First Impressions

by Charlie Lovett

  “So you’re saying whoever pushed him down those stairs was in the flat when the police came,” said Victoria.

  “It’s the only explanation,” said Sophie.

  “I’m sure it’s not the only explanation.”

  “Gives me chills just thinking about it.”

  “So how did your mysterious murderer get out and still leave the door locked and the keys inside?” asked Victoria.

  “I’m not sure,” said Sophie, “but I think I know who it was.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Have you got a few minutes?”

  “Boss is out to lunch,” said Victoria. “I’ve got at least an hour.” So Sophie told her everything about Richard Mansfield and his Little Book of Allegorical Stories, and the threatening phone calls from Smedley.

  “I don’t know why this book is so special,” she said, “but Smedley wants it badly.”

  “Badly enough to kill?”

  “He basically said as much,” said Sophie. “I think he thought Uncle Bertram had a copy, he showed up, pushed Uncle Bertram down the stairs, hid in the flat until the police left, and still had three or four hours to search for the book.”

  “But he must not have found it,” said Victoria, “or he wouldn’t be hounding you.”

  “Exactly,” said Sophie, pausing for a moment as the sobering truth sank in. “He killed Uncle Bertram for nothing.”

  “What the hell is so special about that book that somebody would kill for it?” said her sister, her voice wavering.

  “No idea,” said Sophie, gritting her teeth. “But I’ll tell you one thing—I’m going to find that goddamn book, I’m going to use it to lure this Smedley out into the open, and I’m going to find a way to prove that he killed Uncle Bertram.” Sophie did not share the thought that, much to her terror, leapt into her head at that moment—if she couldn’t prove Smedley’s guilt, she would do the next best thing: She would kill him.

  She told her sister good-bye, walked to the window, looked out on the quiet street, and said aloud, “Now, time to get the son of a bitch.”

  —

  She wondered, for a moment, if she should warn Winston. Smedley clearly knew that Winston was also looking for the Mansfield book, and even if Winston’s reasons were indeed innocent, he might not be entirely safe. But was Winston innocent? If one person was willing to kill for Mansfield’s book, why not two? Sophie shook that thought away and decided if she had to pick one of these men to trust, it would obviously be Winston. Maybe she could even use him as—what did the American crime dramas call it?—backup.

  She looked at the list of questions she had drawn up. She thought she knew the answer to the first one, “What happened to Uncle Bertram.” That left four more:

  Why me?

  Why now?

  Why this book?

  Why two different collectors?

  The question that mattered most, she thought, was the third one: Why this book? Answer that and she might be able to answer the others. She had to find the second edition of A Little Book of Allegorical Stories.

  She knew that her uncle had not shared his literary life with anyone else in the family; it was unlikely that Sophie’s parents would have the first idea about the location of what they would see as some worthless old book. The only person she knew who might have some insight into the mystery was Gusty, and she needed to ring him anyway, to let him know she was OK.

  “I’m feeling much better, really,” Sophie said in answer to Gusty’s queries about her health. “I had a little something to eat and took a nap,” she lied, “and I’m right as rain.”

  “You need to take better care of yourself,” scolded Gusty. “What would your Uncle Bertram think if he knew I was letting you faint dead away on the floor of my bookshop?”

  “Gusty,” she said, “could I ask you a question about Uncle Bertram?”

  “Of course, my dear.”

  “Do you know if he had any secret hiding places? You know, for special books?”

  “Secret hiding places?” said Gusty. “Well, if he did he never told me about them. Your uncle believed that books belonged on shelves, where he could see them and read them and love them. He would have something worth a thousand pounds sitting next to a tattered paperback. No, I’m sorry to say the only place your uncle hid books, so far as I know, was in plain sight.”

  “Do you mind if I take a few days off, Gusty?” said Sophie, already planning her next step. “I have to clear a few things out of my room in Oxford before the end of the month.” This, at least, was true.

  “And by a few things I suppose you mean your books.”

  “Naturally,” she said, smiling for the first time since Smedley’s call.

  “Take as long as you need.”

  Sophie thought it was unlikely she would uncover any hiding places in Uncle Bertram’s flat. Smedley had had hours to look for Mansfield’s book and he hadn’t found it. Nonetheless, a thorough search of the flat was the first order of business. She turned over the mattresses and pulled cushions out of chairs and sofas. She knocked on the back panels of kitchen cabinets to check for hidden compartments. In her uncle’s bedroom she discovered an unlocked window that opened right next to a large drainpipe. Doubtless Smedley had climbed down this to make his escape. She locked the window and continued her search.

  An hour later she had found nothing. She sat on Uncle Bertram’s bed staring at the shelf where his Natalis Christi books had stood. Now, only one book occupied the shelf—the Principia she had stolen. Smedley’s threats and Winston’s attentions had pushed the loss of those precious Christmas books from her mind, but now, as she sat defeated in Uncle Bertram’s bedroom, she thought that shelf looked emptier than any other in the flat.

  Her search of her uncle’s desk had revealed only writing paper and pens and a few empty file folders. She had pulled the drawers completely out of the desk to check for anything hidden behind them, but had felt nothing but bare wood as she ran her hands inside those dark openings. Now she dragged herself back to the sitting room and started returning the drawers to their proper places. She was just about to insert the lower left drawer when she felt something on its underside. She turned the drawer over and expelled a sharp breath. Taped to the bottom was a copy of Uncle Bertram’s business card, and taped to the card was a small key.

  Sophie knew at once that this was the key to the cabinets in the Bayfield House library. She had seen her uncle withdraw it from his silk waistcoat pocket when he strode into the library to select his Christmas book. She slipped the key into her pocket—glad to have it, but still not sure what it meant for her search.

  She took another look at the business card. Her uncle had rarely discussed his career with Sophie, but she knew he had worked for an accounting firm in the West End. “It means I can prowl the bookshops on my lunch hour,” he had said. She wondered if it would be any help to ring the firm where he had worked. She absentmindedly flipped the card over and her eyes widened. On the other side, in Uncle Bertram’s handwriting, was a cryptic message:

  NC 1971 Bulwer-Lytton

  NC must certainly mean Natalis Christi. But Sophie was almost positive Uncle Bertram had chosen the first of his Christmas books in 1972. She ran to his bedroom and pulled the Principia off the shelf. The inscription read “Natalis Christi B.A.C. 1972.” There was no Natalis Christi 1971. Uncle Bertram had told her that the Principia had been the first book he had chosen. Or had he?

  “My father died during my first year at university,” he had said, “and when your father and I made our deal, I knew that I wanted this book.” He had been speaking of the Principia; but she now realized he hadn’t said it had been his first pick, only that he knew he wanted it. Something else he said that day suddenly bubbled up in her mind. When Sophie had asked if he had known what book he wanted the first time he got to choose, Uncle Bertram had said,
“Especially the very first time. Remember that.” Why did he want her to remember? Did he know that one day she would be searching for Natalis Christi 1971?

  Sophie knew the contents of the Natalis Christi shelf like old friends. Principia had always been the first book. Not only that, but Uncle Bertram had loathed Bulwer-Lytton.

  “Even The Last Days of Pompeii?” asked Sophie as they sat at breakfast one morning. At fifteen, she was going through a stage of being fascinated with salacious literature, and The Last Days of Pompeii had seemed deliciously sexy.

  “Especially The Last Days of Pompeii,” said Uncle Bertram.

  “But why?” asked Sophie.

  “We all have our personal tastes, my dear.” She had noticed that, while Uncle Bertram would tell her if he didn’t like a book she was reading, he would never tell her exactly why. She supposed he wanted to let her form her own opinions, but she wanted to understand his, so she pressed him.

  “You can’t expect me to learn about great literature if you won’t tell me why you think something isn’t great,” she said.

  “Very well,” said her uncle, laying his Essays of Elia on the table. “You are a lover of great first lines, correct?”

  “Yes,” said Sophie.

  “And what is your favorite?”

  “Pride and Prejudice—you know that,” she said.

  “As perfect an opening line as you will find in English literature. Now, at the other end of the spectrum, we have Mr. Bulwer-Lytton.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your friend,” said Uncle Bertram, nodding at Sophie’s copy of The Last Days of Pompeii on the table, “is responsible for the most criminally horrendous opening line in all of English literature.”

  “What is it?” asked Sophie, leaning forward eagerly.

  Uncle Bertram affected a spooky voice and intoned, “It was a dark and stormy night.” He scowled at his niece and then burst out laughing.

  “It’s not so very horrible,” said Sophie, who, honestly, did think it was a pretty wretched first line when compared to Austen or Dickens.

  “As I said, my dear,” he said, picking up his Charles Lamb, “you are entitled to your opinion and I am entitled to mine.”

  And knowing Uncle Bertram’s opinion, Sophie could not comprehend why he would have chosen Bulwer-Lytton as a Natalis Christi book. And even if he had, why had it never been on the shelf with the others? And what could it possibly have to do with Richard Mansfield?

  Sophie was finally forced to admit that the search of Uncle Bertram’s flat had been fruitless. If he had possessed the Richard Mansfield book, it was long gone now. But if Smedley had murdered Uncle Bertram and stayed behind in the flat, then he had certainly searched through Uncle Bertram’s books without finding A Little Book of Allegorical Stories. Yet he had still approached Sophie thinking that she was the one person who could find the book. What could that mean?

  She sat down at her uncle’s desk, and her eye fell on the little golden key that had been taped to his business card. Was it possible that Richard Mansfield was hiding in the library of Bayfield House? It seemed unlikely, but Sophie could think of no other place to search. A moment later she had her father on the phone.

  “I thought I might come up for dinner and maybe spend the night,” she said.

  “Your mother would like that, I’m sure,” said Mr. Collingwood.

  “Father, when did Grandfather die?” asked Sophie, still puzzled by the mystery of the first Natalis Christi book.

  “Why this sudden interest in family history?” he asked.

  “Well, Uncle Bertram’s books are all gone, so stories are all I have left,” said Sophie, unable to resist twisting the knife just a bit. But her father seemed not to notice.

  “It was in February the year after I married your mother,” said Mr. Collingwood. “So it must have been 1971.”

  So perhaps there had been a Natalis Christi 1971. Uncle Bertram had been nineteen. Was it possible that he was still as fascinated by Bulwer-Lytton then as Sophie had been at fifteen? Did he later hate Bulwer-Lytton because he had wasted a precious Christmas choice on something like The Last Days of Pompeii? It didn’t really matter, Sophie decided. What mattered was finding the Mansfield book and somehow using it to prove that Smedley was a killer. Five minutes later Sophie had packed an overnight bag and was stepping out the door on the way to Paddington Station. She met the postman in the stairwell and he handed her the post. Something to read on the train, she thought as she strode toward the station. In her rush she had forgotten to bring a book.

  —

  THE POST CONTAINED FOUR book catalogs, two advertising circulars, and yet another letter from Eric. She did not open it until she was comfortably seated on the five-fifteen for Kingham.

  Dear Sophie,

  I suppose you are growing tired of getting letters from Paris from that rude American who accosted you by the river. I promise this will be the last, because I don’t think I can take much more of Paris. It’s not that the French are rude (although the few French I have encountered aren’t exactly polite). It’s something that makes this letter difficult for me to write. I finally figured out last night, sitting alone by the Seine and looking up at Notre Dame, why I hate Paris. You aren’t here. I miss you Sophie. I know that’s probably not what you want to hear, but I had to say it. The fact is, I’m giving up on Florence and coming back to England. I need to see you, and I need to see if there was more to that kiss than I thought at the time. You probably think I’m an ass, but anyway, this ass is coming to find you and hoping you’ll give him a second (or is it third by now) chance.

  Affectionately (that’s how Jane Austen signed her letters),

  Eric

  Sophie read the letter over three times, feeling more and more guilty about the thrill it gave her. Just reading it felt like cheating on Winston; enjoying reading it was even worse. But she couldn’t help herself. She still wasn’t sure how she felt about Eric, but the thought that he was coming back to England to see her left her a little breathless. She had just stowed the letter in her handbag and was turning to the catalogs when her phone rang.

  “Where are you?” asked Winston. “I stopped by the shop and Gusty said you were sick and when I rang the flat there was no answer.”

  “I’m fine,” said Sophie. “I’m on the train. I’m going up to Oxford to get my things.”

  “I could meet you there,” said Winston. “We could spend the night. Take a room at the Randolph; I could show you all my old haunts.”

  “Can you afford a room at the Randolph?” asked Sophie, who slumped a little deeper into her seat as she imagined a night with Winston in the freshly laundered sheets of Oxford’s finest hotel.

  “Not exactly,” he said, “but don’t you have a room?”

  “I have a room with a very narrow single bed.”

  “I’m sure we could come to some sort of arrangement.”

  “You never told me you were at Oxford,” said Sophie, changing the subject before she weakened further and agreed to let him come meet her.

  “I read economics at St. John’s,” he said. “Longer ago than I care to think.”

  “Yes, you’re so old,” she teased. “Much too old for me, I imagine.”

  “So shall I meet you at the Eagle and Child around eight?”

  “I’m actually going home for the night,” said Sophie. “To my parents’, that is.”

  “I could come up tomorrow,” said Winston. “We could take a punt out, maybe have a picnic in the meadow.”

  It was a glorious vision, but Sophie would not be distracted from her quest. “Not this time,” she said. “I have too much work to do cleaning out my room. I’ll call you, though. And maybe when I get back to town we could . . .” She left her sentence unfinished, but they both knew what she meant.

  “We certainly could,” sa
id Winston.

  Hampshire, 1796

  NOVEMBER HAD FADED into December and Christmas was on the horizon. Jane had worked several hours a day on the new and much expanded version of First Impressions. In the afternoons she read from her newly completed pages to Cassandra and Anna—a habit which further motivated her to write more pages each day. She did not breathe a word about the impending publication of the story from which her novel had been taken, nor did her sister ask about why that story had been written in someone else’s hand.

  Two weeks after his departure, she had written hastily to Mr. Mansfield:

  Steventon, November 23, 1796

  My Dear Mr. Mansfield,

  I have shared First Impressions only with Cassandra and my niece Anna, to whom I read each afternoon. Anna, I’m afraid, is so excited about the story that she keeps mentioning the names of Eliza Bennet and Mr. Darcy downstairs in the sitting room, and I’m sure the other occupants of the rectory must be filled with curiosity, but so far your little project remains, for the most part, a secret. I look forward to your return.

  Yours very affectionately,

  J. Austen

  —

  RICHARD MANSFIELD HAD NOT slept well since his arrival in Yorkshire. The air was cold and the rectory drafty, and his body ached after being jangled for three days in coaches, but these were not the reasons for his insomnia. Even the search for a curate had occupied much less of his time and concern than he had feared. The son of one of the local landowners had lately completed his studies at Oxford and came recommended by both his tutors and the bishop. No, what occupied the mind of Richard Mansfield was Tobias Mansfield, known to his drinking companions, of whom he had many, as Toby. Tobias was Richard’s only son and his greatest disappointment. The boy’s mother had died when he was only three, in a failed attempt to bring a second child into the world, and since that day all of Richard’s hopes had been invested in his son. He had sent him to Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford, in hopes that Tobias would follow in his father’s footsteps, but his son had let him down at every turn. At Oxford he drank with the toffs more often than he visited his tutors. After only a year he left that establishment in the company of those whom he called friends and had spent more than two decades bounding from one country house to another, living off his acquaintances, drinking, playing cards, and . . . Richard shuddered to think what else. On rare occasions Toby found himself between friends and only then did he return to his father, not for love or counsel, but only to ask for a “loan”—monies Richard always gave and Tobias never repaid.