The Jane Austen Society

by Natalie Jenner

  “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.

  “So, like I said, there’s plenty of room upstairs, now that my mum has seen fit to move back home and leave me alone again. In fact, when we hopefully acquire that library full of books, we can store them here—I will surely still have space for them. Yours will be the second room on the right.” Adeline glanced at the grandfather clock at the end of the hall. “It’s not quite ten yet—would you like anything to drink before you head up?”

  “I’d love that—mind if I go poke around while you’re at it?”

  Adeline smiled and headed back to the kitchen, while Mimi entered the front drawing room to the right. She found a table lamp and switched it on, and immediately noticed the improvised window seat now almost sinking under the weight of all the books. Asleep on a pile of cushions was an adorable kitten with a brown-and-ginger coat. It reminded Mimi of the tabby she saw wandering around the gardens of the steward’s cottage whenever she took a peek over its old brick wall.

  Perusing through the stacks, she retrieved a particularly tattered-looking book, then found another lamp next to the sofa. She switched the light on and, taking a seat, kicked off her heels to casually pull her feet up onto the cushion.

  When Adeline came back, she brought with her two tiny glasses of sherry.

  “Thank you, that’s so nice. I always have a nightcap with Jack when he’s in town. My fiancé.” Almost as soon as the words left her mouth, Mimi caught sight of the wedding photo on the mantel, looking still brand-new in its shiny silver frame. She couldn’t even begin to fathom the amount of loss Adeline had endured in just that past year.

  “How are you doing, Adeline? I mean really?” she asked quietly.

  Adeline sat down on the sofa facing Mimi. “I’m not sure. I’m not sure there’s even a word for how I’m doing. I do think that’s what Dr. Gray is worried about the most.” As Adeline spoke, she looked increasingly sad and confused. “No matter what, until now, Dr. Gray and I have always at least respected each other, even though we are different in so many ways. Being a man and a woman thrown together on opposite sides at work can be trying.”

  Mimi laughed. “Yes, I know—I am about to pledge myself for life to someone who would cast Lassie in a movie over me if it would make him more money.”

  Adeline laughed, too. “He sounds like a real charmer.”

  “Oh, he is that. He’s this fascinating mix of little-boy vulnerability and fearless energy. He really makes me up my game. And I am no wallflower, as you could probably guess from my choice of career. But back to Dr. Gray and you—you said the word respect . . .”

  Adeline looked down at the amber liquid in her sherry glass and swirled it about. “I think he is disappointed in me. In how I’ve been coping with everything.”

  “Oh, Adeline, really, I can’t imagine that. I can’t imagine he would judge—a widower of all people.”

  “But that’s just it—he, too, has suffered, and yet he keeps on going and listens to everyone else’s much smaller problems, and does it all with such wisdom and calm, almost too much calm if you ask me.”

  “Not all the problems are smaller. And one never really knows what others do to cope—you’d be surprised. There’s coping and then there’s just getting through the night.” She saw Adeline look up quickly at this last remark, as if something was dawning on her, but Mimi now knew better than to press when it came to Adeline and Benjamin Gray. “And anyway, as far as I can tell, I think Dr. Gray feels nothing but the utmost respect for you. Even, perhaps, a little too much. Well, except for maybe your note keeping.”

  Adeline laughed again. “He’s just much more thorough. He and Andrew both. Thank goodness for them or our meetings would devolve into hours-long comparisons of who is the bigger cad: Henry Crawford or Willoughby.”

  “With Adam taking up the charge. You know, it’s funny, I’ve never really thought about it, but I’m not sure that respect is what attracts Jack to me. Or me to him, for that matter.”

  “Respect in friendship is critical—and of course in marriage, too. But perhaps you share other qualities or attractions that are simply much more intense. Certainly you are both so successful in your work, and you would respect that.”

  “Yes, I suppose that’s so,” Mimi agreed, nodding thoughtfully. “I mean, Darcy and Elizabeth surely respect each other, even though they are so different. And Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth of course. Knightley with Emma, on the other hand, I am not so sure. Yet they share a deep affection and attraction to each other all the same.”

  Adeline sipped her sherry contemplatively. “Maybe Knightley would respect Emma more if he didn’t see her so clearly—maybe what bonds them together is that very willingness to love her so clear-eyed. He can help her that way, help her steer towards the truth, and do the right thing, whenever her overindulged spirits start to get in the way.”

  “Wow, you really don’t care for Emma, do you? I have to admit, she’s my favourite.”

  “Oh, I know—Adam told me.”

  “He did?” Mimi laughed. “How on earth does he know that?”

  “You told him. Years ago. When you were first here. He really wanted to like her, too. But Adam and I are all about Lizzie. Dr. Gray on the other hand is a huge fan of Emma, like you—he loves how she just owns what she wants, no apologies, and sustains strong relationships without any compromise. He finds her so charismatic, how others just bend to her will.”

  Mimi was watching Adeline carefully. “My dear, that sounds a little bit like you.”

  “Oh, no, not at all. I might be direct, but I have no problem with compromising when it’s called for.”

  Like Evie, Mimi had been watching Adeline and Dr. Gray with her professionally honed powers of observation, and compromise seemed to be the last thing these two were capable of.

  “I compromised with Samuel all the time,” Adeline was saying. “We weren’t married long at all, but we grew up together, and so many times he had wanted to get married, and I wasn’t ready—I’m still not even sure why—it just all felt too comfortable, you know? But then he got drafted, and suddenly certain things no longer seemed that important.”

  “Forgive me for saying this, Adeline, but agreeing to marry someone should never feel like a compromise.”

  Adeline nodded. “I know. I think I was just too weighted down by our history together to ever feel like I was actually making a choice. Maybe compromise was the wrong word. Maybe it was just—”

  “—resignation? Oh, believe me, my dear, we have all been there.”

  “All I know is that I really loved him, I really did, deeply. And now I have no one. And everyone wants me to just go on. It’s been a year, they’ll say, it’s time to get out. Take walks. Long walks. Go to the movies. Just get out there again and live.”

  Mimi shook her head sadly at the young widow. “Adeline, my father killed himself when I was very young, and it impacts me even as we sit here. It is a part of me, that awful, irrevocable act. And I am never going to be quite whole again because of it. You are not the problem: the loss is.”

  Adeline looked up at Mimi with tears streaming down her cheeks. It was the first time she had let herself cry since that awful night outside in the garden with Dr. Gray.

  “And, yes, sadly, no one else can ever understand your loss. It belongs to you. It impacts only you. And guess what? They
don’t need to understand.” Mimi paused. “But you do. You need to fully appreciate how this has changed you, so that you can indeed move on and live, but as this changed person, who might now want different things. Who might now want different people about them. And, yes, God forbid, different people to love again. You are still so young—you’ve been given all those decades to come for a reason. And it’s not to waste them.”

  Adeline was really crying now. It was what she had dreaded hearing.

  And it was exactly what she had needed to hear.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Chawton, Hampshire

  February 21, 1946

  Colin Knatchbull-Hugessen was walking about the main-floor reception room of the Great House, randomly picking up various objects first from the wooden fireplace mantel with the witches’ marks carved nearby, and then from the sideboard along the oak-panelled wall.

  “That dish is from the family china set,” Frances offered from her seat on the edge of the chintz sofa. “Picked out by Edward Austen with Jane herself at his side. See the little family crest on the rim?”

  Colin put the Wedgwood oval serving dish back down. “Never cared much for her books. Do you keep many servants around here?”

  “Just a handful I’m afraid. The estate can’t financially bear much more than that. But they are all long-term employees except for the two house girls, and they will keep things running for you.”

  He looked back at her with some interest. “House girls, huh?”

  Frances felt herself become uneasy under his gaze. “And Josephine, whom you just met at the door. Then there’s Tom Edgewaite, who runs the stables and the gardens, such as they are. We also employ a local farmer, Adam Berwick, to manage the fields and pastures.”

  Colin was now wandering into the library next door, and Frances got up to follow him.

  “Wow”—he whistled—“that there’s a lot of books. You read all these?”

  “Not really. I have my favourites—Evie’s collected them, over there, on the lower two shelves. The rest have been in the family for ages.”

  “This could make a nice room for a telly.” He turned about in the centre of the room. “You got one?”

  “No, I’m afraid, just the radio in the sitting room and the one in the kitchen.”

  “Television’s where it’s at. I hear the BBC’s finally opening again soon, now that the war’s over. Hundreds of pounds though for a set, they tell me. Best sell some of this lot off, for what it’s worth.” He randomly picked up one of the older-looking books. “Must be enough in here for two tellies, at that.”

  Frances had to bite her lip to keep from saying anything. It was not in her nature to be even remotely disingenuous. But she had the voices of a lot of other people in her head—Dr. Gray, and Evie, and even Yardley Sinclair—and they had all been most strict with her, that she did not owe this “boob,” as Evie called him, anything. That she was completely free to walk away from the house with no obligation at all to help Colin Knatchbull-Hugessen profit off it any more than he was already going to.

  Bored with the library, Colin headed for the dining room next, Frances reluctantly following him.

  The dining room had always been one of her favourite rooms, with its regal long table, deep-set window seats, and the grand piano in the corner. Colin sat down immediately at the instrument.

  “I am actually quite the musician, you know—watch this.” He grinned and started banging out “Chopsticks” on the keys.

  Frances wasn’t sure she could stand much more. It was hard to believe she shared even an ounce of blood with this man. Such a thought would normally have made her feel quite snobby, but Colin was so unlikable, he made it easy not to care about that at all.

  She showed him the rest of the main floor, then they headed towards the north staircase. Colin noticed the boxes at the bottom of the landing and, in a rare moment of humanity, asked, “Must be hard, giving all this up. You alright?”

  “Oh, yes. It’s important the estate be held intact and passed down as far as it is able. We’re all just caretakers here, in a way. Now it’s simply your turn.”

  “Well, that’s what I call a fine attitude. Yes, indeed. A fine attitude.”

  He motioned for her to walk ahead, and she led the way upstairs. When they reached the second-floor study, which also contained several shelves of books (the most valuable of which Evie had discreetly been moving downstairs during her dusting), he gave another loud whistle.

  “Bloody hell, here we go again.” He turned about in the middle of the room, and Frances steeled herself to say what she had been coached to by her fellow society members just two days before.

  “It’ll take some time and money, to get everything in the house appraised, I suppose,” she said as casually as possible.

  Colin looked back at her with concern. “Well, I don’t want to waste a second—or a shilling—more on any of that than I have to.”

  Frances nodded solemnly. “Time is money after all.”

  “Precisely,” he agreed, starting to think the old bird was perhaps not quite as out of it as she seemed.

  “I am in a position, you see, to make you an offer on the books.”

  “How’s that?”

  “We have a little society here, only—oh—seven or eight people, local villagers mostly, and we’ve raised money to buy things connected to Jane Austen.”

  He cocked his eyebrow at her. “Really? How funny.”

  “Yes,” Frances said with an almost embarrassed smile, “it’s just our little pet hobby, you see. Village life doesn’t necessarily provide the most exciting pursuits.”

  Colin was listening to her carefully, the world of horse racing and football matches and willing waitresses seeming to slip away with her every word.

  “Anyway, our society would be happy to take some of these books off your hands. Those shelves there, for example. And the two lower ones downstairs, that I was hoping I could take myself. And a few other books from the downstairs library.” She kept talking for as long as she could, while Colin pondered the life he was getting into.

  “But, of course, if you would like to bring someone in, to value all of this . . .” She watched the glazed look starting on his usually overly animated face. “After all, between the two rooms there are nearly three thousand books—”

  “Three thousand . . .”

  “Yes, give or take a few hundred. A full cataloguing and valuation would take months, perhaps even a year. Especially if one takes the time to go through each book carefully, page by page.”

  But Colin Knatchbull-Hugessen did not have a year. He never did. He lived between games and races and betting-parlour hours of operation. He wanted his money, and he wanted it now.

  “How much?” he interrupted.

  “The society would be prepared to offer forty thousand pounds for the contents of the library.”

  Frances thought back to everyone’s faces at the third meeting of the society, held in a rush two nights before, and the moment when Mimi had stood up and pledged the money right away.

  Colin composed himself and started to tap his right index finger on his chin.

  “That would free up some cash for you, from the estate, while you decide what to do with it,” Frances said with an accommodating look. “Right now, you see, sadly, any profits from the estate go straight back into the cost of operating it.”

  Colin stopped tapping his chin. “Come again?”

  Frances was now recalling what Andrew had told her about the current state of the estate’s financial ledgers. “Well, as the executor has informed me and will do so with you, I am sure, the estate is actually running at a bit of a loss.”

  “A loss? How so?”

  “Well, you see, every time the estate has passed down, the death taxes would eat up such a big chunk of it that the new heir would have to sell things off to keep it going—a field or two of land here, a small barn or cottage there—and it worked, to a point. But really, all we ha
ve left now is this Great House and the little freehold cottage up the lane and the contents inside.”

  “The little cottage where you are going to live.”

  She nodded. “And so, according to the executor, with the death taxes currently levied on the estate and the increasing running costs, we are in a bit of pickle. He suggests perhaps converting this house into flats as well and renting them out. That will generate a bit more money to help keep things going, although not quite enough. Of course, you could always sell the cottage outright to realize more immediate funds.”

  But Colin had no head for business. Just listening to Frances talk about the financial concerns ahead was giving him a headache. It was so much easier just plonking down some money on a counter and letting fate have its way. You win some, you lose some. No effort required. That was more his style.

  “I’m going to have to think about all of this,” he said, with no intention at all of doing so. Unbeknownst to Frances Knight, he already had a potential buyer in mind for the estate. A golf course and hotel development company from Scotland had recently approached his lawyer upon hearing of the inheritance from one of their directors with a distant connection to Chawton. Always on the lookout for great estates about to be broken up and sold off due to a financial shortfall of some kind, the development company now had its eye on the estate of Chawton Park as a potential hotel and golf greens, and the little steward’s cottage as a clubhouse and dining room for members’ wives and their guests.

  Getting rid of some musty old books was one thing—the bigger deal, to Colin’s mind, was to keep the property as intact as possible and sell it all to one qualified and highly motivated buyer. Of course, if he did so, Frances Knight would lose her home for life—but surely some kind village soul would take pity on her. After all, he told himself, wasn’t that what village life was all about?

  “Of course.” Frances smiled as graciously as possible. “Take all the time you need.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Chawton, Hampshire

  That same afternoon