The Jane Austen Society(47)

Frances could tell that Mr. Sinclair was a huge fan of her ancestor, and during their series of calls it always took some doing to put off the visits from him that he would often suggest. To sweeten the deal, he kept mentioning that the American and his fiancée had acquired some of the Godmersham estate pieces, and having this cottage might thereby also enable the acquisitions to stay in England, right in their ancestral home.

Frances knew that neither the Knight estate nor the cottage’s rental income yielded sufficient funds to keep up the cottage in the way that it deserved. And with her sense of failure over being the end of the Knight family line, a sale seemed a possible chance to redeem herself, if sold to the right person.

Yardley had assured her that the buyer was indeed the right person—more specifically, that the woman affianced to the buyer was such a serious and successful Austen fan that he could vouch for the care and expense that she would put into the place.

Frances now sat alternately watching the front drive and the clock above the fireplace mantel in the larger second-floor room behind her. At three P.M. Mr. Jack Leonard and his fiancée were due to arrive, and at exactly on the hour, a man and a woman could indeed be seen turning in from old Gosport Road and approaching the Great House along the gravel drive. They stopped at one point as the woman gestured towards the graveyard and church sheltered by a grove of beech trees, then the man unlatched the front gate to the house. They were a well-dressed couple who looked to be in their thirties, the man with a map in his hand and the woman nervously twisting at something about her throat. The man looked straight at the house as he approached, but the woman’s eyes were everywhere, and even from a distance she looked a little pale and shaken.

Frances made her way down the hanging oak staircase, with its imposing Jacobean balustrade, so that she could be in the Great Hall when they arrived. Afternoon tea had been set out on the sideboard near the row of large mullioned windows, with two different types of cake on display: coffee and walnut, and Victoria sponge filled with preserves made with strawberries from the walled garden and honey from the estate’s own apiary.

Placing a tea tray on the ottoman before her, Frances sat down on the faded chintz sofa and looked about the room. She did not sit here often, finding it the largest and coldest room in the house. It was also full of memories from when she was young, the parties and the family gatherings and the welcoming of new neighbours. Now it was reserved mostly for the Christmas Eve gathering, when the villagers joined her after Mass for a warming by the huge fire. She wondered if this past Christmas had been the last of that, as well.

Josephine answered the door, and she led the two strangers into the room as Frances stood to greet them.

“Mr. Leonard, welcome.” She smiled as she took a step forward. “And this must be your lovely fiancée. Mr. Sinclair speaks so highly of you,” Frances said to the beautiful woman at his side.

Mimi and Jack were both waiting for the inevitable sinking in of recognition—the unabashed stare, usually followed by a gasp or even a shriek—but Frances just stood there smiling as if Mimi were merely the future wife of Jack Leonard.

“Mimi,” she said, putting out her hand.

“Mimi? What an unusual name.”

“It’s short for Mary Anne.”

Jack looked at Mimi with interest. “I didn’t know that.”

Frances smiled. “It’s best to have some secrets when entering marriage.”

“‘It is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life,’” quoted Mimi with an endearing and very white smile back.

“So that’s what you’re doing,” laughed Jack.

Frances motioned for them both to take a seat on the matching chintz sofa across from hers. She immediately poured them each a cup of tea from the tray before her.

“I understand from Mr. Sinclair that you are a fan of Jane Austen,” she said to Mimi, while trying hard not to look at Jack. His efficiency and energy unnerved her. She feared that, left alone with him for too long, she might agree to the sale of the antique Indian carpet underfoot, or even a lock of her own hair.

Mimi nodded vigorously. “I can’t tell you how much—I came here once before, you know—on my own, long before the war, before I moved to California—and I saw the little cottage, and the church here, and the graves. I would have given anything back then to be here, in this very room.” She paused. “I hope—I haven’t had much time to process any of this, Jack just told me about the cottage—but I hope you are okay meeting with us. I know this must be an extremely difficult decision. I could never make it myself.”

Jack shot her a recriminating look. Mimi had absolutely no head for business.

“Thank you, it certainly is.” Frances shifted about on the sofa nervously. She was now finding it hard to look straight at Mimi, too. The woman was gorgeous in an almost alien way, with a strong heart-shaped jawline, a slight dimple in her chin, and eyes the most startling colour of violet.

“Let’s not look backwards, hmm?” interjected Jack. He knew that in business there was no point—and he believed pretty much the same in life, too. If Frances got to talking too much about giving up any part of the family legacy, he could see himself having to prop up two emotional females, and he’d had enough of that for one day.

“We’ve got exciting plans as you know,” he continued. “The cottage would be restored and beautified to do your family proud. No expense would be spared.”