The Book Collector

by Alice Thompson

  She nodded. ‘Of course.’

  ‘I’m afraid I have to inform you that women have been disappearing from the nearby asylum.’

  She felt sick, disheartened. She nodded. She couldn’t mention her hallucination of Betsy’s body in the field. They would put her back in the asylum. Take Felix away from her.

  ‘You haven’t seen anything suspicious in the area. Heard anything in the village?’ A sudden thought struck her. Had someone sent the detective to her, to trick her into mentioning her delusion?

  ‘I don’t really go out much.’

  Adrenaline was pouring though her.

  ‘And what time does your husband usually come home?’

  ‘About nine.’

  ‘That’s quite late.’ He sat down in Archie’s chair.

  ‘He works very hard.’

  She didn’t tell him about the nights he disappeared.

  Why wasn’t he writing anything down, she wondered? He was one of those people with a good memory. He didn’t have to do anything but sit there and watch her. She felt almost overcome by his intelligence as if it was part of his sexuality. But she knew she had an intelligence to match his. She often noticed it was only when we shared the same qualities that we recognised them in other people. Kind people recognised kindness in others. Unkind people saw kindness as a weakness to be exploited. Violet had always been slow to recognise malice.

  ‘Children?’

  ‘We have one son, Felix.’

  He had a quality of listening absolutely to her as if he was taking in every word she said. She had to be careful. She thought. What was wrong with her, this odd susceptibility to an utter stranger? He was just presenting a version of himself, just doing his job.

  ‘Servants?’

  ‘Yes, and our nanny, Clara. But she is like one of the family.’

  She felt oddly displaced now; the stress had depleted her. If only she could find the book. She knew it would have all the answers, this book of fairy tales. But there was a look in his eyes, drawing her in. She should know better by now, she thought, not to be drawn in by someone’s perceptiveness. It was her undoing.

  ‘But one of our books has gone missing from the safe.’ She was taking a risk saying this, of unintended consequences, but she wanted him to find it.

  ‘A book?’

  ‘A book of fairy tales.’

  ‘Ah. Valuable?’

  ‘Very. First edition.’

  He was still lounging in Archie’s armchair. His long legs dangled like a grasshopper’s. His face was impassive, except for those eyes. They were still staring at her.

  ‘Would you like me to do a quick search of her room?’ asked the detective.

  She felt her face flushing.

  She looked out of the window to see Clara wheeling the pram outside.

  ‘That would be very kind of you.’

  She gave him directions to Clara’s room, but he came back a few minutes later with his hands empty.

  ‘Can you think of any reason the book may have gone missing?’

  His tweed suit looked soft, she thought. Cuddly clothes, she thought, for someone not very cuddly.

  ‘Just that the book is valuable.’

  ‘Well, we’ll check the bookshops. See if it’s been handed over as stolen goods. We’ll ask around the village.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  She suddenly thought, he’s not interested in this at all. He doesn’t care. And why should he – when women are going missing? She shook herself, as if trying to shake off this image of what she had become, a ghost, a woman covered in cobwebs, a woman who no longer inhabited her own life but trespassed over it.

  That evening, having dinner with Archie, she looked at his face for clues. She knew that if she asked about the missing book he would tell her more of his white lies. She would have lost whatever advantages she had, the power of her secret knowledge. As long as she had this power he wouldn’t be able to bamboozle her with the plausibility of his deception. He looked the same. And again she wondered, is this an act? Is this all an act? How real are you, Archie?

  Chapter 25

  SHE NEEDED TO find out about the provenance of the book. She decided to go back to the bookshop. She dressed in a simple grey dress but she put up her hair, and painted her lips deep plum. She did this without thinking but her heart was beating faster. She did not like to think why she wanted to make an impression on him. Taking that first step along the path to betrayal, that inevitable, tiny innocent step, which contained the seed of corruption within it.

  She entered the shop, and the opening door set off the ringing of the bell. The young man was standing by one of the shelves. He was putting a book back on the shelf and looked round at her when he heard the bell. When he saw her he didn’t smile, but finished putting the book back on the shelf and came towards her.

  ‘Can I help?’

  ‘I wonder if you might have been sold a book of fairy tales, recently. A first edition?’

  He shook his head but after a slight hesitation. Was he lying? He looked at her laconically.

  He was beautiful, she thought, more beautiful than her, with his golden hair, his face flushed, like a lion, she thought. Be brave, she said to herself, be brave. But as she looked at him she realised that it wasn’t just up to her. He had to be brave, too. And that didn’t seem to be possible. And perhaps that was for the best. Safer. To stay on either side of the chasm. Not looking down and not trying to cross, the wind blowing in their hair. She touched one of the books. She touched the leather.

  His dark eyes, almost black, were full of fear and she wondered if her own dark ones were too. What were they scared of? Of desire leaving a shell of good intentions behind itself. Why take that risk? It would be mad. This desire for a future to be different from the one taken by default. She wanted him to embrace her, to take charge, have the courage of his conviction. But he didn’t, he remained hesitant and they were left standing on either side of a chasm of possibility, staring at each other in disbelief.

  She finally leaned forward and touched her lips with his. He stood there not responding but nor did he move back. She kissed him harder, her teeth clashing against his, and he brought his arms behind her and pulled her in close. Still kissing, they staggered into the narrow corridor and he brought her to the floor between the towering piles of books on either side.

  ‘Do you remember me?’ she whispered. ‘Do you remember me?’

  She lifted up her dress and climbed on top of him. His hands fumbled for her breasts beneath the folds of cloth. She was gasping with desire. She felt him hard between her legs before he entered her.

  ‘I remember you,’ he replied. She could see his face crease, as if in pain, before he came. He then buried his head in her chest, wanting to recover himself, not wanting to see her, or her to see him. He finally looked up at her, grateful. Men were so grateful, she thought, when it came to sex.

  ‘I’m looking for the book of fairy tales,’ she repeated. ‘Have you seen it? It’s dedicated to Rose.’ The sex had loosened him, she could see. He thought she had given him something, so it was his turn now to return the favour.

  They took a carriage into the centre of London. She felt more intimate with him in the little hansom, within its dark walls on hard seats, than she had when fucking him. She could see the lights flashing past, hear the sound of the hooves on the cobblestones. You could be truly intimate without speaking, she thought. There were no false promises, hurtful words. Histories could be rewritten and dreams realised.

  It was an expensive restaurant in West London, a cavernous space with candlelight and modern décor of stained glass windows and wooden panelling. It seemed transparent, reflective and glittering. It was like being in a house made of glass, and it rendered Violet angelic and impatient. Walking into the restaurant, he didn’t hold open the door for her. She felt this was deliberate in some way, a kind of resistance to being in her power, even if only within the deceptive rules of social etiquette. The head
waiter then led them to a table in the centre of the room. They ordered from the menu. He had structural hands, she noticed, and those wide-apart black eyes, and that sneaky, mocking mouth.

  After their first course was brought he started to eat. She waited a while before bringing out of her purse the photograph she had taken from the album of Lavinia and Archie together.

  ‘Do you know who she is?’

  He looked at the photograph she showed him. ‘She is a bookbinder.’

  Were they now bound together in their betrayal of Archie? Would he have to tell her everything?

  ‘She binds rare books made of special leather. They are rare. There are collectors who value them more than anything. Books bound in a unique way.’

  ‘They are bound for someone who has died?’

  ‘Of course. A loved one, a lost daughter, son or uncle or husband. Lavinia is the most respected bookbinder in London. Her work is exquisite, each stitch done by her hand. These collectors are cultured people of huge intellect.’

  ‘Do they have to be wealthy?’

  ‘It certainly helps.’

  ‘The fairy tale book is dedicated to Rose,’ she repeated.

  ‘She loved fairy tales.’ There was a softness to his voice. Violet looked up, startled. The thought recurred to her that he had been infatuated by Rose. Were those tears in his eyes, or just the reflection of the candlelight? Had he found Violet attractive only because of her physical similarity to Rose? A terrible feeling of uncertainty welled up inside her about what was real and what was not.

  He swiftly changed the subject. ‘So what is Archie like as a husband?’

  She didn’t reply. She felt the need to protect Archie, that somehow he might fall into danger if she said anything about him at all.

  ‘Violet?’ He spoke so softly she only just heard him.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Just leave this alone. It won’t be worth it. You have a good life. You love your husband. Forget about this stupid book. Forget about Lavinia. You won’t learn anything new from her.’ He spoke so insistently. Who is he protecting, she wondered? Was it himself? ‘Don’t rock the boat.’

  ‘But look at the photo of Lavinia with him! She looks like she has some kind of hold over him.’

  ‘You have too much imagination.’

  She looked at him. She was aware that tendrils of her hair had fallen loose from where her hair had been tied up. She felt tired, but she now also felt sure.

  ‘It’s because I love him that I need to find out.’

  ‘I will give you her address, if you want, but it will only be trouble. Heartache.’

  ‘So it’s better to remain happy and ignorant like a pig.’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’

  ‘Not to me. I’ve never been scared of pain.’

  But she was lying. She had married to avoid pain. She had lost herself in the arcadian countryside to avoid pain. Her whole married life had been a carefully constructed edifice to avoid pain. And it had worked well. Until she fell ill. She had once been content. Any dissatisfaction she had had with her marriage had been buried so deeply she had been hardly aware of it. Hadn’t her life to all intents and purposes been perfect? She had been privileged and protected like a pig in a diamond-encrusted pigsty lined with red velvet cushions. She had never envisaged a different future. It had all been mapped out, unconsciously and inevitably.

  And now she felt scared. Scared of what was happening. She would forget what had happened between her and the book assistant. It was nothing to do with her real life. She wanted to heal these cracks, these fissures that were spreading out over her life. Lacquer them over. Pretend they weren’t happening. ‘The truth will set you free’ came into her head and then she quickly supressed it. She didn’t want to know the truth. She didn’t need her freedom. She was happy as she was.

  ‘We have to live with uncertainty,’ he said. ‘Your search for this book is an obsession because you can’t live without knowing everything.’

  He was right, she thought. This is the product of my illness. My hallucinations have led me down this road. But because of the delusions it is now so important for me to find out what is real.

  She stood up. ‘I’m so sorry, I’ve got to go.’

  He remained sitting, nonchalant.

  ‘I’m sorry you have to leave,’ he said. ‘But I understand.’

  She staggered from the restaurant in a dream. She had to find somewhere quiet, be on her own, this was all so overwhelming. She discovered a small hotel in Bloomsbury and booked herself in, trying to ignore the porter’s disapproving stares over how she was travelling alone.

  Chapter 26

  THE ADDRESS THE bookshop assistant had given her for Lavinia was in Belgravia. Violet took a carriage to the house. It was a large white stucco house in a grand square overlooking the gardens. She rang the bell.

  A butler opened the shiny black door.

  Violet stared at him, not quite knowing what to say.

  ‘She is expecting you,’ he said.

  So, the man from the bookshop had let Lavinia know she was coming.

  The butler led her up the wide staircase to the drawing room on the first floor. It was a large ornate room that overlooked the park with a heavy, intense, sweet smell that Violet couldn’t quite place. The room was empty. She turned round to look for the butler but he had disappeared, having slipped out again quietly. She sat down in one of the plush velvet armchairs that enveloped her in its luxuriant softness. She tried to sit up straight.

  The room was dense and opulent, full of heavy furnishings with deep purple colours and dark mahogany furniture. It was clearly demonstrative of a certain taste and sensibility. Someone of a very dominant personality, she thought, with wealth – whether inherited or not she didn’t know. It was carefully constructed to look inherited, but she knew of people who bought the interiors of old country homes wholesale and recreated them in their London flats.

  The thick dark red Persian carpet with its geometric design suggested a puzzle to the room that needed to be solved. The heavy book shelves were laden with leather bound books, carefully ordered. There was no dust anywhere, which gave the impression of the room being a stage set rather than actually lived in.

  Stuffed animals stared at her from behind glass cases: weasels and wild cats with glassy eyes. A fox’s hair was short and bristly, his nose pointed. He looked alert, but for the fact he was dead. A stuffed heron stood in the corner, its feathers dry and lustreless. On the table was a list of books – with various numbers next to each one. They were all on arcane subjects: astrology, fishing, taxidermy and human anatomy.

  Violet began to feel uneasy in the room, unsettled by its mixture of carefully ordered ostentation and the neatly lined books, as if she were in a construct of someone’s manipulative mind.

  She could hear music being played in the distance, the resonant persistent sound of a harpsichord, the music running in on itself, a perpetual echoing of itself. She heard footsteps and the sound of the door being opened.

  Violet took an instant dislike to the woman who was entering the room. She had straight dark hair that fell about an immobile face that would have been attractive with its small symmetrical features if it had not been for the staring, angry look in her eyes which made them as hard and glaring as those of her stuffed animals. She was draped in silks and smelled of incense, and Violet thought she would have made a plausible belly dancer or the wife of a wealthy baron. As Lavinia glided across the room, in her silk dress, her heavy gold and silver bangles jangled. Not only did she make her presence felt with her heavy pungent scent and billowy clothes that wafted around her but also with the clash of her jewellery as she moved her arms.

  Violet watched from her chair, as Lavinia took out a book from a bookshelf and caressed its cover with her bejewelled fingers. The bangles clanged again. Her small but pouty mouth was pursed. Her scent wafted over Violet, invading her nostrils.

  ‘They are beautiful objects, are they not?
’ She opened up a book at the flyleaf. Signed copies are the best. The inky residue of an author’s genius.’

  Violet looked around at the stuffed animals. They all seemed to be staring at her with the same watchful eyes as Lavinia. She noticed the name of the taxidermist on a small wooden panel engraved on each one: Lavinia Dryden.

  Lavinia brought the book up to her nose and smelled it, flicked through the ancient thick ivory pages with faded print, the anatomy drawings of naked men and women. She weighed the book in her hand like a man weighing a woman’s breast.

  ‘Do you like books, Lady Murray?’ Lavinia asked.

  ‘Just to read,’ Violet said.

  ‘A mistake. A very big mistake. A poorly bound book disintegrates. Where would our learning be then? We need something permanent, solid. We need to treat words with the respect they are due. Treasure them. Adorn the books that contain these words with leather bindings, illuminate their words with gold. We shouldn’t treat learning lightly.’

  ‘But I would treat a word scrawled on a scrap of paper with the same respect as one written on an illuminated manuscript.’

  ‘Then you are an unusual person. And very different from your husband.’ Lavinia’s mottled hands with thick fingers still held the book tightly. She handled the book expertly and again Violet was reminded of a lover manipulating a woman’s body for his own pleasure. And then, as if breaking a spell, Lavinia quickly shut the book and put it on an occasional table, as if only then aware that she had been lost in reverie.

  ‘So, what do you want?’ Lavinia asked abruptly. It was more like a command.

  ‘I hear you bind books.’

  ‘Who did you hear that from?’ She used questions as a method of attack.

  ‘From a friend. I think he told you to expect me.’

  Lavinia gave the most ugly smile Violet had ever seen, full of anger and insolence. Lavinia was still standing in the middle of the room, her personality so strong and furious that she seemed unaware of where either of them were.