Jane Actually

tired and should enjoy the tea you had spoken of earlier. I wanted to discuss your post about visiting Bath and your delightful visit to Sydney Gardens and thought you might enjoy a story or two about my recollections.”
    The bookseller’s eyes lit up, any reserve now lost. “I would be … ecstatic, Miss Austen.”
    “Please Miss Fentriss, call me Jane, that is if I might call you Laura.”
    “There’s a teashop just a few blocks from here … Jane. And if it’s all right with you, perhaps a few friends …”
    “Of course, I would be delighted,” Mary responded with a smile that masked her true feelings. Ms Fentriss left them momentarily to call her friends.
    “Oh great, I thought tea would be in the store. Now it’s high tea with a bunch of Janeites,” Mary said. “And we already have dinner tonight with those movie executives Melody arranged.”
    “I am sorry Mary, but Miss Fentriss has been very supportive and her blog is influential.”
    “I’m sure she’s a lovely woman, Jane, but I had wanted to talk to you about … I wanted to explain … to apologize about Stephen.”
    “Oh don’t be tedious, Mary. You have no need … oh, that was quick.”
    “They were just waiting for my call,” Ms Fentriss explained as she returned. “Shall we go?”
    The teashop was just a few blocks away and was charming. Ms Fentriss had only invited two friends to join them and they arrived in short order. All three were passionate Janeites and Mary told them several stories about Godmersham Park, the other home of Jane’s brother Edward. One story led to another and another and soon the other patrons realized Jane Austen was in their midst.
    After an hour of captivating her audience, Ms Fentriss had to remind Mary, “Oh my goodness, the time. I had promised to return you to your hotel by four.”
    There were general cries of disappointment at this and even Mary would remain, but Jane reminded her, “Melody was very insistent we be on time.”
    Mary made her goodbyes to the other women and patrons and then she and Ms Fentriss went back to the bookstore to obtain the bookseller’s car.
    “Thank you so much for meeting my friends, Jane,” she said as they drove back to the hotel.
    “It was my pleasure,” Mary said, and genuinely meant it.
    “I just want you to know … I don’t agree with Alice Davis … with what she said in that
Daily Beast
article.”
    “That is very kind of you to say, but she only expressed understandable doubt,” Mary said, at Jane’s request.
    “Has she even met you?”
    “No, we haven’t met.”
    “Then that explains it. If she were to meet you, she’d know.”
    The store was only a short distance to Jane’s hotel and she was delivered in good time. After a heartfelt parting with Ms Fentriss, Mary and Jane returned to their empty suite.
    “She’s not even here yet,” Mary complained.
    “We are a few minutes early. Doubtless Melody is busy planning her campaign against Dr Davis.”
    “You know you’re taking her attack against you pretty calmly,” Mary said as she removed her costume and prepared to take a shower.
    “Did you know that after
Emma
, I kept a sort of journal where I recorded everyone’s opinion of my books? In fact it was the only journal as such that I ever kept. I tried to pretend I treated each comment equally, that I valued the negative opinions as well as the positive, but truthfully I despised every slur and slander against my children. That is what I called my novels. Isn’t that silly?”
    Mary did, of course, know this, as she knew almost everything about Jane, but she only answered, “No, I don’t think that’s silly at all.”
    “Being dead does offer a whole new perspective on life, Mary, depend on it. I have had the most amazing months of my life. Just think of that, of this world for more than two hundred years and the last several months have been the most amazing.
    “I will not pretend that Dr Davis’s comments are unwelcome, but what of it? She is entitled to her opinion.”
    1 Alethea and Catherine Bigg were sisters of Harris Bigg-Wither, Jane’s fiancé for a day. His different last name came about because his father had decided to honour the cousins whose property he’d inherited, Manydown Park. Harris’s father changed his son’s name to reflect that, but not his daughters. Jane and the sisters were good friends, even after Jane broke the engagement. Alethea and another sister, Elizabeth, visited Jane frequently