Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Thomas took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders. He stared at the door as if a ferocious beast lay beyond it. A mighty dragon he was determined to slay.
“Alright, Thomas Antony, you can do this. Don’t freak out.” He stepped forward and slid his fingers along the inside of the shelf the way Cameron had shown him a week earlier. When Thomas felt the lever, he pulled, then flinched slightly at the loud click.
Slowly, the door opened. The first time he’d done this, the darkness had been detrimental. Now, it all felt so anticlimactic. Even the hinges were well oiled, so it didn’t creak as it swung wider.
“Of course there’s no creaky doors,” Thomas remarked aloud, smirking. “Not in Lord Ashford’s perfectly maintained home.” Prepared for the small space and the darkness, he ignored it and stepped to the edge of the threshold, then probed along the wall for the light switch.
“Ah.” There was a panel with two dials. One was a small lever, and beneath it, a button. Thomas tried the lever first, gently lifting it. The electric firelights gradually warmed in their fanciful iron sconces. “A dimmer switch. Brilliant.”
He played with it for a moment, turning the fake candles to full bright then lowering them to give the cylindrical stairwell a more romantic atmosphere.
The damask wallpaper was a lush, dusky blue and shiny silver.
Thomas stepped up to examine the walls more closely and realized the design was a pattern of woodland deer with their antlers elegantly swirling.
Thomas took hold of the chilly iron railing and cautiously descended the stairwell. He’d been thinking about this for the past week and had wanted to see it again. First, to conquer his unforeseen fear. Second, to simply revel in this wonderfully eccentric design choice.
He’d wanted to know the location of the second door that led out into the lower library.
After his episode, he’d been too embarrassed to ask Cameron about it, and too nervous to poke around on his own to find it.
He knew that as soon as he tried, Lennon would inevitably walk in at just the right moment to catch him sneaking about and report it back to Cameron.
Thomas reached the bottom of the stairwell and was surprised to find a neat line of eye-level bookshelves with glass doors built into the walls of the circular landing. Aesthetically, it was yet another interesting feature within the already charming stairwell.
“Why keep books in here, though?” Thomas wondered as he stepped up to one of the clandestine shelves.
He scanned and noted the first title that caught his interest. Ulysses by James Joyce.
Curious, Thomas opened the small glass door.
A bright recess light tucked within the top of the space flickered on to further illuminate the colorful spines.
He pinched the upper part of Ulysses to pull it off the shelf, but then he paused. “Is this… It can’t be…”
Carefully, he edged the book into his palms. The outer wrapping was unquestionably a fine paper. Arches paper? The texture was light and fragile. When he turned it over, there were minor creases along the spine.
“Is this a first edition?” Beside himself, he slipped the delicate manuscript back into its slot.
He scanned further and found a copy of The Happy Prince and Other Tales by Oscar Wilde.
He gently slid it out of its slot, and this one was also delicate and worn, with some slight soiling and foxing from oxidation to the end pages.
Thomas opened the book and almost choked.
There was a signature just inside the title page. Oscar Wilde’s signature.
“Thomas?”
Thomas yelped but kept a steady hand on the precious manuscript. “Y-yes?” He looked up and saw Cameron peeking down at him through the gaps in the staircase.
“Are you alright?” he called.
“I’m alright,” he said, closing and slipping the book back into its slot.
“I’m coming up.” He turned to go back up the stairs, tarried, then turned back.
The door to the lower library was just beside him, so he opened it, then peeked out and into the room.
As he suspected, it was in the back corner, similar to the door upstairs.
Satisfied, he pulled it shut, then made his way back up the staircase.
He expected Cameron to be at the top, waiting for him to explain himself, but when he reached the second floor, the door was wide open and Lord Ashford wasn’t there.
Thomas turned off the light, re-secured the bookcase and followed the narrow pathways back to the main open area of the room.
The battered (but undeniably comfortable) couch was awash in pale yellow sunlight.
Cameron sat on the ornate rug with his long legs folded, a stack of papers set in front of him.
He wore a thick navy-blue knitted cardigan with round wooden buttons and suede elbow patches over his polo, which told Thomas that his lordship wasn’t planning on leaving the estate today.
The air around his sturdy form radiated with heat, spice and honey.
Cameron looked up and the sunlight caught his hazel eyes. Not for the first time, Thomas noticed the flecks of green there. “Good morning,” he said.
“Morning,” Thomas greeted him, moving closer. Cameron’s very presence was discreetly inviting, whether the man intended it or not (Thomas figured not). “I wasn’t snooping… well, not on purpose.”
“I didn’t think that you were. Should I be worried about such things? Is this a warning?”
Thomas shook his head. “No, it isn’t. The stairwell is beautiful, like the rest of your home.”
“Thank you. I’m fond of the way it turned out.”
“I saw the built-in glass cases lining the lower portion of the stairwell. You have a first-edition copy of Ulysses.”
“I do,” Cameron said as he resumed sorting.
“And a signed copy of The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde.”
“And a signed copy of An Ideal Husband, although it isn’t worth nearly as much.”
Thomas stood with his mouth agape, blinking and simply watching the confounding, unbothered man busily organizing papers in the middle of the ornate rug. When Thomas didn’t speak for a beat too long, Cameron stopped again and looked up at him, his expression serious.
“Thomas, are you alright?”
“Please explain yourself, sir.”
“Explain what, exactly?”
“Why do you have these rare and priceless books in your possession?”
“Not priceless,” Cameron said, still giving Thomas his full attention.
“They all have a price. When I was young, I dabbled in rare books—buying, selling, auctioning, trading. I enjoyed the treasure hunt aspect of it, but not the business and transactional part. Not the negotiating, the lying and the scheming. The counterfeit books and phony sellers. I quickly realized I did not have the patience for the people aspect of it.”
“You’re still young.” Thomas stepped over a box, past several stacks of files, and sat in the small square of empty space across the carpet from him. “Did you travel to acquire these editions?”
“I did, when I was eighteen. To Paris and Calais a few times. London and Berlin once. When it became clear that the estate and its responsibilities were being thrust upon me, I stopped. I have a friend who’s a rare bookseller with his own shop in Calais.
When he has the time, he assists me with indulging in my frivolous hobby. ”
“I am amazed, truly,” Thomas said, folding his legs. “Is there a book within your collection that you cherish above the others?”
Traveling to major international cities and being the owner of a rare-book collection might have been something Thomas had fantasized about in his previous life.
His existence before the failed elopement and subsequent imprisonment.
If he and Dawn had made it to London as planned, maybe he would have learned the trade and opened his own shop, eventually.
Yet again, he felt slightly envious of Lord Ashford.
“Hm,” Cameron pondered, folding his arms over his broad chest. “I have a fully illustrated first edition of Austen’s Pride and Prejudice that is known as the ‘peacock edition.’ The cover is fashioned in golden gilt on Victorian pictorial cloth.
It’s stunning. I also treasure the copy of Ulysses because it, too, is a first edition and one of only seven hundred and fifty originals printed on handmade paper by Shakespeare and Company. ”
“Amazing.” Thomas rested his hands in his lap, wholly enthralled. “Have you read Ulysses?”
“Not that edition, but yes, of course. Have you?”
“I have, once, and then a second time. The first time I was young and perhaps… ill prepared for it.”
“What do you mean?”
Looking up at the ceiling as if the words he wanted to convey were painted there, Thomas considered for a moment.
“Joyce’s experimentation with language and style was jarring for me as a novice reader.
The novel has eighteen chapters, and thus is written in eighteen unique styles—some of which were interesting and unique, and others, frankly, impossible for me to comprehend. ”
Cameron nodded, his arms still folded. “Agreed, it is a challenging text, for certain. Joyce attempts to explore and communicate the human experience in as many literary techniques as possible. If you read his later works, he still plays with convention and language, but with more clarity.”
“I haven’t read his other works yet,” Thomas confessed.
“But after my second read of Ulysses, I realized that the point was not necessarily what is written within its pages, but how it is written. That perhaps Joyce wanted to dispel the notion that stories must be conveyed in one, consistent way. To challenge conventional thinking and the status quo surrounding storytelling.”
“Again, we are in agreement,” Cameron said, regarding Thomas intently. “What are your thoughts on the book overall?”
Thomas chuckled. “Who am I to give an opinion on what is considered one of the most significant works in modernist literature?”