Austenland

The day was gray, and patchy rain nudged the carriage roof. Jane watched the hilly country bounce by, a row of river trees huddling in a line. The fresh landscape encouraged her artist’s eye to see in paint colors—leaves of sap green, the distant roofs of a small town in burnt umber and cadmium red, the sky cerulean blue.

“My dear Jane, you are very welcome!” A woman of perhaps fifty years approached the carriage on the arm of a red-cheeked, chubby man. Her blue dress and red umbrella were bright and inviting against the dreary backdrop of servants and rain.
“I am your aunt Saffronia, though of course you do not remember me as I haven’t kissed your cheeks since you were two and your widowed mother married that American and took you off to the New World,” she said neatly in one breath. “How we mourned your loss! My, but it is so good of you to come and visit at last. This is my husband, Sir Templeton. He is near expiring in the anticipation of your arrival.”
Sir Templeton blew up his cheeks and chewed on some invisible cud.

These last three days, she had been seesawing between giddy headlong rush into fantasyland and existential terror, but sometimes when she slipped into a new dress, the only word that really applied was huzzah.