Jane the Authoress by Jane Lark

Author:Jane Lark [Lark, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, drama, historical, jane austen, darcy, true life, pride prejudice
Publisher: Jane Lark
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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The rain stopped in the afternoon, just after the clock had struck two. Jane waited for fifteen minutes, then set down her sewing, rose and went to look out from the window. The clouds had splintered, and a shaft of blue sky could be seen through the crack. The ray of sunlight moved across the farmyard before the house. The clouds were whiter farther into the distance, and breaking up; it did appear as though the rain had passed.

Jane turned. “Excuse me. I am in need of fresh air.”

Cassandra rose. “Would you like company.”

Jane shook her head. Cassandra would understand.

She left the dark-panelled drawing room and walked through the house, climbing three sets of stairs to reach her room and search out her bonnet and a cloak. In minutes she was walking back down the stairs, the footsteps of her short boots echoing on the wooden treads.

She carried on down the stairs, avoiding the West Wing.

When she reached the turn of the last set of stairs leading down to the servants’ halls and the chapel, she faced the portrait of the unknown man. It stopped her. There was just something about his face. His expression displayed such a personality… She must ask Mr Butler if he knew who the man was.

Below stairs, she followed the hall to the back of the house and descended the steps into the old abbey crypts, the kitchen, and the door into the kitchen garden.

She had spent most of the last hours in the drawing room watching her mother, Reverend Leigh and George Cook talking together and recalling family tales. Those tales and the cousins’ interaction played through her mind.

Three blackbirds, who had been taking their leisure in the sunshine and drying themselves out after the rain, took to flight as Jane walked along one of the paths. She leant down and picked a ripe, scarlet strawberry. A thrush hopped out from beneath the bushes, and fluttered away.

When Jane straightened, she bit into the strawberry. The sweet taste flooded her mouth as she walked on, looking into the distance, not at the pathway lined by more small fruit bushes, but into her mind’s eye.

Her head was full only of cousins. Family.

Cousins…

A breath slipped past her lips in a rhythm of haste, as with each step her boots softly turned the gravel beneath her feet.

Cousins.

She had wished to give Darcy an aunt, with a character like Lady S & S. What of cousins?

She walked on. An amiable, likable cousin who had known Darcy since birth, for far more years than Bingley… A man who was prepared to speak openly and might let Lizzy glimpse something more of the real Darcy. Yes. Cousins.

Jane turned a corner to follow the path as it tracked the edge of the kitchen garden. She picked a raspberry from a bush on the side of the path and slipped the berry into her mouth. Her eyes focused on the plants ahead of her and another thrush that hopped out of the way.

Mrs Leigh.

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