Sara Waters - Dancing with Mr Darcy - Stories Inspired by Jane Austen

‘You are joking me?’ says Chantal Thomas, her arms folded, as we stare at the mannequins dressed in Jane Austen’s printed muslin dresses.

‘Jane Austen wore that? I was bigger than that when I was eleven.’

A few people nod in agreement. Chantal Thomas has always been tall.

‘I’m nearly six foot now,’ she says, ‘I’ve been scouted by Models One.’

‘Oh, very impressive,’ says Emma, ‘but I have to say, I doubt any woman was as tall as you in Austen’s day. You see, people weren’t as well nourished as we are today. Okay, I’m going to take you out to the gardens now and we’ll have a look at the kitchen and laundry.’

Everyone starts to move, shuffling down the stairs in a long, snaking line and out of the back door, but I don’t want to go. There’s something about this place. I want to stay and try to feel Jane Austen’s presence. I can’t do that with my schoolmates around so I hang back, check no one’s noticed, and then scoot back into Jane’s writing room.

I can see her there sitting at the window, watching friends and neighbours and the world in general all passing by until she focuses in on her work in progress and her characters: Emma, Harriet, Mr Elton and Knightley—

She had it sussed – positioned herself perfectly. She could take in both the outside and inside, whoever was coming through the door. It’s all so simple. She had all she needed – a quiet little life and yet so much to say.

‘Lucy, there you are, I’ve been looking for you,’ Mr Sole is frowning. ‘You upset my headcount. I couldn’t think who was missing, and then I realised it was you yet again.’

‘Sorry, sir, I just wanted to have another look.’

Mr Sole stops, his frown fades away. ‘And what is it you see, Lucy?’

He’s really interested, waiting to hear, waiting as long as it takes.

I look back at the room, from door to desk to window.

‘I see that you need only a little space, a tiny desk and a creaky door.’

My inspiration: Having visited the Jane Austen Museum at Chawton twice, once as a child and once as an adult with my own family, I wanted to look at how learning about Austen’s life, where she lived and how she worked could inspire someone young.

‘Cup of tea, Charlotte? Black isn’t it?’

‘Lovely,’ Charlotte smiled. They were practically friends. Eliza, the only woman she would trust to cut her hair, wayward curls that needed a firm hand. Charlotte smiled again before retreating under the pile of glossy magazines and the noise of the blower and a good half hour’s staring. Weekly trips to Thin Lizzie’s on the high street were the highlight of her quiet life; a constant round of light dusting, light shopping, light gardening, light strolls. Here, in Eliza’s capable, manicured hands, she had her light trim, light set and, very occasionally, low lights to mask the incipient grey.

She found going to the hairdresser very pleasing. Nothing was expected of her as she sat inventing lives and intrigues for the other ladies reflected there and listening to the lop-sided conversations half drowned by mechanical sounds. The mirror in the salon was a perfect medium, allowing her to see the world yet to see only its reflection refracted many times, multifaceted yet flat like the pages of novels.

‘Thought I’d buy ready-made and pass it off, save all that slog in the kitchen. Anyway I’ve clients till half six.’ Eliza’s hands-free phone was on constantly.

None of the ladies ever complained of inattention, so grateful perhaps to have a decent hairdresser in the village. She was pulling out curlers from the woman two seats down, running her hands through the fine grey, her red nails disappearing and reappearing rhythmically, repeatedly down the salon in smaller and smaller versions.

‘Do you want hairspray, Gladys?’

The can was out in a flash, perhaps Gladys had commented on the windy day. Charlotte watched the slack lips move in the mirror but could not make out what they said. She imagined the hiss of the can and saw the cloud of fine spray.

Yes, definitely a hairspray day.

‘She’s not wearing hairspray ‘

‘Oh yes she is,’ and workmen looking meaningfully into the young girl’s shopping basket and seeing Harmony.

‘A face without a trace of make-up.’

Charlotte laughed out loud and Eliza turned and smiled. Charlotte could meet her eyes in the mirror and see the woman’s lips move wordlessly in front of Eliza’s smile and the little black microphone in front of her teeth.

‘Well you make it then if you’re so bothered.’

Charlotte imagined the other end of the line. A husband, athletic, handsome in an earthy way with a broad back that would ripple under Eliza’s red nails, who loved Eliza’s no nonsense approach to life. Perhaps this was an important business supper and the husband needed to impress in order to make that step up the ladder.

‘If I don’t die of boredom I’ll kill you for inviting him.’

She could not help feeling that Eliza should be a little more sympathetic to the needs of her husband and his associate. She could see her impudently picking her nails with her teeth at the table, fidgeting one slim leg over the other with a scrape of black stockings, to distract the men from their serious discussions. She was sure that, in Eliza’s shoes, she would be more sensitive, she would know instinctively what was needed.

‘A whole evening of Mr Collins would be fatal.’

The name made her focus and she was not often called in to the real world. For a delightful moment she imagined the clatter of a carriage, the rustle of silk and the appearance of the rector and his patron. She felt there was a place for her somewhere in the pages of this novel. Why else had she been christened Charlotte? The unmarried daughter of respectable, elderly parents now deceased, leaving their unmarried elderly daughter comfortably off but elderly and unmarried.

She was hot under her blower, with an uncomfortable sense that time had dislodged and been lost somewhere.

‘Thanks very much, Gladys.’

The cash till registered with a ching, and a welcome rush of cool air as the door opened and closed, then relief when Eliza turned off the machine.

‘Think you’re cooked, Charlotte. You’re all pink.’

Curlers dropped one by one onto the waiting trolley with a little click and Charlotte’s hair recoiled.

‘You’ll have to ask someone else as well.’ Eliza sounded almost petulant.

‘Call me back will you.’ Eliza moved the mouthpiece above her head. It looked like a hover fly, Charlotte thought.

‘I could come and entertain Mr Collins for you.’

She laughed at her reflection, face to face with the multiple reality of it, pleased that the words were spoken. It was quite short notice, but with her hair done, no need to worry on her account, Mr Collins would do all the talking.

It had never been her intention to be a heroine, a romantic lead, but she thought, given an evening in the company of Mr Collins, even she could persuade him. She longed to be part of that world, any world, to join the sorority of married women whose bliss and trials she read about so often. At least, she thought she did until she got to the happy ending. Much as she enjoyed happy endings she could not trust them. They were a failing in novels, in life, a blind alley, a cul-de-sac; their inevitability ruined many pages, many days. She often did not finish books for that very reason, preferring to leave endless possibilities.

Charlotte noticed that Eliza did not stop to run her hands over her head in that satisfying way she usually did but seemed to punish the curls with her brush.