Jane in Love

a public assembly. In her desperate state, her mind had collected these crumbs of regard and transmuted them into true love. He’d likely invited her to the Pump Room out of charity. Jane cursed her daydreams and put the quill down.
“What are you writing, Jane?” her mother asked as she entered the drawing room. “Not a story, I hope.” She snatched up Jane’s letter and studied it.
“No, Mama,” Jane replied.
Jane’s mother squinted at the paper. “I maintain my previous decision to incinerate any novels I find. Even now you have Mr. Withers.”
“I do not have Mr. Withers, Mama.”
Her mother put the page down. “Come now, you may write to your sister later. We are due in town.”
AS THEY CROSSED Pulteney Bridge and headed toward the center of Bath, Jane noticed something strange. Most of the townsfolk usually ignored her or shook their heads when she walked by but today a woman called, “Good morning, Jane!” with a broad smile as they passed. This peculiar salutation preceded a dozen similarly enthusiastic greetings as Jane and her mother continued down the cobblestoned street. By the time they reached the corner, every tradesman’s wife and churchgoer in the lane had waved or smiled at her. Mrs. Austen looped her arm through Jane’s happily.
“Why is everyone so pleasant, Mama?” Jane asked. “They scare me with their smiles.”
“Oh, hush now,” said her mother. “They are happy for us.”
Jane stopped walking. “Why are they happy, Mama?” Her mother made no remark. “Mama, how many people did you tell of Mr. Withers?”
“Hardly anyone!” her mother cried, waving her hand as though swatting a fly. “What is the problem, in any case? Who conceals such good news?”
“I have only been invited to an assembly.”
“What nonsense you speak sometimes,” her mother said. She dragged Jane down Stall Street and turned left, where the waves and smiles of half the population of Bath assaulted Jane. She swallowed in panic and was about to berate her mother for her foolish indiscretion when Mrs. Austen halted out in front of Maison Du Bois, a dress shop at the end of Westgate. At first Jane assumed her mother paused there to tie a bootlace, but then she turned to enter the shop.
“Mama. Have you gone mad?” Jane asked. Maison Du Bois sold the most expensive gowns in Bath, if not all of England. Locals never patronized this business; it existed solely for rich Londoners and nobles who shopped there on holiday. The child princess Charlotte had purchased her entire wardrobe there, to the dismay of the privy purse, with every gown, glove, bonnet, and boot shipped exclusively from Paris.
Mrs. Austen walked inside, pulling Jane behind her. It surprised Jane that the door remained unguarded. She expected an armed sentry to stand there, blocking the untitled likes of her and her mother from entering in their soot-stained boots, but they passed through the doors undetected. Once inside, the most beautiful room molested Jane’s eyes: white plaster roses adorned the ceiling, polished cornices trimmed with brass blessed every cabinet. A giant oak staircase soared upward into the back of the room, leading to who knew where—heaven, maybe. Glass cabinets held cream scarves of silk and damask, lemon-hued bonnets, peach slippers as light as air, and shawls spun from pure gold. Gowns hung from every surface. It more resembled a patisserie than a dress shop.
“What a dreadful place,” Jane said. “This will not do at all.”
“This is what the afterlife must be like,” Mrs. Austen said in a hushed tone.
A shop hand scowled at them from behind a cabinet. “Are you lost?” He studied them from head to toe and made little attempt to conceal his appraisal.
Jane nodded. “Let’s go, Mama,” she said. She made for the exit.
Her mother ignored her and turned to the man. “You sell dresses here, sir?”
“As you can see, madam,” he said. “Expensive ones.”
“Good,” she said, with a nod. “We should like to buy one.”
“Mama, no!” Jane said.
“Quiet, daughter, or you shall get a slap,” Mrs. Austen said.
“Are you aware, madam, this shop once made a hat for Marie Antoinette?” the shop hand said, sniffing at Mrs. Austen.
“Before she lost her head, I suppose,” Mrs. Austen said, raising an eyebrow and tilting her head. The tone and the words warmed Jane’s heart; her mother used her wit when she wanted to.
The man gasped. “We make and import the finest gowns for the most exclusive commissions.”
“I am glad to hear it. Please make one for my daughter.” She crossed her arms over her chest. A stalemate ensued where the shop hand refused to move, and Mrs. Austen refused to leave. Finally, the man realized sensibly that Mrs. Austen possessed more stamina for stubbornness than he. He sneered and crouched down to measure Jane with his length of tape.
He proceeded with great ceremony, tutting and clucking and muttering under his breath at the length of Jane’s arm and the size of her waist, as though each measurement surprised him, despite Jane’s genteel proportions. A more objective person might have even called her figure pretty, or lithe, but not this person with a vested determination to find fault. He emitted a long sigh, then retrieved a single gown on a silk hanger, declaring, “This is all we have in her measurement.”
Jane studied the dress and gasped. “Mama” was all she said. Surely a month of skill and love had brought this dress into being. An ivory overdress of silk shrouded a gown of bone-white muslin. The seamstress had embroidered lines of roses into the strips of gold that ran down the dress. Jane discerned the petals and leaves of each flower; she imagined a woman leaning over her table for hundreds of hours in a drafty workshop on the Left Bank, with a tiny needle and delicate thread. Lengths of silk braid were used for its closures, giving it the appearance of a military coat, the detail Jane approved of most. It reminded her of a uniform her brothers Frank and Charles, who were