The paper to his inexpert eye looked authentic. Unfortunately it appeared that water had seeped into the frame, allowing some mould to grow under the glass and some of the letter looked glued to the glass. Another glance at the wall confirmed what looked to be a large stain on the wallpaper.
Frankly the front of the frame wasn’t very promising. Apart from the name of the recipient, he couldn’t make out much. The backside was far more promising. A typed note explained: “An unsent letter from Jane Austen addressed to Harris Bigg-Wither explaining why she refused his offer of marriage after first accepting it. Fred Barmes 1923.”
The note had been glued to the paper backing of the frame.
“Do you have any idea what the letter says?”
The old woman shook her head no. “I just remember Mum saying ‘Good on her,’ talking about it with my father once. I think she approved of whatever it was Austen said in the letter.”
Courtney put the frame back on the table. His fingers felt grimy from touching it. The whole house, in fact, triggered a shudder reaction from him. The smell of rising damp made him worry for his sinuses and he also felt itchy from the suspicion that somewhere there must be cats. He wiped his hands on his pants, although he really longed to fetch a wet wipe from his shoulder bag.
“Well, as I said on the phone, I’m not an expert on documents, just Jane Austen, but if it’s genuine, then I really think it’s worth a lot of money, easily thousands of dollars … I mean pounds. You’ll just need to get it conserved and authenticated.”
“Will that be expensive?”
“Um, yes, well I don’t really know. But like I said, if it is genuine … I’m sure you could sell it for a lot.”
“That would be nice,” Mrs Westerby said. “I want to sell and move into care, now that Mum’s passed on. Only, you see, she said I could never sell it if Jane Austen ever appeared on the AfterNet.”
Her words left Courtney a little light headed. He could feel the prize slipping from his fingers.
“Uh, did she say why the restriction?”
“She said if Jane Austen were to come forward, then the letter really belonged to her.”
“That’s a noble sentiment, of course,” Courtney began.
“She made me promise her.”
This can’t be happening, he thought. This could prove Austen had a lover and that’s why she rejected Bigg-Wither. Or it could disprove it; he had to admit the possibility, but even so, he still would be a party to uncovering a major piece of Austen memorabilia. And it could help to disprove Austen’s identity.
Or, on the other hand, it might help prove it. The more he’d thought of it, the more he wondered if he might find himself in Austen’s good graces by finding additional proof of her identity. Either way, he would come out ahead.
“But Mum left all these bills,” Mrs Westerby added, and after a pregnant pause, “although how I could afford to conserve and authenticate the letter …”
“Maybe if you were to explain this to your mother. Have you talked to her since she died?”
“Oh no, I’ve never had any interest in the Internet.”
Her statement baffled Courtney. He’d gotten the impression mother and daughter were close—a natural assumption when he’d learned Mrs Westerby, an elderly, widowed, childless woman was living at home and taking care of her even more ancient mother. It seemed impossible that any person facing death nowadays wouldn’t have made some arrangement to communicate with the family they’d be leaving behind.
“Oh, well perhaps I can talk to your mother.”
“You can certainly try, but she had no interest in the Internet either.”
“Then I suppose … she never had her identity recorded before her death?”
“What’s that?”
“Never mind,” he said. That information gave him some comfort. If Mrs Westerby’s mother didn’t record her identity, then she’d be in a poor position to object to a sale. Perhaps he only needed to convince one old lady.
“Well, as to the costs of authentication and preservation … that might not be a problem,” he said. “Perhaps if we were to talk to the British Museum … or more likely the British Library … if some institution was to buy the letter, well that would be like giving it to the great British public, wouldn’t it?” He remembered reading somewhere that you could convince a Brit of anything if you just referred to the great British public.
“And I’m sure we can find someone to help with the authentication. I have a friend with the University of Chicago in America, a great Janeite scholar, who might know what to do. And an auction house like Sotheby’s might just defray any fees from the eventual purchase price.”
“Well, isn’t that clever. I would never have thought of that. But I still don’t know that Mum …”
“Maybe it’s too early to worry about that. The first step is to decide if … to get the letter authenticated.”
“Oh dear, I suppose that won’t be here in Glooston.”
“No, it probably won’t.”
“I do hate travelling so. I can’t remember the last time I left the village. I don’t suppose … could you run it up for me?”
Courtney paused before answering, trying his best to contain his pleasure at her request.
“I suppose I could, although I hadn’t planned to leave quite yet.”
“There’s no hurry, of course,” she said.
“But I could leave tomorrow,” he said, although he realized he in fact had no idea where he might take the letter. “Then again I should do a little research before I take it from … take it for you. Once I get back to the hotel, I can get on the Internet and plan the next step.”
“That sounds a plan, but you don’t have to leave right now. I can open another box of biscuits.”
“That’s very kind of you, but …”
“Then you can look at the boxes.”
“What boxes?”
“That’s not the only thing of Austen’s that Mum left. There are more in the loft.”
Courtney smiled and said, “You know, those digestive biscuits might just hit the spot.”
1 Perhaps the closest American analogue would be a graham cracker; perhaps not
Despatch boxes
Journal of Jane Bigg-Wither
“It’s a tin despatch box. Well, it’s three boxes,” Courtney said. He was obviously extremely excited and his head was jerking around animatedly, but some of that could be attributed to the quality of the Skype call.
“What’s a despatch box? What are you talking about?” Alice asked irritably. His call came at 6 am and awakened her because she’d forgotten to turn off her smartphone. She’d heard an unfamiliar buzzing and when she’d activated her phone, discovered it was receiving a Skype call.
She’d forgotten she’d installed the application at the insistence of Courtney before he’d left for England.
Courtney had been so excited about his discovery and had wanted to call her immediately, but an indifferent Wi-Fi connection at the hotel delayed him and it was only now back in London that he could call her. He surveyed the still groggy professor, her normally constrained red hair now an ochre nimbus lit by morning sun. She appeared to sleep in a University of Chicago T-shirt, which surprised him. Not that he’d previously thought of it, but he would have guessed she’d sleep in something more elegant.
He debated telling her that her phone was transmitting video, not sure if she was aware of the fact, but decided against it.
“Mrs Westerby has these boxes, just like Dr. Watson’s1. They’re full of journals—Jane’s journals. Take a look.”
She muttered, “Jane never kept a journal,” but not loudly enough for Courtney to hear.
Alice rubbed the sleep from her eyes and then reached for her glasses on the bedside table. She put them on and looked again at the screen and also noticed a tiny window displaying video of her. She quickly turned off the outgoing video and then paid attention to the image Courtney was sending her.
She saw three dusty looking boxes, looking very much like the metal lunchboxes kids took to school but without pictures of Scooby-doo or My Little Pony. These boxes contained the same metal clasps with the addition of leather straps and buckles. To her eye, they didn’t look remotely Regency. One box was open and she saw a thick pile of paper inside fastened with what looked like red ribbon. Unfortunately the video couldn’t stay in focus enough for her to make out much, other than that there appeared to be writing on the paper.
“What does it say?”
“It says ‘Journal of Jane Bigg-Wither,’ or anyway I think it does,” Courtney said. He turned the camera back to face him. “I’ve only opened one box, the other two the latches have rusted shut. The second I saw the writing, I didn’t want to open them or untie the ribbon. I’m in London now and I’ve got to get them to an appraiser.”
“Wait, Jane Bigg-Wither? Are you saying …”
“It looks like Jane’s hand writing. I’m sending you a photo.”
“Sotheby’s. They’ve done all the recent Austen auctions,” she said. She was quickly waking up. She tried to sound knowledgeable, but admittedly it was the only auction house in England she knew, but it was true that they’d handled the recent sale of The Watsons manuscript.
“That’s what I thought,” he said. His words coincided with the sound of her phone indicating an email had arrived. She switched to her mail application and found the photo Courtney had sent and saw Jane’s handwriting. The “Jane” was clearly visible but the “Bigg-Wither” was harder to make out, although still recognizable.
“Oh my God,” she said, “oh my God. But you went there to look at a letter?” Courtney said nothing in response and then she switched back to Skype.
“You went there to look at a letter.”
“Yes, and here it is.” He turned his camera, apparently the camera in his laptop, back around and trained it at a picture frame. She again saw Jane’s handwriting and the name and address of Harris Bigg-Wither. The letter, if that’s what it was, seemed in much worse shape than the papers in the box.
“Bring me up to speed here, Court. Tell me everything that’s happened.”
He turned the laptop back to face him and related the story of meeting the old woman and that he was ready to leave when she told him of the boxes in the attic.
“Did you take photos of the attic?” she asked.
“Yes, every step of the way. And I recorded a video of Mrs Westerby telling me about it and even of me carrying the first box downstairs and opening it.”
“Good, smart thinking, Court. OK, what time is it there?”
“About 11:30. Sorry, I didn’t think about the time.”
“For this, you don’t need to apologize. Did you have a chance to contact Sotheby’s?”
“No, the cell reception in Glooston was non-existent. And once I saw what I had, I thought I’d better get it to London.”
“Mrs What’s-her-name let you take it?”
“Yes, the old dear doesn’t get out much and she was practically pushing me out the door with it. I think she wants the money from a sale. The house is practically falling apart.”
“God, we can’t let it go to a private sale.”
“Just what I was thinking.”
“OK, I’ll start making calls. This is … this is big, Court. Congratulations.”
She finished the call with her adrenaline pumping. “Jane Bigg-Wither” was hardly a combination she’d expected to see. Harris had married Ann Frith two years after Jane had rejected him. She couldn’t begin to imagine why Jane, if in fact it were her handwriting, would have written “Journal of Jane Bigg-Wither.” She looked at the photo again, trying to see whether in anyway the “Jane” was actually “Ann,” but Austen’s first name was unmistakable.
1 Famously, Dr John H Watson, friend and biographer of Sherlock Holmes, kept a battered tin despatch box in the bank vaults of Cox & Co. The box contained his unpublished adventures with the Great Detective.
London
Jane and Mary arrive at Heathrow
The young man holding the sign that said “Jane Austin” reminded Mary and Jane of the absurdity of their situation. For Mary, of course, it was an absurdity made even more unreal by the tiredness she felt after her long plane flight and then the long wait in customs while enviously watching frequent and first-class passengers jump ahead in the queue. But now to find a chauffeur holding a sign reading “Jane Austin” when she was specifically instructed to travel incognito and dress in casual clothing seemed particularly absurd.
“I think I may be the Miss Austen you’re looking for,” she told the dark-skinned man holding the sign.
“You the novelist?” he asked.
“I am indeed,” she answered.
“Cool. Let me take your bags.”
She thanked him and handed him her two bags and he led them on their way to the ground transportation level at Heathrow where he’d left the limo. Jane followed close behind during all this, a little annoyed at being forced to follow the rules of the living. She never had to wait in line for customs and rather than walk anywhere in an airport she simply waited for one of those trolleys that shuttled the elderly and infirm and hopped on board. Of course, she’d never had a reserved seat on a flight before or a companion who looked out for her, and so must be content to follow Mary and the driver as they walked through the terminal. Consequently, she was constantly buffeted by the crowd and was thankful when they finally entered the privacy of the vehicle.
After the driver entered, he looked into the rear-view mirror at his passenger. “I’m taking you to the …”—he looked down at a printout—“… Park International in Kensington?”
“That’s right,” Mary confirmed with a smile to the driver. “Excuse me, what’s your name?”
“I’m Tony.”
“OK, thanks Tony. I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve got to make a phone call, tell my friend I landed safely.”
“Oh sure, you go ahead.”
Mary pretended to make a call so that she might talk to Jane without it looking odd.
“Hi there. I landed safe in London, how about you?”
“Really Mary? Is this charade truly necessary?” asked Jane’s voice through the earbuds.
Mary sank bank in her seat and lowered her voice.
“No, I already texted Melody that we’d landed. Oh, you mean the fake phone call! I get so tired of the odd looks I get when I’m talking to you. I guess my expression is different from someone talking on a phone, maybe because I keep looking at you. This helps disguise it a little bit.”
“Very well, but do you not think the driver will eventually notice.”
Mary looked up at the rear-view mirror and saw that Tony was already concentrating on his driving and also, judging from his rhythmic swaying, the music coming from whatever phone or music player was connected to the earphones he was wearing.
“No, I think we’re safe. So, tell me a little something of where we’re staying.”
“Do you refer to the hotel or the neighbourhood, for I know nothing of the former?”
“The neighbourhood, Kensington. Isn’t it hoity-toity?”
“No, not at all, although it does have a reputation for culture with the Albert Hall, the Victoria and Albert, the Natural History Museum and the Brompton Oratory.”1
“Wow, I have no idea what those are, but they sound hoity-toity to me.”
“I am only sorry that instead of staying at the Ritz or the Savoy you must stay at this unnamed hotel.”
“My goodness, Jane, I never knew you were a snob. Besides, wasn’t it your decision to put us up at the Park International?”
“Not my decision. You may thank Melody for that. I would have you stay somewhere nice. I think Melody still hasn’t adjusted to the idea of a large promotion budget.”
“I’m happy wherever I stay. I got a free trip to London out of this so you don’t hear me complaining. And I’m sure the hotel will be nice,�
� Mary said, trying to act the adult. She then caught the eye of the driver who had noticed her apparently having a conversation with the empty seat beside her.
“My friend says hi, Tony.”
“Uh, yes ma’am, anything you say.”
Mary looked out the window of the limo, marvelling at the novelty of being in another country, amazed at the familiarity and the strangeness of it. Being on a highway was familiar, the M4 in this case, and she didn’t even really pay attention to the fact they were on the wrong side of the road, it being a divided motorway. But the look of the cars was different; very few SUVs, many more compacts and sub compacts and even the trucks—they call them lorries, she reminded herself—seemed on a smaller scale.
She was reminded of a documentary she’d seen about dinosaurs that had evolved on a small island, and were consequently small. The houses they passed, which practically touched the highway, were all in a row with their neat little backyards facing the road. They reminded her of the New Jersey neighbourhoods she saw from the subway.
“Where did you live in England? I mean just before you came to the US.”
“I suppose just before I left for America, I was in Bradford-on-Avon, which is near Bath. It would be more romantic to pretend I haunted Steventon or Chawton, but those are still small villages. Even Alton2 is very small and has terrible AfterNet access and is frankly uninteresting to a disembodied person.”
“Bradford-on-Avon is more interesting?”
“Oh yes, the Avon Valley is lovely and the town is charming, although the traffic is dreadful. But I find the tourists interesting and if I desire something more cosmopolitan, there’s always Bath.”
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