Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
OPALINE
England, 1922
I awoke the next morning to the sound of a milk truck making deliveries. The daylight had barely begun to breach the dusky pink curtains, but I could make out the line of his shoulder and his dark mop of hair on the pillow. Armand slept so soundly, it made me question my constant self-doubt. I doubted myself, my choices, my desires and my abilities all of the time. Oh, to be a man who is always sure of himself! And sure of his place in the world.
In becoming Miss Gray, I wasn’t just hiding from Lyndon, I was hiding from everything and everyone. All of the expectations of my gender to be all of the things I no longer was – pure, timid, passive. I wished we were still in Paris, where being ordinary was frowned upon and breaking the rules was a rite of passage.
I hadn’t slept well, or at all really. I found my thoughts returning to Matthew. He had visited the shop briefly before I left. I think he was embarrassed by what had happened, how we had held each other that night. I imagine he would not have come at all if he did not need to collect the rent, but his good manners precluded him from having a purely transactional visit and so he began to speak about the shop and his childhood dreams to become a magician.
‘A magician?’ I echoed in disbelief. As if to prove his point, he reached behind my ear and found a small glass ball. I reached out to take it from his palm, yet somehow it had disappeared into thin air.
‘How did you do that?’ I said, smiling brightly.
‘Ah, now that would be telling.’
If only I could have made my feelings disappear so easily. On the days he came, everything was brighter, sunnier, happier. But when he left to return to his family, I felt wretched.
‘ Mon Opale ,’ Armand whispered, nuzzling into my neck.
I let him put his arms around me, chasing the loneliness away. I hadn’t intended to come back to his rooms, but I suppose from the minute we set eyes on each other in Yorkshire, it was inevitable. Yet I couldn’t help thinking that I held no place in his heart above any of the other women he bedded. Well, I wasn’t going to let him think that I cared for him either. That way, I wouldn’t get hurt. The reasoning of an idiot; but love, as they say, is blind.
‘I must go,’ I said eventually, kissing him lightly on his cheek.
‘ Mais non, reste .’
‘I cannot. My boat leaves this evening and I have some business to attend to before then.’
‘Business?’ He propped himself up on his elbow and watched me dress. God, he was gorgeous! An Adonis. I had to turn my back on him while buttoning up my blouse.
‘A book.’
‘Of course it’s a book. Tell me.’
I turned to look at him. Yes, he was beautiful and yes, he was a valuable connection in the book dealing world. He had also helped me to escape Paris. Yet, as I had realised in Sotheby’s, he was cut from the same cloth as Rosenbach. Ruthless, single-minded and greedy. When it came to books, perhaps I was too, because in that moment I realised that while there may be honour amongst thieves, the same could not be said for book dealers.
‘Perhaps I can stay a little longer,’ I said, kneeling on the bed beside him and letting him unbutton my blouse again. Loneliness is not a discerning bedfellow. In fact, the more inappropriate the company, the more it suited my fatalistic outlook when it came to love. Something told me I would never find it, so why bother saving myself for it?
* * *
I didn’t have much time. My ears echoed with the sound of my heels rushing along the pavement, as I scanned the numbers on the door. My search had led me to Soho and a small warren of alleyways tucked behind Regent Street. I stayed true to my word and told Armand nothing of my detective work regarding Emily Bront?’s second novel. I made a decision that morning that I would stand by for the rest of my life: the work would always come first. However, I did ask him to suggest a dealer who might be familiar with bookshops that were no longer trading. Having spent an interesting morning in Mayfair, I was given the address of Brown’s Bookshop.
It was now a solicitor’s office, but I was reliably informed that the previous owners retained the flat above the shop. I knocked on the door for quite some time, before a middle-aged woman, dressed all in black, answered.
‘Mrs Brown?’ I hazarded a guess.
‘Yes,’ she replied, raising her head slightly to peer through the glasses that were sliding down her nose. ‘Do I know you?’
‘No, we are not acquainted and I am sorry to bother you, but I was hoping to speak to your husband. It’s concerning his bookshop and his aunt, Martha Brown.’
She smiled in a sorrowful way. ‘Oh, we haven’t had one of these for a while, have we, Reginald?’
There was no one there, but I assumed Reginald was upstairs, as she looked skywards.
‘One of what?’
‘A Bront? fan. Do come in,’ she invited, as it had begun to drizzle slightly. We climbed the stairs and came to a pretty little parlour room facing the street below. Every surface was covered with lace doilies but there wasn’t a book in sight. It was not a good start. I took the seat she offered me at a small round table in front of the fire.
‘We shall have tea,’ she called out again to some invisible person. Within minutes a young girl with sullen features carried in a tray with cups and saucers and a silver teapot.
‘Thank you,’ I said but received no response.
‘Well, she might look vexed. I will have to terminate her employment and go to live with my sister in Cornwall. I simply cannot afford to live here any longer,’ Mrs Brown pointed out, sadly.
Once a polite amount of time had passed, I enquired about Mr Brown and whether or not I could speak with him.
‘Oh but, my dear, you are a fortnight too late. My dearest Reginald passed away, in that very chair,’ she said, pointing to an armchair in the corner. ‘Hence the move to my sister’s.’
‘Ah, I see,’ I said, ruing my terrible timing. ‘I am very sorry for your loss, Mrs Brown, and I won’t take up any more of your time with my silly detective work.’
She bade me stay a little longer, at least until the rain eased up, as it had now turned into a torrential downpour.
‘Besides, I don’t get to talk very much about our old bookshop any more. I used to enjoy working there.’
‘Might I ask what happened to the stock? Did you sell everything?’
‘Everything that would interest one such as yourself I’m afraid. Oh, there were many dealers back then, keen to get their hands on anything related to the Bront? family. Even a book of birds belonging to the family!’ she cooed. ‘I mean, honestly, there comes a point where you have to draw a line.’
She had no idea who she was talking to! When it came to book scouts, there was no line. Anything that might relate to an author or their life was of interest. ‘Besides, if I had anything left to sell now, I would be only too happy to part with it. I will need all the funds I can muster at my age.’
Life was difficult for a woman on her own, I could appreciate that. I told her about my shop in Dublin and, as pathetic as it may sound, I revelled in her praise of my independence.
‘But now I really must go, reluctantly, Mrs Brown,’ I said, realising the time. I had to get the train back to Liverpool for the evening sailing.
‘Oh, I am sorry, you’ve come all this way hoping to find something and I have been of no help,’ she said, struggling up from her seat to see me out. ‘Wait a minute, perhaps I do have something you might fancy,’ she said, disappearing into another room. When she returned, she was carrying what looked like a little tin box.
‘We had it in the bookshop, but it never sold,’ she said, handing it to me.
‘What is it?’
‘An old sewing box, belonging to Charlotte.’
My eyes widened. I couldn’t believe I was holding one of her humble yet personal possessions in my hands, something she would have used daily. I lifted the lid, which revealed a neat row of threads in dark hues and an embroidered pin cushion with needles lodged snugly in.
‘According to my husband, who of course got it from Martha herself, it was Branwell who gifted it to Charlotte. Although Lord knows it wasn’t much of a gift! He was fond of the odd tipple, that one.’
I knew from my research that he was fond of quite a bit more, having struggled with both alcohol and drug addiction during his lifetime. I often wondered if Hindley Earnshaw’s chaotic descent into gambling and addiction in Wuthering Heights was based on Branwell, who often suffered delirium tremens while attempting to sober up.
‘Two pounds and it’s yours,’ she said.
In any other situation, I would have required proof of the provenance of such an item, but I decided to take it on faith. Besides, I thought how amusing it would be if in fact she were a swindler, selling me her own sewing box and passing it off as a Bront? collectable!
I handed her the money, which she said would go towards her retirement pot, and I set out on my journey back home to the anonymity of Dublin. Perhaps it was hypervigilance on my part, but in London, I could not shake the sickening sense of being watched.
* * *
It had been three months since my trip to England and even though I had not expected to hear from Armand, having my thoughts confirmed by the postman every morning was a little stinging. Still, I found a sense of fulfilment in my achievements and the success of my wonderful little shop, which, despite the growing number of books I stocked it with, seemed to find room to accommodate them. I had long suspected that something just beyond my comprehension was afoot, as though Mr Fitzpatrick had put a spell over the place. At night, when sleep stole away from me like a vanishing point, I would make some cocoa and sit on the floor of the shop, wrapped in a blanket. I was immediately soothed by that breathing sound I had heard since I was a child: the stories settling between the pages. Only now I could hear another sound. I shuffled over to one of the walls and, feeling a little foolish, put my ear to it. A soft creaking, like the boughs of a tree bending slightly in the breeze. I smiled to myself and often fell asleep like that, cradled in the corner of the dark green walls, wooden shelves with fluttering book leaves shimmering overhead.
* * *
When I awoke, it was still dawn and a peach light filtered through the windows. I’d had the most vivid dream, the kind that leaves you drenched in a feeling you can’t quite grasp the meaning behind. My father was listening to the books and smiling. Telling me to listen. I held one to my ear and heard a heartbeat. Then two; the second one lighter, quicker. And like an apple falling to the ground, understanding came to me all at once. I placed my hand on my stomach and felt a kick. I had not had my monthly courses since my return home and had put it down to travelling, or anything other than what it truly was. Now I felt the curve of my belly, it was real. A tear rolled down my cheek.
‘This will not be easy,’ I whispered, to myself or the shop. I wasn’t sure which. But I could not deny the joy that bubbled up inside of me. A baby. A baby! Conflicting emotions rushed through me all at once: fear, excitement, anxiety, gratitude. I felt too young, too incapable of becoming a mother, but I simultaneously relished the idea of having a family of my own.
I completely lost track of time as I idealised a very different future for myself. I opened the shop quite late that day but it felt as though it were the first day of my life. Everything was gilded in optimism and grounded in meaning. I saw each customer as the child they once were or the parent they would become. I saw us as all being connected, a universal family. And in the quieter moments, I pictured the life growing inside of me like a little rosebud; an unparalleled beauty that would make the world a brighter place merely by her presence in it. It was only when night fell that my glowing heart began to doubt itself. Reality crossed my threshold in the form of Matthew, coming to collect the rent. I had to tell him. In another month or so he would see for himself. In another six months, there would be two of us living here. It all suddenly felt quite weighty. What would he think of me now?
I wished the shop could close in around us and keep us safe, keep the world outside. I wished we could hide within these walls for ever.