The Missing Manuscript of Jane Austen Read Free Page A

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 discoveredthat 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 meetingsand 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