The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner Page 0,30

like this—I would much rather visit in person. You see, I am the biggest fan of your famous ancestor. The biggest.”

“How would one measure that?” Frances asked, and she heard a panicked pause, followed by a strange attempt at a laugh.

“Oh, I see, how funny—yes—I suppose you hear that all the time.”

“Yes,” she replied again, and waited.

“Yes, well, you see, with the Godmersham sale, we saw a few of Miss Austen’s possessions go off to America, to different buyers, and one of them has asked me to reach out to you.”

“Mr. Sinclair, is it? Look, I’m terribly sorry, but this is not a good time. My father, James Knight, is not well.”

“Oh, I see. I am so sorry.”

“Thank you. I am sure you understand.”

“Oh, yes, of course, it’s just, this particular buyer—well, he is very persistent—he’s in love, you see, and extremely well-off—and apparently the sky’s the limit when it comes to his fiancée. And she, too, is quite obsessed with Miss Austen.”

“That’s all fine, but of no concern to me. Not at present.”

There was a long pause.

“Oh, I see. Yes. Well, I shall carry that message back to him.”

“Please do.”

Frances hung up and looked about herself at the empty hallway that led to equally empty rooms. She was the caretaker now, and the gatekeeper, of this once-great estate and its connection to one of the world’s greatest writers. She would have to learn to step into her father’s place and protect, as much as possible, what was left of the legacy of their family.

So she hoped Mr. Sinclair did not call again. She had always felt herself far too liable to persuasion.

* * *

Evie Stone sat alone on a little stool in the far corner of the library. It was well past midnight.

Unbeknownst to Frances and the other staff, Evie had been doing more than just diligently dusting the volumes in the Knight family library; for the past year and a half, she had also been doing a secret sort of cataloguing under the pretence of her daily tasks.

She was far more interested in Jane Austen than she had let on when first hired as house girl to the estate. She had read all of Austen’s six novels at the age of fourteen, giving her a significant chunk of her teens to reread them, then to fall inevitably into the same hole as so many others before her, in wanting to know more, to understand more, to figure out exactly how Jane Austen did it.

If Evie had anyone else but herself to blame for this preoccupation, it would have been that one great teacher the village had managed to provide, the year before Evie’s own premature exit from school. Adeline Lewis had come into the classroom with both a sense of urgency and a sense of humour. She seemed to intuitively know how long she could keep the attention of the most inattentive student and to work backwards from there. Suddenly the children were being read to from diverse works ranging over the centuries, from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Evelina, to Orlando and All Quiet on the Western Front. Miss Lewis always took the time to explain various characters’ behaviour and motivations, connecting a wealthy landowner in Georgian England, or an army general in one of Shakespeare’s plays, to real-life figures of the day, the war providing ample examples of people both born and made for greatness.

The children had listened rapt as the war raged on outside their little village school, and the newsreels during the Saturday matinee movies showed the bombs dropping on London and Europe, and the telegrams started arriving more and more often to their own families’ doors. It seemed as if every other week another grief-stricken child would show up in class, their face white and tear-stained as they went about their lessons. The adults in the village appeared intent on instructing the children that it could be a long road ahead, and breaking down along the way wouldn’t help any of them. It was a lesson in stoicism and persistence that Evie would never forget.

It was now nearly one A.M., and Evie’s work that night had been proceeding unimpeded, until she came upon one of the earliest editions of Pride and Prejudice on the library shelves. Slowly opening the leatherbound book, she was delighted to find an inscription by Austen herself to one of her brother Edward Knight’s many children. Evie sat there running her fingers over Austen’s handwriting, as sacred