bearing the names of extinct motorcars, such as the Wolseley and the Sheffield-Simplex, were still attached to one of its walls below the roofline, too high up to have attracted the attention of thieves or vandals.
Now, a quarter century after the last Lagonda had rolled out of its doors, the building had fallen, like old crockery in the servant’s quarters, into a kind of chipped and broken decrepitude.
Behind and beyond the library, a warren of decaying outbuildings, like tombstones clustered round a country church, subsided into the long grass between the old showroom and the abandoned towpath that followed the river. Several of these dirt-floored hovels housed the overflow of books from the library’s long gone and much larger Georgian predecessor. Makeshift structures that had once been a cluster of motor repair shops now found their dim interiors home to row upon row of unwanted books, their subjects labeled above them: History, Geography, Philosophy, Science. Still reeking of antique motor oil, rust, and primitive water closets, these wooden garages were called the stacks—and I could see why! I often came here to read and, next to my chemical laboratory at Buckshaw, it was my favorite place on earth.
I was thinking this as I arrived at the front door and turned the knob.
“Oh, scissors!” I said. It was locked.
As I stepped to one side to peer in the window, I noticed a handmade sign crudely drawn with black crayon and stuck to the glass: CLOSED.
Closed? Today was Saturday. The library hours were ten o’clock to two-thirty, Thursday through Saturday; they were clearly posted in the black-framed notice beside the door. Had something happened to Miss Pickery?
I gave the door a shake, and then a good pounding. I cupped my hands to the glass and peered inside, but except for a beam of sunlight falling through motes of dust before coming to rest upon shelves of novels there was nothing to be seen.
“Miss Pickery!” I called, but there was no answer.
“Oh, scissors!” I said again. I should have to put off my researches until another time. As I stood outside in Cow Lane, it occurred to me that Heaven must be a place where the library is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
No … eight days a week.
I knew that Miss Pickery lived in Shoe Street. If I left my bicycle here and took a shortcut through the outbuildings at the back of the library, I’d pass behind the Thirteen Drakes, and come out beside her cottage.
I picked my way through the long wet grass, watching carefully to avoid tripping on any of the rotting bits of rusty machinery that jutted out here and there like dinosaur bones in the Gobi Desert. Daphne had described to me the effects of tetanus: One scratch from an old auto wheel and I’d be foaming at the mouth, barking like a dog, and falling to the ground in convulsions at the sight of water. I had just managed to work up a gob of spit in my mouth for practice when I heard voices.
“But how could you let him, Mary?” It was a young man’s voice, coming from the inn yard.
I flattened myself behind a tree, then peeked round it. The speaker was Ned Cropper, the odd-jobs boy at the Thirteen Drakes.
Ned! The very thought of him had the same effect upon Ophelia as an injection of novocaine. She had taken it into her head that he was the spitting image of Dirk Bogarde, but the only similarity I could see was that both had arms and legs and stacks of brilliantined hair.
Ned was sitting on a beer barrel outside the back door of the inn, and a girl I recognized as Mary Stoker was sitting on another. They did not look at one another. As Ned dug an elaborate maze in the ground with the heel of his boot, Mary kept her hands clasped tightly in her lap as she gazed at nothing in midair.
Although he had spoken in an urgent undertone, I could hear every word perfectly. The plaster wall of the Thirteen Drakes functioned as a perfect sound reflector.
“I told you, Ned Cropper, I
Now, a quarter century after the last Lagonda had rolled out of its doors, the building had fallen, like old crockery in the servant’s quarters, into a kind of chipped and broken decrepitude.
Behind and beyond the library, a warren of decaying outbuildings, like tombstones clustered round a country church, subsided into the long grass between the old showroom and the abandoned towpath that followed the river. Several of these dirt-floored hovels housed the overflow of books from the library’s long gone and much larger Georgian predecessor. Makeshift structures that had once been a cluster of motor repair shops now found their dim interiors home to row upon row of unwanted books, their subjects labeled above them: History, Geography, Philosophy, Science. Still reeking of antique motor oil, rust, and primitive water closets, these wooden garages were called the stacks—and I could see why! I often came here to read and, next to my chemical laboratory at Buckshaw, it was my favorite place on earth.
I was thinking this as I arrived at the front door and turned the knob.
“Oh, scissors!” I said. It was locked.
As I stepped to one side to peer in the window, I noticed a handmade sign crudely drawn with black crayon and stuck to the glass: CLOSED.
Closed? Today was Saturday. The library hours were ten o’clock to two-thirty, Thursday through Saturday; they were clearly posted in the black-framed notice beside the door. Had something happened to Miss Pickery?
I gave the door a shake, and then a good pounding. I cupped my hands to the glass and peered inside, but except for a beam of sunlight falling through motes of dust before coming to rest upon shelves of novels there was nothing to be seen.
“Miss Pickery!” I called, but there was no answer.
“Oh, scissors!” I said again. I should have to put off my researches until another time. As I stood outside in Cow Lane, it occurred to me that Heaven must be a place where the library is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
No … eight days a week.
I knew that Miss Pickery lived in Shoe Street. If I left my bicycle here and took a shortcut through the outbuildings at the back of the library, I’d pass behind the Thirteen Drakes, and come out beside her cottage.
I picked my way through the long wet grass, watching carefully to avoid tripping on any of the rotting bits of rusty machinery that jutted out here and there like dinosaur bones in the Gobi Desert. Daphne had described to me the effects of tetanus: One scratch from an old auto wheel and I’d be foaming at the mouth, barking like a dog, and falling to the ground in convulsions at the sight of water. I had just managed to work up a gob of spit in my mouth for practice when I heard voices.
“But how could you let him, Mary?” It was a young man’s voice, coming from the inn yard.
I flattened myself behind a tree, then peeked round it. The speaker was Ned Cropper, the odd-jobs boy at the Thirteen Drakes.
Ned! The very thought of him had the same effect upon Ophelia as an injection of novocaine. She had taken it into her head that he was the spitting image of Dirk Bogarde, but the only similarity I could see was that both had arms and legs and stacks of brilliantined hair.
Ned was sitting on a beer barrel outside the back door of the inn, and a girl I recognized as Mary Stoker was sitting on another. They did not look at one another. As Ned dug an elaborate maze in the ground with the heel of his boot, Mary kept her hands clasped tightly in her lap as she gazed at nothing in midair.
Although he had spoken in an urgent undertone, I could hear every word perfectly. The plaster wall of the Thirteen Drakes functioned as a perfect sound reflector.
“I told you, Ned Cropper, I
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