The Missing Manuscript of Jane Austen (17 page)

“Interesting. I never knew any of this,” Anthony admitted.

“Speaking of character names—here’s another way I know this is her work. Jane Austen often reused the same names across different books, and I recognize almost all of these, many from her juvenilia.
The Three Sisters
, an epistolary short story she wrote as a teenager, had a family named Stanhope. So did
Sir William Mountague
—which gives you another name right there. As I recall, there were Rebeccas in
Mansfield Park
and
Frederic and Elfrida
, Sarahs in
Persuasion
and
Northanger Abbey
, several Jacks and Harcourts, and too many Williams and Charleses to count.”

He laughed. “I see you really do know your Austen.”

“That’s not all.” I shot him a teasing smile. “I seem to remember a Whitaker in at least one of her novels.”

“A Whitaker?”

“I think it was a very rigid housekeeper who turned away housemaids for wearing white gowns—which is pretty funny when you consider that she often named characters after people she knew.”

He laughed again. “So Jane Austen lost a manuscript at Greenbriar and got her revenge by naming a servant after her host.”

“Maybe. She took mischievous delight in human folly.”

“Okay, but even given all that, we don’t know for certain
when
this manuscript was stashed here, or why. All we know is that Austen once stayed at this house, and according to that letter, she lost a manuscript. It could just be a coincidence that this manuscript resembles hers. It could be the work of someone else.”

I shook my head. “No way. This smacks of Austen to me. So many aspects of the story and characterization are right out of her own life.”

“Such as?”

“Jane spent the first twenty-five years of her life happily living at Steventon, a tiny village in Hampshire, very much like the fictional Elm Grove. Her father was rector, and their house was similar to Elm Grove Rectory. Sarah reminds me of Cassandra, Jane’s older sister, who she considered as wiser and better than herself. Like Rebecca, Jane loved literature and music and daily walks in the countryside. She prized a com fortable and settled home. It’s said that when George Austen abruptly announced his intention to retire and move to Bath, Jane was so distraught that she fainted. She was devastated that they had to sell all their books and possessions.”

“Okay, okay, you’ve convinced me,” he acceded, grinning.

“They say, ‘write about what you know.’ It must have been therapeutic for her to write this. The subject was clearly very meaningful to her. Two of her other books—
Sense and Sensibility
and
Persuasion
—also begin with the heroine being forced to give up her beloved home. I bet Jane began this novel after learning that she was being evicted from Steventon, and wrote most of it during their first year or two in Bath. She was probably homesick at the time.”

By now, it was well past the dinner hour. We both admitted we were starving. Anthony said he’d bought a couple of steaks that morning, some potatoes and veggies, and the makings of a salad. He added that his dad had an excellent wine cellar. A good meal at this point in the evening sounded wonderful, and I told him so.

I hadn’t cooked with a guy in years—not since my last boyfriend
in grad school—and it was fun working together. Anthony really knew his way around a kitchen and was a master when it came to spices.

“Why do you think Jane kept this manuscript a secret from her family?” he said as he placed the steaks under the broiler.

“Maybe she felt it was too close to home. In the letter I found, she mentioned a ‘valued family member’ who might have been troubled by it. It could have been her father.”

“Her father? Why?”

“Jane seems to have been close to him, just as Rebecca is close to hers. The physical description of Mr. Stanhope, and his personal history and Fellowship at Oxford, are similar to George Austen’s. He was a literary enthusiast, and proudly owned a library of five hundred volumes—and when Jane was young, he also supplemented his income by running a boarding school for boys. But I wonder: how was he at handling money?”

“You mean,” Anthony nodded, catching my drift, “did he play cards?”

“Everyone at the time played cards. There’s no evidence that I know of that Mr. Austen ever gambled recklessly, but what if he
did
lose money at the table on at least one occasion—enough to give the family financial problems?”

“They no doubt would have been too embarrassed to mention it, and he would have been mortified if his daughter put it into a book.”

“Exactly! This is exciting. It raises new questions about George Austen. Were Mr. Stanhope’s flaws inspired by fact, or was that pure invention on Jane’s part? Scholars are going to have a field day with this!”

Anthony went quiet at that. As we finished the dinner preparations, he seemed to be in a world of his own. We sat down
and ate in silence for a while. I wondered if this discussion about George Austen had made him think of his own father. I was curious about Reginald Whitaker and the rift between them.

“You mentioned that you’ve been estranged from your father for a long time,” I said at last, sipping my wine. “What happened? Or would you rather not talk about it?”

He shrugged. “I don’t mind. It’s a tale as old as time, unfortunately. My dad married my mum for her money—money he needed to keep the house going. I think my mum loved him, but he spent her entire inheritance, and then he wasn’t even faithful. He cheated on her for years. Finally, when I was eleven, she got fed up. She took me, moved to London, and filed for divorce. In many ways it was a relief to get away. I’d sensed the discord the entire time I was growing up. He was a very controlling, dictatorial man. I was the only child, and I always felt like I was a disappointment to him. I was so angry with him for what he did to my mother, and for breaking up our family—but I think what hurt the most is that he didn’t even try to get partial custody, and he never came to visit me.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah well, that’s life.” His casual words belied the hurt in his voice.

“Did you ever see him again?”

“Just twice. The first time was years later, when I was at university. He showed up one day out of the blue—found out where I was living from my mum—and said he wanted to take me to lunch.”

“Did you go?”

“Yes. I suppose I was curious to see what he’d have to say, or hoping maybe he’d apologize. He never did, not in so many words. He just gave me lots of excuses, and said he felt bad about neglecting me.”

“At least he acknowledged his mistake where you were concerned. Sounds like he was trying to reach out to you.”

“I think he was just trying to ease a guilty conscience. He asked what I was studying. If I’d answered ‘history’ or ‘the arts,’ I guarantee he would have given me an angry lecture and walked away. But when I said finance, his face lit up. He was thrilled. All at once, he was my best friend. He said I’d chosen an excellent major that would lead to a successful career. He offered to help pay for my education—which astonished me, since he’d always held very tight to his purse strings. He said he’d have me down to the house soon, and we ought to keep better in touch. Better in touch? This, from a man who hadn’t picked up a phone or sent a single birthday card in eight years? I was dubious. And to me, it was that controlling thing again—offered only because he happened to approve of my already-chosen path. But I never said as much. I just thanked him and told him that would be very nice.”

“I take it he didn’t follow through.”

“He sent a check a week later. A much smaller one a month after that. I wrote to thank him both times, and when I didn’t get a response, I wrote again—a friendly letter, trying to keep the line open. But I didn’t see or hear from him again until the day of my mother’s funeral.” There was deep bitterness in his tone.

“How sad. You and your father both missed out on so much.” I sighed, shaking my head. “And yet…it appears he didn’t stop thinking about you. He kept all your cards and letters. And more importantly, he left you this house.”

“Yes he did. I admit, it came as a surprise. I expected him to cut me out of his will entirely and leave everything to his newest lady friend, or to charity. I was shocked and touched, at first, that he left Greenbriar to me. But when I came back and saw
the condition of the place, and fully understood the financial complications, I realized he hadn’t done me any favors. All I could see was one big headache, and I couldn’t wait to get rid of it.”

“Do you still feel that way?”

He paused and looked at me, his features softening. “Not so much. Not at the moment.” The warm glow in his blue eyes suggested that he wasn’t thinking at all about the house, or even about the manuscript we’d found buried here.

I blushed and glanced away, my heart doing a little unexpected dance. I couldn’t deny it any longer: I was smitten with Anthony. I gave my brain a silent, forceful kick to move on. I
had
a very nice, very handsome boyfriend, after all, and crushing on this man just wouldn’t do.

“I think your father was proud of you,” I said quickly, determined to stay on track. “I think he wanted you to have the house, and he hoped, in your line of work, you could figure out a way to save it. I can see why. I can hardly stand the idea of your selling this place.”

“Well,” he said, with a pointed smile, “if that manuscript really is an Austen…maybe I won’t have to. How much do you think it’s worth?”

“I don’t know—probably a lot.” I was still overwhelmed with disbelief at our discovery. “It’s unique. None of the original drafts of Jane Austen’s published novels survive, just a couple of discarded chapters. The last sale that was in any way similar was her unfinished manuscript
The Watsons
. It sold at auction for nearly four times its estimated value—for $1.6 million—and it was just a fragment of a known work that had already been published for centuries.”

“I wonder what’s the most expensive manuscript ever sold?”
Anthony whipped out his cell phone and started surfing the Web.

I had to admit, I was curious, too. I
had
my precious literary discovery; I knew the reading world was going to eat it up. If Anthony made a fortune out of it—if it meant he could save Greenbriar—that only made it more exciting.

“Okay, here it is,” he said, reading aloud off his phone, “‘Shakespeare’s
First Folio
, including more than a dozen of his plays etc. etc., only 750 copies ever made, sold at Sotheby’s of London in 2006, adjusted price for inflation: $5.5 million…James Audubon’s
Birds of America
, adjusted sale price would be close to $11 million…A manuscript of the
Magna Carta
: $21.3 million…The
Gospels of Henry the Lion
, written by Benedictine monks, sold through Sotheby’s in 1983, adjusted price today: $25.5 million.”

“Oh my God.”

“It gets better yet. Listen to this: ‘Leonardo Da Vinci’s
Codex Leicester
holds the record as the most expensive book ever sold to date. This journal contains the famous artist’s notes about the link between art and science…The manuscript is handwritten in Italian on 18 separate sheets of paper that are folded in half and double-sided to create a 72-page document. In 1994, Bill Gates purchased it for $30.8 million. Today, this is comparable to almost $44 million.”

“Forty-four million dollars!”

Anthony’s smile took over his face. “What we have is every bit as valuable, wouldn’t you say?”

“It could be! And it’s longer, too.” We hadn’t counted the booklets yet, but I guessed there were at least forty of them. “This manuscript is probably over three hundred pages. Plus, it’s an entirely
new novel
. It’s never been seen before! But Anthony:
you can’t sell it to someone like Bill Gates. This has to go to a library or university, where it can be viewed and studied.”

He hesitated, then raised his wineglass in a toast. “Wherever it goes, if all the stars align, it looks like I might become a very wealthy man. And I owe it all to you.”

“And to your father, and to all his fathers before him,” I pointed out, toasting him in return.

“To Dad, and the Whitakers of yore,” he conceded, raising his glass heavenward with unexpected reverence. “Thanks!”

As we drank our wine, it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t told Laurel Ann or Stephen about our discovery. I asked Anthony if it was okay for me to call them and share the news.

“I’d appreciate it if you’d keep this to yourself for now,” he said. “I still need to get it formally authenticated. And even then, I won’t want to draw any attention to me or to Greenbriar.”

“Oh. I see.” Although I knew it was going to be hard to keep mum, I understood. I agreed to keep our secret safe from anyone else for the moment.

We cleaned up from dinner and returned to the library. As Anthony sat down beside me on the couch, he asked to see Jane’s letter, the one that had started this whole adventure.

“There were a couple of things at the end that I’ve been wondering about.” After glancing over it again, he said, “Here. She’s talking about reading a manuscript aloud to her sister, then she says something that seems totally out of context: ‘What banner years for me—two proposals!’ What proposals is she referring to?”

“Well, we know that Jane Austen received an offer of marriage from a family friend, Harris Bigg-Wither, in December 1802. She famously accepted him, but after a sleepless night, changed her mind and refused him.”

“Who was the second proposal from?”

“A good question.”

“Another thing—what’s this reference to
Plan of a Novel
?”

“I’ve been thinking about that. I’ve only read Austen’s
Plan of a Novel
a couple of times. It’s a brief outline that scholars have always thought was a parody of novels in general—a wink wink to the overly dramatic books of the time, which it
is
—but with this new evidence, we know it was more than that.”

In the Austen collection on the shelf, we found a volume including
Plan of a Novel
, and read it through together. The comic outline described a beautiful, accomplished heroine, the daughter of a clergyman, who was driven from his curacy by a vile and heartless young man, forcing them to go forth on all sorts of adventures. Jane Austen included footnotes, attributing a few story elements—some of which were very silly—to hints from friends and relatives.