The Dashwood Sisters Tell All (19 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

I
shoved the diary in the back waistband of my shorts, thankful for the forgiving elastic. Then I made my way back to the terrace with as casual an air as I could manage.

Ethan and Daniel rose when I approached the table. “Are you okay?” Ethan asked.

“Yes. Yes, I’m fine. But I think we’d better go. I really do need to change my clothes.” I glanced down at the enormous tea stain down the front of my shorts.

“I can leave you my contact information,” Daniel said to Ethan, pulling out his wallet and removing a business card. “If you come across anything that might be of interest—”

“I’ll be sure to call you.”

Mimi rose to her feet. “Ellen, Daniel. Why don't you all head for the pub?” She flashed a smile at Ethan. “We have a taxi waiting there.”

“I could have given you a ride—”

“I’d like a private word with Ethan.”

I glanced at Daniel. What should we do?

“Mimi—”

“I’m fine. Just a little something that Ethan and I need to clear up.”

Ethan looked as if he’d rather have eaten ground glass, but he didn't object.

“We’ll wait for you at the pub,” Daniel said to Mimi. “If you’re sure.”

“Quite sure. Now go. Ellen needs to change.”

I didn't want to leave Mimi there, but she had a right to some closure with Ethan. “If you’re sure,” I said, echoing Daniel.

Mimi nodded, and so I didn't have any choice in the matter, really. Jane Austen's diary practically burned my skin where it rested inside the waistband of my shorts. Mimi might have needed closure with Ethan, but I needed to get out of Ethan's house before he figured out what we were up to.

“You look like you have something particular to say.” Ethan gestured toward the chair where I’d been sitting. “Do make yourself comfortable.”

“No, thank you. I’ll stand.” The girl who had arrived at Oakley Hall on Sunday would never have dreamed of doing what I was about to do, but the girl who stood in Ethan's garden at the end of a very long week was practically a whole new person.

“I want my diary back,” I said without preamble.

He didn't flinch. “I don't know what you mean.”

“Cassandra's diary. The one I told you about. I don't know how you got into Ellen's hotel room at Langrish, but you must have been very pleased with yourself.”

I saw it then, a telltale flicker of an eyelid that betrayed him.

“As I said, I don't know what you mean.”

“Look, Ethan, we can do this the easy way, or we can do it the hard way.” Clichéd, yes, but it fit the occasion.

He laughed. “Very entertaining, but as I said, I don't have your diary.”

“Yes, you do, and you also have the Steventon church key.”

I’d figured out that particular piece of the puzzle on the way over in the van. How the key had disappeared about the time he’d moved into the house. How he’d avoided going into the church during the walking tour, so that the warden who was showing us around wouldn't see him.

“You can't prove anything, of course.” He was cool as a cucumber.

“I don't think I’ll have to prove it. Not once I tell the good folks of Steventon that I saw it here when you gave me the grand tour. I would think that would be enough for a search warrant, or whatever the British equivalent might be.”

He blanched. “They’d never believe you.”

“They would now that I have Tom and Mrs. Parrot to vouch for me.”

I knew, at that moment, that I had won. Ethan's shoulders slumped. “If I give you the diary, you’ll leave me alone.”

“Completely and totally.”

It killed him to do it, I could see, but he disappeared into the house and returned with the book in his hand.

“I had quite high hopes for you, Mimi,” he said as he handed it over. “Quite high hopes.”

“Sometimes the best hopes are the disappointed ones,” I said. “Good-bye, Ethan.”

I had never felt so victorious in my life as when I spun on my heel and marched out of that garden. I was half afraid he might change his mind and come after me, so I walked at a brisk pace toward the pub. It wasn't until I was safely inside the Deane Gate Arms, with Tom standing by my side, that my legs turned to water. I slumped against him and looked at Ellen imploringly.

“Please tell me I won't ever have to do anything like that again,” I said, and she laughed.

“I promise,” she said.

Mimi and I had one more stop to make before we left Hampshire. Tom agreed to drive us back to Chawton one last time. Daniel insisted on coming along, and we couldn't exactly leave Mrs. Parrot by the side of the road. So when the van pulled up by the church that stood just outside the gate to Chawton Great House, I was afraid we would have an audience. But the others seemed to sense that we wanted to be by ourselves. Mimi and I told them that we wanted to visit Cassandra Austen's grave one more time, but I don't think any of the three believed us. At least not entirely.

I carried my tote bag with the box inside. Mimi and I ducked through the covered gate and followed the path around the side of the church. We were concealed from view by the trees and the bulk of the building, but we knew we didn't have much time. While Chawton Great House might not have been open to your average tourist, the churchyard was available to all the visitors from Jane Austen's House Museum just up the road.

Cassandra Austen and her mother were buried along the rear fence. We stood silently by their graves for a long moment. The tombstones looked newer than they should, and I could see that beneath them a pair of older, grayer stones rested flat on the ground. The good folks of Hampshire were not about to let the memory of Jane Austen's family fade.

I reached into my tote bag, withdrew the box, and handed it to Mimi.

She cupped it in her hands. “Is anyone looking?”

I retraced my steps and peeked around the corner of the church, but our only company was several sheep munching grass on the other side of a nearby fence. “The coast is clear,” I said, and went back to join her.

The box opened easily under Mimi's hands. “Are you ready?”

“Yes.” I reached out so that my hands rested over hers, and together we shook out the contents into the grass at the foot of the graves.

“Rest in peace, Mom,” Mimi murmured. A sheep on the other side of the fence let out a long bleat. A gentle breeze stirred the trees and scattered a bit of the ash beyond the Austen graves and across the churchyard.

As soon as the box was empty, Mimi closed it, and I slid it back into my tote.

“So that's it, I guess,” she said. It was both appropriate and anticlimactic after all we’d been through.

“Yes. I guess it is,” Mimi said.

It seemed strange to turn and leave the only remaining earthly part of my mother among the Austen headstones. At least she would have been happy with our choice, I thought.

We headed toward the van, but we’d only gone a few steps when Mrs. Parrot stepped out from the shadows of the side door to the church.

“We’re busted,” Mimi hissed under her breath, and I tried to keep my expression neutral.

“Just wanted a last look,” I said to her, but I could tell she knew exactly what we’d done.

“That was most likely illegal. Or at least should require proper permission from the church authorities.”

Mimi and I exchanged guilty glances. Still, it would have been our word against Mrs. Parrot's, and she had no hard evidence. “We have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said.

Mrs. Parrot cast me a disparaging look. “Badly done, Ellen. I am not a fool.”

“No, you’re not. But this was a private act that harms no one. I hope that you can leave it at that.”

“Actually, it's a decision that concerns me.”

I wasn't expecting that response. “In what way?”

Mrs. Parrot leaned heavily on her walking stick. “I’m surprised you haven't guessed the connection. I thought one of you might have by now.”

“Connection to what?” Mimi asked in irritation.

“Your connection to me.”

The breeze picked up so that it whipped my hair across my face. “We have no connection to you, other than to be thankful for your help with the diary.”

“Have you not wondered how I knew about the diary in the first place?” she asked.

“You guessed,” I said. “We just confirmed your hunch.”

She shook her head. “I haven't told you the whole truth.”

“How shocking,” Mimi said in a dry tone.

Mrs. Parrot, though, wasn't to be stopped by a little sarcasm. “What do you know of your mother's family?”

That surprised me. “I’m sorry?”

“Your mother's family. What did she tell you about them?”

“She never mentioned them.” If Mimi or I ever asked her about her family back in England, she told us that she didn't have any. Her parents were deceased. She had no one left.

“I’m not surprised. We parted on very bad terms.”

My head shot up, as did Mimi's. “What do you mean?” she demanded.

Mrs. Parrot took a step toward us and removed her glasses. “We were so close in age that people often mistook us for twins.” Her bright blue eyes, as blue as Mimi's, blinked against the sunlight. “I was the oldest, of course. Very much like you, Ellen. Rational. Sensible. While your mother was far more romantic. Like your sister.”