Searching For Captain Wentworth (48 page)

‘I hope you can
manage a little soup,’ she said.

‘That’s so kind
of you, it looks delicious,’ I answered,
thinking that I would have to at least try a
spoonful even if I didn’t
f
eel like
eating anything.

‘I’m Louisa, by
the way,’ she added. ‘It’s so lovely to meet
you, Josh has told me so much about you.’

I wondered what
she meant by that as I managed a smile
before I took up my spoon. Had he told her how he’d been
practically cornered by a man-crazy lunatic in the
upstairs flat? I
shuddered at the
thought.

The soup was as
lovely as its maker and I found I was
hungrier than I imagined. As Louisa talked, I ate.

‘Josh has been
really lonely in Bath and despite having made
a few friends, he’s never really met anyone that he
wanted to spend
much time with,
so it’s been really wonderful that he’s had you for
company,’ she went on. ‘My work has kept me away
for a while so
I haven’t been
able to spend as much time with him as I’d like.’

‘Oh, dear, that
must be difficult being separated for long
periods of time.’

Louisa smiled.
‘Well, to be perfectly honest, as you might
expect, it’s not that hard and when we do catch up,
it’s like we’ve
never been
apart, so it’s fine. It’s been good to spend a few days
away with him and I needed a break, but I’ve got
deadlines to meet.
Unfortunately,
I’ve just got to get back to work.’

I thought what
strange comments she’d made and also about
how hard it had been to be separated from Charles even
for part of
a day and knew
that I could never think like Louisa. How could she
bear to be away from Josh for any length of time? I
remembered the
way he’d looked
at her that evening and knew he loved her with
every breath in his body. I watched her as she
straightened out the
quilt
cover. Efficient, kind and beautiful, I was reminded of
someone else. The image of Jane Austen capably
dealing with the
accident at the
Cobb was a clear one. I wished I could remember
what she’d been saying to me as I’d rushed along
the Cobb. I knew
it was something
specific, not like Charles’s urgent cries not to
jump, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember.

‘I really must
get up,’ I said, on finishing the last of the lovely
meal. ‘I need to think about getting home.’

‘Oh, you mustn’t
say that,’ Louisa replied. ‘It was the least we
could do and I know that Josh isn’t about to let
you go anywhere.’

‘But won’t you …
I mean, won’t he be needing his bed?’

I wasn’t quite
sure what sort of sleeping arrangements they
had, but in any case, I was starting to feel more
like my old self,
even if battered
and bruised by my experiences and I didn’t mean
my bandaged head. I really felt I should get out of
their way, let
them say their
goodbyes as lovers like to do and be gone from their
hair.

‘Josh is going
to have my room. I don’t think for one minute
he’ll mind my dirty sheets, and I know he’ll enjoy
looking after
you. It will be
a comfort for me to know he has someone to talk to
for a few days. This is a big house to be alone in.
Please indulge
me, Sophie, I’d
feel better as I’m just about to go home.’

Well, I knew I
wasn’t any threat to their relationship, but it
seemed, I’d been quite wrong about them sharing a
room. Still, it
did seem a bit
strange that Louisa was encouraging another girl to
be staying in her boyfriend’s bed, yet she didn’t
seem in the least
bit perturbed by
the thought and made her move to go saying she
really couldn’t delay a minute longer. If she
didn’t get a move on,
she said,
her editor would be most displeased and she wanted to
avoid that altogether. I couldn’t resist asking her
what she did. It
sounded as if
she must be a journalist and I imagined her writing
for one of the glamorous, glossy magazines.

‘I write novels,
women’s fiction,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to the end
of the month to have the last draft finished and
I’ve only just
completed the
first.’

‘Oh, how
wonderful,’ I cried, ‘I’m trying to write a novel. But,
you’re a proper author. Do you use your real name?’

‘My pen name is
Cassie Crawford, though I doubt you’ve
heard of me. I’m not at all well known. Goodness knows why my
publishers keep taking me on. I’m always thinking
that perhaps this
will be the
last, though I’m ever hopeful that my reputation is
growing. My first novel was called
“
The
Clergyman’s Daughter
”
,
the next was,
“
The Sisters
”
, and I’ve another
coming out in
September,
“
A
Secret Engagement
”.
’

She was right. I
didn’t know of her or her books and I didn’t
quite know what to say.

Louisa shrugged
her shoulders. ‘Don’t worry, Sophie, I knew
you wouldn’t have heard of them. The hope is that
one day I will
write something
that will make the world sit up, but until then, I
shall keep trying!’

‘I’m sure you’ve
already written it, but perhaps the world
doesn’t recognize your genius just yet.’

‘Sophie, I do so
hope you’re right. And, I sometimes think I
have set myself an impossible task. There are so
many novels
written these
days, it’s a wonder any of them get noticed.’

‘But, out of all
the thousands of books that are sent to editors,
yours were chosen and published. That’s a huge
achievement in
itself.’

Louisa smiled.
‘Yes, that’s true, how kind of you to say so.
Sophie, it really has been lovely to meet you. I’d
love to stay and
chat for longer,
but I’ve got to be going. Just promise me one thing.
Please do as Josh asks. He wants to nurse you
better … let him!’

I relented.
Louisa was so nice, and I was starting to really
warm to her. Josh was a very lucky man, I thought.

When she’d gone,
I felt really tired again and those gloomy
feelings of despondency swept over me again. I
tried to rationalize
my
thoughts about everything, telling myself that what I thought
had happened to me was impossible. But I knew that
I had fallen in
love for real,
that I’d never before experienced anything like it. The
fact that I had met Charles two hundred years ago
didn’t mean
anything any
more, or that I knew it could never work out. It simply
didn’t matter.

I did find it
difficult at first to let myself be looked after by Josh.
But, it became increasingly obvious that I wasn’t
quite well and
although the
doctor said there was no permanent damage, he
declared he was concerned about me in other ways.
He wanted to
keep an eye on
me and Josh volunteered to be both his eyes and
ears. Bit by bit, the story came out though I never
quite found out
exactly what had
happened or how I’d got to Lyme. I learned from
Josh that I’d been seen wandering along the Cobb in
a kind of
trance and that
I’d actually taken a tumble almost from the top. He
and Louisa had just happened to be in the right
place at the right
time and had
seen it happen. Between Josh and the doctor they
convinced me that I needed looking after and that I
should be right
as rain in a few
days if I did as I was told. In a strange way I was
happy to let Josh take over. I stopped trying to
get up and lay in his
bed,
which had a wonderful view of the sea in the distance and the
t
own below. It was something of a surprise to find
out that Josh’s
parents owned
Nelson House and a couple of days before I got a
sense of my bearings. Memories came flooding back
of my other
existence but,
although the house was little altered, I felt I couldn’t
equate the two. I was looking forward to being able
to get up and
explore.

Josh was so kind
and he kept me from brooding too much by
his constant attention and conversation. He sat at
my bedside and
read to me from
Persuasion
.
The scenes at Lyme brought back
flashes
of images from my memory, but more thought provoking
were our discussions of the poetry that Jane Austen
had written
about in the
scenes with Captain Benwick. She’d penned
Persuasion
many
years after my flash through time between 1815
and 16, when Scott and Byron were wowing the world
with the
poems that Jane
mentioned like
The Lady of the Lake
,
The Giaour
,
and
The Bride of Abydos
.

‘I don’t really
know the poems,’ I admitted, ‘but I wonder why
she remarked on them like that. It seems such a
different approach
to her usual
style.’

‘We’ll read them
together if you like,’ said Josh, ‘though I’m
worried if it’s a bit too soon for you to be
spending too much time
poring
over books. The doctor said you should be resting.’

Josh knew the
poems well and when I was too tired he read
them aloud. His voice was soothing and listening to
him was a real
pleasure. The
themes of love and being faithful to one’s heart rang
true.

‘Although Jane
Austen seems to have regarded impassioned
descriptions, tremulous feelings and minds
destroyed by
wretchedness
with her tongue firmly in her cheek,’ I said, ‘I wonder
if she is trying to tell us something, though I’m
afraid of reading too
much into
it.’

‘I don’t know,
but there does seem to be a thread which
connects them all. Love not easily attained or
sustained seems at
the root,
whether it’s between Ellen Douglas and Malcolm Graeme
in
The Lady of the Lake
, or the illicit love
between the Giaour and
Leila.
And then there is
The Bride of Abydos
, Byron’s love story
between Selim and Zuleika, a union denied by their
family.’

Like a lightning
bolt, I knew why Jane had mentioned these
poems; it seemed so obvious. She’d included them as
a message to
the man she
loved, knowing he would read and recognize the clues.

Persuasion
told the truth in so many ways that she would never
recover from the love she felt for him. Josh stared,
his dark eyes
penetrating
mine. I came back to earth as he pronounced that if I
were to be looking quite so disturbed in future, he
would be
recommending a
larger allowance of prose in my daily study, as
Anne Elliot had suggested to Captain Benwick.

Over the next
few days we finished
Persuasion
and I couldn’t
help but
be reminded of Charles. When we reached the part where
Louisa Musgrove jumps off the Cobb wall Josh looked
at me
anxiously as if
he was worried about reading it, but I assured him
it was okay even if every word made me long for
Charles. I
couldn’t see
Captain Wentworth any more in my head; the only
man I saw was Charles. Thinking about that day
brought one
particular
recollection to haunt me. I remembered a white glove
and recalling its special powers I knew I would
have to find it if I
had any
chance of going back. But, apart from some things that
Louisa had kindly lent me, I only had the clothes
I’d been wearing.
I could hardly
ask Josh if I’d been clutching a white glove.

Only when Josh
went to bed at night and I was left alone did
I have time to really think about Charles. The ache
left in my heart
felt as if I’d
been physically wounded and every night my silent
tears kept me awake. Part of me wished to take up
my old life and
make an attempt
to start to look after myself again. I wanted to
return to my flat or I tried to convince myself
that I did and after
just over
a fortnight of being cosseted, I felt I could make a stand.
Also, I longed to see if Charles’s portrait was in
the rosewood box
or lost in time
forever. I wanted to read Sophia’s diary again, so that
I could reassure myself that this whole experience
had not been
some sort of
ghastly dream. I told Josh that I wanted to go home
though I didn’t want him to think I was ungrateful
or that I wasn’t
enjoying his
company. I liked being with him very much, and I
recognized that a part of me was so scared to start
again on my own
especially as my
memory had not come back completely. In a
strange way, I had started to rely on him and knew
that this wasn’t
going to be good
for me. Josh was totally understanding about my
bid for freedom although he expressed concern.