“Dave, are you still with us?” Sofia asked finally.
“Yep,” he said. He exhaled. He turned to the shoebox. He threw the lid open and peered inside. The contents smelled of vanilla and almonds. He gasped. “What a stupid man. The lignin and cellulose have broken down. These should have been preserved.”
“Jack doesn’t know these are Jane Austen’s letters, remember,” Sofia said.
“Even still. They are hundreds of years old. Letters from his own flesh and blood. They’re in a shoebox.”
Inside the cardboard box lay thirty dried yellow pages of various sizes and shapes. Dave lifted out the top one with great care.
“Is it Jane’s?” asked Sofia.
Every inch of the square page was covered in a brown cursive hand.
Dave nodded. “This is Austen’s handwriting; I’d know it anywhere. See the long curlicues and the sloped—”
“Dave,” Sofia interrupted. “Sorry to interrupt, but can we move on?”
“Right you are. Sorry. It is beautiful handwriting.”
“Praising Jane Austen for her handwriting is like praising Sylvia Plath for her baking,” Sofia said. “What does it say?”
“It is a letter to her sister. It reads, ‘My dear Cass, another stupid party last night . . . Miss Langley was like any other short girl with a broad nose and wide mouth, fashionable dress, and exposed bosom.’”
Sofia smiled. “Witty. Go on.”
“‘Bath is vapor, shadow, smoke, and confusion. I cannot continue to find people agreeable.’” He read the next lines to himself.
“What is it, something juicy?” Sofia said. She craned her head to read.
“The opposite,” said Dave. He put the letter down.
“What is the matter, Dave? Why have you gone all misty-eyed? Get a grip, man. Time is of the essence.”
“These are so sad,” Dave said. “She hates Bath. Are you sure we want to send this woman back to a place that makes her feel like this, just so she can write some books?”
Sofia sat back in the car seat. She knew what fate awaited Jane in 1803. Derision and solitude. “We do,” she replied. “She will be sad. It will be the making of her.”
Dave nodded and sifted through the next pages with gentle hands. He read the first line of each only before handing it to Sofia.
“What if it’s not here?” Sofia asked in a low voice.
“Jane Austen will be gone,” he replied, bowing his head. He read on. In the next letter, Jane wrote to her brother James, declining an invitation to attend his anniversary party. In the next, she wrote to her younger brother Frank, thanking him for a pair of silk stockings.
“Only two letters left,” said Dave. He surveyed the next page. “Jane’s mother writes the first. She’s not happy about something.” He handed the letter to Sofia. She read it and agreed.
“And the last?” Sofia said, anxious.
Dave snatched the letter up. “Written in a new hand.” He read aloud.
June 18th, 1810
Dear Miss Austen,
How is your health? How are your parents? I enclose a recipe for cabbage soup which may assist with your stomach complaint.
Life in the capital is full of drudgery but if you ever desired a laugh at my expense, it may please you to hear I had a recent excursion to the Old Bailey. An ongoing dispute with a pugilistic neighbor reared its head and I found myself in the dock. The court erupted into laughter when my neighbor from nowhere accused me of witchcraft. The magistrate and everyone laughed. I noted their laughter and decided to run forward. I asserted I was a witch. I said this all in the voice of a lunatic. When the lawyer for my complainant then asked me for examples of my warlock creed, I decided to continue the farce and proceeded through a list of my daily maleficent business. I composed spells for the judge and even gave advice on casting them; for instance, to reverse any spell, repeat the incantation, then to the blood of the talisman add the blood of the subject.
In any case, the tactic worked, for the judge seemed to take pity on me for my gross insanity. He handed down a sentence leaner than I expected, and I spent the afternoon in celebration. My penalty involves a journey to a faraway land. I shall write again when I arrive, but in the meantime, you may wish to read this letter again for diversion if you ever find yourself stranded indoors on a rainy afternoon. But the cabbages are boiled, and my house begins to smell.
Yours sincerely,
Emmaline Sinclair
Sofia smiled. Dave put the letter down, turned over the Beetle’s engine, and commanded it to return to Bath as quickly as its bald tires could spin.
“IF YOU NEED me to help get any other stranded authors back to their own time, let me know,” Dave said as they trundled back down the M4.
“I don’t know any other authors, sorry,” Sofia replied.
“Or maybe we could get a drink sometime,” he said.
Sofia scoffed and turned her head to him. “Why have you never told me I am beautiful?” she asked accusingly.
“What?” His eyebrows shot up.
She swallowed, aware she may have sounded a tad strange. She had good reason; she still felt a little raw from giving away her house and her marriage to Jack for a shoebox of letters. She decided to express her anger by irrationally taking things out on the man next to her, who had been nothing but annoyingly kind and helpful. “Why have you never told me I have a ‘banging body’?”
Dave changed lanes. “You do have a banging body. You are beautiful.”
“Why have you never said these things before?”
“Because those are the least interesting things about you.”
Sofia stared at the road. “Oh.”
The car made some sort of clanking sound. Dave checked the gauges. “It does this sometimes,” he explained. “It’s quite an old car.”
“You don’t say,” she replied.
“If I jiggle this a bit, it usually stops,” he said. He jiggled one of the ancient-looking
