Page 28 of The Missing Pages
Violet ignored her. It wasn’t a crime to keep to yourself, and her roommates couldn’t kick her out of the suite because of it. They were stuck with her no matter how much of a downer they thought she’d become.
Showered and with her mind cleared, Violet headed over to Widener to study. While Lowell had its own beautiful oak-paneled library that echoed the tradition and scholarliness of the building’s elite history, she didn’t want to risk running into anyone she knew there. Widener had become her refuge.
With the recent rain, Mount Auburn Street was slick with leaves. Steps away from the yard, she saw two of Hugo’s former rowing mates standing outside “Out of Town News,” reading what looked like one of the crew bulletins. The kiosk, with its copper overhang and the words HARVARDSQUAREneatly printed in the little arch over its doorway, was a fixture of Cambridge life. Stacks of newspapers were piled at each side of the doorway. Magazines highlighting the city’s restaurants and nightlife faced outward on the outside shelving.
She had been inside on countless occasions during her time at Harvard. But the ones she most remembered had been with Hugo, where they’d been caught outside in the rain and had dipped into the kiosk for temporary shelter. The place smelled of spearmint gum and newsprint. He’d bought mints or candies from the front counter and theyhad kissed in the back, where the Harvard mugs and mini stuffed bears in crimson and white T-shirts were displayed. There was no limit to the college souvenirs available to the thousands of prospective students who visited year after year. Violet still had the sweatshirt her father had bought for her after that first campus tour.
That memory seemed incredibly distant now. She pushed it out of her mind and moved to the far side of the street to make sure Hugo’s friends didn’t see her. The party the night before had been depleting enough, and all she wanted to do at the moment was get her paper for Gupta’s seminar class done.
She walked up the marble stairs and entered Widener. By now, she knew the building like the back of her hand. The alabaster balustrade. The paintings by John Singer Sargent that had been commissioned to honor the men who’d lost their lives in the First World War added another layer of grief and mourning to the building. Violet wondered if Eleanor Widener had ever contemplated the fact that if Harry had not perished on theTitanic, he might well have lost his life only a mere five years later when America entered that devastating war.
Violet paused at the entrance to the Memorial Room. She peeked in to see how the flowers were faring, reminding herself that come Monday, she would have to put in another order for Wednesday’s delivery, then continued up the second flight of stairs toward one of the communal reading rooms.
Entering the quiet space, Violet placed her knapsack against one of the chairs and sat down. She pulled out her notebook and inhaled the air. Ever since she began working at the Widener, the scent of paper and ink had become a familiar fragrance for her. But now as she reread her written transcription of Harry’s letters to Rosenbach, she noticed the faint scent of tobacco wafting in her direction. It smelled like pipe smoke.
Smoking of any kind was forbidden in all the buildings at Harvard, so it immediately threw Violet. She looked around to see if anyone elseseemed to notice the scent, which began to grow more intense to her. But everyone else in the room seemed to be engrossed only in their own reading materials.
She craned her neck to see if she could spot anything at all that could explain this rich aroma of tobacco leaf, with its notes of vanilla and oak. But there was no one to be seen smoking a pipe. Still, the smell enveloped her, despite Violet being unable to locate its original source.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
PIPE SMOKING WAS ONE OF THE HANDFUL OF ACTIVITIESI shared with my father. When I was twenty years old, he took me to his favorite tobacco store in Philadelphia where they had blended a special recipe just for him, and offered me the chance to make one of my own. The owner had me sniff through the tins of smoked leaves, brought from places as close as Roanoke and as far away as India, and let me choose the ones I found most appealing.
“Start with a Virginia blend for the base,” my father guided. The tobacconist placed several yellow leaves atop a small postal scale for measuring.
“And what condiment leaves would you like to add to that, Mr. Widener?” he asked as he pulled a handkerchief from his apron and cleaned his hand.
My father turned to me. “Well, Harry, what do you like?” His ruby ring, the one he never took off, flickered in the light.
I let my nose wander over tins that smelled of leather, vanilla, cherry wood, and oak.
I wanted my tobacco blend to encapsulate the smell of my study. To evoke to me the scent of reading. The scent of a library. But, with my father, I just stuck to the basics with him.
“I think I’d like something that smells of oak,” I answered.
The tobacconist nodded and got on his ladder, pulling down a tin from the upper shelf. He opened it and I inhaled, nodding with approval.
He then searched a lower shelf for another tin.
“Many of my customers have found that this one is a fine complement to oak.” He pulled off the lid. “Here you go, sir.”
I cupped my hand over the opening and took in the rich scent of hide. It reminded me of my leather reading chair at home.
“Yes. Perfect,” I said.
“We’ll need to add one more note then, Harry,” my father advised. He suggested vanilla.
This time the tobacconist brought down four tins for me to sample.
“These are all different blends of vanilla. Bourbon. Tahitian. French and African. They each have their own distinction,” he informed.
I peered down, inhaling each one for their own unique notes.
“The bourbon, please,” I decided. My response to it was immediate.
“The fragrance of kings,” my father said, laughing. His approval was evident.
It was not the bourbon’s royal provenance that drew me in. It was, instead, the sensation it gave me. A similar feeling to when a book carried me away. It felt like time travel. It evoked reverie. It elicited mystery.
