First Impressions: A Novel of Old Books, Unexpected Love, and Jane Austen (16 page)

A
FTER HER TWO
DAYS’
confinement at the rectory, the weather did clear, and despite the mud through which she was forced to walk, Jane, having taken an early luncheon, arrived at the gatehouse of Busbury Park just after midday. To her surprise, she found the house a hive of activity. The front door stood open, a large trunk stood on the floor of the sitting room, and into this the housekeeper was just placing a small parcel of books. Mr. Mansfield came tottering down the stairs with a heavy coat over his arms.

“I shall wear this, Mrs. Harris, so you needn’t worry about fitting it in the trunk. Now if I can only find my . . . ah, Miss Austen,” he said, noticing Jane in the doorway. “I had hoped you might come today so I could say good-bye.”

“Good-bye, Mr. Mansfield? What gives you need to say good-bye?”

“It’s my curate, I’m afraid. He has written to say he has been presented with a living and will be leaving me within the fortnight. I must return to Croft until I can secure a replacement.”

“But surely such matters could be handled by post,” said Jane.

“I am afraid, Miss Austen, that the hiring of a curate to serve my parish is not something I take lightly. One must meet the candidates face-to-face. Do not worry. I shall not be gone for more than a month. Oh dear, I’m afraid I have forgotten my boots.”

Mr. Mansfield was just turning to go back upstairs when Mrs. Harris called out. “I’ve packed them for you, sir, not to fear.”

“I do believe,” he said, turning to Jane again, “that I should quite forget to take my head with me if it were not for Mrs. Harris. Sudden departures do not befit eighty-year-olds.”

Jane felt a chill as her friend turned to inspect the contents of the trunk. Sudden departures, she thought, await us all, especially those of such an advanced age as Mr. Mansfield.

“I have heard again from Mr. Monkhouse, Miss Austen,” he said. “He proposes to print my second edition before Christmas. Once I have unpacked I shall go over to Leeds and deliver my manuscript in person.”

“And how,” said Jane with a smile, “do you propose to do that?”

“I’m afraid I do not follow you, Miss Austen. Though no doubt there has been some rain in the north, the road to Leeds is generally quite passable at this time of year.”

“I only meant, Mr. Mansfield, that you might find it difficult to deliver to a printer in Leeds a manuscript, part of which lies on the writing table of your friend in Hampshire.”

“The manuscript!” cried Mr. Mansfield. “I knew I had forgotten something. Is there time for me to stop by the rectory and still make the coach?”

“Mr. Mansfield, you needn’t—” began Jane, but her friend was too flustered to listen.

“Here is the revised portion,” he said, pulling a sheaf of papers out of his trunk and then plunging them back again. “But how foolish of me—the new material is—”

“Is right here,” said Jane calmly, holding out the pages of
First Impressions
. “I had come to tell you that my vision of how to turn this cautionary tale into a full-length novel is now fully formed, and I no longer require your pages.”

“Oh, Miss Austen, bless you,” said Mr. Mansfield. “What should I do without you?”

“You should perhaps get more sleep and be less flustered and always know the locations of your manuscripts.”

“Foolish, foolish girl,” he said, turning to look at her. He seemed in an instant to age a decade, and the sparkle in his eyes dulled as he took her by the hand. “I shall miss you terribly,” he said.

Jane trembled at the touch of his hand, and wanted desperately to find a way to tell him what she had discovered in Kent the last time they had been separated—that she loved him. But though that love was engraved on her heart, she did not have the words to explain its nature. For Jane to lack for words was only evidence of the depths of her emotion. Squeezing his hand in hers and hoping that small gesture might somehow do what words could not, she said softly, “When do you leave?”

“The gig arrives any moment to take me to the London coach. But come—sit with me while I wait and keep me company.”

“Nothing would give me greater pleasure,” said Jane. “I shall write to you, while you are gone,” she added as they settled into their usual chairs.

“I would rather you spend your ink on the Bennet family,” said Mr. Mansfield. “So that I may learn more of them on my return. I must admit, though, it is your companionship, more than anything, that will lure me back to Hampshire.”

“I shall count the days,” said Jane, “though I do not know how many they will be. Can it be only four months since we met? It seems I have always known you.”

“And how strange,” said Mr. Mansfield, “to remember what our thoughts were that first day . . .”

“When we formed such false impressions of one another,” she said, finishing his thought.

“And on that Sunday when we first spoke,” he said, “you said you wished to have me as your special friend. I certainly did not guess what a gift that would be.” They sat for a moment without speaking. Jane was struck with how very old Mr. Mansfield’s eyes looked. She was so used to thinking of him as an equal that she felt she had never truly comprehended the reality of his age.

“I am afraid this journey will be wearying to me,” he said.

“Do take care of yourself,” said Jane. “And come back to me.”

“I shall,” he said, and he reached for her hand and kissed it gently with his dry lips. They continued to talk until the gig arrived a few minutes later and Mr. Mansfield was forced to make his departure. Jane watched as the gig disappeared down the lane.

“Cup of tea before you go?” said Mrs. Harris, who stood in the doorway wiping her hands on her apron.

“No, thank you,” said Jane firmly, brushing a tear from her eye. “I have work to do.”

“W
HAT ARE YOU SAYING?”
asked Victoria.

“I’m saying that I was right,” said Sophie. “It wasn’t an accident. Uncle Bertram was killed.” She had rung her sister as soon as she realized about the missing keys. “The police couldn’t get into the flat until they came back with Father and his keys
six hours
after they found the body. The only way to lock the door to the flat is with the keys, but Uncle Bertram’s keys were
inside
the flat. That must mean someone came to the flat, Uncle Bertram opened the door, the killer grabbed him and threw him down the stairs, and then went into the flat and locked the door from the inside.”

“So you’re saying whoever pushed him down those stairs was
in
the flat when the police came,” said Victoria.

“It’s the only explanation,” said Sophie.

“I’m sure it’s not the
only
explanation.”

“Gives me chills just thinking about it.”

“So how did your mysterious murderer get out and still leave the door locked and the keys inside?” asked Victoria.

“I’m not sure,” said Sophie, “but I think I know who it was.”

“Seriously?”

“Have you got a few minutes?”

“Boss is out to lunch,” said Victoria. “I’ve got at least an hour.” So Sophie told her everything about Richard Mansfield and his
Little Book of Allegorical Stories
, and the threatening phone calls from Smedley.

“I don’t know why this book is so special,” she said, “but Smedley wants it badly.”

“Badly enough to kill?”

“He basically said as much,” said Sophie. “I think he thought Uncle Bertram had a copy, he showed up, pushed Uncle Bertram down the stairs, hid in the flat until the police left, and still had three or four hours to search for the book.”

“But he must not have found it,” said Victoria, “or he wouldn’t be hounding you.”

“Exactly,” said Sophie, pausing for a moment as the sobering truth sank in. “He killed Uncle Bertram for nothing.”

“What the hell is so special about that book that somebody would kill for it?” said her sister, her voice wavering.

“No idea,” said Sophie, gritting her teeth. “But I’ll tell you one thing—I’m going to find that goddamn book, I’m going to use it to lure this Smedley out into the open, and I’m going to find a way to prove that he killed Uncle Bertram.” Sophie did not share the thought that, much to her terror, leapt into her head at that moment—if she couldn’t prove Smedley’s guilt, she would do the next best thing: She would kill him.

She told her sister good-bye, walked to the window, looked out on the quiet street, and said aloud, “Now, time to get the son of a bitch.”

—

She wondered, for a moment, if she should warn Winston. Smedley clearly knew that Winston was also looking for the Mansfield book, and even if Winston’s reasons were indeed innocent, he might not be entirely safe. But was Winston innocent? If one person was willing to kill for Mansfield’s book, why not two? Sophie shook that thought away and decided if she had to pick one of these men to trust, it would obviously be Winston. Maybe she could even use him as—what did the American crime dramas call it?—backup.

She looked at the list of questions she had drawn up. She thought she knew the answer to the first one, “What happened to Uncle Bertram.” That left four more:

Why me?

Why now?

Why this book?

Why two different collectors?

The question that mattered most, she thought, was the third one: Why this book? Answer that and she might be able to answer the others. She had to find the second edition of
A Little Book of Allegorical Stories
.

She knew that her uncle had not shared his literary life with anyone else in the family; it was unlikely that Sophie’s parents would have the first idea about the location of what they would see as some worthless old book. The only person she knew who might have some insight into the mystery was Gusty, and she needed to ring him anyway, to let him know she was OK.

“I’m feeling much better, really,” Sophie said in answer to Gusty’s queries about her health. “I had a little something to eat and took a nap,” she lied, “and I’m right as rain.”

“You need to take better care of yourself,” scolded Gusty. “What would your Uncle Bertram think if he knew I was letting you faint dead away on the floor of my bookshop?”

“Gusty,” she said, “could I ask you a question about Uncle Bertram?”

“Of course, my dear.”

“Do you know if he had any secret hiding places? You know, for special books?”

“Secret hiding places?” said Gusty. “Well, if he did he never told me about them. Your uncle believed that books belonged on shelves, where he could see them and read them and love them. He would have something worth a thousand pounds sitting next to a tattered paperback. No, I’m sorry to say the only place your uncle hid books, so far as I know, was in plain sight.”

“Do you mind if I take a few days off, Gusty?” said Sophie, already planning her next step. “I have to clear a few things out of my room in Oxford before the end of the month.” This, at least, was true.

“And by a few things I suppose you mean your books.”

“Naturally,” she said, smiling for the first time since Smedley’s call.

“Take as long as you need.”

Sophie thought it was unlikely she would uncover any hiding places in Uncle Bertram’s flat. Smedley had had hours to look for Mansfield’s book and he hadn’t found it. Nonetheless, a thorough search of the flat was the first order of business. She turned over the mattresses and pulled cushions out of chairs and sofas. She knocked on the back panels of kitchen cabinets to check for hidden compartments. In her uncle’s bedroom she discovered an unlocked window that opened right next to a large drainpipe. Doubtless Smedley had climbed down this to make his escape. She locked the window and continued her search.

An hour later she had found nothing. She sat on Uncle Bertram’s bed staring at the shelf where his
Natalis Christi
books had stood. Now, only one book occupied the shelf—the
Principia
she had stolen. Smedley’s threats and Winston’s attentions had pushed the loss of those precious Christmas books from her mind, but now, as she sat defeated in Uncle Bertram’s bedroom, she thought that shelf looked emptier than any other in the flat.

Her search of her uncle’s desk had revealed only writing paper and pens and a few empty file folders. She had pulled the drawers completely out of the desk to check for anything hidden behind them, but had felt nothing but bare wood as she ran her hands inside those dark openings. Now she dragged herself back to the sitting room and started returning the drawers to their proper places. She was just about to insert the lower left drawer when she felt something on its underside. She turned the drawer over and expelled a sharp breath. Taped to the bottom was a copy of Uncle Bertram’s business card, and taped to the card was a small key.

Sophie knew at once that this was the key to the cabinets in the Bayfield House library. She had seen her uncle withdraw it from his silk waistcoat pocket when he strode into the library to select his Christmas book. She slipped the key into her pocket—glad to have it, but still not sure what it meant for her search.

She took another look at the business card. Her uncle had rarely discussed his career with Sophie, but she knew he had worked for an accounting firm in the West End. “It means I can prowl the bookshops on my lunch hour,” he had said. She wondered if it would be any help to ring the firm where he had worked. She absentmindedly flipped the card over and her eyes widened. On the other side, in Uncle Bertram’s handwriting, was a cryptic message:

NC 1971 Bulwer-Lytton

NC must
certainly
mean
Natalis Christi
. But Sophie was almost positive Uncle Bertram had chosen the first of his Christmas books in 1972. She ran to his bedroom and pulled the
Principia
off the shelf. The inscription read “
Natalis Christi
B.A.C. 1972.” There was no
Natalis Christi
1971. Uncle Bertram had told her that the
Principia
had been the first book he had chosen. Or had he?

“My father died during my first year at university,” he had said, “and when your father and I made our deal, I knew that I wanted this book.” He had been speaking of the
Principia
; but she now realized he hadn’t said it had been his first pick, only that he knew he wanted it. Something else he said that day suddenly bubbled up in her mind. When Sophie had asked if he had known what book he wanted the first time he got to choose, Uncle Bertram had said, “Especially the very first time. Remember that.” Why did he want her to remember? Did he know that one day she would be searching for
Natalis Christi
1971?

Sophie knew the contents of the
Natalis Christi
shelf like old friends.
Principia
had always been the first book. Not only that, but Uncle Bertram had loathed Bulwer-Lytton.

“Even
The Last Days of Pompeii
?” asked Sophie as they sat at breakfast one morning. At fifteen, she was going through a stage of being fascinated with salacious literature, and
The Last Days of Pompeii
had seemed deliciously sexy.

“Especially
The Last Days of Pompeii
,” said Uncle Bertram.

“But why?” asked Sophie.

“We all have our personal tastes, my dear.” She had noticed that, while Uncle Bertram would tell her if he didn’t like a book she was reading, he would never tell her exactly why. She supposed he wanted to let her form her own opinions, but she wanted to understand his, so she pressed him.

“You can’t expect me to learn about great literature if you won’t tell me why you think something
isn’t
great,” she said.

“Very well,” said her uncle, laying his
Essays of Elia
on the table. “You are a lover of great first lines, correct?”

“Yes,” said Sophie.

“And what is your favorite?”

“
Pride and Prejudice
—you know that,” she said.

“As perfect an opening line as you will find in English literature. Now, at the other end of the spectrum, we have Mr. Bulwer-Lytton.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your friend,” said Uncle Bertram, nodding at Sophie’s copy of
The Last Days of Pompeii
on the table, “is responsible for the most criminally horrendous opening line in all of English literature.”

“What is it?” asked Sophie, leaning forward eagerly.

Uncle Bertram affected a spooky voice and intoned, “It was a dark and stormy night.” He scowled at his niece and then burst out laughing.

“It’s not so very horrible,” said Sophie, who, honestly, did think it was a pretty wretched first line when compared to Austen or Dickens.

“As I said, my dear,” he said, picking up his Charles Lamb, “you are entitled to your opinion and I am entitled to mine.”

And knowing Uncle Bertram’s opinion, Sophie could not comprehend why he would have chosen Bulwer-Lytton as a
Natalis Christi
book. And even if he had, why had it never been on the shelf with the others? And what could it possibly have to do with Richard Mansfield?

Sophie was finally forced to admit that the search of Uncle Bertram’s flat had been fruitless. If he had possessed the Richard Mansfield book, it was long gone now. But if Smedley had murdered Uncle Bertram and stayed behind in the flat, then he had certainly searched through Uncle Bertram’s books without finding
A Little Book of Allegorical Stories
. Yet he had still approached Sophie thinking that she was the one person who could find the book. What could that mean?

She sat down at her uncle’s desk, and her eye fell on the little golden key that had been taped to his business card. Was it possible that Richard Mansfield was hiding in the library of Bayfield House? It seemed unlikely, but Sophie could think of no other place to search. A moment later she had her father on the phone.

“I thought I might come up for dinner and maybe spend the night,” she said.

“Your mother would like that, I’m sure,” said Mr. Collingwood.

“Father, when did Grandfather die?” asked Sophie, still puzzled by the mystery of the first
Natalis Christi
book.

“Why this sudden interest in family history?” he asked.

“Well, Uncle Bertram’s books are all gone, so stories are all I have left,” said Sophie, unable to resist twisting the knife just a bit. But her father seemed not to notice.

“It was in February the year after I married your mother,” said Mr. Collingwood. “So it must have been 1971.”

So perhaps there had been a
Natalis Christi
1971. Uncle Bertram had been nineteen. Was it possible that he was still as fascinated by Bulwer-Lytton then as Sophie had been at fifteen? Did he later hate Bulwer-Lytton because he had wasted a precious Christmas choice on something like
The Last Days of Pompeii
? It didn’t really matter, Sophie decided. What mattered was finding the Mansfield book and somehow using it to prove that Smedley was a killer. Five minutes later Sophie had packed an overnight bag and was stepping out the door on the way to Paddington Station. She met the postman in the stairwell and he handed her the post. Something to read on the train, she thought as she strode toward the station. In her rush she had forgotten to bring a book.