The Jane Austen Society (ARC)

by Natalie Jenner

  “We have before us today the contents of Godmersham Park, ancestral home of the Knight family, seated in the heart of Kent. Famous family and visitors over the years include several generations of the royal house of Saxe-Coburg, as well as the authoress Miss Jane Austen, whose elder brother inherited the estate in 1794.”

  The crowd nearest the entrance murmured slightly as a striking woman in her thirties came through the mirrored doors and glanced discreetly about the room. She was able to find a seat near the front when several gentlemen, recognizing her, jumped up to offer theirs.

  Sotheby’s assistant director of estate sales, Yardley Sinclair, was watching from the sidelines next to the podium. He was inwardly congratulating himself for arranging the late arrival of the woman, so that the entire room would notice her and the excitement of the day would increase even more. She had visited the auction house several times over the years to inspect various Austen memorabilia, even recently acquiring a rare first edition of Emma for a record-setting price. Yardley had made sure she was among the first to learn of the sale of the Godmersham estate. He knew that the Hollywood studios would have her schedule locked down for months in advance, and he wanted her to have every opportunity to fly over in time.

  He watched as she leaned forward and caught the eye of a man across the aisle from her. There was some silent signalling between them, and Yardley’s heart started to beat faster at the seriousness of the couple’s expressions. The gentleman in particular looked thoroughly determined to win at something big today.

  Yardley himself was torn about the sale. Godmersham had been one of those historic houses that seemed to survive the First World War, only to lose its final footing with the struggles of the Second. Sotheby’s had had its eyes on the Austen-related contents of the estate for several decades, the author’s reputation only increasing year after year, especially abroad. Wealthy Americans were aggressively driving up the prices for various editions and letters, and Yardley could foresee the day when certain items would outstrip the average collector’s reach. His whole team was hoping today would usher in that new era. For now, items including fragments of Austen’s own handwriting were still reasonably priced, and Yardley was holding on to his own first edition of the collected works from 1833, personally acquired from an antiquarian dealer in Charing Cross when Yardley was still in college.

  “Lot number ten,” intoned the director of Sotheby’s, “is this exquisite necklace of a cross. In topaz. Acquired by Charles Austen, brother to Jane Austen, from reward money received for capturing an enemy ship whilst in the Royal Navy. Accompanied by a similar but not identical cross, also in topaz. Both on solid-gold chains and described through a series of Austen-Knight family letters as belonging to each of Jane Austen and her sister, Cassandra. Affidavit copies of those letters are included in the catalogue before you.”

  Yardley knew that the famous film star now sitting in the third row was most interested in three items from the catalogue: a simple gold ring with a turquoise stone that had verifiably belonged to Austen, the two topaz necklaces, and a small portable mahogany writing desk that had passed down through the Austen family over the years. Although Sotheby’s could not confirm that Jane Austen herself had written at the desk while at home or travelling, this was one of only two desks known to have belonged to her immediate family. The other one was lost somewhere in private hands.

  “Lot number ten,” the director repeated. “Bidding begins at one hundred pounds, with a presale estimate of one thousand. One hundred pounds—do I hear one hundred?”

  The actress gave the slightest nod of her head.

  “We have one hundred pounds. Do I hear one fifty? One hundred and fifty pounds?”

  Another nod, this time from a few rows back. The actress looked back over her left shoulder, then glanced quickly at the gentleman across the aisle.

  Bidding proceeded like this for several minutes. When one of the bids went from one thousand pounds to fifteen hundred, the auction-house director looked over at one of his other colleagues standing along the mirrored wall to the right of the podium. The two men exchanged nods. “Two thousand pounds,” the director announced sharply. “Do I hear two thousand?”

  Yardley had started watching the gentleman in silent conversation with the actress. He was as handsome as a movie star himself and well over six feet tall, his hatless head towering above those of the people seated around him. He was wearing a tailored suit in dark grey, with dark-chocolate-brown brogues. He was not checking anything—not his Cartier watch, not the catalogue, not the faces of anyone else in the room except hers. He showed no apprehension or anxiety of any kind. As the bidding accelerated, the price now far exceeding previous estimates, most of the crowd started to lean forward in their chairs, whispering excitedly to their neighbours. But the man just kept calmly, almost casually, lifting his right index finger, over and over, as if bored with the proceedings.

  “Five thousand pounds!” the director was exclaiming, as the audience started to murmur its approval even more loudly. All the faces in the room were now swivelled to watch the famous Hollywood actress and the man across the aisle from her.

  “Going once . . . going twice . . . sold! Two topaz crosses belonging to Jane Austen and her sister—sold for five thousand pounds to the gentleman in row three.”

  The actress jumped up from her chair and rushed over to the man, and he smiled in his seat while she hugged him. He looked up at her, at that remarkable face, and it was clear to Yardley that everything the man was doing—everything he was bidding on today—was in service to that face. Everyone else got to see it stories high on a screen—but right now, it belonged to him, as much as those two topaz crosses did.

  The ring was sold as lot number fourteen, this time for a record-setting seven thousand pounds, and again to the actress and her partner. The writing desk was sold for almost twice as much, its lack of official verification only slightly dampening the price, and an American collector of no known affiliation outbid the British Museum. Yardley had winced at the sale—he believed that all of these objects should remain in England or at least be kept together as much as possible.

  At the end of the auction, with record amounts raised, Yardley and the director of Sotheby’s invited the actress and her fellow buyer to celebrate with the team over champagne. As they raised their crystal flutes in a toast to the day’s success, Yardley asked the actress what her plans were for the jewellery.

  “My plans?” she repeated. “I don’t know—I guess to wear them.”

  The idea of something so invaluable—and so culturally significant—being tossed onto a dressing table or, worse still, lost in the backseat of a cab, started the beginnings of a migraine for Yardley.

  “But their worth . . . ,” he began to say.

  “Their worth is for Miss Harrison to decide,” the gentleman interjected. “That is why I bought them for her.”

  Yardley noticed for the first time something less than pure exhilaration on the actress’s face as the other man said these words. Yardley wondered at the degree of their intimacy—wondered if the purchase was part of a larger transaction of some kind. He had heard the usual rumours about actresses from the stage or screen, yet he would have liked to have given this one the benefit of the doubt.

  “Actually I was being a little glib just now,” she said apologetically. “I seem to be doing that more and more of late. I guess the excitement of the day must be getting to me. I will of course make sure that these most prized possessions are given the care they deserve.”

  She looked over at Yardley as if in appeasement, and he noticed yet again her wonderfully adaptable manner. So very American, he suspected: she would put a foot wrong, then just as quickly—and as charmingly as possible—put everything right as if it cost her nothing.

  “Were you pleased, at the sale?” she was now asking him.

  Yardley sipped his champagne thoughtfully before putting the flute down. “I was pleased at the success, yes—I
’ve been trying to land the Godmersham estate for years. It’s so rare, as you know, to find any substantive collection of Austen artifacts. All that’s left now is the Knight estate down in Hampshire—but apparently the current Mr. Knight’s impossible to deal with, and the sole heir, a Miss Frances Knight, is an agoraphobic spinster, of all things.”

  “Agoraphobic?” the woman’s companion asked, finally looking up from the paperwork before him.

  Yardley, noticing the woman give the man a curious look, continued, “Yes, phobic of the outdoors—doesn’t leave the house.”

  “That’s such a shame,” the woman said. “And so very Gothic.”

  Yardley smiled. He could tell that she, like himself, lived with one foot stuck in the past.

  “I just hope she cares enough about Austen,” he added. “You and I both know how much I would love for as many of her possessions as possible to stay in England.”

  She gave an irrepressible smile and looked over at her companion before speaking further. “Well, Yardley, I have some great news for you then—they will. At least mine will. I am moving to England.”

  “Well,” Yardley exclaimed, “this is good news. I had no idea. Ah, it is all making sense now. Where will you be living?”

  “We”—she looked again at the gentleman as she said the words—“we will be living in Hampshire. Of all places! What do you think of that?”

  “I think that quite perfect, under the circumstances.” Yardley looked down at the bare engagement finger on her left hand. “So, the ring?” he asked with a smile.

  “Yes, the ring.” She smiled back, and in that smile was an entreaty he was powerless to resist.

  The paperwork was being completed for the transactions, with the wiring of the American funds still sitting in the New York bank. Yardley looked at the director of Sotheby’s, and with a few discreet nods they agreed to retrieve the contents of box number fourteen. As the director walked out of the room, Yardley marvelled at how much of his job—the most important parts of his job—seemed to be conducted with absolutely no words whatsoever. Like an actor himself, he was constantly attuned to the needs and demands of others, adapting to them as much as he could, and as much as was necessary to acquire or hold on to some essential power for himself.

  The director came back into the room a few minutes later and whispered to Yardley that following some questions from the Manhattan bank, the lawyers for the buyer had authorized withdrawal from a European account in his name instead. This was greatly speeding up matters, and they now had the final release from the Zurich account confirmed by telegram. Yardley nodded his approval, then walked over and presented the small numbered box to the gentleman.

  “I believe this is yours.” Yardley held the marked box out to the man, whose name they now knew to be Jack Leonard, a successful businessman and fledgling Hollywood producer.

  The woman stood up quickly, and the high heel of her shoe—the highest set of heels Yardley had ever seen—caught just slightly on the edge of the antique Indian rug that carpeted the floor.

  “Oh my goodness,” she exclaimed, her fingers outstretched towards the small box as she righted herself, her hand shaking perceptibly.

  Jack stood up and took the box from Yardley’s hand, then playfully held it up high, far out of her reach. Only because Yardley knew the woman to be as big a fan of Austen as himself, did he see in the man’s behaviour something more than playfulness. Something between teasing and a little cruel.

  “Good things come to those who wait,” Jack said to the woman, as she finally gave in and lowered her arms in mock defeat.

  But Yardley was not sure he fully trusted the Hollywood mogul with the looks of a matinée idol. And he was left to wonder, as the Americans said their goodbyes and were accompanied by security into the early-September twilight, who the real actor was between them.

  Mimi Harrison had met Jack Leonard six months earlier, by the backyard pool of the producer of her latest film. Home & Glory was the story of a widow whose two sons are fighting in different battles in the war, strategically kept apart by the British navy to minimize the potential for grievous loss to the family. But the boys desperately want to fight together, and this leads to inevitable and tragic consequences for all. Mimi had heard a real-life story similar to this years ago, on a trip to England, and agreed to the role without even reading the script.

  It was a “weepie”—a woman’s picture—the very kind that had made Mimi Harrison a Hollywood star. She had meant to become a great stage actress and, after graduating with a degree in history and drama from Smith, had started out on Broadway in several strong supporting roles in the mid-1930s, reluctantly changing her name along the way from the more sombre Mary Anne. But her dark, exotic features were caught one night by a studio casting director sitting in the front row, and she completed a quick make-up-free screen test in New York, before being sent out West by train to Los Angeles. There she had another screen test, this time in full make-up, followed by facial bleaching to reduce her freckles, and a minor surgical procedure that would have mortified her mother.

  “One procedure is a record for around here, honey,” the wardrobe assistant had remarked when Mimi pointed out the scar. Mimi was a slave to the truth and felt that, if her body was no longer 100 per cent a Harrison’s, the least she could do would be to not hide the fact.

  Mimi’s first day at the studio had been an eventful one. The leading actor in a string of successful Depression-era comedies hit on her immediately, and after several days’ persistence, she gave in and agreed to dinner at Chasen’s. But that was all she agreed to—a fact he had trouble accepting at the end of the night. She would have been more unnerved by all of this if she did not already have a list of successful stage credits behind her. Arriving in Hollywood a little older than most, she believed that none of this would be happening if she did not possess something of value. And if she gave away any of it out of fear, she would be in a race to the bottom. Her father, a notable judge in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, had taught her this, along with a love of horseback riding, Renaissance art, and Jane Austen.

  Her first few months were marked by many men’s attempts to seduce her for one night—and sometimes even less, if they had an afterparty they hoped to get to—and her meeting them right there on the start line, not budging one bit. She knew she had only one person she needed to keep happy, the head of the studio, Monte Cartwright—and she had carefully and wisely cultivated fatherly feelings in him from the start, until he was patting himself on the back for being such a mensch, at least where Mimi Harrison was concerned.

  The past decade in Hollywood, career-wise, had been remarkably successful. She had contractually retained the right to one outside-studio film a year, and she was averaging four in-house movies on top of that, keeping her too busy for much of a social or romantic life. With a per film take of forty thousand dollars, she was considered one of the highest-paid actresses in the world.

  It would be only a matter of time before she met Jack Leonard, who made even more money than that.

  He had been watching her box-office ascension from a rival up-and-coming studio with a degree of patience for which he was not usually known. His own success had been less linear and much more questionable. With generations of family money from the garment industry behind him, he had counter-bet the Depression, picking up any stock that looked as if its final days had come, then buying up any surviving competitors. As FDR’s antitrust teams moved in, Jack started moving abroad, cultivating alliances with steel and weapons producers in Europe, and becoming both financially and diplomatically indispensable to them as various countries started assembling munitions factories for the increasing military demand. He had an uncanny knack for knowing exactly where things were heading, and for isolating the most critical weaknesses of his opponents, who were many. For Jack Leonard, life was a constant battle.

  He possessed not one ounce of introspection and instead directed his total energy at summing up the
people around him. Understanding himself was not important because there was nothing there to understand. He knew that, and he knew that no one else would ever believe it. After all, he walked and talked and acted like a normal person, yet he won, again and again, in a way that few others consistently could. If everyone else had had the capacity to imagine how much he was focused on beating them, they might have stood a chance. But even then, they would not have been able to live with the terms of success. So Jack Leonard continued to win, and destroy others, and make money, and he convinced himself (because when one is devoid of a soul, it takes little work to convince the self of anything) that his success was due to his own superiority in having figured all of this out.

  The more he made money, the more he needed to make—it was a compulsion that he made no qualms about. If you weren’t moving forward, you weren’t winning—and if you weren’t making money while you were at it, you were losing even more. So when a few business associates from New York decided to invest in a new studio venture out West, he hopped on—what better way to meet beautiful young women with little expense or effort. Plus there was no better time to enter the movie business, with so many prominent producers, actors, and directors off fighting the Nazis.

  Now, in the spring of 1945, with America fully in the war, and his steel and weapons contracts worth millions, and his studio putting out a film a week, Jack Leonard stood towering down over Mimi Harrison as she lay on a lounge chair in her purple one-piece swimsuit.

  Mimi opened one eye against the sun, now partially obscured by Jack standing there, and said simply, “You’re blocking my sun.”