Page 7 of Persuading Penny (Jane Austen Association #4)

A s Keely left us, Cliff and I looked at each other for a tense and awkward moment.

Say something.

His eyes remained hard, and as my lips parted to simply speak his name, he set his jaw, turned and walked away.

Watching him leave, I swallowed the ball of pain, of guilt, of longing.

“Wait,” I whispered, barely a whisper.

But he couldn’t have heard me and just walked on.

It’d been so long since I’d seen him. In so many ways he hadn’t changed at all. But, then again, so many things had, indeed, changed.

He joined the rest of the cast and suddenly, that charming smile was back, bigger and brighter than ever.

Shrugging off the numbing sensation that enveloped me, I walked through the crowd, hardly seeing the faces of the people I passed.

I had to leave. I had to find a way out of this torturous evening.

Keely had already made her way to the buffet table to check on everything. I worked my way closer to her.

“Keely?”

Too busy ensuring everything was as it should be, she didn’t hear me.

“Keely?” I said a little louder.

She turned to me, her face immediately showing concern as she looked at me.

“I’m sorry. I really can’t stay for dinner. I should have realized it sooner, but I just remembered that my parents are having dinner guests... a distant relative of my father’s... someone we don’t see often. Anyway, I have to go.”

“Okay, but you came here with me.” She looked away a second as she considered the situation, then reached into her pocket and pulled out her keys. “Here. Take my car back to Royal Crescent and you can take your car home from there.”

I hadn’t even considered that dilemma. “But, what about you?”

“Don’t worry about me. Did you see all those cars out in the drive? Someone is bound to offer me a ride.”

I took her keys. “Thanks.”

I shot a quick glance over her shoulder where Cliff stood. His smile, meant for the young actress he was speaking to, faded as he glanced at me.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” I turned and left, my stomach in knots.

*****

“P enny? Is that you ?” Mum called from the kitchen as I walked in.

I had hoped to sneak into my room unnoticed.

“Yes. It’s me, Mum.”

“You’re back early. I thought you had your grand dinner with all those Hollywood types.”

“A change of plans,” I called to her as I made my way up the stairs.

“Penny,” she said as she came to me. “Where are you running off to? I’m speaking to you.”

“Sorry, Mum.”

“Now, dear. Does this mean you’ll be having dinner with us?”

I shook my head. “No, Mum. Don’t change your plans.” Make as if I’m not here at all.

“But, did you have any dinner?”

I nodded, immediately regretting the lie. “I grabbed a bite here and there.” I looked up the stairs, eager to escape her. “I’m really tired, though, Mum. I just want to rest and not look at another number for the rest of the day.”

“Is this Keely girl overworking you, dear?”

“No, Mum,” I said, taking another step up. “No. Don’t worry. She’s been wonderful. The numbers...it’s all part of the job. But there are a lot of numbers. I just need to clear my head.”

“If you say so, dear.” With a shrug, she walked back to the kitchen.

I took the last steps to reach the second floor and hurried to my room. With tears burning my eyes, I closed the door and leaned back against it. Only then did the tears freely flow.

“He hates me,” I muttered into the emptiness of my room.

It wasn’t even my room. I was in a strange house, in a strange room, and sleeping in a strange bed. But I did have something that was mine, something that might bring me a bit of solace.

I pulled my suitcase out from under the bed. In the outer compartment, held closed by a zipper, I had long ago shoved dozens of letters from Cliff, wanting to have him with me wherever I went.

I sat on the floor, unzipped the compartment and pulled out a letter... any letter. Before pulling the letter out of the envelope, I could smell him... smell him on the paper... his favorite cologne.

Smiling, I pulled the folded letter out of the envelope and slowly unfolded it. His handwriting, without flourish or fancy, was clean and precise.

My sweetest Penelope,

I’ve been reading a lot lately, and it seems that every passage I read reminds me of you. Or is it simply that I cannot stop thinking about you, no matter what I do?

The sun is out today, beautiful and warm, so perfect for an afternoon walk in the shade of the large weeping willows.

I truly enjoyed your last letter. It made me laugh, especially the part about your accident with that cake.

It’s easy to envision you, a cake on a platter in your hands, and your father, always so quick and brash with his movements.

What I have a hard time imagining, however, is your father with all that cake on his head and shoulders. He must have been furious.

It feels good to laugh as I think about you. And, on that note, I came upon a poem, a Lord Byron poem, that made me think of you and I hope you might enjoy:

She walks in beauty like the night

of cloudless climes and starry skies

And all that’s best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes;

Thus mellowed to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies .

I stopped reading and clutched the letter to my chest. I’d initially thought his appreciation of poetry was just a romantic part of a persona he’d concocted. But he really did have a love of words, and he loved to share it with me.

Lord Byron was one of his favorites and he often cited him, just a line here or there.

But this – She Walks in Beauty – I do believe was my favorite.

I read the rest and pulled out another and another, smiling as I remembered how young we were back then, how naive. Then I laughed as I read one particular paragraph of his letter.

Darn it. I’ve been caught. Classmates saw me dropping a letter in the mailbox and questioned me about it. They can’t believe that I am actually taking pen to paper to write a letter to a girl... a girl in England, no less.

They insist that I ought to simply send you an email instead of what they call snail mail.

I hope you don’t agree with them. I don’t know why, but there is something about waiting for your response, not at my computer, but every day when I go check the mail.

Who knows. Maybe I’m just old fashioned the way my dad was.

I remembered my reply. I was adamant that we continue to write handwritten letters. I loathed emails with the exception of certain business communications.

And now, hugging those handwritten words... should I hug my laptop to my chest if he’d listened to his classmates? No. These letters were real. They were tangible and not in some... in some cloud somewhere.

I thought back to the letters I sent him. I had kept a few of the first drafts of certain letters. In one of them, I’d sent a favorite poem of mine.

Woods on a Snowy Evening, by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow

.

In so many letters he’d written about the snow that had fallen and that had temporarily blanketed the ground. On seeing this poem, I knew I had to send it to him.

He knew it, of course, but was nonetheless pleased I’d shared it with him.

I plunged my hand once more into that outer compartment of my suitcase and pulled out a letter; the last letter that he’d sent me.

Oh. A sharp pain suddenly squeezed at my heart, and I knew that reading the letter would only intensify that pain.

This was the letter he’d written a day prior to my sending him the letter my Aunt Sally had forced me to write him.

Tears flowed before I even began to read.

Hello, my lovely Penelope!

I’m so excited to write to you today. I’ve been looking at my calendar and at my schedule and I can only hope that your schedule resembles mine. If it does, then I believe we could be facing the perfect circumstance by which we could get together for a week or so.

To say that I long to see you, to hold you in my arms, is the biggest understatement imaginable. I dreamt of you last night, a dream so hauntingly real, yet so dismally unsatisfying.

Say you will see me, and I will book the flight.

I re-read those words over and over again. He’d been planning a trip to London. While the invitation for me to visit him in the States was always open, he knew it was difficult for me to leave home and therefore always made the trip to come see me.

How many people knew this side of him? How many saw beyond his rugged good looks to see the sweetness of his character?

I’d had the privilege of seeing that sweetness again and again. And I’d responded to that sweetness in the most horrendous way. Riddled with guilt, I struggled to breathe. Could I have done more? Could I have disobeyed Aunt Sally? Ignore my father’s feelings about dating someone like Cliff?

Now, more mature, surer of myself, I know that I could, but back then; I trusted Aunt Sally, and this was what it’d brought me.

Cliff’s sweetness towards me was completely gone, and I had no one to blame but myself.

Sighing, I tilted my head back, leaning against the side of my mattress. In time, as our paths crossed, as I was sure they would, would he soften that harsh gaze on me?

“Penny?” Mum called through the door as she simultaneously knocked. “Penny, are you coming down? We have a visitor.”

A visitor? No. My excuse to leave the cast dinner had been just that; an excuse. I was in no mood to socialize with one of my parents’ friends. I was in no mood at all to pretend that I was happy.

“Penny?” She slowly and gently turned the doorknob, pushing me to set the letters aside and jump to my feet before she opened the door. “Are you all right, dear?”

“Yes,” I said meeting her at the door. “Who is visiting?”

“It’s Aunt Sally. She’ll be staying for dinner.”

“Oh,” I muttered, unenthused.