The Gospel of Sheba by Lyndsay Faye Page B

from aconitine poisoning absorbed through monkshood-laced gloves and all. Still, closer to hale than its condition the night before. While weak and willowy, I find myself harder to kill than I’d imagined, if not nearly so hard to kill as Watson.
    â€œWhat the devil has happened?” I exclaimed, advancing towards Miss Church’s ruddy, slightly obstinate countenance.
    â€œYou can read, I think, or do y’want the likes of me to open your mail?” she desired to know. It was a fair answer to a stupid question. “These said urgent . What’s happened, then? Where’s the missus?”
    I read my correspondence, hardly daring to breathe.
    I gasped aloud.
    After making arrangements with Miss Church to tend Grace for the next few days without me, and kissing my darling girl goodbye, I rushed for the exit. I was stopped by an elderly gentleman returning from lunch with several equally grey peers. The Librarian’s hair curled invitingly, his merry brown eyes sparked, and he held out a hand as if preparing to compliment me before his cronies.
    I was having none of it. There are more important things in this world—though not very many—than a position at the London Library. I surged ahead. But the Librarian was surrounded by men I now recognized as donors, and the group blocked my path.
    â€œAre you all right, Mr. Lomax?” the Librarian questioned.
    Laughing, I nodded. “Yes, everything’s marvelous! My wife is very ill, you see. I’m to fetch her home from Strasbourg.”
    â€œAh,” he answered, eyes wide. “I am sorry to hear it.”
    â€œDon’t be sorry, I’m alive this afternoon to go to her, and she has been bedridden for a week, so things really couldn’t be going any better,” I assured him. “I’ll be back in three or four days, sir. Farewell!”
    â€œBut I mean to speak with you!” the Librarian called after me as I edged past baffled patrons.
    â€œNo time!”
    â€œBut I mean to increase your wage, given your unprecedented work ethic, Mr. Lomax! Allow me to make you an offer at least.”
    â€œI accept!” I cried happily as I reached the door, throwing my arms wide.
    â€œMarvelous!” exclaimed the Librarian. We were really making far too much noise for the foyer of the London Library, for arriving members were turning to stare in dismay alongside the shocked donors. “Magnificent! I shall adjust your figures accordingly and enter them in the books. Strasbourg, you say? Godspeed, Mr. Lomax!”
    I write this from a second class train, retracing Lettie’s path. My fingertips are still numb, and thus clumsy, but I have never cared less for penmanship. The little towns with their church spires do resemble picture postcards, just as my wife said, and upon viewing them I know they bored her dreadfully. How tedious her travels must have been, and still worse her confinement to unhygienic chambers. If Lettie insists upon one thing, it is absolute cleanliness.
    Details continue to flood back to me as I draw closer to her—the tiny gap in my wife’s front teeth, the faint spice to her skin, the fact that if she wishes to raise a single eyebrow, it will assuredly be the left one. So many of her aspects are unusual. She is as vain as any artist, and yet ferociously protective of her fellow singers, and refuses to put on any airs they are not likewise entitled to. She is gleefully dismissive of works others deem important and she thinks trite. She is nearly always ruminating over food and drink and luxurious surroundings, and she reads Shakespeare when in the dumps. She doesn’t want more children and asked me, “But darling, how much toll do you expect my body to take ?” but would tear apart a wolf with her bare hands if it threatened Grace. She is absent, but she loves me.
    I honestly cannot conceive how I could have forgotten: when it comes to studying complex subjects, Colette