The Jane Austen Society(34)

He picked up his coat and hat from the hallway stand and was gone before Harriet Peckham could say—or intimate—another word.

A light sprinkling of snow covered the rooftops and the surrounding fields as he headed out, just enough whiteness to make it finally feel like Christmas—the first one since the war had ended. Dr. Gray knew that for many in the village, with the constant loss of life and increasing rationing, recent holidays had been much more muted than was good for the soul. At least they still had Christmas Eve service in the little parish church of St. Nicholas, which would be beautifully decorated with boughs of fir and ivy from the estate’s woodland, and he hoped that Frances Knight would once again invite everyone to the Great House afterwards for roasted chestnuts and mulled wine. This had been a Chawton village tradition for generations. For a second he wondered if it was how Jane Austen had celebrated Christmas with the Knight family, too, and he realized that Adam Berwick’s surprising plan must be getting to him.

He opened the small wooden gate to the Grover garden and, noticing the top hinge was loose, made a mental note to arrange to have that fixed. As he walked up the frosted pathway, he saw the empty stakes from the tomato plants and the delphiniums, and the willow cloches for the sweet pea, everything looking just a little desolate and forgotten. He gave the red-painted door a firm knock or two, then waited as a light turned on in the centre hall against the dark December morning, and the door opened.

“Dr. Gray,” Beatrix Lewis stated, then kept standing there as if waiting for him to say something. She had been staying with Adeline in her little cottage for months now, given her daughter’s low spirits and the lack of a man about the house to help her out.

“Mrs. Lewis, hello, I came to pay a call on Adeline. Is she—is she up?” Something about the woman’s hard stare was making him uncomfortable.

“Yes, but I wasn’t aware that she had called for you.”

He unconsciously felt for the Christmas card now packed against his left chest, inside his jacket pocket. “Not precisely, but she had written, and with the holidays so soon upon us, I thought I would quickly check in on her, if that is alright.”

Given that he had once carried her daughter’s near-lifeless body out of this same doorway and into an arriving ambulance, she was acting in a fairly cool way towards him. “Yes, well, your nurse telephoned just now to let us know you might be coming by today, so it’s not a total surprise.”

“Look, if this isn’t a good time, I can really—”

He heard Adeline’s footsteps coming down the stairs—such a rickety, narrow staircase it was—and the strangest feeling shot through him, a pang of inexplicable anxiety such as he had never before known.

“Dr. Gray, hello. Mother, I’ll see Dr. Gray into the drawing room.”

He followed her thin figure into the room on the right, then waited to sit down while she shut the double doors.

“Please, have a seat.” She motioned to the larger settee a few feet in front of the bay window, behind which he noticed a makeshift window seat over an old water radiator. Several needlepoint cushions were piled high across the deep window ledge, along with an impressive stack of books and a little kitten curled up asleep. He gave it a tender pat, then looked back at Adeline inquisitively.

“A present. From Adam Berwick.”

He stopped petting the kitten and looked about himself. “I see you are all set up here,” he remarked as he fluffed up some of the cushions and started turning over some of the books.

“Looking for clues?” She smiled wanly. “My little perch. Where I watch the world go by.”

“Adeline,” he started to admonish her, then tried to soften his tone, “please don’t talk like—please don’t be so hard on yourself. This is an awful time—I know.”

“I know you know.” She stared at him, not coldly like her mother, but resignedly. Finally she motioned again for him to sit down, while she sat primly in a carved wooden rocking chair across from the fireplace, facing him at an angle.

“Thank you for your card,” he offered after a few seconds of silence.

“You came over just to tell me that?”

“Adeline,” he sighed, “please, let’s not do this.”

“It’s just easier this way,” she sighed in return.

“What—being rude to everybody—to your mother—to me?”

“I just don’t have the energy like I used to.”

“You were indeed quite energetic—almost too much so,” he said, attempting to coax a smile onto her pale, tightly drawn face.

She couldn’t help but smile back. Sometimes she forgot how much he knew about her—forgot how long he had known the real her, the person she now only remembered herself to be.

“Well, you’re welcome. For the card, I mean.”

“Ah, that reminds me.” He reached into the pocket of his coat, which he had thrown over the back of the settee. “I brought you something. ’Tis the season and all that.”

He pulled out the small rectangular package and stood up to hand it to her. She gave a small, self-conscious frown as she said, “I didn’t get you anything.”

“Your card was enough.” He sat back down on the settee. “And anyway, as they say, it’s the thought that counts.”