The Jane Austen Society(42)

He turned them onto their sides. “Two volumes of Emma. How strange.”

Dr. Gray found a comfortable chair in the corner opposite from them and sat down, sensing they were all three going to be in here for quite some time. “Strange in what way?” he asked Adam.

“Well, Emma was three volumes.”

Evie continued to stare at him in disbelief. “How do you know that?”

Adam opened the book. “All her books were, at least I think so. Oh,” he said suddenly, and held the book out to Evie. “Look. Says here it was published in Philadelphia. In 1816.”

Evie nodded. “I know. How did a book, printed in America, get all the way here, do you think?”

Dr. Gray crossed his legs, watching the two of them with great amusement. It was the most animated he had ever seen Adam—and the most speechless he had seen Evie Stone yet.

“Perhaps,” Dr. Gray interrupted, “a relative or someone sent a copy here, or to Austen herself. Evie, you said there were two thousand books in this room alone. Have you gone through the other studies?”

“Just the one right on top of us, on the second floor. I have dusting duty on the two bottom floors, Charlotte’s the top.”

“How much dusting can you possibly be getting done?” asked Adam in all seriousness.

Evie laughed. She had never spent much time around Adam Berwick, who had always struck her as so quiet and lonely. It would never have occurred to her that they would have something in common like Jane Austen.

“Evie,” Dr. Gray spoke up again. He looked over at Adam, eyes raised, and gave him an inquiring nod.

Adam nodded back in silent agreement.

“Evie, Adam and I have been working on something for a little while now. It was Adam’s idea, a little project.”

“Oh, I love projects,” she said brightly.

Dr. Gray and Adam both smiled at her youthful energy. “We are hoping to make some kind of memorial to Jane Austen, here, in Chawton.”

Evie sat back down on the stool. “Like a statue, or another plaque of some kind?”

“No, more than that.” Dr. Gray looked over at Adam. “You explain. After all, it was your idea.”

Adam put the two volumes of Emma back on the shelf and took a few tentative steps towards Evie. “What if we could buy the cottage, the little steward’s cottage, and restore it? Make it look like Jane Austen’s time there, with some of the furniture and paintings and whatnot? Then all the tourists would really have something to see when they came.”

Evie looked from one older man to the other. “But where would you get the money? And where would all the stuff come from?”

“Those are all good questions, my dear,” answered Dr. Gray. “We decided to form a society that would help raise funds through donations, and then we’d buy the house and source objects for it. I mean, we’ve all heard the stories over the years, about some of her letters and even the family’s furniture showing up in various Chawton homes. Apparently old Mrs. Austen gave away quite a bit to the servants and their families over time. Who knows what we might find if we set about trying.”

“Who are the members—you and Adam?”

“For now, plus Andrew Forrester, the Alton solicitor, and Miss Lewis—I mean Grover.” Dr. Gray hesitated and looked over at Adam first before adding, “And you, if you are interested.”

“Me?” she said in astonishment, 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?”