AS gently as though it were a newborn baby, I lifted the parcel from its hiding place and laid it on my father’s desk.
‘Oh, Cassandra,’ breathed Jane. ‘I do believe you have found my possessions at last.’
We stared down at the package. It was about eight inches long and folded into a sort of envelope with a red wax seal impressed with the image of a sword and two crossed keys.
White-faced, my father took a tentative step forward. ‘Cassandra?’ he whispered. ‘What is that? That seal—’ He came closer. ‘Surely… that’s the coat-of-arms of the Bishops of Winchester.’
I nodded. ‘It would be, because it was Bishop North who hid the parcel in the desk.’
‘B—Brownlow North?’ stuttered my father.
‘That’s him.’ I carefully levered a paperknife under the wax. ‘It was he who put Jane Austen’s possessions in the secret compartment.’
‘He put—’ Father goggled at me. ‘Is this a dream, Cassandra? Or am I going mad? Why would Bishop North have anything belonging to Jane Austen? And why would he hide them in his desk? And—and how would you know about it?’
‘It’s a long story.’ The seal broke free and with trembling hands I carefully opened the parchment. Inside were two folded pages and a piece of green silk. This time my father made no protest as I swept the remaining papers from his desk. My heart thumped as I laid the precious items down and gently parted the green silk. Lying within its folds was a gold necklace and a white quill pen, its feather cut like a wedge and its nib stained with ink.
Jane reached out a ghostly hand. ‘My pen,’ she said softly. ‘The very one with which I wrote the opening chapters of the book they have named Sanditon.’
‘And here’s your necklace.’ I picked up the slender gold chain, now dull with age but still pretty in its simplicity.
‘And what of these?’ asked Jane, pointing to the folded papers.
I put down the chain and unfolded the smaller page. ‘It’s a letter, but it’s hard to read because it’s all blotted and the ink has run in places.’
‘Good God!’ my father pointed a trembling finger. ‘That looks like––but it can’t be––that looks like Jane Austen’s signature!’
‘That’s because it is her signature, Father.’
‘It cannot be!’
‘And this will be a page of her manuscript.’ I put the letter down and picked up the larger page. I unfolded it while my father gaped at me. The page was covered in closely-written lines of writing with many crossings-out and words and sentences added in the margins. I squinted at the inky black writing, then up at Jane. ‘Look at this, Jane. I think it’s your outline for Sanditon.’
She swooped down and gazed at her words. ‘It is indeed The Brothers, Cassandra.’ She laughed and the silvery bell-like sound filled my heart. I laid the page beside Jane’s letter and tried to absorb the impossible.
We’d done it. We’d finally found Jane’s things. Tomorrow we’d perform the ritual in the crypt, bring Jane back to life, then cast the counter-curse and set her free. I wanted to dance and sing and shout from the rooftops. Equally excited, Jane soared up to the ceiling, did a graceful loop-the-loop and floated back down to hover happily over the desk.
As for my father, he was still staring in disbelief, first at me, and then at the items I had so recently uncovered. Something in his face set my heart pounding and I quickly began gathering Jane’s precious possessions: carefully closing the green silk around the quill and necklace and putting them in my pocket before gently refolding the manuscript page as quickly as I could. I reached for the letter; my fingertips touched it—
—and my father snatched it up.
‘Don’t—’ I began.
But he wasn’t listening. ‘It—it’s not possible—’ he breathed. He stared at the signature. ‘This letter is signed by Jane Austen.’
‘It is.’ I held out my hand for it, but he shook his head.
‘Please let me read it.’ He peered at the handwriting. ‘So many blots make it hard to decipher. Was it raining do you think?’
Jane floated nearer. ‘I do not deny that I wept tears of grief when I wrote it.’
‘Jane cried when she wrote it,’ I told him. I slid the manuscript page, the quill and necklace into the special cardboard folder Oliver had given me three days earlier and zipped it into my backpack.
He looked up eagerly. ‘Yes, that would explain it, for it is about someone’s death. A man I think, though I cannot make out his name. When was this written?’ He scanned the page. ‘Good heavens!’
‘What?’
‘This letter is dated third of December 1801.’
‘So?’
‘So, there are no Austen letters extant between mid-1801 and September 1804. If this letter is genuine and it refers to the man Jane Austen met at Sidmouth in the summer of 1801 it would be an incredible find.’ His eyes gleamed with sudden fervour. ‘If I could identify the man whom Jane Austen’s family always said she loved, it would be a monumental discovery. Austen scholars everywhere would read my work. Why, I—I’d be famous.’
Jane frowned. ‘I find your father vulgar, Cassandra. Pray tell him that disclosures about my private life are not to be used for his aggrandizement.’
‘The letter’s private, Father. Please give it back now.’
He carefully refolded the letter in its original creases and I held out my hand expectantly. But, instead of giving it to me, he slipped the precious letter into his inside coat pocket.
‘What are you doing, Father?’ I cried, panic coursing through me. ‘Give me back Jane’s letter. You don’t understand how important it is––’
‘Important!’ he bellowed. ‘I should say it was important. If this really is Jane Austen’s letter—’ He touched the pocket where he’d hidden it. ‘If she actually wrote these words—’ He trembled.
‘You must give it back to me! You don’t understand. I need it to perform a ritual tomorrow so that—’
But he wasn’t listening. ‘All these years, I’ve sat at this desk reading and writing about Jane Austen and the whole time she was within arm’s reach.’
‘In other circumstances I might be amused by such remarkable irony,’ said Jane tersely. ‘Now, I wish only for your father to return my letter so that we may return to Winchester.’
I took a determined step towards him but he instantly moved away around the desk.
‘How did you know it was there?’ he demanded. ‘How did you of all people, Cassandra, learn where such a treasure was hidden?’ My father shook his head as if that was the most inconceivable part of it all.
‘I’ll tell you the whole story if you’ll just give me back her letter.’
He shook his head. ‘I can’t do that. This is the find of the century.’
‘Yes, but it’s not your find!
‘It was in my desk, Cassandra. But don’t worry, I shall take the greatest care of it.’ And, before either Jane or I could move, he turned and headed for the door.