“I have seen Celia’s portrait,” Beth said, taking back the story, “and for all that Jane Austen had to say about Jane’s beauty, Celia was just as lovely, with the blonde hair and blue eyes that both Jane and she had inherited from their mother. However, to me, her portrait shows a beautiful woman but one lacking in intelligence. And that, my dear, is all I know of Celia.”

I was glad Celia had found happiness with her French lord and that she loved her nieces, but what was even more interesting was how much information Jack and Beth had on Celia. Even allowing for a dedicated Aunt Margie, Beth and Jack knew a lot about her.

With Celia out of the way, I wanted to get to the much more interesting letter from Will Lacey to his cousin, Anne Desmet. “The letter certainly explains his sour mood when he showed up at the dance in Hertfordshire,” I said. “Do you know who Mrs. Manyard was?”

“Yes, I do,” Beth said. “Her maiden name was Elaine Trench, and she was an actress who performed at the Royal Theatre, Drury Lane. Before marrying Anne Devereaux, David Lacey, whom Jane Austen referred to as Old Mr. Darcy, had a liaison with Miss Trench. She was lowborn but had risen in the ranks as a result of a successful stage career. Their relationship was duly noted in the scandal sheets, which kept everyone up to date on society gossip and who was sleeping with whom, especially if the romance involved the Prince of Wales.

“After Anne Lacey died, David started seeing Elaine again. She was a widow and, as far as I know, only had the one child, Roger Manyard, a dissolute young man. His story puts me in mind of Mr. Wickham.”

I was hesitant about asking the next question, but if I didn’t get a reasonable explanation as to how the Crowells came to have the letter from Will to his cousin, then any further questions were pointless. “I was wondering where you got the letter,” I finally asked.

“When the Pratts moved into Montclair, the Laceys asked if they could continue to use the storage area below stairs. The Pratts are distant relations of the Laceys, and they had no objections. The storage area contained several chests that had belonged to the mother of Edward Lacey, the last Lacey heir to reside at Montclair. In those chests were diaries, letters, accounts, and other personal papers belonging to several generations of Laceys. Before returning to Australia, the Pratts, knowing that Jack’s family had been in service at Montclair for generations, left the papers in our care.

“Over the years, we’ve gone through many of them, but sorting through the lot proved to be a major project. We were able to devote some time to it during the brutally cold winter of 1946–47. Because of freezing temperatures and the difficulty of moving coal along the rivers or even by rail, we were unable to get any coal in Crofton. So we closed up the house, and Jack and I moved in with my cousin in Holland Park. It was a little better in London, but it was a terrible time in England. You had to queue up for everything. And the snow! I can’t ever remember having so much snow in one winter. To shake off our post-war blues, Jack and I spent many an afternoon going through those dusty old papers.”

The Crowells were making a believer out of me. Whenever I doubted the likelihood of Elizabeth Garrison and William Lacey being Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy, they provided reasonable explanations for the events in the book.

At that point, Jack stood up and told his wife he was heading to the Hare and Hound for a pint. “I won’t be long,” he said, kissing Beth and winking at me.

“Jack just can’t sit still. He never could,” Beth said as soon as she heard the front door close. “Even with his wonky knee, he still plays football with some of the men from the village.”

On our ride from the station when Jack told me Michael was coming home, he had asked me to make sure Beth didn’t go to bed early, and when I saw her yawning, I started quizzing her about some of the minor events and characters mentioned in Pride and Prejudice. Because Beth was tired, she was giving me very short answers.

“Did Charlotte really have a sister Maria?”

“Yes. I believe Mary Garrison and she were good friends.”

“Was there such a person as Mary King?”

“I have no idea.”

“Was there a reason for the militia to be encamped near Meryton?”

“I imagine they served the same purpose as our Home Guard did during this last war. But Jack would know that better than I.”

I was running out of questions when I heard the Jeep pull into the driveway.

“That didn’t take very long,” Beth said, looking at the door and waiting for her husband to come in. Instead, the person who stepped over the threshold was Michael.

Beth put both of her hands up to her face and instantly teared up. When she was finally able to move, she went running into her son’s arms, and he picked her off the floor and gave her a big hug.

When I had first seen a picture of Michael, I thought no one was that good-looking, but there he was, except he had definitely lost weight. The girls in Minooka would have called him a “dreamboat.”

While the reunion continued, I quietly went upstairs. But five minutes later, Beth was knocking on the door, asking me to come down and meet her son. As soon as Michael saw me, he immediately stood up and extended his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Maggie. My parents have been singing your praises in their letters. It’s good to have a face to put with their stories.”

While Beth went into the kitchen to make coffee, Jack said he was going to have a whiskey, and Michael said, “Make that two,” and asked if I would like something. After I hesitated, Jack said, “If you don’t have a drink, you’ll have to drink Beth’s coffee.”

“Okay, I’ll have a club soda.”

Michael smiled at his father’s comment and added, “It’s probably too late, but I’ll warn you, Mom’s cooking isn’t much better than her coffee.”

I must have seemed a little tense because Michael leaned over and said, “You’re thinking you shouldn’t be here, but my parents speak of you as if you were their daughter, although, I confess, I would have a hard time thinking of you as my sister.”

That statement took me by surprise, and I wondered if Michael was flirting with me. Probably not, since he had just met me, and it wouldn’t have mattered anyway because he was home for only two days before he had to be at an airfield near London for the flight back to Malta, which was really too bad.

Because they would have so little time together, I told them I was ready to call it a night. Between working that morning and the train ride to Stepton, I really was tired, and I headed to my room before realizing my room was actually Michael’s room.

“No worries,” he said. “I’ll just take the front bedroom, and I’ll use the bathroom down here.” When his father reminded him that the room was no longer heated, he just laughed. “I need to keep to a Spartan regimen, Dad. The Royal Air Force likes us tough.”

The next morning, I was the last one down to breakfast. Although I knew the three Crowells had stayed up late into the night, none of them looked tired. Michael’s being home had energized them all.

“Maggie, my parents have told me that you haven’t been to the Peak District, and if you don’t have anything planned for the day, I’d like to give you a tour.” I smiled and nodded. I wasn’t about to say “no” to such a good-looking guy.

“You’ll need to put on some good walking shoes, and if you have them, a pair of trousers.”

I ran back upstairs and changed into slacks and a pair of shoes that were as ugly as they were comfortable, and off we went to White Peak. At home, I was used to riding in clunkers that huffed and puffed to get up to forty miles per hour. But Michael was driving the Aston Martin with the top down as fast as it would go. After we entered the park, he slowed to a crawl so I could see the sights.

“When my brother and I were young, Dad and my mother’s Uncle Jeremy, who is a geologist, would take us into the District for all-day outings.” Looking out on the Peak’s dramatic landscapes, Michael said, “Every time I come here, it looks different.”

Because of gasoline rationing, which Jack was exempt from, there were very few cars on the road, although we did pass a charabanc, an open-air motor coach, and horse-drawn wagons filled with tourists. Taking advantage of the lack of traffic, Michael stopped in the middle of the road and pointed out interesting sights, including the numerous caves created because of the area’s porous limestone. The Peak had an array of colors that changed every time a cloud passed overhead, creating dramatic views at every turn.

I told Michael that one of the things I missed most from back home was driving a car. My brother had a nice side business of buying dilapidated cars and rebuilding them. He worked on the engines while our cousin, Patty Faherty, did the body work. In case the car broke down, Patrick paid me to drive him to the seller and to follow him home. I loved the independence only a car can give you, and since leaving the States two years earlier, I had not sat in the driver’s seat of a car.

Michael pulled into an overlook, put the car into park, and went around to the passenger side. “Change seats with me. You’re driving.” I was going to protest because this was one expensive car, but I really did want to drive it. So I ran around to the other side. After figuring out how to shift with my left hand, I was off, and it was like driving on a cloud. I had never been behind the wheel of such a fine machine, and before I knew it, I was up to sixty miles per hour, heading for seventy. I drove for about fifteen minutes before pulling over.