Page 27 of The Gentlewoman Author

“But thank you for imagining me capable of such a thing. The idea!” Mrs. Allen’s voice was breathy and her laugh weak. She clutched her hands in her lap, staring at the floor. Daniel did not understand. After watching her with Mr. Bateman, he knew her capable of defending herself. The clock ticked into a silent room. Mrs. Allen pulled a bit of lace at her sleeve, hands trembling.

To call her a liar! He stood and made his way toward the fire. He stood by her side, reached for her. Under his hand, her shoulder was soft and warm. “Mrs. Allen is a gentlewoman. She is not the sort of person who drafts novels. And if she tells you she did not write the book, her gentility is proof of her word.”

“Hear, hear.” Came a few voices from around the room.

“Quite,” Mrs. Eliot said, with an appreciative nod to Daniel.

Liar.

The accusation echoed and resonated. Though she told no direct lie, the denunciation sat thick and scratchy in her chest. The entire room had stared at her, their looks at first curious, then accusing. Had she really imagined no one would find her out? And now what? The impeccable behavior she strove to achieve became a mockery.

Her hands wobbled over knitting needles, an erratic pair of socks taking shape on her lap. She set the needles down and closed her eyes to keep them from straying to her writing implements. She had a traitorous heart and a rebellious temperament that urged her to pick up the pen.

First, she would like to scratch out Miss Barry’s eyes. Why had that horrid woman accused her when the quarrel was with Agnes? A friendship with Agnes did put one in the line of fire. But oh! The disgrace. And then Mr. Fletcher! Like a knight, coming to her rescue. His hand on her shoulder, the solid heaviness of it, infused her with strength and prevented tears from pouring down her face.

If she were ten years younger, she would throw herself at Mr. Fletcher. Quite literally kneel at his feet and beg him to love her. An astonishing realization. She might be capable of love at long last. Their unfortunate gap in age prohibited a relationship, but she could admire his beauty, especially his deep, clear eyes of so divine a color. She placed her hand on her shoulder where his fingers had lain only an hour before. To have a man like that. What was wrong with Louisa?

Her fingers trembled and fidgeted. She picked up her knitting and tried to find solace in the clicking of the needles. Her stomach squirmed with duplicity. Knitting satisfied not at all. She would never find contentment making socks or gardening or performing social calls—even balls did not gratify. The life she lived outside her room was no less real than the one she created on the page.

With paper and ink, she fashioned a world for herself and for Daniel. The idea sent a warm wave from her chest clear through to her toes. She pressed a hand against her stomach. What sort of heroine would suit him? In the book she composed, the hero had pale blue eyes and dark hair. He was serious and loyal, and his every look thrilled the heroine. Mr. Fletcher already occupied the pages.

She thrust the yarn into the basket, took her place at the desk, and began to write. If she continued at the current pace, the novel would be complete and ready for the publisher within the month. If she’d learned anything from the altercation with Miss Barry, it was that with a few slippery words, she might evade suspicion. Each stroke of her pen morphed her into the indecorous sort of female who wrote novels and made money from her writing, the kind of woman who avoided questions about her identity.

After a few hours, she lit a midnight candle and continued scratching words into the still of night, her heart ashamed but too ecstatic to stop. Nothing had changed. What she did was shocking and illicit—delightfully so. She did not believe she could live without the indulgence. Here in the depths of her imagination she accepted that she was a liar. She wrote pages and pages of lies and fairytales. The idea that the rest of the world had begun to understand her chilled her to the bone, but she could not relinquish her quill.

A woman who is duly submissive to lawful superiors is not only an amiable thing in the eyes of others, but exceedingly happy herself.

The Whole Duty of a Woman, An Infallible Guide to the Fairer Sex, 1737