The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner Page 0,40

she was speaking about the characters as if they were real people. They had always seemed so alive to him—it had never occurred to him that anyone else might feel that way, too.

“You talk to Dr. Gray about the books?” he asked, leaning over to give the kitten a little pat.

“Yes, he is a singular fan of hers, let me tell you. But it makes sense—he is such an odd mixture himself of—how did Austen describe Mr. Bennet? So ‘odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice’?”

“Dr. Gray is a good man,” Adam replied simply.

“Yes, he is—which is remarkable, given how clearly he sees everyone and everything.”

“Like Austen herself.”

“Yes.” Adeline sat up even straighter in agreement. “Exactly. The humanity—the love for people—mixed with seeing them for who they really are. Loving them enough to do that. Loving them in spite of that.”

Adam nodded. He had never loved anyone enough to do that. Had not been given the chance. Had not given himself the chance. Like Adeline right now, he had been sitting in a window seat, watching everyone else go by, not putting himself out there. And getting nothing in return.

* * *

That night he returned to his copy of Pride and Prejudice yet again. He thought back to his talk with Adeline, and of how they both loved Elizabeth Bennet, and he wondered how much of Jane Austen might be in that wonderful character after all. He would often stare at the small sketch of the baby-cheeked woman with tight brown curls and strong nose on the frontispiece of some of the books, and he wished he knew more. Wished the letters to her sister had been preserved—wished that the one sketch Cassandra Austen had done out-of-doors had revealed more than loose bonnet strings and an outward-seeking gaze.

It mystified him that he could have grown up in the same village where Austen had once lived—where she had written the final three books from scratch—yet see so little of her around him. Yes, there was the Great House still owned by the Knights, and the graves of the mother and the sister, and the old steward’s cottage in the heart of the village. But aside from one small memorial plaque placed on the cottage in 1917 on the centenary of Austen’s death—the kind that the country gave out to hundreds of distinguished Englishmen—there were no other traces of her life.

Adam found the courage to say as much to Dr. Gray a few days later at his annual checkup, now that Adam knew he was not the only man in Chawton to be so interested in the great writer. Harriet Peckham led him brusquely into the office, then remained in the front examining room tidying about as the two men spoke.

Dr. Gray put down Adam’s medical file and looked at him curiously. “I must admit, Adam, I wasn’t expecting something like this from you. I mean, honouring Miss Austen’s legacy has always struck me as more of a—”

“—woman’s job?”

“No, not exactly—more of a historian’s. Or an educator of some kind.”

Adam shook his head. “It’s been over a hundred years, and no one else has jumped into the breach.”

“But what are you thinking about, then? A museum of some kind?”

“Yes, of some kind. I was thinking, if the cottage could be repurposed again, as a single residence, and we were able to retrieve some of her things, then we could assemble it all together and people would actually have something to see, and touch, when they came. Look here.” Adam fumbled about in the pocket of the overcoat he was still wearing and pulled out a misshapen wooden object. “It’s a small child’s toy—Georgian, I think, I looked it up in the library—and it was in a heap of rubbish I found in front of the house. They’ve been digging up the garden a bit of late. What if? What if this toy belonged to Jane’s family? And now it’s got no home, and it’s just lying there, trash, in the street.”

It was the most Dr. Gray had ever heard the man speak, and the doctor nodded thoughtfully in response. “A home of sorts, then, to honour Austen. That seems right to me. You know, I always did feel that this village retained an old-world feel to it, as if one had stepped back in time.”

“Then it might not take much.”

“Well, it will take a house, for one thing. The cottage as it is won’t suffice, you are right—there’d