“Wait…” Julia said, taking a step out from behind the stairs. “You really are Blanche Ingram, aren’t you?”
Perhaps it was Blanche’s telltale sneer that had done it, but Julia seemed to recognize her.
“Daughter of Lady Ingram, yes,” Blanche said, drawing herself up.
“You have a sister—a younger sister? And a brother?”
“I do. What, have you been reviewing your Debrett’s?”
“I don’t know what that is,” Julia said dismissively. “But I’ve been readingJane Eyre.”
“One more time, I dare you!” Blanche threatened, her anger returning as her eyes reduced to slits.
“It’s the name of your book!” Julia said just as loudly, clearly not frightened by Blanche’s bullying. “It’s not my fault Charlotte Brontë called it that.”
“Yes, well, she clearly wasn’t much of a writer.Blanche Ingramwould have made a much more suitable title.”
“I don’t understand my title at all,” Kitty joined in. “Who was proud and who was prejudiced? Or was someone both proud and prejudiced?”
“How delightful, more inane ramblings from the child,” Mrs. Jamieson murmured, rolling her eyes.
Julia began slowly moving toward Kitty, as though still unsure whether it was safe.
“So, you’re fromPride and Prejudice?”
“I am,” Kitty said, smiling.
“I haven’t read that one yet. There’s a film version, though—a few of them, I think—and I was going to try to watch one when my aunt wasn’t looking.”
Aurelia resisted the urge to scold Julia and instead focused on how well Julia seemed to be coping with the shock of her new discovery.
“A… awhatversion?” Kitty asked.
“Film—it’s like… a play, with actors.”
“There is a play of my story?” Kitty’s face lit up with excitement.
“There are a few different ones, with different actors.”
“Ooh, I do hope the actors who play me are pretty!”
“Well, I haven’t seen one yet, but I can watch and find out. I’ll let you know.”
She’s making friends, Aurelia thought, trying not to pass out in relief.She’s actually making friends with them.
19
Juliarefusedtogoto sleep, even after the characters had disappeared back into their books at dawn.
“I have too many questions, Aunt Aurelia! And besides, what if I go to sleep and wake up and it really was all a dream?”
Julia’s presence, which at first had doubled the unrest in the shop, eventually helped to ease the tension so that the characters stopped clamoring to leave. Julia’s occupation of Kitty’s time and attention had seemed to defuse Blanche and Mrs. Jamieson enough for Aurelia to have an actual conversation with them. In fact, she was surprised when first light appeared, since it meant that the women had spent an entire night in the shop in spite of their earlier demands to be sent back into their books.
She’d warned Julia that the characters would be leaving soon, not wanting her to be startled when they disappeared, but she nonetheless saw Julia give a start when they began dissolving into mists. Aurelia remembered how jarring it had been when she’d first seen it herself: to watch someone who had seemed very real one moment become an amorphous collection of words on the air in the next.
At Julia’s refusal to sleep, Aurelia suggested an early breakfast, and they trooped upstairs to set to work making eggs, toast, and tea.
“When was the first time you saw them?”
