Epilogue Present Day
The double-paned glass is rose and orange with the onset of day, and it muffles the crowd milling in Hyde Park. A short walk away, the Thames rises and falls, tidal even in the center of London. Every month, the water laps higher.
Olivia is breathing fast. As confirmation, to test reality, she lowers her hands over the thick sheaf of paper, but her fingers flinch from touching—even after turning every page, years of conservation training scream: this is precious.
The final page is crammed with tidy, efficient cursive.
The entire manuscript is the same. This is not a “fair copy” for publication—it is a working draft with inky crossings-out and corrections.
The longer insertions are carefully sized rectangles of ladies’ stationery pasted along a single edge so they can be folded aside.
After the story, a personal note is written:
“The finished manuscript! It was difficult with the Darcys’ whereabouts unknown, but I visited Pemberley to fill in the gaps. I have become good friends with young Jemma, who is only three but calls me Aunt Jane and loves stories of Fairyland.
I am very tired, though, so I chuse to leave this factual chronicle in your hands. If you can secure the assent of princes and find a publisher who tolerates an earnest female authoress, I shall be delighted to see it in print.
J.A., Apr. 23d, 1816”
“Bloody hell,” Olivia breathes and rushes her hands through her hair, hooking the strands behind her ears. She returns the pages to the nondescript cardboard box and cautiously carries it up the steps.
Apsley House is closed to the public on weekdays. She cuts through the empty Gallery, her gaze catching on a sculpted dragon, then through a short, modern exhibit, the exit for visitors after they tour the historically preserved parts of the house.
She pauses at a bell jar displaying a wickedly curved black claw the length of her longest finger. The card says:
Firedrake claw, personal collection,
1st Duke of Wellington
The wall behind holds a large poster featuring an artist’s conception of a dragon in flight:
Draca: Truth and Myth
Rare physical evidence, such as this claw, prove that draca were more than exotic birds and reptiles imported as pets. Indeed, the fewer than two dozen claws and scales in the UK are the object of intense scientific research. Their unique properties remind us of nature’s ability to amaze.
More mysterious is the unexplained disappearance of draca. The last credible sighting was in Leatherhead, Surrey, 1823.
But did huge dragons fly in English skies?
Naval logs from Nov 19, 1812 attribute England’s disastrous losses to a dragon, and London newspapers from the time are filled with eyewitness accounts.
However, skeptics claim exaggeration. The agricultural plague of 1813 and the horrors of the war, when French cannonades leveled whole neighborhoods of London, spawned hysteria—
Olivia laughs wildly and runs, barging into the private wing of the house, then the administrative office.
The curator looks up from a book. “You’re in early.” His eyes narrow. “You look awful. Have you slept?”
“Hardly. I was here all weekend.”
“Another repatriation?” he asks, resigned.
“What do you know about Pride and Prejudice?”
The curator chuckles. “Less than you, I’m sure.
” Olivia waits; the curator rolls his eyes and replies, “Austen’s second published novel.
Romantic fare that was popular during the 1812–13 war and the recovery.
People were hungry for escapist fiction, and cleverly, she completely ignored the war.
The book features Bennets”—he pauses, but Olivia says nothing, so he resumes—“and satirizes the reclusive and wealthy Darcy family, the subject of great social curiosity at the time. If I have any scholarship to offer, it’s that I’m amazed the Darcys allowed publication. They had the resources to prevent it.”
“Her first attempt to publish was blocked,” Olivia says. “By the government. It was only after she rewrote it that she found a publisher.”
“That is hearsay from her brother, and long after the fact. I can’t conceive why the government would care. The Prince Regent was a fan of her books.”
Wordlessly, Olivia slides the cardboard box in front of him. The last page is on top.
He fishes out his glasses and reads, frowning. “You can’t seriously think you have discovered a note written by Jane Austen.”
“Not a note. An entire lost manuscript. The true story.”
He shakes his head despairingly. “Olivia…”
“Austen’s invitation to Carlton House was always peculiar. Why invite an author to the royal residence? That’s what ‘assent of princes’ means—they were discussing whether to publish.” She senses skepticism and hurries on. “It’s her handwriting. Her signature. Why not her?”
He removes his reading glasses. “Because the Duke of Wellington would not have a lost Austen manuscript?”
“If you read back”—she leans across his desk, hunting through the pages—“he knew her. He introduced her to the Darcys. I think he wanted the truth recorded, even if it could not be published—”
The curator presses his spread hands outward, infringing Olivia’s space until she retreats, wrapping her left hand in her right and thumping back into her seat.
“A historian’s personal interests must not affect analysis,” he says firmly.
It is his turn to lean across the desk; he squints dramatically and reads her staff badge aloud.
“Dr. Olivia Bennet. I understand your fascination. But your research grant is not to invent outlandish theories about nineteenth century novelists—or characters in their stories. Our narrow but valuable mission is cataloging the voluminous writings and miscellanea of the Dukes of Wellington.”
Distant chants sound outside. Today is a day of protest, a march down Piccadilly to Leicester Square. Some of her friends are there. Her generation are cynics, impoverished while trillionaires burn the world.
Olivia is not a cynic. She knows how swiftly good can triumph. She is completing post-doctoral research on the Second Renaissance, the remarkable decade that blossomed after the Anglo-French-Confederate war.
“Read it,” Olivia says simply. “Every word is true. I know.”
The curator looks faintly disappointed. “How could you know that?”
She does not answer, only twists the ring on her left thumb, her family heirloom, lustrous and black with strange marks inside.
The End