Writing Jane Austen by Elizabeth Aston

Author:Elizabeth Aston
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: A TOUCHSTONE BOOK
Published: 2010-10-10T16:00:00+00:00

Eighteen

There’s no need to shush me,” Maud said indignantly. “You could assemble a band outside Gina’s door, like Wagner did, and she wouldn’t stir. I wonder if she’s dreaming, I wonder if all those characters and all those events in all those places are rattling through her mind, and she’ll wake up in the nineteenth century, mad, and have to be carried off to a zonky crystal therapist to bring her back into her proper time.”

Henry knew he was going to be late for his lecture. “Don’t be fanciful. Where the hell did I put that book?”

“If it’s that ridiculously fat one full of unintelligible formulae, I used it to prop the sitting-room door open. Anna oiled the hinges and now the door won’t stay open when you want it to.”

With another curse Henry retrieved Chromospheric Supergranule Cells, stuffed the lunch box that Anna had left on the hall table into his computer bag, slung it over his shoulder and opened the front door. “I’ll have to leave my phone on silent, but text me if Gina wakes up, and let me know how she is.”

“She didn’t go to bed until practically dawn, I heard her having a bath in the early hours. So she’ll probably sleep all day.” Maud pushed her brother out of the house and slammed the door behind him, then went into the sitting room and set about the satisfying task of scraping some oboe reeds.

As Maud predicted, Georgina slept all day, not stirring until twelve hours later, when she woke with a start. She rolled over and looked at her clock. Just after six, early then, too early to get up and have breakfast, although her stomach was rumbling. She got out of bed and went over to the window. The room was stuffy and she wanted to let in some air. How odd, the sky in the west was suffused with a red glow. A fire? The end of the world?

She looked at her watch. Six o’clock? She’d gone to bed around then, so either it was tomorrow and something weird had meanwhile happened out there in the cosmos, or it was still today, and six o’clock in the evening.

A bang on the door, and without waiting for a reply, Maud was in the room. “It’s still Wednesday, in case you’re wondering. Wednesday evening, to be precise. You do look desperate, did you go to sleep with wet hair?”

Georgina peered at herself in the mirror, starting at the dishevelled appearance that looked back at her. “I look as though I’d been on an expedition to some forgotten spot of the world for several months.”

“Like my parents,” said Maud. “Only Mum doesn’t come back looking like that, I’m glad to say. Henry said I wasn’t to disturb you, but I heard you thumping about. Are you feeling disoriented? Henry used to look like that in the days when he was a financial wizard and always flitting off to Hong Kong and New York.”

Georgina ran a comb through her hair and pushed it behind her ears.

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