had abstained from attending both the discussion and the vote. Yardley was unable to get down from London with Mimi on time, which at first worked out well since Andrew feared that Yardley’s reputation and employment at Sotheby’s could be jeopardized by any involvement in an amateur appraisal with such significant financial repercussions for the parties involved.
That left only Adeline and Dr. Gray for a vote by the trustees of the Jane Austen Memorial Trust. Three votes—a majority of the five trustees—would be necessary to establish the majority required according to the law of meetings in parliamentary procedure. After some to and fro between Andrew Forrester and Yardley over the phone, Mimi was designated Yardley’s proxy for the vote. The reasoning of both gentlemen was threefold: Sotheby’s had no legal or financial interest, or anticipated interest, in the Knight estate at the time of voting; Yardley would not be personally or professionally profiting from his vote, and he was willing to sign an affidavit to that effect; and—finally—as a director Yardley was permitted to use his expertise in cultural and literary valuation for the good of the trust’s charitable objectives.
After the meeting was called to order and the imminent vesting of the Knight estate in Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen of Greater Birmingham was announced, Dr. Gray called for a vote on presenting an offer to the heir of the estate for the contents of the Chawton House library and the leasehold interest of the steward’s cottage.
The vote was swiftly carried.
“We next need to vote on an appropriate purchase price for the library, as it has no present market value. Evie,” announced Dr. Gray.
The young girl stood up from her regular perch on the little stool by the piano. She held in her hands the notebook that contained a cataloguing of all two thousand three hundred and seventy-five books in the library, plus one loose-leaf letter. The notebook was passed around to each of the other four attendants.
“So you’re saying, from what I can tell, that some of these particular editions have not appeared in a public notice of sale before?” began Dr. Gray as he flipped through the notebook in astonishment.
Evie nodded.
“Has Mr. Sinclair seen this?” Adeline asked.
“Yes, when he stayed over the night of our first meeting. He came in rather late to the library and caught me at work. I showed him some of the volumes, and he took the notebook away for a bit to study.”
“And?” asked Dr. Gray eagerly.
Mimi spoke up now. “I looked it over with him earlier today in London, before my train, and brought it back with me. It’s a good thing you’re all sitting down—he thinks, based on the public records he has access to, that we are talking anywhere from one hundred thousand pounds upwards.”
“How far upwards?” asked Adam.
Mimi looked at Adam, who was now standing with Adeline behind Dr. Gray, both of them examining the notebook over his shoulders. “Well, the Third Folio of Shakespeare alone is potentially worth ten thousand pounds or more. There are also dozens of first editions of critical eighteenth-century texts, both fiction and non-fiction. The First Book of Urizen by William Blake and the first edition of Don Quixote each figure into the tens of thousands of pounds as well.”
“This is absolutely astonishing,” exclaimed Dr. Gray. “Evie, my God, do you know what you have here?”
Evie had the look of pride of scholarship and achievement written all over her face. “Yes, of course—that’s why I did it.”
The last item in the notebook was not a book entry at all, but the letter from Jane Austen to Cassandra Austen, dated August 6, 1816.
“That’s the month she finished writing Persuasion!” exclaimed Adeline.
“Why…” Dr. Gray looked up at Evie and Mimi. “My God. It can’t be.”
Evie and Mimi smiled at each other. “We would have told you sooner, but Miss Frances needed to keep this all extremely confidential, for obvious reasons,” Evie explained. “She and I were the only people in the world to know, until Yardley, and then Mimi here this afternoon.”
Dr. Gray started to read the copy that Evie had diligently made of the letter, the original still hiding safely within the flap of one of the two thousand three hundred and seventy-five books in the lower library. Evie informed them all as he read that she had checked out Jane Austen’s deeply slanted handwriting in the Persuasion manuscript on display at the British Museum during one of Evie’s Sunday outings there, to make sure that her “translation”