First Impressions: A Novel of Old Books, Unexpected Love, and Jane Austen (20 page)

“I’m working in Cecil Court,” she said, “at Boxhill’s. Stop in and see me.” And don’t discover that I just used my skills as a librarian to steal a book from an Oxford college, she thought.

A moment later she was back out in the summer sun. The day had turned warm, and she was tempted to sit in the shadows of the cloisters and examine her purloined treasure, but she thought it best to get away from St. John’s in case Jacob came upon her reading a library book that had not been checked out.

Of all her crimes, Sophie thought, this was the most appalling. It was one thing to steal a book that ought to have belonged to her from a dealer who had overpriced it, or even to steal a book from her own family library; but for a college librarian to steal from a college library—that was a violation of ethics that did not sit well with her. Not until she was safely back in her room and had a chance to examine the book more closely did she decide it had absolutely been worth it.

In most particulars, the book was identical to the one she had examined at the British Library. The binding was perhaps a bit less worn, the pages crisper—that probably meant the book hadn’t been read much. Having read the text herself, Sophie couldn’t really blame the readers of the past two centuries for neglecting this copy. She fanned the pages of the book and this cursory inspection showed a text unmarked in the margins, but when she turned to the front endpaper, she found an inscription in fading brown ink, in a slightly shaky hand: “To J.A. Judge not too harshly, but like me reserve First Impressions for second editions. Affectionately, R.M.” To anyone who wasn’t
looking
for a connection between Jane Austen and Richard Mansfield, it would have seemed innocent enough. It was easy to imagine how it might have been overlooked through all these years, especially in a book that people weren’t likely to open very often. But here, surely, was evidence that Richard Mansfield had known Jane Austen. To Sophie, that was good news; but the further implications of the inscription left her more worried than ever that if her stolen books were made public, the world would believe that Jane Austen had plagiarized
Pride and Prejudice
from Richard Mansfield.

If only he hadn’t included those two words:
like me
. As it was, the inscription certainly seemed to imply that Mansfield had written
First Impressions
. She closed the book gently and laid it on her dressing table. Staring at herself in the mirror, she wondered—is this the face of the woman who will destroy Jane Austen? What would those “fangirls” on whom Eric heaped so much disdain think of her? With the two books in her possession, Sophie had, perhaps, the ability to become the most reviled person in English literature fandom.

Of course, she had no intention of making the books public. She still wanted to do two things: find a way to prove Jane’s innocence, and find a way to prove Smedley’s guilt. Until she understood how both Smedley and Winston had come to discover Mansfield’s book in the library of a college neither one of them attended, she didn’t think she could make much progress with either goal. She certainly wasn’t going to ask Smedley about the book, so that left her with only one option—she had to trust Winston, at least for now.

“I thought I was the one who couldn’t stop thinking about you,” said Winston when Sophie called.

“Can you come up to Oxford tomorrow?” she asked.

“Is that little bed of yours cold?”

She had a flash of spending the whole day in bed. Fireworks or no fireworks, sex with Winston would definitely take her mind off her troubles. But, as appealing as the notion was, it would have to wait.

“I was thinking lunch. There’s a little café just outside the covered market.”

“Puccino’s. Sure, I know the place.”

“Because you were at St. John’s,” Sophie prompted.

“Right,” said Winston.

“So can you come? Say, noon?”

“I can come tonight if you like.”

“I need to sleep tonight,” said Sophie. “Come tomorrow and I’ll meet you at Puccino’s.”

“Well, I suppose if we have to meet in a public place, I’ll get by. At least I’ll get to see you.”

“It’ll be fun,” she said. “You can tell me all about your days at Oxford.” And with this veiled warning she rang off.

It was only five o’clock, but, having missed an entire night of sleep, Sophie was exhausted. She bought two sandwiches from the shop on the corner, wolfed them down with the remains of a bottle of wine she found on her bookshelf, and was sound asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

T
HE COACH BEARING
Jane and Cassandra from Bath stopped at Devizes and did not reach Deane until nearly eight o’clock, by which time it had long gone dark. Jane was surprised to find a gig and driver waiting for them.

“Are you Miss Jane Austen?” asked the driver. When this was answered in the affirmative he continued. “Lord Wintringham says I am to bring you straight to Busbury Park.”

“Oh, Jane, your friend must be quite unwell for them to send for you at this hour,” said Cassandra, gripping her sister’s arm. “We shall go at once.”

But Jane did not move for a moment, though Cassandra pulled her toward the gig. Then, laying a hand on her sister’s arm, she spoke. “I must go alone, dear sister.”

“But surely you will want me with you at such a time.”

Jane could not think how to explain to Cassandra the intimacy of her relationship with Mr. Mansfield, or the depth of her desire to be alone with him once more. It had nothing to do with romance but everything to do with love. She had found in him a mind so in sympathy with her own that when the two of them were together there seemed to be no one else in the world. If she could, she hoped to experience that feeling once more.

“You must deposit my sister at Steventon rectory on the way,” said Jane, climbing into the gig as the driver hoisted up their trunks.

“Are you sure?” said Cassandra, taking her seat next to Jane.

“I am quite sure,” said Jane calmly, and they rattled away into the darkness.

Jane did not alight from the gig at the rectory, though her family came out to greet the returning sisters. She leaned down to kiss her mother, then asked the driver to make all haste to Busbury Park. She could not bear the thought that she might not be in time, for now her mind was focused on a single aim—to make that confession to Mr. Mansfield that she had delayed making ever since her return from Kent. That she loved him—not with the love of a wife but with a love of the mind that, she imagined, was as deep as any other.

When they turned in to the east drive, the driver did not stop at the gatehouse. The windows were dark, and the gig continued up the drive until the main house came into view. Jane had not yet met the earl, but this impending introduction seemed not in the slightest momentous as the driver helped her down. She thought only of Mr. Mansfield.

In the light of the open door stood a middle-aged man, dressed for dinner, and wearing a look of fatigue on his face.

“Miss Austen, I presume,” he said.

“Miss Jane Austen, at your service, my lord. I am most indebted to you for sending for me. I hope you will pardon my traveling clothes and take me to see Mr. Mansfield at once. I am desperate to speak with him.”

“I shall take you to see him as you request, Miss Austen, but I am grieved to inform you that you will not be able to speak with him. Mr. Mansfield died not an hour ago.”

Jane felt her knees buckle beneath her, and thought for a moment she would swoon, until the surprisingly strong arm of the earl steadied her.

“I am so sorry, my dear. I know it must come as a shock.”

“Indeed it does, sir,” said Jane, who had forgotten how to breathe for a moment. Now, as she forced herself to pull air into her lungs, it seemed to expel tears from her eyes. No gasps and sobs for her, just a steady trickle down her trembling cheeks. Her confession was not to be.

“But come in, Miss Austen. How cruel of me to keep you here on the doorstep. Will you sit for a moment?”

“No thank you, sir. I am quite well now. It was only the shock of the news. Will you take me to him?”

“If that is your wish, you may follow me, Miss Austen.”

The walk up stairs and down corridors seemed to last forever. In other circumstances Jane might well have stored away the details of the house for use in some future story, but now she could think only of her friend. If only the letter had come the day before; if only the coach hadn’t stopped at Devizes; if only Mr. Mansfield had lived a few more hours. That she should never again hear his gentle voice or walk with him to the lake or read to him by the fire seemed impossible, and yet it was so. She had heard the expression “an aching heart,” yet never could she remember experiencing quite such a physical pain in her chest as this dreadful news had brought.

At long last they arrived at a closed door, outside of which the earl paused. “He is laid out here in the blue bedroom,” he whispered, as if his voice could still disturb Mr. Mansfield. “I’m afraid I must go down to dinner, but you may ring for the upstairs maid to show you out. My man will drive you back to the rectory whenever you are ready.”

“You are most kind, sir.”

“It is the least I can do,” said the earl. “Mr. Mansfield was among my oldest friends, though he preferred his books to social intercourse. When he did dine with us here, he spoke very highly of you. I believe your acquaintance was one of the great joys of his final months, and for being such a pleasure to an old friend, I shall always be indebted to you, Miss Austen.”

“I assure you, my lord, he was a better friend to me that I could ever hope to be to him.”

“He was a good man,” said the earl with a quaver in his voice, and he turned and walked back down the corridor.

Jane turned the handle and pushed the door open. The room was dimly lit with candles and a lamp by the bedside. The elegant blue and gold drapes had been pulled shut. Mr. Mansfield, or the mortal husk of Mr. Mansfield, thought Jane, lay in the center of the wide bed. She sat on the edge of the bed for several minutes, looking at his serene face. He looked so well rested, she thought. She reached out and took his hand in hers. His skin was cool and dry. So often had she accompanied her father to funerals and burials that she knew most of the words of the service by heart. As she sat by the man she had loved so dearly, holding his hand in hers, she spoke aloud, once more reading to him, this time from memory:

I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, from henceforth blessed are the dead which die in the Lord: even so, saith the Spirit; for they rest from their labours.

“So let it be with you, my love,” she said, tears once again flowing freely down her face. “Rest. Rest in God’s peace.”

T
HE NEXT MORNING
Sophie awoke feeling hopeful. Somehow the decision to confide in Winston had already, in her mind, given her an ally. She was up early and at her computer, working on a plan of attack for the day. The first step was frighteningly easy. With nothing more than a fifty-pound membership fee in a genealogical research site, she was able, in less than an hour, to trace her ancestry back to Gilbert Monkhouse and Theresa Wright. Theresa’s father, as the family prayer book had indicated, had also been a printer, which explained why Sophie’s father didn’t associate the name Monkhouse with the printing family from which he was descended. Of course, if Sophie could discover that connection, so could anyone else. Sophie imagined the old woman who conducted the monthly tours of Bayfield told the story of how the family library was begun when a printer kept one copy of every book he printed. Smedley suspected from the inscription in the St. John’s copy of Mansfield’s book that there was a connection between the second edition, Jane Austen, and
First Impressions
. It would have taken no great power of reasoning to deduce that if there were a surviving copy of that second edition, it might well be either in the inaccessible cases of Bayfield House or on the cluttered shelves of Uncle Bertram’s flat. Smedley had searched Uncle Bertram’s flat after he killed him; but he’d had to enlist Sophie to search Bayfield House. If threats and bribes weren’t enough to rouse Sophie to action, he had dropped the hint about St. John’s, hoping she would uncover the book that brought her beloved Jane Austen into the story.

Sophie’s next task was to research Richard Mansfield. This proved more difficult. The genealogical site was no help this time. Beyond the brief biographical sketch she had found in
Alumni Oxonienses
, there was nothing. She pulled up
Alumni Oxonienses
online and looked at his biography again:

M
ANSFIELD,
R
I
CHARD
N
ORMAN
, 1s. Tobias Charles, of Bloxham, Oxfordshire, cler. Balliol Coll., matric. 1734, aged 18; B.A. 1737, M.A. 1740. Curate of Bloxham 1743, Master of Cowley Grammar School 1758–1780, Rector of Croft, Yorkshire, 1780. Died 4 Dec. 1796.

He had been an undergraduate at Balliol, but they were not likely to have any records of his adult life. He’d served as a curate in the diocese of Oxford, so any records relating to that would be in the diocesan archives, but he had left there before Jane Austen was even born, so those records were not likely to be helpful. The records from his time as rector at Croft would be in the Yorkshire diocesan archives, a long day’s drive away. That left the Cowley Grammar School. She had never heard of such a school, but a quick search of the online catalog for the Oxfordshire History Centre told her that it had existed from roughly 1750 to 1843. An entry in the catalog stated merely: “Records and papers related to Cowley Grammar School, masters, etc. Eight boxes.”

It was a shot in the dark, but perhaps Rev. Mansfield had left his papers to the place he had spent the bulk of his career. Sophie had no idea if eighteenth-century clergymen had left their papers to institutions the way twentieth-century scholars had. It seemed unlikely, but since the Oxfordshire History Centre was just three miles away—in Cowley, coincidentally—there was no harm in looking.

Sophie stepped out of the house just before eleven. She would take a nice walk through the University Parks and along the river and still get back into the center of town in time to meet Winston at noon. She shivered to think that he was on the train right now heading to Oxford—though she was not sure if it was a shiver of fear or of excitement. She was just passing the bus stop when she heard a voice call out, “Sophie!” She turned and her stomach fell. She had no idea what to say to Eric Hall, who now stood in front of her.

“Hi,” said Eric.

“What . . . what . . . ?” She wanted to be angry that he had surprised her like this in the street, but she felt her cheeks flushing with an altogether different emotion and all she could think was: He found me. “What are you doing here?” she finally managed to say.

“Looking for you,” he said. “Didn’t you get my letter?”

“Yeah, but how did you know . . . ?”

“Well, your mom told me you were in Oxford and then this lady at the Christ Church Library told me you lived on Woodstock Road out near St. Antony’s, so I figured I’d head out this way, and here you are.”

“You said we were never going to see each other again,” said Sophie.

“Yeah, well, the heart plays funny tricks, doesn’t it?”

“Does it?” said Sophie. If he made some sort of crazy confession of love, she thought, she didn’t know if she’d leap for joy or run away.

“I’ve been thinking about you and that night in the garden a lot and I decided to stop thinking and start doing something about it.”

“You said you didn’t want to get me into bed,” said Sophie, remembering his words in the garden.

“What can I say? Paris is the city of lovers. It got me thinking. And I just couldn’t get you out of my head.”

At the mention of Paris, Sophie suddenly remembered the French books and Eric’s deception. “Did you even go to Paris?” she said.

“What do you mean? Of course I went to Paris. Didn’t you get my letters?”

“Then why did you lie about the books you sent me? You didn’t buy them in Paris for a song; you bought them from a dealer in Bath for fifteen hundred pounds.”

“I talked him down to twelve fifty,” said Eric.

“That’s beside the point. You don’t spend over a thousand pounds on books for someone you hardly know.”

“I know you well enough to know that you would love that set—a piece of Jane Austen so close to the time she was alive. I lied because I didn’t think you’d accept it if you knew how much it cost.”

Sophie stared at the pavement for a long minute. “I did love it,” she said at last. “But you can’t just walk up to me on the street and expect me to drop everything and run off with you.”

“I didn’t ask you to run off with me,” said Eric. “Besides, what are you doing that’s so important that you can’t take a half hour to have a cup of coffee with me and see if maybe there’s something to this?”

“Actually,” said Sophie, “I have a date.”

“You have a date?”

“Surely if you are infatuated with me it must not be so hard to believe that someone else might have an interest as well.”

“And who is this mystery man?”

It was none of his business, she knew, but somehow Sophie thought that naming the man she had romped around naked with just a few days earlier—and with whom she might very well do the same thing again tonight—would help her stop thinking about that kiss, and those sweet letters, and those amazing books.

“His name is Winston Godfrey.”

“The publisher?” said Eric.

“Do you know him?” said Sophie, unable to hide her surprise.

“I’ll say I know him,” he said. “We were at Oxford together.”

“You were at Oxford?”

“They do admit Americans once in a while.”

“Let me guess,” she said. “You were at St. John’s.”

“No, Balliol,” said Eric. “But listen, Sophie, you’ve got to trust me on this. Winston Godfrey is bad news.”

“You’re hardly a disinterested party,” she said. “And it just so happens that Winston is a perfect gentleman.”

“Right, a total gentleman. Candlelit dinner on the first date, flowers on the second, dinner at his place followed by the best sex you’ve ever had on the third. Trust me, he’ll push all those buttons about three more times and then he’ll toss you aside like yesterday’s paper. I saw it for two years. He went through girls like potato chips.”

Sophie was disturbed by how accurately Eric had summarized her relationship with Winston. “Did it occur to you that Winston may have changed since university?”

“Guys like Winston don’t change,” said Eric. “Believe me, the guy may look good coming out of the lake in a wet shirt, but he’s trouble.”

“Listen, I appreciate the warning, I really do, but I can take care of myself. And I appreciate . . .” She wasn’t sure how to word it. “Everything else. And I
would
like to have a coffee with you. Just not today, OK?”

“Can I give you my number?” he said.

“You give me your number and I’ll give you my number and I’ll be careful. And if Winston turns out to be what you say he is, I’ll call you for coffee and you can say ‘I told you so.’”

“And if he stays a perfect gentleman?” said Eric. “I don’t want to walk down this street and never see you again.”

“All right—no matter what happens, I’ll call you for a coffee,” said Sophie.

As she left Eric at Martyrs’ Memorial, she realized she hadn’t succeeded in simplifying her love life—anything but. But she didn’t care. If Eric had come all the way from France to find her, maybe he did deserve another chance, particularly if Winston turned out to be as much of a scoundrel as Eric predicted.

On a whim she pulled out her phone and rang a friend who worked at the Balliol College Library. A quick query revealed that both Eric Hall and Winston Godfrey had been undergraduates there. Winston was a year ahead of Eric, but they had overlapped for two years. So Winston had lied about his undergraduate college and Eric had told the truth.

“Can you check one more name for me?” said Sophie to her friend. “George Smedley.”

“Yep,” he said. “George Smedley was here. Took his degree the same year as Winston Godfrey.”

“Thanks,” said Sophie. “That’s very helpful.”

So Winston and Smedley had not been at St. John’s, but they had been at Balliol together. Sophie was beginning to think that her conversation with Winston might be very interesting.