Jane Austen Stole My Boyfriend (31 page)

I’m going to take a short cut here,’ says Harry over his shoulder. ‘If I take the Nailsworth road and then cross over by Dursley, we’ll cut out Bristol and be at Falfield
before they arrive.’

Jane hugs herself gleefully as Harry swings off the Bristol pike road and sets the horses galloping up a narrow road overhung with beech trees. I guess what she is thinking. This is just like
one of Mrs Charlotte Smith’s novels.

But what about Elinor? I think. What is she feeling now? I wish I knew. Is she excited? Frightened? Guilty? Is she really in love? And if so, should we be going after her?

And then I remember her tears and her pale face and I know that we have to talk to her. ‘I hate him,’ she said, and her words stay in my mind.

The Huntsman’s Inn at Falfield on the Bristol-to-Gloucester road is quite busy when we arrive. One of the ostlers takes the horses from Harry and promises to water them and allow them to
rest.

‘What do we do now?’ asks Jane when Harry rejoins us.

‘We wait,’ says Harry. ‘When they come we’ll see if you can get her to come out of the chaise. In the meantime I’ll go and order a parlour and some tea for you.
I’ll call you when I need you.’ He strides across the yard and Jane looks after him thoughtfully.

‘He’s changed, hasn’t he?’ she says.

I know what she means. There was a time, not so long ago, when Harry would have asked Jane what he should do; now he makes up his own mind. When he returns with the news that the parlour is
ready, she nods and follows me in through the door.

However, inside the dark hallway she pauses, puts a hand on my arm and whispers, ‘Let’s just stand here. I want to see what happens.’

We must have waited at least five minutes before anything important changed in the busy scene in the inn yard.

And then there is a clatter of horse hoofs. Two showy-looking grey horses, profusely covered in sweat, gallop in through the gates. The post boy jumps to the ground and holds the horses’
bridles, and then Sir Walter Montmorency, elegantly dressed in a pair of skin-tight pantaloons and a greatcoat with three capes layered on the shoulders, climbs down. Within the chaise I see a pale
blue bonnet.

‘Change the horses – look sharp, my man, let’s have a good driver and decent pair of horses this time.’ The post boy glowers at this and exchanges a glance with the
ostler from the Huntsman Inn.

‘Sir Walter –’ Harry taps him on the shoulder, ‘– a word with you, if you will be so good.’

I think for a moment Sir Walter does not recognize Harry. He frowns at him impatiently, but that seems to be his normal expression, and when Harry wheels round and leads the way towards the back
of the yard he follows him.

‘Quick,’ says Jane, and in a moment we are both outside. A maidservant is passing with a jug of ale in her hand and Jane touches her on the arm.

‘Could you ask the young lady in the chaise to come and join us in the parlour,’ she says in a very grown-up way, and the girl bobs a curtsy. She instantly goes across, and a minute
later Elinor’s pale face appears. She doesn’t lift her head, but follows the servant, the deep rim of her bonnet shielding her face.

‘You take her into the parlour,’ hisses Jane. ‘I’m going to see what’s happening.’

She slips away and I catch hold of Elinor’s cold hand at the same moment. She starts when she sees me, but she does not resist when I draw her into the parlour.

Despite the May weather there is a fire burning in the grate and I sit Elinor in front of it. Her eyes are swollen and her pale face blotched with tearstains.

‘Tea, ma’am,’ says the landlady, following me in. I can see her glance with curiosity towards Elinor.

‘Yes, please,’ I say, moving to stand in front of the girl.

Neither of us says anything until the tea is brought in – just two cups, I notice, and some finely cut buttered pieces of bread.

When the landlady goes out I follow her to the door and then quietly and cautiously turn the key. I don’t want to lose Elinor now that I have her safe. The lock makes a soft click, but she
doesn’t seem to notice. She has started to cry noisily, sniffing into a drenched handkerchief. I go over, kneel on the floor beside her, and take her hand.

‘Did he force you to come away with him?’ I ask softly.

She nods her head and then shakes it.

‘You wanted him to love you – is that it?’ I’m beginning to understand her. She just sobs without replying so I go on.

‘He pretended to love you and no one has been so kind to you before... is that it?’ I ask the question softly and put my arm around her.

‘I thought he really loved me, but now I’m not sure.’ The words are choked with sobs, but I can understand her.

‘What made you change your mind?’

She looks at me with reddened eyes. I think that she might be quite pretty when she puts on some weight and is a bit happier. Perhaps Mrs Austen would have her to stay at Steventon and feed her
up with cream from her Alderney cows.

‘It was my governess,’ she says after a moment. ‘Miss Taylor told me that the admiral said that Sir Walter had huge gambling debts. My uncle told me that I must not see him
again. I asked Sir Walter was it true and he got very angry. He... He hit me.’

‘What?!’ I stop myself saying any more. There is some great puzzle here. The girl wasn’t abducted. She left the house of her own accord. I think she probably even met Sir
Walter last night during the Leigh-Perrots’ party. But why did she go with a man who treated her like that?

‘But he was sorry afterwards. He kissed me. He was very nice to me then. I didn’t know what to think. Sometimes he is kinder to me than anyone else...’

‘Where is he taking you?’ I am too puzzled by her to ask any more about her feelings for Sir Walter. If a man hit me, I would have nothing more to do with him – not ever!

‘To Gretna Green.’ She whispers the words, although it is only the two of us here in the room.

‘Do you want to go? Do you want to marry him?’

Elinor shakes her head. ‘No, but I have to because if I don’t he will be ruined. He told me that when we were coming along in the chaise.’

‘But you left the house to go with him!’

‘I didn’t know what we were doing.’ Elinor’s voice is dull. ‘I thought we were just going to spend some time together. He forced me to go in the chaise. I kept
asking him where we were going and eventually he told me. He said that I had to do it. I’m scared not to obey him.’

I get to my feet. I feel my cheeks burning with anger. This was abduction.

‘Elinor, stay here. Try to drink some tea. I’ll be back. Don’t worry – Jane and I will take you home. No one will know. Your governess has already told the admiral that
you have gone for a walk with us.’

Carefully I turn the key in the lock, and once outside I lock it again. Whatever happens, I won’t allow Sir Walter to force her back into that chaise again.

‘My friend is sleeping,’ I say to the innkeeper’s wife when I meet her in the dark passageway. ‘You won’t allow anyone to disturb her, will you?’

‘No, ma’am, of course not.’ Her voice is full of curiosity and, what is worse, she sounds amused.

I hurry outside and Jane comes rushing up towards me.

‘Sir Walter has challenged Harry to a duel!’ she gasps. ‘But Harry just knocked the pistol out of his hand and punched him.’

The fight is still going on when we reach the backyard of the inn. There are several spectators, one of the stable boys even gives a slight cheer, but then the lad gets a severe glance from the
innkeeper and turns it into a cough.

Sir Walter is getting the worst of it. Harry has a very red patch under one eye; otherwise he is unmarked, but the baronet’s nose is bleeding profusely over his fancy waistcoat and his
expensive greatcoat. Even his white pantaloons are smeared with blood. As Jane and I join the crowd, Harry’s eyes go momentarily to us and then back to Sir Walter again. A slight smile comes
over his lips, he draws his fist back and then it flies forward, lands on Sir Walter’s jaw and with a crash the man is on the ground. Harry stands over him, and says in his nice country voice
to the innkeeper, ‘I think Sir Walter would wish to leave now. Could someone give me a hand to put him in his chaise?’

And with a stableman on one side, and Harry on the other, Sir Walter is dragged across the yard to the chaise. Jane races ahead and politely opens the door. Harry heaves the baronet in, dusts
his hands and says to the post boy, ‘Drive him back to the Greyhound Inn in Bath.’

And Harry goes over to the pump, washes the blood from his hands and then splashes some water on his face.

‘Come and have some tea, Harry,’ I say.

‘In a moment,’ he says.

‘You go back inside,’ Jane says to me. ‘We’ll join you in a minute.’

I leave them and go back.

I can’t help glancing over my shoulder though. Jane is in Harry’s arms, her arms are around his neck and their lips are touching! I envy them, thinking of Thomas and myself.

Then I see one of the girls from the inn looking at me with a smile and I blush and move away. I wish they had somewhere to go so as to be private together, but neither seems to mind.

I’ve run out of conversation with Elinor by the time they come in. They are smiling and holding hands. They both refuse the tea and Harry offers his arm to Elinor and
leads her out to the chaise.

Jane and I are alone in the dark cosy parlour of the inn. I look at her and she smiles at me.

‘Did he kiss you?’ I ask, pretending that I saw nothing, and she nods. The colour has rushed into her cheeks, and her hazel eyes are sparkling.

‘And?’ I put the question into my tone of voice.

‘And...’ she echoes teasingly. And then she suddenly hugs me.

‘I love him, I love him, I love him, I’ve always loved him!’ she says.

‘What?!’ I exclaim, but she just laughs.

‘Perhaps we’ll both get married at Christmas,’ I say.

‘Jenny,’ said Jane seriously, ‘don’t even think of it. We are going to keep this a deadly secret. I can’t imagine what my mother would say.’

Saturday, 14 May 1791

We are leaving Bath this morning so I haven’t really got enough time to write down everything that happened yesterday. It’s all a bit of blur: Sir Walter
Montmorency eloping with (abducting, really) poor little Elinor. Harry being magnificent: hiring a chaise, overtaking them, then the great fight with Sir Walter, beating him to a pulp and sending
him back to Bath like a whipped cur (that’s Jane’s expression). This morning when we met Harry he told us that Sir Walter Montmorency has left Bath, so Elinor is now safe from him.

We managed to get Elinor home before the admiral returned and the governess was so grateful. She whispered to me that the admiral took my letter and said he was delivering it to his friend whose
ship is due to rendezvous with Thomas’s.

But this is the big news.

Jane is in love!

Really in love!

She wants to get married to Harry!!!!

Harry has a great plan, according to Jane. He hopes to rent a farm in Chawton, near Alton, where the land is good. He plans to brew beer. He says that the water in the river Wey is excellent for
beer-making and he knows forty inns who will give him orders.

‘And, of course,’ added Jane, ‘a brewer is a man of consequence; a baker is no one, but a brewer is a gentleman. I read that in
The Lady
– I had a quick look at it
when we were waiting for Eliza in the lending library.’

‘I hope your mother has read it also,’ I said, laughing. ‘Perhaps you could buy the magazine and put it under her nose. It’s only sixpence.’

‘But don’t say a word,’ warned Jane. ‘This is a deadly secret. Mama must not know or she will fall into a state of apoplexy and then blame me for it. We will break the
news to her once Harry becomes a man of fortune.’

And then she gave a little secret smile, hugged herself and then hugged me. It’s lovely that we are both in love and both so happy. I’m sure that the Austens won’t insist on
her marrying a man of fortune.

Tuesday, 17 May 1791

Jane is trying to cheer me up, telling me that I should be the happiest girl in the world. I know I should, but somehow I can’t believe it until I see Thomas.

There are another 14 days in May

30 days in June

31 days in July 31 days in August

30 days in September

31 days in October 30 days in November

That’s 197 days to go before the first of December arrives!

How can I bear it?

I try to turn my thoughts away from myself and to Jane. I still can’t believe how much in love she is with Harry Digweed, and I certainly can’t believe that I never guessed that Jane
– the girl who flirted with so many men in Bath – is now so in love with one man. She tells me that Harry has been talking to his father about renting the farm in Chawton. It’s
about seventeen miles from Steventon. That will be the first step towards setting up as a brewer. He has to grow a crop called hops. They grow up tall poles, joined together by wires. Jane says
that Harry has told her that they grow so fast that you can almost see them grow. They have little flowers on them at the end of the summer – apparently you make beer with them. For the rest
of the evening we talk about Harry and his prospects, and somehow I do feel better. I think that tomorrow I will ask Mrs Austen whether we can buy some cotton so that I can make a start on my
trousseau and sew myself some nightgowns and some chemises.