were sitting. “I haven’t sold my cards,” she said in a sad voice.
“I’ll buy them.” I had no idea what they cost, but I couldn’t let her continue to sit there in the heat in that trench coat. In fact, I thought I should help her find her way home before she became so disoriented that she didn’t remember where she lived.
“You’ll buy my cards?”
I nodded. “And I’d like to walk you home too, if you don’t mind.”
She smiled, and her tanned and wrinkled face looked much younger. “That would be lovely. We can have a cup of tea.”
“Of course we can,” I said, even as the thought of another hot beverage caused fresh perspiration to bead on my forehead.
I helped her to her feet, and we waded through the grass to the path. I paused, waiting for her to indicate which direction we should go, but she merely looked around as if she were seeing the scene for the first time.
“Is your home in that direction?” I waved toward the college. “Or should we go the other way? Along the river?”
Harriet didn’t answer for a long moment. Long enough for me to wonder how I would go about finding a policeman who could help me find her place of residence.
And then she came to, so to speak. Awakened from whatever twilight sleep had gripped her. She took my arm and turned me toward the river.
“This way, Miss Prescott. Do you prefer cake or muffin?” Um—
“Or perhaps a bit of both? Why not?” she said with a chuckle. “After all, it’s not every day that I make a new friend from America.”
I’d never been in a real English cottage before. For years I’d collected them, though. Missy gave me one each year for my birthday. Little figurines by David Winter that were all thatched roofs, dark beams and plaster, climbing roses and trailing vines.
Harriet Dalrymple’s home embodied all of the things I loved about those miniature houses. It sat back from the river, a bit apart from the other cottages nearby, and the front garden bloomed scarlet, yellow, and lavender amid the lush greenery. A stone path led to the front door, and I had to duck so I wouldn’t hit my head on the lintel. The entrance led to a narrow passageway crammed with bric-a-brac and books, the odd mirror dotting the fading wallpaper.
“Go on through to the sitting room, dear,” she said as she unbelted her trench coat and hung it on a peg by the door. “I’ll make some tea.”
Inside the cottage, the air was still, but not suffocating. The thick walls must have kept out the summer heat. I followed the direction she’d indicated with a wave of her hand and ducked through yet another doorway.
The sitting room looked like a cross between a Beatrix Potter illustration and Miss Havisham’s house in Great Expectations. Charming but dusty, with several cobwebs stringing from the ceiling to the tops of the bookshelves and then to the large armoire in the corner. An overstuffed sofa and chairs covered with fading pink cabbage roses filled the room almost to bursting, and more books were stacked along the open stretches of baseboard.
I slowly circled the room, taking in the minutiae of the older woman’s life. A drinks cabinet held a few bottles of sherry and some spotted glassware. A calendar of the Lake District, circa 1988, hung above the writing desk in the far corner.
“It ’s like a museum,” I murmured to myself.
“It is, isn’t it?”
I jumped at the sound of her voice, and then I blushed. “I’m sorry—”
“No need to apologize for telling the truth, dear. Besides, that’s quite the effect I was going for. The past is such a comforting place. Far less distressing than the present.”
Given my personal history, I couldn’t agree with her on that score, so I changed the subject. “All these books.” I nodded toward the stacks along one wall. “Were you a professor?”
She laughed at my question, a sound that was both dry and watery at the same time.
“Women weren’t given that chance in my day.”
I waited for her to expound on her answer. Instead, she waved me toward the sofa. “Sit down. The tea will be ready in a moment. Lovely things, electric kettles. Although”—she paused as she settled into a chair beneath the front window that overlooked her garden and the lane beyond—“there’s something to be said for taking one ’s time. No one seems to have much of a taste for that these days.”
“No, I don’t guess they do.” I knew that I didn’t. My life was a constant whirl of activity. Or at least it had been until I was fired. Now I had more leisure at my disposal than even my newfound friend might have wished for.
“You mentioned you had some of Jane Austen’s papers. Would you consider showing them to me?” I asked. I would look at them and find some way to gently explain that they weren’t real. I hated to see her persist with this delusion that she owned some undiscovered treasure of one of the greatest writers in the English language.
“Oh.” She looked at me with consideration, as if she were sizing me up. “I suppose it wouldn’t do any harm to just share a bit.” She leaned forward in the chair and bit her lip as her gaze scanned the room. “Ah yes. Now I remember.”
“It’s Austen’s first draft of Pride and Prejudice, you know.” She hoisted herself from the sagging cushion and crossed to the drinks cabinet. “I was rereading it last night with a glass of port.”
Well, of course she had been. I sighed. What else could I do but play along? Clearly she was delusional.
“I’m surprised you keep something that valuable at your house. Shouldn’t you donate it to a museum or something?”
Harriet chuckled. “Dear, as you said yourself, my house is a museum.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
“Here we are.” She pulled a sheaf of yellowed paper from a shelf above the cabinet and then crossed to the sofa. She placed the stack of paper in my hands. “Why don’t you get started while I get the tea?”
I’d come to her cottage half out of pity, half out of curiosity, but the moment she placed that crumbling manuscript in my hands, an unexplained shiver ran over my body. I glanced down and lowered it to my lap. Harriet bustled off to the kitchen, and I was left with a pile of paper that looked very old indeed. Old enough to actually be—
No, that was ridiculous. She’d probably written it herself. A flight of fancy, although that did seem to be Harriet’s normal state rather than a departure. At that moment, though, fancy appealed to me far more than reality did.
I looked down and began to read.
First Impressions
Chapter One
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in
want of a wife. Therefore when a gentleman by the name of Bingley inquired as to letting the great house at Netherfield, the village of Meryton and its environs blossomed with expectation, for it had been many years since so interesting a development had occurred in that part of Hertfordshire.
My head shot up, and I looked around for Harriet, but she was still in the kitchen. I could hear her talking to herself, and then she chuckled. I glanced down at the pages in my lap again. The handwriting was old-fashioned but neat, the ink faded to a soft brown. The wording was similar, true, to the beginning of Pride and Prejudice, but fan fiction might have existed back in the early nineteenth century just as it did now. Could it be the real thing? I continued reading.
Mrs. Long reported to all who were interested, and to some who were not, that Mr. Bingley had five thousand a year, two sisters, and no wife. If the amount of his fortune proved true, the young women of the village agreed they might forgive him the sisters—provided they were allowed to furnish him with the wife.
But, alas, upon finding that the Bennets, a principal family of the neighborhood, had recently entered into a year of mourning at the death of their husband and father, the enticing Mr. Bingley set aside his designs on Hertfordshire and settled his affections on Derbyshire instead.
Death of Mr. Bennet? This wasn’t Pride and Prejudice. Mr. Bennet didn’t die in the real book. And how could Mr. Bingley wind up married to Jane if he never moved to their neighborhood?
The young ladies of Meryton were not doomed to disappointment forever, although the addition of another gentleman to the neighborhood came at a dear price indeed. Upon the death of Mr. Bennet, the Rev. Mr. Collins, an estranged cousin of the family, inherited the estate of Longbourn. The late Mr. Bennet had resided at the manor for enough years to leave behind a widow and five grown but unmarried daughters.
Mr. Collins, devoted clergyman that he was, quickly perceived upon arriving for his cousin’s funeral that his duty was to serve as trusted advisor to the widowed Mrs. Bennet. He promised to return to Longbourn within a fortnight to assist the young ladies in overcoming their grief and Mrs. Bennet in securing a new situation, for he was eager to take possession of the house and forsake his clerical duties for the life of a gentleman.
Again, the plot was all wrong. Mr. Collins ended up marrying Elizabeth’s friend Miss Lucas, but they lived in his parsonage. In the real book, he proposed to Elizabeth, who turned him down, much to her mother’s distress.
Mrs. Bennet, however, took a great deal longer than a mere fortnight to recover from the cruel blow of her husband’s demise. She sent letters to the parsonage at Huntsford every se’ennight, begging Mr. Collins would delay his return to Longbourn a little longer. This tactic, rendered more effective by the teardrops Mrs. Bennet allowed to fall upon the paper as she wrote, permitted the widow and her daughters to persist in their home for a full half of their required year of mourning.
That sounded more like the real book, but it still wasn’t right. Mr. Collins didn’t kick the Bennets out of their house in the novel. I flipped through the pages in my lap. What Harriet had given me was a small section of a larger piece, and it was clearly a working draft. The margins contained notes in the same handwriting, and here and there words had been scribbled out and replaced.
Still, the time came when the inevitable could no longer be delayed.
“We must remove from Longbourn, Mama,” said Elizabeth after breakfast one day as she studied the contents of Mr. Collins’ latest missive. She was alone with her mother in the morning room. “Our cousin is eager to take his place in our local society, and we have imposed on his forbearance long enough.”
Mrs. Bennet sniffed, rose from her chair at the little desk, and frowned at her second eldest daughter.
“Forbearance? He is a clergyman. Certainly the practice requires no effort on his part, for he must be accustomed to it.” She pushed aside the household account book Elizabeth had pressed upon her. “Why Mr. Collins insists on having Longbourn when he enjoys a perfectly adequate parsonage at Huntsford, I am sure I do not know. A manor requires such upkeep, and it is all quite worrying. Surely he wishes to be spared the turmoil that caused your father’s untimely…untimely….” She could not continue, but instead sank onto the settee and covered her face with her handkerchief as she began to weep once more.
Well, that certainly sounded like the Mrs. Bennet from the real novel.
Elizabeth sighed and pulled the account book toward her. She had long given up any private embarrassment at her mother’s behavior. Public humiliation, however, was not so easily avoided. She opened the book and eyed the most recent column of figures. If only she could magically transpose the numbers there into an order that would relieve her mind rather than trouble it. Such conjuring was beyond her powers, however, and wishful thinking would not change their situation. The Bennet family sank further into debt each day.
“We might remove to the seaside,” Elizabeth said to her mother, though the woman’s face was still obscured by her handkerchief.
At the mention of the seaside, her sobs quieted a little.
“You have always wished for some sea bathing to calm your nerves.” Elizabeth was on intimate terms with her mother’s nerves. Like her father before her, she had heard them mentioned with consideration for many years. The reminder of Mr. Bennet, and the rent his demise had left in the family fabric, caused a lump to rise in Elizabeth’s throat. After half a year she expected to feel his loss less keenly, yet it was not so. She grieved his death as much now as the day he’d been laid to rest in the churchyard at Meryton.
“The seaside?” Mrs. Bennet echoed, lowering the handkerchief. “A little cottage might do, I suppose. Ten rooms, I should think.”
Elizabeth sighed and closed the account book. Her mother might as well wish for a hundred rooms as ten.
“We must entertain more modest expectations, Mama. If we are frugal, we may manage three or four.”
Elizabeth knew what must happen once her mother and sisters were settled in their new home. To secure her future, a gentlewoman must either marry or seek employment.
Jane, her elder sister, could reasonably be expected to procure a husband through the twin inducements of her beauty and pleasant nature. Indeed, Elizabeth had already arranged with her aunt and uncle Gardiner, who resided in London, for Jane to travel to town once the rest of the family had found a situation. If Jane could but make herself known in a wider society, a proposal must soon follow.
Elizabeth’s own chances of entertaining an offer of marriage were much less encouraging. She had neither Jane’s beauty nor goodness, and she was far too likely to say what she thought. Her frankness had sent potential suitors scurrying on more than one occasion. Combined with her lack of dowry—well, Elizabeth had no faith in fairy stories. Her future must be the work of her own hands.
I paused in my reading. This alternate version certainly seemed connected to the real one, but how could such a manuscript have survived all these years without being discovered by the world?
“I still do not comprehend how we may be thrown into the street, merely because of an entail.”
Mrs. Bennet’s oft-used lament strained the last of Elizabeth’s patience. She had tried in vain, as had her father before her, to explain the terms on which her father had come by Longbourn. Since the manor was entailed, only the nearest male relative could inherit the property. Despite many lengthy explanations, however, her mother refused to acknowledge Mr. Collins’ legal right to avail himself of the roof and walls, much less the very furnishings and plate, that she had enjoyed throughout her married life.
“We are not to be thrown into the street, Mama,” Elizabeth said as kindly as she could. “Mr. Collins is a gentleman, not a bill collector.”
A soft rap on the door relieved Elizabeth of the endless duty of placating her mother.
“Yes?”
Hill, the housekeeper, opened the door and peered around it. “The ladies have a visitor,” she
said.
Elizabeth clutched the account book tightly. She had hoped to avoid tradesmen appearing at the house demanding payment, but even the kindest merchants in Meryton had begun to inquire as to when the Misses Bennet might cross their palms with a bit of silver.
To her shock, however, the door opened fully to reveal their cousin, Mr. Collins himself, standing on the threshold.
“Mr. Collins! You are come,” Elizabeth blurted out.
The Rev. Mr. Collins failed to register the dismay in her tone. He smiled, sketched a bow, and entered the room. “Miss Elizabeth. Mrs. Bennet. You are in good health, I trust?” He did not pause for an answer but continued, “I bring you the compliments of my most esteemed patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, who urged me to delay my return to Longbourn no longer.”
Having spent several days in her cousin’s tedious company, Elizabeth could well imagine that the gentleman’s patroness had been glad to encourage him on his way.
“We are delighted to see you, Mr. Collins. I trust you are in good health as well.” Elizabeth rose and made her curtsy since her mother showed no signs of greeting the new master of Longbourn in a proper manner.
“Mr. Collins,” her mother said from where she reclined on the settee. “How good of you to come to minister to us in our grief.”
The gentleman’s brow creased for a moment at this manner of address, for he had expected to find Mrs. Bennet quite recovered from her husband’s death. Instead, she showed no more sign of relinquishing her hold upon the house than she had six months before, greeting him as a visitor rather than the master. Elizabeth stifled a sigh. Six years, much less six months, would not be sufficient to persuade her mother that Longbourn was no longer theirs.
“I am at your service, madam,” Mr. Collins said with yet another bow. His manners were all civility, yet he could not help but cast an assessing eye over the room. “Your sisters are also well, I trust?” he asked Elizabeth when she seated herself again in her chair and motioned for him to occupy the one opposite.
Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart Page 3