The Missing Manuscript of Jane Austen Read Online Free Page A

considered giving him yours just to spite you.”
    I laughed. “Do you have a minute to do a little research for me?”
    “What kind of research?”
    “Before I tell you, you should probably go into your office and shut the door. What I have to say is about Jane Austen, and it’s pretty amazing. You might start jumping up and down, or possibly screaming, and that might scare the customers.”
    That got Laurel Ann’s attention. Once she’d affirmed her privacy, I told her as succinctly as I could about my discovery that morning, and everything that had happened subsequently. Then I read her Jane Austen’s letter. As I’d predicted, she could hardly contain her enthusiasm.
    “My God, Sam, this is incredible! The letter
has to be
hers!”
    Laurel Ann promised to find the information I needed in the store’s biography section and to call me right back. While I waited, I paced the floor like an anxious, expectant father in an old movie. I grabbed my cell phone with anticipation on the first ring.
    “Okay,” Laurel Ann said on the other end of the line, “this mansion house, Greenbriar, is in Devonshire, right? Well, I looked up the time period in question, and you’re going to love this, Sam. In the Deirdre Le Faye biography, it says there’s a three-year gap in Jane Austen’s surviving correspondence from May 1801 through September 1804, but from ‘hints and glimpses found in other sources,’ it’s been determined that the Austens
did
visit the seaside resort town of Sidmouth in the summer of 1801, and probably went to Dawlish and Teignmouth in the summer of 1802—all of which are in Devonshire!”
    I had a map of Devonshire open on my laptop screen, and I gave a happy gasp. “Greenbriar isn’t far from Sidmouth!” If I’d been excited before, I was beside myself now. “She must have gone there!”
    “And while there, she somehow lost a manuscript. To think there might be another Austen novel out there—I can hardly believe it!”
    “But how can a manuscript go missing? What on earth happened to it?”
    “Who knows? But the key to the mystery is obviously Greenbriar. Jane had the manuscript with her because she read it to Cassandra.”
    “Maybe there’s some kind of evidence at that house—old family records or something, with proof that Jane Austen was a visitor, and a clue to the missing manuscript.”
    “Yes! You have to look into this, Sam. You just have to.”
    “But how? I only have four more days in England. If I write to Reginald Whitaker, I’ll never hear back in time.”
    “So call him in the morning. Tell him what you found and go down there.”
    “What if I can’t find his phone number, or can’t get hold of him?”
    “Go anyway!”
    I laughed. “You do realize this whole thing is mad and impulsive.”
    “Some of the most thrilling things in life are done on impulse. If you hadn’t dared me to drop in on the owner of this bookstore eight years ago, I would have never gotten this job. You always tell me I take forever to make up my mind about things, and am so afraid of making a wrong decision that I never take any action at all. It’s time to grow some balls, Sam, and take your own advice.”
    “You’re right. Okay, I’ll do it.” I thanked Laurel Ann for her help and encouragement and signed off, promising to keep her apprised of whatever happened.
    Finding Whitaker’s contact information was a lot easier than Mary Jesse’s had been. He wasn’t on any social networking sites, either, but I already knew where he lived, and after logging in to ukphonebook.com, I had his phone number inside of two minutes.
    By the time I got ready for bed and crawled beneath the down comforter, it was after midnight. I didn’t expect sleep to come easy that night, but jet lag suddenly set in with a vengeance, and I nodded off instantly, waking with a start at seven thirty. I leapt out of bed and immediately called Reginald Whitaker, hoping to set up an appointment—but nobody answered.