“From whom?”
“A rather large publisher.”
“How cheeky!” I handed him a cup. “I trust you’ll remind them that you already have a perfectly good job.”
“I would, of course,” he said, “only the offer isn’t for me. It’s you they want, Edie. You and no one else.”
THE LETTER, as it turned out, was from the publisher of Raymond Blythe’sMud Man. Over a steaming cup of Darjeeling and a jam-laden scone, Herbert read it aloud to me; then he read it again. Then he explained its contents in rather basic terms because, despite a decade in the publishing industry, the surprise had rendered me temporarily incapable of understanding such things myself: to wit, there was a new edition of theMud Manbeing printed the following year to coincide with its seventy-fifth anniversary. Raymond Blythe’s publishers wanted me to write a new introduction to celebrate the occasion.
“You’re having a joke …” He shook his head. “But that’s just … far too unbelievable,” I said. “Why me?”
“I’m not sure.” He turned over the letter, saw that the other side was blank. Gazed up at me, eyes enormous behind his glasses. “It doesn’t say.”
“But how peculiar.” A ripple beneath my skin as the threads that had tied themselves to Milderhurst began to tremble. “What shall I do?”
Herbert handed me the letter. “I should think you might start by giving this number a ring.”
MY CONVERSATIONwith Judith Waterman, publisher at Pippin Books, was short and not unsweet. “I’ll be honest with you,” she said, when I told her who I was and why I was calling, “we’d employed another writer to do it and we were very happy with him. The daughters, though, Raymond Blythe’s daughters, were not. The whole thing’s become rather a grand headache; we’re publishing early next year, so time is of the essence. The edition’s been in development for months: our writer had already conducted preliminary interviews and got some way into his draft, then out of the blue we received a phone call from the Misses Blythe letting us know they were pulling the plug.”
That I could imagine. It was not difficult to envisage Percy Blythe taking great pleasure in such contrary behavior.
“We’re committed to the edition, though,” Judith continued. “We’ve a new imprint starting, a series of classics with memoiresque opening essays, andThe True History of the Mud Man,as one of our most popular titles, is the ideal choice for summer publication.”
I realized I was nodding as if she were with me in the room. “I can understand that,” I said, “I’m just not sure how I can—”
“The problem,” Judith pressed on, “would appear to be with one of the daughters in particular.”
“Oh?”
“Persephone Blythe. Which is an unexpected nuisance seeing as the proposal came to us in the first instance from her twin sister. Whatever the case, they weren’t happy, we can’t do anything without permission due to a complicated copyright arrangement, and the whole thing is teetering. I went down there myself a fortnight ago and mercifully they agreed to allow the project to go ahead with a different writer, someone of whom they approved—” She broke off and I heard her gulping a drink at the other end of the line. “We sent them a long list of writers, including samples of their work. They sent them all back to us unopened. Persephone Blythe asked for you instead.”
A hook of niggling doubt snagged my stomach lining. “She asked for me?”
“By name. Quite assuredly.”
“You know I’m not a writer.”
“Yes,” said Judith. “And I explained that to them, but they didn’t mind at all. Evidently they already know who you are and what you do. More to the point, it would appear you’re the only person they’ll tolerate, which reduces our options rather dramatically. Either you write it, or the entire project collapses.”
“I see.”
“Look”—the busy sound of papers being moved across a desk—“I’m convinced you’ll do a good job. You work in publishing, you know your way around sentences. I’ve contacted some of your former clients and they all spoke very highly of you.”
“Really?” Oh, frightful vanity, fishing for a compliment! She was right to ignore me.
“And all of us at Pippin are looking at this as a positive. We’re wondering whether perhaps the sisters have been so specific because they’re ready, finally, to talk about the inspiration behind the book. I don’t need to tell you what a terrific coup that would be, to discover the true history behind the book’s creation!”
She did not. My dad was doing a brilliant job of that already.
“Well then. What do you say?”
What did I say? Percy Blythe had requested me personally. I was being asked to write about theMud Man,to speak again with the Sisters Blythe, to visit them in their castle. What else was there to say? “I’ll do it.”
“IWASat the opening night of the play, you know,” said Herbert when I’d finished relaying the conversation.
“TheMud Manplay?”
He nodded as Jess took up her position on his feet. “Have I never mentioned it?”
