My Jane Austen Summer: A Season in Mansfield Park

path through his side yard, past his dark house, to the garage entry. My door clicked open and keys still in the ignition sang their warning as I crossed the grass, dew soaking my bare feet, crickets yapping. Entering and reaching for the light, my hand trembling, I felt everyone telling me to stop—go home, get help. But I couldn't stop. I needed the pain to hit me full force.

I hardly recognized the garage. The floor previously covered with boxes, tools, and expiring lawn furniture lay bare. Nothing but overlapping oil stains. I searched the rafters. The Christmas wreath and the old tent, both in storage last week, were gone. Paint cans in residence since my high school art projects were gone. Even the boxes of toys kept for Karen's kids vanished. I searched on the chance she'd taken pity and kept our things—in a new location. But Sue had erased us from the premises. My family never existed in this garage.

I sat on the concrete floor, holding my knees to my face.

'Lily.' My father, slumped in his bathrobe, stood just inside the door. A sob wracked my chest and all I could manage was a high-pitched moan while he stood there, hands fumbling for pockets he couldn't find.

'Our things are gone,' I said.

He turned sideways in the door. 'I don't know anything about that,' he said, annoyed. 'And it's too late to be rattling around here looking for more hurt.'

'I'm not looking for hurt,' I screamed, emotions spinning out of control. This, too, was somehow my fault. 'Why did you let her throw away our stuff?'

'You need to go home.' He stepped outside the garage but I couldn't bear for him to leave. I screamed at the top of my lungs, scorching my throat, stopping him in his tracks. 'Where is our tent?'

For just an instant, he feared me. 'You know, Sue thinks you need help; your mother's death has been a shock for you.' He sighed. 'I think she's right.' His hand left the door and he walked away.

Sitting on the hard floor, the soles of my bare feet touching an oil stain, I cried until I couldn't cry anymore. She dragged our stuff to the curb to be sure the garbage truck collected it before my dad could interfere. Like a hearse, the garbage truck hauled our things to a dump outside of town. A family's life rots beneath a sea of coffee grounds and eggshells in a county landfill near some prison.

'The universe no longer functions rationally,' I told Karen. 'Mother is lucky to be dead.'

I heard the sharp intake of Karen's breath, and knew she was crying. 'It's not the end of the world.'

'You keep saying that.'

*   *   *

Back in my room that evening, Bets sprawled on her bed watching TV. Gary, who had replaced me in the job of shadowing Bets, preventing any sudden trips to London during the workweek, parked at our table, eyes glued to the little TV. Bets's car keys sat in plain view.

'I'm not playing Mary Crawford anymore,' Bets said during a commercial break.

'No?' I pulled books from my JASNA bag, wondering how I could read with that nonsense blaring.

'Just get a new color highlighter and start learning Maria Bertram's lines.' She shrugged. 'Sorry, I know you would have preferred the bigger part.'

*   *   *

In the office two days later, I sat at my desk calculating the optimum time to abstain from Willis's attic—that moment beyond which my absence would provoke not fond memories but no memories at all. I had decided my next move would be a return appearance in the attic, but Claire's nervous bouncing made it hard to think. Every time someone approached our door, she popped up. Then she interrupted my calculations to announce, 'I have a meeting.' She grabbed her clipboard. 'But I'll be right back. I need to see Nigel when he gets here.'

Claire was up to something. When she and Magda weren't engaged in covert phone conversations, Claire sat hunched over a stack of top secret papers. She clicked into her screen saver if I walked by, covered papers she was working on, and stopped me with her eyes if I got too close. I waited five minutes before visiting her desk to use her stapler. While there, I stealthily lifted the books obscuring her top secret papers.

She'd been working on a grant proposal. Looked like a grant proposal for Literature Live. What's so secret about that? Just to be sure, I dug deeper into the pile but found nothing of interest. Suddenly, I froze, sensing a shadow on my arms, an approach from behind. Looking down, I saw stealthy white satin slippers, the sort that move over wooden floors noiselessly. Turning, I stared into the needy eyes of Mrs. Russell, black curls escaping her mobcap.

'The ballroom is free on Wednesdays from four to six,' she whispered.

'Good,' I said. 'Can each of your volunteers furnish four place settings and a teapot from their personal china?'

Mrs. Russell hesitated. Her face brightened. 'How lovely,' she said breathlessly. 'A room full of china patterns.' She looked at me. 'Like a china shop.'

'Will they do it?'

She considered. 'Some will want to bring more than one pattern.' Her eyes darted back and forth. 'They'll have to take turns.'

'We need scones, sandwiches, and cookies,' I said.

'We've made assignments.'

'Clotted cream, sugar, and lemon.'

'That's all under control,' Mrs. Russell said, raising her palm to stop me. 'I'll handle the food if you handle the entertainment.'

'What entertainment?' I asked.

'I don't know. That's your department.'

'Yes, of course. I'll do the entertainment,' I said.

*   *   *

After she left, I sat at my desk contemplating tea entertainment. Tea-theatre. When Nigel finally arrived, Archie came with him and they closed themselves in Nigel's office. With the door shut, I couldn't hear anything. When Nigel's door was open, I heard everything he said on the phone, in meetings, and in casual exchanges. By simple osmosis, as long as his door remained open, I was privy to the ins and outs of Nigel's concerns, my finger on the pulse of the festival. I learned who was making the keynote address at which important upcoming conference, which distinguished scholar would edit the next important volume of what British novel, and where Nigel stood on many issues. Things he could not endure: elegiac yearnings and transgressive assumptions. I regularly consulted the dictionary on my desk for unfamiliar words in Nigel's conversations, Elegiac: expression of sorrow for something now past. Thereafter, I watched the costumed Janeites, cutting roses or pouring tea, for signs of sorrow. If they were sad for something now past, I would be more sympathetic. The few times Nigel closed the door, I felt cut off, aware of missing something good.

When Archie left, I stepped into Nigel's office.

'The volunteers would like very much to have a tea in the ballroom,' I said.

'They told you?' Nigel feigned surprise.

'Yes,' I said, glad for his indulgent mood. 'And I was wondering if they could do it, with my help, on Wednesday at four.'

'I don't see why not,' Nigel said, 'especially if that will satisfy their ball cravings.' Nigel looked past me and I turned to see Claire standing in the doorway. 'You'll keep track of the details, I assume.'

'Yes,' I said. 'Income and expenses, volunteer hours and all that.'

'What is it, Claire?' Nigel asked, less indulgently.

Claire approached the desk tentatively, a book in her hands, willing me to exit with every step. But I held my ground, thrilled to be in the right place at the right time to learn why she'd been so anxious to speak with Nigel. Claire gave me one last dirty look before proceeding.

'I've discovered something very interesting,' she said, handing Nigel her highlighted text, her eyes flashing stop in my direction. Nigel looked at the book and passed it to me, as if Claire had meant it for show-and-tell. In the acknowledgment section of Jane Austen's Letters edited by Deirdre Le Faye, Claire had highlighted, 'There are a few letters still in private hands, with whose owners it has proved impossible to make contact.'

'And your point?' Nigel waited as I returned the book.

Claire's expression dimmed at his failure to grasp the importance of unexamined letters written by Jane