#poor jane

No way! Really?! I think it would be nice not to remember my life, besides my mother and Talia, of course.

I would not wish my fate on anyone.

Of course I am sorry Jane

It’s scary to think we could’ve all ended up like Jane

I would’ve rather been Monique than Jane, but you know

This is serious! Connie’s right! It’s crazy to think how different our story would be if it were different

Noel and Ricky: YES!

@conradmowbray

Jane insisted that she had never been in love. One cannot, she was certain, be in love with someone when you didn’t really know them. No matter how much she’d felt she had. 

It had been in York, at the Seabury’s party. She’d had another little fit and had taken refuse in the curtains. She’d long since dried her tears and had been trying to decide how to escape the party entirely when she’d sneezed. And someone had said “bless you”. Not the most romantic of beginnings. He’d watched her when she’d emerged, as if young ladies appeared from behind curtains all the time. She’d liked that about him. He’d never made her feel strange for being herself. 

They’d talked, quite inappropriately for they hadn’t been properly introduced, as she’d tried to explain why she’d been behind a curtain at a ball. He’d looked at her with those eyes that she would later come to associate with stories about wolves, and been all politeness, but she’d known he was laughing. Only it had never felt as if he was laughing at her. The joke had been on everyone else. 

He’d somehow secured an introduction to her, though of course he hadn’t done much more. She’d never expected more. She’d never expected anything. It had been her idea, the letters. Young ladies didn’t exchange letters with unmarried gentlemen. It wasn’t done. But Jane did it just the same. It had only been to supply him with information about gardening, which was innocent enough. He’d asked, and she’d wanted to say so much more than she’d had the time for. So she’d put it in a letter, with a drawing of the grounds and each plot that she’d planned, prepared, and conquered in the name of roses and ivy and wisteria. 

It had just been letters for months. He was busy, she was constrained by the life of an unmarried girl without brothers or friends who could arrange places for people to meet. She’d filled pages with things she never said to him. It was always easier to be honest on the page. To admit that she loathed her stepfather, found her mother trying at the best of times, and wanted to see at least a bit more of England than the square footage of her family’s land. She’d told him about which novel she was reading, aware he probably thought they were silly, even if he never said so. It had been terribly innocent, really. 

And then he’d come to see her garden. She couldn’t remember what excuse he’d used, because she hadn’t cared. He was there, he’d come to see her, or at least her flowers. That had been enough. And he’d suggested that perhaps she’d like to go riding. She’d never been a devoted horsewoman til then, but after that, she rode up at least twice a week. 

She blamed her mother a little, and her stepfather a lot, for what happened after. If they hadn’t made her so isolated, she’d have had someone to talk to about everything. She’d have had someone to tell her that men who intended to marry you didn’t meet for secret riding outings, or change the subject whenever one asked what his plans for the future were. He’d never lied. He hadn’t had to. She’d lied to herself enough for both of them. So she blamed herself the most. Because she’d wanted it so badly. Wanted him. Wanted someone who would come miles away just to walk with her and admire her roses. Wanted to matter to someone. 

She couldn’t even really be angry at him. He’d told her, at the end. He could have no thoughts of marriage. His role was to find a wife for his brother. He’d told her that, at the beginning. She’d just thought ... well, she hadn’t thought nearly enough. And rather too much as well. He’d been the first, and only, man to kiss her. A proper kiss, the kind that made you aware suddenly of yourself in ways you’d thought were cold, unfeeling places. He’d made her understand what all the fuss was about, in her novels. He’d almost been like a hero in a story.