“Fran. Please call me Fran,” she said. “I’d like to think that, too, but I’m not so sure. Not sure at all.”
Leaving Fran, who had already begun to reset the plants she had dug up in her fury, Charlotte continued on through the herb garden to the house, which stood at the far end of the garden. It was a rambling old Victorian structure with porches jutting off in every direction. They were furnished with a variety of rocking chairs, gliders, and porch swings designed for nothing other than being idle. It was a house built in the brief era when all was possible—the confident, optimistic era before resources and time were scarce, the era in which there was leisure for pleasant conversation, for reading a book on a breezy veranda, or for watching the sun sparkle on the distant bay.
Before the millionaires had made Bridge Harbor fashionable it had been the quiet summer retreat of artists, intellectuals, and writers who were attracted by its natural beauty. They had built modest cottages like Ledge House, where they pursued the simple pleasures of sketching, canoeing, and hiking. The natives had nicknamed them rusticators. No doubt Thornhill was a relic of this genteel tradition, Charlotte thought. If so, the idea of a hotel and nightclub on Gilley Island must be as distasteful to him as the thought of girlie magazines on display at Widener Library.
Following a path leading around the side of the house, she emerged at a terrace at the rear. From a balustrade topped with urns of pink geraniums she could see a carefully manicured lawn bordered by tall spruces. At the foot of the lawn stood the gazebo at the summit of the Ledges. Beyond the gazebo lay the channel and the town of Bridge Harbor. On a warm and sunny June afternoon, the feeling was heavenly, like being on a cloud two hundred feet or more above the water.
A table shaded by a yellow umbrella and elegantly set with blue and white Chinese export porcelain stood in the center of the terrace. Around the table sat the guests. With the exception of Fran, it was the same group as the previous evening. Charlotte greeted Thornhill and the other guests, and took a seat.
“Felix and I were just talking about the psychology of book collecting,” said Thornhill as he mixed Charlotte’s drink. “Felix was saying that the drive to collect begins with bibliophilia—the love of books—and progresses to bibliomania, which is an incurable disease.”
“Why incurable?” asked Daria.
“Because the bibliomaniac is never satisfied,” replied Felix. “There is always another book that he must add to his collection. And—fortunately for the dealer—the more unique or unattainable a book is, the more he wants it.”
“Then the real motivation is greed,” observed John.
“Ja. Sometimes uncontrollable greed.”
“Now wait a minute,” protested Thornhill. “I must take issue with you there, Felix. Surely the collector is also motivated by the desire to take a part—however small—in the cultural heritage of mankind. The book collector is, after all, on a higher plane than the beer can collector.”
“Ja, this is true. The interest of the book collector is in culture, just as the interest of the philatelist is in geography or the interest of the numismatist is in currencies. Or the interest of the beer can collector is in breweries. But the basic instinct—the drive to possess—is the same.”
“Then, what produces the instinct?” asked Daria.
“Aha,” said Felix, raising a manicured forefinger. “That is a question for the psychiatrist, not for the book dealer.”
“The Freudians would say it’s an expression of the need to control,” said John. “A manifestation of the anal retentive personality.”
“I daresay you know more about it than I do,” Felix replied. “But in that case, Homo sapiens is not the only species to exhibit the anal retentive personality. Why do magpies carry off trinkets, or dogs bury bones? No, the collecting instinct is very basic.” He paused to refill his glass and then proceeded to empty half of it in a single swallow. “And very potent. The lengths to which a collector will go to acquire a book are legendary.”
Thornhill handed Charlotte her drink, and seated himself at the head of the table. “I sense one of Felix’s biblioanecdotes coming on,” he said, adding, “My good friend here is the greatest book raconteur in the world.”
Felix smiled smugly. “I am glad you say the world, my dear Herr Professor.” He turned back to the others. “Ja, there have been many cases of book collectors—how do you say in English?—going off the rails. Murder has even been committed for a book.”
Thornhill nodded. “The story of Don Vincente.”
Felix proceeded to tell the tale with great skill. It involved a Spanish monk named Don Vincente who coveted a book that was said to be the only one of its kind. When the book came up for sale at auction, he staked his life’s savings on it, but was outbid by a rival. Shortly afterward, the rival died in a fire and the collection was destroyed. The prize volume, however, mysteriously found its way into Don Vincente’s collection. When the authorities learned of this, he was tried for murder. In a heroic effort to save him, his lawyer tracked down another copy of the volume in a Paris library. The lawyer argued that since more than one copy of the book existed, it was impossible to prove that Don Vincente’s book was the one in question.
“But on hearing this,” Felix concluded, “Don Vincente broke down. ‘Alas,’ he cried. ‘My copy is not unique.’ You see, he didn’t care about the consequences, he only cared about possessing the one book that no one else could ever hope to own.”
For a moment there was silence as they contemplated the fate of Don Vincente, who, Felix added, was hanged for murder.
“But,” said Charlotte, “doesn’t it take more than this drive to possess to build an outstanding book collection? I should think it would take a great deal of intelligence and taste. After all, anyone can accumulate books, but not everyone can build a great collection.”
Felix looked at her, his eyebrows raised like circumflexes above his lively hazel eyes. “This is true, meine gnädige Frau,” he said. “May I compliment you on your perspicacity. The act of collecting is a game. In the words of one of the great collectors: ‘After love, the most exhilarating game of all.’ Nicht wahr, Herr Professor?”
Thornhill, who was lighting his pipe, chuckled at the reference to his impending marriage.
“Like any game, it requires attributes such as skill, cunning, perseverance, patience, and boldness.”
“Then, skill is more important than money,” said Daria.
“Absolutely. Our dear host is a case in point. From his youth, he has been a collector of—how shall I put it?—uncommon daring. He has assembled one of the finest privately owned botanical collections in the country. A remarkable achievement for a man who, although wealthy, to be sure, has never possessed the vast wealth of the other great collectors of his generation.”
“Thank you, my good man,” said Thornhill, basking in the compliment. “But I never could have done it without your guidance.”
“Not true,” said Felix. “Our dear host possesses all the skills of the great book collector. I will give you an example. For years, our host was known in the book-collecting world as the arch-rival of another of this century’s greatest collectors, Charles W. MacMillan.”
The name rang a bell with Charlotte—MacMillan was the reclusive heir to a New England brass and copper fortune.
“Mr. MacMillan was a man of tremendous wealth, and yet our dear host has assembled a collection that is every bit the equal of his. The MacMillan collection today forms the foundation of the world-renowned botanical library of the New York Botanical Society.”
“My collection is a damn sight more than the equal of his,” interjected Thornhill testily. “It surpasses his any day.”
“My apologies, my dear Herr Professor,” said Felix. “I will correct myself: the Thornhill collection as it stands today surpasses the MacMillan collection as it stood at the time of Mr. MacMillan’s death.”
Charlotte sensed a sardonic edge to Felix’s voice, but she could have
been wrong. She had a tendency to read meanings into words that weren’t there, a product of the actor’s eye for detail combined with her own overactive imagination.
“Picking nits, aren’t you Felix?” said Thornhill. He continued: “I’ll never forget the look on old Mac’s face when I bought that nurseryman’s catalogue out from under him.” He chuckled to himself. “Tell them that story.”
“One of the legendary moments in book-collecting annals,” said Felix.
He proceeded to tell another tale involving a rare seed catalogue that MacMillan needed to complete a collection of early American nurseryman’s catalogues, a special interest of his. Thornhill was the victor in an auction room duel for the catalogue, but he paid a price many times more than what it was worth. “In the huddle following the sale, our dear host was asked why he paid so much,” Felix wound up. “He replied, ‘Because MacMillan wanted it.’”
“Ha,” said Thornhill, slapping his thigh with delight at the conclusion of the story. “I got him, didn’t I?”
Thornhill was a man for whom revenge was sweet, thought Charlotte.
“But my dear Herr Professor, he got the better of you later on, didn’t he?” said Felix. “With Der Gart.”
“What’s the story of Der Gart?” asked John eagerly.
“You tell it, Felix. You do it so much better than I,” said Thornhill, who was obviously enjoying himself.
“The book was Der Gart der Gesundheit, or The Garden of Health, an herbal printed in Mainz in 1485 by Peter Schoeffer, Gutenberg’s son-in-law,” said Felix. “A book of extraordinary beauty and rarity, indisputably the most important of the herbal incunabula.”
“Incunabula?” said Charlotte.
“It refers to the earliest printed books—those books printed before 1500,” explained Thornhill.
She nodded.
“It was to go on the block at a London auction house,” Felix continued. “It was the kind of book that comes on the market perhaps only once in a decade.” He suddenly brought his fist down on the table like a gavel, rattling the silverware. “Within seconds of opening, the bidding was up to five thousand pounds. Which was all well and good except for one thing: two people had bid the same amount simultaneously and neither of them would yield.”
“MacMillan and Dr. Thornhill?” asked Daria.
“Exactly. Mr. MacMillan held tight because he thought a break in the deadlock would run the price up, and our dear host held tight because he had promised himself he wouldn’t pay any more than that. The auctioneer bullied, he wheedled, he told stories—nothing worked.”
Thornhill was sitting with his forehead cradled in his palms as if the mere memory of the event were painful.
“What happened?” asked Daria.
“First I’ll tell you where each of them was sitting. Mr. MacMillan was sitting at the front of the room and our dear host was sitting at the back. What happened was this: the auctioneer invoked an obscure rule which holds that the lot goes to the bidder who is sitting nearest the platform.”
“And MacMillan got the book,” said Daria.
“Ja. But what was so galling to our dear host was that he was outsmarted. You see, Mr. MacMillan knew about the rule.”
“I vowed that from that day forward I’d never lose my nerve again when it came to a book I wanted,” said Thornhill. “And I never have.”
“‘It is not the yielding to temptation that oppresses me, but oh, the remorse for the times I yielded not,’ eh Herr-Professor?” said Felix with a chuckle.
Thornhill nodded.
“The upshot of the story is that this precious book is now a part of our dear host’s collection, along with four other prize herbals from the MacMillan collection,” continued Felix. “They are worth at least five times as much today. They are the crème de la crème of the early herbals.”
“How did they come to be part of your collection?” asked John.
“That’s another story,” replied Thornhill as he refilled his pipe with tobacco from a leather pouch. “I had offered many times to buy MacMillan’s early herbals, but he had always turned me down. Until he astonished me one day by calling me up and offering to sell them to me.”
“Why?” asked Daria.
“He was dying, but I didn’t know that at the time. He had no descendants to leave his collection to. So he sold me the herbals, and left the rest of his collection to the botanical society.”
“It has always puzzled me, this decision to sell his prizes,” said Felix. “Especially to his rival. The real collector would rather give his collection away intact than sell it piecemeal. Many of our greatest libraries owe their existence to a collector’s reluctance to break up a lifetime’s work.”
“Yes,” agreed John. “It seems out of character.”
“He thought they’d be going to someone who’d appreciate them,” explained Thornhill. “I’ll never forget him sitting in his wheelchair in his library in that big old barn of a mansion in Worcester. ‘Frank,’ I remember him saying to me, ‘Take care of them. They are my children.’”
“My children,” harrumphed Felix. He continued: “A great collector. The irony is that he had begun work on a catalogue of his collection shortly before he learned of his illness. In fact, I think it was about to go to the printer’s when he died. Christmas Eve, 1959, as I recall.”
“What’s ironical about that?” asked John.
“That he began work on it when he did. You see, the decision to publish a catalogue often signals the end of a collecting career. It stamps a collection with the imprimatur of completeness. Alas, in his case, this was sadly true.”
Thornhill looked up. “Aha, here comes Mrs. Harris with our lunch.”
The entire length of the rear of the house was taken up by a screened veranda whose columns of native stone supported a series of second-story porches. A gray-haired woman with a bouffant hairdo was unsteadily trying to maneuver a tea wagon through one of the veranda doors.
Thornhill jumped up to help her. “Let me give you a hand, Grace,” he said, taking charge of the wagon.
“Why, thank you, Frank,” she replied in a deep Southern drawl. Removing her rhinestone-studded glasses, she fluttered her eyelashes at Thornhill.
Charlotte pegged her as the type of Southern woman for whom flirting is as natural as breathing, whatever the age or social position.
Replacing her glasses, Grace turned back to the wagon. She wore a blue pants suit and a flowered blouse with a pert bow at the throat. Clearly she considered herself a cut above the ordinary domestic servant.
“Mrs. Harris, I’d like you to meet Miss Charlotte Graham,” said Thornhill as they reached the table.
“Pleased to meet you, I’m sure,” she said with a shaky half-curtsy. She smiled blankly at Charlotte.
Also the kind of cook for whom sampling the sauce is as much a part of the job as salting the stew, thought Charlotte as she returned the greeting.
“Well, Grace,” said Thornhill, resuming his seat. “What’s it to be today?”
Reaching into her pocket, Grace withdrew a slip of paper and read in a high, quavering voice: “Rosemary and sorrel soup, chicken fricassee with tarragon, herb pilaf, mint puff biscuits, and strawberry-rhubarb pie.”
“Everyone is in for a big treat,” said Thornhill as Grace served the dishes. “Mrs. Harris is one of the finest cooks north of the Mason-Dixon line.” He went on to explain that she had run a small restaurant in town that was famous for its home cooking. When the restaurant became too much for her (Charlotte translated this to: when the booze became too much for her), she’d gone to work at Ledge House, where she had taken an interest in cooking with herbs. She had published several pamphlets of herb recipes.
“Upon my word, Frank, you do go on so,” said Grace after he had finished praising her talents. Then she addressed the guests: “Now, you all enjoy your dinner.” With that, she pivoted on her heel and headed into the house, as if exhausted by the strain of social intercourse.
&n
bsp; “I think you’ll find it delicious,” said Thornhill. “Even up to your gourmet standards, Felix.”
“What is the most expensive book you’ve ever handled, Mr. Mayer?” asked Daria as the guests turned to their meal, which was as delicious as promised.
“That’s easy. The Gutenberg Bible—the most coveted of all books. I consider it the high point of my career. There are only forty-seven copies extant, all of which are now in institutions.”
“May I ask how much you sold it for?” asked Charlotte.
“Ach, that’s a sensitive point, Miss Graham.”
“Why is that?”
“I sold it to a German museum for two point two million.”
“That seems like a substantial enough sum to me.”
“But you see, I had purchased it for the same price.” He sighed. “The economy turned sour after I bought it, and I was unable to sell at a profit. I held onto it for as long as I could, but I finally had to say to myself: ‘Felix, you are a bookseller, not a book collector.’ So I sold.” He washed down a mouthful of chicken with a swallow of Scotch. “But meanwhile, I had the pleasure of being the owner of the most beautiful book ever printed.”
“I agree that it’s the most beautiful book ever printed,” said Thornhill. “But I am proud to say that I am the owner of the second most beautiful book ever printed: Der Gart, printed by Gutenberg’s son-in-law. The herbals were the first books to be printed after the Bibles,” he explained. “But unlike the Bibles, they didn’t survive in large numbers. They were used so heavily that they fell apart. Those that did survive are often in poor condition.”
“Ja”, said Felix. “The Thornhill collection not only includes some of the greatest prizes among the herbal incunabula, it also includes copies in unusually fine condition. Unfortunately,” he continued between bites, “good copies are disappearing from the market. The day is rapidly approaching when all the early herbals will be in institutions as well.”
“In my opinion, that’s where they should be,” interjected John. “With all due respect to Frank, I think it’s a shame these books are still in private hands. Some are the only copies in the country.”
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