Chapter 29
Flo insisted on getting up at the crack of dawn the following morning, even though she could perfectly well have slept in,
with it being Monday and the shop being closed. By the time Jules was washed and dressed, she had made a pot of tea and got
some porridge on the go.
“Have a good breakfast, darling,” she said, pouring Jules a cup of tea out of the old brown pot. “You’ll be busy today, and
you don’t know when you’ll get the chance to eat.”
“I wish you’d let me bring you a cup of tea in bed,” fretted Jules. “You look...” Jules studied her. Flo looked tired and
a little gray in the face. “You look actually a little bit unwell,” she concluded apologetically. “Are you sure you’re going
to be okay on your own?”
“Of course, I am, darling. Why wouldn’t I be? Remember, until eight months ago, I was living alone all the time,” said Flo
robustly. “Not that I haven’t absolutely adored having you here,” she added.
“Okay, well, just take it easy,” said Jules. It was a waste of breath telling Aunt Flo that, of course. “I mean, if you decide
you want to take an afternoon nap or something, there’s nothing urgent to do in the shop. The orders and invoices are all
up-to-date.”
“Whatever you say, darling,” said Flo, dropping a kiss on the top of Jules’s head as she put a steaming bowl of porridge in front of her. Jules took that as a no.
“Yo, dude,” Charlie greeted Jules on a windy railway platform in the gray dawn light. He handed Jules a disposable coffee
cup. “Oat milk latte.”
“Wow, I love you,” Jules pronounced gratefully.
“A whole lotta love goin’ on, then,” Charlie commented with a grin. “Talking of which, not got lover boy with you this morning,
I see?”
“God no, poor Roman, he’s got enough to do with the fire and stuff.”
Charlie nodded his understanding. He looked particularly striking that morning, as he had decided to dye a mohawkish streak
of bright blue into his short bleached-blond hair. That, with his favorite Vivienne Westwood tartan dungarees, made him an
arresting sight.
“I’m taking up a few of my best finds,” Charlie explained to Jules as they perched on a wooden bench at the end of the drafty
platform. “Too valuable, I hope, to just throw them up for sale online. We’ll see today.”
“Fingers crossed,” said Jules somberly, remembering that awful rental flat poor Aunt Flo was looking at.
It was a slog of a journey to Paddington, but the benefit of joining the train so far out was they had their choice of seats.
The two of them settled themselves comfortably facing each other.
The first thing Jules did was call Roman to touch base.
“It was an electrical fault, we know now,” he told her. “I had the whole shop rewired as part of the refurbishment, but something
was amiss in the fuse box under the stairs.”
“That explains why it took hold so quickly. Those old oak stairs...”
“Thank Christ no customers were caught in it. And thank Christ you and I had the back stairs to escape down. I can’t even...”
There was a heavy silence.
“You still there?” probed Jules gently.
“Yeah,” Roman replied. He cleared his throat. “I love you.”
“Love you too,” Jules replied, grinning as Charlie rolled his eyes.
“So, tell me more about this thing we’re going to?” asked Jules, when she ended the call.
“FIRSTS,” declaimed Charlie. “ The Rare Book Fair, like no other. Twice a year at the Saatchi Gallery. Be there or be square, dude.”
“That place just off the King’s Road? Cool,” said Jules. “And are we actually selling?”
Charlie shook his head. “Just getting valuations. The books I have here are special—the best of our secondhand stock. It makes
them worth putting into a physical auction. Or at least I think they are. If my guy agrees, then I’ll leave them with him.”
“And who are we meeting again?”
“Everyone, but”—here Charlie put a hand on his chest just above his heart—“we’re actually having coffee with a guy called
Richard Davenport.” Charlie puffed up visibly with pride. “It’s a bit of a coup, if I say so myself. He’s chief auctioneer
for antiquarian books in Sotheby’s.”
“Wow,” said Jules promptly, in tones that she hoped showed she was suitably impressed. “And will he be interested in the grimoire?”
Charlie deflated, looking worried. “Dunno,” he said. “If anyone can put a value on it, he can. “But, thing is, when stuff
goes into an auction, anything could happen.”
And Aunt Flo still had to be persuaded to sell, Jules reminded herself. For a while she gazed idly out the window, watching
the landscape roll past.
“What will you do?” she asked Charlie at last.
“When?”
“When the shop closes at Christmas?”
“Oh, right.” Charlie sighed. “Well, I’ll have finished my thesis by then.” He looked as if he was considering saying something.
“So...?” Jules prompted.
“So, the next step would ideally be an internship with an antiquarian book dealer.”
“So maybe even Sotheby’s?” said Jules, excited. “This guy, Richard what’s-his-name, you should ask today!”
“Ha!” said Charlie humorlessly. “Internships go to nice, well-spoken, privately educated white girls called Arabella who have
a mumsie and a doting daddy who will give them money to live in central London because they’re not getting paid. Let’s face
it, that’s literally the exact opposite of me.”
“I’m so sorry,” Jules empathized. He wasn’t wrong. Publishing was a little bit the same.
“Sucks to be me, I guess.” He shrugged philosophically.
“We could tell him Charlie’s short for ‘Charlotte,’ maybe?” Jules suggested.
There was a distinctive smell inside the crowded hall: a mixture of wet wool, fresh paint, and an unmistakable overlay of
old book—leather, dust, and mildew—that Jules found immensely comforting. It smelled pretty much like the second floor of
Capelthorne’s. There was a hum of conversation, punctuated by the clatter of crockery at the refreshments stand.
Charlie was pacing nervously now, barely distracted by the fascinating array of wares: books opened to pages with stunning
botanical illustrations, leather-bound matching sets of some venerable age, and even maps, both rolled and framed.
“It’ll be fine,” said Jules reassuringly, noting Charlie’s fidgety demeanor. “Let’s get coffee, it’s my turn this time.”
As soon as they were standing, drinking their execrable coffee, Jules began to wish she had insisted Charlie stick with decaf.
He was twitching with nerves, rubbing his hand constantly over his tight-cropped blond curls and fiddling with various facial piercings until Jules longed to slap his hand away.
“When are we meeting this guy?” asked Jules, wondering how long she was going to have to nanny Charlie, possibly to stop him
fleeing altogether and escaping back to Portneath on the next train. It seemed to her Charlie’s meeting with the Sotheby’s
guy was pretty high stakes but she shared his doubts over the internship.
“Oh, blimey, that’s him,” Charlie hissed, nodding his head in the direction of a stout man with a loud tweed jacket and a
red paisley bow tie.
“You’re right, he does look like the issuer of internships to white horsey girls called Lucinda,” muttered Jules. “Come on,
hold your nose and dive in. Then we can go and get a stiff drink. I can’t stand much more of this terrible coffee.”
To give credit to Charlie, he pulled himself up to his full height of five foot six, or thereabouts, and strode over to intercept
Richard, who was now looking around vaguely.
“Richard Davenport?” declared Charlie shyly as he stuck out his hand.
“Ah, Charlie Adeyemi, I presume,” he said. “We meet at last.”
Charlie nodded, looking as if he had been struck dumb.
“And to whom do I owe the pleasure,” he said, turning to face Jules, who introduced herself briefly.
“Right, so... shall we?” he said, moving rapidly to secure a little table in the café area as it became free, charmingly
liberating a third chair from the party sitting at the table next to it.
Charlie visibly relaxed now that the business of the trip was underway. With Richard’s encouragement, he brought out the books he had with him one by one, each wrapped for safe transport in acid-free tissue paper.
He presented each book with a brief summary of its status, to which Richard responded with a shrewd, noncommittal look. There
was a first edition of Daphne du Maurier’s Frenchman’s Creek —a huge favorite of Jules’s—which Richard cracked a smile at.
“Only the third print run, though,” Charlie admitted.
“I still like it,” he said generously. “Obviously I’ve seen a few, but du Maurier is always popular, and it’s in good nick,”
he added, carefully examining the cover and the edges of the pages. “Bit of fading on the cover...” he mused.
“And, did I say, it’s signed by the author?” Charlie pointed out, leaning over to point at the flyleaf.
“So it is,” Richard said, throwing Charlie an admiring glance. “I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised, given she’ll have
been in your neck of the woods a fair bit. Nice one. I’d put it in with a three grand reserve. Something similar went for
just over five grand a year or so ago. That do you?”
He looked at Charlie and then at Jules, who nodded, swallowing. She hoped they had a few books of that caliber. Aunt Flo could
afford something better than that grotty old flat on the Whitchurch Estate then.
However, Richard then dismayed them by dismissing a couple of other books as less interesting. “Honestly?” he said, noticing
their downcast faces. “They’re perfectly sellable. I’d put ’em up online yourself and keep your fingers crossed. It’ll save
you my extremely generous auctioneer’s commission. Best of luck with them.”
Jules was beginning to think the good news was all over. Well, she couldn’t knock it, the du Maurier was promising at least.
Then, finally, with some reverence, Charlie brought out the grimoire, unwrapping it and laying it reverentially on its sheet
of tissue in front of Richard for his perusal.
“This,” he said, “is an original manuscript dating—judging by content and materials—from the mid-seventeenth century. Full transcript here,” Charlie added, handing over the printout, before reeling off some information about materials and research he had carried out on origins that left Jules in awe. Charlie knew his stuff.
Richard seemed to think so too, judging by the beady, admiring look he gave him, before returning his attention to the grimoire
itself.
“Cross-referencing with contemporaneous sources, the author was Bridget Capelthorne of Portneath,” Charlie went on. “The grimoire
suggests she was a wisewoman within the community—a witch, if you will—which ties in with historical records that she was
tried at Exeter Assizes in 1685, convicted of witchcraft, and hanged for it shortly after,” Charlie finished, looking at Richard
anxiously for his feedback.
“Good work,” he said, this time giving Charlie a long, appraising look.
“Is it... I mean, does it seem like mid-seventeenth century to you?” Charlie asked.
Richard, having whipped a pair of white cotton gloves out of his pocket, was carefully turning the pages and picking it up
to examine the binding. “It looks right to me.”
“I mean, obviously, tests need to be done, comparisons made...” Charlie chuntered on.
“Let me stop you there,” said Richard, holding up his hand. “I’ve said it looks ‘right.’ When you’ve been doing this as long
as I have, you get an instinct. I think you’re bang on, and you’ve timed this well. There’s a lot of interest in this type of material at the moment. Witches and witchcraft are a big thing.”
“Plus,” contributed Jules, “we think poor Bridget—my relative, actually—was the last witch in England to be hanged.”
At that, Richard’s head snapped up. “I like it,” he said admiringly, before pausing, considering for a moment. “I mean, I’m sorry to hear it,” he added insincerely,
“but, yep, I really like it. That kind of background info makes a big difference. What we had a moment ago was an intriguing artifact. What we
have now”—he extended an open hand to Jules with a reverential nod—“is a story .”
“What do you think it might be worth?” ventured Charlie, encouraged by Richard’s obvious interest.
Richard sighed, placing it down gently and holding his hands out to his sides. “Value? Could be a few grand. Will be a few grand. Potentially tens of thousands. Potentially, the sky’s the limit.”
“The sky...?” echoed Charlie faintly.
“Well, it’s not the Codex Leicester,” Richard qualified. “But it’s nice. Very nice.”
Jules gave Charlie a puzzled look. “Tell you later,” Charlie muttered out of the corner of his mouth.
“So, um, what’s next?” asked Jules, trying to keep her voice level.
“Well, assuming you would like Sotheby’s to deal with it for you?” He raised his eyebrows in inquiry, to see both Charlie
and Jules nodding their heads animatedly. “I’d like to get our researchers on it,” he went on, “brief our PR team, list it—the
next auction would be the end of November—I would say we would be just in time to get it into that as one of our top catalog
items.”
“That’s ages away,” said Jules, a tiny bit disappointed. This was all so vague. She had been hoping to go back to Aunt Flo
with a bit more of a specific idea and an earlier answer than that.
“We need to do the groundwork to get you the best price,” Richard explained. “Our teams obviously have lists of people who
might be potential buyers: private collectors, museums, and so on. Communicating with them, building up interest, getting
some advance coverage... these things take a little time.”
“Of course, of course,” said Charlie hastily, shooting an anxious glance at Jules for fear this god of the auction rooms would take offense at her impatience.
But Richard seemed to have become immensely cheered by the grimoire, beaming at the two people in front of him with palpable
bonhomie. “Jolly good work,” he said, addressing Charlie. “What’s your background?”
Charlie gabbled something about his qualifications, experience, and impending doctorate, but Richard cut him short: “Ever
thought about auctioneering?”
Charlie nodded. “Absolutely,” he said.
“Good. Fancy working at Sotheby’s? I’ve got one more slot for an internship starting in January, if you’re available? Bloody
hard work, but a chance to get your foot in, plenty of opportunity to take early responsibility—get some experience under
your belt?”
Charlie nodded eagerly, and then his face fell. “It’s basically a funding thing,” he muttered apologetically.
“Never fear,” said Richard, “we don’t expect free labor. There’s a stipend. It’s not generous, but it should be enough to
keep the wolf from the door. If you do as well as I expect you to, you’ll be drawing a proper salary before long. How about
it?”