Dancing With Mr. Darcy: Stories Inspired by Jane Austen and Chawton House Library by Sarah Waters Read Free Book Online

over a page of Dr Johnson’s works that lay on her small table.
    ‘What then is to be done?’ she read. ‘The more we inquire, the less we can resolve.’
    True, thought Mrs Ferrars, but she relished the challenge of inquiring nonetheless. That was what being a detective meant.

    My inspiration: Elinor Dashwood seems to be surrounded by mysteries and people telling her their secrets, so I thought it would be fun to cast her in the role of a detective and cross Sense and Sensibility with The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.

TEARS FALL ON ORKNEY
    Nancy Saunders
    Dear Jane. I’m on my way to Orkney. At last! I hope you don’t mind first name terms. ‘Miss Austen’ sounds too distant and, even though we are separated by two centuries, I feel you are the one person who will understand where I’m coming from. Love. Isn’t that the biggest question of all? I’ve stumbled from lover to lover with the thirst of someone lost in the desert. For the last two months I’ve thought of nothing but being here in Kirkwall – with Aidan. I have roughly known him for two years. He has brown eyes, sings songs about picking blackberries and can find a joke in anything. He bakes cupcakes filled with apple pieces and cinnamon, and walks everywhere. The last time I saw him he put new strings on my guitar.
    I’m travelling all this way, chasing love. Imagine a great mechanical bird, big enough to hold one hundred people, and then picture it 20,000 feet high, flying above the clouds. We chase all over the world like this, in a matter of hours. There’s still enough looking-out–of-the-window time, which I’m sure you will agree is an essential travelling companion. From my tiny window on the plane to Orkney I can see the hills around Edinburgh lie snug under a blanket of faded green velvet, and the snow on top of the Cairngorms, like gentle spills of cream. From 16,000 feet, the string of islands looks like tiny, far away worlds. When we come down to land all I can see is the sea and then some grass and then we’re bumping along the ground.
    I know what you must be thinking. I admire Aidan, and yes – I think I have begun to love him. I’ve pictured us getting married and having a child and we’re living in a cottage by the sea, growing vegetables. This is all quite hazy and only gazed at in the fleetest of moments. The pursuit of love is the one activity where I have boundless foolishness and daring.
    Aidan meets me at the tiny airport and hugs me tight. We grin at each other like excited children. Then we drive to the sea. I have to change my shoes and while I’m lacing up my boots the clips I’d carefully put in my hair at 6 a.m. blow out in the wind. Aidan doesn’t seem to notice. We charge off down the path and through a gate that Aidan points out isn’t of the kissing sort; and then we run down to the beach. I find four stones marked with circles. Aidan does this thing where he picks up a stone to show me and as soon as I say, ‘Oh that’s nice,’ he throws it into the sea! He’s so funny. I can hardly keep up with him; he springs up the rocks like a goat. We share the last three pieces of my Cadbury’s Caramel – chocolate that ordinarily I would eat all myself. It’s the strangest feeling flying into the moment I’ve been thinking about for so long.
    We run back along the path, pushing each other towards puddles. This is a basic form of what you called the Art of Flirting, I think. As we stand on top of the cliff catching our breath, Aidan says he would like to take some time out to do his music while I’m here, which I say is absolutely fine, even though my heart drops like a stone. We drive to Kirkwall, the main town hunkered down in the bay, the houses and buildings clinging together like barnacles. We have a lunch of chicken and coriander soup that Aidan has made then we walk into town to the museum. It’s about to close so we pass all the glass cabinets filled with artefacts and have a go at building the