“Ah-ha!” Lucy crowed. “You
“I do
“You like Walter,” Lucy said in a singsong voice.
Jane dismissed Lucy with a shake of her head. “Whatever,” she said.
Chapter 4
She looked at the box, not daring to hope that inside of it were the pens and paper she had requested as her Christmas gift. Constance knew her parents thought her request fanciful, and she feared that her mother and father—not out of cruelty or disapproval, but simply because they could not conceive of their daughter wanting to commit herself to the life of an artist—might have instead purchased for her hair ribbons, paper dolls, or yet another china kitten.
The next few days were a blur. Traffic at the bookstore was brisk as shoppers rushed to cross off all the names on their Christmas lists. Lucy’s prediction that all things Austen would be strong sellers proved correct, and Jane watched as stacks of her books and their assorted spin-offs disappeared out the door. This was both gratifying and depressing, as the thought of all the uncollectible royalties gave her a headache.
“I knew we should have ordered the Jane Austen action figure,” Lucy remarked during a rare lull in the hustle and bustle. “I’ve had six customers ask for it today alone.”
“No dolls,” Jane said shortly. “It’s bad enough I let you talk me into those Austen ornaments.”
“Just like Jane hung on her tree!” Lucy said brightly, quoting from the box that the ornaments came in.
“Indeed,” said Jane.
Finally the evening of the twenty-fourth arrived. Jane let Lucy go at two, and at six o’clock she rang up the last customer, a harried man who had rushed in fifteen minutes earlier and raced through the store grabbing books from the shelves seemingly at random. As Jane rang up his purchases he ran his finger down a piece of paper in his hand.
“Emily, Frank, Sandra, Will, Jack, Maggie, Lloyd, Peter, Sally, Deirdre, and the other Jack,” he read aloud. “I don’t suppose you have any books a dog would like?” he asked hopefully.
“What kind of dog?” said Jane as she scanned the bar code on the back of the latest Anne Rice novel.
“French bulldog,” the man replied. “Name of Gregory.”
“Perhaps he’d enjoy some Victor Hugo,” Jane suggested. “Or,” she continued, reaching under the counter and bringing out a large rawhide bone wrapped with a green ribbon—another of Lucy’s ideas—“this might do the trick.”
The man beamed. “Perfect!” he said. “Now I’m done.”
“Wrapping paper?” Jane asked.
“Damn it!” the man muttered.
“Over there,” Jane said, nodding in the direction of the well-picked-over rack. “I think there’s still some left that isn’t too hideously cheerful.”
The man picked out two rolls of paper and added them to his pile. Minutes later he was walking out the door with three bulging bags and $438 added to his next American Express bill.
“Merry Christmas,” he called out to Jane as he walked away.
“Merry Christmas,” she echoed as she shut the door and turned the OPEN sign to CLOSED. As she walked to the office she realized that her feet hurt. Rather than stay and clean up the disheveled store, she opted to turn out the lights and go home. The shop was closed the next day anyway; she could always tidy up then.
At home Tom greeted her enthusiastically when she came in, purring loudly and twisting about her ankles like some kind of furry motorboat.
“You only love me when you’re hungry,” she accused him, but knelt and scooped him up anyway, carrying him into the kitchen and depositing him on the counter. He ran to the cupboard in which she kept the tinned food, and looked longingly at the door.
As she readied Tom’s Christmas Eve dinner, Jane couldn’t help thinking about Christmases past. The season had always been a happy one for her, filled with delightful smells and sounds and plenty of laughter. Since her death, however, Christmas had become at best just another day and at worst a reminder of what she’d once had.
Now she found that she missed it terribly. She thought of one Christmas in particular, that of 1786. She and Cassie, recently returned from boarding school to the rectory at Steventon, had been eleven and thirteen. Free of the restrictions of school, with its rules and the stern matrons who enforced them, they were reveling in being home again. Like caged birds suddenly released, they flitted about the house, always underfoot.
She recalled the smell of roasting goose, of Christmas pudding and spiced wine. She heard her father’s voice as he spoke with pride to anyone who would listen about twelve-year-old Frank, already serving in the Royal Navy. And she recalled fondly the sound of Henry, her favorite brother, singing as he hung the holly and the ivy. Then there were the dances and parties, all of which she experienced with the excitement of a girl longing for the time when she could move in the adult world.
Pushing these thoughts aside, she went upstairs to the smaller bedroom she used as an office. She sat down at her computer and opened the file for her novel. It was time to be realistic—it was never going to sell.
She had avoided accepting this for long enough. But now she had to admit that perhaps Jane Austen had written her last book. Was it possible the novels she’d produced were all that were in her? After all, she hadn’t expected to live forever, and maybe she had said everything she had to say. It occurred to her that all of the editors who had rejected her manuscript might simply have recognized what she herself hadn’t.
She clicked on the file, revealing the Options box, and highlighted Move to Trash. She wondered what her fans would do if they saw her poised to delete an unread novel. Would they attempt to stop her?
She began to make the final click that would send her manuscript to its death. But then her eye was distracted by a flash in the top left corner of her screen. She had a message in her in-box.
Granting her novel a temporary reprieve, she opened her email and looked at the latest arrival. The subject line read:
Dear Jane:
Kindly excuse the shortness of this email. I am currently on a train from Paris to Vienna, and am not at all confident that my wireless connection will last.
I have just finished reading the manuscript you sent in September. In short, I love it. I fear, though, that I am probably too late and that another, more efficient editor has already claimed it. If that’s the case, I will be disappointed beyond words, but will have only myself to blame.
If, however, the novel is still available, I would like to put a claim on it. I will be traveling for the next few days, but please reply if this reaches you and you are interested in further discussion. If I don’t hear from you, I will contact you when I am once again in New York.
