At the rear of the counter, pretty books are on display stands. Ellery straightens one of the series of cloth-bound Batsford Books she and the groom had gleefully agreed on for the sweet pastels of their colour scheme. Ellery will be lucky to sell them for twenty pounds a-piece, but cheap and cheerful still improves the room.
She is honoured Francis Fitzhenry wants to marry in her shop. Ellery’s mother is apoplectic with jealousy at it, because she’s obsessed with the man. She is a devotee of the titled upper classes; keeps a copy ofDebrett’s Correct Formon her bedside table. It irritates Ellery’s mother that Ellery is so unfazed about the whole thing. (She’s not unfazed. She only pretends to be to annoy her mother.)
The doorbell tinkles and there stands the viscount himself. Francis Fitzhenry is elegant in shades of sage and eucalyptus, with a pale pink pocket square.
‘Darling!’ says Francis, peering around the shop with a luminous smile. ‘It looks perfect!’
Ellery returns the smile. ‘You’re a talent, Frankie Fitzhenry. You should open a decorating business.’
Francis looks up at the flowers he attached to the ceiling rafters yesterday.
‘Still looking fresh,’ she says.
He leans across the mahogany map chest to turn on a lamp that has been brought in for ambient light and colour. ‘Did the champagne arrive?’
‘It’s in the fridge. And the caterer is out the back, setting up the platters. Everything is completely under control.’
Ellery reminds herself to be calm. I am proud of her. I cannot wait for her to go out and experience life outside my walls; to explore the secrets of her heart. To reallylive.
‘So, you want everyone to settle in first, then I make the announcement to start the ceremony when they have a drink in hand?’ she asks.
‘Yes. Give them half an hour to chat first. Lubricating bubbles before the “I do’s” will enhance the fun.’ Francis frowns. ‘One doesn’t need to stand on ceremony, surely, if one marries in one’s sixties?’
They chat and fuss with the decor until guests begin to arrive. First is a middle-aged woman and a teenage girl. The girl seems unruffled by her invitation to what locals are calling the hottest ticket in town. ‘The Reclusive Right Honourable’—as they call Francis in the village—may be a man of mystery who rarely goes anywhere else in the village except here, but he manages to fuel the gossip train on mere wisps of sightings. Ellery and I are big news today.
The girl has pointed features, hair pulled back in a high ponytail. She looks around with a proprietary air.
‘Sienna! Donna!’ says Francis, kissing them on both cheeks. The girl, Sienna, is wearing a short skirt, high-top sandshoes and a blousy top. She pulls at the hem of her skirt, hiding the homemade tattoo still healing on her upper thigh; it is a crescent moon within a circle, the first of many she will create, though not so many as the books she will read. She peers through the glass of the rare-book cabinet and reads the lettering on the leather bindings. She will have a long and successful career as an illustrator of book covers, with a sideline in tattoos.
The girl’s mother is effusive, excited. She says I remind her of the bookshop her daughter works in at home, back in Australia, right down to the shade of Hague Blue from Farrow & Ball on my walls.Just amazing, she keeps saying.
‘Where’s Phyllida?’ Francis asks a woman called Mary who has recently arrived.
‘Miriam offered to pick her up,’ the woman says, raising a toast with the beer the caterer has fetched for her.
Across the road, a taxi pulls up and a slim, attractive woman in her sixties wearing an elegant sapphire silk dress and fascinator alights. She helps a tiny old lady out of the cab. The old lady is using a walking stick, wearing a bright pink suit, her hair in a bun. Francis goes outside and sweeps the old lady into a hug. When she is released and enters the shop, she is kissed and hugged by the others.
Ellery watches, takes a glass of champagne as a tray is brought round. She edges closer to the throng. ‘Phyllida,’ they are all saying, everyone wanting to talk to the old lady, and she issmiling and patting their arms. There is a sense of homecoming in the way she peers around and reverently touches the shelves. She sees all of it as it was, and as it is; understands that nothing remains the same, and that I, just like her, have changed these past decades. She wears her wisdom lightly; and yet I feel it solidifying all around me, into the creased pages and cracked spines, into the book boxes and antique maps, the umbrella stand and the Persian rugs. I am not her beginning, or her end, but something in between. She has further to go.
Araminta Penry-Jones pulls up in her Range Rover and parks illegally. She steps out, resplendent in a mid-length shift dress in crepe silk and a collarless coat. (Vintage Herrera, I suspect. There’s a book on my shelves about her creations.) Francis hugs her and exclaims over the outfit.
The music is turned up and Francis wanders towards Ellery. They clink champagne glasses. ‘Well done, you. Splendid show so far,’ he says.
‘Is that Lottie’s grandmother?’ Ellery gestures across the room.
‘Yes, that’s our lovely Phyllida. She loved working in this shop.’
‘She worked here?’ Ellery frowns, no doubt thinking of past staff. Not many had ever been employed outside the family. I can see her mind ticking over:There were a few casual staff over the years, mostly men, and there was Francis’s fugitive nanny, of course, the infamous Dorothea Stewart whom Francis has never stopped looking for.
‘No, no,’ Francis stutters. ‘I meant she loves working inhershop, which is like this. In Australia.’
‘Oh. A bookseller.’
Phyllida appears in front of them. Beneath the wrinkles she is the same Dorothea I once knew. The same joie de vivre and playful glint in her eye. Francis introduces her to Ellery. When Phyllida takes her hand, I can see Ellery’s floaty, nervous feeling disappearing, as if she now feels safe.
Outside, a convertible vintage Fiat Spider Frua pulls up in the reserved space. Lottie is driving. Roddy alights from the passenger seat, smartly dressed in a navy suit. He pats the car, thrilled with his wedding gift from Francis. As they enter, a cheer erupts. Francis strides across the room and takes Roddy into his arms. They kiss, and the look of joy that passes between them brings a tear to every eye in the room.
They turn to the gathered friends and family, hand in hand. Ellery has spent months completing a course to be their marriage celebrant today. In the future, when she is working for a pittance at an animal charity, the qualification will be welcome as a secondary source of income. That, and her rummaging at car boot sales where she will occasionally find valuable books to on-sell to Roddy, my next owner.
