Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict

Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict

Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict

A Novel

LAURIE VIERA RIGLER

DUTTON
Published by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.); Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England; Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd); Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd); Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India; Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0745, Auckland, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.); Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Published by Dutton, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Copyright © 2007 by Laurie Viera Rigler
All rights reserved

REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA HAS BEEN APPLIED FOR.

ISBN: 1-4295-6031-2

PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

I dedicate this book to Austen addicts past, present, and future; and most of all, to Jane Austen, whose bit of ivory is an endless source of wisdom and joy for this humble admirer. If there is any justice in the world, Miss Austen, then there is a parallel reality in which that lovely young man from the seaside didn’t die young, you lived to write at least six more novels, and the two of you grew happily old together, preferably without children.

Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict

Till this moment, In ever knew myself.

—JANE AUSTEN,
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-one

Chapter Thirty-two

Chapter Thirty-three

Chapter Thirty-four

Chapter Thirty-five

Chapter Thirty-six

Acknowledgments

One

W hy is it so dark in here? And that smell, like dried lavender mixed with ammonia.

A door thrown open, curtains thrust aside noisily. I squint in the harsh light. A stout woman with black hair in a messy upsweep unlatches a window while a scowling older man hisses orders. The woman ducks her head and shrinks into her shoulders, as if to hide from the man’s voice.

Who are these people? And what’s with those outfits?

The woman’s dress is long and drab with a large white apron, down to the floor. The man’s suit and vest look like cast-offs from the Merchant-Ivory costume department. Even his glasses are vintage.

But that’s the least of it. This is clearly not my room.

My nose wrinkles at the ripe smell of unwashed body, and I realize that the man and the woman are standing at the foot of my bed staring at me. Am I the source of that smell? Is that why they’re looking at me?

Apparently, I am having a dream, and a highly olfactory one at that. Strange, though. I can’t recall ever having been aware of dreaming during the dream itself. Lucid dreaming, that’s what Frank called it. Claimed he used to have them all the time when he was seeing some Jungian therapist.

Why are they looking at me like that?

“Miss Mansfield? Are you awake?”

It’s the man who’s speaking to me, moving toward the bed as he does. I can now connect the stench with its source. His face has the bulging-eyed look of a trout surprised to find itself attached to a hook. I stifle a giggle.

“Miss Mansfield,” he says again. “Can you hear me?”

Miss Mansfield. That’s a good one. Especially the British accent. That’s what I get for being such a Jane Austen addict. No wonder some bipedal trout in a dream is calling me something that could be right out of an Austen novel—though last night I fell asleep reading Pride and Prejudice, not Mansfield Park.

“Miss Mansfield?”

Should I answer? No need to be polite. After all, it’s my dream, isn’t it? He’s just some cryptic symbol. Of what, however, I have no idea. He does look really worried, though, poor guy. Perhaps he’s a symbol of some subconscious desire I have to be more tolerant of people with poor personal hygiene.

“Miss Mansfield. Can you hear me?”

“Why are you calling me that?” I finally say.

He gasps, his bulging eyes magnified by his glasses. Perhaps I should have played along. After all, he can’t be expected to know he’s just a construction of my subconscious mind. Should I be the one to break the news?

He backs up from the bed, pulling a handkerchief from his jacket and wiping his sweaty upper lip.

“Barnes,” he says to the one with the apron, “tell your mistress that Miss Mansfield has opened her eyes. Inform her that I will be with her shortly.”

“Very good, sir,” says the woman, with an unmistakable note of relief in her voice, and closes the door.

I lie under the covers and observe while the man, who is evidently a doctor, feels my pulse, touches my cheek and forehead, and frowns. Then he opens a brown leather satchel and takes out a china bowl that’s kind of like a soup bowl except that it looks like someone took a big bite out of its edge. Next he opens a little leather case with some sharp instruments in it, then gives me a sort of half grin with his blubbery fish lips.

“I shall be back in just a few minutes, Miss Mansfield. A little bleeding will be just the thing.”

I remember that Frank once said lucid dreams have a decided advantage over regular dreams. If a lucid dream becomes unpleasant, all you have to do is say what you want out loud or take some kind of definitive action and proclaim your control over how the dream goes. And, like magic, a menacing rat will change into a cuddly puppy or a smelly doctor with a lancet will change into a…let’s see, how about a vase of roses?

“Enough!” I shout at the doctor. “I pronounce you to be a vase of roses!”

Strange. This is not my voice. And this working class girl from Los Angeles by way of Long Island definitely does not have a fancy British accent.

“Lord bless me!” says the doctor, backing away with fright-widened eyes. And then he’s out the door.

It figures Frank would brag about being able to change a nightmare into a nice dream when he really had no idea what he was talking about. What options do I have now? I could certainly will myself awake, can’t I? Focus, focus. Come on, wake up!

I squeeze my eyes shut. Wake up!

I open my eyes. I’m still here.

All right then, no need to panic. I’ll probably wake up before he comes back to cut me. And it’s not like he’d actually be cutting me anyway.

I get out of bed, stand up. I’m a little wobbly. Weak, in fact. My logic knows this is a dream, but it’s a damned realistic one. I have to take some action. Action is power, power is control, and I need control in case the doctor comes back in to finish his task.

I feel the little hairs rising on the back of my neck. Someone is in the room with me. A dark-haired woman in a long white dress. I can see her reflection in the mirror that stands in the corner of the room. I can feel the adrenaline rush as I whip around.

There’s no one behind me.

There she is again, in the mirror. I move closer to her reflection, not daring to turn around. My forehead throbs, and I press it with my hand. The woman in the mirror does the same. I drop my hand to my side, and she mimics my motions.

I turn around and see no one behind me, then turn back again to face the mirror. The woman’s image continues to stare back at me.

The flesh rises on my arms. Calm down now; this isn’t real.

I look at the strange reflection staring back at me. I feel the unfamiliar weight of skin and bones resting on me, yet not any part of me. It is a costume, a mask. Yet the more I gaze at that reflection, the more the skin seems to merge with myself inside of it. It’s closing in on me, becoming me, but it’s not me. Is this how lucid dreams are supposed to feel? How am I supposed to know? I’ve never had one before.

I suppose the unfamiliar is always unsettling at first. And I’m not about to let a dream freak me out. Especially when the reflection staring back at me from the mirror is so much more attractive than I am in waking life. The hair is long and dark, almost black and slightly wavy. The pale, unadorned face is much prettier than I’ve ever been without any makeup. The body isn’t bad either. Tall, slender figure with nice curves, at least from what I can tell through the white, high-necked granny nightgown. I cup my hands around the breasts, which are certainly smaller than mine but seem to go with the rest of the body. That body is so unlike my own petite frame, with breasts far too large to be proportional, short legs, and a tendency to look enormous with only five extra pounds on me. Breasts as big as mine only look great on tall, slim women, who often must resort to surgery to achieve that effect, since tall, slim women usually come equipped with smaller accessories.

Gazing at the mirror begins to make my head throb. It’s safer to look at the room, which is unlike anything I’ve ever woken up in. A four-poster bed with a canopy, the kind I’ve always dreamed of having. But I am dreaming, I remind myself. Thick, burgundy velvet curtains, a view from the window to lawns, trees, flower beds, and an herb garden. A pink marble fireplace. An intricately carved chest of drawers. An armoire with inlaid designs in the wood. An ornately framed mirror in addition to the one on the dressing table and the other one on a stand. Wherever I look I see the black-haired woman. As in the home of Sir Walter Eliot, Jane Austen’s very own metrosexual, there’s no getting away from myself in this room. Or at least there’s no getting away from that alien reflection. Fortunately, she’s not hard to look at. No puffy hangover bags under the eyes, no red blotches on the skin from sleeping with my cheek on my hand, no lank blond hair plastered to one side of my face.

I sit down at the dressing table and pick up a silver brush, open an inlaid wooden box, and finger the sparkling rings, pins, and pearl necklaces inside. More wish fulfillment. I can’t begin to count the times I’ve agonized over my checkbook and wished I didn’t have to decide which was more important, paying the electric bill on time or buying groceries, although sometimes I did neither and had my highlights done instead. It’s unlikely that a person with a bedroom like this and a well-stocked jewelry box ever has to prioritize such things. Of course, I also appear to be in a pre-electricity dream era, which would remove one factor from the equation.

Anyway, who could blame my subconscious for concocting such an escapist fantasy to a Jane Austen–like world, knife-happy doctor notwithstanding. After all, the last couple of months haven’t exactly been a picnic.

Don’t want to think about that now. Just want to lie back down in this comfy bed.