Sally O'Rourke - The Man Who Loved Jane Austen

Thelma was positively dancing in place by this time. “Oh, this is positively delicious,” she laughed, holding up the sealed letter. “Just think what it will mean if one of Darcy’s descendants is present to confirm that his ancestor was Jane Austen’s lover, when this two hundred-year-old letter is finally opened.”

Eliza held up a hand to stop her, for she had completely lost Thelma’s trail of logic again. “When it’s finally opened?” she exclaimed. “Why can’t we just open it now?”

Thelma gave her a look she usually reserved for her UFO-conspiracy theorists. “Sweetie, as long as this letter remains unopened,” she patiently explained, “it’s a mystery to die for.”

The older woman closed her eyes, searching for words to adequately convey the true worth of the document in her hand. “Serious Austen collectors will pay a fortune at auction for the unique privilege of being the first to know what’s inside,” she said.

Eliza felt her stomach turning over as she absorbed the impact of the researcher’s words. “A fortune?” she whispered.

Thelma Klein nodded, encouraging her to think big. “A fortune!” she repeated. “But they’ll pay even more if we can positively link one of Darcy’s living descendants to Pride and Prejudice .”

She paused then and looked expectantly at Eliza. “When will you be contacting Darcy again?” she asked.

Eliza sat before her computer, grimacing at the single line she had thus far managed to compose in her intended message to Darcy. She had been at it for nearly half an hour and nothing she tried to say seemed to be coming out right.

Dear DARCY,

I’d like to apologize for…

“I’d like to apologize,” she read aloud. “For what? For calling you a crackpot and telling you to get lost?”

She shook her head in disgust and then erased the line. From his perch on the drawing board Wickham appeared to be grinning at her.

“Why start out by reminding him of what I said?” Eliza challenged the cat. “I’m sure he remembers it all too well. And I’m sure it hasn’t escaped your notice that he didn’t even bother replying to my last e-mail.”

Wickham yawned and stared out the window.

Eliza returned to the computer screen. Since leaving the library that afternoon she had been trying to think of some graceful way to reestablish communication with the enigmatic Darcy. But so far she had come up with nothing but a blank, on top of which she was embarrassed for having behaved so badly toward him in the first place.

After all, she reflected with chagrin, she had posted a question on the Internet and invited an e-mail response. But when somebody had responded—perhaps one of the few somebodys in all the world who might actually have the answer she was seeking—she had dismissed him out of hand, and in the most insulting manner possible.

Finally admitting to the cat, “Appears I blew it, Wickham.” Preoccupied as he was with the shadow of a pigeon that was stalking the ledge outside the window, Wickham did not deign to reply.

But the worst part of the entire e-mail affair, Eliza decided, was that only after she had discovered who this latter-day Darcy was had it become important to her to apologize to him. Which made her feel precisely like one of the slimier characters Austen had taken such merciless delight in skewering in her novels. Say, the despicable cad Willoughby from Sense and Sensibility .

“Oh, why didn’t I just tell Thelma what really happened?” she moaned. “That Darcy contacted me and I blew him off and now he probably wouldn’t speak to me if I was the last person on earth.”

Unable to face the empty electronic page any longer, Eliza got up and made herself a cup of tea, which she carried into her bedroom.

Sitting on the Victorian piano stool, which was temporarily taking the place of a chair at the vanity table, she regarded her unhappy reflection in the mirror.

“You’re not really a bad person,” she assured herself, “but you’ve got to face up to the fact that you have done an unkind thing. And, to make things worse, you lied to Thelma about it. Now you’ve got to think of some way to make it all right again.”

Eliza’s image regarded her doubtfully for a long time, then at last a rueful smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “Well, it’s plain to see that there’s nothing you can do but eat a little humble pie,” she murmured.

Another hour passed before Eliza was able to compose an e-mail message that summed up both her apology and, she hoped, an acceptable explanation for her earlier behavior.

Dear Mr. DARCY,

My rudeness was unforgivable. I hope you will accept my apology and try to understand that I was reacting mainly to the shock of receiving e-mail from you at Pemberley.

SMARTIST

Staring at the MAIL SENT message for a few moments, she wanted to believe, but had no confidence, that it would do the trick. All she could do was hope that he was a tolerant and gracious man.

The next several days flew by in a blur of activity as Thelma Klein completed her formal analysis of Eliza’s letters and began making discreet contacts within the small but elite community of rare-document collectors, dealers and Austen scholars. Though she disclosed the true nature of the astounding discovery of what she had now dubbed the “Darcy Letters” to only a few trusted associates, the researcher made it clear that she was subtly preparing academia and the world at large for an announcement so momentous that it would literally rewrite the book on Jane Austen.

Far from being shunted aside in the blur of activity that began swirling about the letters, Eliza suddenly found herself being consulted by Thelma at all hours of the day and night, regarding the timing of various announcements and the ultimate disposition of the documents. For they were, after all, still her exclusive property. And when she wasn’t on the phone with Thelma, she was meeting with the dynamic researcher and the representatives of various interested institutions that were expected to play important roles in the unveiling of the letters.

Timing, Thelma stressed at every available opportunity, was key. Timing and the acknowledgment of one Mr. Darcy of Virginia. Eliza had lost count of the number of times the researcher had quizzed her on whether contact had been reestablished with the elusive Darcy.

Unable to confess that she feared she had permanently blown the Darcy connection before even getting it started, the artist haunted her e-mail folder on an hourly basis, while putting Thelma off with a series of groundless speculations, the latest being that the reclusive horseman was probably just away from home for a few days.

Regarding Thelma’s interests in the matter, and the reason she had so readily assumed the complex and demanding task of managing the release of the Darcy Letters, it soon became clear to Eliza that Thelma Klein did not expect to go unrewarded. As an Austen expert with an intriguing, albeit unproved, hypothesis about the author, the abrasive Klein had for years been an unsettling force in the snug, predictable world of Jane Austen scholars.

Now, with hard proof in hand that seemed to support her theory about the origins of Darcy, who was arguably the greatest romantic character in English literature, the cantankerous researcher was relishing the prospect of blowing her stuffy colleagues right through the roof. Toward that end, Thelma had proposed, and Eliza had agreed, that she, Klein, would be given the exclusive rights to display Jane Austen’s vanity table and the Darcy Letters at the New York Public Library, until such time as the treasures were sold at auction. And, further feathering Thelma’s nest, Eliza had granted the researcher exclusive rights to coauthor a book about the discovery and meaning of the letters, a book that would be ready for press before anyone else even got a peek at the documents.