Chapter One
My dear Cassandra, I do wish you could have been at the
party last night. I was compelled to converse with the most
disagreeable woman. But then, as I have said to you before,
I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me
the trouble of liking them a great deal.
—JANE AUSTEN, in a letter to her sister, Cassandra, 24
December 1798
It was not, of course, exactly what Jane had written to her
sister that long-ago Christmas Eve, but the sentiment was
the same. Besides, after more than two hundred years, she
could hardly be expected to remember every little detail of
her voluminous correspondence. Although she supposed she
could check for herself—there was a collection of her
letters sitting on a shelf not ten feet away. Instead, she
remained where she was and imagined how she would describe
the disagreeable woman standing before her in a letter to
Cassie.
Melodie Gladstone was slight, her birdlike arms and pale
skin giving her the appearance of fragility, as if she might
at any moment collapse under the weight of her own head. Her
hair, blond as summer wheat, was gathered at the nape of her
neck and tied with a pink ribbon. When she spoke her voice
was soft, and every head in the room was forced to lean
toward her as she read. Elizabeth’s spirits soon rising to
playfulness again, she wanted Mr. Darcy to account for his
having ever fallen in love with her. “How could you begin?”
said she. “I can comprehend your going on charmingly, when
you had once made a beginning; but what could set you off in
the first place?”
“I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the
words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was
in the middle before I knew that I had begun.”
“My beauty you had early withstood, and as for my manners—my
behaviour to you was at least always bordering on the
uncivil, and I never spoke to you without rather wishing to
give you pain than not. Now be sincere; did you admire me
for my impertinence?” “For the liveliness of your mind, I did.”
“You may as well call it impertinence at once. It was very
little less. The fact is, that you were sick of civility, of
deference, of officious attention. You were disgusted with
the women who were always speaking, and looking, and
thinking for your approbation alone. I roused, and
interested you, because I was so unlike them. Had you not
been really amiable, you would have hated me for it; but in
spite of the pains you took to disguise yourself, your
feelings were always noble and just; and in your heart, you
thoroughly despised the persons who so assiduously courted
you. There—I have saved you the trouble of accounting for
it; and really, all things considered, I begin to
think it perfectly reasonable. To be sure, you knew no
actual good of me—but nobody thinks of that when they fall
in love.”
Melodie Gladstone closed the book in her hands and gazed
intently at her audience. “You see,” she said, “Mr. Darcy
fell in love with Elizabeth because she wasn’t afraid to be
herself. This was her reward for not accepting the first
proposal offered to her.” A murmur of agreement rippled
through the crowd.
“I told you we’d have a packed house.” Lucy had come to
stand beside Jane at the back of the store. She was
surveying with obvious satisfaction the crowd perched on
folding chairs set up between the bookcases.
“We certainly do,” Jane replied to her young assistant. “I
can’t believe they’re actually buying this nonsense.” It was
bad enough, she thought, that so many of them had arrived in
costume. She counted two dozen Elizabeths, and perhaps a
quarter that many Darcys. Although I suppose some of the
Elizabeths could be Emmas. Or Mariannes or Catherines or
Annes. Possibly some of them were even Fannys, although
she doubted this. Very few readers seemed to like Fanny.
“We’ve already sold sixty- three copies of the book,” Lucy
informed her. “And I guarantee you we’ll break a hundred
once she’s done talking.”
Jane said nothing. Although she was grateful for the sales,
she couldn’t help wishing they were for some other book.
Any other book.
“We’re all here tonight because we believe—as Elizabeth
Bennet believed, and as Jane believed—that true love is
life’s most precious gift.”
Jane regarded Melodie Gladstone with a mixture of active
dislike and reluctant awe. How had this book of hers become
such a phenomenon? She remembered glancing through an
advance copy of it six months earlier and thinking it was
doomed to failure. Now she realized that not only were very
many people foolish enough to embrace it, they were
embracing it with an excitement that bordered on the
hysterical.
“The message of Waiting for Mr. Darcy is this,”
Melodie said, holding up her book as if it were some kind of
holy text. “If you really want to experience the beauty of
love—true love—you won’t give yourself to anyone until
you’ve found it.”
The audience applauded. Melodie beamed, then raised a hand,
silencing them. “I know many of you have already committed
yourselves to this ideal,” she said. “I can tell by the
number of lockets I see out there.”
Laughter filled the air as people turned their heads to look
at one another. Some raised their hands to their throats and
clutched at the silver lockets that hung from chains around
their necks. Melodie held up an identical locket, letting it
dangle in the air like a hypnotist’s charm. Her sky- blue
eyes surveyed her listeners. “For those of you who don’t
know,” she said, “this locket is the symbol of those of us
who have decided that we will indeed wait for our Mr. Darcy
to come to us.” She opened the locket to reveal a portrait
inside. “Isn’t he handsome?” Melodie asked. “His portrait
was painted especially for us by none other than Paul Henry
Mattheson, the same artist who created all of the beautiful
covers for the collection of Jane Austen novels my publisher
has reissued in conjunction with Waiting for Mr. Darcy.
This locket is available only to those who sign the
contract found at the back of my book and send it in along
with receipts for the purchase of the book and the
novels. So, if you have one, you’re part of a very special
club.”
Jane saw heads nodding all over the room. The reading was
starting to feel like a religious revival. She half expected
Melodie Gladstone to call forward those wishing to be saved
from sin while the devout fell out in the aisles weeping and
shouting hallelujahs. Instead, the author put the locket
down and clasped her hands together.
“It has been such a joy to meet you all tonight,” she said.
“I can’t tell you how thankful I am to see you all and to
know that perhaps, in some small way, I’ve encouraged you to
embrace our beloved Jane’s message of purity and self- respect.”
As the room erupted in thunderous applause, Lucy called
out,
“Miss Gladstone will be signing books in just a
moment. As she mentioned, those of you who purchase a copy
of her book as well as the set of Jane Austen novels
will be eligible to also purchase one of the lockets with
Mr. Darcy’s portrait inside. We have a limited number of—”
Before she could finish, the audience stood up and stampeded
for the tables stacked high with books, shouting and pushing
one another out of the way. Jane stepped back as two girls,
both in Empire- waist dresses, elbowed past her in a mad
dash to be the first ones to the table.
They may be interested in purity, Jane thought as she
watched the girls grabbing for books, but their manners
are sorely in need of reinforcement.
The next hour and a half was a whirlwind of ringing up
sales, bagging purchases, and marveling at the seemingly
endless line of people who wanted Melodie to sign their
copies of her book. Many of the women, and not a few of the
young men, left the shop in tears, clutching books to their
chests and lovingly stroking the lockets around their necks.
Finally the last autograph seeker was shown the door by
Lucy, and Jane let out a sigh of relief. The table of books
she and Lucy had set out for the event was completely empty.
Behind the counter she called up the night’s sales figures
on the computer screen. When she saw them she gasped audibly.
“That’s more than we made in the last three weeks combined,”
said Lucy, who was peering over Jane’s shoulder.
“It’s unbelievable,” Jane agreed.
“It’s like that every night,” sighed Melodie Gladstone.
“Everybody loves their Jane Austen.”
Jane was surprised to hear the change in the author’s tone.
She looked up to find Melodie sprawled back in her chair,
her feet stretched out beneath the table as she massaged her
forehead. “Do you have any aspirin?” she asked. “Better yet,
do you have any vodka?”
Jane and Lucy exchanged glances, then Lucy went off in
search of aspirin. Jane smiled politely and said, “This tour
must be exhausting for you.”
“It’s a fucking nightmare,” Melodie replied. Jane cringed.
“Every night it’s the same thing. ‘Don’t have sex until
you’ve found the right one. Keep yourself pure. Wear this
stupid locket and one day your prince will come.’ What a
load of crap. But they eat it up.” She waved her hand in the
air. “You’ve seen the numbers.”
“They certainly are impressive,” Jane said wryly.
“That’s why I do the dog and pony show,” Melodie replied.
“Every time one of these idiots buys a copy I picture
another five bucks piling up in my bank account.” Lucy
returned with a glass of water and two aspirin, which she
handed to Melodie.
Melodie popped the pills into her mouth and drained half the
glass. “My head is killing me,” she said. “I should have
taken a Valium.”
“So,” Jane said carefully, “you don’t really believe what
you say in your book?”
Melodie shook her head. “Please,” she said. “Do you really
think there are any Mr. Darcys left in the world? No, there
aren’t. I don’t think there ever were. But these girls want
to think there are, so I give them what they want.”
“And in return they make you quite wealthy,” Jane commented.
“It’s just my piece of the Austen pie,” Melodie said.
“Everyone’s in on it now. You’ve seen the books. Austen is
all the rage.
You put her name on anything and it will sell. Hell, my
publisher is coming out with a Jane Austen massage book in
the spring. You know what it’s called? Sense and
Sensuality.” She laughed. “I bet it sells two million
copies.”
“We can only hope,” Jane remarked dryly. If she’d disliked
Melodie Gladstone before, she now loathed her. The woman was
vile, an opportunist who was using her name to make
her fortune. Meanwhile, I haven’t seen a royalty check in
almost two hundred years, she thought.
Melodie, oblivious to Jane’s growing animosity, snorted
rudely. “I don’t get the big deal about Austen myself,” she
said. “I mean, have you read her novels? I could barely get
through them. Most of what I know I got from watching the
PBS specials. But the books? Talk about boring.” She made a
grotesque snoring sound that caused Jane to clench her jaw
in irritation.
“I love Austen,” Lucy said. “I think her books are
wonderful. And if you ask me, they’re not about finding Mr.
Darcy at all; they’re about young women breaking convention
and going after what they want.”
Jane sent Lucy a silent thank- you. She gets it,
thought Jane. It never was about Darcy.
“All I know is that the more people there are who love Mr.
Darcy, the bigger my royalty checks are,” Melodie said. “I
could care less about the rest of it.”
You mean you couldn’t care less, Jane resisted
the urge to say out loud. Not only was Melodie Gladstone
without dignity, she had appalling grammar.
“We have a few books left in the storage room,” said Lucy.
“Would you mind signing them?”
Melodie rolled her eyes. “I suppose not,” she said. “I wish
you’d had them out here for the reading, but someone is sure
to snatch them up. I hear I’m one of the top five holiday
sellers this year. I’d be number one if it wasn’t for that
book about that stupid blind kid and her dog.”
Lucy retreated to the stockroom and returned with half a
dozen copies of Waiting for Mr. Darcy, which she set
on the table in front of the author. “When you’re done I’ll
drive you back to the hotel,” she offered.
Jane, who had been counting the cash drawer, looked up.
“Lucy, I can drive Miss Gladstone back to her hotel,” she
said. “Why don’t you go home?”
Lucy glanced at Melodie, who was signing the last of the
books. “You’re sure?” she asked Jane.
“I don’t care which one of you drives me,” said Melodie,
snapping the cap back on the pen she’d used to sign the
books. “But let’s get going. I’ve got to be on a plane for
Columbus or Detroit or some other shit hole first thing in
the morning.”
“I’m quite sure,” Jane told Lucy. “You go on. I’ll see you
in the morning. Thank you for all of your work on the
event.”
“No problem,” said Lucy. She turned to Melodie. “Thank you
for coming,” she said. “It was nice to meet you.”
The woman nodded but said nothing. After a short pause
during which it became obvious that Melodie had no intention
of returning Lucy’s thanks, Lucy shot Jane a look. “See you
tomorrow,” she said as she turned and walked to the front door.
“I’m ready to go,” said Melodie, standing and putting on her
coat before Lucy had even shut the door behind her.
Jane looked at the woman and smiled. “Well then,” she said.
“Let’s tarry no longer in the parlor of joy.”
Melodie stared at her.
“My car is out back,” said Jane. “I’ll just get my coat.”
A few minutes later they were sitting in Jane’s beat- up
Volvo wagon, waiting for the heat to kick in. Melodie rubbed
her hands together. “How old is this thing, anyway?” she
asked dismissively. “You should never ask a lady her age,”
Jane said primly, earning a peculiar look from Melodie.
She put the car into gear and pulled out of the lot. As they
drove through the snowy streets of downtown Brakeston, Mel -
odie looked out the window. “This place is so boring,” she
said. “How can you stand living here?”
“I find its unassuming character charming,” Jane answered.
“If I had to live in a place like this, I would absolutely
die,” Melodie continued. “When I saw my tour
itinerary I was like, Brakeston? Where the hell is Brakeston?”
“Lucy went to a lot of trouble to get you here,” Jane
informed her. “And I think the turnout was quite impressive,
don’t you?” Melodie shrugged. “It was nothing compared to
the New York reading,” she said. “We had to turn people away
from that one.”
“Oh, the horror,” said Jane sympathetically.
“Right,” Melodie agreed. “Anyway, I guess I’m probably the
biggest thing to ever come through here, so at least I added
a little excitement to those people’s lives.”
“We’re ever so thankful you agreed to grace us,” said Jane.
“I’m sure we’ll be talking about it for months.”
“I just can’t wait to get back to civilization,” Melodie
said, sighing.
That’s it, Jane thought. She suddenly turned off the
main street and headed down a quiet side lane.
“The hotel is that way,” Melodie protested.
“This is a shortcut,” said Jane curtly.
At the end of the street she pulled the car to the side and
stopped in front of a house that blinked red and green with
Christmas lights. On the lawn a life-size Mary and Joseph
stared at the car. Behind them Santa, Frosty, and Rudolph
gazed rapturously down at the baby Jesus asleep in his
plastic manger. Giant candy canes provided a backdrop for
three elves bearing gaily wrapped packages.
“Where are we?” Melodie asked. “What are we doing here?”
“I just need to take care of a little errand,” said Jane.
She unfastened her seat belt and leaned toward her
passenger, who was too busy looking at the bizarre Nativity
scene to notice. As Jane opened her mouth the two fangs
secreted in her upper jaw slipped from their bony sheaths
and clicked into place. When her lips connected with
Melodie’s neck, Melodie jumped and gave a little scream,
which was cut short as Jane pushed the young woman’s face
against her own coat and held it there as the blood began to
flow past her lips.