“She even resorted to translation work,” Felix says. “Because, in her words, it involved the pleasure of writing without the misery of inventing.”
“My mom was right. I should’ve studied a language in college,” Katie says.
Felix cannot stop from rolling his eyes. “You can’t have the highs without the lows,” he says. “Everyone fails, and everyone gets writer’s block, even the inestimable Nancy Mitford.”
“I don’t believe in writer’s block,” Katie says. “It’s like saying you have workout block, or emptying-the-dishwasher block. It’s all putting off shit you don’t want to do.”
“Writing is comparable to doing the dishes, then, in your world?”
Katie shrugs. “Sometimes. What I’m going through, it’s not a block. More like a lack of confidence. A slump. A batter in the three-hole who keeps striking out.”
“Are we talking about baseball now? And you’re the hitter in this scenario?”
“Yes.” She puts up a finger. “Just to be clear, I’ve never been in a hitting slump. My career batting average was four-four-two and my slugging—”
“I really do not care at all.”
“WELL, I NEED TO HAVE SOMETHING GOING FOR ME!”
Felix throws back his head. He guffaws.
“Please, Katie,” Felix says, when he’s regained control of himself. “Take whichever Nancy Mitford books you want. She might give you some inspiration, jinxes be damned. That’s the best thing about rereading a much-loved book. You get a different insight every time, and you can keep learning new things about yourself.”
“Fantastic,” Katie mutters. Learning more about herself is probably not the incentive he assumes.
“We have some of Nancy’s personal papers in the shop,” Felix adds. “If you’re good, I might let you peck around.”
“Personal papers?” Katie’s face snaps back into a smile. It might not be an autobiography, or the secret ingredient to writing a decent book, but it’s something, at least. And, as every writer knows, research is the best distraction. “I accept! I’d love to read the missing memoir, too, if and when you find it.”
“You’ll be the first to know,” Felix says. “Well, Katharine Cabot, it was nice to meet you, but I really must get back to work. Consider those—” he waves a hand “—on the house.”
“You feel sorry for me, don’t you?”
Felix pinches his fingers together. “Little bit,” he says. He pats her arm and disappears. Katie can’t wait, and she begins reading The Pursuit of Love as she makes her way out of the shop.
Without looking up, Katie pulls open the heavy front door but stops when she realizes that something—or someone—is blocking her path. This object is massive, immovable, lending the general air of a redwood tree.
“Excuse me,” Katie says, eyes fixed on the black-and-white-checked floor. “I’m trying to get out.”
“Don’t let me stop you.”
“Well, you are stopping me, so...” With a huff, Katie pushes the hair out of her face, gazing up and directly into the face of an alarmingly attractive man. “Huh,” she says, or makes some other sound.
“Please, let me hold the door,” he says, and Katie responds with a brief “Thanks.”
When she trips on the front step, the man laughs and suggests that maybe she shouldn’t read and run at the same time. Katie mumbles something about the store being closed, but the door smacks shut. She whips around, middle finger raised, but it’s too late. He’s already vanished into the shop.
February 1942
G. Heywood Hill Ltd.
Nancy strode into Heywood Hill and, in one sweep, performed a quick but thorough examination of the room. The shop was just how she remembered, which was to say a fright: cluttered shelves, cobwebbed corners, and teetering stacks of books. The music boxes needed dusting, the snake vase was a horror, and fifteen quid was far too steep a price for a painting of deformed Victorian girls.
Nancy sighed and released her dog to the floor. “Please stay off the furniture,” she said. Milly was a good pup but also a bit of a tart, and it was impossible to guess when she was pregnant, and might drop a litter on somebody’s recently reupholstered chaise.
“Nancy!” called a voice. “You’re here!”
She looked up to see the shop’s owner, the eponymous Heywood Hill, bustling toward her, his swoopy hair bouncing up and down.
“Heywood! Darling!” she said as they embraced. “Look at you! Filled as ever with that lively, boyish charm. I thought they’d shipped out all the young men, but here you stand before me.”
Heywood cackled. “Unfortunately, they’ve resorted to calling up even us feeble types. No official news yet, but I’m sure it will happen anytime. As for you...”
Nancy wouldn’t let him finish. “I know, I know,” she said, and yanked off her gloves. “My exterior has caught up with my inner tragedies. The shop front is in late-stage dishabille.”
“I was going to say you’re lovely as always, if not skinny.”
“Don’t forget pale. Visibly anemic. My low stamina strikes again.”
“One day you’ll let someone call you beautiful. Lady Dashwood tells me you’ve been feeling poorly. Is this true?”
“Hellbags is such a gossip. Not to worry. Just a minor spell.” Nancy’s eyes jumped away. “All is fine now. Thank you for asking. You’re a dear.”
“Make sure to see a proper doctor,” Heywood said, “now that you’re back in the city. No more of those country rubes.”
“Proper doctors are half the problem!” Nancy said. “When a woman nears forty, a fella like that takes one look at her, declares cancer, and removes one or two key parts.”
Heywood laughed again and squeezed Nancy’s shoulder. “Tell me everything. I hear West Wycombe is packed to the rafters with refugees.”
“Only if you count suits of armor, gilded snuffboxes, and the odd Rembrandt,” Nancy said. “Aside from the entirety of the Wallace Collection, Hellbags is also billeting a number of friends, as well as the National Trust staff.”
“National Trust?” Heywood made a face. “Jim Lees-Milne must be mucking about, trying to weasel the Dashwoods into donating their estate.”
“Always! He does cut a most convincing argument.” Nancy smirked. “West Wycombe is falling apart and the Dashwoods cannot afford to refurbish it. The National Trust will take up the mantle and ‘preserve for the benefit of England this estate of great beauty and historical interest.’”
“Exactly the scam one might expect,” Heywood grouched. His wife was once engaged to Jim, and Heywood had a jealous streak a mile long.
“Jim has his uses,” Nancy said. “To wit: he tells me you’re shorthanded, which is why you find me standing in your shop.”
“Is it true?” Heywood said, his face transforming from dismay into joy. “You’re willing to work for me? Anne said something about it last week. She’s been talking to Jim, apparently.” Again, his brow darkened. “But I didn’t want to get my hopes up.”
“Feel free to hope away.” Nancy grinned. “I am at your disposal.”
Heywood clasped together his hands. “Oh, Nancy,” he said. “You’re about to save my life. We’re fiendishly busy and we’ve just lost the book packer, and both delivery boys. Any day, it’ll be my turn to go, and I already hate how much Anne works. She’s running an errand right now—the very thing I swore I’d never have her do.”
“You’ll be helping me far more than I’ll be helping you,” Nancy said. “I had no idea a bookshop would be so busy during a war.”
“Tremendously so,” Heywood said. “Everyone is frantic for intellectual stimulation, and a bookseller’s is one of the only places where a person doesn’t need coupons. With the paper scarcity, books are shorter, and therefore people buy more. I can’t decide if it’s a vicious cycle or a virtuous one.”
“Anne will be so thrilled!” Heywood said. “I’ll put news of your employment in all of our advertisements. The Heywood Hill bookshop boasts its very own in-house novelist!”
“Hmm. Well. The three people who read Pigeon Pie might quibble with my being deemed a ‘novelist,’ but I do know my way around a book. Jim teases me for having the Sunday Times reviews memorized.”
“Well, dear Nancy, the position is yours, if you’ll take it,” Heywood said. “Why don’t I show you around? Anne should be back any minute, but I’ll introduce you to Mollie while we wait. We hired her last week to help with the accounts.”
As they walked, the floorboards moaning beneath their feet, Nancy glanced around. This place, she thought, might actually be too much work.
“How is Peter?” Heywood asked. “Welsh Guards, is that right?”
Nancy bobbed her head. “He’s well, as far as I know. It’s been a while since I’ve heard from him.”
About her husband’s absence, Nancy’s feelings were mixed. On the one hand, it was difficult to long for such a petty, imperious man, not to mention the sleep-inducing lectures he mistook for repartee. Prod was a self-professed expert on everything, and it was his feverish passion for eighteenth-century tollgate systems that earned him the nickname “the Tollgater” among family and friends.
But Nancy did sometimes miss having him around the house, and knowing one person would notice if she disappeared. Add to that Prod’s smattering of positive traits: he was handsome, and tall, and his cold heart occasionally warmed, especially toward the displaced, which Nancy attributed to his standing as least favorite child. Prod was as emotionally homeless as some people were homeless in fact.
“Are you worried?” Heywood asked.
Nancy blinked. “About what? Prod? Never. He’s very good at not getting shot.”
“A handy skill,” Heywood said, and swiped a set of papers from beside the register. “How is the rest of your family? Your esteemed siblings? I hear Diana is still at Holloway?”
“Lest anyone suggest Reg 18B isn’t being put to use, we have my sister, jailed for Fascism, without charges or trial.” Nancy shook her head. “It really says something that Diana is locked up for being an enemy of the state and Muv doesn’t even consider her the most troublesome child.”
Heywood chortled. “Rather the stiff competition with a Nazi and a Communist.”
“Nazis are mostly fine by Muv,” Nancy grumbled.
“And your brother?”
“In Libya, maintaining his status as most beloved child.” Everybody adored the beautiful, shiny Tom, family and beyond, and he had a string of broken hearts from London to the Far East. Tom could get anyone to fall in love with him, as both Heywood and Anne Hill could attest, as well as Jim Lees-Milne.
“Here we are,” Heywood said, and flung open a door. “The storage room. Could also be used as a refrigeration locker, in a pinch.” Nancy shivered as Heywood looked around. “That’s odd,” he said. “Mollie’s supposed to be working on the sums...”
They heard a shriek, and the stomp of feet, and soon Anne erupted into the room. “Heywood! It’s a complete nightmare!” she cried, red-faced, frizzy-haired, and seemingly blind to Nancy’s presence. “I just endured the worst hour of my life. Hatchard gave me a dickens of a time about that book. Whatever it’s called. Duck Staircase.”
Heywood took a moment to decode his wife’s words.
“Swan Steps?” she tried.
“Do you mean Du côté de chez Swann?” Heywood asked.
“Sure.” Anne shrugged. “The point is the man ran me ’round and ’round and I sold it to him for practically nothing just to get out of there. Oh, Heywood. You cannot leave. I am too hopeless. It will all be a disaster! Also—” Anne halted, and her weepy brown eyes locked onto Nancy’s face. After ten seconds of perfect stillness, she squealed and thrust herself into Nancy’s arms. “Oh my God! Jim promised you’d come. Now you’re here. He’s my hero!”
“Maybe your hero should be Nancy,” Heywood mumbled.
“I’ve missed you so!” Anne said. After a properly crushing embrace, she stepped back and flattened her dress. “Here I go again, embarrassing myself.”
Anne was an unusual creature, even as unusual creatures went, and Nancy hadn’t known what to make of her when they first met. Jim, her boyfriend at the time, had described her as “intelligent, male-minded, and deliciously humorous,” but Nancy found her anxious and unsure. Though Nancy would come to cherish Lady Anne Gathorne-Hardy-turned-Hill, she never understood how the astonishingly progressive woman ever matched up with Jim, who was happiest in a Victorian library, dreaming of nineteenth-century stability.
“Embarrassing yourself?” Nancy scoffed. “You’re mad! If anyone’s embarrassed, it’s me. From what Heywood says, I should’ve come weeks ago.”
“We are dreadfully busy,” Anne agreed. “Oh, Nancy, I’m so tired of this war. It’s such a ghastly mix of depressing and frightful.” She sighed and put a hand on Nancy’s arm. “Do you hate us? I’m so passionately sorry we didn’t sell more copies of Pigeon Pie.”
“Neither did anyone else,” Nancy said with a throaty laugh.
“It was just bad timing!”
“Absolutely dreadful,” Heywood concurred.
“Or was it incredibly precise?” Nancy said. “It’s almost as though I planned to release a book about the Phoney War to coincide with the fall of France.”
“It should be just what people are in the mood for,” her publisher had said, “if we are quick.”
They weren’t quick enough, or no one was in the mood, or some combination of these and other things. Whatever the case, Nancy Mitford’s fourth book was a flop, one of the earliest casualties of the war.
“It’ll be better next time,” Anne said, and Nancy smiled thinly, willing this to truth.
“Never mind all that,” Heywood said. “Darling, our problems are solved. Nancy has agreed to take the open position. Isn’t that splendid?”
“Splendid?” Anne said. “It’s wonderful, magnificent, entirely top-hole!”
Anne flew into Nancy’s arms, and smothered her in kisses and good cheer. Nancy returned her hug, despite feeling oddly numbed. So, this was it. This was her new life. Nancy prayed she was starting in the right spot.
Saturday Night
Half Moon Street
“Did you have a chance to see much of the neighborhood?” Nigel asks.
They’re in the dining room, gathered around a large mahogany table. Katie sits beside Cordelia, across from Lionel and Clive, with Jojo and Nigel presiding from either end. In the middle is a tangle of feathers, tree branches, and leather-wrapped goat horns, a centerpiece Jojo swaps out every two weeks.
“Mayfair is so unthinkably quaint,” Katie says, picturing the curved streets and terraced townhomes, the patisseries, and bookbinders, and multicolored shop fronts. “The perfect blend of elegance and charm. Not too pretentious, not too precious. I can understand why you moved here.”
“Oh, it can be pretentious,” Jojo says with a snort. “You haven’t visited New Bond Street yet. Bit less charm over there.”
“The area’s getting awfully posh,” Nigel says, “but there’s a good mix. You can have your Chanel and Cartier and Harry Winston, but other parts still bear the hint of Virginia Woolf’s Mayfair.”
“Like Curzon Street,” Katie says.
She glances up to see the porcelain-skinned, rashy-cheeked Clive peering at her from around the feathers. Although there is nothing inherently wrong with the kid, Katie finds him off-putting, which probably says more about her than
it does about him.
“You went to Heywood Hill?” Jojo says. “I’m so glad! Didn’t you love it?”
“I did love it,” Katie says, then narrows her eyes. “By the by, they’re not technically open on weekends, so maybe don’t recommend visiting on Saturdays to future houseguests.”
“Oops,” Jojo says with a half shrug. “Oh, well. No harm, no foul.”
“Other than trespassing.” Katie stops to throw back a thimble of brie and crab soup because family dinners at the Hawkins-Whitsheds’ include an amuse-bouche. “You also failed to mention Nancy Mitford worked at the store.”
“Didn’t know that was relevant, but okay.”
“Shop,” Clive says.
Katie shakes her head. “Uh, what now?” she says.
“You called it a store,” he says. “But it’s a shop. A store is where you buy milk, like a Tesco or something.”
“Oh. Okay. Heywood Hill is a shop,” Katie says. “Gosh. Thanks. That is very helpful!” She smiles brightly and Clive scowls in return. A small dash forms between his dark caterpillar brows. “I don’t know if you recall,” she continues, speaking to Jojo but with one eye trained on Clive. “But Nancy Mitford was the topic of my senior thesis.”
Jojo tilts her head, mouth puckering in contemplation. “I think I remember something about that?” she says.
A chef enters with the salad course. This man is not a regular member of the household staff, but an employee of the family’s personal concierge service. Honestly! Jojo would say. It’s not that big of a deal! If anything, the arrangement saves them money, what with travel discounts, and the coordination of logistics. You really can’t put a price on time! And how else would a person know whether it’s more economical to hire fifteen kinkajous for your child’s birthday party, or twenty, after negotiating bulk kinkajou discounts?
“Didn’t Nancy Mitford have a bunch of infamous sisters?” Jojo asks as the chef leans over her shoulder with a pepper grinder. “Nazis or something?”
“One was a Nazi,” Katie says. “A few were Fascists, and there was a Communist, too. You have to hand it to those Mitford girls—they didn’t do anything half-assed.”
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