“
She was sitting on a bench, her skirts bunched up on her thighs and her elbows resting on her knees as she tried to slow her breathing, when she heard a male voice.
“Um, I think I should tell you I’m here.”
Jane sat upright, quickly pulling her skirts back down to her ankles. She had been wearing drawers, of course, but it still felt absurdly immodest to sit that way in 1816 attire. She looked around, seeing no one.
“Where are you?” she asked.
Theodore, her dance partner of late, stood from behind the bush directly in front of her. His impressive height made it seem that he was slowly expanding while standing up, like stretched taffy.
“What were you doing back there?”
“I’m a gardener,” he said, raising the shovel and pick like a show of evidence. “I was just working here, I wasn’t trying to spy.”
“You, uh, caught me there at an unladylike moment. Mrs. Wattlesbrook would probably box my ears.”
“That’s why I spoke. I wanted to let you know you were not alone before you did something--something worse.”
“Like what?”
“Whatever women do when they think they’re alone.” He laughed. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m talking about, you surprised me and I’m just--” His smile dropped. “Sorry, I shouldn’t talk…I’m not supposed to talk to you.”
“Well, you already have. We may as well meet for real this time, without old Wattlesbrook spying. I’m Jane.”
“Theodore the gardener,” he said, wiping off his hand and then offering it to her. She shook it, wondered if they should be bowing and curtsying, but is that what you do with a gardener? The entire conversation felt forbidden, like a secret Austen chapter that she discovered longhand in some forgotten file.
“The gardens look lovely.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
Ma’am? she thought.
“So,” he said, his eyes taking in everything but her face, “you’re from the former colonies?”
She looked hard at him to detect if he was serious. He glanced at her, then down again, and sort of bowed. She laughed.
He tossed his pick into the ground. “I can’t play this. I sound completely daft.”
“Why would you have to play anything?”
“I’m supposed to be invisible. You don’t know all the lectures we heard on the matter--stay out of the way, look down, don’t bother the guests. I shouldn’t have said a word, but I was afraid of getting stuck behind that shrub all day trying not to make a peep. Or worse, you discovering me after a time and thinking I was a lecherous lunatic trying to peek up your skirt. So, anyhow, how do you do, the name’s Martin Jasper, originally from Bristol, raised in Sheffield, enjoy seventies rock and walks in the rain, and please don’t tell Mrs. Wattlesbrook. I need this job.”
“I didn’t exactly find Mrs. Wattlesbrook the kind of lady I’d be tempted to confide in. Don’t worry, Martin.”
“Thanks. Guess I should leave you to your lady stuff.” He picked up his tools and walked away.
”
”