Page 36 of The Missing Pages
“Maybe you can switch from the Rossini toPhantom of the Opera,” Violet heard Jenny joke as they headed toward the dish room.
“Stop,” Lara chided. “You’re terrible.”
And then Lara laughed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
ICOULD HARDLY DISGUISE MY DELIGHT WHEN, AFTERI finished purchasing the Bacon, Bernard Alfred indicated that he could only have drinks with me that evening and not also dinner as we had planned.
“I do apologize, Harry,” he said. “Something unexpected has come up. But let’s meet at five o’clock at my club, with a rain check for dinner the next time you come over.”
I took a leap of faith and asked Ada if she might join me for dinner two days earlier than we’d originally planned.
“It would be my pleasure,” she answered.
With my mother dining at the Ritz that evening, I suggested we meet at another establishment in Mayfair. “How about seven thirty at Verrey’s on Regent Street?”
“I will meet you there,” she answered as she walked me toward the door. “May there be no horse and carriage trapped on the rails to delay you this time.”
“I will avoid both the tramways and the Underground at all cost,” I promised. I placed my hand over my heart and felt the outline of the Little Bacon safely tucked beneath.
I left the store and headed toward the hotel to refresh myself before the evening began.
The skies had brightened from the early pewter of the morning to a bright cornflower blue. I walked toward the Ritz with an extra spring in my step.
The perfunctory drink with Quaritch would be over soon enough, and then I would have Ada alone sitting across from me.
The word “celestial” floated through my head as I imagined her eyes reflecting in the candlelight. The glow cast off by her skin.
When I initially planned my trip to London, my goal was to secure more priceless books for my library. But a new desire for something of even greater value was now stirring inside me. Love.
Bernard Alfred sat back in the thick upholstered chair of his club’s smoking room. Around us large portraits of men in dark Rembrandt-like colors lined the room. He withdrew his pipe, placed it between his lips, and lit a match to the bowl.
His tobacco smelled woodsy and dark, unlike the vanilla and bourbon notes in mine.
“I’m so delighted that your grandfather decided to purchase the Mazarin Bible.”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m appreciative of you and Rosenbach working together to help him acquire it for him. I can’t wait to see it when I return home.”
“A pleasure.” He waved his hand.
“I had wanted to do something special for you to celebrate its acquisition and, of course, also your Little Bacon conquest. So I again must apologize for not taking you to dinner this evening. We’ll have to do it another day next week.”
I raised my hand to stop him. “It’s not a problem at all. I completely understand.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think you actually do, dear boy,” he said as his body softened from the smoke. “I did not want to speak too much of it at the store, but I’ve recently found myself in quite a unique situation.”
As my mother had taught me, I did not pry. Instead, I waited for Bernard Alfred to speak.
“Well,” he began. “Are you familiar with the bookbinder, Francis Sangorski?”
I had indeed heard Rosenbach mention his name on a few occasions, though somewhat pejoratively, as his jeweled bindings were not the sort of thing that appealed to my dear friend’s taste. They were known to be fantastically expensive because of the level of craftsmanship and the cost of the stones involved.
“I know the name and that he’s a skilled artisan.”
Bernard Alfred nodded and blew another puff of smoke toward the carved plaster ceiling.
“He has been working on something that is quite incredible. A jewel-encrusted editionof The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.”
