Darcy’s face fell, and I had to look away in case he saw the guilt in my eyes.
“Oh,” he mumbled. “That is most unfortunate.”
“I’m sorry, but I promise I’ll find the answer myself,” I said quickly. “It might take another few days, but I’ll work out how to get you home.”
“Thank you,” he said, but all the enthusiasm from a minute ago had disappeared from his voice.
“And in the meantime, you’re very welcome to stay here,” I continued. “I know my flat isn’t quite Netherfield Park, but you can watch as much TV as you like. There are documentaries on all sorts of subjects, not just the natural world.”
He nodded, but his shoulders were hunched and he ate his sandwich in moody silence.
After lunch, I put the TV back on and we watched another episode ofPlanet Earth. Although Darcy was distracted at first, before long he was gasping his way through an epic battle between a polar bear and a herd of walruses, his grief from a few moments ago numbed by the anesthetizing power of TV. And I felt bad about this—I really did. I knew fromPride and Prejudicethat Darcy was a man who prized honesty above all else, and yet not only was I keeping his true identity a secret from him, I was also keeping him away from the one person who might know how he’d gotten here and, therefore, how to get him home. Did that mean I was technically kidnapping Darcy? Shit, was I Annie Wilkes fromMisery, only in North London rather than remote Colorado and with considerably better hair?
But as the afternoon wore on, and David Attenborough took us from the Arctic north through the Amazonian rain forests to creepy dinosaur-like birds in Australia, I began to see my situation in a different light. Because rather than being the baddie by lying to Darcy, wasn’t I actually protecting him from the severe existential crisis that would inevitably come if he found out he was a made-up character? The man was struggling enough to deal with electric lights and a flushing toilet, so surely to suddenly spring the whole “you’re a figment of a woman’s imagination” on him might cause him to have a nervous breakdown? And not only that, but rather than kidnapping Darcy, I was actually keeping him safe from the dangerous, book-burning Nick Baskerville while I worked out how to return him to his story on my own. Yes, I wasn’t Annie Wilkes; I was that kid fromE.T., protecting my alien from the evil forces intent on destroying him.
Before I knew it, the sun had moved behind the rooftops of the houses across the street, and Darcy and I had watched six episodes ofPlanet Earthback-to-back. I didn’t have the facilities, or abilities, to cook a proper dinner, so I ordered in takeaway from the local Chinese restaurant. Darcy was deeply suspicious of the food when it arrived, prodding his chow mein noodles as if they were poisonous worms David Attenborough might meet in a jungle swamp, but as soon as he had his first mouthful, he was groaning with delight.
“And this is all from the Orient?” he said between mouthfuls of spring roll. “I have never eaten delicacies of such exquisite flavor and composition.”
“If you like this, just wait until you try Indian food,” I said, spooning more fried rice onto his plate. “There’s also an excellent Korean place nearby, and I think you’ll love their kimchi pancake.”
“When first I arrived in this foreign era, I believed myself to havelanded in the ninth circle of Dante’sInferno. But between Sir David’s wonders of the planet and this fine cuisine, I believe that I may find myself in heaven, not hell.”
Darcy gave me a shy smile across the table, and I felt my heart lifting. With the exception of Bianca, I’d never had anyone over to this flat before, and now I was eating dinner here with Mr.-fricking-Darcy. And not only that, he thought it was heaven!
I grinned back at him. “I’m glad you’re having a nice time, Mr. Darcy. Now, let me introduce you to the pleasures of chocolate fudge brownie ice cream.”
Chapter Eight
I slept well that night, the kind of deep, dreamless sleep that I hadn’t had in months, and I woke up the following morning feeling uncharacteristically fresh. I could hear snoring through the wall, so rather than disturb Darcy, I reached for my laptop. As much as I’d enjoyed my previous day with him, I needed to work out how he’d gotten here and how to get him back. I decided the best place to start my research was with Baskerville Books itself, because surely if there was a shop in Central London stocking books that brought their characters to life, it would be all over the internet? But I quickly discovered that there was remarkably little about Baskerville Books online. They had a website, but it was nothing more than a holding page with the store’s contact details and opening hours, with sadly no mention of magic books.
There was a number of reviews for the shop, and although the majority were positive, I was delighted to see a couple of people had given it one star and commented on the rude male owner refusing to stock romance books; I clearly wasn’t the only person who’d been on the receiving end of his misogynistic rant. When I got to older reviews, Istarted to see mentions of a woman named Maggie, who I assumed was Nick’s mum and seemed to have been universally loved by customers, but there were no references to anything unusual about her or the shop.
Having exhausted all the reviews, I carried on searching for mentions of Baskerville Books online. It came up on various pages about London bookstores, but there was nothing to suggest it was anything other than a completely ordinary independent bookshop. Even when I expanded my search terms, looking for things likeBaskerville Books+Magic, nothing came up. Perhaps I was wrong and Darcy’s arrival wasn’t connected to the stolen copy ofPride and Prejudice? But if that was the case, why had Nick been so obsessed with me getting rid of it?
After an hour of research, my eyes were going blurry and I was craving caffeine. But just as I was about to shut my laptop and creep out to make coffee, something caught my eye. It was a 2016 blog post by a woman called “Lilyloveslondon,” entitled “Is Baskerville Books London’s Most Romantic Bookshop?” I swallowed a spluttering laugh—surely this had to be a mistake—but when I clicked on the link, I saw a photo of a building that was unmistakably Baskerville Books. Yet the shop’s front window was unrecognizable: colorful and beautifully curated, without a dick lit novel in sight. I scrolled down and began to read the piece.
Long-term readers of my blog will know that I love nothing more than a good independent bookshop, and I think I might have found my favourite yet. Tucked away in London’s Cecil Court, Baskerville Books is a beautiful family-run bookstore that’s a haven for book lovers. I interviewed the shop’s owner, Maggie Baskerville, about the inspiring history behind her shop, herbelief in the transformative power of fiction, and why Baskerville Books might be London’s best kept secret.
Lily:Hi Maggie! Can you start off by telling us a bit about the history of your bookshop?
Maggie:Of course. My grandparents, Ava and Arthur Baskerville, were both huge book lovers, but when the Second World War broke out, my grandfather was tragically killed fighting in France. My grandmother was utterly grief stricken, but the thing that helped her through the worst period of her life was books. She said that through the characters in her favourite stories, she found hope again, and so after the war, she decided she wanted to help other people find hope through books too. Ava spent every penny she owned on opening Baskerville Books in 1947, and it’s been in my family ever since.
I looked up from the screen, a familiar ache in my chest as I glanced at the small shelf beside my bed. I must have hundreds, if not thousands, of books in this flat, piled up on every surface, and yet the twenty or so on this shelf held a special place in my heart. Because, like Ava Baskerville, I knew what it was like to lose the person I loved most in the world. And like Ava, I’d also turned to books in the sharp-edged depths of my grief. In the weeks after Mum died, I’d barely been able to leave my bed despite Bianca’s efforts to help. Instead, all I’d wanted to do was huddle up with my mum’s favorite books, reading them for eighteen to twenty hours a day, searching for traces of the woman I’dlost. And as strange as this might sound, it had helped. I caught familiar glimpses of Mum inLittle Women, laughing with the March sisters and telling me that one day I’d be an author like Jo. She was there in her much-thumbed copy of Jilly Cooper’sRivals, blushing at Rupert Campbell-Black’s antics and jokingly telling me off for reading racy stories far too young. But most of all, I found Mum in the pages ofPride and Prejudice, the book she and I had read so many times together. She was at lunch with the Bennet family, rolling her eyes at Mr. and Mrs. Bennet’s bickering, and she was cheering Elizabeth on when she stood up to Lady Catherine de Bourgh and told her to sling her hook. But more than anything, Mum was there in the scenes with Darcy: laughingly calling him a dolt during his failed first proposal to Elizabeth, pointing out what a loyal brother and friend he was when I questioned his motives over Bingley and Jane, and wiping her eyes at the end when Darcy tells Elizabeth“It taught me to hope…as I had scarcely ever allowed myself to hope before.”I blinked back my own tears at the memory and turned my attention back to the laptop screen.
Lily:Wow, Maggie, that’s such a beautiful story about your grandmother! And she certainly created a gorgeous shop; this has to be one of the prettiest bookshops in London.
Maggie:Thank you! Ava always said that she wanted to create a safe, welcoming space for readers in the heart of London—somewhere people could get away from their problems and escape into a good story—and I hope that all these years later, we’re still offering that.
Lily:Bookselling is clearly in your blood. What do you enjoy most about your job?
Maggie:So many things. I grew up in this shop watching my grandmother and mum at work, and I love being surrounded by books and making recommendations to customers like they did. But most of all, I love knowing that what I do genuinely helps people. I might not be a teacher or a doctor, but like Ava, I believe in the power of books to heal a broken heart, give guidance when someone’s feeling lost, or boost a person’s confidence when they need it most.
Lily:What are the books you most frequently recommend to customers?
Maggie:That really depends on the customer, as being a good bookseller is a bit like being a matchmaker: First you have to understand the person before you can work out what kind of book will suit them best. But if I had to generalise, I’d say that the books I most frequently recommend are those with a love story at their heart. I don’t necessarily mean romance novels—although those are some of my personal favourites—but I think there are few people who wouldn’t benefit from a story that affirms the power of love and reminds them that they’re worthy of it too. Plus, in these uncertain times, don’t we all secretly want a happy-ever-after?
I paused again, rereading Maggie’s last answer. She’d perfectly described one of the reasons I’d always wanted to write romance novels: to help people believe that they, too, deserved love and could have their own happy ending. And yet my efforts had always fallen flat. However much I loved the act of writing, my fictional relationships were two-dimensional and my happy-ever-afters unsatisfactory. Crispin, who’d had a lot of therapy, had said that it was probably because my own father had abandoned me and my mum when I was a teenager, and so I had trouble writing healthy, happy relationships. Personally, I wondered if it was because I’d only ever dated fuckwits like Crispin and so had never experienced a happy, healthy relationship of my own. But whatever the reason, I’d eventually decided to leave writing about love to the experts, even if I did miss that wonderful feeling of being completely immersed in a world of my own creation.
