First Impressions: A Novel of Old Books, Unexpected Love, and Jane Austen

by Charlie Lovett

  IN LOVING MEMORY OF

  RICHARD MANSFIELD

  1716–1796

  RECTOR OF CROFT-ON-TEES, YORKSHIRE

  TEACHER, WRITER, AND BELOVED FRIEND

  ERECTED BY HIS STUDENTS

  R.N., S.N., AND J.A.

  “What does it mean?” said Victoria, after they had stood in silence for a moment.

  “Well,” said Sophie, running her fingers across the text. “R.N. and S.N. must have been Newcombes. And J.A. has to be Jane Austen. It means she and Mansfield knew each other personally, not just through correspondence. And it means that she thought of him as a teacher and a friend, which is something. I mean, if she stole from him, would she have erected a memorial to him?”

  “You’re right, but it doesn’t prove anything about First Impressions,” said Victoria.

  “No,” said Sophie. “But I have a feeling that Jane Austen’s relationship with Richard Mansfield was deeper and less . . . I don’t know, less nefarious than what we’ve found so far makes it look.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  “Give me a minute,” said Sophie, squeezing her sister around the waist and then dropping her arm.

  “Sure,” said Victoria. She gave Sophie a light kiss on the cheek and walked out into the sunshine, leaving her sister alone in the ancient chapel.

  Sophie suddenly felt the weight of her knowledge like a stone around her neck. No matter what Winston did, no matter what happened with Smedley, First Impressions and the evidence in Sophie’s handbag would become public—and probably very soon. She knew she couldn’t keep the secret much longer. Right now, this forgotten place was so apart from the outside world she could almost believe that when she stepped out of the chapel it would be 1796, and she would see Jane Austen and Richard Mansfield walking arm in arm along the shore of the lake. But when First Impressions became public, this place would be peaceful no more. People would flock from around the world to see the memorial to the man whose work spawned Pride and Prejudice. Or, thought Sophie, the true believers would flock to scorn the grave of the man who ruined Jane Austen’s reputation. Sophie suddenly felt a great affinity for Richard Mansfield—after all, the two of them were in this together. If he ended up reviled by lovers of Austen, Sophie would be hated even more.

  She reached out and ran her fingertips across the words on the memorial once more and whispered to Richard, “I’ll do my best.” As she touched the words RICHARD MANSFIELD she had a sudden inspiration. She took a moment to consider her idea and then walked briskly out of the chapel to where Victoria sat on the churchyard wall, gazing out toward the lake.

  “I know what we need to do,” said Sophie confidently. “We need to break into that house.”

  “OK, I’m all for action,” said Victoria. “But just out of curiosity, why would we break into an abandoned manor house?”

  “If there’s one thing I know about estates,” said Sophie, “it’s that they keep records. Names of tenants, numbers of sheep, all that sort of thing. Some estate holders were obsessive about it.”

  When she had touched Richard Mansfield’s name on the memorial, she had remembered a day when her father and uncle stood in her father’s private study. Uncle Bertram had asked to see some of the estate records so he could show them to Sophie.

  “Why would anyone want to know how many sheep were at Bayfield in 1920?” asked Sophie, as her uncle showed her the neatly penned entries in a musty ledger.

  “Well, that’s the thing about keeping records,” said Uncle Bertram. “You never know why someone might need them until someone does need them, and then you’re glad you kept them.”

  “And what does the number of sheep have to do with Richard Mansfield?” said Victoria now.

  “Nothing. But listen—Mansfield died here in 1796, the same time that Jane Austen was working on her original draft of Pride and Prejudice, the version she called First Impressions.”

  “Or possibly the version Mansfield called First Impressions.”

  “Possibly,” said Sophie. “But Mansfield died right after he arrived here, according to the obituary. Hardly enough time for Jane to come to think of him as a teacher. So he might have been here before. Who knows what the estate records will tell us—dates of his visits, parties or balls that took place while he was here; there could even be letters from Mansfield to the earl. I don’t know what we’ll find, but we might find something.” She could feel the excitement building inside her. She knew it was a long shot, that even if she could get into the house, even if the records survived, there would probably be nothing that would help her. But a slim chance was still a chance—one last chance to prove Jane’s innocence. Then it wouldn’t matter who presented First Impressions to the world—Sophie, Winston, or even that bastard Smedley. If Sophie could prove that it was Jane’s original version and not Mansfield’s story, Jane Austen’s reputation would be saved.

  “Do you really think there’s anything left in there?” said Victoria, nodding toward the house. “It seems unlikely.”

  “Unlikely is not the same as impossible,” said Sophie, repeating a favorite saying of her uncle’s. He had liked to say this whenever Sophie had objected to some remarkable coincidence in, say, a Dickens novel as being unlikely. Never had his words held more meaning.

  “All right, then,” said Victoria, striding up the hill. “Let’s break into the house.”

  Hampshire, 1800

  FOR FOUR YEARS after Mr. Mansfield’s death, Jane had barely stopped writing. True, she found that she had more time to spare for her quill on some days than on others—visits to neighbors, journeys to see her brothers, and preparations for balls being a part of the rhythm of life. Nonetheless, in those years she had produced an entirely new version of what had begun as Elinor and Marianne and was now Sense and Sensibility. She had so enlarged and improved it from the original, not only shedding its epistolary form but also deepening many of the minor characters and extending the plot, that she did not even think of Sense and Sensibility as a new draft of Elinor and Marianne. It was, in her eyes, an entirely new book. She had also, in those four years, completed Susan, her satire on gothic novels.

  During those years she had visited Mr. Mansfield’s grave on the anniversary of his death—or as near to that day as her occasional absences from Steventon allowed. She had sat on the wall that enclosed the churchyard and read aloud a carefully chosen passage of her writing from the previous year. Since he was the one who had inspired her to continue, it seemed only right that she share her work with him in this way. But on a gray December day in 1800, she stood before his grave marker—which had dulled in color in four years—without any pages of manuscript in her hand. What she held was in her heart alone, and it was momentous intelligence indeed. It had been three days since she heard the news, and still she did not know how she felt. She had fainted away with shock when her mother had first told her. In the days since then she had wept with grief for what was passing away while, nearly simultaneously, feeling herself filled with excitement for what was ahead. On balance she believed herself to be devastated or at the very least disappointed, but she was not entirely sure.

  “Well, Mr. Mansfield,” she sighed. “First you have left Hampshire, and now I must do the same, though my destination is not quite so removed as yours. Father has decided that he is to retire to Bath, and we are to go with him. And not at some distant future date, but in May, not even six months hence. Oh, Mr. Mansfield, I am at a loss. Since the time that I was called from that place with the news of your final illness, I am afraid I have persisted with a very determined, though very silent disinclination for Bath. I find that the pace and noise of such a city leaves one with little time for that activity which you know is most dear to me as it connects me, so I feel, with yourself. I do not think Bath agrees with me, and now Bath is to be my home.”

  Jane waited in silence to hear in her recollection the
voice of Mr. Mansfield offering her some sage advice, as he often did at these moments, but on the subject of Bath and of removal from the quiet lanes and open fields of Hampshire he was silent. She could only recall him saying to her, as they walked the lane toward Steventon one day, “How gently stimulating to the mind of the writer must be the peace of the countryside.”

  “Indeed, Mr. Mansfield,” said Jane, “I find that nothing is more helpful in discovering the next step in a story than a long walk in the country. I am blessed to have the opportunity to take such solitary walks so frequently.”

  “I hope my presence does not quell your creativity, Miss Austen,” said Mr. Mansfield. “For our walks are not solitary.”

  “Indeed not, Mr. Mansfield. I find your presence a constant stimulation. Just as the body needs both food and drink, my writing mind needs both solitude and companionship.”

  Solitude and quiet were likely to be infrequent friends in Bath, thought Jane. Her only consolation was that her eldest brother, James, was to take the curacy of Steventon, so she would still have cause to be a visitor in the neighborhood.

  “I know this is not the last time I shall visit you in this way, Mr. Mansfield,” said Jane. As the wind whipped her bonnet strings about her face, she laid a hand on the stone that marked Mr. Mansfield’s grave and felt an emptiness in her heart. How, she wondered, could she survive such a place as Bath without even this meager communion with one who had inspired in her so much that she hoped was good?

  —

  JANE’S FEARS ABOUT HER productivity in Bath were not unfounded. In five years living in that city she started only one novel, but left off after only a few chapters. She was able to make some revisions to Susan—but only because the book was largely set in Bath and, in a failed attempt to change her own mind about that place, she took the opportunity to have her heroine adore everything about the city that Jane herself disliked. Following the death of her father in 1805, Jane, Cassandra, and their mother lived in Southampton for a time, and again Jane felt disconnected from the sources of her inspiration. By 1809 she had begun to despair of ever returning to that level of productivity she had known in the wake of her connection to Mr. Mansfield. But in that year, her brother Edward invited the Austen women to move into a cottage in the village of Chawton, on his estate. After nearly ten years away from the quiet of the countryside, Jane found herself back in Hampshire, living on an estate that could not help but remind her of Busbury Park. The flame of her writing could not be relit in an instant like that of a candle, but she felt as soon as they were settled in Chawton that the fire had been kindled and she had only to wait for the blaze to take hold. It was not long before she returned to her earlier novels, polishing Sense and Sensibility and First Impressions while waiting for new inspiration.

  —

  EARLY IN 1811, JANE paid a visit to her brother in Steventon. Against the advice of the household she ventured into the frigid winter weather for the long walk to Busbury Park.

  “Well, Mr. Mansfield,” said Jane, “I am back in Hampshire. Through my brother’s generosity I am able to walk every day in a park which, though not so grand as this one, is a welcome relief from the streets of Bath and Southampton. And so I think perhaps it is time for a new story.”

  And though she knew that what she heard was the wind in the trees, and not some ghostly communication, that wind sounded very much like the whispered voice of an old friend saying, “It is time.” The next day she returned to Chawton and began to write.

  —

  “I AM ALMOST AFRAID to ask about your work,” said Cassandra one afternoon as the two sat by the fire. Jane had spent the morning writing, as she had done for most of the past month.

  “In its early days,” said Jane, “it may have been too precarious to withstand conversation. But now I find that the story has taken firmly hold of me, and soon I shall be able to share it with you.”

  “I am pleased to hear it,” said Cassandra, “for surely, sister, I have not seen you so happy in many years as you have been these past few weeks.”

  “It is the happiness of one who, thinking that long ago a well had run dry, now finds oneself with a fount of cool fresh water.”

  “And have you chosen a title for this fount?” said Cassandra.

  “I have, indeed,” said Jane. “It is named in honor of the one who has so many times helped me to keep its waters flowing. I shall call it Mansfield Park.”

  Hampshire, Present Day

  “HOW DO WE get in?” said Victoria as the two sisters stood staring up at the boarded windows of Busbury House.

  “Somehow I don’t think your kickboxing is going to do much good on that door,” said Sophie. The front door stood at least ten feet high and felt as solid as a stone wall.

  “Servants’ entrance round the back?”

  “It’s worth a try,” said Sophie.

  Twenty minutes later they had made a complete circuit of the house without finding an unlocked door or an accessible window and stood back at the front, staring at the facade.

  “Why do I think that just because there is no way into that house it doesn’t mean you’re going to give up?” said Victoria.

  “Because you know me,” said Sophie. “And you know how stubborn I am. If there is any way to stop the world thinking Jane Austen was a plagiarist, I’m going to find it.”

  “And since your friend Winston could be revealing First Impressions to the world at this very moment . . .”

  “I’m going to find it now,” said Sophie emphatically. “And he’s not my friend.”

  “So we go around again,” said Victoria.

  This time they hugged the outside wall of the house and looked behind the overgrown shrubbery for any ingress they might have missed. On the outside of the left wing, Sophie tripped and nearly fell, but Victoria caught her by the arm.

  “What’s this?” said Sophie, pulling dead shrubbery away from whatever had tripped her.

  “Coal chute, maybe,” said Victoria. “Looks like a pretty heavy cover.”

  “You don’t really think it’s too heavy for the Collingwood girls, do you?”

  “I never said that,” said Victoria, smiling.

  They each did their best to slip their fingertips into the narrow gap around the edge of the wide metal disc. Alone, Sophie thought, she would never have been able to budge it an inch, but with Victoria’s help she lifted one side enough that it slipped out of place and the two were able to slide it away, revealing a circle of blackness.

  “Do you think we should tell someone we’re going in there?” said Victoria, as the sisters stared into the narrow black hole. “In case—I don’t know—in case we can’t get back out?”

  “First of all, we’re not going in there,” said Sophie. “I am. You’re going to keep watch. But I take your point. We probably should tell someone.”

  “Not the police,” said Victoria.

  “No,” said Sophie. “Announcing our own crimes to the authorities doesn’t seem like the smartest move.”

  “Who do you trust?”

  “Eric Hall,” said Sophie, surprised at how quickly the answer leapt into her mind.

  “I’ve barely got a signal on my phone,” said Victoria.

  “Me neither,” said Sophie, pulling her phone from her handbag. “But it’s worth a try.”

  “Eric,” she texted. “Remember how you said to call if I need help? I’m not sure if I do or not, but I wonder if you could come to Busbury Park, Hampshire, to the main house. Some amazing J. Austen news to share. You might be right about Winston.”

  She showed the text to Victoria.

  “A literary mystery, a damsel in distress, and his rival deposed. If that doesn’t get him here then he’s not much of a knight in shining armor,” said Victoria. Sophie wasn’t at all sure that Eric was the type to ride in on a metaphorical white steed; she on
ly knew it felt right to reach out to him. She hit Send.

  “Give me the torch,” said Sophie. She flicked it on and shone it into the darkness. The coal chute extended below the house at a slight angle. She probably wouldn’t get hurt, she decided. And if she did, so what; it was all in the cause of English literature. She sat on the ground and dangled her feet into the darkness.

  “Be careful,” said Victoria.

  “You be careful,” said Sophie. “I’m not convinced Smedley didn’t follow us.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” said Victoria. “I can take care of myself. You go clear Jane’s name.” She leaned over and kissed Sophie on the cheek and Sophie shoved off, felt herself sliding down like Alice in the rabbit hole, and in a few seconds landed cleanly on her feet in total darkness. She did not think about how coated in coal dust she must be; she was just thankful to feel solid ground underfoot. She flicked on the torch and stepped forward.

  It took her a few minutes to navigate her way out of the coal cellar, through the kitchens, and up the narrow flight of stairs that led to the main part of the house. In the servants’ kitchen she found that the plumbing still worked. Though the brownish water that sputtered from the tap was ice cold, she did her best to wash the dirt and coal dust from her hands. Once abovestairs, in the high-ceilinged rooms that made up the public part of the house, she found that enough light seeped round the edges of the shutters for her to make her way without the use of the torch. The house was mostly empty, though here and there an old portrait still hung on a wall or a piece of furniture draped in cloth stood in the middle of a room. Even in this gloomy state, the house felt like a home to Sophie. The interior was certainly more like Pemberley than Rosings, and Sophie could imagine the happy sound of children’s laughter echoing in the empty rooms. She could see those shutters thrown open to the bright summer sun, and the thought of the view across the valley and over the lake immediately suggested what Eliza had seen out the windows of Pemberley on her first visit.