A Jane Austen Encounter by Donna Fletcher Crow Read Free Book Online Page B

queued at the bay-windowed alcove to taste the yellowish mineral water flowing from the urn-shaped pump.
    “Care for a sample?” Richard asked.
    Elizabeth shook her head. “No, thanks. I’ve heard it’s nasty. I don’t want to risk my appetite.” She opened the menu the waiter in black vest and bow tie handed her. “Mmm, haddock and spinach fish cake with lemon caper sauce.” She considered. “Or do I want a warmed English goat cheese and rosemary tart?” She chose the tart.
    Richard had no trouble deciding on the grilled breast of chicken with butternut puree and roasted red onions. The trio moved on to a serenade and Richard debated whether or not to interrupt the ambiance of the moment by returning to a work topic, but it was Elizabeth who spoke first. “Now, tell me more about your find. Let me get this straight. It was a letter from this Edith, who was a great-grandniece of Jane Austen. At the time she wrote the letter, she was helping her father write a book about his grandfather—who was Jane Austen’s brother Francis. And she later published a completion of The Watsons . Is that right?”
    “Well done. It’s rather confusing because there were two generations of Hubback women who finished Jane’s manuscript. This one is Edith Charlotte Brown, born Hubback. She published in the early twentieth century. Her grandmother, Catherine Anne Hubback, did it first. The interesting thing is that from all anyone can tell, Edith was unaware of her grandmother having published the earlier completion.”
    Elizabeth thought for a moment. “Right, I remember. Catherine called hers The Younger Sister . Apparently her granddaughter never read it. Have you?”
    Richard shook his head. “Only read about it. It was published in something like 1850, the first continuation of a Jane Austen novel—”
    “Which has now become its own literary genre,” Elizabeth interrupted.
    “Exactly. Catherine was the mother of the industry, if you like. Anyway, I understand her work is a true Victorian novel, so in that sense she ‘updated’ Jane Austen.”
    “Which means that even if Catherine did have some sort of a summary of Jane’s original intentions for the novel, she didn’t really follow them—not in Jane’s style.” They paused as the waiter set their plates in front of them. Elizabeth savored a bite, then continued. “Still, I’d love to read that book. Did she write more?”
    “Several novels, I think. And she contributed to James Austen-Leigh’s memoir of Jane Austen. He called Catherine ‘a channel of biographical information,’ although she was born after Jane died.”
    “Okay, that’s Edith and Catherine. But the letter—what did it say ?”
    “Most of it was information Edith wanted her father to have about Francis’ time on the brig Lark . It was part of a squadron that escorted Princess Caroline of Brunswick to England for her disastrous marriage to the prince regent. ”
    “Mmm. Interesting, but . . .”
    “Yes, I know, nothing new there. But right at the end, she tells her father about a chest of papers she found in the garret. She thought it had belonged to his mother—”
    “Ah, to Catherine, who wrote the first completion, claiming it to be according to Jane’s plan!”
    “Exactly.”
    “So if Catherine had been talking to her aunt Cassandra, who knew Jane better than anyone else in the world, and Cassandra told her niece how Jane had planned to finish the novel and Catherine wrote it down . . .”
    Richard smiled. He loved it when Elizabeth’s enthusiastic imagination took over. And he had been thinking along similar lines himself.
    “Richard!” Elizabeth leaned forward. “That stuff you were going through this morning—that couldn’t have been the cache Edith found, could it?”
    “Sadly, no. For one thing, Edith’s letter wouldn’t have been in it, would it?”
    “Oh.”
    “Also,” he continued, “most of what we found so far seems to date from the mid-1900s. A lot of it