Chapter 2
The library smelled of dust and fading ink, like a forgotten prayer scribbled in a hymnal’s flyleaf.
Sunlight filtered in through the diamond-paned windows, illuminating floating motes and the disordered ruin of a lifetime’s work.
Books lay in growing stacks, ready for the boxes; a few rested open across the armchairs, as if unwilling to be shut away.
Jane stood rigid in the doorway, fists clenched at her sides. “You cannot be serious, Maman!” she cried, her voice breaking with disbelief as she watched her mother lower another volume—Origen of Alexandria, a prized edition in Latin—into the gaping mouth of the packing box.
Margaret Ansley didn’t look up, her shoulders heavy with grief and the weight of what must be done.
“If your father had spent his income more wisely,” she replied, tone tight with fatigue, “perhaps investing in something useful rather than filling this house with endless books, we would not be destitute now. We are destitute, Jane. There is no gentler word.”
“He spent it on knowledge,” Jane shot back, stepping forward. Her throat ached. “On faith, on ideas that mattered. These texts are priceless. They’re all we have left of him. They’re—” her voice trembled, “they’re our legacy.”
Margaret snapped the box shut with more force than necessary.
“No, Jane. What we have left are unpaid bills, no home of our own, and four women with no income between them. That is our legacy. I don’t know if the books will fetch anything, but I’ll sell what I can.
” She reached for the next title with steady hands.
Jane stared at her mother as though at a stranger. “You don’t understand,” she whispered. “You never understood him.” She turned and left, the sound of her footsteps vanishing up the stair.
Margaret remained where she was, breathing steadily through her nose, willing herself not to cry.
She was not the weeping kind. A practical woman and the daughter of a Southampton merchant, she had married above her station.
Her husband, Sebastian Ansley, was the second son of a viscount—a clergyman with lofty intellect and little sense.
Now, the current Viscount no longer answered her letters. The living had already been reassigned. A new rector would arrive by Michaelmas, and they were to leave the house within the month. There was nowhere else to go.
* * *
“Maman! Maman!” The cry rang through the rectory like a bell, quick footsteps thudding against the old floorboards.
Margaret Ansley looked up from the crate of books she was packing, heart jolting. Agnes burst into the library, cheeks flushed, curls slipping from beneath her bonnet.
“Uncle Robert’s carriage! I saw it taking the turn!”
Margaret rose slowly, one hand braced on the crate to steady herself. “Are you sure, darling?”
“It’s him, Maman! The black carriage with the shiny sides and the tan horses!” Agnes bounced from foot to foot.
“Go fetch your sisters,” she said, smoothing her skirt. “We’ll greet your uncle properly.” Agnes nodded and dashed off.
A fortnight ago, Margaret had written to Robert with trembling fingers—her husband cold upstairs, the doctor already gone, her daughters stunned into silence. She had asked for help, or at least for guidance. No reply had come. She had assumed the worst.
But now, as she stepped out into the sunlight with her children gathered close and saw her brother’s familiar form climbing down from the carriage—broad-shouldered, road-worn, but unmistakably kind—a rush of relief swept through her so sudden it caught at her throat.
“Robert.”
“There you are,” he said, voice hoarse but warm. “I came as soon as I could.”
“You got my letter.”
“Yesterday evening. I’d just returned from Oporto—spent a month wrestling with wine merchants who think themselves kings. I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner.”
“You missed the funeral,” she said gently, without reproach. “It was modest. Just the parish, and a few friends from Oxford.”
He sighed, regret softening his face. “I should have been there. Sebastian was a good man. A difficult one, but good.”
He looked to the girls. Agnes rushed to wrap her arms around his waist before he could say more, and Beatrice offered a shy smile, twisting the hem of her sleeve. Jane stood a little apart, composed but pale, her eyes shadowed.
Robert’s expression mellowed. “My girls,” he murmured, brushing Agnes’s curls aside. “You’ve all grown. Jane—you’re a woman now. Your father would have been proud of you.”
Then, to Margaret: “Shall we go in for a word?”
She nodded, throat tight. “Of course. I’ll have tea sent up.”
“Agnes, Beatrice—go ask Cook for a tray,” she added. “Jane, go with them, please.”
She hesitated, eyes flicking to her mother, but Margaret gave her a gentle nod. “Go on. Just for a little while.” With a slight curtsy, she turned and followed her sisters.
Margaret led her brother inside, grateful for the familiar weight of him behind her.
In the drawing room, silence clung like dust on old furniture—settled, undisturbed, and thick with memory. Robert sank into the chair opposite hers and pulled off his gloves with a weary tug.
Margaret studied him. “You’ve aged.”
“And you haven’t?” he replied with a tired smile.
She let out a dry laugh. “There’s been little rest of late.”
Robert leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“Margaret, I came because I want to help. I mean that. But the war’s made a ruin of trade—tariffs are up, ships are scarce, and even the honest merchants lie through their teeth.
I’ve four daughters of my own. I'm not what I once was. But I've thought it through.”
Her spine straightened. She said nothing, only nodded once.
“There’s a house near Chichester seeking a housekeeper. A large estate. Reputable. I can arrange the introduction. You’d have shelter, perhaps even comfort. And I can cover schooling for Agnes and Beatrice—at least for a few years. They’ll be well cared for.”
A knock interrupted them. Margaret stood quickly, grateful for the pause. The maid entered with the tea tray, eyes shifting between them. Margaret gave her a brief nod; the girl curtsied and left in haste.
She busied herself with the service, hands controlled but pale against the porcelain. As she poured, Robert’s offer echoed in her mind—cover the schooling. It was more than she had dared to hope.
“Milk still?” she asked.
“Yes, please.” He accepted the cup with a quiet thank you.
He waited a moment, then went on, gently. “As for Jane… she’s twenty now. A fine girl—clever as ever. A little too clever, perhaps.”
“Sebastian used to brag she could out-debate his Oxford friends.”
Robert smiled faintly. “I believe it. And she ought to be somewhere her mind is used. I’ve inquired about governess positions. With the right endorsement, I could even press the Viscount, I’ll see her settled.”
Margaret nodded slowly. “And if she were to marry?”
“Without a dowry, her chances are poor.” He hesitated. “There’s a clerk in my office. Quiet, steady, honest. I could speak to him. He’d give her a roof. She’d be safe.” He paused, frowning slightly at his teacup.
Margaret gave a soft sigh. “But she’s not made for that. She’d rather teach grammar to spoiled girls than marry a man she cannot admire.”
“That’s what I thought too,” he said, almost smiling. But his eyes were haunted.
Silence settled again, broken only by the rhythmic tick of the mantel clock and the faint creak of footsteps overhead—Jane, perhaps pacing.
“Thank you for coming,” she said quietly. “I feared I’d been cast off.”
“Never by me.” Robert set down his cup. “You’re my sister. And I’ll see you all safe. I only wish I could do more.”
* * *
That night, once the house had gone quiet, Jane slipped into the library—while it still resembled the place she had known. A single candlestick lit her way, its flame casting long shadows across the half-empty shelves. The scent of old paper lingered in the air.
She pressed her back to the wall and let the tears come silently. Around her, the house creaked and settled, as if mourning with her. Inevitably, her thoughts turned back to that morning—the morning her father had died beneath the old ash tree at the edge of the churchyard.
They had walked together, as they often did, gravel crunching beneath their feet, while tired bees hovered over bramble flowers, sluggish in the heat.
He carried his cane, but lightly, as though it were an ornament rather than a need.
Their talks had always been her delight—discourses on scripture, poetry, the great philosophers of old.
That day he had been quieter than usual, letting her words fill the air. She had spoken with all the fervor of her twenty years, her thoughts tumbling over one another.
“Dante erred in my eyes,” she told him, “for he crowned Virgil with honor yet left him desolate at the threshold of Heaven. If the poet of the Aeneid could glimpse providence and virtue in a world of idols, surely that is proof enough of God’s light in all ages.
To banish him is to slight the very reason the Creator bestowed upon mankind. ”
When she turned to him, she found his eyes glistening. A single tear had traced his cheek, though his smile was full of pride.
“My clever girl,” he murmured, his voice unsteady. “I need to rest. Go on—I will catch up with you.”
She hesitated, uncertain, but he insisted with a gentle wave of his hand. So she walked on a little way, her thoughts still alive with Virgil and Dante, with faith and reason.
When no footsteps followed, she turned back.
He was no longer on the path. She retraced her steps in growing unease, until she saw him beneath the old ash tree, seated against its trunk, his hand resting upon the bark as if in greeting.
His face was tilted toward the sky, his eyes open, but unseeing.
She had run to him, called his name, clutched at his coat and begged him to wake. But he did not move. His expression was peaceful, as though he had at last heard the answer to the question he had chased all his life.
Now, as her mother packed up the remnants of that life, Jane felt a quiet kind of fury stir in her chest—not for the poverty, nor even for the exile from their home, but for the casualness with which his work was being dismantled.
They didn’t have a library anymore. They had a graveyard of thought.
Her father’s volumes had been companions—marked with notes, smudged with candle wax, corners folded from sleepless nights. They had mattered. To Jane, they still did.
She wiped her eyes and straightened her shoulders.
She would go to whatever position her uncle found for her.
She would teach another man’s child, wear plain gowns, and vanish into the polite invisibility of a governess.
But she would not forget. And she would not forgive the world for throwing away a man like her father as if he were nothing more than the spine of an old book, cracked and easily ignored.