Chapter 10
There was no reason to upset her sisters, Olivia thought as she climbed the stairs to her third-floor office. She was unsettled
enough, not just from the knowledge of what had been left in their throwaway box, but from the understanding of what would
happen to them if it was ever found in their possession. Because not only was Sappho considered a great poetess, but she wrote
sensuous love poems—and if you believed the New Comedy poets, they were love poems to other women.
When she reached the third floor, she paused to catch her breath, breath that she must have been holding for the entire climb.
She unlocked the door and slipped inside, then braced herself against the back of the door.
This was her floor. Her work—her life—unfolded here. Her place for only the most serious and wealthy clients and the rarest
books. The walls were covered in a dark mahogany wainscoting framed with intricately carved friezes of fruits and birds. More
appropriate for an old elaborate library than a working bindery, which was encased behind another wainscoted wall toward the
back of the building.
Her grandfather had been no fool. He’d bought the architectural trappings from an old downtown mansion being torn down and sold for scrap. His first love was for antiquarian books; his second love was for selling them, and to sell successfully he required the finest surroundings.
Olivia sometimes felt guilty when she thought of her sisters downstairs, toiling in the dust and musty smell of old books,
but not often. They had their whole lives before them. At twenty-four, Olivia’s chances of a life outside the bookstore were
growing dim, but not as dim as her sight would be in a few years, becoming dimmer and dimmer until total darkness took over.
She would grow old and blind here. Her sisters would be free.
Her hands tightened on the manuscript. She pushed away from the door, walked past the client parlor and office where deals
were made, where great art and literature passed hands for the handsome, sometimes exorbitant, sums that kept a roof over
their heads, food on the table, and a little pocket money available for small pleasures.
She walked as if a somnambulist past the glass display cases of rare books, past the wall cabinets where the more expensive
volumes were kept free of dust and humidity, until she came to the wall that separated her workroom from the rest of the third
floor. She opened the door, paused to look over this second space, also with dark wood wainscoting. Worktables and special
lights, one area set up for binding and restoration, another for translations, and behind another door, a third area, her
personal office—the Inner Sanctum, as her sisters teased.
This floor was hers, and if these pieces of equipment were old and not nearly as precise as the equipment she had used in her too-short time at the Met, they were hers.
This is where she spent most of her time, did all of her work, and waited for the dark future.
It was all so tenuous. Dependent on being able to acquire material that could compete with the other sellers of rare books.
She’d done okay so far. First as an oddity—a female rare-books expert—then begrudgingly respected.
But it couldn’t go on forever. Not with her eyes clouding over slowly—she had some good years left, the doctors said—but quickly
or slowly her eyes would grow dimmer, inexorably until she wouldn’t be able to see the world, much less the small print and
archaic illustrations that her talent depended on. This manuscript, once locked away behind the brick wall of the original
building, secure in a second hidden safe, could, if authentic, end the need for frugality. It would ensure their future. One
big sale.
She pressed onward, walking between the worktables, where several volumes lay in various stages of restoration, all covered
with a protective glass housing.
This would be the hardest part. Already her fingers were gripping the bundle of papers as if someone was trying to wrest them
from her. The temptation to brush aside the other volumes and give their place to this new find was nearly overwhelming.
When she reached the wall, she let her hand run over the carved frieze, her fingers tracing the valleys between the fruit,
the tail of a peacock, until she came to the place between the stem of the pear and the crease of the leaf.
Still, she hesitated, as if she were balanced on a ledge above a dark chasm, the rock crumbling beneath her feet. Afraid to
go forward, knowing soon it would be too late to go back. And for what?
A single press in just the right place. She heard the inevitable click and the panel sprang open. It took all her might to pull the heavy door open just wide enough to duck her head and step through, her free hand going unerringly to the light switch.
The light flickered to life slowly from back to front, in a wave to each side, revealing a brick corridor no more than eight
feet wide, just the width of a horse path. At one end of the hall was a metal door nearly as wide as the corridor itself.
She walked toward it, her footsteps echoing around her, then pulled a ring of keys from her pocket, their jangle sounding
uncannily loud.
It took all her strength to pull the door open. It took all her courage to step inside.
Now that the mysterious poetry fragments had been removed from danger, Celia turned her mind to her own predicament. She needed
to send a message to her team coordinator that she no longer had access to a printer, and, until she found another source,
they would have to send material elsewhere.
As Olivia rounded the second-floor landing on her way upstairs, Celia checked the rest of the throwaway books and found no
bookmarks or messages of any kind. She wasn’t surprised. It would have been dangerous to approach anywhere near the shop last
night. There were no book donations that she could use. After such a rare discovery, everything else paled by comparison.
Still, she kept two histories.
Had Selena and Jon gotten word of the raid? Had Yannis contacted them? And what about the others who used the press? Did they
even know about Yannis’s decision not to print anymore? Or had it just been Celia who was pushed out of the loop?
Another wave of anxiety shot through her.
Could he really blame her and her alone?
How could he think so little of her? He had his family to worry about.
She had hers. Which just proved why she would be especially careful.
She knew she wasn’t the leak, but if Yannis thought so, he might be less careful with the others.
But if not her, then who? She sank onto the stool behind the cash register, feeling all the weight of recent history.
She’d just have to be patient, something that she wasn’t very good at.
She got up, pushed the carts outside, then took a minute to go next door and peer through the glass of the printshop. Nothing
had changed. Not a sign anyone had been there.
If she didn’t get word by Monday, she would just take the pamphlets herself—except the pamphlets were still hidden in the
basement of the printshop, unless Yannis had remembered to put them outside as he’d promised. Either way, she would have to
make the trip down to the Settlement House and explain that she could provide no more pamphlets until she could find a new
willing printer. It was so depressing.
She went back in for the throwaway box and brought it out. Then she just stood looking out at the avenue. The usual traffic,
pedestrian and vehicular, had resumed, as if nothing had happened, but beneath the activity, the street still showed signs
from the near riot the night before. Celia fussed over the carts while she searched the ground for any stray paper that might
be a message for her and had somehow fallen out of a book in the scuffle. She was so involved in the search that she jumped
when Daphne stuck her head out the door and said, “There you are! We haven’t even had breakfast. And I have to change into
my day dress.”
“I’m sorry. You go up and eat, and dress. I’ll watch the shop until you get back.”
Daphne gave Celia’s dress a disapproving look, then headed somewhat defiantly toward the elevator.
“Can you please bring me down some bread and cheese. I’ll eat down here.”
As soon as the elevator started its ascent, Celia raced through the store to the back door, let herself out, and made a beeline
for the trash bins, hoping that Yannis had remembered to put the unfinished pamphlets in the bin as promised, in spite of
his anger.
They were there, and she thanked Yannis for his loyalty, even if he was mad at her. She hid the pages in the usual place and,
smoothing her skirts, strode back to the front.
Celia was just a few minutes late opening. Daphne came downstairs looking fresh and perfectly kempt, unlike Celia, who was
already exhausted and the workday was just beginning. She took her breakfast to the back. She was just returning to the shop
when she heard a familiar voice. She groaned.
It was impossible to mistake it or the back of Mr. Delereux’s pomaded hair. “I’d like a word with Miss Olivia.”
“Please,” he added when Daphne just stood there, smiling. He’d obviously caught her off guard.
“Of course, I’ll just call upstairs.” She fled to the shop office.
While he waited for her return, Mr. Delereux didn’t look around, or riffle through Arcadia’s summer catalogue. He merely looked
out the window, as if nothing on this floor could possibly interest him. Celia conveniently slipped back into the hallway.
Daphne hurried out of the office. “I’m sorry, Mr. Delereux, she seems to have stepped out.”
“Hmmph,” he said, adjusting his shoulders as if his jacket didn’t fit properly. “I imagine she is avoiding me. Over a little
nonsense. Tell her I am still interested in”—he lowered his voice—“The Decameron.”
“I’ll be sure to tell her.” Daphne smiled, and Mr. Delereux took his leave.