First Impressions

by Charlie Lovett

  “I assure you, my lord, he was a better friend to me that I could ever hope to be to him.”

  “He was a good man,” said the earl with a quaver in his voice, and he turned and walked back down the corridor.

  Jane turned the handle and pushed the door open. The room was dimly lit with candles and a lamp by the bedside. The elegant blue and gold drapes had been pulled shut. Mr. Mansfield, or the mortal husk of Mr. Mansfield, thought Jane, lay in the center of the wide bed. She sat on the edge of the bed for several minutes, looking at his serene face. He looked so well rested, she thought. She reached out and took his hand in hers. His skin was cool and dry. So often had she accompanied her father to funerals and burials that she knew most of the words of the service by heart. As she sat by the man she had loved so dearly, holding his hand in hers, she spoke aloud, once more reading to him, this time from memory:

  I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, from henceforth blessed are the dead which die in the Lord: even so, saith the Spirit; for they rest from their labours.

  “So let it be with you, my love,” she said, tears once again flowing freely down her face. “Rest. Rest in God’s peace.”

  Oxford, Present Day

  THE NEXT MORNING Sophie awoke feeling hopeful. Somehow the decision to confide in Winston had already, in her mind, given her an ally. She was up early and at her computer, working on a plan of attack for the day. The first step was frighteningly easy. With nothing more than a fifty-pound membership fee in a genealogical research site, she was able, in less than an hour, to trace her ancestry back to Gilbert Monkhouse and Theresa Wright. Theresa’s father, as the family prayer book had indicated, had also been a printer, which explained why Sophie’s father didn’t associate the name Monkhouse with the printing family from which he was descended. Of course, if Sophie could discover that connection, so could anyone else. Sophie imagined the old woman who conducted the monthly tours of Bayfield told the story of how the family library was begun when a printer kept one copy of every book he printed. Smedley suspected from the inscription in the St. John’s copy of Mansfield’s book that there was a connection between the second edition, Jane Austen, and First Impressions. It would have taken no great power of reasoning to deduce that if there were a surviving copy of that second edition, it might well be either in the inaccessible cases of Bayfield House or on the cluttered shelves of Uncle Bertram’s flat. Smedley had searched Uncle Bertram’s flat after he killed him; but he’d had to enlist Sophie to search Bayfield House. If threats and bribes weren’t enough to rouse Sophie to action, he had dropped the hint about St. John’s, hoping she would uncover the book that brought her beloved Jane Austen into the story.

  Sophie’s next task was to research Richard Mansfield. This proved more difficult. The genealogical site was no help this time. Beyond the brief biographical sketch she had found in Alumni Oxonienses, there was nothing. She pulled up Alumni Oxonienses online and looked at his biography again:

  MANSFIELD, RICHARD NORMAN, 1s. Tobias Charles, of Bloxham, Oxfordshire, cler. Balliol Coll., matric. 1734, aged 18; B.A. 1737, M.A. 1740. Curate of Bloxham 1743, Master of Cowley Grammar School 1758–1780, Rector of Croft, Yorkshire, 1780. Died 4 Dec. 1796.

  He had been an undergraduate at Balliol, but they were not likely to have any records of his adult life. He’d served as a curate in the diocese of Oxford, so any records relating to that would be in the diocesan archives, but he had left there before Jane Austen was even born, so those records were not likely to be helpful. The records from his time as rector at Croft would be in the Yorkshire diocesan archives, a long day’s drive away. That left the Cowley Grammar School. She had never heard of such a school, but a quick search of the online catalog for the Oxfordshire History Centre told her that it had existed from roughly 1750 to 1843. An entry in the catalog stated merely: “Records and papers related to Cowley Grammar School, masters, etc. Eight boxes.”

  It was a shot in the dark, but perhaps Rev. Mansfield had left his papers to the place he had spent the bulk of his career. Sophie had no idea if eighteenth-century clergymen had left their papers to institutions the way twentieth-century scholars had. It seemed unlikely, but since the Oxfordshire History Centre was just three miles away—in Cowley, coincidentally—there was no harm in looking.

  Sophie stepped out of the house just before eleven. She would take a nice walk through the University Parks and along the river and still get back into the center of town in time to meet Winston at noon. She shivered to think that he was on the train right now heading to Oxford—though she was not sure if it was a shiver of fear or of excitement. She was just passing the bus stop when she heard a voice call out, “Sophie!” She turned and her stomach fell. She had no idea what to say to Eric Hall, who now stood in front of her.

  “Hi,” said Eric.

  “What . . . what . . . ?” She wanted to be angry that he had surprised her like this in the street, but she felt her cheeks flushing with an altogether different emotion and all she could think was: He found me. “What are you doing here?” she finally managed to say.

  “Looking for you,” he said. “Didn’t you get my letter?”

  “Yeah, but how did you know . . . ?”

  “Well, your mom told me you were in Oxford and then this lady at the Christ Church Library told me you lived on Woodstock Road out near St. Antony’s, so I figured I’d head out this way, and here you are.”

  “You said we were never going to see each other again,” said Sophie.

  “Yeah, well, the heart plays funny tricks, doesn’t it?”

  “Does it?” said Sophie. If he made some sort of crazy confession of love, she thought, she didn’t know if she’d leap for joy or run away.

  “I’ve been thinking about you and that night in the garden a lot and I decided to stop thinking and start doing something about it.”

  “You said you didn’t want to get me into bed,” said Sophie, remembering his words in the garden.

  “What can I say? Paris is the city of lovers. It got me thinking. And I just couldn’t get you out of my head.”

  At the mention of Paris, Sophie suddenly remembered the French books and Eric’s deception. “Did you even go to Paris?” she said.

  “What do you mean? Of course I went to Paris. Didn’t you get my letters?”

  “Then why did you lie about the books you sent me? You didn’t buy them in Paris for a song; you bought them from a dealer in Bath for fifteen hundred pounds.”

  “I talked him down to twelve fifty,” said Eric.

  “That’s beside the point. You don’t spend over a thousand pounds on books for someone you hardly know.”

  “I know you well enough to know that you would love that set—a piece of Jane Austen so close to the time she was alive. I lied because I didn’t think you’d accept it if you knew how much it cost.”

  Sophie stared at the pavement for a long minute. “I did love it,” she said at last. “But you can’t just walk up to me on the street and expect me to drop everything and run off with you.”

  “I didn’t ask you to run off with me,” said Eric. “Besides, what are you doing that’s so important that you can’t take a half hour to have a cup of coffee with me and see if maybe there’s something to this?”

  “Actually,” said Sophie, “I have a date.”

  “You have a date?”

  “Surely if you are infatuated with me it must not be so hard to believe that someone else might have an interest as well.”

  “And who is this mystery man?”

  It was none of his business, she knew, but somehow Sophie thought that naming the man she had romped around naked with just a few days earlier—and with whom she might very well do the same thing again tonight—would help her stop thinking about that kiss, and those sweet letters, and those amazing books.

  “His name is Winston Godfrey.”


  “The publisher?” said Eric.

  “Do you know him?” said Sophie, unable to hide her surprise.

  “I’ll say I know him,” he said. “We were at Oxford together.”

  “You were at Oxford?”

  “They do admit Americans once in a while.”

  “Let me guess,” she said. “You were at St. John’s.”

  “No, Balliol,” said Eric. “But listen, Sophie, you’ve got to trust me on this. Winston Godfrey is bad news.”

  “You’re hardly a disinterested party,” she said. “And it just so happens that Winston is a perfect gentleman.”

  “Right, a total gentleman. Candlelit dinner on the first date, flowers on the second, dinner at his place followed by the best sex you’ve ever had on the third. Trust me, he’ll push all those buttons about three more times and then he’ll toss you aside like yesterday’s paper. I saw it for two years. He went through girls like potato chips.”

  Sophie was disturbed by how accurately Eric had summarized her relationship with Winston. “Did it occur to you that Winston may have changed since university?”

  “Guys like Winston don’t change,” said Eric. “Believe me, the guy may look good coming out of the lake in a wet shirt, but he’s trouble.”

  “Listen, I appreciate the warning, I really do, but I can take care of myself. And I appreciate . . .” She wasn’t sure how to word it. “Everything else. And I would like to have a coffee with you. Just not today, OK?”

  “Can I give you my number?” he said.

  “You give me your number and I’ll give you my number and I’ll be careful. And if Winston turns out to be what you say he is, I’ll call you for coffee and you can say ‘I told you so.’”

  “And if he stays a perfect gentleman?” said Eric. “I don’t want to walk down this street and never see you again.”

  “All right—no matter what happens, I’ll call you for a coffee,” said Sophie.

  As she left Eric at Martyrs’ Memorial, she realized she hadn’t succeeded in simplifying her love life—anything but. But she didn’t care. If Eric had come all the way from France to find her, maybe he did deserve another chance, particularly if Winston turned out to be as much of a scoundrel as Eric predicted.

  On a whim she pulled out her phone and rang a friend who worked at the Balliol College Library. A quick query revealed that both Eric Hall and Winston Godfrey had been undergraduates there. Winston was a year ahead of Eric, but they had overlapped for two years. So Winston had lied about his undergraduate college and Eric had told the truth.

  “Can you check one more name for me?” said Sophie to her friend. “George Smedley.”

  “Yep,” he said. “George Smedley was here. Took his degree the same year as Winston Godfrey.”

  “Thanks,” said Sophie. “That’s very helpful.”

  So Winston and Smedley had not been at St. John’s, but they had been at Balliol together. Sophie was beginning to think that her conversation with Winston might be very interesting.

  Leeds, 1796

  THE HEAT FROM the flames brought a swelter to Gilbert Monkhouse’s face, but his face would have burned if he were standing ten miles away. His beloved printing-office was in the last stages of destruction by fire, and grief and anger consumed him just as the flames consumed his paper and his press and melted his metal type. He had gone through in his mind again and again, since he had been shaken awake by his landlady in the predawn hours, the last moments he had spent in the shop, but he knew he had extinguished all the lamps; he knew this was not his fault. For the first time in his life he thought that his ability to recall almost any words set in type was a curse rather than a blessing, for now he could remember nothing but a small piece that had run in the Leeds Intelligencer a few weeks before. In a story about a fire that had been started by some idle boys playing with gunpowder, the penalties for that and related offenses had been stated:

  Every person selling, or exposing to sale, any squibs, serpents, or fireworks, or permitting the same to be cast or fired from their house, or other place, into any public street or road, shall for every offence forfeit £5, half to the poor, and half to the informer.—And if any person through negligence, or carelessness, shall fire, or cause to be fired, any dwelling-house, out-house, or other building, he shall forfeit £100 or be committed to the house of correction, to hard labour, for 18 months.

  Gilbert had little hope that anyone would be held accountable for the fire, and the catastrophe meant he had lost not just his personal savings and inheritance but also the two-hundred-pound loan from his former employer. For all intents and purposes, Thomas Wright now owned him.

  Wright was not an unkind man. He was even among those who struggled to douse the flames that night. But he was also not foolish with regard to his investments. He gave Gilbert his old job back and allowed him to repay the loan little by little out of his wages. After only a week, Gilbert knew that he would work for Thomas for the rest of his life. He was not unhappy—he was, after all, still doing what he loved—but he would never forget that blissful year when he had made books on his own, sending them out into the world with his imprint, “Gilbert Monkhouse, Printer, Leeds,” on the title pages.

  In the commotion and emotion of the fire and the days that followed, Gilbert had forgotten all about the proof sheets that lay on the table in his room. It was almost a week later, working once again at his post as compositor for Thomas Wright, that he set a story in the Intelligencer:

  Rev. Richard Mansfield, 80, of Croft, died on December 4 in Hampshire. He was taken ill on a journey thence. Funeral services and burial were at the chapel at Busbury Park. Mr. Mansfield had been Rector of Croft for sixteen years and was much loved by his parishioners.

  Gilbert thought of Mansfield’s book and realized that, like his own dreams, it would never come to fruition. He waited a few months, to see if any family members would contact him, but when no communication came, he took the pages to the bindery favored by Mr. Wright and had them bound up in a simple, unmarked cloth cover. He kept it always, as a reminder of what almost was.

  Gilbert’s dream of owning his own printing-office gradually faded and was replaced by other dreams—especially on the day that Thomas Wright’s daughter, Theresa, stopped by the office on her way to the dressmaker. As a man in debt, Gilbert had given little thought to marriage, but after several weeks of walking with Theresa through the streets of Leeds on sunny days and taking tea with her in the parlor of the Wright home, Gilbert had the boldness to ask her father if he might have Theresa’s hand.

  Thomas Wright could see the joy that Gilbert brought to his daughter, and he not only gave his consent, but on the day they were married, he forgave the balance of Gilbert’s loan and gave the couple a small cottage in which to start their lives together. Gilbert owed Thomas so much that he worked for him, and happily so, until the day some decades later when the old man sold the business and retired on the proceeds.

  Theresa gave Gilbert a wonderful daughter; her father not only gave him employment, but allowed him to print an extra copy of any book that came through the press that interested Gilbert. By the time he died, Gilbert had built a collection of almost three hundred books, which he passed on to his son-in-law, Joseph Collingwood.

  Oxford, Present Day

  “IT’S GOOD TO SEE YOU,” said Winston, coming at Sophie for a kiss.

  She turned her head and allowed his kiss to land on her cheek. “You too,” she said. “Get me a coffee and a chicken baguette, will you?” She sat at an empty table in the small courtyard and pulled out her phone, pretending to check her messages. Anything to keep from looking at Winston until they had food as a buffer between them. When he returned with the sandwiches, Sophie took a big bite out of hers and chewed slowly while she continued to scroll through imaginary messages.

  “Are we going to talk to each other, or is this literally just
lunch?” said Winston, leaving his sandwich untouched.

  Sophie took a gulp of coffee, laid down her phone, and finally looked at him. “Mostly you’re going to talk,” she said. “You’re going to tell me why you lied about being at St. John’s, and you’re going to tell me why you lied about First Impressions, and then you’re going to tell me who the hell George Smedley is.”

  “Did you find it?” he said eagerly, his eyes widening as he leaned toward her. Sophie could not decide whether he looked like an excited child or a ravenous dog. “Did you find the second edition?”

  “I don’t think you understand,” said Sophie calmly. “I’m not here to tell my story; you’re here to tell your story. From the beginning, with no more lies.”

  “From the beginning?” said Winston, leaning back into his chair.

  “With no lies,” said Sophie, picking up her sandwich and taking another bite. She thought she had done rather well. She hadn’t raised her voice or made accusations that she couldn’t support; she had just quietly asked for the truth.

  “OK,” he said, “from the beginning. I suppose it started with the family legend. My great-grandmother was a Mansfield, and her great-great-grandfather was the son of Richard Mansfield, who wrote A Little Book of Allegorical Stories. We didn’t have a big library in my house—not like yours, certainly—but we did have a few books, and one of them was a copy of Mansfield’s book that had been passed down through the generations. And there was a story that went with the book. My father thought it was bollocks, and my grandfather didn’t seem to believe it either. But I heard it once from my great-grandmother. I was eight years old and her eyesight was failing, so she asked me to read her one of Mansfield’s allegories. Then she told me.