"I'm serious, Bets. That necklace is one of the few things I have to remember my mother. She gave it to me; she's dead. She can't ever give me another necklace." It made me sick to think I might never see that necklace again, not only a necklace; but her wedding band, a gold pin she won in high school, and a baby ring, all melted down and reformed into the shape of a cross, a reminder for my sister and me of what our mother found to be important at the end of her life. Not a necklace; but my mother.

"Tell you what," Bets said, lighting another cigarette. "If I can't find it, I'll give you my mother."

*   *   *

Suzanne, the tiny wardrobe lady, presided over the damp and musty second floor warehouse of costumes inherited from various sources, various sources being a euphemism for dead volunteers in period attire. She pulled an armful of dresses for Bets to try, while another actress changed behind a screen, throwing gowns into separate "take" and "no take" piles. Bets handed me her six-hundred-dollar designer purse and disappeared behind a screen. Maybe Bets could persuade the Wallet to rent china for our tea. Or sentence Bets to another season of Literature Live in exchange for china.

"I can't wear this." Bets laughed. "I look like Granny in Little Red Riding Hood."

The phone rang in Bets's purse.

"Would you mind answering that?" Bets yelled, throwing a rejected gown over the screen.

"She can't come to the phone right now," I said, rifling through the contents of her purse for anything I might recognize as my own.

"Who is it?" Bets asked.

I put the phone away. "Tommy," I said.

"Shit, give me the phone." Bets charged out from behind the screen, reaching for her bag, the dress around her waist.

The wardrobe lady said, "Oh dear," covering her mouth with her little hand.

Bets swiped her purse from my hands. Her body featured artwork that no Jane Austen character had ever sported: a Celtic cross tattoo permanently inked above her left breast. "Forget this," she said, stepping completely out of the dress and leaving it on the floor while she pulled her shirt over her head.

The wardrobe lady reached into a drawer and pulled out several very large white kerchiefs. "You'll have to wear these," she said, "like a shawl," but too late. Bets zipped her jeans, slid feet into her shoes, and ran out the door.

"What about the dresses?" Suzanne called after her.

Suzanne hauled the dresses out and between the two of us, we compared the remaining dresses to the one Bets had tried on, deciding which to take. I held each dress to my shoulder and looked in the mirror, pretending to admire the style and artistry but slyly appraising my own fit, calculating how much time Bets would need to reach the parking lot. I left with an armload of dresses, most of which would surely fit me, imagining Bets in her car. Walking back to my room, I gauged how long it would take her to get through the main drag of Hedingham. Opening the door to my room, I said a little prayer: Please let my roommate be AWOL.

Inside, there was no sign of Bets.

*   *   *

To proceed with my plan, I needed a copy of the script. For this, I walked to Newton Priors, all the while considering my favorite scenario: Bets goes to London, gets totally smashed, and sleeps through opening day. I would play Mary Crawford in her place, they would all realize how much better I was, and reassign Bets to play Chapman, the maid. The more I imagined, the more possible it seemed that with a little maneuvering from me, her part might be available tomorrow. But first, I must learn her lines. In the office, I lifted a script off Claire's credenza when she wasn't looking. Next, I needed a quiet place to memorize.

I set off for the great church at the other end of the town where I had planned to go anyway for a little self-therapy. I could hide in the back row and stay as long as I pleased, communing with my mother, memorizing lines, escaping into Mary Crawford's character, without having to worry about meeting anyone I knew. I passed carriage lanterns and window boxes spilling creeper into the walk, strolled through a market where cheese, fish, and flowers were sold, and walked among people on foot, bicycle and open-top double-decker tour buses, toward the Anglican church whose spire towered over the town.

Beyond the church's enormous wood door carved with shields and symbols, the cool air soothed and the upward momentum of the vaulted ceiling effected the sort of transcendence I experienced hearing Sixby's stage voice. People moved, coming and going, kneeling, consulting guides, oblivious to the liturgy, oblivious to the rapture occurring in the young woman staring at the ceiling. Walking over dead bodies under stone slabs, I slipped into an empty back pew and listened to the service in progress, seeking my favorite passages, but the sound was obscured by the time it reached the back of the enormous nave, competing with the white noise of air circulating through the mighty space.

Kneeling, I recited the funeral liturgy in my head, All we go down to the dust, but I was unable to concentrate. Chips of colored glass jumbled together in the tremendous windows and Latin proclamations littered side walls. A stone body lay atop a bier in the midst of the crowd, hands clasped in prayer. How odd that this enormous structure, across the ocean, older than time, smelled just like my neighborhood church, musty as any Baptist basement back home. Yet I was unable to feel my mother's presence in this place. And since it would be really bad manners to actually pray for Bets to get smashed and sleep through opening day, I rested my elbows on the seatback in front of me, sat my rear on the edge of my bench, and evaluated my neighbors' accessories, one pew forward. Would the church loan us their china? My Jane Austen frowned at me, and I returned to my knees. Focusing forward, a little shock brought me to attention. In spite of my great distance from the front of the church, I sensed a familiar face. My memory sought an association. Gloomy setting laced with romantic hope? St. James's Church. Behind the rail of the sanctuary stood my church man. The same man who'd walked into the orientation meeting with Randolph—but now dressed in white robes and the collar of a priest. Was this church an extension of Literature Live, my church man playing Edmund at this moment? I was confused momentarily between reality and theatre.

Who was this man?

He came forward to read the Gospel, still too far away to see me. His reading voice sounded dignified and weighty, not dramatic like Sixby's. For just an instant, in the glare of the ancient words, the whole idea of Literature Live and enacting scenes seemed silly. My script lay abandoned on the pew while I tried to reconcile this priest with the guy lying on the pew in the dark church and the man with Randolph at orientation. The recessional hymn started and he slowly approached my row. He sang the hymn as he walked, but he looked preoccupied as he had looked in the dark church. The woman ahead of me lifted her bright red purse and he looked our way. Our eyes met for an instant.

*   *   *

Time was running out to learn Bets's lines. I walked back by way of Newton Priors, hoping to find a secluded place to memorize lines. What I found was John Owen, the stair-jumping conservationist, holding court near an exterior window of the great house. Several students huddled to hear his urgent whisper, one of them trampling a lavender bed. Flourishing a pen-knife, John Owen plunged its tip into the undersurface of the window's sash where, to everyone's horror, it stuck. "What we have here, gentlemen," he whispered, "is paint failure."

One of the students shook his head.

"An open invitation to water," John Owen said, "and rot."

Raising his binoculars, John Owen gazed upward beyond the second and third story windows toward the roof. Perhaps there was a quiet place up there to learn lines. Passing binoculars to the student on his left, he pointed to the roof, and our collective gaze traveled up. "A sound roof is the first line of defense against the number one enemy of an old house, which is"—and several of his students moved their lips as he whispered—"water."

"Did water cause the damage around the chimney base?" one of the disciples asked.

John Owen grabbed the binoculars. "Rot can be arrested," he said, looking carefully upward. "Let's go." The group followed John Owen up the fire escape—a symposium field trip. As they climbed, I noticed an orange electric cord hanging outside the building, emerging from a second floor window and entering a window on the third floor, the attic.

Once the posse left, their bodies no longer blocked my view through the wavy glass and I could see the cast rehearsing in the ballroom. They appeared to be on break—or stuck. Magda yelled about rats' asses again. Upon closer inspection, my roommate appeared to be the cause of the fuss.

Bets was still here. She hadn't gone to London.

I wouldn't be able to take her part at the opening.

I would never get my necklace back.

And as I stood there, gazing in the window, Magda approached from the interior side, a furious bunch of nerves, her long finger curling, beckoning me to enter. Why would she invite me in? I walked around to the front, daring to suppose someone had quit and they might offer me the vacated role.

My Jane Austen and I passed each other in the entry; she walked out in a huff as I walked in. The cast slumped on the stage furniture; Nikki lifted her Regency skirt to catch a breeze from the window, all of them waiting for Bets to get something right. Magda pointed to a chair in the audience and I sat. Bets finally got it and they moved on.