Victoria Connelly - A Weekend with Mr Darcy - The perfect summer read for Austen addicts!

‘Incognito if you must,’ they’d said, but Lorna hadn’t been at all sure about it. The public face of publication had never appealed. Writing was a private thing, wasn’t it? One didn’t need to be endlessly signing copies and giving talks. What was there to say, anyway? Surely the books spoke for themselves? But Lorna’s publisher had often spoken of how writers were now seen as celebrities.

‘The public has to be able to see you.’

‘Oh, no,’ Lorna had said. ‘I don’t want anybody to see me.’

So what was to be done about Purley Hall? There was a part of Lorna that was desperate to go. Being a writer was a lonely job and it would be good to get out and actually talk to real live people for once. That would be fun, wouldn’t it - to get away from the study and meet people?

‘Katherine,’ Lorna suddenly said. Katherine was going to be there. Her letter had made it very clear that she’d love to meet her favourite author and there was a part of Lorna that wanted that very much too. Over the months, they’d become very close, sharing secrets and talking about their hopes for the future. Maybe it was the fact that they were writing letters - beautifully old-fashioned, handwritten letters that one savoured and kept. It wasn’t like receiving an e-mail which one reads and deletes. These were proper letters on quality paper which the writers took time to fill. They had crossings out and notes in the margins and funny P.S.s too. They were to be reread and treasured just like in the time of Jane Austen when letters were a vital means of staying in touch with loved ones.

If there was one good reason for Lorna to attend the conference, it was Katherine.

Suddenly, Lorna ran upstairs to the bedroom where a wardrobe door was quickly opened and clothes were pulled out and flung onto the bed. What to take? What should Lorna Warwick take to the Jane Austen conference? That was a question that was easy to answer because, although Lorna gave very few interviews and never gave out author photographs, it was obvious how the public perceived their beloved author. Nothing but velvets and satins would do in rich jewel colours with sequins and embroidery. Old-fashioned but with a quirky twist. A fascinator wouldn’t be completely out of place or a sparkling brooch in the shape of a peacock. Shawls, scarves, a pair of evening gloves, perhaps even a shapely hat. Shoes which were elegant but discreet. That was the kind of thing people would expect.

But Lorna wasn’t going to wear any of these things. Velvets and satins were instantly rejected and shawls were totally inappropriate and the reason was simple. Lorna Warwick was a man.

It would have been very unfortunate if Robyn Love had turned out to be anything other than a romantic. As it was, she fitted her name perfectly - choosing to read nothing but romances, wearing only feminine dresses and renouncing any film that didn’t have a happy ending.

Life for her was never as good as it was in fiction. A good story beautifully told was always preferable to reality. For Robyn, nothing came close to the highs she got when reading. Her job on reception at a small college in North Yorkshire only tickled the surface for her and she could never wait to get home and stick her head in a favourite book. And, for her, the very pinnacle of literary perfection was Jane Austen.

Some took their pleasures in the spin-offs and Regency romances told by modern authors but Robyn was a true Janeite who preferred her Austen undiluted.

‘If only she’d written more,’ Robyn would often say with a sigh. The big six just weren’t enough. There were the shorter stories too, of course, but they weren’t the same as the big novels, and the letters and endless biographies just didn’t give the same satisfaction; they were takeaways rather than a three-course meal - they might fill a gap but they would leave you feeling unsatisfied and wanting more.

There was never enough. No matter how many versions of Pride and Prejudice or Persuasion there were - whether for the cinema, TV or theatre, she would devour them. Each one was different, shedding some new light onto Austen’s world and her characters. Whether it was Pride and Prejudice or Bride and Prejudice, Emma or Clueless , Robyn would unplug the house phone, turn off her mobile and tune in for her allotted slot of pure happiness.

There were favourites, of course. Who could forget Colin Firth’s brooding Mr Darcy from the 1995 BBC version? But equally, Matthew Macfadyen striding across the meadow at dawn could be the recipe for many a happy sleepless night. There was Jennifer Ehle’s witty and intelligent Elizabeth and Keira Knightley’s youthful exuberance. How could one possibly choose? It entirely depended on what mood you were in. One thing was for sure, though: there could never be enough. Robyn had often wondered what it was about Austen that inspired such devotion. In these modern times of CDs, DVDs, computer games, iPods and the Internet, there were still people who would prefer to sit down in a quiet corner and read a Jane Austen novel.

Perhaps it was that irresistible blend of wit, warmth and romance that did it. Robyn had never stopped to analyse what it was that gave her such a buzz. She only knew that, when her mind was immersed in the Regency period, her twenty-first-century problems evaporated. Well, most of them.

It was late afternoon before the Jane Austen conference in Hampshire and Robyn was standing in her back garden behind the row of friendly Yorkshire terraces which overlooked fields and allotments. She had shed her work clothes which had consisted of a white shirt and navy skirt and was now wearing a knee-length dress in a floaty floral fabric. Her long hair was unpinned and was blowing around her face in a tangle of curls and her bare feet had been thrust into a pair of sparkly sandals.

Her garden was quite unlike all the others in the terrace. They were mostly given over to neat lawns lined with bedding plants or patios housing tubs of begonias but Robyn’s was home to her chickens. And her obsession with Jane Austen extended to her feathered friends. There was Mr Darcy - only it wasn’t a terribly fitting name as he had soon turned into something more approaching a villain and Robyn had had to rethink his name, eventually coming up with Wickham - the villain of Pride and Prejudice. The trouble was, Robyn liked sandals and bare feet and Wickham had a fascination with her toes, pecking at their painted extremes with great vigour.

So he was now Wickham the Chicken and his ladies were also named after characters from Pride and Prejudice. There was Lizzie, the bright young thing who was so aware of her surroundings and always the first to raise an alarm. There was the tiny chestnut called Lydia because she was always running away. The supercilious lavender grey was called Lady Catherine. The speckled hen was Mrs Bennet as she was always fussing around the others like your typical mother hen, and the pale gold was Miss Bingley because she had such an air about her and Robyn was convinced that she looked down her beak at everyone else.

Robyn looked at them all now, pecking around the garden in the sunshine. She loved watching them and could spend many a happy hour reading in her deckchair, listening to the funny little noises they made.

‘You ready, then?’ a friendly voice called over the low fence.

‘Hi, Judith,’ Robyn said, smiling at her elderly neighbour who kept an eye on the chickens when Robyn was at work and whenever she went away. ‘You sure this isn’t going to be too much bother?’ Robyn asked.

Judith put her hands on her hips. ‘I’ve brought up four sons single-handedly. I think I can manage a few Bantams!’