Darcy had prepared for that. He gave it to him cleanly, without embellishment: early land records, ecclesiastical holdings prior to dissolution, custodial arrangements attached to estates no longer extant. He specified counties. He specified dates.
He did not mention legends.
The clerk listened, pen moving steadily. When Darcy finished, the man looked up again, his expression unchanged but his caution newly engaged.
“You will require a reader’s ticket for several of those collections,” he said. “If you have not already applied, the forms—”
“I have one,” Darcy replied.
“Very good.” The clerk nodded once and consulted another book. “Some of what you describe is not held here in any continuous form. Monastic records are… uneven. Many were lost. Others survive only in transcript, and those are often damaged or disputed.”
“I am aware.”
The clerk hesitated, then closed the ledger. “Even so, sir, such materials are not ordinarily produced without specific cause. May I ask the purpose of your research?”
Darcy met his gaze steadily. “Private.”
The answer appeared to satisfy the form, if not the substance. The clerk inclined his head again. “In that case, there will be a delay. Several days, at least. Possibly longer.”
“There must be some record more readily available,” he insisted. “Charters. Marginalia. Correspondence.”
“There are alwaysreferences,” the clerk said carefully. “Interpretations as well. Inquiries of this sort tend to generate more commentary than evidence.”
“Then I will begin there.”
The clerk studied him more openly now, as though determining whether this persistence would prove tiresome or merely inconvenient.
“At present,” he said at last, and with little pleasure, “most of the secondary material has already been consulted and may be in some… disarray.”
Darcy’s fist tightened on his gloves. “By whom?”
The clerk hesitated. “There is a gentleman,” he said, his pen pausing mid-stroke. “An antiquarian. He has made a… particular study of these matters. Monastic survivals. Land custodianship. Continuities that—” He cleared his throat. “—fall somewhat outside the usual frameworks.”
Darcydid not move. “And?”
“He is not affiliated with this institution,” the clerk said at once, as though eager to establish the point. “Nor are his conclusions generally accepted. His access—” the pen tapped once against the ledger— “is granted by authority beyond this office.”
“Accepted or not,” Darcy said, “he has already examined what I seek.”
“Yes,” the clerk replied, with a thinness that had not been there before. “Extensively. To the point of inconvenience, in some quarters.”
“His name?”
The clerk hesitated again, this time long enough to be unmistakable. “Mr Aldous Harrowe,” he said at last, the name shaped with care rather than approval.
Darcy’s head lifted at once. “Harrowe?” The name escaped him before he had time to consider it. “TheHarrowe who compiled the northern ballads? Surely not.”
The clerk’s expression darkened, as though he had not expected the recognition. “He would have you believe so, sir. A descendant, at least—or so he claims. The family has made a habit of attaching itself to such material. I regret to say, Mr Darcy, that his activities will make collecting the items you seek… difficult.”
Darcy said nothing for a moment. His gaze had gone distant, fixed not on the clerk but on something older and far less orderly than the ledgers before him. Ballads. Verses that survived where records failed. Lines scholars dismissed precisely because they endured.
“Where do I find this man?”
The clerk’s look darkened. “I assure you, sir, he has nothing of import—”
“His direction, if you please,” Darcy insisted.
The clerk frowned. “He keeps rooms off Red Lion Square. You will find him easily enough.”
