The Missing Manuscript of Jane Austen Read online

  “No—sorry. I’m here on holiday. My boyfriend’s attending a cardiology conference in London.”

  “The boyfriend’s a doctor? Ooh. Lovely.”

  “He is, rather.” I smiled and moved straight to the point of my visit: I needed to get hold of Dr. Mary Jesse.

  “Dr. Jesse? She moved somewhere up near Chipping Norton, I think. From what I hear, she lives a very quiet, private life now. She wouldn’t leave us a phone number or e-mail, we just forward any thing that comes to her home address.”

  My spirits plummeted. No phone number? No e-mail? Really? I impressed upon Michelle how important it was that I reach Mary and that I didn’t have much time; I was only in England for a few days. With a fond smile and a shake of her head, she gave me Mary’s mailing address, reminding me not to share it with anyone. I profusely thanked her.

  After a warm good-bye and promises to stay in touch, I stopped in the shelter of an ancient passageway and looked up Mary’s address on my phone. She lived in Hook Norton. There was no time to write to her—who knew when I’d hear back? According to MapQuest, Hook Norton was about twenty-five miles northwest of Oxford, on the A44.

  I glanced at my watch. It was 1:30 P.M. and a Friday. It would probably take a little over an hour to get there, traffic permitting. I hesitated, reminding myself that Mary apparently relished her privacy these days, and it wasn’t polite to drop in on people unannounced—but I quickly shook off those concerns. Mary was as obsessed with All Things Austen as I was—more, in fact. If she was home, she’d be ecstatic about this discovery, and she could not only authenticate it but tell me what to do with it.

  I practically ran all the way back to the B&B. I made two photocopies of the precious letter, then slid the original back between the pages of the old book, rewrapped the book to keep it clean and dry, and stowed it in my purse.

  Too excited to keep the news to myself, I decided to call Stephen. Dr. Stephen Theodore was the smart, handsome, forty-one-year-old cardiac interventionalist who had treated my mother for her heart condition. We had met four years earlier, shortly after I’d returned to Los Angeles from Oxford. Although I was an emotional wreck at the time, desperately worried about my mom, I saw at once that she was in good hands.

  My relationship with Dr. Theodore had been strictly professional at first, but as the months went by, we both became aware of a mutual, growing attraction. He asked me out. I discovered that although Stephen hadn’t read a book for pleasure since his teens, he appreciated that I loved them. Whereas I enjoyed cooking, he avoided kitchen duties like the plague—but we found commonality in other things. We liked the same types of music, food, and wine. His work schedule was very demanding, but we squeezed in pockets of time now and then to meet for dinner or at the gym, or for an occasional Sunday morning bike ride on the path along the beach. It wasn’t long before I ended up in his bed.

  Stephen was supportive about what he teasingly called my “Jane Austen Obsession.” He watched several of my favorite Austen film adaptations with me. In return for accompanying him to various medical receptions (not my favorite thing), he—dubiously—had agreed to take a couple of English Country Dance lessons, and he’d actually rented a costume and accompanied me to a Regency ball, where we’d danced the night away, just like Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. “This is more fun than I’d expected,” my brilliant doctor had said with real surprise—and I’d floated on air the entire evening.

  We enjoyed each other’s company. We were a comfortable fit. And he took excellent care of my mother.

  Sadly, however, my mom’s heart failure continued to pro-gress. She had died the year before of a sudden arrhythmia—her internal defibrillator wasn’t able to restore her normal heart rhythm. I was suddenly parentless, an orphan, overwhelmed with grief, paperwork, and financial stress. Stephen was there for me when I needed him. In the three years that we’d been together, we’d made no commitment to each other, still living our separate lives—but he was important to me, and I believed I was important to him.

  I could hardly wait to tell him about my discovery.

  Stephen had said he’d be in back-to-back medical meetings and seminars all day at the London conference, but I took a chance and called him. By some miracle, he answered.

  “Sam?” There was the din of conversation in the background.

  “Stephen! I’m so glad I caught you.”

  “Me, too. Just a minute, I’m having trouble hearing you.” There was a pause. The background noise diminished, and he spoke again. “Are you having a good time?”

  “I am. How’s the meeting going?”

  “Great so far. We had a good turnout at my program during the IME symposium. The poster sessions have been okay although a bit heavy on the genetics. And at the Satellite Sym posium, they introduced some very interesting new research regarding dyslipidemia and effective parameters for measuring residual risk—it’s going to be challenging to implement these findings with my patients.”

  “I think I understood about 45 percent of that,” I said with a laugh.

  “That’s more than I did,” he quipped in return.

  “Stephen: do you have a minute? I have something incredible to tell you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I bought a book yesterday at a used-book store—a two-hundred-year-old book of poetry—”

  “Nice. Is it for Chamberlain U’s library?”

  “No, it’s for me—for my collection. But that’s not what’s exciting. There was a letter hidden inside.”

  “A letter? What do you mean?”

  “It’s a handwritten letter, dated 1816. It wasn’t signed, but I think—I’m almost positive—that it was written by Jane Austen.”

  “Jane Austen? Are you kidding?”

  “I’m serious. Stephen: I can hardly believe this. I think I’ve discovered an original Jane Austen letter!”

  “That’s awesome. If anyone would know if it’s the real thing, it’s you, babe. What are you going to do with it?”

  “I have to try get it authenticated.” I told him about the little side trip I was taking.

  “Sounds like a great adventure.”

  “It could be,” I replied with enthusiasm.

  “Well, good luck.” He apologized, explaining that his next session was about to start, and we signed off.

  I headed out to my rental car. It was still raining. I’d hired plenty of cars during my years in graduate school, so I was accustomed to driving on the wrong side of the road. The traffic on the A44 heading northwest out of Oxford was horrific, but once the elegant spires and towers of the city were far behind me, it opened up. Fifty-five minutes later, I left the tree-lined main road and took the local road into Hook Norton, a small village with a nice old church. The rain paused momentarily, but the sky was still bleak and grey. Following the directions on the GPS, I headed down a narrow lane to the edge of the village and found the house—a quaint, yellow brick cottage, half-covered in ivy. There was a small, late-model car in the drive.

  I pulled up out front, strode up the path, and knocked. An unsmiling young woman in jeans and a dark sweatshirt answered the door.

  “May I help you?” she asked in a clipped, British accent.

  “I’m here to see Dr. Mary Jesse. Is she in?”

  “Mary is very busy. She doesn’t see anyone,” the woman said abruptly.

  I was thrilled—Mary was home!—and I was not about to be dissuaded. “I’ve come a long way,” I insisted, reasoning that this was true if you figured in my point of origin. “I’m from Los Angeles. I’m a former student of—”

  “I’m sorry, but as I said, Mary doesn’t see anyone. You may leave your card, if you like.”

  “I don’t have a card with me,” I replied, straining for patience, “but if you would just tell Dr. Jesse that I’m here. My name is Samantha McDonough. She was my advisor at Oxford, and I have something important to tell her.”

  “I suggest you write and tell her your business. Inc
lude your phone number. If she’s interested in speaking with you, she’ll call.”

  “But—”

  “I’m sorry. That’s all I can say. Good-bye.” The woman shut the door in my face.

  I stood there, my mouth agape, utterly astonished. The Dr. Mary Jesse I remembered had been kind and welcoming. We’d had deep, meaningful conversations during my grad-school days, and she’d often invited me and other students to her Oxford apartment for tea. She would never have placed a guard dog at her door to turn people away! Instinctively, I felt that something was wrong. But what? I considered buying a card in the village, writing Mary a note, and leaving it in her mailbox—but I was reluctant to put the details of my secret find on paper, and afraid that Dragon Lady would either toss it, or worse yet, blab to someone about it.

  With a sigh, I got back in the car and returned to Oxford, extremely disappointed. After a quiet dinner at a local pub, I decided to write Mary a brief note after all. I said I’d found a very old document that I knew would interest her, and I’d appreciate her help in authenticating it. I told her I was leaving the country on Tuesday, and included my cell-phone number. I figured the exercise was in vain. It was Friday evening by the time I posted it. It probably wouldn’t reach her until Monday, and my flight left the very next afternoon. When I returned to my B&B, I contemplated whether I should try to find another Austen expert—surely there must be several people at Oxford qualified to authenticate the letter for me—but I realized it would have to wait. The weekend had already begun.

  Desperate to commiserate with someone, I tried calling Stephen, but he didn’t pick up. I texted him instead, letting him know that I’d returned safely from my excursion.

  I thought about going to bed, but I wasn’t tired. I’d only been in England a couple of days, and my body didn’t know what time zone it was in. Anyway, I knew I’d never be able to sleep. All I could think about was that letter. I took out the photocopy and read it again. Every single thing pointed to its authenticity. It was truly an incredible find—but I was particularly excited about this reference within:

  It brings to mind that early Manuscript of my own, which went missing at Greenbriar in Devonshire. Even at a distance of fourteen years, I cannot help but think of it with a pang of fondness, sorrow, and regret, as one would a lost child.

  Was it really possible that Jane Austen had written another manuscript—perhaps even a full-length novel—that the world did not know about? If so, was there a chance that it still existed?

  I spent the next couple of hours dissecting every word in the second half of the letter, looking for clues, trying to determine the meaning behind them.

  If the manuscript Jane Austen referred to had been lost fourteen years earlier, that meant it went missing in 1802, when she was twenty-six years old. I knew Austen was living in Bath with her parents and her sister at the time, having moved there in 1801 when her father retired from his position as rector of Steventon, a small parish in Hampshire. It had always been supposed that Jane Austen did very little writing during the years she moved to Bath, either because she was depressed or because she didn’t have settled-enough conditions in which to work. But what if that wasn’t true?

  I remembered reading somewhere that Jane used to take some or all of her manuscripts with her in a box when she traveled, for safekeeping. She must have had this manuscript with her in Devonshire, because in her letter she said she was reading it to Cassandra, and it made them laugh.

  But where was Greenbriar? Was it a town? No. A little recon on the Net confirmed that there were no towns called Greenbriar in the county of Devon. Could it be the name of a country house? Further probing established that there was indeed a manor home called Greenbriar in southeast Devon. According to an online article, it was a secluded country house built in 1785.

  “And it’s still there!” I exulted aloud. According to the Web entry, the house had been in the same family for generations. It was currently owned by Reginald Whitaker, a solicitor, now retired. There was a picture of him, taken at a garden party held at Greenbriar a few years ago. You couldn’t see much of the house itself, but Reginald Whitaker was a tall, handsome, silver-haired man who appeared to be in his late sixties.

  Could it be that Jane and her family visited that very house in 1802, and while there, one of her manuscripts somehow went astray? I had dozens of Austen biographies at home that could have verified her probable whereabouts at the time but nothing at hand. I couldn’t find any thing on the Web to help me. I sat back, frustrated, when it suddenly occurred to me that I had the perfect resource at my fingertips, just a phone call away: my friend Laurel Ann.

  Laurel Ann had been my first roommate in college, the one arbitrarily assigned to me by the dorm. We’d instantly bonded over our love of books, romantic movies, boys with blue eyes, mint chip ice cream, and Jane Austen. We’d been best friends ever since. She now managed one of the few remaining independent bookstores in Los Angeles, where her self-professed goal was to “sell Austen to the masses.”

  It was 11:00 P.M., which meant it was three o’clock in the afternoon in Los Angeles. Laurel Ann would be at work at the bookstore. I dialed her number. To my delight, she picked up.

  “Hey!” she said, in her typically cheerful tone. “Where are you, and how jealous should I be?”

  “Oxford, and green with envy. I’m in flannel P.J.’s at a B&B all by myself, and it’s pouring down rain.”

  “Oh, poor you. Back again in the country I adore but can only dream about. A man who looks like Frodo just spent $150 on erotica books and asked for my phone number. I considered giving him yours just to spite you.”

  I laughed. “Do you have a minute to do a little research for me?”

  “What kind of research?”

  “Before I tell you, you should probably go into your office and shut the door. What I have to say is about Jane Austen, and it’s pretty amazing. You might start jumping up and down, or possibly screaming, and that might scare the customers.”

  That got Laurel Ann’s attention. Once she’d affirmed her privacy, I told her as succinctly as I could about my discovery that morning, and everything that had happened subsequently. Then I read her Jane Austen’s letter. As I’d predicted, she could hardly contain her enthusiasm.

  “My God, Sam, this is incredible! The letter has to be hers!”

  Laurel Ann promised to find the information I needed in the store’s biography section and to call me right back. While I waited, I paced the floor like an anxious, expectant father in an old movie. I grabbed my cell phone with anticipation on the first ring.

  “Okay,” Laurel Ann said on the other end of the line, “this mansion house, Greenbriar, is in Devonshire, right? Well, I looked up the time period in question, and you’re going to love this, Sam. In the Deirdre Le Faye biography, it says there’s a three-year gap in Jane Austen’s surviving correspondence from May 1801 through September 1804, but from ‘hints and glimpses found in other sources,’ it’s been determined that the Austens did visit the seaside resort town of Sidmouth in the summer of 1801, and probably went to Dawlish and Teignmouth in the summer of 1802—all of which are in Devonshire!”

  I had a map of Devonshire open on my laptop screen, and I gave a happy gasp. “Greenbriar isn’t far from Sidmouth!” If I’d been excited before, I was beside myself now. “She must have gone there!”

  “And while there, she somehow lost a manuscript. To think there might be another Austen novel out there—I can hardly believe it!”

  “But how can a manuscript go missing? What on earth happened to it?”

  “Who knows? But the key to the mystery is obviously Greenbriar. Jane had the manuscript with her because she read it to Cassandra.”

  “Maybe there’s some kind of evidence at that house—old family records or something, with proof that Jane Austen was a visitor, and a clue to the missing manuscript.”

  “Yes! You have to look into this, Sam. You just have to.”

  “Bu
t how? I only have four more days in England. If I write to Reginald Whitaker, I’ll never hear back in time.”

  “So call him in the morning. Tell him what you found and go down there.”

  “What if I can’t find his phone number, or can’t get hold of him?”

  “Go anyway!”

  I laughed. “You do realize this whole thing is mad and impulsive.”

  “Some of the most thrilling things in life are done on impulse. If you hadn’t dared me to drop in on the owner of this bookstore eight years ago, I would have never gotten this job. You always tell me I take forever to make up my mind about things, and am so afraid of making a wrong decision that I never take any action at all. It’s time to grow some balls, Sam, and take your own advice.”

  “You’re right. Okay, I’ll do it.” I thanked Laurel Ann for her help and encouragement and signed off, promising to keep her apprised of whatever happened.

  Finding Whitaker’s contact information was a lot easier than Mary Jesse’s had been. He wasn’t on any social networking sites, either, but I already knew where he lived, and after logging in to ukphonebook.com, I had his phone number inside of two minutes.

  By the time I got ready for bed and crawled beneath the down comforter, it was after midnight. I didn’t expect sleep to come easy that night, but jet lag suddenly set in with a vengeance, and I nodded off instantly, waking with a start at seven thirty. I leapt out of bed and immediately called Reginald Whitaker, hoping to set up an appointment—but nobody answered. There wasn’t an answering machine or service; the phone just kept ringing. I showered, dressed, had breakfast, and tried calling him again. Still no luck.

  Well, I thought with a sigh, there was no turning back now. Laurel Ann would kill me if I lost my nerve. And I knew that if I didn’t go after this now, I’d never forgive myself. I had to drive down to Greenbriar and hope I could find Reginald Whitaker.

  The Search

  AT 1:30 P.M., I WAS TURNING OFF THE M5 IN DEVON.