“Montclair is a beautiful home,” I answered. “I’d love to come back after the Catons have finished with it. I think they’re committed to its restoration.” “Oh, they are,” Mr. Crowell answered eagerly. “I’ve been up there dozens of times telling them how it was when I was a boy.” When Mr. Crowell asked if I thought it measured up to Jane Austen’s Pemberley, I said that it did, but I also told him that I doubted that Jane Austen had drawn her characters from real life. Certain people may have influenced her writing, but it seemed impossible to me that there was such a person as Mr. Darcy. Mr. Crowell, who insisted that I call him Jack, said, “It’s not my job to convince you, Maggie, but I have a feeling that you want to be convinced.” “I would think that if people believed that that house on the hill was actually Pemberley they would be beating a path to its door in droves.” “You’d be wrong, my dear. Very wrong. Here’s what I think,” Jack said settling back into his chair. “Jane Austen didn’t want her identity known. When Pride & Prejudice was published, she only identified herself as ‘the author of Sense & Sensibility.’ Originally, she had written these novels for the entertainment of her family before being convinced that the stories were so good that they should be published. She had a decent-sized following before Queen Victoria’s reign. However, most Victorians didn’t take to her. Silly mother, a lazy father, a fallen sister who wasn’t punished. The Victorians would have had Lydia dying in the snow on the road to Longbourn. No, they were too serious for someone as lighthearted as Jane. “People started to rediscover her in the 1900s, but then came The Great War. Ten men from Crofton were killed outright. There’s a memorial dedicated to them on the village green, and all of their names are on a plaque at St. Michael’s Church.” After Jack mentioned the war, there was a long pause before he continued, and I had no doubt that someone he cared about was memorialized on that plaque. “The walking wounded, widows, and orphans were everywhere. No one was thinking about Jane’s tale of two lovers. Then it was the Depression, and right after that, we were again at war. Not much time for Jane.” “Do you have any evidence to support your idea that the Laceys and Darcys are one and the same?” “It’s more than an idea, Maggie. My family has worked at Montclair longer than anyone can remember. My father’s father worked for the Laceys. He had met the Binghams or the Bingleys as Jane Austen called them. These stories were all passed down. My brother and I heard parts of the story from my mum who was fond of the novel, and it was something of a passion for Old Miss Lacey, the mother of Edward Lacey.”