My own Jane Austen Novel

Three or four years past now, I attend my first country dance. I was staying a group of other young gentlemen and ladies at the time, and we traveled just outside the town we were staying in to a little inn. The entire evening was magical; it started to rain just before we reached our destination and stepping out of our vehicle the young gentlemen held umbrellas and jackets over our heads with not regard for their own personal comfort. At that young age, it was positively the most romantic thing that had ever happened to me. The dancing was stately and elegant, but with plenty of time for giggles and youthful exuberance between steps. Leaving, I thought this was surely something I would make a habit of.

Over the next year I tried in vain to find another country dance. It wasn't until I entered school in a small town in Pennsylvania that I found anything remotely similar in style or nature. It was at this school that I discovered Contra dancing, a derivation of the more formal country dances. Every week I went, somehow when the gentlemen swung me I could smile and everyone would forget to be too grown up to break out in laughter. Months I went, all through the fall and winter. Then, come spring, a young man I had never seen before entered the class.

I noticed him right away, he was standing to one side of the table looking confused. I won't deny he was handsome, and when the instructor charged me with teaching him the steps I blushed at my good fortune. At the closing waltz he again asked for my hand. "Let me teach you something new;" he smiled and before I knew it we were flying over the floor in a ballroom sashay. He came back again and again, and an attachment slowly began to form.

Then came the summer months, we exchanged short correspondences, but his time training for the army kept us from having anything more then a quick message here and there. But surely, the next fall, we would pick off just where we had left off. And we did. Except that now things were blurred, there were rumors and the idea of another girl. Over the summer he had led me to believe that she was of no matter, an old attachment, but now I came to understand that she was much more.

Then came the party. It was an all day affair, starting with a picnic lunch and lasting into the evening with dancing and plenty of refreshments. A close friend and I grew tired in the late afternoon; we wanted to nap and discuss all the things close female companions like to talk about, namely whether or not my young man was worth believing. Luckily for us that afternoon, and luckily especially for me, one young man offered his room for our convince. He stayed with us, and though at the time I thought it to be a bit of an annoyance, he intrigued me slightly. He was quite good looking and though I had been to that house many times before, I didn't recall really seeing him but for a couple of times. I must have made an impression because after that evening he kept after me.

He seemed like a genuine courteous young man, something hard to come by in today's world. What perhaps intrigued me even more though were the rumors of his illicit past. He was one of the dark characters from one of my novels, A Rhett Butler come to sweep me off my feet and carry me away. And yet, I refused to be swept so easily. As things with the first young man fell apart, I nursed my heartache and began to see all the good things that made the second one different. He held my hand while I cried, he told me the bold truth whatever the cost to him. His eyes had a devious glint in them, but he looked at me as no one ever had before.

We started going on walks, long walks, after nightfall down long deserted roads. He was always careful to keep me on the inside safe from danger of any passing traffic, he held my hand and together we counted the stars. Those nights I lost myself in the mischievous glimmer of his eye, and the warm safety of his hand. Though my heart had been nearly broken when we first found each other, he stayed by my side and taught me all the reasons why I was worthy of love.

It has almost been two years since that party, and tonight I found myself back at the little inn dancing country dances. The music and the dances and the people were all the same. I laughed and talked and gossiped, but at the end of the dance I realized the romance I had felt years ago wasn't there anymore. I had left it behind in Pennsylvania, with my very own Mr. Darcey