We are served hare soup, this night; then goose, crisp at the skin, pink at the bones, and with its innards devilled and passed about the table. Mr Hawtrey takes a dainty kidney, Mr Rivers has the heart. I shake my head at the plate he offers.
'I'm afraid you're not hungry,' he says quietly, watching my face.
'Don't you care for goose, Miss Lilly?' asks Mr Hawtrey. 'Nor does my eldest daughter.
She thinks of goslings, and grows tearful.'
'I hope you catch her tears and keep them,' says Mr Huss. 'I often think I should like to see the tears of a girl made into an ink.'
A n i n k ? D o n ' t m e n t i o n i t t o m y d a u g h t e r s , I b e g y o u . T h a t I m u s t h e a r t h e i r complaints, is one thing. Should they once catch the idea of impressing them also upon paper, and making me read them, I assure you, my life would not be worth the living.'
'Tears, for ink?' says my uncle, a beat behind the others. 'What rubbish is this?'
'Girls' tears,' says Mr Huss.
'Quite colourless.'
'I think not. Truly, sir, I think not. I fancy them delicately tinged— perhaps pink, perhaps violet.'
'Perhaps,' says Mr Hawtrey, 'as depending on the emotion that has provoked them?'
'Exactly. You have hit it, Hawtrey, there. Violet tears, for a melancholy book; pink, for a gay. It might be sewn up, too, with hair from a girl's head ..." He glances at me and his look changes. He puts his napkin to his mouth.
'Now,' says Mr Hawtrey, 'I really wonder that that has never been attempted. Mr Lilly?
One hears barbarous stories of course, of hides and bindings
They discuss this for a time. Mr Rivers listens but says nothing. Of course, his attention is all with me. Perhaps he will speak, I think, under cover of their talk. I hope he will. I hope he won't. I sip my wine and am suddenly weary. I have sat at suppers like this, hearing my uncle's friends chase tedious points in small, tight circles, too many times. Unexpectedly, I think of Agnes. I think of Agnes's mouth teasing a 132
bead of blood from her pricked palm. My uncle clears his throat, and I blink.
'So, Rivers,' he says, 'Hawtrey tells me he has you translating, French matter into English. Poor stuff, I suppose, if his press is involved in it.'
'Poor stuff indeed,' answers Mr Rivers; 'or I should not attempt it. It is hardly my line.
One learns, in Paris, the necessary terms; but it was as a student of the fine arts that I was lately there. I hope to find a better application for my talents, sir, than the conjuring of bad English from worse French.'
'Well, well. We shall see.' My uncle smiles. 'You would like to view my pictures.'
'Very much indeed.'
'Well, another day will do for that. They are handsome enough, I think you'll find. I c a r e l e s s f o r t h e m t h a n f o r m y b o o k s , h o w e v e r . Y o u ' v e h e a r d , p e r h a p s ' — he pauses— 'of my Index?'
Mr Rivers inclines his head. 'It sounds a marvellous thing.'
'Pretty marvellous— eh, Maud? But, are we modest? Do we blush?'
I know my own cheek is cool; and his is pale as candle-wax. Mr Rivers turns, searches my face with his thoughtful gaze.
'How goes the great work?' asks Mr Hawtrey lightly.
'We are close,' answers my uncle. 'We are very close. I am in consultation with finishers.'
'And the length?'
'A thousand pages.'
Mr Hawtrey raises his brow. If my uncle's temper would permit it, he might whistle.
He reaches for another slice of goose.
'Two hundred more then,' he says, as he does it, 'since I spoke to you last.'
'For the first volume, of course. The second shall be greater. What think you of that, Rivers?'
'Astonishing, sir.'
'Has there ever been its like? An universal bibliography, and on such a theme? They say the science is a dead one amongst Englishmen.'
'Then you have raised it to life. A fantastic achievement.'
'Fantastic, indeed— more so, when one knows the degrees of obscurity in which my subject is shrouded. Consider this: that the authors of the texts I collect must cloak their identity in deception and anonymity. That the texts themselves are stamped with every kind of false and misleading detail as to place and date of publication and impress. Hmm? That they are burdened with obscure titles. That they must pass darkly, via secret channels, or on the wings of rumour and supposition. Consider those checks to the bibliographer's progress. Then speak to me, sir, of fantastic labour!' He trembles in a mirthless laughter.
'I cannot conceive it,' says Mr Rivers. 'And the Index is organised . . .?'
'By title, by name, by date when we have it; and, mark this, sir: by species of pleasure.
We have them tabled, most precisely'
'The books?'
'The pleasures! Where are we presently, Maud?'
The gentlemen turn to me. I sip my wine. 'At the Lust,' I say, 'of Men for Beasts.'
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My uncle nods. 'So, so,' he says. 'Do you see, Rivers, the assistance our bibliography will provide, to the student of the field? It will be a veritable Bible.'
'The flesh made word,' says Mr Hawtrey, smiling, enjoying the phrase. He catches my eye, and winks. Mr Rivers, however, is still looking earnestly at my uncle.
'A great ambition,' he says now.
A great labour,' says Mr Huss.
'Indeed,' says Mr Hawtrey, turning again to me. 'I am afraid, Miss Lilly, your uncle continues to work you very mercilessly.'
I shrug. 'I was bred to the task,' I say, 'as servants are.'
'Servants and young ladies,' says Mr Huss, 'are different sorts of creatures. Have I not said so, many times? Girls' eyes should not be worn out with reading, nor their small hands made hard through the gripping of pens.'
'So my uncle believes,' I say, showing my gloves; though it is his books he is anxious to save, of course, not my fingers.
And what,' he says now, 'if she labour five hours a day? I labour ten! What should we work for, if not books? Hmm? Think of Smart, and de Bury. Or think of Tinius, so dedicated a collector he killed two men for the sake of his library.'
'Think of Frere Vincente, who, for the sake of his, killed twelve!' Mr Hawtrey shakes his head. 'No, no, Mr Lilly. Work your niece if you must. But drive her to violence for literature's sake, and we shall never forgive you.'
The gentlemen laugh.
'Well, well,' says my uncle.
I study my hand, saying nothing. My fingers show red as ruby through the glass of dark wine, my mother's initial quite invisible until I turn the crystal; then the cuts leap out.
There are two more courses before I might be excused, and then two more soundings o f t h e c l o c k t o b e s a t t h r o u g h , a l o n e , b e f o r e t h e g e n t l e m e n j o i n m e i n t h e drawing- room. I hear the murmur of their
voices and wonder what, in my absence, they discuss. When they come at last they are all a little pinker in the face, and their breaths are soured with smoke. Mr Hawtrey produces a package, bound in paper and string. He hands it to my uncle, who fumbles with the wrappings.
'So, so,' he says; and then, with the book uncovered and held close to his eyes: 'Aha!'
He works his lips. 'Look here, Maud, look, at what the little grubbian has brought us.'
He shows me the volume. 'Now, what do you say?'
It is a common novel in a tawdry binding, but with an unfamiliar frontispiece that renders it rare. I look and, despite myself, feel the stirrings of a dry excitement. The sensation makes me queasy. I say, 'A very fine thing for us, Uncle, without a doubt.'