The Jane Austen Society(63)

Adam had slowly realized, the more he read, that he had made his social self a strange, sad proxy for his true self, too. It was as if he had decided early on to not process certain unspoken attractions, but to retreat instead, and his social person lived one sort of life while his inner self remained closed off even from himself. Now he was nearing forty-six years of age, and his mother was not well. One day soon she, too, would be gone, and he would live all alone in that empty house until he might as well be gone, too.

Looking about the room, he finally understood that he had hatched the idea of the Jane Austen Society in part because of his loneliness. He had no essential family ties tethering him to any kind of legacy, no one that would miss a thing about him when he was dead. He was wrong about that, of course, as lonely people often are; everyone in the village had grown to rely on him for small chores about their properties, as well as the pleasant and reliable rumbling sound of his wagon heralding the changing of the seasons. The tip of his cap at the doors to the library. The cradling of a new puppy in his arms. The little hand-carved wooden rattles left on the doorstep whenever a baby was born.

He felt gratified, sitting there in Dr. Gray’s drawing room, that the society was finally taking shape. But he also felt apart from everyone except Evie, whose own family circumstances and thirst for learning seemed to equal his own.

And he remained dumbstruck at the vision of Mimi Harrison, who, upon their introduction on the steps of Dr. Gray’s house, had immediately reminded Adam of their first time meeting over a dozen years ago. He considered it a strange twist of fate, how that one encounter in the parish churchyard had led them both here.

He was also relieved to see that Adeline Grover finally had a bit of her colour back—perhaps even too much of it. She was keeping herself busy taking notes of the meeting. Dr. Gray now sat across from her (having moved at some point in a fluster of papers and pens and teacups and chairs), with Andrew Forrester on one side of him and Miss Frances on the other. All three of them as children had been two years ahead of Adam in the little village school, Mr. Knight having been too cheap to arrange for his only daughter’s education at home. Andrew and Dr. Gray had been friendly rivals back then, and at one point were rumoured to have formed a little love triangle with Miss Frances, but Dr. Gray had never stood a chance against Andrew Forrester as far as Adam could tell. Miss Frances had been a noted beauty as a young woman, with her pale grey cat’s eyes and long golden tresses kept half up and half loose about her neck, but over time everything had started a slow fade, until the eyes were now pale to the point of haunting, and the hair was greying and kept in a tight bun high up on the back of her head.

That left Yardley Sinclair, sitting next to Adeline, ever intent on her notes before her.

And—just like that—just like it always happens—Adam Berwick was in love.

Adam walked Adeline home in the darkness as far as her front gate. She was thinking of inviting him in for supper, but he seemed distracted and quite unlike his usual self. She wondered if the launch of the society had been a little too much for him, given how naturally shy he was. She did not recall him saying a single word at the meeting. That was a shame, because on his occasional visits during her recent illness and loss, they had taken to discovering their mutual love of Jane Austen, and she had found him to be an extremely insightful reader of the books.

On this walk home they had been discussing Adam’s favourite character, Elizabeth Bennet.

“I never thought it believable,” Adeline was saying, “that someone as smart as Lizzie would fall for a cad like Wickham.”

“It was all Darcy’s doing,” Adam replied, “slighting her at that first ball. Gets her back up—makes her want to find reasons to dislike him.”

“‘She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me.’ Ouch.” Adeline laughed. “It would take some doing to get me back after words like that, I can tell you. But you’re so right—she is vulnerable for once to a fake like Wickham because Darcy’s hurt her, and it’s getting in the way of her seeing things clearly.”

Something about all of this was starting to ring true for Adeline herself, but she quickly pushed the thought out of her head as she rested her gloved hands on top of the gate, feeling it sink a bit on its hinges under the weight.

“Dr. Gray asked me today to fix that for you,” Adam remarked. “I’ll be round in the morning.”

“Dr. Gray worries too much.”

“Does he?” Adam said quizzically. “Always seems fine to me. Good chap.”

“Are you sure you won’t come in, for some supper?”

Adam shook his head and started to turn back down the lane with a quick wave goodbye behind him. She noticed he was walking in the opposite direction from the small terrace house he shared with his mother. She wondered where else he could be going at this time of night.

She walked up the garden path in the moonlight, bending down frequently to pick up a stray leaf or twig, her compulsion for gardening having returned just in time for spring. As she felt for the front-door key in her coat pocket, she thought she heard a noise behind her and turned around.

Benjamin Gray was standing there in the moonlight, just a few steps from her front door, his hands in his coat pockets, his head bare.

“God, you startled me again. You have to stop doing that.” She turned to open the door, then realized something. “Did you follow me here?”