After all, Austen was another thing that Isabel had “laid claim to,” as my dad so aptly put it. She had staked Austen out sophomore year in high school with a book report on not one but all six of the completed novels—which she delivered dressed in a period gown. Our teacher dubbed her his “most brilliant Austen scholar,” and she had actually replied, “It was wonderful to read them again. My mother and I read them together when I was young. They meant so much to us.”
She avoided me for days after that class. I never said a word, never told my mom or complained. I also never read another Austen. I doubt Mom noticed. There were other novels, other things to fill our time together. And in the end, she gave Isabel her beloved copies.
I glanced at her. Isabel faced the window and had for the past couple hours. She seemed deep in thought and much less excited than I thought she’d be as we approached her “ultimate escapist experience.”
I counted fields and cottages as we dipped farther into the countryside. London had given way to pastureland hours ago. There’d been an uptick in traffic and interest around Oxford, but as the car dropped farther south to Bath, pastureland reclaimed our view. A light rain dampened the fields, the roads, and the car’s windows, making the world look obscenely green and lush.
“It’s hard to believe we’re in a drought back home. I’ve never seen so much green. Is this how you remember it?”
“We lived in London and I don’t think we ever left the city. If we did . . . No . . . I don’t remember a thing. Isn’t that odd? I was eight when we left, but not a single thing.” Isabel stretched to see from the car’s front window as we topped a hill. “Look. Bath.”
The car’s hum turned to a pebbly rumble as smooth road gave way to cobblestones. The driver’s tired gray eyes captured mine in the rearview mirror. “I thought I’d bring you in on the A3039, then to York Street, so you can see some of the sights. It’s a Sunday, so no shops are open yet, but some will be after noon. Welcome to Bath, ladies.”
A low sandstone-colored city opened in the valley before us, punctuated vertically by church spires. It was larger than I anticipated. From my reading I’d almost expected to find a Regency town. Brigadoon come to life with horse-drawn carriages and strolling ladies. I almost laughed at my own absurdity. It was two hundred years later. Of course Bath would be modern, industrial, filled with shops, cars, and even a factory spewing smoke atop a distant hill.
Our driver tapped his window as we turned the corner. I felt reassured; Brigadoon existed—curiously well preserved.
“This is the heart of traditional Bath. Right there are the famous Roman Baths, first used by the Celts, long before the Romans. They are already open for the day; over a million tourists a year visit there. And up here . . .”
I plunged toward Isabel as the car took a sharp right turn.
“Landsdown Road comes right into Bennett Street and the Assembly Rooms.” He stretched his arm across to the passenger window. “You cannot come to Bath without visiting there.”
He drove through a large roundabout with a sign announcing The Circus, then steered into a gentle and broad arc to the right. There stood a long, semicircular row of townhouses, completely contiguous and—semicircular. It spread for what seemed like half a mile and was the most extraordinary street I’d ever seen.
“Wouldn’t it be fun to have a compass large enough to measure this? It feels like a full one-eighty degrees. It’s gorgeous.”
Isabel shook her head at me, but she smiled.
The driver twisted in his seat and offered me a toothy grin, minus a few teeth. “The Royal Crescent is beautiful, isn’t it? It’s one of the finest examples of Georgian architecture in the country, built in the mid-1700s. It looks the same today as it did then, and some of them are private homes. Can you imagine that?”
“Honestly, no, but it is beautiful.”
He turned out of the crescent and away from town. “Wait until you see where you’re headed. Braithwaite House is a right gem. An American couple fixed it up and it is beyond something grand now.”
Isabel pulled herself forward by the driver’s headrest. “Is it far?”
“Less than a mile. It’s one of the only estates in the county left with its full acreage. I don’t often say it, but it was a good thing when those Americans bought the property. They kept it intact. A good number of estates have long been carved up by developers.” He adjusted his rearview mirror to capture Isabel’s face. “Have you been to Bath before?”
He didn’t wait for her answer, but continued his monologue down Weston Road in a long, contiguous sentence. He had much to tell us and, if we were going to reach our destination in a few minutes, his time was running out.
I caught a sign for Braithwaite House. “This is it.”
Isabel slapped my arm. “Okay, now I’m getting giddy.”
“About time.” My excitement matched hers.
She stretched farther ahead. “Look. Look. There’s the house.”
I held my breath as the large four-story home came into view. I blinked and studied it. Two stories. The tall windows revealed that it had only two stories, but very high ceilings. The beigetoned gravel drive, flanked by mature trees, turned and continued to rise to a car park at the side.
I mentally calculated the house to be at least fifty thousand square feet, but I couldn’t see how deep it ran—meaning my estimations could be shy by several thousand feet, if not more. The front featured tall, rectangular, flat windows in the center and curved ones set in deep bays at the corners. I caught glimpses into the rooms where the sun shot through the glass rather than bouncing off it. And fireplaces . . . I looked up and counted eight chimneys visible from my vantage point alone.
“It’s . . . it’s massive.”
The driver heard me and chuckled. “Here we are, ladies. Braithwaite House.” He pulled the car to the front door and made a dramatic skid on the gravel. He then twisted to almost fully face us. “I’ve never been in, mind you, but they say the queen herself could stay here and not be disappointed.”
I faced Isabel. “Are you ready? This could be your Pemberley or Netherfield Park, or even your Kellynch Hall.”
Her face glowed. “I’m beginning to believe in my own thesis. Let’s go.” She gestured to the car door.
I climbed out, a sense of awe welling inside me. Colin Firth had never occupied a moment of my time; Downton Abbey never swallowed a Sunday evening; and even love, friendship, and zombies had failed to entice me into the theaters. But I agreed with Isabel—I was beginning to believe her thesis too. This was the ultimate escape and a luxury beyond imagining.
She stood beside me. Eyes fixed on the building, she grabbed my hand and squeezed tight. “It’s perfect.”
I followed her up the six broad front steps to the single-pane glass front door. It opened out, while an enormous wood one opened into the house.
Between the two open doors stood a woman, tall and elegant, dressed in gray with silver hair. Something about her glowed against the now graying sky—as if they were one and she was the brighter iteration.
Although she came from inside the house, she wore a deep-gray waxed coat and hot-pink rubber boots.