In the cool of the morning air, Arthur could feel the blush rise to his cheek, but nothing could bother him today. “Actually,” he said, “you shall have a nice little surprise when you get to your office. I e-mailed you the final draft of the text for the guidebook this morning.”
“You . . . you what? You e-mailed it? Do you even know what e-mail is, Arthur?”
“I do,” said Arthur cheerily. “And yesterday I learned how to include an attachment. So you’ll have a nice digital file waiting for you.”
“Arthur, put aside my absolute glee at your having miraculously finished this project. How is it that you just used the word digital in a sentence without rolling your eyes?”
“I am not saying I believe in all this nonsense about a world without books,” said Arthur, “but I did save myself the climb up to your office to shove the manuscript under the door and I saved you, or your long-suffering assistant, from having to retype the whole thing.”
“Arthur Prescott, I could hug you right here in front of God and the world.”
“You’re certainly welcome to,” said Arthur.
“Not in front of the dogs,” said Gwyn, smiling and linking her arm through his. “So tell me, Mr. Prescott, what brought on this transformation from a grumpy man who could not imagine finishing his manuscript, to a smiling fellow who’s handed in his homework?”
“I did have some help. You know Bethany Davis, who’s digitizing the manuscripts in the library.”
“Your friend and nemesis, yes, I know her well. We have lunch together a couple of days a week. She speaks very highly of you, Arthur.”
“Does she? And did she call me a friend and nemesis?”
“No, I sussed that bit out myself,” said Gwyn.
“Well, nemesis or not, she helped me get the damned thing finished. She convinced me that I just needed to tell the story of the cathedral, so I told it and she typed it up.”
“Aha! So you sent me the file, but you didn’t actually create the file.”
“No, but I did load it onto my computer at the office with something called a flash drive.”
“I’m pleased to hear that Bethany is dragging you into the twentieth century, even though the rest of us are getting well on with the twenty-first. I rather like that girl, and I gather you do, too.”
“I have done my best to be her friend,” said Arthur, “in spite of our . . . differences.”
“I’m proud of you, Arthur. Making friends with an American digitizer. That’s a real accomplishment for you. I’m sure the fact that she’s charming, intelligent, and beautiful makes it even harder to like her.” Gwyn jabbed Arthur in the side with her elbow.
“We are friends,” said Arthur, a bit more stiffly than he had intended. “That’s all.”
“I’m glad she makes you happy,” said Gwyn.
Arthur didn’t want to argue this point further, so he proceeded to a question that had been bothering him lately. “What would you think about opening the library to tourists?”
“Are you serious? Arthur Prescott wants to descend from his ivory tower and share his books with the sullied masses?”
“Something Bethany said the other day made me think of it,” said Arthur. “And I do think the library has been far too empty for far too long.”
“It’s a nice idea,” said Gwyn, “but we haven’t anyone to staff it or any funds for security and who knows what it would mean for insurance. But I do need to ask you a favor.”
“You want me to adopt your dogs?”
“Worse, I’m afraid. I need you to show the cathedral’s manuscript collection to a gentleman from Sotheby’s who’s coming down from London to assess the possibility of a sale.”
“You do realize that what I wrote was only the story of Barchester Cathedral’s history. Those manuscripts are the history. They are as important a part of this church as the south transept or the cloister. But I suppose those will be up for sale soon.”
“You’re not far from the truth, Arthur. Our annual visit from the structural engineer turned up some weaknesses in the north transept. We’ll try a fund-raising campaign of course—‘Save the Cathedral’ and all that. But if we don’t get some funding, and quickly, we could very well be looking at major damage to the cathedral.”
“God, Gwyn, I’m so sorry. I had no idea. How much will you have to raise?”
“Ideally the chapter would like about ten million,” said Gwyn. “That would pay for the repairs with enough left over for the Lady Chapel. I hate to be in this position, but if I have to choose between the collapse of the north transept and the sale of the manuscript collection, I have to choose the building.”
“Of course you do,” said Arthur. “And of course I will assist the devil in his prowling around the library seeking something to devour.”
“And there’s one more thing, Arthur.”
“What’s that?”
“We just have to find those missing covers—the ones that were ripped off the manuscripts the night of the bombing. I’ve asked Oscar to look into it, but if you have any ideas—”
“Because if you find the covers you’re much more likely to be able to sell the manuscripts.”
“Sotheby’s have offered to pay the cost of repairs if we sell through them.”
“My dear Gwyn, nothing would pain me more than to be the one who smoothed the way to the dissolution of the Barchester Cathedral Library, but as you are my dear Gwyn, if I do have any ideas about the covers, you will be the first to know.” The fact of the matter was that Arthur had no clue where to look for the missing covers. Gwyn had been right to ask Oscar—he was the one who knew where things were kept in the cathedral.
“Thank you, Arthur,” said Gwyn, lifting her head and giving him a quick, dry kiss on the cheek. “I know it’s difficult for you. I just don’t see any other way.”
On the bus to work later that morning, Arthur pondered Gwyn’s words: “I just don’t see any other way.” For her, Arthur would help the appraiser from Sotheby’s, but perhaps, somehow, he might also work to find just what she had said—another way.
—
For the first time in his life Arthur found himself, later that day, looking forward to a committee meeting. True, his first foray into the Advisory Committee for the Media Center had been as dull as every other committee meeting he had ever attended—and, he felt, rife with misunderstanding about the purpose of a university library. Several of the members of the committee seemed to think the media center existed primarily to provide the students with DVDs of movies to watch in their spare time. But finishing his guidebook had emboldened Arthur, and after his conversation with his department head, Mr. Slopes, that morning, he had been counting the seconds until four o’clock. Now he looked around the table of Conference Room D at the faces of the Advisory Committee for the Media Center and smiled. This would be a bloody good meeting.
“I believe we’re all here,” said Arthur, “so I’d like to call the meeting to order. If you checked your e-mail today you will have seen that I have accepted Mr. Slopes’s invitation to chair this committee following the nervous breakdown of Mr. Radclyffe.”
“It wasn’t a nervous breakdown,” said Slopes. “He merely requested—”