Page 48 of The Austen Affair

I spend the night before my wedding sobbing uncontrollably into my pillow. The worst part is: I know it’s my own damn fault. I’m Emma, torn down by Mr. Knightley for very good reasons.

No. Fuck that. I’m not Emma. This isn’t a book. I’m Theresa Elizabeth Bright, a girl who needs to grow up. And stop living in a goddamn fantasy.

And Hugh Balfour is not George Knightley.

He’s not Fitzwilliam Darcy, and he’s certainly not Henry Tilney.

He’s himself. He’s a real person that I hurt.

And what stings most, filling me with unparalleled shame, is that I know Hugh didn’t even see it coming.

He trusted me completely with his heart.

He was open and vulnerable. But the irony is, he was so wrapped up in his own insecurities about ruining what we had that he didn’t see that the real ruiner was right next to him.

Me.

I’m realizing now that the reason I don’t have nice things is because I break them.

I’m careless. I shirked my responsibilities at Chuck Brown until they had no choice but to let me go.

I let the friendships I made on set decay until there was nothing left.

I demand too much from my romantic partners too fast, and they run for the hills.

I don’t know how I thought this would work out. I was living in delusion. I guess I thought I’d won the cosmic lottery. I thought I could trade in my sad, pathetic twenty-first-century existence for a perfect, Jane Austen–worthy happy ending in the nineteenth.

And I was willing to run roughshod over Hugh’s pain to get it.

But he hit me hard in return. And he hit me where it hurts.

Honestly, I’m glad he did. I deserve every ounce of this pain, for being so, so selfish.

Of course he’s furious with me. I took the tender flower blooming between us and I crushed it.

I don’t want to lose him. But now I fear it’s too late: he finally knows what I really am.

We’re meant to get married at noon at Winchester Cathedral. Ha. Like that’s going to happen. We were never supposed to get this far. We were supposed to be home by now.

I don’t know what the plan is anymore. I don’t even know if there is a plan. That’s Hugh’s specialty, and it always has been.

I think the entire house knows we’ve had a lovers’ quarrel, though I don’t think they know about what or the extent of its seriousness.

Just past midnight, as the grandfather clock is chiming, there comes a delicate rap at my bedroom door.

Eyes puffy, I fling myself at the door, hoping to see Hugh standing on the other side.

Instead, I find Cecelia, aglow again in her bone-white nightgown. She walks inside without an invitation. “You gave me some good advice,” she tells me, no preamble, “so I’m going to return the favor.” Her blue eyes fix me with a piercing gaze. “Whatever you two fought about, get over it.”

I let out a garbled laugh. “It’s not that easy.”

“Oh, yes, it is,” Cecelia responds. “You’re both alive.

You’re both healthy. You care about each other and you’re not desperately horrible people.

He is not leagues away but merely downstairs in the parlor.

I see nothing insurmountable here. Do you know what’s hard?

Grieving your lover. Hearing in a letter he’s been put in the ground.

That’s hard. That’s the thing you can’t come back from.

But if you want to be with someone, and they’re still breathing, you can work it out.

If, that is, you’re willing to expend the effort. ”

“But what if…” I say to her, “what if you put in the work but you still don’t end up together?”

Cecelia rolls her eyes, and once again, she feels so modern and real to me with that single, simple gesture. “Then you’ll just have to pick yourself back up again, won’t you?”

She turns to go but pauses in the doorway just long enough to add, so quietly it’s hardly audible, “I finished your book last night. I liked it.”

And before I know it, Cecelia Crawford has stalked from my room again.

Hats off to Jane, I suppose. With Sense and Sensibility, she’s finally given me and Cecelia something to agree on.

I take a few minutes after Cecelia’s departure to decide what I’d like to say to him.

Perhaps constantly ad-libbing your way through life is not the way to handle something as important as this.

Then, when I feel I am ready, I take a great, shuddering, steadying breath, and I descend the stairs.

I have walked down these carpeted steps perhaps a hundred times, but it has never been so frightening as right now.

Cecelia said there was nothing insurmountable about my problems with Hugh.

She might be right about that. But she also might be dead wrong.

I might be the insurmountable problem. Because no matter what he said about being there for me in the future, I’m not sure I believe him.

I’m not sure anyone could look at me with all my faults laid bare and truly choose to be with me.

And the truth is, it’s not even a matter of leaving me today.

Love can fall apart at any time. We could get back, and in a month, he might decide I don’t fit in his life after all.

And rather than risk that rejection, I wonder if it’s better to play it safe.

To lose Hugh because I chose to let him go, rather than because he walked away freely.

Because if he walks away, I’m done for good.

No more love. No more trying. I’ve been out on a limb too long.

Eventually the branch breaks. And then where do I go?

Back to my room to wither in the dark? To read Jane Austen a thousand more times and wish that my life could have been a grand love story?

Or when my heart is pulverized, will I lack even the ability to find joy in fantasy anymore?

By going to him tonight, I put it all in his hands. Is that a risk I’m willing to take? Do I trust him that much?

I reach the bottom of the stairs and pause. I lick my dry lips, wondering if I ought to turn back. Maybe everyone was wrong. Maybe I should quit while I’m bruised but not bloodied.

My ears pick up the faint hum of low voices in the parlor. Like a wild animal sighted by a predator in the forest, I almost flee back upstairs. But then I hear the creak of wood on wood as good old Mr. Balfour eases his wheelchair from the parlor.

I’m surprised to find him awake. According to Aunt Fanny, the ball was hard on his ailing constitution.

He’d been in bed most of the day after, removed from the dramatics.

The one thing we do know is that Aunt Fanny has no intention of setting him straight about Hugh’s identity.

As far as she’s concerned, Hugh will be this man’s son until the day he dies.

Mr. Balfour spots me, and it is too late to run. “Mrs. Bright,” he says, a twinkle in his clouded eyes. “Would you mind very much helping an old man reach his bedroom? It is rather late, and I am quite spent.”

“Of course,” I say, keeping my voice hushed so as not to alert Hugh to my presence in the next room. I place myself at the back of his chair and help roll it down the hall to the bedroom that has been made up for him on the ground floor.

“My dear, I will not mince words. I hear the day has gone poorly.” Mr. Balfour’s voice is upsettingly thin and weak.

By now, Hugh has told me that his research suggests Mr. Balfour will live only another year.

I can already see his body breaking down.

There will not be many joyous days like the ball left.

I push open the door to his bedroom and offer him my arm for support as we leverage him into the large, curtained bed.

“You may think me a fool for expending myself so much at the ball last night,” Mr. Balfour chuckles as he settles against the pillow.

“But as an old man, I know to take my pleasures wherever I can find them.”

My head jerks up, shocked and shamed. It’s as if he read my mind.

He gives a wry smile that reminds me of Hugh’s.

Perhaps smugness is genetic. “Do you think the infirm cannot tell when the youth mourn them? I see it behind your eyes. But it is foolish to do so. I have had two wives in my time. I loved them both and lost them both. But I am grateful for the time we spent together. I hope my family will feel the same about me when I have passed. Be glad when you have someone, and when they are gone, be glad you had them once.”

My throat tightens uncomfortably at his words, and I know if I answer my voice will be choked. “I don’t know if I know how to do that,” I admit. “I seem to have trouble not living in the past.”

“So do we all, sometimes,” Mr. Balfour agrees, nodding his head sagely.

“But the future brings wonderful things, too. Take my son, for example. In the past, he was always rushing about. He wanted nothing more than to see the world, and those desires took him far from home. But now, the years have brought him a new, sober outlook. He stays close to family. I have never known my son to be as thoughtful, to inquire half so much about others as he has this past month. That is new. And it is lovely.”

“Yes,” I say, thoughtful. It seems that however much they looked alike, Hugh and his great-uncle were different in temperament. The hero of Waterloo traveled far, but all Hugh wants is to get back home. “Hugh is very kind.”

“Very kind,” Mr. Balfour echoes. “But also, I think, afraid. There is a lust for life missing in him now. What stole that from him, do you suppose? The war?”

Mr. Balfour reaches out his gnarled hand to pat my own. “As I said, not a lot of good days left for me. I’ll confess I am looking forward to your wedding. You are a lovely young woman, Mrs. Bright. Full of life. Life I rather suspect my son needs.”

“There is nothing I can offer him,” I confess, tears spilling down my cheeks. “I am a disaster. I ruin things. I make a mess. I cannot be trusted with his heart. I can hardly be trusted with my own.”