“Quite.” She paused. “A part of one hopes for banditti—an overset—if only for something to recollect later in tranquillity—”
“Jane!” Henry protested. She gave him a look that excluded outsiders. Since it was well past the hour when mere acquaintances dropped by without warning, and they had surely been having a good time alone together, catching up after months apart, I wondered why he’d let us in, why she’d come along to be introduced, and if she was now sorry. We weren’t offering much in the way of witty conversation.
“You are a quite frequent visitor to town, I think your brother said?” I asked.
“As frequent as I can be.”
There was another little silence. Liam was no help; he was just staring at Jane Austen, eyes wide, biting his lip.
“You are new to London, Miss Ravenswood. Do you find it agreeable?”
“Very much. Though I have heard so much of the beauty of the English countryside, that I confess a longing to see that, too.”
“It is hardly a matter for confessing to, as if in shame. If I may ask, what stops you?” I hesitated, since I could hardly admit the truth she had already jokingly guessed, that I was in London for no reason other than her. “There is not want of money, or leisure, I trust?”
These words seemed to rouse Liam from his trance. Springing to his feet, he said: “If the ladies will allow, I must speak to Mr. Austen in private. I came with the view of making another particular inquiry into his health, and I do not propose to trespass on his hospitality for a second time today longer than necessary.”
Henry looked up. “I hate a fuss. I am feeling better. And is it something we must go to another room for?” I had hardly noticed him, I had been so distracted by his sister, but now I took a good look. Though as put together as ever, freshly shaven, with gleaming linen, he looked tired, in addition to seriously jaundiced.
“Let us adjourn, sir, and I will allow you to judge.”
Henry frowned and hesitated, but politeness won. “Then, if you will—” He stood up and waved a graceful hand toward the door. Liam led the way into the passage, and I was left with Jane Austen and my own sense of disbelief. How long had I anticipated this day, worked toward it, longed for it? And what I mostly felt was fear; I would have given anything to be at home reading one of her books instead. How can you possibly impress Jane Austen?
As I sat paralyzed, she took a handkerchief from her sleeve and wiped her nose, which was a little red. I realized though I was likely to fail with conversation, I was certain to fail with silence. I took hold of my courage and said:
“To answer, I think my chief difficulty lies in not knowing where to go first. What do you advise? The Lake District? Derbyshire?”
She tilted her head thoughtfully. She seemed less playful, and I realized her real audience was her brother; he was the one she was trying to get a laugh from. “Kent is very beautiful. After my own country, it is the place I know best.”
“You have a brother there, I think?”
“Yes.” She offered no more on that. “Or you might try Lyme Regis, on the Dorset coast.”
“Why?” I wondered if she had yet written the part in Persuasion where her characters go there. Maybe she was working on it now.
A lift of her eyebrows suggested my question had been abrupt. “It is very picturesque.”
A pause. “I shall take your advice, then, with pleasure. But, October, is it too late for a trip to the seacoast? Should it wait until spring?”
“Some find autumn the most beautiful time there. But it is colder.” She paused. “The daylight dwindles.”
I bowed my head. “A more melancholy time, to be sure.”
“Henry merely said you are new to London. Where do you come from, that all of England is strange to you? From Ireland?” Her nostrils twitched, as if in delicate distaste. Or was she thinking of Thomas Lefroy, the law student from Limerick and future lord chief justice she had famously flirted with in 1796? Did she think of him much?
“We are from Jamaica. In the West Indies.” I stopped, mortified. “But forgive me, Miss Austen, I am sure you know where that is; I do not need to furnish a geography lesson.”
For the first time she looked at me with a gleam of amusement. “I do. But you are right not to assume. Have you met many people here yet, ignorant of where it lies? Do not answer; it may not be a credit to my countrymen and women. I met a young lady in Alton last week who was certain that Elba was in the Red Sea. I cannot think how she acquired this idea.” She paused. “But you did not grow up on Jamaica.”
“It grieves me to contradict you, but I did.”
“Your father was in colonial government?”
“He inherited a coffee plantation from a distant relation.”
“I see.”
“But, you must understand, he was no friend to the slave trade, no more than my brother and I, his heirs. We have unwound our interests there, and shall not return.”
“Indeed?” Her gaze had a disconcerting intensity. “And are you homesick?”
No one here had asked me such a thing. What answer would make her think I was a good and sensitive person? She wrote movingly about attachment to location, suggesting she knew homesickness herself. But the West Indies—louche, blood-soaked, full of tropical diseases like the one that had killed Cassandra’s fiancé in San Domingo in 1797—was it acceptable to miss somewhere like that?
“One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it,” I began cautiously.
“An interesting notion.” She continued to study me. “And—forgive my questions, they are impertinent, but I cannot help myself—was he English, your father?”
There was a little silence as we regarded each other. “Since William the Conqueror,” I said, wondering again if this was the right answer. Perhaps something exotic would have made us more interesting. Huguenot, like Thomas Lefroy. Descendants of aristocratic refugees of a Polish uprising. I would have been whatever she wanted, if only I knew what. “Do I strike you as foreign, Miss Austen?”
She did not smile, but she brightened. “Thank you. A direct question is the best way to repulse an impertinent one. Henry has a wide circle of acquaintance, as you know.” I was amused at how she had praised my question without answering it. From the hallway, we heard Liam and Henry returning. She went on: “I hope we can talk again. I would enjoy learning more about the life there. I have traveled rather little, and do not expect to do so in the future.”
I bowed my head. “The pleasure would be mine.”
CONVERSATION ON THE RIDE HOME WAS DISJOINTED; LIAM AND I were as giddy as drunken goats.
“What did you talk about? What was she like when it was just you?” Liam demanded.
“Well, you know. Terrifying.”
“I know, I couldn’t—I was just—”
“You were speechless. I never saw you like that.”
“Are you saying I talk too much?”
“No! You always say the right thing in company. A one-man schmoozefest. Except for just then.”