Her eyes went to my necklace. "Nice cross," she said.

I repeated myself. "You know I'm not a professional actress."

"Nice cross," she said again.

"Thank you." I pulled the newly repaired chain out of my scarf. "The last gift my mother gave me."

"Oh." Vera looked closer.

"Before she died, she had her wedding band and some other jewelry melted down to make two crosses, one for me and one for my sister."

"How lovely," Vera said.

My mother began letting go of me the day she gave me the box with the necklace inside. She had been home under the care of a hospice nurse for about a month. I visited every day after work and we spent my visits reading aloud, taking calls from Karen, and making jokes about my dad's cooking. Regular obligations went into suspense, allowing us cozy oblivion while the illness retreated to the background, as if it might leave altogether. But everything changed the day Karen drove up from Houston; my mother must have decided the time had come to say the things she needed to say to us. I wasn't prepared. Her calm acceptance of death frightened me; my throat hurt from the effort to restrain emotion. Karen and I fastened the chains around our necks, listening as she told each of us in turn how much she loved us. The days we were born were the two happiest days of her life. Karen sat close to me and our knees touched Mother's bed as she addressed each of us separately. She reached first for Karen, her hand strangely bare without her wedding rings. "Take care of Lily," she whispered. When she took my hand, I was unable to stop the tears, unable to articulate what I wanted her to know. "My good girl," she said to me. "Everything a mother could want in a daughter." Karen held a tissue to her face; my hot tears flowed as I caressed my mother's hand. When I could speak, I said, "Don't go."

Without the books, the necklace assumed the full burden of my memories as well as the connection with my mother; I could not let myself lose it. I centered the cross on my neck as they announced our group ready for boarding.

*  *  *

I stowed my carry-on, and rested with The Mysteries of Udolpho in my lap, watching passengers wrestle overhead bins. Vera opened her book, turning pages as the plane taxied down the runway. Sun blazed in the window as the aircraft turned, permitting one last look at Dallas. I looked at my open book, reading the same sentence in an endless loop, wondering what sort of person Lady Weston might be, imagining a top-heavy matron smuggling Corgis into restaurants. "How do you know Lady Weston?" I asked.

Vera placed a fingertip on the word she'd just read. "She's a patron of Nigel's from back in the old days. She knew him when he waited tables, dreaming of creating a literary festival. She offered to partner with him. Her contribution is the use of her manor house." After a slight pause, as if she'd debated further disclosure, "At least, it used to be her house. Well, that is, her husband's house."

"What happened?"

"Her husband died a year ago."

"So?"

"Her grandson inherited the house and the title."

Randolph? "Did Randolph inherit the Jane Austen festival as well?" I asked.

"No." Vera looked into the aisle. "But Lady Weston is a Janeite," she whispered. Noting my blank expression she added, "An enthusiastic admirer of Jane Austen's works."

"Is that bad?" I whispered back.

"Only for Nigel, when he has to reconcile Lady Weston's conservationist approach to Austen with the progressive theories of the academics involved with the festival."

I learn something new every day.

Vera leaned in confidentially. "My poor husband, caught between Fanny Wars and a costume ball."

"Fanny Wars?" I asked.

Vera looked at me. "Did you read the essays I gave you?" she asked.

"There was nothing about Fanny Wars in those essays," I said. "That's the sort of thing I'd remember." Vera frowned as air forced its way through circulators, smelling like cheap perfume, blowing wisps of hair into Vera's face. "You're afraid they'll meet at the lease signing and start a Fanny Fight in spite of your husband's best efforts," I said.

Vera returned to her book.

As we climbed into the sky, I imagined Lady Weston duking it out with Professor Plum over the meaning of Fanny's opposition to theatricals in Mansfield Park. I spent at least fifteen minutes staring at page 127, wondering how this had happened to me; and then wondered if Professor Plum was married. "So," I said. "The new lease will have to be negotiated with the so-called Randolph Department, and Randolph is not a Janeite. Therefore you are afraid of losing the house for good."

"I am not afraid of any such thing," Vera said, turning off her reading light and closing her eyes.

Staring uncomprehendingly at the pages of my book, I imagined myself as Fanny Price, the poor cousin, brought as a child to live in the home of her rich uncle. I have always loved Fanny Price. Of course, I knew I wouldn't play the lead, but I kept imagining myself in the part. Whenever I read, I always assumed the protagonist's part. This assumption held the mere date of my birth responsible for my present mediocrity. Had I been born in an earlier century, when people appreciated special qualities like mine, I would be beautiful and confident, and travel in higher circles. Edmund would have fallen for me.

The moment to test this idea was fast approaching. A clean slate and the opportunity to reinvent myself lay before me. Nobody here knew the old me. Even with the lease problem, a new world lay ahead where I would finally fit. Surely I'd done the right thing.

Four

On the first page of my new life, I met my first Janeite. She stood inside the entry to the residence hall, a dormitory on loan to the festival where I would reside for the summer. She checked participants off her list and passed out brown envelopes and keys. Like a Greek statue, classical in her beautiful white Regency dress trimmed with red, her ensemble included a sleeveless overgarment that buttoned once just below her bodice. Her hair peeked from beneath a plumed military-style hat, perfect spit curls coiled on her brow. Gloved to her elbows in pure white, she reached out to straighten the hand-lettered sign on her table, "Welcome to Mansfield Park," as the two people in front of me approached her. In spite of slight pressure behind my eyes and a haze of fatigue, the remote possibility that Elizabeth Banks might show up kept me on my toes. I read every name tag that passed, looking for Miss Banks, waiting my turn, leaning against the wall for support. The temperature disoriented me; the bracing chill from open windows rather than air-conditioning led me to believe that in crossing the ocean we'd traveled over a seasonal divide, from summer into fall.

Gary, a twentyish Middle Eastern student who had fetched us from the airport, offered to find me a chair, but he'd done enough already, lugging my bags up the front steps, holding a sign for us in the terminal, and driving us in his itty-bitty car on the wrong side. He kept his window open through the endless repetition of London's fringes and beyond, but closed it on the motorway, a charming turnpike where only flat-faced trucks and undersized cars participated in traffic. Driving between villages, I'd seen spires and hedgerows through my mental fog and imagined people foxhunting. No billboards anywhere.

Vera touched my arm and nodded for me to move forward. She looked a bit nervous, but when I stepped up to the check-in table, the Janeite looked past me at Vera. "Vera," she said, "I didn't see you come in!" She extended her gracious gloved arms, a tiny fringed bag dangled from her wrist. And then I put it together. In order to proceed, we had to get past this woman who held the official list in her possession.

Vera cleared her throat. "What a beautiful dress," Vera said.

The Janeite stepped back and held her skirt for us to admire. "Oh, this is my Emma dress," she said. "But I had the pelisse made"—she indicated the overrobe—"the year we did Persuasion. Do you remember? My Anne Elliot pelisse." She smiled, unbuttoning the single button of the pelisse for a better view of the dress. "Oh, Vera, you know how I love this festival and dressing for Dear Jane. From the minute I leave London, all the way on the train, and till the moment I'm home again, every stitch of clothing on my body is Regency." The Janeite glanced at me, still dressed in my flight attendant pantsuit.

"For 'Dear Jane'?" I asked.

Vera said, "Mrs. Russell, I'd like to present Lily Berry." And then to me, "Lily, Mrs. Russell is a very important member of our volunteer staff."

Mrs. Russell bent to raise her skirt, revealing a scrolling design just above the ankle that would have been a tattoo except it was woven into the thick white stocking that covered her legs like something surgery patients wear.

"Lovely," Vera said.

Mrs. Russell straightened, reaching for her heavy hat whose thick ribbons might choke her if the hat were allowed to fall. "Wait till you see my ball gown." And then her face grew serious. She took Vera's hand, moved closer, and whispered, "Magda says we're not to plan a ball. She says the ballroom is booked every evening of the season and we're not to disrupt the schedule."

Vera stood silent, frowning, while people behind us rolled suitcases across the floor.

"You know what this means to us," she said, tilting her head so plaintively I couldn't help but sympathize. "Nigel promised a ball this year but we can't seem to find Nigel anywhere and Magda won't budge."