Searching For Captain Wentworth (51 page)

‘Josh, I don’t
know how you’ve managed that, but it’s
wonderful. How can I ever thank you?’

‘Oh, I’m sure
I’ll think of something,’ Josh said, drawing me
into his arms again with the look I was becoming
accustomed to.

‘You haven’t
finished telling me everything,’ I half protested,
as he kissed his way down my neck.

‘Ah, yes,’ he
murmured, pulling me ever closer. ‘You
remember when I said my family came from Lyme? That was
partly true, my parents have lived in Lyme for the
last five years.

They moved when
the upkeep of this place became too much for
them.’

I stared in
disbelief, but somehow it didn’t seem such a
surprise. ‘Do you mean to tell me that your parents
owned
Monkford Hall?’

‘They did and
do, and I grew up here. It was a wonderful
family home for us, but my parents are quite
elderly now and
eventually they
were anxious to move to a place where they felt
they could still be independent with views of the
sea that they love
so much. Of
course they know nothing about your connections,
although they soon will. I hope you understand why
I kept all of
t
his quiet. I
didn’t want to tell you at first because I suppose in a
way I felt you’d been cheated out of growing up in
your proper
home. I thought
you might dislike me on the spot, as it was one of
my ancestors who wrested it away from yours.’

‘Oh, Josh, I
could never have disliked you. I love the house
more than I can say, but you must know I have no
money.’

‘Besides
inheriting the house, I’ve managed to make quite a
bit of money of my own and will also come into some
money on
my birthday,
some that’s been held in trust for me until I reached a
responsible age. Don’t worry about money, Sophie.
In any case, I
just know that
one day, you’ll make all the money you wish from
your writing.’

I couldn’t take
it all in and trying to imagine not worrying
about money was impossible. But, I trusted Josh
implicitly and
knew that every
word he’d spoken was true. That he believed in me
was the most wonderful tribute. I now knew how Jane
must have
felt to be
supported by a family who believed in her work too.

‘I still don’t
understand the Jane Austen connection,’ I said, as
a sharp image of her came into my mind. ‘There must
be one. I’ve
never felt so
strongly that we were meant to find one another and
that somehow she had a hand in it. Does that make
any kind of
sense?’

‘Yes, without a
doubt there is a link. I found a box of Charles
Austen’s possessions in the museum containing amongst
other
treasures, his
white gloves, a key to the Austen’s house and a letter
saying that the gloves were donated by a far-flung
family
connection of
mine, which made me instantly curious. I’m afraid I
can’t possibly explain how, why, or even if the gloves
work as we
think they do.
Who knows what really happened to us? But, you
might also be very distantly connected to the same
family, I think.

From the day I
found out about the Elliots I think I’ve known that
our lives would be linked as our families were in
the past.’

‘What do you
mean?’

‘Well, you said
yourself that you saw some of the parallels
between your family history and the Elliots in
Persuasion
. I think
Jane was writing about events she witnessed or at
least in part.

Charles, we
know, was in the Navy. He was certainly in Bath in the
summer of 1802 when he visited his family. Perhaps
he did fall in
love with the
girl next door. Don’t you think that Charles could
have inspired the character of Frederick Wentworth?
People always
assume that Jane
was writing about herself in
Persuasion
and that’s
obviously
partly true, but she was also writing about her brother’s
love story that didn’t work out. Mr Elliot must
have refused Charles
permission
to marry his daughter because he had no money, just as
Wentworth was refused permission in
Persuasion
.
Jane wanted a
happy ending;
she hoped some day that the love story would be a
real event between the families. She was looking
forward to a time
when a woman
could live her life, as she wished and be free to
marry whomever she wanted. Her own happiness had
been denied
and so too had
her brother’s. And besides all that, I’m now certain
Jane knew that the families would be united
someday.’

‘But, that
doesn’t make sense, unless Jane Austen was a
fortune teller or a time traveller too.’

‘Oh Sophie, I
was going to wait until I knew for sure that you
were strong enough and ready to take in everything
I have to tell
you. I’ve had
enough difficulty trying to believe it all myself.’

‘What is it,
Josh? What are you trying to tell me?’

‘The thing that
you ought to know, Sophie, is that I’ve only
just realized that Jane has been as much a sister
to me as Louisa.’

He paused and
looked deeply into my eyes with an expression I
could hardly fathom. I wondered what on earth he
was going to say.

‘You’ve met my
sister, haven’t you?’

But, even as he
said the words I read the truth in his eyes and
besides, I knew I’d seen her hazel eyes before.

On the day that
I married Josh Strafford, the day was
heavenly. A bright, autumnal sun shone out of a larkspur sky over
the Somersetshire countryside as I entered the
cool, dark church on
my
father’s arm. Reunited with him once more, he’d taken the
news extraordinarily well considering that it had
come out of the
blue as it did,
but he and Josh hit it off straight away. The interior
gloom of the ancient building was bathed in
candlelight, scented by
the
profusion of white roses, stephanotis, and greenery, garlanded
in swags or arranged on the altar in tall silver
vases. Ahead, at the
altar I
could see Josh waiting for me, a smile on his lips and his
beautiful eyes on mine.

I’d chosen a
simple silk dress reminiscent of the muslin gowns
I’d worn in the past. It felt beautiful on my skin,
the cream silk
rippling behind
me in a train that slipped over the ancient steps
leading to Josh’s side. A lace veil found in one of
the attic trunks at
Monkford was
pinned in place on the top of my head with a tiara
of diamonds and moonstones, given to me by Josh’s
mother, who
was as sweet as
I’d imagined she’d be. The sense of the occasion
was so unreal that for a moment I wondered if I’d
slipped into some
other dimension,
until Josh took my hand, and we voiced our vows
together. Louisa got up to speak during the
service; saying how
thrilled she was
for our happiness. As I listened, I remembered
Jane’s words on that fateful day when I had fallen
from the Cobb.

‘But, for those
who love, Time does not exist.’ I now knew the truth
of that motto and recognized the twinkle in her
eyes as she read
from
Persuasion
.
I felt she was looking particularly at me when she
said,
‘
Anne was tenderness itself, and she had the
full worth of it in
Captain Wentworth’s affection
.’
Taking her place in the
congregation once more, it was with enormous
pleasure that I
watched the
young, fair-haired man, at her side, take her hand in his
own, squeezing it with undisguised affection.

Great Aunt
Elizabeth was there to share our happiness.
Dressed in blue to match her forget-me-knot eyes,
she told me how
she’d known that
I would find the answer to my dreams in Bath. I
took her into the house as we left our guests
drinking champagne in
the
marquee on the lawn. I wanted to show her the sitting room that
we’d made as cosy as we could with furniture that
my aunt said we
might borrow
from Sydney Place for the time being until we could
furnish it ourselves. The old, silvered looking
glass looked very
much at home
above the mantelpiece as did the Sèvres clock whose
pretty chimes struck the hours. My favourite winged
chair sat on
one side of the
fireplace and, in the alcove, the painting of Sophia
sitting on the sands looking as radiant as I felt
today was hanging
on the wall,
luminous with sunbeams which danced over the
surface of the glass, making the memory so sharp
that I could smell
the sea. The
wonderful watercolour had given up one more secret
when I’d gone to collect it from the picture
framers in Walcot
Street. The
shopkeeper had found a letter tucked behind the
painting, a letter I realized now that was written
in Josh’s
handwriting expressing
his heartfelt love for me. A love letter to
cherish forever, I’d asked for it to be replaced
and sealed within the
frame.
Whatever the real truth was about Sophia and Charles, the
only relationship that mattered was the one I
shared with Josh. I
would never
forget the time spent in the past and knowing that
Sophia would always be a part of me, all I wanted
now was to look
ahead to a
bright future with the man I loved.

My aunt looked
up at the painting as I did. There was one
question I needed to ask more than any other.
‘Great Aunt
Elizabeth, do
you know what happened to our ancestor, Sophia
Elliot?’ I asked. ‘I’ve been wondering about her.
She must have
married, but who
was he?’

‘She did,
indeed,’ answered my aunt with a reassuring smile.

‘Sophia married
the local doctor in Lyme. Not the match her family
wished for I don’t think, but she went on to have a
fine family of
seven children,
I believe.’

Suddenly, I had
that feeling again, as if someone was
whispering in my ear telling me it was so. It seemed too much to
hope that Sophia might have found love with a
gentleman I’d
known, if all
too briefly. ‘Was his name Rockingham, by any
chance?’

‘Why, yes, I
believe that’s right. Apparently, they met when
she was travelling with her family. I remember my
granny telling
me a tale that
she and the doctor were thrown together after an
incident where Sophia had some sort of accident.
She was ill for
some time and
they fell in love when he nursed her back to health.
There was a story that she had fallen for him on
the rebound, that
the young
gentleman she had first been in love with had been
rejected when her father disapproved of the match,
but I know little
about the
details. All I know is that she would not be persuaded
against refusing her second chance at happiness,
and her resolution
carried the
day!’

That seemed to
make complete sense to me and I had an idea
exactly what had happened. I couldn’t imagine how
heartbroken
she must have
felt when it all ended with Charles, but I was
absolutely thrilled to realize that Sophia had
escaped marriage to
Mr Glanville and
found happiness in the end. Their story could not
have been more fitting or more romantic. I couldn’t
imagine that
her father had
consented to the match easily, if he had at all, but it
was wonderful to know that their love had won the
day. My eyes
met Sophia’s,
and as she smiled back at me, I knew she had known
true happiness.

I had something
I wanted to give back to my aunt. When I
handed her the rosewood box she seemed to
understand. ‘You
know, your
mother had possession of the box for a while,’ she said.

‘And when she
met your father, she gave it back to me.’
I remembered the diary entry that my mother had
written all
those years ago.
I still didn’t quite understand what had happened
to her, but perhaps she had experienced something
similar to me. It
didn’t matter;
none of it mattered. I didn’t need the box any more
or its contents. I could let Charles and the past
go now that I knew
I hadn’t really
been in love with him, even if he would always have
a part of my heart. I hoped he’d been happy and
from what I’d
discovered in
these last few days about him, it seemed very likely,
even if he had never quite had the luck of a
certain hero in
Persuasion
.