The Jane Austen Society(26)

The handwriting was familiar to her from some of the earlier annotations, inscriptions, and margin markings she had found. No postmark was on the outside folded cover, the letter apparently having never been mailed.

She could not believe her eyes as she read it, at first too quickly, as if convinced the paper might disappear as mysteriously as it had been found—and then three more times, each time more slowly than before. It was the very thing she would have been looking for, if only she could have guessed what that could possibly be.

Immediately she set out to copy the complete letter into her little notebook as faithfully as she could, making sure her own lines began and ended with the exact same words as those in the letter, and inserting every grammatical or spelling error, and every well-known dash.

She had had moments before in the library, late at night, that had approached a small degree of the euphoria she now felt as she scribbled away, but nothing else had ever come close to this. She finally understood why she had spent so many futile nights sitting here, on her little stool, alone. This was why she had never given up. And this was why Miss Adeline had been right all along.

She had, with this discovery, brought the world closer than it had ever been before to the greatness.

She had, as Miss Woolf herself once described it, caught Jane Austen in the act.





CHAPTER EIGHT

Chawton, Hampshire

October 1945

Harriet Peckham knocked on Dr. Gray’s half-open office door late one Friday afternoon, and he looked up to see a new expression on her face. Lately he had taken to mentally cataloguing Miss Peckham’s various expressions, which he did not think boded well for any longevity in their working relationship. He would have preferred a nurse who was always pleasant of face and no-nonsense in manner—none of the hinting and insinuations that Harriet liked to throw about, as if trying to see what would stick.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Gray, to interrupt, but Mrs. Lewis is on the phone.” Harriet leaned forward a bit and added, almost in a hush, “Adeline Grover’s mother.”

“I know who she is Miss Peckham,” Dr. Gray replied quickly. “I will take the call in here.”

“Very well, Doctor.” Harriet whirled about in the doorway and left.

Dr. Gray picked up the phone, then waited for the tell-tale click from the hallway line before saying a single word.

“Mrs. Lewis, what is it? Is it Adeline?”

“Yes, Doctor, we’re sorry to bother you so close to the dinner hour.”

“It’s no bother at all. Is she starting her labour?” He looked over at the calendar on the wall. “Although I should think it’s a bit early for that—she has, what, one more month to go?”

“We’re not sure, Dr. Gray—she’s just not right. And she’s very worried, more than I have ever seen her.”

“Well, that’s saying something.” He got up and started packing his medical bag from the desk. “You were right to call. I am leaving now—tell Adeline I’ll be there in five minutes.” That would give him just enough time to get to the other side of the village.

He walked as fast as possible along the main road with his black medical bag in hand. When he reached the little thatched Grover cottage set back from the road, he slowed himself down, as his breathing was becoming a little laboured and he didn’t want to worry Mrs. Lewis any more than necessary. Already he could see her standing in the open cottage doorway waiting for him.

“You made remarkable time. Adeline will be so grateful,” she said, and he followed her straight up the narrow staircase without removing his coat.

Adeline looked a little less than grateful when he entered her bedroom. “Mother, honestly, I told you, I am sure it is nothing serious.”

Dr. Gray came straight over and sat down next to her on the edge of the bed, ignoring her words, and took her wrist in his hand to feel for her pulse. With his stethoscope already about his neck, he listened to her heart and lungs, then felt her forehead with the back of his hand.

“Well, did I pass?” Adeline said with only the hint of her usual teasing smile.

“Tell me your symptoms.”

She looked over at her mother in the doorway. “Mum, can you please go make Dr. Gray a nice stiff gin and tonic? He’s going to need one by the time we’re both done with him.”

Her mother reluctantly headed back down the stairs, leaving the door open.

“I am sorry that you had to go to all this bother.” Adeline pulled herself up against the pillows he was now propping for her. “It’s just some cramping.”

“Where?”

“Quite low in my stomach.”

“Any pain in your lower back as well?”

“Not really—just the tiniest bit, and it comes and goes.”

“Any bleeding?”

She shook her head. “No, not today. There was a little spotting last night, but that seems to have gone away. That’s a good sign, right?” she asked him eagerly.

He was listening to her belly with the stethoscope now. “The heartbeat is strong enough, but I’d still like to keep you monitored.”

“Oh, no worries there—my mother has me under lock and key.”

“Well, it’s her first grandchild, after all.” He put the stethoscope away in his bag and was starting to stand up, when Adeline put her hand out to stop him.