“But you went to drama school?”
“I did.”
“In London?”
“In London.”
I paused, stymied. “And did you enjoy it?”
“Mostly.” He blushed again and ventured, “More fun than medical school, I imagine.”
“I enjoyed medical school.”
“Fair play to you, then.”
“But I would have enjoyed studying drama too. It fascinates me. I don’t see the big dichotomy between art and science people seem to insist on. Why can’t you love both?”
“No reason.” He leaned back in his chair and tilted his long head at me, rolling his empty glass in his hands. “Is it how you ended up in this? Love of literature?”
“Yeah, short version. Love of Jane Austen.”
“She is a wonder.” We considered this, and Liam went on in a lower tone, “And to think she’s alive. Now! And that we might meet her and—God willing and we don’t wreck it—”
“We won’t.”
“You sound very sure of yourself.”
“I didn’t go through all this to fail.” Liam said nothing. I served us each a piece of the meat pie, hoping it would be better than the one at the Swan. How could it be worse?
“What’s the long version?”
“What?”
“You said—” He was looking down at the table. “And so—”
“I had an in, thanks to someone I knew—I mean, I might not have been the most obvious choice, being American and all—but I was the best, and in the end they had the sense to see that. Unrivaled Jane Austen nerd, used to practicing medicine in primitive conditions, proven audacity, whatever.” I paused. “And you?”
“No proven audacity, no.”
“How did you—?”
“I got lucky.”
False modesty annoys me. Liam had written a biography of Beau Brummell’s valet that proved he had a graceful prose style and a sly wit, at least on the page. He went on: “Herbert Briand was my professor. My mentor, really.” I must have looked puzzled. “He found the letter.”
“Oh, right.” After all surviving letters of Jane Austen should have surfaced, the annotated volume of them in its eleventh edition, another had turned up in a long-removed-from-circulation copy of Ivanhoe in library storage in Croydon. Written in 1815 to Jane Austen’s friend Anne Sharpe, the letter was explosive. A novel supposedly started and abandoned around 1804, decades later published in a fragment titled “The Watsons,” had, in fact, been completed. In the letter, Jane Austen explains why she won’t publish it and plans to destroy it. Too personal, she says; too dark. “He encouraged you to apply?”
“He made it possible.”
“I’m sure your own merits had some role. But it was generous of him. You’d think he’d want to go himself.”
“He’s an old man; not well.”
“Nice of him to back you, though. It will be huge for your career, right?” Time travel was secret; if we succeeded in returning with “The Watsons,” the institute would concoct a narrative of a scholarly discovery. It would be a big deal, for the Old British revered Jane Austen and considered her short life and small output a tragedy not unlike the destruction of the library at Alexandria.
“It would be the making of me,” Liam said in a tone so solemn I suppressed a laugh. “Life can start, you know, after that.”
“I think life’s started already.” I waved a hand around the room. “This is crazy, right here, 1815. If this isn’t life, what is?” My earlier dismay was gone; I was burning for things to get started. To meet her, to know. The Jane Austen Project was going to be amazing. I shivered despite the fire; it was also going to be cold.
“You’re right. I misspoke.”
“But you meant something by it. Perhaps you can be the one to prepare the manuscript for publication?” I refilled our glasses. “Imagine. Reading her handwriting! Her cross-outs, her substitutions!”
“That would be something.” He sounded as if the idea had never occurred to him. Yet I knew he’d gone to Oxford sometime after drama school; his book had been long-listed for some prize; his mentor had backed him for the project. And there was something else too, but the memory glided away. I crossed my arms over my chest to conserve heat.
“Is that what’s driving you?” I realized I was slightly drunker than was ideal. But here was a mystery, and now a good time to unravel it. “Worldly ambition? Academic renown?”
Liam looked at me. “Do you want my coat? Aren’t you cold?”
Since I was, I accepted the oversize garment, turning back the sleeves in search of my hands. There was a pause, during which I hoped he would not comment on how short I was, and he didn’t, before I said: “I was trying to clean my dress. The mud.”
“My surmise was correct.”
“Not part of my plan to go through 1815 partly clad.” I’d hoped for a laugh, but he merely nodded.
I raised my glass. “To the mission.”
“To Jane Austen.”
“To ‘The Watsons.’”
Our glasses met. A gust of air from the open window swirled through the room, making the fire flicker and throw shadows, and I shivered again. I had a sense of being there and yet not, as if I were watching the scene from far away, as if time had stuttered and stopped and gone on, like a momentary disruption in a heart’s rhythm. Sometimes I see us there still, all innocence and ignorance, everything before us.
CHAPTER 2
SEPTEMBER 23
33 Hill Street, London
SURPRISINGLY SOON, THE STRANGENESS OF 1815 BEGAN TO FEEL normal. With the help of newspaper ads, a house agent, and ready money, we had a suitable house—fully furnished, indoor privy, fashionable West End address—on a six-month lease. We’d hired three servants, commissioned more clothes, and started the scary work of depositing the fake money. But there was so much to do, and no time to lose.
Routines were established; habits began to form. I would meet Mrs. Smith, our cook-housekeeper, downstairs daily to review menus, plan the shopping, and go over accounts. A stout woman with mild dark eyes and smallpox scars, she had a gentle way of explaining even things that must have seemed very obvious to her.
One morning, though, she threw me a new challenge as soon as I sat down in her dim little room down the hall from the kitchen. “Grace tells me, miss, the drawing room chimney is smoking.”
“Is it? I suppose she knows.” Grace was the maidservant.
“Have you not noticed?” I had no idea. Coal smoke was one more thing the house smelled like, along with the beeswax candles, the turpentine and vinegar as cleaning products, the lavender that scented my bedsheets. “When you met the house agent, did he say when these chimneys had been cleaned last? I think the fire in the kitchen is not drawing as it should either.”