The Forger's Daughter

by Bradford Morrow

  Because I believed, as most of us tend to do, that I’d retained an unblemished image of the past, of the fairy-tale house and its rustic surroundings, I was surprised by the gap between my remembrance and what was there before me as we pulled into the drive. Smaller than I recalled, it had been repainted and rethatched. Some rhododendrons that Will and I had planted on either side of the front steps had grown into stately sentinels. We knocked on the door, but no one was home, so we furtively peeked through the windows. The rooms looked for the most part to have refurnished, although an antique walnut cupboard elaborately carved with griffins and winged serpents remained where it was before. An oil painting of fishing boats bobbing up and down in Bantry Bay still hung over the fireplace. To think we had lived here filled me with wonder and wistful melancholy. Happy as I was for Nicole to see her place of origin, it was time for us to move on.

  Eccles was thriving. He proudly showed Nicole his Vandercook press, warhorse for the ages, telling her it was still used for printing wedding announcements, funeral programs, and everything between. Afterward, down the street in the raucous pub where we had dinner, both girls clapped and sang along as best they could with the live trad music accompanied by guitar, fiddle, tin whistle, and stomping feet. In bed that night, the River Sheen whispering words I could no more understand than the Gaelic I’d once tried and pretty much failed to learn, I slept untroubled by dreams.

  Next morning, though it was overcast and promised rain, we were to take the ferry out to the Skellig Islands, where monks—and Jedi—once lived in utter austerity, cut off from the outside world, like the pillar saints of bygone centuries, atop their barren rocks hundreds of feet above the gnawing ocean. When I came downstairs to join the others, I noticed Will was sitting with two men at the far end of the spacious breakfast room. They huddled in serious, private conversation at a table by large windows overlooking the greens where some jackdaws pranced and marched in circles. One of the men wore a uniform of the Garda Síochána, as the Irish police service was called. I waved nervously at Will, who saw me and waved back, offering me a calm smile. Maisie was poring over a brochure about the Skellig monastery while distractedly eating her porridge, but Nicole, I noticed, was as focused on Will as I. A fierce look, much like that of her kingfisher, was set on her face, and though the men were quite a way from where we were seated, she seemed to be trying to read their lips.

  Once they finished their discussion, the three stood and, without shaking hands, bade one another farewell. When Will joined us, he said we needed to get on the road, but he was famished and ordered a full breakfast, complete with a black pudding of groats and blood. I asked him what the officers wanted and he replied that a felon we knew from here and home, one whose name needn’t be repeated, had gone missing. Aware of Will’s horrific encounter with the man in Kenmare before the new millennium, the Garda requested that he alert them should he happen to see his sometime assailant in County Kerry during our stay. He most certainly would do so, Will had assured them.

  As my husband unfolded his starched white napkin, the loving, if unsettled, look he gave our elder daughter was one I wouldn’t soon, indeed ever, forget, even though I had no idea how to interpret its meaning. “So there it is,” he said, as that ragged flock of jawdaws, startled by who knew what down along the river, vaulted crazily from the emerald grass and wheeled together toward the lower reaches of the leaden sky above.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Deepest thanks to the preeminent Edgar Allan Poe collector Susan Jaffe Tane for advising and encouraging me as I researched this book, for generously introducing me to several Poe authorities as the project developed, and for allowing me to examine her copy of Tamerlane and other Poe treasures. I’m grateful, too, to her wonderful assistants Gabriel McKee and Julie Carlsen, as well to the book designer and typographer, Jerry Kelly, who introduced me to Susan and advised me on passages related to letterpress printing and calligraphy.

  I owe a great debt of gratitude to Chris Semtner, curator of the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia, who answered a wide range of biographical and historical questions during the course of a richly rewarding email exchange that included, no less, postscript updates on the flowers blooming in the Enchanted Garden at the museum. I’m very grateful also to renowned Poe expert Richard Kopley, who read the manuscript and offered invaluable, detailed commentary about Poe’s life and Tamerlane. Jeffrey A. Savoye of the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore responded to a variety of questions early in the process, and I thank him for his insights. Carolyn Vega, Director of the Berg Collection at New York Public Library, kindly allowed me peruse the two copies of Tamerlane in the collection’s remarkable Poe holdings, as well as original Poe letters and manuscripts. Thanks also to Caitlin Goodman, Curator of the Rare Book Department, Free Library of Philadelphia, for helping me identify when Will saw his first copy of ­Tamerlane on exhibit at the library as a boy.

  Great gratitude to my longtime friends Tom Congalton of Between the Covers Rare Books, James Jaffe of James S. Jaffe Rare Books, Thomas Johnson, and Pat Sims for their close readings of the manuscript. Sincere thanks as well to the distinguished bibliophile Nicholas Basbanes, who perused and commented on the final draft of the novel. Christine von der Linn, Senior Specialist in the Book Department and head of the Illustration Art Department at Swann Auction Galleries in New York, thoughtfully went through auction references in the book and offered her expert advice. Others who shared important ideas with me during the course of writing the novel include Alexis Hagedorn, head of the Conservation Program at Columbia University Libraries, along with my friends Larry Bank, Sean Condon, Michael Sarinsky, Douglas Moore, and Nicole Nyhan. Many thanks to all.

  I am grateful to Deirdre d’Albertis, Dean of Bard College, for allowing me to take a leave of absence that gave me the time necessary to complete The Forger’s Daughter, and to everyone at Bard for their support.

  My intrepid agent, Henry Dunow, offered sage advice from beginning to end and, as always, I can’t thank him enough for his steady encouragement. Boundless appreciation to Morgan Entrekin, Sara Vitale, Deb Seager, Kaitlin Astrella, Julia Berner-Tobin, Judy Hottensen, Amy Hundley, Gretchen Mergenthaler, Becca Fox, and all the good people at Grove Atlantic for their continued belief in my work.

  Otto Penzler, editor and publisher extraordinaire as well as a cherished friend, originally encouraged me to write The Forgers, a bibliomystery drawing on my lifelong passion for books. I’m profoundly thankful to him for urging me to continue the story here.

  As for the brilliant Cara Schlesinger, she is ever an inspiration and lodestar, and my gratitude to her is inestimable.