The Jane Austen Society

by Natalie Jenner

  While Colin Knatchbull-Hugessen was counting his pennies over at the Great House, Dr. Benjamin Gray was paying the one house call he had most dreaded ever having to make. He walked down Winchester Road in the direction of Alton, before turning into a small lane. Stopping in front of the first house at the end of a row of semi-detached terrace cottages, he looked quickly about himself, then gave a firm, hard knock on the door.

  The door opened after a minute to reveal old Mrs. Berwick, now well into her seventies.

  “Has there been an accident?” were the first words out of her mouth, something Dr. Gray was used to whenever he showed up unannounced at the most senior villagers’ homes.

  “No, everyone is fine—is Adam here?”

  “He’s making a delivery up at Wyards Farm.” She pushed her tiny reading glasses farther down her nose to peer at him closely. “He’ll be back by tea if you want to try again.”

  “Actually, Mrs. Berwick, it’s you I came to see. May I come in?”

  She pulled her shawl about her shoulders tightly and stepped back to let him in. The house had only four rooms: the parlour that they were standing in, the back kitchen, and the two upstairs bedrooms. Dr. Gray remembered the acres-wide former Berwick farmstead a few miles out of town, now occupied by the struggling Stone family, and all the hardship that had been visited upon both families over the years. For the first time it struck him how ironic it all was—how Evie Stone and Adam Berwick had each grown up in that same old farmhouse, perhaps even slept in the same bedroom, then both ended up part of the Austen Society, despite such vast differences in temperament and ambition and age. He wondered what a less logical, more mystical man would have made of that.

  Adam’s mother pointed to a seat by the inglenook fireplace, which stretched the entire width of the room. Dr. Gray sat down and spied several stacks of books on the floor next to him.

  “Adam’s been quite distracted ever since you lot started on all that Jane Austen nonsense.”

  Dr. Gray gave her an indulgent smile. He had learned well enough over the years never to unnecessarily contradict a woman like Edith Berwick—he was saving his energy for a very different battle ahead.

  “I wonder if you know why I have come.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him but said nothing. She was not going to give him an inch, he could tell.

  “Edith—Mrs. Berwick—I think it is time. To tell Adam. Things have changed for you both very dramatically and very suddenly this past week. You heard, of course, about Mr. Knight’s will?”

  He saw her take a nervous gulp while she continued to stare. “Yes, of course. What business does any of that have to do with me and Adam?”

  “Adam’s the closest heir,” Dr. Gray said as quickly and forcefully as he could.

  “He is no such thing.”

  “Edith, please—you can’t deprive him of all that, without his knowledge.” Dr. Gray looked about the small dark room. “He would own the old Berwick fields again, and the house and stables, and he could keep things or change them up as he saw fit—but knowing Adam, he would keep that old place going, keep it the centre of our village as in old times. God knows what will happen to it with anyone else.”

  “There is someone else then?”

  So she did know more than she was letting on.

  “Yes, a Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen of Greater Birmingham. He’s up at the house as we speak, being shown around by Miss Frances. Miss Frances, who we both know truly does not deserve any of what has happened. Not that the old man surprised anyone in his vindictiveness.”

  Dr. Gray wondered if his cause would be helped or hindered by criticizing her former employer Mr. Knight.

  She shook her head forcefully. “I’m not telling him. You can’t make me. You swore an oath.”

  Dr. Gray sighed audibly. “Yes, I did. That’s why this has been our secret now for well over twenty years. January 1919, correct? I won’t forget. Not ever. I was back here to help old Dr. Simpson, coping all on his own with the outbreak.”

  “I’m not telling him,” she repeated, as if she hadn’t heard a word he’d said.

  “Who are you more worried about, you or Adam? Because as his doctor, I believe he is well enough to handle the news, if it means inheriting all that. I am not sure I would have said that in years past. But he is among friends now, good friends, and we will take care of him, just as you have done all these years alone.”

  “He loved his father more than anything. He won’t be able to abide it. I know.”

  Dr. Gray was watching her carefully. He knew her propensity for selfish gain, her overweening interest and delight in the failures of others. Her cynicism. Her self-loathing that manifested itself in all these other ways. He did not like her—he never had. She would not have known that—his steady gracious smile in the street, the respectful tip of the hat, the patient nodding while she spewed her venom against the other villagers, had always kept him in her good graces as he knew he needed to be. That was how she exerted the minimal control over village life that she had, through terror tactics aided by a sharp and unforgiving tongue. No one ever wanted to get on the bad side of Edith Berwick, and he could only wonder at what toll this had over the years taken on poor Adam’s health.

  It was one reason why, ever since he had learned of the new will, he had been torn about saying anything. But his scruples had started many years earlier, during the Spanish flu epidemic that had ravaged Chawton and the world just as the Great War was ending, when Dr. Gray was still just an intern. After only a few days of fever, Mr. Berwick was starting to inexplicably haemorrhage and was rushed to the Alton Hospital. Here Dr. Howard Westlake, recently returned from the war as a medic and local hero, had suggested immediate blood transfusion using techniques he had learned on the Western Front. Adam had eagerly donated blood, having been deemed the most likely to match his father’s blood type, but still Mr. Berwick could not be saved. Only Mrs. Berwick would eventually be told the truth by Dr. Gray: that based on cross-matching of their blood types, Adam could not possibly be his father’s son.

  Dr. Gray had had to guess at the real story, for the old widow Berwick had been shell-shocked with grief at the time. Then years later, long after he had moved back to Chawton to take over Dr. Simpson’s practice, she had one day told Dr. Gray everything, in a rare moment of trust and candour. He could not quite remember why—all he knew was that in the years since, instead of acting as if he had something on her, Mrs. Berwick had acted as if she now had something to lord over him, such was the conniving brilliance of her power tactics. As if she was just waiting for him to betray his oath to her and crack.

  He wondered how long she could resist doing the same when it came to her son. Wondered if the idea of the wealth waiting for Adam would triumph over her misgivings, for however faltering the estate was, it still yielded thousands of pounds in revenue a year. Dr. Gray would be lying if he did not acknowledge, at least to himself, that he was extremely keen to see the entirety of the estate go to a man like Adam, with his commitment to Austen’s legacy and to the town of Chawton in general, if it couldn’t go to Frances.

  Dr. Gray shifted a bit in his seat. He had waited until today before saying anything because he had hoped all along that Frances would end up the heir.

  “Why are you here now?” Mrs. Berwick asked, as if she could read his mind.

  “I just thought it was time.”

  “But you’ve known for weeks. Adam told me you were at the reading of the will.” She stared at Dr. Gray aggressively. “Longer, even, I suspect, with the likes of Harriet Peckham working for you.”

  “I can’t speak to any of that. As a patient of mine yourself, I am sure you understand my need for discretion. But things have changed recently and so dramatically, as I first said—and I always thought it best if you came to this decision on your own. I will respect what you decide to do, either way, I can assure you. But you are running out of time, now that Mr. Knatchbull has appeared. And I wanted to be absolutely clear w
ith you on that.”

  “My boy won’t want any of it.”

  “I think you are wrong.”

  “I know I am right. Everyone will know, and it will be his shame as much as mine, and all the land and money in the world won’t be worth it to him.”

  “I know that is how you feel, otherwise you would have also told Mr. Knight himself when you had the chance. You didn’t tell him or Adam for a reason, even with Mr. Berwick gone for so many years. But please, please think about what your reasons really are.”

  With that, he got up while she remained seated, staring ahead. He left the cottage feeling some degree of relief. He had done what he could for Adam without breaching any patient confidentiality—otherwise his hands were tied. He was also relieved that the old woman had not pursued more of a connection between his speaking up now and the interest of the society in the little cottage down the lane. Dr. Gray was aware of his own self-interest in all of this, and he had spent weeks trying to manage it. But he consoled himself with the fact that, in all the years he had known Adam Berwick, he had never seen him more engaged, or alive, or happy. Dr. Gray knew that the Jane Austen Society was a huge reason why, and he knew that it had been Adam’s dream first to try to acquire the cottage as a monument to his favourite author. And that as a result it was no longer Dr. Gray’s secret, or Mrs. Berwick’s, to keep. Adam deserved the truth, to make of it however much or however little he would.

  Early the next morning Liberty Pascal, wearing an even brighter shade of lipstick than usual, appeared in the doorway to Dr. Gray’s office. She often had this funny way of leaning against the doorframe, as if hankering for an invitation to come in and take a load off. He mused once again at the likelihood of his unknowingly hiring someone so connected to Adeline, as well as the misfortune of its being someone with such a competitive view of her.

  “Yes, Miss Pascal?”

  “Adam Berwick is here to see you. I didn’t see his name in your appointments book.”

  “That’s alright. Please, send him in.”

  Dr. Gray rarely got emotional at his job—he prided himself on this. But he was suddenly overcome by the idea of Adam having to revisit the few certain and pleasant memories of his distant past, and having to integrate those memories with the reality of what had really been going on. No one ever wants to know that things were not as they seemed.

  A few seconds later Liberty reappeared with Adam lingering behind her. He took off his cap as he entered the office, and Dr. Gray noticed Liberty flash him an extra-wide smile and give the slightest curtsy before leaving the two men alone.

  “Adam, come in, please.” Dr. Gray got up and closed the door, then sat back down behind his desk.

  “I don’t want to talk much about it,” the bewildered man began.

  “Of course, Adam, I fully understand. You must take care of yourself, and your mother. It had to have been extremely difficult for her to tell you. I can’t imagine.”

  Adam was gripping his cap so tightly in his hands that his knuckles were turning white. Dr. Gray’s heart was breaking a little for the poor man—he never could get a break. Yet there he was, trying to connect with people like Dr. Gray and Adeline and Evie, trying to build something outside of his tiny world. It all took so much guts and nerve for a man like him. That terrible First War and its numbing degree of loss had deprived Adam Berwick of something essential years ago—an understanding of hope—an understanding of how sometimes it is all we have. But how hope can also sometimes be just enough.

  “I didn’t want you to know just so that the society could get the cottage. I need you to know that, Adam, as your physician and your friend. You are a strong man—look at what you have survived. You will survive this, too, and put it in its place, whatever you decide to do. But you are the one who should get to decide all that.”

  “My father . . .”

  Dr. Gray could hear the pain in Adam’s voice as it trailed off.

  “I know—again, we don’t have to talk about it. But as a doctor, let me just say this: For all the ties of blood and birth that I see about me, each and every day, and the babies delivered, and the tears of the parents, I only ever remember the love. You were loved, Adam—you are loved. Your father loved you, and you cherish his memory, and that is all that really counts. And you get to safeguard that memory however you choose.”

  Adam wiped his nose with a handkerchief from his pocket. “I keep coming back to the cottage, and all the books and things, and what if we lose it all? Let alone Miss Frances and the one home she has left?”

  Dr. Gray came around to lean against the back of his desk, facing Adam. “That really doesn’t need to be your concern right now. I just wanted—Mrs. Berwick, too—we simply wanted you to have the information. But it’s nobody else’s business what you decide to do with it. And don’t panic about Miss Frances just yet—after all, Mr. Knatchbull may never sell any of it.”

  Dr. Gray was touched, though, by the man’s visible conflict, the conflict Dr. Gray himself had been enduring. If they were caretakers out here of something bigger than themselves, then they each had a responsibility beyond their own self-interest that was incredibly difficult to deny.

  “I want someone to tell me what to do.”

  Dr. Gray gave his first genuine smile in days. “Trust me, Adam, we all feel like that sometimes.”

  “What would you do?”

  “I honestly don’t know. That’s what’s so trying about all of this. It’s so completely, so thoroughly, unique to you. Like all of life. None of us can ever say for sure what we’d do without feeling all of someone else’s slings and arrows along the way.”

  Adam stuffed the handkerchief back inside his front jacket pocket. “I want to take a vote.”

  “Come again?” Dr. Gray asked in surprise.

  “The society. I want to tell them—I want you to tell them—and I want them all to vote. Miss Frances told me yesterday—I stopped in at the house on my way back from Wyards—she told me that this Mr. Knatchbull is pretty focused on the money from the house. She thinks we might get the books—says it shouldn’t be too difficult to pull off—but the rest of it all, and the cottage, who knows. So I want a vote, a proper official one, and soon. I trust everyone in the society.”

  Dr. Gray looked at him carefully. “Adam, we don’t know everyone that well—Mr. Sinclair and Miss Harrison are pretty much strangers still, for all I like and respect them both.”

  Adam shook his head firmly. “No, it’s fine. I trust them. I trust you.” He gave Dr. Gray a pointed, emotional look. “You knew all these years and you never said a word.”

  Dr. Gray put his right hand out to touch Adam’s shoulder, an unusual display of the internal compassion he felt for all his patients but stoically concealed in the pursuit of his professional duties.

  “Adam, it was important to do so, of course—but in some ways, if you think about it, it isn’t important at all. It doesn’t change anything—it doesn’t change what you shared with your father. The rest of it, even your mother’s role in all of this, is secondary, at least I think so. There’s the centre of the life, and there’s all the stuff that flies around on the periphery—and you, and only you, get to decide what you want to keep in place. Don’t let anyone else move it about.”

  Adam nodded.

  “But I still want that vote.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Chawton, Hampshire

  February 23, 1946

  Second Emergency Meeting of the Jane Austen Society

  The agenda for tonight’s meeting was enough to put Andrew Forrester over the edge.

  “So we’re here to hold a vote, one vote, on whether Adam should claim his inheritance of the Knight estate? A claim based on his alleged paternity by Mr. Knight, a fact even Adam was unaware of until just a day or two ago?”

  Dr. Gray nodded. They were all assembled again in his front parlour. Everyone was there except Adam, which was more a relief than anything else, given the magnitude of t
he decision before them.

  Mimi had met Yardley at the station that Saturday afternoon, having never returned to London after the first emergency meeting four nights earlier. She had stayed with Adeline the first night, then moved into the guest bedroom at the Great House. The country air was doing her good—she had never looked lovelier.

  “But you knew about this? For how long?” Andrew asked Dr. Gray.

  “I can’t get into that, Andy, as you well know,” Dr. Gray replied. “But I have here written permission from both Adam and his mother to disclose the nature of the claim to the current members of the society. These are for your solicitor files, as executor of the estate, to be locked away with the utmost confidentiality.” Dr. Gray passed the papers over to Andrew, then sat back down.

  “Poor Adam,” Adeline spoke up. “He loses almost his whole family, and then this. How is he doing?”

  Dr. Gray rested both his hands on the arms of his wingback chair closest to the fire and stared down at the floor. “I can’t say much, of course, as he is still my patient as well, but he has asked us all here today to vote on his next steps because he is too emotionally torn, I believe, to make the decision without our help. Our vote is not at all determinative or binding on him in any way. It’s purely to help him decide.”

  “It must not have been an easy decision for you either, to say anything,” remarked Adeline.

  Dr. Gray looked up in surprise at her understanding tone. It felt like many months since she had treated him with anything akin to compassion. It might not have seemed like much to the others, but to Dr. Gray her words offered both comfort and hope—the very sense of hope that he, like Adam, had long ago lost.

  Andrew read through the two affidavits before him. “So it’s a potentially valid claim, then, no question about that?”

  Dr. Gray nodded.

  “And besides you, Adam and his mother are the only other people who know—Mr. Knight never knew, correct?”

  “Yes, which makes the wording of the will—‘closest living male relative’—so important. Without the word legitimate, correct me if I’m wrong, anyone related by blood can make the claim.”