Page 36 of The Austen Affair

As Hugh ushers me from the room, I can feel the eyes of the others burrowing into our backs.

He quickly produces a cloak for me and a hat for himself, and we’re ready to be off—except for the scrambling footsteps of George sprinting into the hallway.

“Are you going for a walk?” he pipes up, almost purple with excitement. “Can I come along?”

Hugh glances at me, unsure. He doesn’t want to invite another person along while I’m in distress. But I quickly wipe below my eyes and offer George my hand.

“Your glove is wet,” George observes, quite neutrally.

“Yes, dear,” I respond, upbeat without offering any explanation.

Wordlessly, George offers Hugh his other hand, and I raise my eyebrows encouragingly to him. Hugh takes it, and now the little boy is strung between us like laundry on a line. George grins like a madman as we exit the house, half skipping down the front steps.

Actually, I think George’s presence here is very good for me. It’s hard to be sad around this little cannonball, and within a few minutes of our walk, I’m laughing at his antics. Looking mischievous, Hugh locks eyes with me and says, “Let’s help him really fly.”

We count off for him, and on three, he jumps as we lift. He shoots into the air, giggling, before landing again with a theatrical lion’s roar. I’m absolutely certain that if George were to go to Brighton beach, he’d build sandcastles just to crush them like Godzilla.

After being launched like a rocket, George cannot be contained. He rushes ahead of us on the dirt road, singing and spinning and showing off. With him no longer occupying the space between us, Hugh and I instinctively close the gap. We’re walking so close that his elbow brushes mine.

He lowers his voice to murmur to only me, “Are you doing all right?”

I sigh, steadying myself. “I think so.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Just… think?”

I shrug. “It’s hard. The grieving. It’s been more than a year, and I’m still all over the place.

Ups and downs. Sometimes I can’t imagine being happy, and then the next day I actually manage it, and then I feel guilty for being happy when she’s not here.

You know?” I shake my head. “No, I’m sorry. Of course you wouldn’t. I’m rambling.”

“You’re not,” he says, gruffly. “And I do, er, get it. Better than you might think.”

I tilt my head to the side. “Really? You never said.”

He grimaces, casting his gaze ahead to briefly check that George isn’t getting into any trouble. “I’m not really what you’d call a sharer.” His grimace inches slightly higher toward the “smile” end of the spectrum as I hide a giggle behind my hand. “You might have picked up on it,” he adds.

“Yes, I have to say you are a bit of a closed book, Mr. Balfour.”

“It’s my father. He’s… not well.”

I stop in my tracks, eyebrows contracting as I pick up on the present tense. “You mean, currently? I’m very sorry to hear that. What’s wrong?”

“Early onset Alzheimer’s,” Hugh admits, his face shrouded.

“It runs in the family, I’m afraid. And we don’t think he has a lot of time left.

He’s not really himself anymore. He stopped being able to memorize lines years ago.

It killed him to give up acting, but it only got worse from there.

It’s already hard for him to talk. He’s started having trouble swallowing and can’t sit up without help.

He had a bout with pneumonia earlier this year, which is never a good sign. ”

My throat constricts and my eyes well up.

Oh my God. I flash back to our conversation that first night at Highground.

Hugh said that he studied how to handle fainting because dementia patients are a fall risk.

It wasn’t research he undertook for a role at all but to protect his family.

I had spent so much time viewing him as an adversary I’d forgotten to see him as a human .

Shame roils in my gut, but I push past it. I’d been selfishly dense once before: now I need to make up for it by really listening to him. “That’s terrible, Hugh. I’m sure that’s a very difficult thing to go through, even together as a family. Are all of you close?”

I think my tears are infectious, unfortunately. I can see Hugh’s eyes start to glaze over, and he quickly looks to the left, focusing on cows grazing in a distant pasture. “Yes, I daresay we are.”

I step closer to him, my fingers wriggling into his clenched hand and squeezing tight. A tear gets past his mental security, streaking down his face. “Isn’t that always the way?” he mutters. “All it takes is one person being kind to you to open the dam. Then you’re a blubbering mess.”

“Hey,” I whisper, standing on my tiptoes to get closer to his ear. “Hey, it’s going to be okay. It won’t be easy, but you will be okay.”

“I don’t see how,” Hugh says, voice choked.

“I can’t be with him when he needs me most. I even tried to back out of Northanger Abbey, but my agent said I’d be in breach of contract.

I was supposed to rush through it and get home, but now I’m two hundred years away from him.

I don’t know how he’s doing, or—or if he’s even still—” A convulsive sound escapes Hugh’s throat.

I grip his shoulder with one hand while the other smooths its way down his back. “Don’t try to talk,” I say, echoing his words to me after I messed things up with Austen. “Just breathe with me.”

We stay wrapped together for a few moments, me keeping up the soothing rhythm on his back.

Hugh eventually collects himself, but I fear he has not taken the right message away from this.

“I apologize,” he says, his face masked with shame.

“I asked you to take a walk because you were upset. I didn’t intend to make this about me. ”

I bite back a laugh. My hand migrates from his back to his shoulder, kneading it like dough.

“No, I completely understand. In fact, no one could understand it better. If you’re lucky, outliving your parents is supposed to be the natural progression of things.

Still, when they go too early, it’s easy to feel alone. But you’re not alone.”

Hugh gives a throaty, disbelieving laugh. “I’m literally separated from my family by all of space and time.”

I tease, “Don’t be dramatic now, Mr. Balfour. Not all of time. I don’t see any dinosaurs over that hill. Just a measly two hundred years.”

Hugh only shakes his head.

“Besides,” I add, softer now, “you might not be with your family, but you are with me. And I’ve walked this road before. Hell, I’m walking it now.”

Hugh’s hand drifts to my waist, imbuing the skin beneath my muslin dress with a gentle warmth. “Thank you.”

“Not at all,” I say. “I like when you share things.”

“You should know,” he tells me, a sweet, slow smile breaking out across his face like the sun coming out from behind a cloud, “in the spirit of honesty. I was entirely wrong about your acting talents. I watched you in the play just now. I actually think you are quite a bit more talented than I am.”

I wave away his compliment, faux demure. “Oh, please… Go on.”

Hugh laces his other hand around my waist, spinning me around. “When you perform, you glow. I can see your love of the craft shining from your very soul. You’re astounding.”

I stand on my tiptoes to kiss him, but our lips barely brush before the sound of George, three hundred feet down the path and hollering at us to catch up, splinters the moment. “Come on now! Are we going to the village or not?”

Hugh grins at me ruefully, and my fingers slip away from his shoulder.

It takes us perhaps another fifteen minutes to reach the village of Chawton on foot.

Even though I’ve passed through it several times now, it remains a wonder.

I’ve stood on a lot of sets in my day, designed and assembled by intelligent, passionate artists who make it their life’s work to create the most stunningly detailed miniature world possible.

Next to the real deal, however, any Hollywood set pales in comparison.

Chawton wasn’t hammered together a week ago with the intent to have it broken down again in another two.

None of Chawton’s bright storefronts are repurposed sets from another period piece, hastily painted a new color.

The free-range chickens squawking in the streets have no handlers, unless you count the equally unsupervised children chasing after them.

“You stick to the side of the street,” Hugh shouts at George, two hands cupped around his mouth. “The last thing we need is you getting hit by a speeding stagecoach.”

George promptly pretends to be struck by an invisible vehicle and flops to the cobblestones. I’m not able to suppress my choking laughter, even when Hugh chides me, saying, “Don’t encourage him.”

I pull George to his feet by his shirtsleeve and into a backward hug, my arms wrapping around his shoulders from behind.

I lay a kiss on the top of his head and then nudge him toward the post office.

“You wanted to come,” I say, tweaking one of his curls.

“Now you have to suffer through dreary errands.”

“Noooo,” George moans.

“ Yes, ” I counter. “It will be monstrously boring.”

George reluctantly slinks toward the post office as I glance back over my shoulder at Hugh. “So, another letter for Dr. Beckworth?”

Hugh’s shoulders slump. “I’m afraid I’m quite at a loss if he doesn’t answer this one. I’ve said everything I can think of: reminded him that I’d written twice before and offered to double his fee if he’ll just send us an electrical machine before the month is out.…”

Curious, I hold out my hand to him. I’m starting to suspect that perhaps there was some social delicacy missing in Hugh’s previous letters. “Can I read it? I know it’s all ready to be sent out, but maybe there’s an angle we’re missing.”

“I’ll try anything,” Hugh says, removing the letter from his jacket and breaking the wax seal. “My only other plan was to ride out to London and meet him in person as a last-ditch effort. If you have another suggestion, I’ll gladly take it.”

I accept the letter from him, leaning against the post office’s exterior to read it.

The tingle of suspicion I felt when Hugh described the letter’s contents is borne out.

Earlier, I’d wondered exactly what in the world Hugh Balfour wasn’t good at…

and letter-writing seems to be the answer.

His message is curt, businesslike, and to the point—offering money for a machine, in a simple transaction.

Not to mention the reminder that Beckworth hasn’t gotten back to him, the Regency equivalent of an email that says, “Following up on this!”

“Hugh,” I say, “did you ever think that Dr. Beckworth might respond to some… floweriness?”

“Floweriness?” Hugh looks lightly affronted, leaning in to whisper to me. “Are you saying I should embroider my words, like some Mr. Collins and his tedious correspondence?”

I shrug. “Perhaps not to that level, but maybe some compliments wouldn’t go amiss.”

“It’s a business arrangement,” Hugh says, his cheeks pinking adorably. “I’m not courting the man.”

“It might not be just business to him!” I remind him gently. “He is a purveyor of rare and exciting technological devices. An inventor, in fact. He probably takes pride in his craft, as you or I do our acting. He might move us up the line if we massaged his ego a bit.”

“I trust you completely,” Hugh tells me. “I suppose we should go buy a quill pen so you can add the postscript. Your version will likely completely surpass my own.”

We wander the village, in search of a shop that sells stationery, appreciating all the colorful wares we pass on the way.

I’m surprised at how game George is for all the physical exertion—he really isn’t terribly old, but then I suppose millions of six-year-olds have summoned the energy to crisscross Disneyland over the years, so it’s not entirely beyond them when sufficiently motivated.

Hugh hands over a shilling in exchange for the supplies—a bottle of ink and a quill nib pen.

We dip into the Crow and Crown for the water required to wet the ink, and I write my P.S.

right there on the inn’s bar: a flowing paragraph of effusive praise designed to flatter and beguile the brilliant doctor, telling him that I considered him a man of true genius, and my wedding would not be complete if I could not see his experiment in action at the festivities.

When our letter is resealed and winging its way to London, we again set our paces back toward Highground. With George skipping ahead of us, Hugh turns to me, looking tentative. “I had hoped this trip would cheer you. Did you have any fun at all today?”

I lob back an answer to his question. “I had a good deal of fun today.” I look up at him through the dark curtain of my lashes, half-guilty.

“It is possible to have fun, you’ll find.

Eventually. And it’s particularly hard not to have fun when I am living my mother’s dream.

” I spread my arms out wide, like a massive wingspan.

I feel like trying to hug the entire world.

“We’re living in a miracle, Hugh. We need to make the most of it while we’re here, or what was the point of all this? ”

He stops where he stands, turning back around to study the silhouette of the village in the fading evening light. There’s a lantern lit just outside the inn we have just departed, the Crow and Crown. “You’re right,” he tells me. “You’re quite right.”

“I just love to hear that,” I preen. “But what exactly am I right about?”

“We might not be here much longer,” he says, the ghost of a smile dancing about his mouth. “If the machine works, we’ll be going home when it arrives. We should do everything Austen would want of us in the meantime.”

I place a thoughtful hand to my mouth. “And pray tell, what is that?”

Hugh offers me his arm, and I link mine through it. “I think we should host a ball.”