The Jane Austen Society

by Natalie Jenner

  Everyone settled down again and Reverend Powell approached from the back of the chancery to commence the service. As he asked everyone to rise for the opening hymn, the door to the church opened to let in Adeline Grover and her mother along with one final blast of winter wind. They snuck in as quietly as possible, then walked down the centre aisle until they, too, had reached their regular seats.

  Dr. Gray did not look over at the two women as they entered the row directly across the aisle from his. He could feel Harriet’s and her sister’s eyes upon him, but right now his mind was focused on composing the letter of termination that he would be delivering to Miss Peckham in the New Year, no matter how hard it was to find a nurse willing to come out to Chawton every day. Being the subject of gossip and speculation by one’s own staff was ludicrous enough—being such when there was absolutely nothing amiss going on was altogether unacceptable.

  The service on Christmas Eve was always short, Reverend Powell being as fond of celebrating the season as anyone else. After singing the last carol of the night, “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” the villagers waited for Miss Knight to depart from the front-row pew and exit the church, then all followed in their turn.

  The tombstones outside were dusted with snow, and as he passed them, Dr. Gray thought about the newest grave, laid in the farthest corner of the churchyard, just below the stone wall that looked down over the fields from a slight incline. He wondered if this was the first time the grieving young mother had been to visit. Following his wife’s death, it had taken him several months before he had been able to do the same. Instead he had continued to wake up each morning and reach over for her in bed, and to call upstairs when the kettle had boiled, and even thought—in his most desperate moments—that he had just caught the quickest glimpse of her housedress out of the corner of his eye, as if she had simply left the room and would be back any second.

  Dr. Gray let the other villagers pass him, until he was the last one left in the graveyard. He waited for the sound of the lych gate latching shut, then walked over to where the newest small tombstone lay, illuminated in the silvery moonlight. Just a few yards away was a larger gravestone, set flat into the cold, hard winter ground.

  Jennie Clarissa Thomson Gray, born May 23, 1900; died August 15, 1939. Beloved wife of Dr. Benjamin Michael Gray. May she rest in peace.

  Dr. Gray looked down at the carved slab of stone and prayed. He did not pray often—he was not convinced it did anything much but pacify a completely reasonable anger at the world—but tonight he wanted God to hear him. Because he needed help. He needed to figure out how to live with the pain, without hurting himself or anyone else. He was in violation of his oath, and that struck him as one of the greater sins, because he was in a state of knowledge, and with knowledge should come grace. He thought of Mr. Stone literally having to drag himself through life, and Frances Knight afraid to leave her house, and Adam Berwick and his sad inner state, and realized that they were all wounded in some way. Bookended by the two worst wars the world had ever seen, they were ironically the survivors, yet it was beyond him what they were all surviving for.

  He thought of Adam and his interest in somehow preserving Jane Austen’s legacy in the town. The list of books that Adeline Grover had given Mr. Stone and Evie each—a cup of tea and a sugar bun in a courtyard—the party now starting in the Great House without him. These were small things in a way, much smaller than a war, yet they seemed to him more important to survival than he had previously understood.

  He bent down, pressed his right fingers to his lips, and ran his hand across the lettering on his wife’s grave. It had been nearly seven years, and for the longest time he thought he had been giving something to her by indulging his grief. But Jennie had been the most alive person he had ever known, with the quickest mind and a completely open, unguarded heart. She had not lived one day—not even one minute—as he was now. She would have seen absolutely no worth in it. If he was completely honest with himself, he was letting them both down.

  He straightened himself and headed through the tiny back gate, the one that hung askew from its hinges, and remembered the broken hinge on the garden gate at the Grovers’, and how that needed fixing, too.

  The sideboard in the Great Hall was full of tiered silver platters piled high with sugar plums and rum balls and warm mince pies. Josephine had brought up bottles of claret and champagne from the ancient brick wine cellar, and in the large stone fireplace a dangling black iron pot bubbled with mulled wine steeped with cinnamon sticks, cloves, and nutmeg. Old family crystal goblets and champagne saucers were lined up in rows along a second sideboard, covered in thick white linens, under which sat the two smallest Stone boys playing a game of jacks on the deal-and-oak floor.

  Adam stood shyly along the far wall of the room, near the door to the adjoining library, as if about to make a break for it at any minute. He felt relief when Dr. Gray finally entered the room long after the service had ended.

  Dr. Gray accepted a glass of champagne from Charlotte the house girl and went over to join Adam, his back firmly against the wall with its high dark wainscotting reaching nearly to the ceiling.

  “Well, Adam, that’s certainly a lot of noise and crowd. A tall price to pay, even for Josephine’s delicious mince tarts. How are you faring?” asked Dr. Gray.

  “Fine enough,” Adam replied in as amiable a voice as he could muster.

  The two men watched the many villagers in the room happily milling about, making quick and passing conversation with each other, but mainly and generously helping themselves to the rare sight of oranges piled high on a platter and the alcoholic treasures from the Knight family’s cellar. Frances Knight sat on a chintz sofa in the middle of all the festive activity, her usually sallow cheeks flushed from the heat of the nearby fireplace.

  “I guess now’s not the time to ask Miss Knight about the steward’s cottage and our plans,” said Adam.

  “I’m afraid not. I think this evening takes all her energy as it is.”

  Adam cocked his head around the open doorway to his right. “Have you seen all the books in there?”

  Dr. Gray shook his head. “Not recently, no. I think there are several libraries in the house—I hear this one is particularly extensive.” He saw the piqued interest on the farmer’s face. “Care to have a quick look, then, Adam? I don’t think Miss Knight would mind—she is nothing if not gracious with her home.”

  Adam nodded eagerly, and the two men stepped slowly away from the Great Hall and into the library next door.

  There, in the farthest corner of the room, they found young Evie Stone. She was perched on a wooden stool by a fireplace, much smaller than the medieval one next door and surrounded by Victorian tile. She looked so childlike sitting there, with her pixie features, cropped hair, and small hands gripping at something in her lap.

  “Oh,” she said with surprise, slipping a notebook of some kind back onto the nearest shelf as she stood up.

  “Please, Evie, don’t let us disturb you.” Dr. Gray smiled. “But why aren’t you with the crowd next door?”

  Evie pressed down the folds in her plain navy knit dress from having been perched on the stool for so long. “Well, for one thing, my brothers are either betting, or imbibing, or stealing goodness knows what, so I prefer being in here, away from all that.”

  “And for the other?” Dr. Gray asked with a laugh. Evie’s antipathy towards her four younger brothers, ranging in age from five to thirteen, was well-known among the villagers.

  “Well, it’s just glorious in here, isn’t it? I mean, I think I’ve counted two thousand books in this room alone.” She took one down from a nearby shelf to show them. “Do you see this? This special binding? It’s the Knight family binding—they had their books specially bound from the printers, see, with their family coat of arms imprinted on the leather cover. As if they’d made the book themselves.”

  Dr. Gray took the book from Evie and opened the cover. It was a first edition of Lord Byron’s Ch
ilde Harold’s Pilgrimage, published in London in 1812.

  “Evie, have you gone through many of these books?”

  She nodded.

  “Does Miss Knight know?”

  “Oh, definitely—she’s always encouraging everyone in the house to use the library.”

  “Does she spend much time in here herself?” Dr. Gray asked, as both he and Adam silently started to run their hands along the tops of the books on various different shelves.

  “I don’t think so. At least, I never really catch her in here much. She does read, she has her favourites—but I think she prefers to reread a lot.”

  Adam laughed, a sound that surprised the other two for its rarity. “Oh, sorry, it’s just, I’m as guilty of that as anyone.”

  Evie looked at the farmer. “You are? What do you reread?”

  Adam turned back to the long shelf. “Just, you know.”

  Dr. Gray smiled at Evie, then turned to Adam’s back. “Adam, it’s certainly nothing to be ashamed of.”

  Evie’s eyes widened.

  “Austen,” Adam finally declared.

  Evie stared at the farmer. “But Jane Austen is my favourite. I reread her all the time.” She came over to Adam and pulled two matching books out from in front of him.

  “Look, Mr. Berwick, isn’t it amazing? Another first edition.” She placed the two volumes in his hands.

  He turned them onto their sides. “Two volumes of Emma. How strange.”

  Dr. Gray found a comfortable chair in the corner opposite from them and sat down, sensing they were all three going to be in here for quite some time. “Strange in what way?” he asked Adam.

  “Well, Emma was three volumes.”

  Evie continued to stare at him in disbelief. “How do you know that?”

  Adam opened the book. “All her books were, at least I think so. Oh,” he said suddenly, and held the book out to Evie. “Look. Says here it was published in Philadelphia. In 1816.”

  Evie nodded. “I know. How did a book, printed in America, get all the way here, do you think?”

  Dr. Gray crossed his legs, watching the two of them with great amusement. It was the most animated he had ever seen Adam—and the most speechless he had seen Evie Stone yet.

  “Perhaps,” Dr. Gray interrupted, “a relative or someone sent a copy here, or to Austen herself. Evie, you said there were two thousand books in this room alone. Have you gone through the other studies?”

  “Just the one right on top of us, on the second floor. I have dusting duty on the two bottom floors, Charlotte’s the top.”

  “How much dusting can you possibly be getting done?” asked Adam in all seriousness.

  Evie laughed. She had never spent much time around Adam Berwick, who had always struck her as so quiet and lonely. It would never have occurred to her that they would have something in common like Jane Austen.

  “Evie,” Dr. Gray spoke up again. He looked over at Adam, eyes raised, and gave him an inquiring nod.

  Adam nodded back in silent agreement.

  “Evie, Adam and I have been working on something for a little while now. It was Adam’s idea, a little project.”

  “Oh, I love projects,” she said brightly.

  Dr. Gray and Adam both smiled at her youthful energy. “We are hoping to make some kind of memorial to Jane Austen, here, in Chawton.”

  Evie sat back down on the stool. “Like a statue, or another plaque of some kind?”

  “No, more than that.” Dr. Gray looked over at Adam. “You explain. After all, it was your idea.”

  Adam put the two volumes of Emma back on the shelf and took a few tentative steps towards Evie. “What if we could buy the cottage, the little steward’s cottage, and restore it? Make it look like Jane Austen’s time there, with some of the furniture and paintings and whatnot? Then all the tourists would really have something to see when they came.”

  Evie looked from one older man to the other. “But where would you get the money? And where would all the stuff come from?”

  “Those are all good questions, my dear,” answered Dr. Gray. “We decided to form a society that would help raise funds through donations, and then we’d buy the house and source objects for it. I mean, we’ve all heard the stories over the years, about some of her letters and even the family’s furniture showing up in various Chawton homes. Apparently old Mrs. Austen gave away quite a bit to the servants and their families over time. Who knows what we might find if we set about trying.”

  “Who are the members—you and Adam?”

  “For now, plus Andrew Forrester, the Alton solicitor, and Miss Lewis—I mean Grover.” Dr. Gray hesitated and looked over at Adam first before adding, “And you, if you are interested.”

  “Me?” she said in astonishment, her eyes widening again.

  “Well, to be honest, at some point soon we will need to broach all this with Miss Knight. It might help having you on our side. I mean, you clearly know this library inside and out.”

  “That’s because I’m compulsive,” she said in all seriousness, and Dr. Gray’s head shot up at her self-awareness for such a young person. “Like my father. He and I both worked through Miss Lewis’s reading lists line by line.”

  “But it’s more than that, isn’t it?” asked Dr. Gray.

  She looked at him curiously. “Dr. Gray, why are you doing this? I mean, when I was in school, you were always taking Miss Lewis to task for teaching so much Jane Austen.”

  “Yes, Dr. Gray, why are you?” said a voice from the doorway, and the three of them looked over to see Adeline standing there herself, dressed head to toe in mourning black, which only emphasized her pale, tired features.

  Dr. Gray motioned for her to take his chair, but she shook her head and came over to the shelves nearest Adam. She slid out a thick volume that he had just been reshelving when she entered. She looked carefully at the cover, then flipped the book open, before turning back to the three of them.

  “I haven’t seen this before—the Knight family imprint. Are there a lot of these in here?”

  Dr. Gray nodded towards Evie. “Ask Miss Stone, your former pupil. She seems to have inherited your thoroughness when it comes to books.”

  “You realize this is a second edition of Belinda?” Adeline asked the room. “By Maria Edgeworth, only the most important female educator in our history? This very edition is priceless—it references an interracial marriage between an African servant and an English farm girl that later got edited out. Quite astonishing.”

  Adeline put the book back and went and sat down in the chair that Dr. Gray had earlier offered, then looked at each of their faces one by one, before saying, “Well, did you ask her?”

  Dr. Gray smiled at her astuteness. “Yes, of course—she will be a real asset to the society.”

  “Has she said yes?” Adeline smiled back, nodding at the still-astonished house girl.

  Evie looked at her revered former teacher and her trusted childhood doctor, and she wondered if this was the grand opportunity that she had been hoping and preparing for all along. Being part of something that would normally have been so far out of her reach. Having something to contribute. Knowing something that others did not.

  “Yes,” she answered happily.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  London, England

  Midnight, January 3, 1946

  Mimi sat by the open French doors to the suite at the Ritz, where she and Jack had been staying on holiday since New Year’s Eve. She was unable to get to sleep and was instead examining yet again the small box containing the two topaz crosses. As was his nature, Jack had immediately taken her at her word last fall when she had expressed interest in acquiring the jewellery from Sotheby’s. She had had to explain to him after the auction that she did not necessarily want to wear the necklaces—she wanted, instead, to safeguard them. She thought no one else could do a better job than a privileged fan like herself. Jack Leonard felt himself stumped, yet again, by the kind of worshipful love Mimi Harrison
was doling out to everyone, it seemed, but him.

  Work on Sense and Sensibility continued apace, and for every extra line that he got the screenwriter to give Mimi’s character, Elinor, Jack sneaked in a few extra ones for Willoughby, too. Jack was not the most experienced of producers, but he did have a knack for spotting the most interesting character in a script. In the alchemy that was all of Jack Leonard’s unique and uniquely questionable qualities mixed together, his understanding of the pulse of the moment struck Mimi as almost uncanny. Sometimes she felt as if he had been sent back in time by about two years, so intuitively correct was that understanding.

  If she could have gone back two years in time herself, she would never have believed that she would have ended up engaged to Jack Leonard and wearing Jane Austen’s ring. Or moving to Hampshire. Or—dare she admit—even quite in love. Jack’s willingness to practically move mountains where she was concerned was extremely seductive and persuasive. It was as if she could see the wheels turning in his mind, could see the ulterior motives, yet the journey getting there was just too damn fun, and the destination too remarkable. She would have hated herself for falling for him except that she was a big girl and certainly not risking hurting anyone but—in all likelihood—herself.

  It was also extremely difficult not to confuse Jack’s more extravagant and stubborn actions with a flair for generosity, if not a pure and selfless heart. She knew that his heart was both uncomplicated (the physical rewards of lust being paramount at all times) and highly compartmentalized into little separate chambers. Right now she might have the master suite and the upper hand, and all the privileges that entailed—but she also knew, from the string of conquests in Jack’s past, that she could end up just as easily relegated to the little garret at the very top, like Fanny Price at Mansfield Park.