one could really expect to find a Mr Darcy outside the pages of a novel.
Then Katherine had dared to ask Lorna if she was attending the conference at Purley Hall and it had gone quiet. For over two weeks. Had Katherine overstepped the boundaries? Had she pushed things too far? Maybe it was one thing exchanging letters with a fan but quite another to meet them in the flesh.
But - just as Katherine had given up all hope - a letter had arrived.
Dear Katherine,
I’m so sorry not to have replied sooner but I’ve been away and I still can’t answer your question as to whether or not I’ll be at Purley. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Yours truly, Lorna.
It seemed a very odd sort of reply, Katherine thought. If Lorna Warwick was going to be at Purley, surely the organizers would want to know as she’d be the biggest name and the main pull because she was famously reclusive. In comparison to the bestselling novelist, Katherine was just a dusty fusty old lecturer. Well, young lecturer actually; she was in her early thirties. But she knew that people would come and listen to her talks only because they were true Janeites. At these conferences, anyone speaking about Jane Austen was instantly adored and held in great esteem. In fact, any sort of activity with even the slightest connection to Austen was pursued and enjoyed from Jane Austen Scrabble to Murder in the Dark which, one year, ended in uproar as it was discovered that Anne Elliot had somehow managed to murder Captain Wentworth.
Katherine smiled as she remembered. Then, trying to put thoughts of Purley out of her mind, she made a start on the pile of papers to her left which was threatening to spill onto the floor. It was mostly rubbish that had accumulated as the term had progressed. It was what she called her ‘tomorrow pile’ only she’d run out of tomorrows now.
With fingers as dextrous as a concert pianist’s, she filed, threw away and recycled until she could see the glorious wood of her desk again.
She was just about to pick up her handbag and briefcase when there was a knock on the door.
‘Come in,’ she said, wondering who was calling so late in the day without an appointment.
The door opened and a tousled head popped round.
‘Stewie,’ she said, sighing inwardly as one of her students stumbled into the room. Stewie Harper was in his first term studying English literature and he’d spent most of that time banging on her office door.
‘Dr Roberts,’ he said. ‘I hope I’m not disturbing you.’
‘No,’ she said, resigning herself to helping him out of whatever literary conundrum he now found himself in. ‘Come in.’
Stewie looked at the chair opposite Katherine’s and she motioned for him to sit down.
‘It’s the reading list,’ he said, producing it from his pocket. ‘It says we’re to read as many of these titles as possible during the term.’
‘Well, as many as you have time for,’ Katherine said. ‘We don’t expect you to spend all your time with your head in a book.’
‘Yes but I couldn’t help noticing that your book isn’t on here.’
Katherine’s eyes widened. ‘My book?’
‘Yes. The Art of Jane Austen.’
Katherine smiled. ‘I’m afraid we can’t fit all the books on the list.’
‘But it’s your book, Dr Roberts. It should’ve been on the top of the list.’
Katherine couldn’t help but be flattered. ‘Well, that’s very sweet of you, Stewie.’
‘Are you writing any more books, Dr Roberts?’
‘Not at the moment,’ she said.
‘But you’ll sign my copy, won’t you?’
‘Your copy?’
‘Of your book,’ he said, scraping around in an old carrier bag. ‘I bought it in town. I had to order a copy.’
‘You shouldn’t have gone to all that trouble,’ Katherine said, knowing that the hardback was expensive, especially on a student’s budget.
‘It wasn’t any trouble,’ Stewie said, handing it across the desk to her.
Katherine opened it to the title page and picked up her favourite pen, aware that Stewie’s eyes were upon her as she signed.
‘There you are,’ she said, smiling at him as she handed the book back.
He turned eagerly to the page, his eyes bright. ‘Oh,’ he said, his smile slipping from his face. ‘Best wishes,’ he read.
Katherine nodded. ‘My very best wishes,’ she said.
‘You don’t want to add a kiss?’
‘No, Stewie,’ she said, ‘because we both know that wouldn’t be appropriate, don’t we?’ Katherine stood up. Stewie took the hint and stood up too.
‘Dr Roberts,’ he said as they left her office together, ‘I was thinking that I might need some extra tuition. You know - over the weekends - with you.’
Katherine eyed him over her glasses, trying to make herself look as old and unattractive as possible. It wasn’t an easy look to pull off because she was strikingly attractive with porcelain-pale skin and long dark hair which waved over her shoulders. Her mouth was a problem too. It was bee-stung-beautiful and could be a terrible distraction in class when she was trying to engage her students in her poetry readings. ‘Stewie,’ she said, ‘you don’t really need my help.’
‘I don’t?’
‘No, you don’t. Your grades are consistently good and you’ve proven yourself to be an independent, free-thinking student.’
Stewie looked pleased by this but then dismay filled his face. ‘But surely you can’t do enough studying.’
‘You absolutely can,’ Katherine assured him. ‘Everybody needs a break - that’s what weekends are for. Go and have an adventure. Go bungee jumping or parachuting or something.’
‘I’d rather be studying with you.’
‘Well, I’m going away,’ she told him.
‘Where?’
‘Hampshire.’
‘Doesn’t sound very exotic,’ he said.
‘Maybe not but it’s a little piece of perfect England. Goodbye, Stewie,’ she said, picking up her pace and lengthening her stride.
‘Goodbye, Dr Roberts,’ Stewie called after her.
She didn’t look round but she had the feeling that his eyes were watching the progress of her legs down the entire length of the corridor.
Allowing
