Her confidence, once unshakable, wobbled. Hiding behind the curtain, she uttered, “I don’t know if I can do this, Max.”
Max sighed. “I will chat to wardrobe. See what I can do.”
She exhaled into the phone. “Thanks, Max.”
“He’s not there tonight, at least.”
She brightened. “I know.”
“Will you go back to the rehearsal then, please?”
She nodded into the phone. “Okay.”
“Make lemonade, kiddo. You never know. This might be good for you.” He hung up.
Sofia put down the phone. The giant feather in her headpiece caught on a theater rope and bored further into her cranium. She wished she could agree with Max. But as she took a final breath of paper-bag air and reminded herself that she was about to betray her audience and prevent the love of her life from ever finding her attractive again, she felt quite sure this Jane Austen film would be the worst mistake of her life.
Of this she felt even more certain when she turned and witnessed, from a pile of theater curtains in front of her—the same ones she had cowered behind moments earlier—a person materialize out of thin air.
Chapter Ten
Jane opened her eyes. She no longer sat in the woodsman’s cottage in the forest; instead, she rested on the floor of a dark, airy space. An ebony sea of fabric seemed to swim around her on all sides. Ropes and more black fabric hung from the ceiling and dangled down toward her. Curtains. Jane sat up. A woman stood in front of Jane, staring at her.
“Were you a witness to what happened to me?” Jane asked the woman.
“You appeared in that pile of curtains” was the woman’s reply. She wore the same style of gown as Jane’s, à la grecque, but the fabric sparkled in an unnerving fashion. The material glimmered so brightly Jane squinted to see past it. A giant ostrich feather adorned the woman’s head, and she breathed into a reticule made of brown paper.
Jane stood up from the curtain pile. “Where am I?”
The woman in the shiny dress scrunched her nose. “Bath?”
Jane sighed with relief. She must have fallen asleep in the woodsman’s cottage and sleepwalked to this place. It was odd, for Jane did not think herself a sleepwalker, but a first time occurred for everything. Her head throbbed with dull thuds. She rubbed her eyes and took a proper look around. She and the shiny-dress woman stood in the stage wings of some sort of theater. She felt unnerved, but also glad to have emerged from her escapade alive. She could have sleepwalked into the Avon. “I would appreciate assistance. My name is Miss Jane Austen.”
The woman glared at Jane. “Is this Candid Camera?” she asked. She turned her head to the ceiling, then breathed into the bag again. “You think you can trick me?” she announced toward the ceiling. “I’m not signing a release for this!” She stalked off down the darkened corridor.
“Please come back,” Jane called. But the woman did not stop. Jane followed her and arrived at the entrance to a large hall, the lights of which momentarily blinded her. Inside, a country ball was taking place. Men and women danced in two lines. There was music, but no orchestra performed. An older woman dressed in men’s trousers stood at one end of the space and shouted instructions to the dancers as though they were children.
“One, two, forward, back two, forward,” she barked. “You in the white, you’ve missed your cue,” she said. She was looking at Jane.
Jane pointed to her chest as if to say, Who, me? She jumped when the woman nodded. “I do not care to dance, thank you,” Jane called across the room. She normally delighted in dancing but felt too gripped by confusion at this juncture to seriously entertain the notion.
The trousered woman glared at her. “You’re not paid to watch,” she said.
The other woman, the one from the curtains, joined the line of dancers. She stared at Jane again and raised an eyebrow.
“Well, then?” the fierce woman in the trousers asked.
Jane shrugged. She felt unsure why the woman demanded she dance. She recognized no one at this assembly and knew of no halls in Bath that looked this way. She searched for an excuse. “Madam, I do not know the steps,” Jane offered, hoping that would suffice as a way to avoid joining in.
“Don’t you ‘madam’ me. It’s Grimstock,” the trouser woman said. “We’ve practiced this dance for weeks.”
“My dear lady,” Jane said with a laugh, “I may not be the world’s finest dancer, but I can safely say that was no Grimstock.”
The music stopped midnote. A dancer gasped. Both rows of dancers turned their heads in unison. Everyone in the hall stared at Jane. The woman stormed toward her with deliberate strides and halted in front of Jane’s face. “This is the exact Grimstock they dance in P and P ninety-five!” she declared. “Where is your partner?”
“I have none,” Jane said.
The trousered woman turned around. “Fred,” she said, pointing at a man who stood by himself in the corner of the hall. “Want to dance in a movie?”
The man jumped at the mention of his first name, then hid behind a pillar. “No, thank you,” he said from behind the column.
“You could be famous, like your sister!” the trouser woman added in a bright voice.
“I’d rather not, cheers!” the man said with a laugh.
“But you are so handsome and statuesque! What bone structure! You should be up at the front here.”
“Steady on, Cheryl, you’re making me blush,” he replied.
She chased after him around the pillar. “Look. You’re in costume and you’re standing there. Please, Fred. For me?” The pleading seemed to have little effect on the man; he quickened his gallop around the pillar.
Jane watched the odd exchange and shook her head. She could not make head or tail of what was occurring.
“I’m a terrible dancer.” He waltzed another ring around the column. “Trust me, Cheryl, this will hurt
