The Jane Austen Society

by Natalie Jenner

  “Yes, correct, that is the law of the land,” Andrew replied. “Well, then, let’s discuss as a group and call a vote, obviously with Miss Frances and myself abstaining along with Mr. Berwick. That means, according to the law of meetings in parliamentary procedure, that a majority of all eight society members—five—must vote aye for any resolution to pass. That leaves the five of you who are allowed to vote in a pretty tight spot.”

  “Well, I for one am not sure what there is to discuss,” Adeline spoke up again. She was sitting on the small love seat next to Evie. Mimi and Yardley were on the sofa across from her. Andrew had pulled another wingback chair over between the sofas to face the fireplace, in front of which Dr. Gray and Frances sat on opposite sides.

  “I mean, clearly Adam is conflicted by the news, rightly so, and must be so upset,” Adeline continued. “And I don’t see how letting the whole village know the history behind all of this will make a shy man like Adam anything but even less secure than he already is.”

  “I’m not sure Adam is insecure, so much as he is just quiet,” said Yardley.

  “But you don’t know him the way we do,” Adeline retorted. “Village life is extremely intense in a way—no one misses a thing. There is no anonymity, you can’t hide yourself on a bad day the way you can in the city. Your neighbours force you to own up, by their sheer proximity.”

  “You make it sound so enticing,” said Dr. Gray, letting his old teasing tone with her return.

  “My neighbours knowing everything I am up to, every house I visit, or don’t, is not why I stay here.”

  “It certainly does make decisions much more loaded when you know there’ll be a constant chorus of approval or disapproval either way,” Frances offered.

  “I can see that,” said Mimi. “In a way it’s like Hollywood.”

  They all turned to look at her.

  “Yes”—Evie laughed outright—“that’s exactly what they say about Chawton.”

  Mimi smiled self-effacingly. “I just mean, we are lucky if we get to live in places where so many people care—the trick is understanding why they care. Here, what I love, is that you care because you have a history together. You have known each other’s parents and grandparents, and all the siblings running amok in each other’s yards, and when times are hard, you help each other through. In Hollywood it’s quite the opposite. Everyone comes there to start new and makes up a history—even makes up their own name. Mine’s Mary Anne, by the way, not Mimi.”

  “You’re joking!” exclaimed Evie. “You’re about to film Sense and Sensibility as Elinor and your real name is Mary Anne?”

  “Yep. Ironic, huh? Although even that right now is up in the air—they suddenly want a younger actress for Elinor, to go with the even younger actress playing Marianne.”

  Adeline and Frances looked at each other.

  “Will Mr. Leonard let that happen?” Frances asked.

  “I suspect it’s his idea,” replied Mimi archly, causing Adeline and Frances to glance quickly at each other again. “Anyway, in a town where no one even knows your real name, let alone where you come from, what is tethering you to anything? What is there to keep you on the ground?”

  “Oh, we do plenty of that around here, let me assure you,” answered Adeline. “No one in Chawton is eager for anyone to rise above their station. Don’t even get me started on the education system. There’s a reason Evie was self-teaching in the library all those years. Not that you didn’t love every minute of it,” she said with a smile at the girl.

  Dr. Gray and Andrew looked over at each other, aware that they were fast losing control of their limited agenda.

  “So, Adeline,” Andrew intervened, “you think the stakes are too high for Adam, both emotionally and reputation-wise. Evie and Yardley, what about the two of you?”

  Evie hesitated. Yardley was facing her on the sofa, and for a few seconds they stared at each other knowingly, both recalling that night in the library when she had revealed its many secrets to him. They were indeed very alike, and they had sworn that night to keep the library and the collection of Austen-related artifacts throughout the house as intact as possible.

  “May I speak first?” asked Yardley. “I know I am very new to you all, but I really do think Adam can handle whatever happens. That he feels wonderfully supported by all of you, and by the society and what we’re trying to do. And, speaking professionally, the risk of losing all of these items, let alone the house itself, is very significant. Once you lose it, you might never even get an Austen family salt shaker back one day. We haven’t even scratched the surface of the rest of the house, the paintings and furniture and who knows what else. I hadn’t mentioned this yet, but Miss Frances showed me a mahogany writing desk in her father’s bedroom earlier today, and it could very well be the biggest find of all. Sotheby’s sold one for over ten thousand pounds last September, on the chance it was the one Jane Austen used while travelling. I think this is the real one instead. We might be looking at tens of thousands of pounds for that little desk alone.”

  “Well, that is indeed ironic,” said Andrew, “as that is the very desk the old man so wretchedly amended his will on.”

  Everyone now turned to look at Andrew in surprise at his aggrieved tone.

  “Evie,” he continued, ignoring all the looks, “we haven’t heard from you yet. You’re the keeper of the catalogue. What do you think? Do you agree with Yardley?”

  Evie was not used to being put on the spot like this. She glanced almost helplessly at Miss Frances, afraid to say something that would hurt her or Adam, then finally spoke.

  “I am not a professional anybody, but I do think Yardley has a point. From all the research I’ve done, seeing what all’s been wasted over the centuries, trying to find what’s been lost . . . as hard as it might be on Adam, it could mean the possible destruction of one of the most culturally important collections out there. There’s no escaping that fact.”

  “Well, not its entire destruction,” countered Dr. Gray. “I mean, yes, she lived here for ten years and wrote the last three books here as well—but she lived a long time in Steventon, too, the longest, and almost as long in Bath. We know where some of her other homes were, and the Bath ones in particular are still standing. And even if Adam doesn’t speak up for his rightful claim, we might still manage to buy the library out from under Colin, as I understand from Miss Frances that he has a bewildering lack of interest in the books. Maybe we could do the same with some of the other objects, like the writing desk. All would not be lost entirely, and over time perhaps another suitable location could be found.”

  “Do you really mean that?” asked Adeline.

  “I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t,” Dr. Gray replied defensively.

  Adeline shrugged. “It just doesn’t sound like you—you’re usually so hell bent on everything staying as it is.”

  Dr. Gray shifted uncomfortably in his chair as he felt Andrew watching him curiously.

  “May I say something?” asked Mimi. “It’s probably too emotional of me, but then again I am an actress, so what else is to be expected? It’s just, I know what it’s like to have regrets, real regrets, about someone’s life. I don’t want to have those regrets about Adam, not for anything.”

  She paused. Everyone in the room grew unusually quiet. There was a reason Mimi commanded a twenty-foot-high screen in theatres around the world.

  “And I also know what it’s like to lose a father, and to have felt helpless in the face of it, and to have always wondered if you could have somehow saved him. Grief and regret puts a hole right through you that nothing can ever fill. And trust me, I’ve tried. And I suspect some of you have tried as well, with your own losses over the years. And the hard, crushing reality of it all is that the hole can never be filled. That you have to live with it, this absence that is not replaceable by money, or objects, or art—or even by another person, no matter how much you might learn to love and trust again.”

  Mimi paused. She had the r
oom and she knew it. She had never, as talented as she was, understood her audience better.

  “So, it seems to me, we’re being asked to vote on making a hole inside Adam’s heart, and then hope somehow he can live with it. Well, I can’t do that—I can’t willingly do that. Because if we’re wrong, he is the one who has to live with it every day—every second—of his life. And nothing is worth that.”

  “I agree,” said Adeline. “And, what’s more, I think Jane Austen would agree, too.”

  Dr. Gray sat back in his chair. “Shall we vote then? Wait, Frances, we haven’t heard from you. What do you think, you who have the greatest interest of all?”

  Frances was sitting there next to the fire, her hands clasped in her lap.

  “I think I have a brother,” she cried, as tears fell down her cheeks.

  It was all anyone needed to know.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Chawton, Hampshire

  April 1946

  Mimi’s wedding day to Jack Leonard was fast approaching. He had not been thrilled by the recent pledging of a significant part of her dowry, as he jokingly liked to call it, to the Jane Austen Society so that it could buy a pile of books from a rotting old mansion. Forty thousand pounds amounted to her working fee for almost two separate films, and she wasn’t even planning to do many of those anymore.

  It had been a year since they had first met by the pool, and Jack was now starting to feel a little antsy. He recognized this feeling well—the tan line about his ring finger had been hard-earned over time. This was one reason he had wanted a shorter engagement: he did not trust himself to stay interested enough to self-deprive for long. But Mimi wanted the wedding to be in the Chawton parish church, and this had taken some finessing with Reverend Powell after the leasehold sale of the cottage as a part-time residence had fallen through.

  After that, never one to lose face in a deal, Jack started to see the estate of Chawton Park and the little cottage as less of a bolt hole for his bride, and more of an investment opportunity. An avid golfer, he had recently acquired significant voting shares in a Scottish golf course development company called Alpha Investments Limited, and he was the one who first raised with its board the idea of buying the whole Knight estate for future development. He had been privy now for many weeks to Mimi’s occasional evening updates on the Jane Austen Society, Miss Knight’s financial predicament, and the recent legal declaration of a Mr. Knatchbull as heir following a rather bizarre vote by the society on which Mimi had for once refused to detail him.

  “But essentially you, the five of you, voted not to fight Mr. Knatchbull’s claim with information you had at your disposal?”

  “Yes, pretty much,” she had replied over the phone.

  His question that followed—“Are you sure the society understands its own mission statement?”—had not gone over well.

  So, in light of this confidential information, the hefty death duties now owing, and the flat UK economic climate following the war, Jack saw an opportunity to buy the estate out from under the hapless Colin Knatchbull, and accordingly advised the board to make a lowball offer as soon as they could.

  Regarding the contents of the library, as described to him in mind-numbing detail by an excited Mimi, Jack was less interested. Whatever the potential value of the books, which he was apt to estimate downwards, he doubted the current interest in Jane Austen would sustain itself for long. And the society itself sounded like a band of misfits with negligible expertise and no head for business: a country doctor, an old maid, a schoolmarm, a bachelor farmer, a fey auctioneer, a conflict-averse solicitor, a scullery maid, and one Hollywood movie star.

  The prewar property valuation of the Great House, the surrounding fields, and the little cottage stood at one hundred thousand pounds. When Mimi told Jack about Miss Frances’s offering Knatchbull almost half that amount just for a pile of books, Jack had practically fallen off his lounger. There was no way the shareholders of Alpha Investments would pay even a fraction of that, so Jack had sat back and let Mimi pledge the purchase price to the society. It made her excited—and he liked all his women in a state of excitement.

  A week before the wedding and the fifth meeting of the Jane Austen Society, Colin Knatchbull’s diligent lawyer drew up the paperwork to sell the contents of the library, sight unseen, to the Jane Austen Memorial Trust for forty thousand pounds. Adam Berwick had brought his hay wagon right up to the front gate of the Great House the very next day, and in a human chain of sorts, the eight members of the society and Frances’s three long-term employees had carried out all two thousand three hundred and seventy-five books. The move took most of the day, as the books had to be kept in strict shelf order, to comply with Evie Stone’s catalogue—this would make it easier for any eventual official appraisal to be conducted. Then Adam’s wagon had carried the books through town to Adeline Grover’s house, as she had two spare bedrooms upstairs in which to store everything.

  Now all the society could do was sit tight and hope that Knatchbull would also agree in time to sell the old steward’s cottage as the most ideal location for the proposed Jane Austen Museum.

  “Well, look at that,” Adeline’s mother was calling from the front parlour window early the morning of the wedding. “Mr. Berwick has shown up in the Knight family Rolls. I wonder why?”

  Mrs. Lewis looked back and smiled suggestively at her daughter, who sat in the rocking chair by the fireplace, rereading a small pocket-size copy of Pride and Prejudice.

  “Put the book away, my dear, you have a gentleman caller, arrived in style.” Mrs. Lewis tidied up the window seat a bit. “All these books, and now all those old ones upstairs, falling apart at the seams. I really can’t imagine what has got into the lot of you.”

  “Mum, could you get the door for me—I’m almost finished this chapter.”

  Mrs. Lewis shook her head. “Nonsense, you’ve read that story a dozen times. You can greet your visitor yourself. And, Adeline, please, be nice.”

  “Mother!” Adeline said with a sigh, shutting the book reluctantly. “I resent that. I am always nice to Adam—he is a very sweet man. Although”—she raised her voice for emphasis—“I don’t mean that in any kind of romantic way.”

  “Why does everyone always talk like that about Adam? He is a lovely man, very gentle, and quite pleasing to the eye in his way.”

  “Well, for one thing, he’s not interested in someone like me.”

  “Ridiculous! Who else would catch his eye around here? Certainly not that little Evie Stone. Too suspicious and astute. Caught her rummaging through the bookcase on the upstairs landing on her last visit.”

  “Mother, I told her she could. She’s convinced some old volumes from the Knight family library have been dispersed over the years throughout the village and beyond, and she’s always on the lookout for ones with the family seal.”

  Mrs. Lewis shook her head at her daughter. “What you people are up to is beyond me.”

  “And for another thing,” Adeline continued in exasperation, “Adam’s quite a bit older than me.”

  “Rubbish! He is not. And anyway, older men often make much more mature and suitable mates. Besides, how much older can he be?”

  “He’s only a couple of years shy of Dr. Gray, I think.” Adeline watched her mother closely for her reaction, recalling how difficult she had been to the village doctor during his check-in’s last winter.

  “Really? Well, the forties can still be a productive age, when one is not hampered by one’s children.”

  “Oh, Mum”—Adeline smiled at her—“I do hope you know how much you have helped me, despite being hampered and all—”

  There was a gentle knock on the front door.

  “Only to be replaced by a pile of mouldy books,” replied Mrs. Lewis, whose sense of humour was as sharp and direct as her daughter’s, while Adeline went to get the door.

  Adam and Adeline took a cup of tea with Mrs. Lewis for a few minutes, then headed upstairs, as they had been do
ing most days that week. They would sit down in the spare bedroom, Adeline usually cross-legged on the floor and Adam on an upturned crate, and they each had a set of photographs that Yardley had had made from Evie’s little catalogue. They were going through the wooden crates of books in almost quiet ecstasy, making sure the number on the crate corresponded with both its contents and the assigned section of the catalogue. They marked up any discrepancies with red ink pen right onto the photographs, pleased to have found just a handful of misplacements out of the hundreds of books so far. This was a particular relief, given how rushed the move of the entire library had been the previous week.

  They were still at their task an hour later when Frances Knight surprised them by suddenly appearing in the doorway. Adam started to get up, but Frances motioned for him to stay sitting.

  “The wedding is starting soon—shouldn’t you two be getting ready? Although”—Frances smiled at Adam in his old-fashioned but well-fitted suit—“I have to say, Mr. Berwick—I mean, Adam—you already look very well this morning.”

  Adam practically blushed—for all the years he had worked for and admired Miss Frances, she had never addressed him in such an informal and teasing manner. It gratified him that the recent news of his paternity had only increased her warmth towards him. Upon first hearing the news, he, too, had not immediately processed the one silver lining to his mother’s deception: that he had a sibling again, and that his new sister was someone as wonderful as Frances. By taking a few chances, Adam was starting to see that life never completely gave up on you, if you didn’t give up on it.

  “We could say the same about you, Frances, what with the wedding breakfast being held at the Great House in just a few hours,” Adeline replied.

  Frances waved both her hands as if in resignation. “Josephine has it all shipshape and under control. And I’m afraid I have something rather pressing to tell you both that could not wait.”

  Adeline and Adam stared at Frances in concern, especially as she was never one to exaggerate things.