EPILOGUE
We were in Chawton again, Dan and I, walking the route Charlotte would have taken on Sundays to church with her brother, Lovell.
Daffodils danced in the spring sunshine and I had hope in my heart.
Dan squeezed my hand as the bell tower of St Nicholas’s Church came into view. ‘Don’t build your hopes up too much,’ he warned.
I smiled up at him. ‘I’m really not. I guess I just wanted an excuse to come back here – to the place where we first started to realise we were falling for each other.’
‘You were falling for me?’ he teased.
Laughing, I dug him with my elbow. ‘It was mutual and you know it!’
‘Okay. I’ll give you that.’
‘It’s a beautiful church, isn’t it? And look, there’s the statue of Jane Austen with her book under her arm.’
We admired the bronze figure on its plinth, then we walked into the graveyard, where we quickly found the twin graves of Mrs Austen and Cassandra. It felt unreal and emotional, as it always did, reading the inscriptions and almost feeling as if I knew these people . . .
The church was empty, apart from a woman with a duster bending to one of the pews. She looked up when we entered and smiled as we walked up the aisle towards her.
‘Hi, there. Can I help you with anything?’ she asked.
‘Oh, I hope so. I’m Lizzie and this is Dan, and we’re looking to find out if a certain marriage took place here – around 1815? It’s a long-shot, I know, but I wondered if we could look at the parish records?’
‘Ooh, how exciting. Yes, there’s sure to be a record of the marriage somewhere. But the really old books aren’t kept here anymore.’
Hearing this, a sliver of disappointment threatened to take the shine off my day.
Dan nodded. ‘I had a feeling that might be the case.’
We talked some more. Then we thanked the woman, a church volunteer called Sandra, and went out again into the early April sunshine.
‘You’re not too disappointed, are you?’ asked Dan as we walked back to his car.
I smiled up at him. ‘I would have been, if we didn’t have an appointment at Hampshire Record Office this afternoon.’
*****
I’d phoned the record office the day before and asked if we could take a look at the Chawton parish records.
I was assuming that if Charlotte and Albert had married, then their marriage would likely have taken place fairly soon after the dates in her diary.
And now we were here!
Once inside, we found the search room quietly busy, and I got a sense of everyone being absorbed in their own small mystery. Long wooden tables were spaced out in the room, and we sat at one of them, waiting for the parish records we’d requested to be brought out.
The register, bound in leather, arrived on a book cradle, and with a sense of quiet excitement, I opened it and began turning the pages.
Each marriage was recorded on a single line, the ink browned with age. Together, we started reading forward from 1814.
After a while, each record began to blur into the next as I settled into the rhythm of reading names and dates. And I almost missed it.
Then suddenly, my eye caught a familiar name and I gasped and pointed.
‘Lovell! He was one of the witnesses. There it is!’
We both bent closer and read the entry that recorded the marriage of ‘Albert Smith of this Parish, Bachelor, and Charlotte Farmer of this Parish, Spinster.’
The wedding had taken place in early 1815.
‘They must have decided to get married before Lovell went to sea!’ I had happy tears in my eyes, thinking about this.
Dan nodded. ‘That’s certainly what it looks like.’ He seemed quite emotional himself. The romance that had blossomed in the pages of Charlotte’s diary had a happy ending!
We took a photo of the entry to show Amanda and Leonard. Then we moved on to the Chawton Parish baptism records.
I turned the thick, slightly uneven pages slowly and we scanned the entries.
Dan spotted the first baby, baptised in early 1816.
Albert, son of Albert and Charlotte Smith of Chawton.
‘So they named their first child after his father,’ I whispered to Dan. ‘I wonder if they had any more?’
I kept turning pages and scanning, and then we found something quite unbelievable.
In 1820, three of Charlotte and Albert’s children had been baptised together. And when I looked at the names, I almost laughed out loud with surprise.
Charlotte, Lovell and Jane, son and daughters of Albert and Charlotte Smith of Chawton.
‘So they named their second son after Lovell! That’s so lovely. But Jane? I mean, it was a common enough name back then. But it’s surely no coincidence?’
‘Let’s see if they had any more,’ said Dan.
So once more, we began the laborious task of trawling through the pages.
And then we found it.
A fifth child, born to Charlotte and Albert in 1823.
Austen, son of Albert and Charlotte Smith of Chawton.
I stared at Dan. ‘Austen! Oh, my God. I can’t believe it. They were honouring the bond Lovell shared with Jane! So their love lived on in Charlotte and Albert’s children!’
Dan looked quite dumbstruck himself. ‘I wonder why they did that? Maybe Lovell died at sea and they were also honouring his memory.’
‘Oh, don’t say that. I want Lovell to have returned from his travels and become the best ever uncle to his five gorgeous nieces and nephews.’
Dan pulled me close and kissed my temple. ‘You’re just a big softie, Lizzie Bennet.’
‘I know. But I won’t rest until I know what actually happened to Lovell.’ I frowned, thinking. ‘Why didn’t we look in Chawton churchyard for his name? Surely if he did return from sea and stayed in the village, he would have been buried there.’
Dan grinned. ‘I guess we’re driving back to Chawton, then?’
‘Would you mind?’ I smiled excitedly at him. ‘I just need to know.’
So we returned to the churchyard in Chawton. And to my great delight, we found the grave of one Lovell Farmer, tucked away in a quiet corner.
I held Dan’s hand and we stood together and read the inscription.
Lovell Farmer, loving brother and uncle, 1792 – 1871.
Tears sprang to my eyes. ‘He came back, Dan. He came back from sea!’
‘Yes. And he lived till he was nearly eighty.’
‘It looks like he never married, which is quite sad. Maybe he never got over Jane.’
Dan smiled. ‘You mean “J”, of course.’
I laughed. ‘Ah, yes. Of course.’
‘He had a long life, surrounded by family, including five nieces and nephews.’
‘I bet he spoiled them.’
‘I bet he did.’
I sighed, thinking about Charlotte and Albert naming their babies. ‘Two children named after their parents. Three who weren’t. It’s so tantalising, isn’t it?’
‘Lovell, Austen and Jane. Too much to be a coincidence. But not enough to ever prove anything.’
‘The thing is, though, every parent chooses a name for their child for a reason, don’t they?’ I looked at him hopefully and he nodded. ‘I don’t think we need “proof” to know in our hearts what the real story was.’
‘Maybe you’re right.’ Smiling, Dan put his arm around me and we walked slowly back to the car.
‘I can’t wait to see your Uncle Leonard and tell him about all of this.’
Dan smiled and nodded. ‘Thank goodness he’s feeling better now. He was driving me mad not being able to get out and play golf with his friends.’
I chuckled. ‘I know. He was worried about his game. But last time he was in the café, he was telling me how he’d done. I haven’t a clue how golf scoring works but he was smiling, so he’d obviously done well!’
We got in the car and drove back to Winchester, where we’d booked into a hotel for the night.
Later, while Dan was taking a bath, I put on my coat and called to him that I was nipping out but I wouldn’t be long.
I walked along to the cathedral and slipped inside.
Then I stood for a quiet moment, alone with my thoughts, at the final resting place of an important person in my life.
She’d been buried in the cathedral after she died in 1817.
Jane Austen.