Laurie Brown - What Would Jane Austen Do?

“Perhaps I phrased that wrongly,” Mina replied, unperturbed. “I can help you, and you can help me.”

“You don’t even exist. How can I possible help you?”

“I’m so glad you asked.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Deirdre believes we’re stuck here until we do appropriate penance or learn a particular lesson or some such thing. The problem is we can’t figure out what it is. My solution is to travel back in time and prevent … change what happened. Thereby solving the problem at the source. However, we can’t talk to ourselves when we go back, and even if we could, it’s doubtful we’d listen. Do you listen when you talk to yourself? La … I am rambling on without mentioning what I can do to help you.”

“There’s nothing—”

“Didn’t you come here to do some research?”

Eleanor gave her a sharp look. “Can you read minds?” She rolled her eyes. “Of course you can. Since you’re only a projection of my imagination, it stands to reason—”

Mina’s laugh sounded like a tinkling wind chime.

“No, I can’t read your mind. Most guests who come during Regency Week have an interest in something related to Jane Austen. Don’t you? Perhaps I can help with that.”

Eleanor shot her hand to her throat, but relaxed once she felt her amber cross still in place. She hadn’t told anyone about the necklace she’d inherited from her grandmother. If the family legend was true, it had belonged to Jane Austen, and Eleanor could sell it for enough money to put her business on solid footing. That is, if she could bear to part with it, a decision she hadn’t tackled just yet.

“Miss Jane Austen was not a close friend of ours due to our age differences,” Mina continued, “but we certainly were well acquainted. We attended many of the same functions, since she lived nearby. Just down the road. At Chawton Cottage.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Ah, I see you are familiar with her life. Are you a fan of her books? Would you like to meet her?”

Eleanor could see she wasn’t getting rid of this figment easily. Maybe if she went along with the dream, it would get to the inevitable conclusion of waking up. Then she could take a couple of antacids and get some rest. “Fine. Yes, I’d like to meet Jane Austen. Who wouldn’t? Are you going to make her ghost appear?”

“Don’t be silly. We are going to travel back in time to when we were alive, and you will meet her there.”

“But that’s impossible.”

Mina grinned. “Actually …”

Deirdre reappeared with a bright flash of rainbow-colored lights. “I heard what you said. I knew you had another crazy scheme stuck in your bonnet.”

“I know it will work this time,” Mina said with a pleading look at her sister.

“No, it won’t,” Eleanor interjected. “Time travel is a physical impossibility.”

Deirdre faced her with a raised eyebrow. “Have you never heard of Einstein’s theory?”

“Everyone has.”

“Then you know his theory that gravity affects time has been proven.”

“Yes, but—”

“And you know that gravity is simply another form of energy.”

“Yes, but—”

“Therefore, it logically follows that energy affects time.”

“We pool our energy,” Mina interjected in an excited voice, “and use it to create a powerful vortex that will take us all—”

“We can take you back in time, but we are not going to do it.” Deirdre turned to her sister and whispered, “Must I remind you of what happened last time? We only made matters worse, and that’s why our Teddy was killed.”

“Who’s Teddy?” Eleanor asked.

“Our dear brother,” the ghosts said in unison.

“And this time Eleanor here is going to save his life,” Mina continued. “It’s a perfect plan. We take her back. She prevents Shermont from seducing … us, thus preventing the necessity of Teddy defending our honor and hence dying in the duel.”

Deirdre shook her head. “It’ll never work.”

“Of course it will,” Mina argued. “We can help her with everything she needs to know.”

“There’s too much to learn. Dancing, proper address, conversation, deportment, and manners. We studied from the time we were little girls. She has no chance of success.”

“All she has to do is keep us out of Lord Shermont’s way,” Mina argued.

“We had a chaperone for that—to little avail.”

“Ha! Aunt Patience’s only concern was Teddy’s welfare. She couldn’t have cared less about us.”

“That’s not true.”

They volleyed reasons back and forth like tennis players until Eleanor put her hands over her ears. “Stop!” When the sisters looked at her with surprised expressions, she folded her hands in her lap. “Please stop arguing,” she said in a moderated tone. “My head is already pounding.”

“We were only—”

“Whatever,” Eleanor said. “The discussion is now over. Time travel is impossible. Therefore the question of whether I can do the job is moot. Now, I would like to wake up or go back to sleep—whatever it takes to end this dream and make the two of you go back to wherever you came from.” She stretched out on the bed and put the pillow over her head.

“But you did say you would like to meet Jane Austen?” Mina asked.

“Yes. Now, good-night.”

“And you agree to help us if we can introduce you to her?”

“If it means you’ll go away and let me get some sleep, I agree to whatever you want. I’ll fly to the moon. I’ll dance on a flying carpet of gold. I’ll—”

“Good. Deirdre and I will take care of everything.”

“No we won’t.”

“Listen to …”

And then there was silence.

After what seemed like several long minutes, Eleanor sat up and looked around. The room appeared normal and best of all empty. She let out a deep sigh of relief. “What a crazy dream,” she mumbled as she snuggled back under the covers.

She regretted it had just been a dream. Wouldn’t it have been cool if it had been true?

When she sat up once more to turn out the lamp, the room began to spin. Bolts of rainbow-colored electricity zoomed around the walls. The bed seemed to rise and float.

Eleanor was usually a woman who confronted her problems head on, but this was too weird, outside the realm of anything she’d experienced before. The spinning room made her dizzy. The flashing lights hurt her eyes with their laser intensity, and her head throbbed with what she could only describe as unheard sound. She dove under the pillow, covered her ears, and closed her eyes tightly.

Eleanor woke and had no idea what time it was. She fumbled for the watch that she’d left on the bedside table. At least she thought she’d left it there. Had she put it in her carryon? She sat up and blinked in the pale light.

Mina and Deirdre were seated by the window.

Eleanor pinched herself. “Ouch!”

“Good morning, slug-a-bed,” Mina said with a bright smile. “It is half past ten on Wednesday the twenty-third day of June in the year 1814.”

“Oh no,” Eleanor said, shaking her head. If she wasn’t dreaming, that meant the ghosts were real. “Why are you still here? Why are you haunting me?”

“We promised we would be here to help you with the nuances of Regency life,” Mina said.

“Even though there is much you cannot possibly understand, especially in the short time available,” Deirdre added.

Eleanor held up her hand. She needed a minute to deal with this … whatever this was. What was it they always said to ghosts on TV? “You should go toward the light. Move on to whatever—”

“We explained that we can’t leave this property.”