The Bookseller's Secret

by Michelle Gable

  “Those poor parents,” Jojo says.

  “Is she allowed to speak like that?” Clive wants to know. “She said ass.” Nigel waves him off.

  “Sorry, everyone,” Katie says. “Anyway, Nancy Mitford was very prolific, and some of her letters are stored at the shop. There might even be an unpublished manuscript. I’m going back Monday. Felix said I could rummage around.”

  “Monday?” Jojo says, noodling on this before passing Nigel a look. “Ah. I see.” She clears her throat. “Listen, Katie. Felix is a great guy. He’s also hot as breakfast. But don’t get any ideas.”

  “What do you mean, ideas?” Katie says. “Like, for a book?”

  “Well, yeah. That’d be great,” Jojo says. “But I’m referring to the fact Felix is married, and also gay.”

  “Cool. But I’m going back for Nancy Mitford’s letters, not to hook up. Not sure why you thought...”

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Jojo says. “I wish you’d find someone to hook up with, but, like I said, wrong tree.”

  “What do you mean, ‘hook up’?” Lionel asks.

  “She means snog,” says Clive.

  “Kids...” Nigel warns.

  “I’m not in the market for a tree,” Katie says, feeling suddenly sweaty beneath her cashmere. “It’s probably best I stay out of the forest for a while.”

  “What if you made a big discovery?” Nigel says. “That’d really be something.”

  “Even a small discovery would be nice,” Katie says. “I’d love to know what Nancy’s life was like while she was working at the store—I mean, the shop.” Her gaze flicks toward Clive.

  “Maybe that’s something to write about?” Jojo says.

  “Did you know the BBC just did an adaptation of The Pursuit of Love?” Nigel says, and wipes his mouth. “It was Emily Mortimer’s directorial debut, with Lily James starring as Linda.”

  Katie smiles, impressed that a finance bro—or whatever they’re called on this side of the pond—has so handily referenced Linda Radlett. “I read about that,” she says. “And I definitely plan to watch.”

  Nigel turns to his wife. “We should read the book,” he says. “And then watch the program together.”

  “That seems like a lot of work,” Jojo says.

  “You’d finish it in an afternoon,” Katie says. “The book is genius. I can’t believe she wrote it in three months. It’s completely unfair.”

  “Wasn’t Nancy Mitford a spy?” Nigel asks as Jojo barks at Lionel to get his napkin off the floor.

  “Not that I know of,” Katie says.

  “No, I think she was.” Nigel stares into the near distance as he thoughtfully chews his salad.

  “Auntie Katie,” Cordelia chimes in, “did Mummy tell you? My birthday is on Christmas and Mister Assan is building me a library!”

  “Wow!” Katie widens her eyes as far as they will go. “What an amazing present!”

  “For my birthday, I plan on turning four.”

  “That is an excellent plan. Do you think your parents might get me a library for my next birthday? Maybe if my behavior improves.”

  “Maybe...” Cordelia says. “Mum says you are messy right now. That’s why we have to be nice to you.”

  “Cordelia!” Jojo snips.

  “Felix is curating you a library,” Nigel says. “The library is built. You might recognize it as the ledge in your bedroom.” He looks at Katie. “It’s not as big a production as it sounds.”

  “Well, however big or small your bespoke library,” Katie says, “I cannot wait to see it! You’ll probably need more than one shelf, though. My guess is that a clever, non-messy girl like you can go through ten, twelve books a week.”

  “Yes, that is true!”

  “Settle down,” Jojo warns.

  “You’ll need a whole new library by the time you’re five!”

  Cordelia beams. “That is an excellent point!”

  Katie laughs, wondering if these kids are hilarious, or insufferable, or some other thing. As Katie watches Cordelia refill her water glass using a crystal pitcher the size of her head, her brain swirls with possibility. Whatever she’s looking for, whatever hole she’s trying to plug, she might actually find her answers at Heywood Hill.

  June 1942

  G. Heywood Hill Ltd.

  Every day, Nancy walked the two-plus miles to the shop. This was in spite of London’s perpetually dismal climate, and the inevitability of encountering lorries filled with undersexed soldiers who hollered lewd things.

  “I’m almost forty, you monsters!” she’d screech.

  Because of this, Nancy was often harried, and always late, but patriotism was more admirable than punctuality, especially at a salary of three pounds per week.

  That morning, as she had so many in the past four months, Nancy pushed against the drizzle and wind, teeth clattering as she kept a swift pace, leaping over piles of stone and blackened wood, and dodging craters left by bombs. All around, children frolicked in the ruins, dashing into and out of new hiding places.

  As Nancy crossed Oxford Street at the Marble Arch, she got the sense of being observed. She glanced behind her but saw only an endless stream of gray people in gray clothes. The propaganda posters were getting to her, no doubt.

  ’WARE SPIES!

  HE’S WATCHING YOU!

  In London, a person couldn’t forget the war for long.

  After skirting the boundary of Hyde Park, Nancy reached Curzon Street, which, in its untouched state, felt like a fairy tale come to life. At number ten, Nancy stopped before the cozy window and studied the customers bustling inside. It cheered her to think that, even in the worst of times, people loved a good tale.

  As she was about to duck into the shop, Nancy’s eyes caught on the display, and her high spirits were at once killed. Perched in the window were a dozen copies of Evelyn’s new book. Nancy fought the urge to put a foot through the glass.

  “Damn you,” she muttered, and pushed through the door to enter the shop. How was that the most miserable people seemed to have the most success?

  * * *

  “Where have you been?” Mollie demanded. “You were supposed to arrive forty minutes ago!”

  “Believe me, I’m frustrated, too,” Nancy said. “Unfortunately, I got tied up marinating a side of beef. Add to that the atrocious weather, and the long walk to work. I know you rather like the bus, but we should save fuel for the boys. Now, would you mind stepping aside? You’re trapping me here in the doorway.”

  “Don’t repaint your tardiness as sacrifice,” Mollie said, glowering.

  “Keep your wig on, ducky,” Nancy said. She darted around Mollie and onto the shop floor. “Nothing is ever as bad as you make it out to be. All I see are happy customers, plus endless heaps of books.” Nancy sighed. “There has to be a better way of organizing this shop than to throw everything onto tables, don’t you think?”

  “They’re arranged by genre. Do you see that man over there?” Mollie said, and pointed toward a large, bearded fellow in a brown Fustian coat. “He’s the claimant to the throne of Poland. He tried to get my attention for fifteen minutes, to no avail. Now he’s waiting for Heywood to come back so he can have me fired!”

  “There hasn’t been a throne in Poland since the eighteenth century.”

  “That’s probably why he’s trying to claim it!” Mollie wailed.

  “Where are Heywood and Anne, anyhow?”

  “Buying books from a dead man,” Mollie said. “Worse than all of this is that your friends have been hanging around for hours, driving me mad. I don’t think there’s ever been a single book bought between them!”

  “My friends?” Nancy said, at once bounding back to life. “Oh, thank God, someone to talk to. Well, don’t hold back. Which friends are these?”

  “The usual group of insufferable li
terary prigs,” Mollie said.

  “That hardly narrows things down.” Nancy stretched to see.

  “The one Heywood despises,” Mollie said. “With the dour face.”

  “Jim Lees-Milne. He was once engaged to Anne, which is Heywood’s chief problem with the man.”

  “Didn’t she ever dodge a bullet. There’s also the persnickety chap who always needs blankets despite the fact of his wearing a cape.”

  “That would be Eddy Sackville-West,” Nancy said. “A slight hypochondriac.”

  “The woman is also here. Hellbags? And, of course, Evelyn Waugh.” Mollie spit out his name like a curse.

  “Don’t worry,” Nancy said. “I feel rather the same.”

  “Why is he always in the shop? Doesn’t he have anywhere else to go?”

  “Sadly, no. We’ve been forced to establish the Evelyn Tolerance Charity because we’re the only ones who can stand the man.” Nancy reached out and playfully joggled Mollie’s shoulder. “Don’t fret, he’ll be shipping out soon. While we’re on the topic, don’t feel compelled to put so many copies of his book on display. How’s it selling? Miserably, I pray.”

  Mollie shrugged. “All right, I guess.”

  “All right” was better than Nancy had hoped, but rather less than she’d feared. Put Out More Flags was earning high praise, with critics applauding Waugh for being the first writer to address the upper class’s contribution to the war. Namely, that they failed to deal with Hitler back when he was merely a middle-class pest. The novel had its points, but Nancy found its characters one-dimensional, and a bit unfair, and she was beyond tired of newspapers treating Evelyn as though he were some kind of savant. He might’ve gone to Oxford, and been part of the Bright Young Things, but, at the end of the day, Evelyn Waugh was just your workaday bloated drunk in a bowler hat.

  “Thanks for keeping me apprised,” Nancy said, and clapped Mollie on the back. “If you’ll excuse me, I must check on my friends. Let me know if you need anything!”

  Nancy pranced off to the middle room, where her literary prigs were assembled in oversized club chairs, sniggering like witches beside a snapping fire. “The reports are true!” Nancy said. “Miss Frieze-Green warned me that reprobates had infiltrated the shop. Tell me, what did I miss?”

  “Absolutely nothing,” Evelyn said.

  “Evelyn has for the last hour been bragging about his book,” said Jim.

  “The term literary phenomenon is being used,” Evelyn said. “Nancy, we must have a conversation about the window display. I have some notes.”

  “That’s something to raise with Heywood,” Nancy said, and turned away from the men. She grasped Lady Dashwood’s hands and gave her a kiss. “Darling Hellbags! I’ve missed you desperately! I never expected to be this lonely in London, with so many people around.”

  “The city is awful,” Helen said as the group rolled their eyes.

  “Not sure if you’ve heard,” said Eddy, “but everyone in London abhors Lady Dashwood. Grab a tissue, it’s the saddest tale ever told.”

  “It’s not funny! People are spurning me, left and right. I must be on a list at the Dorch. Nancy, do you know anything about this?”

  “I do not,” Nancy said as she scooted up onto a counter. “I can’t keep up with these things.”

  “I doubt they’d even let me into the bomb shelter. Being married to Johnny has given me the worst reputation.”

  “That’s how these things usually go,” Nancy said, though the blame could not be placed entirely on him, given Lady Dashwood had a personality at best described as “invigorating.”

  “Helen, your preoccupation with your reputation,” Jim said, “and who thinks what, is not only tiresome, but childish.”

  “Easy for you to say! You have no social standing whatever. If you disappeared, no one would notice for years. Well, I would notice, because it’d be the best day of my life. You’d finally be out of my house!”

  “Poor Hellbags,” Nancy clucked, and crossed one leg over the other. She brushed an errant fuzz from her black wool pencil skirt.

  “Did you walk to work?” Jim said as he appraised her through one squinched eye. “Your attitude about the war is confusing, your sudden seriousness perverse.”

  “Even we frivolous, uneducated girls can appreciate the gravity of war,” Nancy said.

  “Flags is sweeping America,” Evelyn said, though precisely no one asked. “My agent predicts it will be a worldwide hit. Meanwhile, it was nothing to write—a minor work dashed off on a tedious voyage.”

  “Was this before or after you and your comrades bungled things in Dakar?” Hellbags asked.

  “Now that I think about it,” Evelyn said, lifting one scurrilous brow. “Nancy, I reached out several times asking what you made of the subplot involving Basil Seal’s incestuous relationship with his sister. You never responded.”

  “It was my least favorite aspect of the book,” Nancy said. “Though I assume that’s why you wrote it.”

  Basil Seal was one of Evelyn’s recurring characters, a shiftless ne’er-do-well modeled after Prod. In this book, Basil was a billeting officer who conned the wealthy into paying him not to bring displaced urchins into their homes. It was an appalling abuse of character as just about the only thing Prod cared about was refugees.

  “I’m sorry if the reappearance of Seal upset you,” Evelyn said. “But readers love him, and I can understand why. It’s really quite remarkable to find such dullness and depravity in one person.” He put up a hand. “Before you protest, remember that I’ve known Prod much longer than you have.”

  “Is this where you remind me that you punched him at Balliol?” Nancy said. “Your one act of bravery. Speaking of books, did Laura receive my gift?” Evelyn’s second wife had given birth to their fourth child, and Nancy aimed to start the little one’s library with first editions of Peter and Wendy and The Boy Castaways of Black Lake Island.

  “Yes, she did,” Evelyn said. “Honestly, Nancy. Barrie? Most people regard his books and plays as among the most insidiously unmoral forms of children’s literature. But thank you for the thought.”

  “You really suck the pleasure out of giving gifts,” Nancy said.

  “Sucks the pleasure out of most things,” Hellbags said. “And not in the good way.”

  Nancy snickered and looked up to see a flash of gray. A customer, maybe? Or was it the apparition from earlier?

  “Spare me, Hellbags,” Evelyn said. “If Nancy insists on working in a bookshop, she should know the difference between good literature and bad.”

  “You’re such a worm!”

  “I thanked her, Hellbags. Calm down.”

  “Poor Laura,” she said. Cursing under her breath, Hellbags flipped to the first page of her book. It was Agatha Christie’s latest, a surprise, for Nancy hadn’t known her to read.

  “What are you working on, Nancy?” Evelyn asked. “Pigeon Pie came out two years ago. Surely you’ve made progress on something new.”

  “I’ve been busy,” Nancy said, chin lifted. “With wartime duties and a full-time job. Now that life is settling down, I just need to find the right topic.”

  “You’d better find one soon,” Evelyn said. “If much more time passes, you won’t be able to call yourself a writer anymore.”

  “Nancy’s almost forty years old!” Hellbags said. “And she’s written four books! What else would she be, if not a writer?”

  “A book hawker? Nancy, you’ll never be happy selling other people’s work.”

  “This is temporary,” Nancy said, as Mollie’s narrow little face poked out from behind a gold-painted pillar. Sighing, Nancy popped off the counter to collect the muckle of books at Eddy’s feet. “I like working at the shop, and I need the money. My last book didn’t sell, and Peter never gets paid. It’s a very delicate dance.”

  “I’m sure Pr
od gets paid,” said Evelyn, practically. “He probably keeps it for himself. As for your next book, I have some ideas.”

  “No, thank you,” Nancy said, cramming Eddy’s books into the nearest available shelf. “By the way, it would be absolute heaven if one of you could purchase something, now and again. We are trying to run a business, not a salon.”

  “Salon,” Eddy mused. “That’s a hell of an idea.”

  “Your strongest novel is Wigs on the Green,” Evelyn said. “You shine when you write about things that have really happened. Specifically, your family.”

  “Actually, I was considering writing about you,” Nancy said. “The book would be called The Perpetual Agitation of a Million Tiny Things.”

  “Very droll. Save the humor for your work.”

  “I didn’t like Wigs,” Eddy said. “It was silly.”

  “Thank you, Edward. When I woke up this morning, I hoped somebody might critique me for a book that came out seven years ago.”

  “That line about Hitler being a splendid fellow?” He made a face. “It was upsetting.”

  “A splendid fellow who carried things a ‘shade too far,’” Nancy reminded him. “It was a parody. Obviously, I don’t think Hitler has any redeeming qualities!”

  Eddy pondered this as he fiddled with his ring. It was a gold, gaudy affair dominated on this day by a five-carat pink sapphire, one of the forty-some stones he swapped in and out.

  “Don’t listen to Eddy,” Evelyn said. “I’m the one who understands fiction. Semi-autobiographical suits you. This is because, while you’re a decent writer, you don’t know how to think.”

  “Gosh, Evelyn,” Nancy said. “Why is it that every conversation with you leaves me feeling as though I’ve just survived an air raid?”

  “Evelyn Waugh is not the expert on literature,” Hellbags said. “His books are a chore to read. I’d rather do almost anything else, including Johnny, and that’s saying something!” She paused and tapped her chin. “On the other hand, Evelyn’s novels are miles better than his personality, so there’s that.”