Sally O'Rourke - The Man Who Loved Jane Austen

He braced himself as he felt Lord Nelson’s hooves leave the ground.

They were airborne for several instants, during which he clearly heard the thumping of his own heart over Frank Austen’s screamed warning for him to stop or be shot dead.

The sound of Austen’s voice died away, as if someone had quickly dialed down the volume on a too-loud radio. Lord Nelson’s front feet hit the ground with a bone-jarring jolt and Darcy opened his eyes. Reining the huffing horse to a halt he turned and looked back over the wall that they had just cleared. In the final rays of the dying sun he saw nothing but dissolving shadows filling an empty meadow.

In the distance he heard the rumble of an engine and turned to see a yellow-painted farm tractor coming toward him, its lights turned on against the gathering gloom. He waved and waited until the vehicle reached him and a red-faced man yelled over the top of the black steering wheel.

“Here now! What’re you doing in my field? I haven’t spent all day planting this seed for you to be tramping on it with your bloody great horse.”

Barely trusting himself to reply, Darcy opened his mouth to ask for directions to his friends’ rented country house.

The shriek of a low-flying fighter jet from the nearby NATO base obliterated his eager words.

“And so I had returned.”

Darcy was standing at the open French doors in the Rose Bedroom, looking out at the first golden rays of the sun rising over Pemberley Farms. Eliza got softly to her feet and went to stand beside him.

Almost whispering, she gently said, “So you lost her.”

Quizzically, “I beg your pardon?”

Her heart went out to him. “Your last meeting with Jane never took place?”

He shook his head, still looking into the distance. “No. I never saw her again. And, as far as I can tell, the entire incident was never spoken of by anyone in the Austen family. There’s no mention of Jane Austen having ever met anyone remotely resembling me, at least not that I’ve been able to find in any family archive or historical record.”

He paused, and then turned to Eliza. “The only hint that something might have happened is that, according to several of her biographers, Jane left Chawton for several months immediately after May 12, 1810. But until her first letter to me turned up in an estate sale two years ago I was unable to find any documentation that anything I have told you really happened.”

Smiling he added, “So now you see why I said that I spent a very long time doubting my own sanity. When that first letter turned up in London in a huge collection of unrelated documents it had already passed through several hands. So although it couldn’t be traced to a specific source, it gave me hope because it proved I had actually been there.”

Darcy smiled again. “Then you turned up with more substantial proof that it was all completely true, just as I’d remembered it.”

“Well, at least you know that she got the letter you sent Simmons to deliver,” Eliza said.

“Yes, and the unopened letter must be her reply. Do you understand now why I said that letter was meant for me?”

Eliza walked out onto the balcony, considering all that he had told her. She slowly nodded her head and gazed into the sunrise. “So it is really possible to travel back in time.” Her voice sounded small and full of wonder.

Darcy joined her at the hand-carved railing and shrugged. “Theoretically, yes. As I explained to Jane, time travel is possible; at least if you’re willing to believe Einstein, Hawking and a few thousand other eminent thinkers. “ How it’s done is still the big question,” Darcy said. “The only reported incidents I was able to discover in my research have been like mine—accidents.”

“Unbelievable!” Eliza yawned and felt her eyelids suddenly growing heavy, the cumulative result of her emotional turmoil and nearly twenty-four hours without sleep.

“I really do believe you, Fitz,” she explained dreamily. “But you have to admit it all seems so incredible. My mind is reeling.”

Darcy nodded, then unexpectedly leaned over and kissed the top of her head. “You must be exhausted,” he said quietly. “Try to get some sleep now. We can talk more about all of this tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow is already here,” she reminded him, pointing to the glowing ball of the rising sun. “I think you’d better try to get some sleep yourself. Your big day is beginning.”

“God yes! I almost forgot the ball!” He reached down and touched her hand, then walked through the bedroom to the door and opened it to leave. She spun around.

“Fitz!”

Darcy stopped and looked back at her.

“Thank you for trusting me with this,” Eliza said, raising her fingers and blowing him a kiss.

He smiled and mimed catching it, pressing it to his lips. Then he closed the door and was gone.

Pausing only long enough to drop her clothes in an untidy heap on the floor, Eliza collapsed across the rose-colored satin coverlet and closed her eyes.

But sleep would not come. Seconds later, she opened her burning eyes again and gazed across the dimly lit room to the alcove. The haunting portrait of Rose Darcy seemed to be questioning her from the shadows.

“Yes, of course I’m falling in love with him,” Eliza said defiantly. “Who in their right mind wouldn’t? And, if it makes any difference, I’d gladly fill that stupid bathtub of yours with rose petals or whipped cream or whatever else turns him on and hurl myself naked into it this second. But do you really think that would be enough to make him fall in love with me?”

As she expected, the enigmatic beauty in the portrait offered no answers to that one.

Flopping angrily onto her stomach, Eliza buried her face in the soft, soft fabric and wondered miserably what she was supposed to do now.

How was she—or anyone, for that matter—supposed to compete with Jane Austen?

Alone for the first time that day, Darcy lay on the bed staring at the vaulted ceiling of his bedroom. When he had begun the story of his meeting with Jane Austen it had been for strictly mercenary reasons: he wanted the letters. He had anticipated that it would be very painful to reveal the details of his experience; but as he lay there trying to rest he was surprised that it was actually a relief to have shared it, and luckily with someone who had not dismissed it out of hand. Eliza believed.

Eliza. He saw her face behind his closed eyelids, remembering the way her hair fell softly to her shoulders. He chuckled to himself; she made him feel good. In fact he had been having sensations since they met that he had been sure would be reserved only for Jane. Sighing, he remembered the thrill and warmth of Eliza’s kiss. It had taken a great effort not to envelop her in his arms and smother her with kisses, burying his face in her beautiful hair.

What had stopped him? Was it the feeling of betrayal, as he was trying to convince himself, or was it the fear of loss? The fear of loving and losing again had made him keep his emotions in check for most of his adult life; Jane had been the only one to unlock his heart, until now. And as with Jane he seemed to have little or no control over his roiling emotions with Eliza and it scared him.

In spite of the tumultuous state of his mind, Darcy drifted into a contented sleep with thoughts of Eliza’s sweet kiss and gentle touch.

Eliza awoke beneath the satin coverlet in the huge antique bed, with the sunlit portrait of Rose Darcy gazing down at her from its alcove above the copper tub. Glancing over at the small travel clock on her bedside table she discovered that she had slept through the entire morning and well into the afternoon. “Don’t look at me like that,” she told Rose Darcy. “I bet you never got up before noon in your life.”