Old Valentines Part 10

An old prayer-rug, with a golden tree of life in its deep blue center, was the Honorable Margaret's wedding gift; Mark sent a coffee percolator.

Phyllis sighed.

"She will have a beautiful wedding," she said softly. "Ah, John, you don't know what that means to a girl."

John poked the fire.

Suddenly Phyllis laughed.

"How could I have forgotten to tell you about the cards?" she continued.

"It was so funny, and so like Peggy Neville. You see,--her card was fastened to the rug with a bit of ribbon--and on it was written---'With love and sympathy.' When Peggy saw it she shrieked. 'Oh, Phyllis!' she said, 'mother's cousin, Caroline Molesworth, has been at the hospital for a week; day before yesterday she had her surgical operation, and yesterday I sent flowers. I wrote the cards at home,--and they got mixed. On hers is written--"May all your days be as full of joy as these last few days have been!"'"

In the night Phyllis found herself wide awake. She lay quietly considering a new thought that had come to her, somehow, while she slept. If she only dared! Oh, no, no! She couldn't ask him. And yet--She fell asleep again wondering whether--perhaps, just possibly--she could do it, if she kept her mind firmly fixed on John's book.

VIII

Bookshops are the most charming of all shops because they relate themselves so intimately to their visitors. Mr. Rowlandson's gained by its setting--at the corner of the green square. Not a very good place for trade, you would say. However, he thrived.

His shop-window does not differ from a score of others one may see, on a morning's walk: a shallow bay-window, with small, square panes of inferior gla.s.s; the familiar array of old books turn their mellow t.i.tle-pages toward the light; a window designed for lingering. Three rows, or four, of books--and a few old prints--may be examined from the front; these whet the appet.i.te. But two other rows are so set in the window as to necessitate sidelong inspection, and tempt the observer to take two steps around the corner. Here, to be at ease, one must stand with one foot on the first of the four stone stairs leading downward to the door; stairs worn by the footfalls of four generations of book-hunters. Just within the door one sees an alluring stack of books, the topmost sustaining a neatly printed sign--"Sixpence--your choice."

In short--the foot once placed upon the first of these descending stairs returns not to its fellow. A little bell rings, and one is inside.

Against the background of his overflowing shelves, with his old-fas.h.i.+oned clothes, his stooping shoulders, his iron-gray hair, and his firm, tender, and melancholy face,--you will never visit Samuel Rowlandson's shop without wis.h.i.+ng to frame him as he stands, and set him in the window, among the other rare old prints.

He must have known you a long, long time to intrude a particular book upon your notice; and then with the air of consulting a connoisseur rather than suggesting a purchase. Yet he is a shrewd dealer. Not for Samuel Rowlandson is the fairly marked price on the fly-leaf; nor even hieroglyphics representing cost. A book is worth what it will fetch; and every customer's purchasing power is appraised with discrimination, concealed, indeed, but most effective.

The shop grows larger as your eyes become accustomed to the gloom of its remoter part. There are four thousand books on those overweighted shelves; all sorts and conditions of books; big folios and little duodecimos, ragged books and books clothed by Riviere and Bedford. Once he thought a Roger Payne binding had found its way to the shop, an inadvertent bargain; but, alas! the encyclopaedia dashed his tremulous hopes; years before the date on the t.i.tle-page that seedy but glorious craftsman had laid down his tools forever.

The shelves are catholic: Samuel Pepys, immortally shameless; Adam Smith, shaken; Beaumont and Fletcher, in folio as they should always be found; Boswell's Johnson, of course, but Blackstone's "Commentaries"

also; Plutarch's "Lives" and Increase Mather's witches; all of Fielding in four stately quarto volumes; Sterne, stained and shabby; Congreve, in red morocco, richly gilt; Moliere, pocket size, in an English translation; Gibbon in sober gray; Burton's "Anatomy"----

"The only book," says Mr. Rowlandson, "that ever put me to sleep two hours before I wished."

Here is Addison's "Spectator," its near neighbor Steele; the "Gentleman's Magazine," a long run this, but not complete; rare Ben Jonson, rubbed at the joints; Spenser's "Faerie Queen," with marginal notes in a contemporary hand; the "History of the Valorous and Witty Knight Errant," in sable morocco, with armorial decorations; Tacitus in all his atrocity, Herbert, all gentleness.

Overweighted shelves! Overweighted, indeed, for the books stand double-breasted. One must never a.s.sume a volume is not in stock because it is not in sight, though Mr. Rowlandson himself does not always know.

"Otway," he ponders, in response to your inquiry; "let me think. H'm.

Yes, yes, to be sure, behind the set of 'English Men of Letters.' Not there? H'm. Well, I must have sold him, then. Oh, no. You will find him in that row of old dramatists, behind the--yes, there! A little to the left--Ah! of course. Old Otway, and a very nice, sound copy, too."

Not that all the books in Mr. Rowlandson's shop are old; his clientele is too diversified. The moderns are there, too. Thackeray and d.i.c.kens; Meredith and Carlyle; Tennyson; gallant old Sir Walter in various editions.

"Lockhart's 'Life,'" he would say, handling a volume from one hand to the other. "The saddest true story in the world"; and then, brightening, "Two pound, ten."

Mr. Barrie is always handsomely represented on Mr. Rowlandson's shelves.

He is one of the few authors Mr. Rowlandson will recommend to casual customers. He suggests "Margaret Ogilvy: A Memoir. By her Son." "But are you sure it is by Barrie?"--they ask. He has sold more than four hundred copies. Once a year for several years he has written a letter to Mr.

Barrie's publishers: "Why don't you bring out his Plays?" he pleads.

"Think of the thousands of people in the provinces and in America who can't see them on the stage."

Mr. Rowlandson treasures a half-promise from Mr. Hewlett that he will write a novel around the picturesque, if unheroic, figure of Francois Villon. "I am keeping his letter," says Mr. Rowlandson, "to insert in the book--when it is published."

Of De Morgan he observes, sententiously: "Too late." Joseph Conrad's novels he shelves next to Stevenson's, significantly. He has a high regard for Arthur Christopher Benson's essays. "But does the man think I have as much shelving as the Museum?" he growls.

But these newer books are the minority. The composed, brown calf bindings give the shop its tone,--and its faint odor, too; a cultivated taste, the liking for that odor of old books.

Mr. Rowlandson's desk is in the alcove at the back of the shop; and in its lowest drawer, oftener than elsewhere, his gray cat, Selima, stretches her lazy length.

On a bright, crisp morning, nearly a week after Phyllis had lain awake thinking, Mr. Rowlandson sat at this desk, looking through his post, which consisted chiefly of book-catalogues. Having laid these aside, he opened a bulky parcel the post had brought. It proved to be a thick, square, black volume; a most unattractive book. But Mr. Rowlandson viewed it with interest.

"My me! My me!" he exclaimed, and read the t.i.tle-page; "'Proceedings of the British Engineering Society for the Year 1848.' So, you have finally come to light, old hide-and-seek! Sir Peter Oglebay will be pleased.

From Brussels, of all the unlikely--Well, well, I must remember to cancel the advertis.e.m.e.nt in the 'Athenaeum.'"

He picked up a blue saucer from the floor and stood, for a moment, watching Selima's quick paw, engaged in ablutions.

"Over your ear it goes," said he. "That means customers."

He began his morning's work with a feather duster. Occasionally he straightened a row of books. The bell tinkled, and Phyllis, in her brown coat and hat, stood, hesitant, at the door. She carried a parcel.

"Mr. Rowlandson?" she asked timidly.

"My name," he replied. "And you are Mrs. Landless. I have seen you before, although you have not seen me."

"I have heard a great deal about you, though, from Farquharson," said Phyllis. "And yesterday I took advantage of your invitation to see the pretty things in your rooms; I want to thank you for the opportunity; they are lovely old things."

"Mrs. F. took you up, did she? Well, they are pretty, and I am glad they pleased you. A foolish fancy, Mrs. Landless; a foolish fancy for an old man like me. But I am very fond of my fans and patch-boxes."

"I should think you would love them," said Phyllis. "Where in the world did you find them all?"

"Oh, in all sorts of odd nooks. They turn up when one is looking for them. Everything does, Mrs. Landless. That is one of the queer things about collecting. I could tell you some curious stories. Your old valentines, now. My me! The attics of the Continent must have been ransacked for them. It is very interesting. But the scattering of a collection is the sad part; saddest when books are dispersed. Only the other day I saw an autograph letter of De Quincey's,--the opium-eater, you know; it was written to the auctioneer who sold his library. It seems De Quincey had his son buy a few of the books at his own auction.

The poor old fellow could not bear the thought of parting with them, I fancy, when it came to the pinch."

Mr. Rowlandson waited for Phyllis to say something. Poor Phyllis! It was even more difficult than she had expected. She was tempted to retreat; but she thought of John's book.

"A remarkable coincidence,--your finding your way to Mrs. F.'s,"

continued Mr. Rowlandson. "And a very happy one for her."

"For me, too," said Phyllis. "We have you to thank for that."

"Well--in a way." Mr. Rowlandson nodded. "It is strange what fortuitous circ.u.mstances seem to direct the current of our lives. I say they seem to, Mrs. Landless, for it may be only seeming. Perhaps all is planned for us, even when our decisions rest on the toss of a penny."

A gentle pressure against her skirt attracted Phyllis's attention.

Selima's arched back invited her caress.