The Jane Austen Society(40)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Chawton, Hampshire
Christmas Eve 1945
The villagers streamed into the parish church, full of the excitement of the season. Parents let their smallest children run about the gravestones in the twilight, and the men and women were all wearing their finest outdoor hats and coats against the frosty air.
The Stones descended from the Berwicks’ wagon, the four children having walked alongside during the trip from the farming fields at the perimeter of town. Adam helped his mother and Mrs. Stone get down from the wagon, then attended to Mr. Stone, who was unable to bend his legs due to his injuries but could finally shuffle a bit with a cane in each hand.
Dr. Gray was already inside the church, looking about, wondering if this year Miss Knight would make an appearance. His nurse, Harriet, was in the same row as him, along with her older unmarried sister, but he was avoiding too much social interaction. He was still smarting from the completely inappropriate and insinuating phone call that Harriet had made to the Grover cottage in advance of his recent visit.
The Berwick and Stone families entered slowly together to take their seats in the back rows, and then there was quite a bit of commotion as Miss Knight herself entered, accompanied by Evie Stone and the stable boy Tom. As her physician and longtime friend, Dr. Gray knew how much effort this must be for Frances, and he gave her an encouraging smile as she walked down the aisle to take her traditional place in the front row to the right of the altar.
Everyone settled down again and Reverend Powell approached from the back of the chancery to commence the service. As he asked everyone to rise for the opening hymn, the door to the church opened to let in Adeline Grover and her mother along with one final blast of winter wind. They snuck in as quietly as possible, then walked down the centre aisle until they, too, had reached their regular seats.
Dr. Gray did not look over at the two women as they entered the row directly across the aisle from his. He could feel Harriet’s and her sister’s eyes upon him, but right now his mind was focused on composing the letter of termination that he would be delivering to Miss Peckham in the New Year, no matter how hard it was to find a nurse willing to come out to Chawton every day. Being the subject of gossip and speculation by one’s own staff was ludicrous enough—being such when there was absolutely nothing amiss going on was altogether unacceptable.
The service on Christmas Eve was always short, Reverend Powell being as fond of celebrating the season as anyone else. After singing the last carol of the night, “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” the villagers waited for Miss Knight to depart from the front-row pew and exit the church, then all followed in their turn.
The tombstones outside were dusted with snow, and as he passed them, Dr. Gray thought about the newest grave, laid in the farthest corner of the churchyard, just below the stone wall that looked down over the fields from a slight incline. He wondered if this was the first time the grieving young mother had been to visit. Following his wife’s death, it had taken him several months before he had been able to do the same. Instead he had continued to wake up each morning and reach over for her in bed, and to call upstairs when the kettle had boiled, and even thought—in his most desperate moments—that he had just caught the quickest glimpse of her housedress out of the corner of his eye, as if she had simply left the room and would be back any second.
Dr. Gray let the other villagers pass him, until he was the last one left in the graveyard. He waited for the sound of the lych gate latching shut, then walked over to where the newest small tombstone lay, illuminated in the silvery moonlight. Just a few yards away was a larger gravestone, set flat into the cold, hard winter ground.
Jennie Clarissa Thomson Gray, born May 23, 1900; died August 15, 1939. Beloved wife of Dr. Benjamin Michael Gray. May she rest in peace.
Dr. Gray looked down at the carved slab of stone and prayed. He did not pray often—he was not convinced it did anything much but pacify a completely reasonable anger at the world—but tonight he wanted God to hear him. Because he needed help. He needed to figure out how to live with the pain, without hurting himself or anyone else. He was in violation of his oath, and that struck him as one of the greater sins, because he was in a state of knowledge, and with knowledge should come grace. He thought of Mr. Stone literally having to drag himself through life, and Frances Knight afraid to leave her house, and Adam Berwick and his sad inner state, and realized that they were all wounded in some way. Bookended by the two worst wars the world had ever seen, they were ironically the survivors, yet it was beyond him what they were all surviving for.
He thought of Adam and his interest in somehow preserving Jane Austen’s legacy in the town. The list of books that Adeline Grover had given Mr. Stone and Evie each—a cup of tea and a sugar bun in a courtyard—the party now starting in the Great House without him. These were small things in a way, much smaller than a war, yet they seemed to him more important to survival than he had previously understood.
He bent down, pressed his right fingers to his lips, and ran his hand across the lettering on his wife’s grave. It had been nearly seven years, and for the longest time he thought he had been giving something to her by indulging his grief. But Jennie had been the most alive person he had ever known, with the quickest mind and a completely open, unguarded heart. She had not lived one day—not even one minute—as he was now. She would have seen absolutely no worth in it. If he was completely honest with himself, he was letting them both down.