He had asked her to come to his offices in Alton. He suspected that she had not visited the town in several years, even though it provided all the major shopping, banking, and commerce for the region. But since her father’s death, Andrew had noticed a subtle change in Frances—whether it be attending the second society meeting at Dr. Gray’s, or inviting Mimi Harrison and her Sotheby’s friend back to the Great House afterwards to stay the night. He wondered if Frances would walk the forty minutes to his offices, as she remained surprisingly healthful for all her time indoors, or take her late father’s Rolls-Royce out for a drive. He knew that Tom had been given permission to drive the old car on occasion, having argued to James Knight that the car, like his horses, needed the exercise.
When Frances arrived at Andrew’s offices on foot instead, he noticed that the tight bun in her once-golden hair had loosened somewhat, her cheeks were rosy from the winter wind, and her pale grey eyes shone brightly from the exercise. Suddenly she looked so much like the young woman he had once loved that he caught himself staring at her as if at an old photo in a frame. Motioning for her to sit down before him, he went back to his own seat behind his large banker-style desk and gave his typical introductory cough.
“I received a letter this morning that I am obligated to share with you as executor of the estate.” Frances sat up even straighter in her chair. “It is from the solicitor for a Mr. Colin Knatchbull-Hugessen, who claims to be the third cousin of Fanny Knight Knatchbull, four times removed. And I’m afraid it speaks to a very plausible claim against the entirety of your late father’s estate.”
Frances listened carefully as Andrew read the letter, keeping his eyes down on the paper the entire time. When he had finished, he finally looked over at her.
“Well, that’s it then,” she said calmly. “He surely has standing for his claim, and I am no one to fight against reality, as you well know.”
It was the first time she had ever alluded, even subtly, to her submission to her father’s will in the face of Andrew’s secret proposal and engagement to her in 1917, when she had not yet turned of age and he was about to be called up to the navy.
“Miss Knight”—Andrew pushed the sheet of paper across the desk towards her—“I still believe there is an argument to be made for your father’s mental capacity at the time of the execution of the second will.”
Frances shook her head. “Andrew, I am fine with all of this, really. The will gives me a roof over my head for life, and money enough for the few things I need.”
“It’s not about what you need. It’s about your father honouring your lifetime of sacrifice to the family. Give all the money away at the end, if you want. You will surely—from the sounds of it—dispense with it more charitably than this Colin Knatchbull.”
“I don’t see how any of that will be possible. And I see no value in focusing on the impossible right now. I have enough for a good life, which is more than many others can say.”
Frances rarely asked for anything and just as rarely complained. Andrew could see that she needed to be heeded in this matter—that she must know what was best for herself now, no matter the mistakes he believed her to have made in the past. Perhaps he was even pushing the issue to make up for his own mistakes with regard to their shared history. For when she had written that final letter to him at sea, breaking off their engagement, he had vowed never to speak to her again if he was lucky enough to survive the war. Instead he had returned a naval hero, resumed his law studies at Cambridge, and built up the most successful practice in the greater county. Then one day in 1932, James Knight had walked through Andrew’s office door to retain him in the investigation of his son Cecil’s death from what the police were calling a shooting accident. Even then, as Andrew Henry Forrester became increasingly relied upon by the fading patriarch in all his legal and financial matters, Andrew had hewed as closely as possible to his secret vow to never again say another word to Frances Elizabeth Knight.
While away at war, Andrew had been surprised that Benjamin Gray had not tried to scoop Frances up for himself. But in 1918 Benjamin had fallen head over heels in love with a beautiful young scientist at King’s College London, near the end of the medical studies that had prevented his own conscription. Andrew understood Ben well, knew him to be brilliant and caring but flawed like any man, with a propensity for a saviour complex. Andrew’s propensity, like Frances’s, was to be a martyr instead, and for years the two of them had resisted any interaction while never building a life with anyone else. Yet recently, as her father’s health increasingly failed, Frances and Andrew had found themselves living a type of proxy version of married life, occasionally breaking bread together, walking the Great House’s landscape to discuss various improvements to come out of the estate, and administering to Mr. Knight’s every whim.
So Andrew listened carefully to Frances when she told him that she did not want to fight the will. A small reserved corner of his heart wondered if this decision was ironically part and parcel of her greater independence now that Mr. Knight was gone. To Benjamin, Andrew had accused Frances of letting herself be boxed in by her father, but the woman before him did not seem trapped. She had a calm about her instead, as if she finally knew what, and whom, she could count on. For it was never as much as any of us like to hope—the key was to know whom one could trust to be there and when, in good times and in bad. As the only daughter of Mr. Knight, she had been required to accord him his deference and his due, all the while suspecting deep down how he really felt about her. At least she no longer had to pretend. There was liberation in that, however emotionally cruel to endure.
“Well, if you are sure then, I shall write the lawyer back and agree to this visit that Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen would like to make to the estate. The claim will be filed anon, I am confident of that. And he can kick you out of this house once the court has approved him as the sole beneficiary. He has a most diligent and shrewd lawyer—I suspect any such approval will be obtained in record time.”
“That’s alright. Evie and I have already started packing. She is intent on rescuing certain volumes from the library for me, and the balance for the Austen Society. Do you anticipate any issues there?”
“Not necessarily, but you should get a valuation done as soon as possible—the trustees can then vote to make an offer to Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen for the contents of the library and, hopefully, for the steward’s cottage as well. But leave me out of any assessment, alright? I will abstain as discussed from any society meeting or voting to acquire, and the offer can then be made by the trust directly to the declared heir.”
“How soon might he visit?”
“I suppose anytime.” Andrew looked at her with one eyebrow raised expectantly.
“Perhaps ”—she looked back at him, equally expectantly—“perhaps we should call an emergency meeting of the society? To advise them of Mr. Knatchbull’s claim, and to vote on making an offer for the books and the cottage, just in case he is inclined to dispose of anything fast himself?”
Andrew nodded in agreement. “But you’ll want that valuation done first—Yardley might be able to help, although I worry about any impact on his professional reputation if it’s not done strictly to the letter.”
“I have good news then.” Frances had a surprising smile on her face. “Evie’s already done one and handed it over to Yardley for his appraisal.”
“You’re joking.”
She shook her head happily. “Not at all. It’s really quite impressive. She’s been at it for two whole—”
Andrew put his hand up to silence her and she bit her lip in acquiescence. Then he stood up, shuffled the papers about on his desk, and looked straight at Frances Knight for once.
“But just so you know, just between the two of us, I am hoping, as executor of the estate and as a friend, to be completely taken advantage of by the young Evie Stone and her rapacious eye.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Chawton, Hampshire
February 19
, 1946
Emergency Meeting of the Jane Austen Society
The meeting was quickly held, at seven the following evening, in the front parlour of Dr. Gray’s house. Five members of the Jane Austen Society were in attendance: Dr. Gray, Adeline, Adam, Mimi, and Evie.
Andrew and Frances had abstained from attending both the discussion and the vote. Yardley was unable to get down from London with Mimi on time, which at first worked out well since Andrew feared that Yardley’s reputation and employment at Sotheby’s could be jeopardized by any involvement in an amateur appraisal with such significant financial repercussions for the parties involved.
That left only Adeline and Dr. Gray for a vote by the trustees of the Jane Austen Memorial Trust. Three votes—a majority of the five trustees—would be necessary to establish the majority required according to the law of meetings in parliamentary procedure. After some to and fro between Andrew Forrester and Yardley over the phone, Mimi was designated Yardley’s proxy for the vote. The reasoning of both gentlemen was threefold: Sotheby’s had no legal or financial interest, or anticipated interest, in the Knight estate at the time of voting; Yardley would not be personally or professionally profiting from his vote, and he was willing to sign an affidavit to that effect; and—finally—as a director Yardley was permitted to use his expertise in cultural and literary valuation for the good of the trust’s charitable objectives.
After the meeting was called to order and the imminent vesting of the Knight estate in Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen of Greater Birmingham was announced, Dr. Gray called for a vote on presenting an offer to the heir of the estate for the contents of the Chawton House library and the leasehold interest of the steward’s cottage.
The vote was swiftly carried.
“We next need to vote on an appropriate purchase price for the library, as it has no present market value. Evie,” announced Dr. Gray.
The young girl stood up from her regular perch on the little stool by the piano. She held in her hands the notebook that contained a cataloguing of all two thousand three hundred and seventy-five books in the library, plus one loose-leaf letter. The notebook was passed around to each of the other four attendants.
“So you’re saying, from what I can tell, that some of these particular editions have not appeared in a public notice of sale before?” began Dr. Gray as he flipped through the notebook in astonishment.
Evie nodded.
“Has Mr. Sinclair seen this?” Adeline asked.
“Yes, when he stayed over the night of our first meeting. He came in rather late to the library and caught me at work. I showed him some of the volumes, and he took the notebook away for a bit to study.”
“And?” asked Dr. Gray eagerly.
Mimi spoke up now. “I looked it over with him earlier today in London, before my train, and brought it back with me. It’s a good thing you’re all sitting down—he thinks, based on the public records he has access to, that we are talking anywhere from one hundred thousand pounds upwards.”
“How far upwards?” asked Adam.
Mimi looked at Adam, who was now standing with Adeline behind Dr. Gray, both of them examining the notebook over his shoulders. “Well, the Third Folio of Shakespeare alone is potentially worth ten thousand pounds or more. There are also dozens of first editions of critical eighteenth-century texts, both fiction and non-fiction. The First Book of Urizen by William Blake and the first edition of Don Quixote each figure into the tens of thousands of pounds as well.”
“This is absolutely astonishing,” exclaimed Dr. Gray. “Evie, my God, do you know what you have here?”
Evie had the look of pride of scholarship and achievement written all over her face. “Yes, of course—that’s why I did it.”
The last item in the notebook was not a book entry at all, but the letter from Jane Austen to Cassandra Austen, dated August 6, 1816.
“That’s the month she finished writing Persuasion!” exclaimed Adeline.
“Why . . .” Dr. Gray looked up at Evie and Mimi. “My God. It can’t be.”
Evie and Mimi smiled at each other. “We would have told you sooner, but Miss Frances needed to keep this all extremely confidential, for obvious reasons,” Evie explained. “She and I were the only people in the world to know, until Yardley, and then Mimi here this afternoon.”
Dr. Gray started to read the copy that Evie had diligently made of the letter, the original still hiding safely within the flap of one of the two thousand three hundred and seventy-five books in the lower library. Evie informed them all as he read that she had checked out Jane Austen’s deeply slanted handwriting in the Persuasion manuscript on display at the British Museum during one of Evie’s Sunday outings there, to make sure that her “translation” was competent and complete.
Dr. Gray fell back in his chair and wordlessly held the copy up for Adeline to take next. She carried it over to the light near the piano and read it standing next to Adam.
Everyone in the room was speechless.
Finally Adeline said, “Do we have any idea on the value, at all?”
“Not really,” replied Mimi. “Yardley checked everywhere—so few have ever come up for auction. One letter sold in 1930 at Sotheby’s, but only for a thousand pounds.”
“It’s not the value, though,” spoke up Dr. Gray.
“It’s what we learn,” added Adam, and everyone in the room turned to look at him.
“Yes,” Evie stated proudly. “There is no price on that.”
“But it’s still in its rightful place, correct?” questioned Dr. Gray. “We can’t afford to be accused of hiding or stealing anything.”
“No worries at all. I only moved the books about as I dusted,” Evie replied. “If Mr. Knatchbull-what’s-his-face wants to take stock of what’s in there, he is welcome to it.”
“Well, then, what do we think?” Dr. Gray asked the room.
“Forty thousand pounds,” said Mimi without hesitation. “I have been tracking Jane Austen sales through Sotheby’s and Christie’s for several years now, and with the war, things stayed pretty flat until recently. If we average out each book at twenty pounds, that will look completely reasonable to anyone inclined to sell quickly.”
“But where on earth will we get that much money?” Adeline asked.
Mimi looked about the room. “From me.” She stood up. “I know you all have been hesitant to take any money from me, but as I understand it from Andrew, public funds are only slowly trickling in from the notice we posted in The Times. Look, it’s fine, it’s a movie or two—without sounding arrogant I mean. I have more than enough anyway. And God knows my fiancé does, too. Then once the books unrelated to Jane Austen are sold off at the appropriate time and place, the trust will have tens of thousands of pounds to purchase the cottage and as many Austen artifacts as it chooses, as well as to generate enough interest on the capital for future endeavours.”
Adeline and Dr. Gray looked at each other, then back at Mimi.
“You will allow us to pay you back, though, once the trust realizes such profits from the sale?”
“If you insist.” Mimi smiled. “I have the utmost faith in both Yardley and Evie here that the library’s sale will enrich the trust by that amount many times over.”
“Well, then,” announced Dr. Gray, “let’s put this to a vote.”
By the time the meeting was over, it was too late for Mimi to get to Alton and catch the London train back to her hotel. Adeline offered her one of her two spare bedrooms, to save the mile walk back to the Great House, and Mimi acquiesced, so exhausted by the exciting events of the night that she was willing to forego another night’s sleep in a place steeped in Austen history.
As they approached Adeline’s front garden in the moonlight, Mimi looked back down the quaint village lane behind them. “Dr. Gray seemed in a better mood tonight than at the last meeting.”
“I guess earth-shattering historical discoveries will do that to a man,” Adeline replied.
“The two of yo
u seemed to be getting along better, too. That last meeting, I swear I thought you were going to tear a strip off him. If you don’t mind me asking, I always wondered, what was going on there?”
“Just a misunderstanding, I think.” Adeline held the gate open to let Mimi pass, still a little intimidated by the famous actress through no fault of her own. Adeline was increasingly impressed by the glamorous actress’s education and acute understanding of Austen, as well as her very real and down-to-earth manner. Adeline didn’t think it was just an act, either—Mimi seemed to be completely lacking in competitive edge and wholly focused on her own tasks before her. Adeline was the same way—it was, she felt sure, what made her such an easy target for women such as Liberty Pascal, who spread their tentacles far and wide in a constant overswoop, intent on a range of victims.
“Really—a misunderstanding? Dr. Gray doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who gets things wrong.”
“I think he thought there was something going on between Adam and me. Which is obviously completely ridiculous.”
“Obviously.”
Two women looked at each other for a second, eyebrows raised suggestively, each waiting for the other to speak.
“Is it usual for a doctor to take such an interest in the romantic life of his patient?”
“He has become somewhat protective of me since the baby, I think. Since what happened. I worry—I know—that he blames himself.”
Mimi put her arm around the other woman’s waist as they headed towards the front door. “Oh, Adeline, I was so very sorry to hear of your loss. I should have said something sooner.”
“Please don’t worry. Dr. Gray really shouldn’t worry either. Especially now that he technically isn’t my doctor anymore.”
Now Mimi raised an eyebrow at Adeline in interest. “Really? When did that happen?”
“Just . . . a month ago? Maybe more?”
Adeline unlocked the front door and Mimi followed her in.
The Jane Austen Society (ARC) Page 22
