Dancing With Mr. Darcy: Stories Inspired by Jane Austen and Chawton House Library (4 page)

It was a debatable conclusion, thought Mrs Ferrars, as she arrived back at the Parsonage, to be greeted by a kiss from Edward and a tirade of questions from the maid about the best way to restore fine lace. There had been some deceit involved, which she was not sure was fitting for a parson’s wife. But then again, order and reason had been restored and reputations saved, which had to be a good thing.

She turned over a page of Dr Johnson’s works that lay on her small table.

‘What then is to be done?’ she read. ‘The more we inquire, the less we can resolve.’

True, thought Mrs Ferrars, but she relished the challenge of inquiring nonetheless. That was what being a detective meant.

My inspiration:
Elinor Dashwood seems to be surrounded by mysteries and people telling her their secrets, so I thought it would be fun to cast her in the role of a detective and cross
Sense and Sensibility
with
The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.

TEARS FALL ON ORKNEY

Nancy Saunders

Dear Jane. I’m on my way to Orkney. At last! I hope you don’t mind first name terms. ‘Miss Austen’ sounds too distant and, even though we are separated by two centuries, I feel you are the one person who will understand where I’m coming from. Love. Isn’t that the biggest question of all? I’ve stumbled from lover to lover with the thirst of someone lost in the desert. For the last two months I’ve thought of nothing but being here in Kirkwall – with Aidan. I have roughly known him for two years. He has brown eyes, sings songs about picking blackberries and can find a joke in anything. He bakes cupcakes filled with apple pieces and cinnamon, and walks everywhere. The last time I saw him he put new strings on my guitar.

I’m travelling all this way, chasing love. Imagine a great mechanical bird, big enough to hold one hundred people, and then picture it 20,000 feet high, flying above the clouds. We chase all over the world like this, in a matter of hours. There’s still enough looking-out–of-the-window time, which I’m sure you will agree is an essential travelling companion. From my tiny window on the plane to Orkney I can see the hills around Edinburgh lie snug under a blanket of faded green velvet, and the snow on top of the Cairngorms, like gentle spills of cream. From 16,000 feet, the string of islands looks like tiny, far away worlds. When we come down to land all I can see is the sea and then some grass and then we’re bumping along the ground.

I know what you must be thinking. I admire Aidan, and yes – I think I have begun to love him. I’ve pictured us getting married and having a child and we’re living in a cottage by the sea, growing vegetables. This is all quite hazy and only gazed at in the fleetest of moments. The pursuit of love is the one activity where I have boundless foolishness and daring.

Aidan meets me at the tiny airport and hugs me tight. We grin at each other like excited children. Then we drive to the sea. I have to change my shoes and while I’m lacing up my boots the clips I’d carefully put in my hair at 6 a.m. blow out in the wind. Aidan doesn’t seem to notice. We charge off down the path and through a gate that Aidan points out isn’t of the kissing sort; and then we run down to the beach. I find four stones marked with circles. Aidan does this thing where he picks up a stone to show me and as soon as I say, ‘Oh that’s nice,’ he throws it into the sea! He’s so funny. I can hardly keep up with him; he springs up the rocks like a goat. We share the last three pieces of my Cadbury’s Caramel – chocolate that ordinarily I would eat all myself. It’s the strangest feeling flying into the moment I’ve been thinking about for so long.

We run back along the path, pushing each other towards puddles. This is a basic form of what you called the Art of Flirting, I think. As we stand on top of the cliff catching our breath, Aidan says he would like to take some time out to do his music while I’m here, which I say is absolutely fine, even though my heart drops like a stone. We drive to Kirkwall, the main town hunkered down in the bay, the houses and buildings clinging together like barnacles. We have a lunch of chicken and coriander soup that Aidan has made then we walk into town to the museum. It’s about to close so we pass all the glass cabinets filled with artefacts and have a go at building the model of the cathedral made out of colour-coded blocks to show when each bit had been added. We make our own design with a red turret, a blue east wing and an orange vestry.

Afterwards we go to Tesco’s. There are no small shops anymore, only enormous buildings where you can buy everything. We mess about, talking loudly and laughing and Aidan knocks packets of spaghetti off the shelf. People frown at us as if we are drunk. Then Aidan stares at a pretty girl with dark hair. When we pass her a second time he stands transfixed. We walk back across the quay and he says that the girl was a runner-up in Miss Scotland. ‘Really?’ I say. ‘I didn’t notice.’

Aidan races up and down the stairs. All this rushing. He reminds me of Dustin Hoffman in
The Graduate.
It’s the part when Dustin Hoffman is on a date with the girl he really likes, but he’s charging off in front of her and she can hardly keep up. He leads her into a strip joint (where women dance around bare-breasted in a suggestive manner. You wouldn’t believe it, but this was Women’s Rights in the 20
^th
century). Dustin Hoffman gawps at the naked women, and the expression of the girl shows her confusion and hurt. I should explain that we have things called Films. They are a little bit like looking at a mirror filled with the reflections of people acting out scenes, like in a play – but you can watch it all and it seems real. If only you could see your Mr Darcy, Jane. He’s been in two film versions of
Pride and Prejudice,
and you’d be hard-pressed to choose between Colin Firth and Matthew Macfadyen. They’re both dark eyed and smouldering.

It’s the end of my first day. Aidan and I have just watched a film. We sat on the sofa together, me in the middle and Aidan leaning up against the far corner. The film claimed to be scary but it wasn’t. There was a bit where the man and the woman got stuck in a passionate embrace, inside a ruined church deep in snow. When they started undoing each other’s buttons I said to Aidan – things could get chilly. He sniffed, a sort of laugh but not laugh. When the film finished Aidan yawned. He’s given up his bed (a double bed) for me, which is kind, and his towel too. I’m lying under his freshly washed sheets, all fired up. My heart is racing. When I saw myself in the mirror I had that sparkly-eyed look of someone who’s falling for someone.

It’s only the first night and I can’t sleep. I think about when I last saw Aidan. He stayed with me for two nights. It was freezing and we walked for miles through the wood to reach the village pub. Over two pints Aidan told me of the time he nearly died but held on because his friend was there and he didn’t want to let his friend down. We walked back through the wood after dark. The moon was full and its silver light gleamed off the naked trees. When we got home and warmed ourselves in front of the fire, all I could think about was covering Aidan’s face with soft kisses. Instead I poked the logs in the fire. He reached out and touched my hair. We played roulette until we could play no more; then we said goodnight.

Wednesday. It doesn’t look like it’s raining but it is. We sit in the kitchen drinking Guatemalan coffee and watching the ferry push its way through the bay to Shapinsay. I imagine you did a great deal of tea drinking and looking out at the rain. Outside in the field a pattern of oystercatchers are digging for worms with their long, orange beaks. Aidan keeps singing the first line of ‘Getting to know you’. We fall into one of our talks. Aidan likes to pull apart the reasoning of life, to show there’s nothing holding it up but perception. He says he feels no desire, and asks me, ‘What is a person?’ I try to explain that we are driven beings with the need to make sense of the world and the people in it. He asks me, ‘What is anger?’ I try to explain about emotions, how necessary they are. I say that as far as I can see, his views are a form of defence. He says that if you stare at a single point for long enough, everything else in your vision blacks out.

We go for a walk in the rain, along a path that hugs the sea; our heads bent against the cold. The rocks are littered with plastic tubing and buoys washed up from the nearby fishery. As usual Aidan walks as if there’s somewhere else he’d rather be. ‘You have two modes,’ I call out. ‘The first is Aidan Jokey Mode, and the second, Aidan Words Mean Nothing.’ He smiles, unsure. He asks me about the film we watched. He says there were a lot of flashbacks for such a simple story. I agree. The motivations of the characters were way too obvious. Aidan leads me to a bench facing out to sea. He shows me two names carved into the wood. ‘Dan and Sophie; they came to stay. One evening they went out for a walk, sat on this bench. When they came back Sophie said Dan had asked her to marry him. She said yes.’ ‘How romantic.’ I say. Then we turn and walk away.

We’re sitting on the sofa in the sunny room with a view right across the bay, and our conversation accidentally touches on love. I ask Aidan, ‘what are your pre-requisites?’ He crosses his arms. ‘I don’t have any. Things just happen.’ I want to remind him of the time he told me how a girl had broken his heart. I want to ask ‘How can a man with no desire have his heart broken?’

When we pop in to see Aidan’s brother and his wife, it’s like the two of us dropping by. I watch Aidan while everyone is talking, and I am filled with that quiet, deep, heart-swelling sort of happiness. I stole the words right out of your mouth, but they fit so well, Jane, I couldn’t help it. Aidan says he may get married one day and have children. He says it like he might pop out to the shops for a pint of milk.

Oh, Jane. What was it you said about the anxiety of expectation and the pain of disappointment? It’s Friday night already and we’re going to bed early (separately) to catch the small plane to North Ronaldsay first thing in the morning. It’s a trip Aidan’s organised for the weekend with a group of his friends – all women! He said it’s not like their sex is relevant. I beg to differ. I’d like to see his face if I asked him to stay with four gorgeous blokes and me as the lucky girl. This trip will be a Test of Character type experience. To bed: enough of dreaming.

I knew it. The four women are beautiful. Not only that, they are French and German and Scottish, which means they speak with voices to melt any man. Their names are Odette and Silke, Ailean and Innes. While we’re waiting for the plane they sit quietly, hardly speaking. I want to hate them and I almost do, but I can’t because they are friendly which is worse, because I feel loathsome and want to crawl back under my stone. I can’t help watching how Aidan is: whether he laughs longest with Innes, his gaze is deeper for Silke or his hand lingers on Ailean’s arm. Between him and Odette, something hangs unspoken. When we arrive the others squeeze around the tiny kitchen table in the hostel. I don my waterproof trousers and march off into the drizzle.

I am much calmed by my walk. I lean over a wall and watch the seals lounging about on the rocks. They lie with their backs against the cold, sharp edges, peering at me from upside down. They scratch and clap their feet, as if relaxing on chaise longues and deep-pile carpets. Mist floats down over the sea and I feel the peace that often comes with being alone.

Jane, this is not the first time I’ve fallen down the well of my own vanity. I’ve seen meaning in the few hopeful words Aidan has given me, words that could just as easily have been offered in friendship. It’s like reaching the top of a mountain only to find that I’m the same person I was when I set out. It is the view that’s changed. It’s exhilarating; yet I feel like a small balloon not quite set free.

At dusk the six of us slip across rocks in the rain, clambering down to the beach. We watch the strange sight of sheep eating seaweed by the edge of the sea, their delicate legs like burnt matchsticks, lightly tripping over the rocks. We wait for each other as we clamber along. Perhaps we’re each a little in love with Aidan. In the evening we eat pasta and drink wine and play charades, shrieking with laughter at each other’s frantic mimes, our damp coats hanging over doors and our faces pink. What a desolate island this is; how spellbindingly beautiful.

In the morning the sun is soft and the sky an unblemished blue. We head out for a walk along the sandy beach stripped bare by the tide. We move along, sometimes together in pairs, sometimes scattered apart. Aidan runs up behind me and hurls us both towards the oncoming waves. He shows me an empty shell then hurls it out to sea. Then he picks up a small piece of wood smoothed into the shape of a wave. I wait for him to throw it away, but he gives it to me and I hold it in my hand. When he isn’t looking I tuck it inside my pocket. On the way back we pass a field of lapwings dancing in the air. They suddenly drop and roll, their paddle-shaped wings flapping about drunkenly, then up again; their wheezing, bubbling song catching on the wind.

While I’m packing up my waterproofs, Aidan and Odette are covering each other in pretend punches and karate kicks. A little later Odette looks at me and says, ‘you’ve caught the sun.’

My last day. I help Aidan strip the bed. He says if he washes everything now he can move back in to his room tonight. Jane, I’m one step closer to knowing myself. Love – if it does – shouldn’t it just happen?

Aidan tells me of a time he flew away from Orkney. He says tears rolled down his face. He doesn’t call it crying. He just says, ‘The tears kept on falling.’

We say goodbye.

Later, flying away, I cry.