a relief than anything else, given the magnitude of the 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.”
“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