How It All Goes Down
Days 2-4
- A heavy downpour keeps all the guests indoors. Things are boring for a couple of days, until Jane can go for a walk on the third day.
- She runs into Theodore, the gardener, in—where else?—the gardens.
- They have a forbidden conversation (the guests aren't permitted to converse with the help), and "Theodore" tells Jane that his real name is actually Martin Jasper.
- After their chat, Jane bumps into Mr. Nobley and Col. Andrews. She's walked up quite a sweat, and her conversation with Theodore/Martin has left her flush. So Nobley and Andrews think she's ill.
- While Nobley and Andrews remain in character, Jane has a hard time pretending to be a fragile Regency gal.
- Eventually, she talks herself back into the role: "Be the dress. […] Be the bonnet" (5.65).
- Andrews fetches her some water and they walk back to the house.
- Jane takes a bath and then discusses "naughty things" (5.95) with the ladies of the house. By naughty things, we mean novels like The Castle of Otranto and The Mysteries of Udolpho.
- There's also some gossip in the air. Jane meets the newest guest, Miss Heartwright, and finds out her scandalous past with a man named Captain East.
- Miss Charming is not thrilled by Miss Heartwright, because she doesn't want to have any more competition in the house. She "withered like a carrot forgotten in the back of the refrigerator" (5.111). And being compared to a vegetable is never a good thing, you couch potato, you. (Let's leave the great potato debate for another time.)