only been a month since her mother had been buried in the local churchyard after a brief but devastating illness. She’d been sixty-seven – not old by today’s standards – and Kay missed her more than she could say. Perhaps that was why she was spending time with Peggy. She’d met her whilst visiting her mother and the two of them had clicked. Both had a profound love of the novels of Jane Austen and when Kay had discovered that Peggy was blind – a fact that she’d kept marvellously hidden – Kay had offered to read to her.
Peggy never seemed to have any visitors and Kay couldn’t quite give up visiting The Pines.
‘I do wish I could see your paintings,’ Peggy suddenly said.
‘I do too, Peggy.’
‘Tell me about your new ones.’
‘Well, I’ve only got one new one. I’m afraid work’s been a bit hectic and—’
‘That ratbag Roger still working you late?’
Kay grinned.
‘I remember him when he was a lad. I knew his father. Lived in my road. Bullies – both of them. You mustn’t let him push you around, Kay.’
‘I don’t.’
Peggy nodded. ‘Because I’ll have words with him if he’s bullying you. I’ve got one of them portable phone jobbies. It’ll only take one call.’
‘It’s all right. There’s no need to call him.’
Peggy shifted forward and Kay got up to rearrange her pillows.
‘So, tell me about your picture.’
Kay’s eyes took on a wistful look as she thought about her latest painting.
‘Well, you know the last chapter of Persuasion we read together? That moment when Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth see each other for the first time since he went away?’
‘I love that scene!’ Peggy said, her face glowing with the pleasure of remembering it.
‘I chose that moment when Jane Austen writes “a thousand feelings rushed on Anne”.’
‘Wonderful!’ Peggy enthused.
‘And “a bow, a curtsey passed”.’
‘Yes, yes!’ Peggy said. ‘I can see it now. All those pent-up emotions they still have for each other. Oh, I wish I could see it!’
‘I’ve always wanted to capture that moment when their eyes meet,’ Kay said, tucking a strand of toffee-coloured hair behind her ear. ‘It’s so fleeting and yet so much happens in it.’
‘So which scene are you illustrating next?’
‘One of the Lyme Regis ones. I want to paint that wonderful seafront with the sweep of the Cobb. I only wish I could visit it.’
‘You’ve never been to Lyme?’
‘No,’ Kay said, her eyes taking on a dreamy look again. ‘I’ve always imagined myself living by the sea one day and I think Lyme would be just the place to be.’
‘Then what are you doing in land-locked Hertfordshire?’ Peggy asked. ‘I mean, now that you don’t have any family ties.’
‘My job’s here. My house is here.’
‘Oh, rot!’ Peggy said. ‘I know it’s a terrible cliché but, if you don’t take charge of your life, nobody’s going to do it for you. Think of Anne Elliot and all those years she wasted.’
‘But I’ve got a mortgage to pay. I’m kind of stuck here.’
Peggy’s mouth narrowed. ‘I don’t like to hear such excuses. If you want to live near the sea then you should. It’s as simple as that.’
‘I wish it was,’ Kay said. ‘I really wish it was.’
Chapter One
That night, Kay Ashton dreamt of Mr Darcy again. It wasn’t the first time, of course, and it wouldn’t be the last. She often dreamt about her favourite fictional hero and she often daydreamed about him too. How many dull afternoons in the office had been cheered up by imagining the sudden arrival of Mr Darcy? He’d come striding in across the carpeted reception, his eyes fixed on Kay.
‘In vain have I struggled,’ he’d say, confessing his love to her there and then and sweeping her up in his arms, telling her to leave her desk behind and run away to Pemberley with him.
If only I could, Kay thought.
It was funny that she should be dreaming about Mr Darcy because she’d been drawing Captain Wentworth for the last few weeks now. Darcy had been the main subject of her last book – a collection of drawings in pen, and watercolour paintings of scenes from Pride and Prejudice.
She couldn’t remember the first time she’d drawn Mr Darcy but she’d been putting pen to paper all her life, sketching little scenes of handsome princes and fairytale princesses which, as she’d grown older, had become heroes and heroines from the books she read. It was a world she’d loved diving into because the real one around her had been a cold and cruel place.
Kay had been ten years old when her father had left her. She’d been upset and confused and had watched as her mother had crumbled before her. The two of them had clung to each other and had slowly built a new life for themselves but, just as they were getting used to being just the two of them, the unthinkable had happened. Her father had returned.
Life had been turned upside down once again and Kay was forgotten in the space of a moment as her parents had got on with the business of fixing their marriage. It hadn’t been easy. Kay often wondered how her parents had managed to stay together for so long because they seemed to spend most of their time fighting. She could hear them shouting from her bedroom even when she closed the door and hid her head under her pillow. They shouted at night too when they thought she was asleep, their voices only slightly dimmed by the thin wall that separated their bedroom from hers.
Her mother would always look washed-out and red-eyed in the morning whilst her father would be silent and morose, his eyes avoiding hers as she ate her breakfast before school.
Then, after a year of endless fighting, he’d left again. This time, it was for good. There was no forwarding address and he never rang. It was as if he’d forgotten that he’d ever been a husband and a father.
Kay, who already spent most of the time with her head in a book, had retreated into her fictional world like never before and had never really surfaced since. For her, reality was only made bearable by the existence of novels and her beloved stories and sketches had got her through the traumas of a dozen father-figures, the trials of her own string of disastrous relationships, and the boredom of her job at Barnum and Mason. It had been the one constant of her life.
The strangest thing was that Kay had never let the experience of her parents’ marriage affect her own views of relationships. She still believed in the possibility of love and that your soul mate was out there just waiting to be found. Maybe it was a notion she’d picked up from the books she read but she truly believed it. She looked at her collection of illustrations now. It had been sitting on her desk for weeks and she didn’t quite know what to do with it next. She supposed she should send it to a publisher but what if they rejected it? What if all her hopes and dreams of seeing it in print came to nothing? Leaving it sitting on the desk might not result in it seeing the light of day but at least her dreams remained intact that way.
The Illustrated Darcy she called it because, although she’d made sketches and paintings of all the main characters and major scenes, the emphasis remained on Darcy. He was a hero for all time, wasn’t he? Kay often wondered if Jane Austen had known that when she’d created him. Had she known the power of her very special hero? Had her sister, Cassandra, said, ‘Wow, Jane! You’ve done it! There will never be another hero to match this one!’
Kay often wondered