The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner Page 0,54
her eyes widening again.
“Well, to be honest, at some point soon we will need to broach all this with Miss Knight. It might help having you on our side. I mean, you clearly know this library inside and out.”
“That’s because I’m compulsive,” she said in all seriousness, and Dr. Gray’s head shot up at her self-awareness for such a young person. “Like my father. He and I both worked through Miss Lewis’s reading lists line by line.”
“But it’s more than that, isn’t it?” asked Dr. Gray.
She looked at him curiously. “Dr. Gray, why are you doing this? I mean, when I was in school, you were always taking Miss Lewis to task for teaching so much Jane Austen.”
“Yes, Dr. Gray, why are you?” said a voice from the doorway, and the three of them looked over to see Adeline standing there herself, dressed head to toe in mourning black, which only emphasized her pale, tired features.
Dr. Gray motioned for her to take his chair, but she shook her head and came over to the shelves nearest Adam. She slid out a thick volume that he had just been reshelving when she entered. She looked carefully at the cover, then flipped the book open, before turning back to the three of them.
“I haven’t seen this before—the Knight family imprint. Are there a lot of these in here?”
Dr. Gray nodded towards Evie. “Ask Miss Stone, your former pupil. She seems to have inherited your thoroughness when it comes to books.”
“You realize this is a second edition of Belinda?” Adeline asked the room. “By Maria Edgeworth, only the most important female educator in our history? This very edition is priceless—it references an interracial marriage between an African servant and an English farm girl that later got edited out. Quite astonishing.”
Adeline put the book back and went and sat down in the chair that Dr. Gray had earlier offered, then looked at each of their faces one by one, before saying, “Well, did you ask her?”
Dr. Gray smiled at her astuteness. “Yes, of course—she will be a real asset to the society.”
“Has she said yes?” Adeline smiled back, nodding at the still-astonished house girl.
Evie looked at her revered former teacher and her trusted childhood doctor, and she wondered if this was the grand opportunity that she had been hoping and preparing for all along. Being part of something that would normally have been so far out of her reach. Having something to contribute. Knowing something that others did not.
“Yes,” she answered happily.
Chapter Sixteen
London, England
Midnight, January 3, 1946
Mimi sat by the open French doors to the suite at the Ritz, where she and Jack had been staying on holiday since New Year’s Eve. She was unable to get to sleep and was instead examining yet again the small box containing the two topaz crosses. As was his nature, Jack had immediately taken her at her word last fall when she had expressed interest in acquiring the jewellery from Sotheby’s. She had had to explain to him after the auction that she did not necessarily want to wear the necklaces—she wanted, instead, to safeguard them. She thought no one else could do a better job than a privileged fan like herself. Jack Leonard felt himself stumped, yet again, by the kind of worshipful love Mimi Harrison was doling out to everyone, it seemed, but him.
Work on Sense and Sensibility continued apace, and for every extra line that he got the screenwriter to give Mimi’s character, Elinor, Jack sneaked in a few extra ones for Willoughby, too. Jack was not the most experienced of producers, but he did have a knack for spotting the most interesting character in a script. In the alchemy that was all of Jack Leonard’s unique and uniquely questionable qualities mixed together, his understanding of the pulse of the moment struck Mimi as almost uncanny. Sometimes she felt as if he had been sent back in time by about two years, so intuitively correct was that understanding.
If she could have gone back two years in time herself, she would never have believed that she would have ended up engaged to Jack Leonard and wearing Jane Austen’s ring. Or moving to Hampshire. Or—dare she admit—even quite in love. Jack’s willingness to practically move mountains where she was concerned was extremely seductive and persuasive. It was as if she could see the wheels turning in his mind, could see the ulterior motives, yet the journey getting there was just too damn fun, and the destination