{"id":1652,"date":"2013-10-01T22:48:04","date_gmt":"2013-10-02T05:48:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lindacollison.com\/?p=1652"},"modified":"2013-10-01T23:14:40","modified_gmt":"2013-10-02T06:14:40","slug":"lost-letters-lizzie-austen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/lost-letters-lizzie-austen\/","title":{"rendered":"Lost Letters of Lizzie Austen"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"+Ann_Thornton_Going_Aloft\"<\/a>The Lost Letters of Lizzie Austen; a novel in progress.<\/p>\n

by Linda Collison<\/p>\n

I was sitting in the Greenwich library,\u00a0 staring at my notes and nearly falling asleep, having turned up little of note in my research that afternoon, when someone came up behind me, and coughed politely.\u00a0 I turned to see an old seaman, dressed in costume, a performer or re-enactor, perhaps. But on second glance I realized it might be a woman.\u00a0 She looked to be out of her mind; quite mad as they say here in the motherland.\u00a0 Or maybe the poor thing was lost — or looking for the restroom.\u00a0 Looking again, I saw she might not be as old as I first assumed.\u00a0 Or maybe she was far older than I could imagine.\u00a0 Her hands were so very wrinkled, as if she had been too long in a salty bath.\u00a0 Her hair dripped\u00a0from under her hat.<\/p>\n

“Can I help you?” I whispered.<\/p>\n

She looked at me with shrewd eyes, sizing me up.\u00a0 \u201cYes ma\u2019am, I believe you can.\u201d\u00a0 She then dropped her seaman\u2019s gear bag at my feet with a thump.\u00a0 It was damp and salty, speckled with tar,\u00a0and smelled like bilge water.<\/p>\n

“What’s that?”<\/p>\n

“Jane\u2019s letters.”<\/p>\n

“Jane?\u00a0 Do I know Jane?”<\/p>\n

She snorted.\u00a0 “Everybody knows Jane.\u00a0 Jane Austen.”<\/p>\n

I blinked.\u00a0 Poor woman was obviously delusional.\u00a0 “But why give them to me”, I asked, not wanting to seem rude.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 “If they\u2019re really letters the great novelist penned, shouldn\u2019t you give them to the librarian? An historian, perhaps?\u00a0 Or to the museum? You could aution them at Sotheby’s and make your fortune.”<\/p>\n

She shook her head slowly.\u00a0 Sadly.\u00a0 A strand of seaweed fell out of her hair.\u00a0 \u201cThey wouldn\u2019t believe me.\u00a0 They would think it\u2019s but a hoax.”<\/p>\n

“But why give them to me?\u00a0 I’m an American.\u00a0 So unworthy.”\u00a0 My attempt at satire went completely unnoticed.<\/p>\n

“True.\u00a0 But you know.\u00a0 About my kind.\u00a0 And you’re a writer.”<\/p>\n

“Your kind?”<\/p>\n

She nodded, biting her lip.\u00a0 Allowing her eyes to meet mine.\u00a0 \u201cGirls in breeches.\u00a0 On ships. In disguise.\u201d<\/p>\n

What did that have to do with Jane Austen, I wondered. Or maybe I spoke aloud.<\/p>\n

“Jane Asten was my sister,” the woman said.<\/p>\n

My heart thumped in my throat.\u00a0 Was this a ghost?\u00a0 Was I mad?<\/p>\n

“You\u2019re Cassandra?”<\/p>\n

She rolled her eyes and sighed. \u201cHardly.\u00a0 Do I look like Cassandra?\u00a0 I\u2019m her other sister.\u00a0 Lizzie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before I could say a word, she blurted out, \u201cI\u2019m the sister mother conveniently forgot about.\u00a0 Forgot, then denied.\u00a0 But it\u2019s here in these letters, it\u2019s all here.\u00a0 She thought she burned them but I tricked her, you see.\u00a0 I made copies of all my letters before I sent them \u2013 and I saved all she ever sent to me. You might say I was her alter ego \u2013 except I was her younger sister.\u00a0 The one they forgot.\u00a0 It\u2019s all there.\u00a0 I want you to have them.\u00a0 I want to you tell my story.”<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t believe a word of it, of course, though as a novelist, the idea grabbed me and wouldn’t let go.<\/p>\n

“What do you want for the letters?\u00a0 The whole sack, “I asked.<\/p>\n

“Fifty quid.\u00a0 They’re no longer any use to me, but I can\u2019t just give them away, now can I?”\u00a0 A slight smile tugged at her lips.<\/p>\n

Heart thumping, I reached for my handbag and rummaged through my wallet.\u00a0 I had just enough money.\u00a0 Surely the letters were fake, or maybe the sack was filled with paper from the waste bin, but I must say, my curiosity was piqued.\u00a0 I closed my handbag and reached\u00a0 to give her the money, but she was gone.\u00a0 Vanished.\u00a0 Leaving only the damp canvas sack of letters, a puddle of water,\u00a0 and the slight smell of the harbor at low tide.<\/p>\n

To be continued…<\/p>\n

copyright 2013 Linda Collison<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Lost Letters of Lizzie Austen; a novel in progress. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[252],"tags":[253,392],"class_list":["post-1652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-lost-letters-of-lizzie-austen","tag-jane-austen","tag-the-lost-letters-of-lizzie-austen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1652"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1661,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1652\/revisions\/1661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}