‘I don’t suppose you’re hiring?’ I blurted out, hoping I didn’t sound too desperate.
Miss Beach leaned back against some boxes with a thoughtful expression on her face.
‘Am I hiring?’ she asked, rhetorically.
‘Do you have experience working in a bookshop?’ asked the other woman, who reappeared from inside the shop.
‘This is Miss Monnier, she owns the shop across the street,’ Miss Beach explained.
Unlike Sylvia, her dark eyes looked me over suspiciously and I instinctively knew she found me wanting.
‘Not particularly,’ I confessed. A look passed between them. Perhaps they had seen this before, a naive girl searching for her Parisian dream. ‘I earned my passage here by selling a first edition Dickens and here, look,’ I said, taking the Baudelaire from my satchel. ‘I bought this from one of the bouquinistes along the Seine.’
Miss Beach took it carefully in her hands, gently opening the cover and checking every page.
‘It’s important to count every page,’ she said quietly. ‘The earlier in print history you go, the more likely you are to discover missing pages.’
‘Is that so?’
‘Yes, we call the period before the 1800s the hand-press period, when paper was a much more valuable commodity and people tore pages from books for their own use. Well, this is a nice find. Congratulations.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, taking it back.
‘You have an eye for quality, and any young woman who can trade her way to the continent in books clearly has a flair for the business. How about I take you on as an apprentice, teach you what I know about books?’
I began to gush effusively when she held her hand up to halt me.
‘I can’t pay you well and the hours might be long, but you will learn much and make some important contacts.’
‘Oh, Miss Beach,’ I gasped, ‘I’m quite unaccustomed to being speechless, but this may just be a first.’
‘Good. Can’t stand sentimentalism. Now, you can start by helping us with these deliveries.’
‘Start now?’
‘Well, is there a better time than the present?’ she asked, in that matter-of-fact tone I would come to depend upon, more than I could ever have known.
Shakespeare and Company was a fascinating place to be. The shop itself had the quiet warmth of all bookshops, with dark wooden shelves worn soft over the years and that unmistakable scent of paper and leather. But Sylvia, who was merely a few years older than me, was something of a mother hen to a bohemian family of artists and writers, offering them a refuge, a lending library, a literary social club, a post office and (she hoped) a publishing house. She had befriended an Irish writer by the name of Joyce and was so passionate about his writing that she intended to publish his debut novel, Ulysses. It was a very great risk, as the work was so avant-garde, the author feared it would be suppressed for ever. Nor did it help that the manuscript itself was three times the length of an average novel, which would be astronomical to print.
On my very first day, I must have behaved like a child given the keys to a toy shop. I found my attention being pulled hither and thither by books of every age, every subject and binding. I couldn’t help but wonder who they had once belonged to? Where had they travelled from? What is the scent?
‘You shall be no use to me if you insist on behaving like a customer, Opaline,’ Sylvia announced sharply, and over the following days I made a concerted effort not to be swayed by every interesting book I saw, which was often.
She was determined that I should learn the business from the ground up. I began by lugging books around and shelving them carefully, as well as serving customers as best I could. On quieter days, whilst dusting the shelves or the books themselves, she explained the finer details of being a book trader.
‘Now, an old book isn’t necessarily rare, Opaline. A book becomes rare when it’s both hard to find and highly sought after. And it’s not just books that are valuable to collectors; manuscripts, prints, etchings, archives – even letters. Especially letters. Anything that will feed the insatiable curiosity that surrounds the greatest minds.’
I must have looked unsure because she stopped what she was doing for a moment and turned to face me.
‘Not convinced?’
‘I just, I’m not sure why someone would want to collect someone’s letters. How could they even be sure they were authentic?’
‘Very good question, we’ll make a literary sleuth out of you yet. Who’s your favourite author?’ she asked.
‘Easy,’ I said. ‘Emily Bront?.’
‘Right, well, isn’t there anything you’d like to know about Miss Bront? other than the fact that she lived a quiet life on the moors?’
I thought about it for a moment. There were many questions I had, like did she ever fall in love? Was she happy or sad?
‘What I’ve always wondered, I mean, the one question that always frustrated me is whether or not she began writing a second novel before she died and if so, what had happened to it?’
‘There you are then. Now you have your question you can start searching for the answer.’
Chapter Eight
MARTHA
‘Well, that was mortifying,’ I muttered to myself, as I let myself back into the house.
‘What are you talking about?’ Madame Bowden called, startling me. She was stood in the doorway of the parlour, cigarette in hand, mischief in her eyes.
‘Oh, nothing, I didn’t realise I was talking out loud,’ I said, taking off my jacket.
‘Well, your face is the colour of beetroot and I’m bored, so tell all.’ She took me by the shoulders and led me into the room as though I were one of her guests.
‘I-I just, there’s this guy …’
‘A man, why didn’t you say!’ She laughed, her eyes widening with pleasure. She pulled back the curtains and scanned the street. ‘Where is he?’
‘He’s nowhere. He’s gone. It’s not important. Is there anything you need before I get started on dinner?’
‘It’s cocktail hour, Martha, and I still don’t have a drink in my hand,’ she announced with that put-on upper-class accent she used when she had company.
‘It’s three in the afternoon,’ I said, hardly bothering to keep the judgement out of my voice.