Read Online Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler - Free Book Online Page A

and Mrs. Mansfield’s honeyed replies. After he leaves, I endure Mrs. Mansfield’s regaling me ad nauseum with the various successes of the evening and the charms of Mr. Edgeworth, as if I weren’t present to see it all myself.
    “But,” she adds, “I could hardly keep my countenance when my niece rattled on about women scheming to be married. We shall see how long her high and mighty airs last. Three seasons in London and still she is unmarried. Well, you have had more than that, yet here you are. No one quite good enough for you. I had almost given up hope until Mr. Edgeworth moved into the neighborhood. And then you nearly threw it all away. It is a wonder he has endured it. However, you were quite agreeable to him tonight. Though I am ashamed of you for indulging in that nonsensical outburst. Men do not find harpies attractive.”
    I roll my eyes and turn my back on her.
    “Look at me, Jane.”
    I don’t.
    “Very well. But if I were you, I would take great care not to speak nonsense. You never know how it might be interpreted. And what might happen as a result.”
    I whip my head around, and the malevolence in her eyes makes my stomach drop.
    “Good night, my dear,” she says sweetly, closing my door. I tell myself her threats are idle; after all, what would she gain from bringing upon herself the shame of having me committed? But then I remember what she had said about telling everyone I died as a result of my riding accident, and I go cold all over with fear. I really must watch myself—especially around her.
    After I hear her footsteps terminate at her own bedroom door, I sneak down to the drawing room to spend a solitary half hour musing over Mrs. Mansfield’s threats, as well as her allusions to my past with Edgeworth and my odd reaction to him when he said good night.

Eleven
    A ctually, there’s nothing surprising about the wave of distrust that came over me when Edgeworth said good night. After all, when have I ever trusted the opposite sex? My reaction was self-preservation instinct, pure and simple.
    I want to say good night to Mr. Mansfield, whom I find in a room I would have missed completely, had I not been curious about the door at the other end of a small room filled with huge vases and baskets of cut flowers. When I open the door, Mr. Mansfield is looking at a canvas, one of dozens that are hanging on the walls, propped up on easels, or stacked against the walls. There are drop cloths on the floor, and a table filled with paints and various other containers of pungent-smelling paint supplies.
    I have an instant sensation of disorientation when I realize that the canvases are filled with abstract shapes and broad strokes of color and are mostly nonrepresentational. Did people do this kind of art in the early nineteenth century? Then again, if I can be here with my twenty-first-century mind, then I suppose other incongruities of history and art are possible, too. Still, I want to ask Mr. M about his art; what he does seems so delightfully out of place here, but I cannot reveal my ignorance.
    He smiles at me and covers the canvas he had been examining. I’m overcome with curiosity, and I walk toward the easel and reach tentatively for the cloth that covers the painting.
    “May I?” I say.
    He raises an eyebrow, as if to gauge my seriousness, then removes the cloth, revealing a bold, cubist sort of work. Part of it looks semi-representational; I can make out something that might have been a self-portrait looking in several directions at once, and the rest just slashes and swirls of color.
    “This is amazing.” I wish I knew something about this kind of art so that I can say something more intelligent.
    “You needn’t try and spare my feelings.”
    “But I like it.”
    “Are you sure you are not experiencing the effects of breathing in the smells of this place? I do feel a bit strange sometimes myself, but then again it may be the flowers next door, the profusion of which is what sometimes