The Man Who Loved Jane Austen

greatest of care.”

“Splendid!” said Mr. Hudson. “I shall come and see him morning and evening until he is better. And of course you must send for me at any hour if his condition changes for the worse.”

Digging into his worn leather satchel, Hudson pressed a small vial into Jane’s hand. “Give him this draught in a little wine if he grows agitated, but just a little, mind, for it is very powerful.”

“We shall take care,” said Jane, closing her palm on the vial of alcohol laced with opium.

“I am exceedingly obliged to you, Mr. Hudson.” Edward escorted the elderly doctor to the bedroom door and slipped a gold sovereign into his hand.

“Your servant, sir.” With a broad smile at the unexpectedly large fee, Hudson bowed deeply from the waist and took his leave.

When the doctor had gone Edward kissed Jane on the cheek. “Dear Jane, you are, as always, all kindness and understanding,” he effused.

Turning, he gave Cassandra a kiss as well. “And having a handsome and wealthy invalid to attend may not be without its compensations, eh Cassandra?” he teased.

Cassandra, whose temperament Edward believed tended exclusively toward somberness and melancholy, reacted predictably to his affectionate jibe. “Brother, the way you speak!” she exclaimed, blushing deeply. “Until he is strong enough to be moved we shall look after poor Mr. Darcy with no motives beyond our duty as good Christians.”

Moving to the window, Cassandra pointed down to the front garden where Lord Nelson was tied to the gate, calmly munching on a bunch of daisies. “Pray do however take the gentleman’s horse away to your stables,” she entreated, “before the beast consumes everything in our garden.”

Edward looked out the window at the black horse. “Yes, yes, of course I shall,” he laughed. “My word! What a splendid creature it is.”

Late that night, long after Darcy had fallen into an exhausted sleep, Jane sat at her mirrored vanity table by the fireplace. Removing a sheet of paper from the center drawer, she dipped her pen in the inkpot and began to write, as was her usual occupation each evening.

Hardly had she begun, however, when she was disturbed by the sound of a low murmuring from the bed behind her.

Picking up the single candle by which she worked, Jane got softly to her feet and walked over to look down at Darcy. She saw his lips moving, as if he was speaking, and as she leaned closer she heard him giving orders to some unseen employee.

“We’ll move the horse back to Virginia on the seventeenth,” Darcy was saying, “if you can arrange a flight. We can have him home in five hours by private jet…”

Imagining his nonsensical ramblings to be the result of one of the mysterious fevers that invariably accompanied any open wound, Jane placed a hand on Darcy’s cheek and found it hot.

“I am going to insist on heavy security,” he continued in his sleep, “because I do not want any television…”

Darcy’s speech died away, leaving Jane staring at him in complete puzzlement. For though she was able to derive little meaning from his actual words, neither did they sound to her like the rantings of one who is deranged. It was altogether quite mysterious.

While Jane was pondering the mystery of Darcy’s peculiar mutterings, the bedroom door quietly opened and Cassandra stepped into the room. Dressed in her nightgown and carrying a candle of her own, she came over to the bed and stood beside her sister.

“Is he any better?” Cassandra whispered.

“He is very feverish, I fear,” Jane told her.

“Poor man,” Cassandra sighed. “Has he spoken again?”

Jane hesitated before replying. Then, without knowing exactly why, she shook her head. “No,” she lied, “he has said nothing more.”

Cassandra looked around the dimly lit bedroom. “It must be most inconvenient having this stranger occupying your bedroom,” she sympathized. “Shall I stay and sit a while with you?”

Jane kissed her sister’s cheek. “No, thank you, dear Cass. I shall work on First Impressions a while longer,” she said.

Cass’s eyes lit up at the mention of the novel, an older work that Jane had lately begun to rewrite. “Oh, I’m so glad you’ve decided to get back to that one,” Cass whispered, “it’s always been my favorite of all your works. Tell me, have you yet decided the fate of all the Misses Bennet?”

Jane smiled, for her sister was the one person in the world with whom she felt completely at ease in discussing her writing. “I have decided that I want both of the elder Bennet sisters in my book to be happily married in the same ceremony,” she confided to Cass. “Do you think that will seem too contrived?”

Cassandra laughed delightedly. For, despite Edward’s brotherly view of her as a somber old maid without a trace of passion in her soul, Cass never tired of discussing Jane’s wildly romantic stories. “A double wedding will make a perfect ending,” she said. “And I never care if an event in a novel is slightly contrived, as long as the contrivance leads to a blissfully happy ending.”

Cass paused for a moment, then continued. “But I still do not like the title First Impressions,” she informed Jane. “I think you should call it Improper Pride. For that is what the story is really about.”

“It is about pride, yes,” Jane grudgingly conceded. “But more than that, my novel is about the prejudices that often unfairly attach to persons merely because of circumstance beyond their control.

“However,” she promised Cass, “I shall think about a new title if it will make you happy. Now go to bed,” Jane ordered. “I will come to your room and sleep later. After you have rested.”

Cassandra nodded her agreement but she remained standing beside Jane’s bed, looking down at the tall man. “Mr. Darcy is very handsome, is he not?” she asked quietly.

“Yes,” Jane agreed. “Very.” By the candle’s glow she saw a tear glistening in the corner of Cassandra’s eye, and from it she knew that her sister was thinking of her late fiancé, a dashing young naval officer who had died of fever in the Indies, just months before he and Cass were to have been wed. Though nearly two decades had passed since the young man’s tragic death, theirs had been a deeply passionate and loving relationship, and one from which the beautiful Cassandra had never recovered.

At least, Jane reasoned as she read the grief on Cass’s face, there had been one great love, however brief, in her dear sister’s life. And, though she would never have dared mention it to Cass, Jane sometimes envied her that.

Long after Cassandra had gone to bed, Jane stood silently regarding Darcy’s face. Presently, she retrieved from the bodice of her gown the transparent card that looked like glass but was not. She marveled again at the cunning portrait of the tiny prancing horse frozen in the depths of the soft glass by some unimaginable magical process.

“I cannot believe, Mr. Darcy,” she said aloud to the still figure on her bed, “that you are what my brother thinks you are. But whatever else you may be, you are by far the most fascinating personage this house has ever entertained. And my honor as well as my own curiosity about you demands that I keep your secrets until you are able to explain them for yourself.”

Jane smiled down at Darcy, reaching out to lay a soft hand against his cheek. “Cass is right on one count, though,” she told him. “You are a very handsome rogue.”

She left him then, walking across the room to a tall wardrobe and removing her nightgown from it. Casting a self-conscious glance at the masculine form on her bed and feeling slightly foolish, she stepped behind a thin screen of sheer muslin and began to disrobe.

Darcy, had in fact been wide awake for all but a few moments of the evening, when he had dreamed he was giving orders to his trainer about Lord Nelson. Now he opened his eyes and silently studied the slender feminine form, which was clearly silhouetted by the firelight, enchanted by the image.