Jane Bites Back_ A Novel - Michael Thomas Ford [76]
For several minutes Jane and Chiara made small talk. Then Chiara said, “I’m ashamed to tell you this, but I haven’t read any of your books.”
Oh, I bet you have, thought Jane. “It’s all right,” she told Chiara. “This is my first. And since we’re confessing, I haven’t read yours either. Is it your first as well?”
“My fifteenth,” Chiara answered. A chill had crept into her voice, and Jane realized immediately that she’d made an error. “So many?” she said quickly. “You can’t possibly be old enough to have—”
“Excuse me.” Another voice interrupted Jane’s attempt at an apology. Jane turned to see a woman, small and dressed all in gray, standing beside her. Her skin was fair and her eyes were the same gray as her dress. Her brown hair was gathered into a severe chignon at the nape of her neck.
“I’d like a word with you if I might,” the woman said to Jane. She glanced at Chiara. “Alone.”
“It’s all right,” Chiara said. “I was just leaving.” She gave Jane an icy look. “I suppose I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said as she walked away.
Jane turned back to the new arrival. “I didn’t get your name,” she said.
“Violet,” said the woman. “Violet Grey.”
Jane, about to shake hands with the woman, kept her hand at her side. “Oh,” she said. “I’ve read your work.”
Violet smiled grimly. “I’m sure,” she said. “And I yours.”
Jane wasn’t sure how to proceed. She already knew what Violet thought of her book. Was she supposed to confront her? Or was she expected to just stand there while Violet got some sort of perverse enjoyment out of seeing her squirm?
“I’ve no intention of making a scene,” said Violet, as if reading Jane’s mind. “I don’t think either of us wants that.”
“No,” Jane said. “No, we don’t.”
Violet nodded curtly. “Then I’ll say what I’ve come to say. I intend to expose you.”
“Expose me?” Jane said. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I imagined you would say that,” said Violet. “What I mean is that I can prove that you are not who you say you are.”
Jane hesitated. Did Violet know about her? And if so, how? She started to reply.
“Don’t bother denying it,” said Violet, stopping her. “I have all the proof I need.”
“Proof?” Jane repeated.
“That you plagiarized your novel,” said Violet.
Jane heard herself laugh with relief. The woman didn’t know about her after all. Then her words sank in.
“You think I stole someone else’s work?” she said.
“Not just someone’s work, Miss Fairfax,” said Violet. “Charlotte Brontë’s work.”
“Brontë?” Jane said. “What in the world makes you think that I stole from Charlotte Brontë?”
“As it happens, I am in possession of the original manuscript that you call Constance,” Violet informed her.
“That’s impossible,” said Jane.
“And yet I do have it,” Violet insisted. “I also have a witness—an expert in nineteenth-century manuscripts—who will testify to its authorship.”
Jane thought for a moment. What had happened to the original manuscript for the novel? She tried to remember. Then it came to her—she’d given it to Byron. She had, in fact, written the book as a love letter of sorts to him, keeping it a secret from her family, unlike the works in progress she usually read aloud to them. The thought sickened her now, but at the time she’d thought it the perfect way to show Byron how much she adored him. Then, after what he did, she’d fled his house without the manuscript. She’d had a copy hidden at Chawton, of course, but the original had remained in the house on the shore of Lake Geneva.
“I don’t know how you obtained a copy of the manuscript,” Violet continued. “I suppose there could be several of them in existence. Brontë was known for always having two or three, in case one was destroyed. But you do have one, of this I’m certain. And I intend to prove that you used it as the basis for your book.”
“There’s been some kind of mistake,” Jane said.
Violet snorted. “A very large one, I would say. What do you think the literary world will say when they find out that not only have you plagiarized your novel, but you’ve prevented the world from knowing that another Charlotte