Chapter 18

But this only lasted as long as his pipe lasted. When that was finished he put her off his knee, and said he was now ready to gratify her impatience and show her everything; they would go over the house first, and then the garden and outbuildings.

No woman was ever less impatient than Lucy. However, she pulled her hat straight and tried to seem all readiness and expectancy. She wished the wind wouldn’t howl so. What an extraordinary dreary place the library was. Well, any place would be dreary at half-past two o’clock on such an afternoon, without a fire and with the rain beating against the window, and that dreadful terrace just outside.

Wemyss stooped to knock out the ashes of his pipe on the bars of the empty grate, and Lucy carefully kept her head turned away from the window and the terrace towards the other end of the room. The other end was filled with bookshelves from floor to ceiling, and the books, in neat rows and uniform editions, were packed so tightly in the shelves that no one but an unusually determined reader would have the energy to wrench one out. Reading was evidently not encouraged, for not only were the books shut in behind glass doors, but the doors were kept locked and the key hung on Wemyss’s watch-chain. Lucy discovered this when Wemyss, putting his pipe in his pocket, took her by the arm and walked her down the room to admire the shelves. One of the volumes caught her eye, and she tried to open the glass door to take it out and look at it. ‘Why,’ she said surprised, ‘it’s locked.’

‘Of course,’ said Wemyss.

‘Why but then nobody can get at them.’

‘Precisely.’

‘But——’

‘People are so untrustworthy about books. I took pains to arrange mine myself, and they’re all in first-class-bindings and I don’t want them taken out and left lying anywhere by Tom, Dick, and Harry. If any one wants to read they can come and ask me. Then I know exactly what is taken, and can see that it is put back.’ And he held up the key on his watch-chain.

‘But doesn’t that rather discourage people?’ asked Lucy, who was accustomed to the most careless familiarity in intercourse with books, to books loose everywhere, books overflowing out of their shelves, books in every room, instantly accessible books, friendly books, books used to being read aloud, with their hospitable pages falling open at a touch.

‘All the better,’ said Wemyss. ‘I don’t want anybody to read my books.’

Lucy laughed, though she was dismayed inside. ‘Oh Everard—’ she said, ‘not even me?’

‘You? You’re different. You’re my own little girl. Whenever you want to, all you’ve got to do is to come and say, “Everard, your Lucy wants to read,” and I’ll unlock the bookcase.’

‘But—I shall be afraid I may be disturbing you.’

‘People who love each other can’t ever disturb each other.’