Oxfordshire, Present Day

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“IT’S NEVER LOOKED so nice,” said Victoria, squeezing her sister’s hand. “He would have liked it.”

“He loved the books,” said Sophie. “He never worried about dust.”

“Are you OK?” said Victoria.

“No,” said Sophie, “but keep asking.”

The two stood in the library of Bayfield House, which would be crowded with visitors later that day. Their father had decreed that the library be opened for the reception following Bertram’s funeral. The housekeeper had dusted furniture and washed windows and polished doorknobs in preparation.

“Tori, do you really believe Uncle Bertram’s death was an accident?” said Sophie.

“What else would it be?”

“I don’t know. It’s just that Father said he slipped on the stairs because he was reading while he walked.”

“Well, he did read all the time. You know that better than anyone.”

“Yes, but not while he walked. I remember once we were walking down Elgin Avenue and I was reading and he said I shouldn’t read while I was walking because one day I would walk out in front of a taxi. And I laughed and put my book away and told him that would never happen because it was impossible to get a taxi in his neighborhood.”

“But don’t you think maybe he read while walking when you weren’t around?”

“I guess it’s possible,” said Sophie, “but something just doesn’t seem right.”

“You’ve read one too many mysteries,” said Victoria. “You’re always trying to turn everything into Agatha Christie.”

“You’re right, it’s silly,” said Sophie. “Maybe I just want someone to blame.”

“But there’s no one.”

“Would you mind if I sat here alone for a few minutes?”

“Of course not,” said Victoria, giving Sophie a light kiss on the cheek. “I love you, you know.”

“I know,” said Sophie. “I know.”

Alone in the library, Sophie settled into the sofa in front of the fireplace—the same sofa that had so recently offered her refuge. That conversation with Bertram about walking and reading replayed again and again in her head. Tori was right—Sophie did let her imagination run wild sometimes, especially as a girl when she’d seen herself as a kind of Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple, but something about Uncle Bertram’s death wasn’t right. She could think of only one way to banish these thoughts. From the pocket of her black suit jacket she withdrew a note that had arrived in the post that morning. She had lost track of how many times she had read it since then, but she unfolded it once more and whispered the words to the empty library.

Dear Sophie,

I was so sorry to hear about your uncle. I heard the news from a bookseller here in Paris. I know how much he meant to you. I know I may come across as a bit insensitive, but believe me when I tell you that I genuinely feel for your loss. If your uncle was anything like you, and I suspect he was, then he was a special person indeed. I can only imagine how much you will miss him, and, though it may be little comfort, I hope you know that you are in my thoughts at this difficult time. I’m sorry about my behavior at dinner—I guess I acted rather selfishly that entire day, but as our friend Jane would say, “Selfishness must always be forgiven you know, because there is no hope of a cure.” I feel like I should apologize for that kiss, too, but I won’t because I’m not sorry. I’ll be at this address for a few weeks, though I don’t expect you will feel like writing.

Yours,

Eric Hall

Even though she had little hope of ever seeing Eric again, his note brought her comfort. Outside of the constant solicitous attention of her sister, it had been one of only two sources of solace in the past few days. The other had come when she and Victoria took the train into Oxford to retrieve some books from Sophie’s room. She had returned home with a box containing the sixteen books she had selected from Uncle Bertram’s library at Christmastime over the years. They sat on a shelf by her bed in chronological order of acquisition—although she had somehow managed to switch Pride and Prejudice with Boswell’s Life of Johnson. At Bayfield House she had carefully emptied the contents of the box onto her dressing table, stroking the spine of each book as she fitted it into place.

Only when she had reconstructed her shelf of Christmas books and sat there remembering her selection of each volume did the full import of a conversation she had had with Uncle Bertram last December suddenly strike her.

She was sitting by the fire in Uncle Bertram’s flat and they each had a book—he was reading Thomas Carlyle and she was reading Far from the Madding Crowd. She had reached that delicious point in the narrative where the hero seems to have all the forces of the universe arrayed against him, yet she knew that he would triumph, that Gabriel and Bathsheba would, before the pages had been exhausted, make that short walk to the church and happiness.

She laid the book in her lap to rest her eyes for a moment and Uncle Bertram did the same.

“Do you like it here?” he asked, as they both gazed into the dying fire.

“Uncle Bertram,” said Sophie with a laugh. “What a silly question. I’m never happier than when I am here.”

“You are never happier than when you are there,” said Bertram, pointing to the open pages of her book. “But I was speaking more generally. Do you like being in London?”

“Of course. You’re the only Collingwood who really understands me.”

“I did think I had taught you to listen better,” said Bertram. “You still haven’t answered my question. Take me out of the equation, even take Thomas Hardy and Jane Austen and Charles Dickens out of the equation and tell me, do you think you would like living in London?”

Sophie was silent for a long moment. She had never considered the experience of London independent of the experience of being with Uncle Bertram. She had rarely been in the city without at least seeing him, and it took a great effort of imagination to consider how she should like the one without the other.

“I think I would,” she said at last. “When I think of all we have seen and done here, I’m inclined to believe Dr. Johnson was right.”

“That the man who is tired of London is tired of life?” said Bertram.

“Exactly. But I still consider you London’s chief attraction.”

“So after Oxford you might think of moving here?”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do after Oxford,” said Sophie. “You know that. But I do know I’d like living in the same city as you.”

“But I won’t always be here, you know. I’m not a young man.”

“You are a young man,” she said. “At least too young to be having this conversation.”

“And you, my dear, are perhaps too young to understand the need for such a conversation. There’s something I’d like to tell you.”

Sophie leaned forward in her chair and placed a hand gently on her uncle’s arm. “You’re not sick?”

“No, no,” said Bertram, standing. “This is news for the distant future, I hope. But someday, when my time comes, I would like for you to have all this.” He waved his hand to indicate the room.

“The books?” said Sophie, for an instant breathless with delight, until she considered that the gift was contingent on her uncle’s death.

“Not just the books, but the flat as well. No one I know would be happier here.”

“Oh, uncle!” cried Sophie, wrapping her arms around him. “But I hope to be a very old woman before I sit by this fire without you.”

“I hope that as well,” said Uncle Bertram. “But I thought you should know. Now, since you will have to wait to get your hands on all these musty old volumes, and since Advent is nearly done, I think it’s time you picked out this year’s Christmas book.”

NOW SOPHIE’S CHRISTMAS volumes could soon be returned to Uncle Bertram’s flat and reunited with the rest of his books. Only it wasn’t Uncle Bertram’s flat and they weren’t his books. It was all hers now. But while the books she had chosen over the years comforted her; the promise of owning all of her uncle’s library did not. To be in that cozy flat among those glorious books but without her uncle meant that something was deeply wrong with the world.

“Sophie, it’s time.” Victoria stood in the library doorway, a silhouette in her black dress, holding out Sophie’s handbag for her. Five minutes later they were in the back of a black car, crunching down the drive.

The funeral was a simple service in the local parish church. Uncle Bertram had been cremated, and his ashes were buried in the churchyard. It ought to have been a cold winter day, with clouds hanging low in the sky and a sharp wind whistling through the unmown grass of the graveyard; but it was lovely—a warm blue sky, immaculately trimmed green grass, and a gentle breeze to keep the heat from bearing down on the black-clad mourners.

Back at Bayfield House, Sophie, feeling like the unacknowledged chief mourner, drifted through the visitors—distant cousins she had never met, business associates of her father, friends of her mother—without making any meaningful contact. Victoria and her mother were both in full hostess mode, and in the crowd Sophie felt more alone than she had all week. She was in the library peering through the metal grid at a shelf of travel narratives when she heard a voice beside her.

“I was so sorry about your uncle, Miss Collingwood. He was such a wonderful man.” Sophie turned to see the short, round, and balding figure of Augustus Boxhill, one of London’s leading antiquarian booksellers. She had met Mr. Boxhill many times at his shop in Cecil Court when on the prowl for books with Uncle Bertram.

“It was kind of you to come, Mr. Boxhill.”

“I suspect,” said the bookseller, looking around the room, “that you and I may be the only people here who really knew your uncle.”

“That looks like the first edition of Voyage of the Beagle,” she said, nodding at a row of four volumes at the end of a shelf. “I’m sure Father will be happy when he finds out what that will fetch at auction.”

“Thanks to your uncle, you know more about books than most collectors twice your age,” said Mr. Boxhill.

“And without my uncle,” said Sophie, “I’ll have no one to share all that with.”

“Bertram was a good customer,” said Mr. Boxhill, “but more important, he was a good friend. I think he’d want me to tell you that there are a lot of us out there who share your passion. You’re not alone, Sophie.”

“I know,” she said, softening. “That’s very kind of you, Mr. Boxhill.”

“If there is ever anything I can do for you,” he said, pulling a card from his pocket and pressing it into her hand, “I hope you won’t hesitate to call on me.”

But what could he do for her, thought Sophie. More important, what should she do? Uncle Bertram’s death and her inheritance of his books and flat seemed to have forced the issue that she was expecting to spend the next several weeks wrestling with—what to do with her life now that her formal education was finally over. Once again, she could hear her uncle’s voice telling her to embrace life and have adventures—but she could also hear his books calling to her and she could imagine sitting in his flat reading, communing with him through all those volumes and all their connections to him and each other. She pondered the relative merits of a quiet life alone in a flat full of books and a bold plunge into a world outside her comfort zone. She hadn’t even noticed as the din of the reception slowly faded, but she was alone in the library, looking out the window over the garden, when she said aloud, “Why not both?”

“Sophie, are you all right?” said Victoria, stepping into the room.

“I might be,” said Sophie. “I’ve made a decision.”

“About what?”

“I’m going to London.”

“For a visit?” said Victoria.

“To live,” said Sophie.

“What will you do?”

“I don’t know,” said Sophie, turning toward her sister. “But it will be exciting.”

THE NEXT SUNDAY, Sophie stood waiting for the London train, holding a small suitcase and a box containing her Christmas books. Eric’s letter still rested in her pocket—somehow it had helped her find the courage to follow through with her plan. Victoria had returned to her job in Edinburgh, and, after a brief infestation of lawyers and a flurry of paperwork, calm had returned to Bayfield House. Sophie had resigned from her job at Christ Church and planned to return to Oxford before her lease was up at the end of the Long Vacation to pack the rest of her belongings.

“You sure you’ll be all right, dear?” said her mother as the train approached the platform.

“No,” said Sophie, “I’m not at all sure. But I’ve been in Oxford long enough. Uncle Bertram thought I’d like living in London, so that’s what I’ll do.”

“You’ll call us,” said her mother hopefully.

“Of course, Mother,” said Sophie, and she embraced her mother tightly.

SOPHIE HAD PROMISED her sister that she wouldn’t obsess over the circumstances of their uncle’s death, but she couldn’t help replaying two versions of the event in her mind as she and Mr. Faussett, the solicitor handling Bertram’s estate, mounted the stairs to her uncle’s flat. In one scenario, Uncle Bertram emerged from his flat engrossed in a novel, stepped on a circular advertising Chinese food, and tumbled headfirst down the long flight of stairs. This was the official version of the story. But in the other version, Sophie saw a shadowy figure struggling with her uncle and hurling him down the stairs to his death. She shivered as she stepped over the very spot where, she imagined, her uncle’s body had lain.

“There is still a lot of paperwork to go through, Miss Collingwood,” said Mr. Faussett in what seemed to Sophie a falsely cheerful voice, “but there’s no reason you can’t stay here. We got everything cleaned up for you.” He leaned a shoulder into the door.

Sophie knew something was wrong as soon as the door opened. The flat didn’t smell right. Instead of must and dust and paper and leather, it smelled of lemon and lavender and bleach. Sophie clung to her box of books like a life preserver as she stepped through the door. Yes, the flat was cleaner than she had ever seen it—no dust hung in the air—but there was something else. Only when she walked through the entryway and into the sitting room did she see them: empty shelves. Miles and miles, it seemed, of empty shelves. There was not a single book in the room. Sophie dropped her box and screamed. Without a thought for the mystified solicitor in her wake she dashed through the flat, only to discover the same thing in every room: sickening tidiness and empty shelves. Aside from the box she had dropped on the floor of the sitting room, there was not a single book in the entire flat.

“What have you done!” she shrieked, nearly hysterical.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand, Miss Collingwood. Is there a problem?”

“A problem? A problem! Of course there’s a problem. Look around you. Where are they?”

“Where are what?”

“The books! Where are his . . . that is, where are my books?”

“Aren’t those your books there on the floor?” said Mr. Faussett.

“Not those, the others. All the books. This flat was filled with books. Where are they?”

“Ah yes, we took care of all that according to your uncle’s will.”

“What do you mean according to my uncle’s will? Uncle Bertram left those books to me. He told me so himself.”

“That may have been his intention,” said Mr. Faussett. “I gather he drew up his own will, which is never a good idea. He left you his flat and its furniture, but the residue of the estate he directed to be liquidated with the proceeds going to your father.”

“Residue! You’re calling his books residue?”

“Now if he had put ‘furnishings’ instead of ‘furniture’ that might have included the books. But as it is—”

“You liquidated my uncle’s books?” Sophie collapsed into her favorite chair—the chair where she had sat for hundreds of hours reading with or to Uncle Bertram.

“We sold them, yes. Your uncle had debts, you see, and the only way to pay them and the death duties and still leave you with the flat was to—”

“Then you should have sold the flat and kept the books,” said Sophie weakly.

“I’m afraid that wasn’t an option. Legally, I mean. We had quite a few dealers come through. Things went very quickly.”

Sophie no longer had the strength to shout. She felt as if what was left of her heart had been ripped out of her chest. The library Uncle Bertram had spent his life building had been scattered to the winds, and instead of spending the rest of her life connecting to him through his collection, she was left with sixteen books to remember him by.

“Do you know who bought them?” said Sophie softly. “I mean which dealers.” Of course she couldn’t afford to buy back even the smallest percentage of the collection, but still.

“I could send you a list,” said Mr. Faussett.

“Thank you,” she said.

“If there’s nothing else, Miss Collingwood, I have an appointment. I’ll leave you my card in case you need anything.”

“No, that’s all,” said Sophie. “Thank you.” The solicitor laid a business card on Uncle Bertram’s desk and showed himself out.

She sat in silence for nearly an hour after he left, her mind as empty as the shelves around her. Finally she got up to retrieve the books that had spilled out of the box she had dropped on the floor. They were more precious now than ever, and she checked each one for damage before starting to place them in a neat row next to the fireplace. It flashed across her mind to line her Christmas books up on the shelf where Uncle Bertram had kept his Christmas books, but as soon as she thought it, she realized that would be sacrilege. If she lived in this flat for the rest of her life, if she bought enough books to fill every shelf, that shelf would remain empty. Nothing could replace those volumes.

UNCLE BERTRAM HAD NEVER kept a catalog of his library, but he knew the names and locations of every book—especially the Christmas books.

“How do you remember them all?” Sophie asked one day when she was ten years old.

“Do you remember where all your fingers are?” asked Uncle Bertram.

“Well yes, silly, but that’s because they’re a part of me, and I use them all the time.”

“Well, it’s just the same with me and my books,” said her uncle with a smile.

“I don’t think I could remember this many fingers,” said Sophie, waving toward the bookshelves.

“But that’s because you came upon them all at once. I met these books one at a time. Now this book,” he said, drawing a thick leather-bound volume out of a plastic bag, “I shall remember because I bought it today with you. We took a walk in Hyde Park, and then we took the tube to Tottenham Court Road and walked down Charing Cross and you sat on the floor looking at illustrated books while I convinced Mr. Boxhill to sell me this for fifty pounds. And it was raining when we left, so I had him wrap it up in a plastic bag for me.”

“And then we went for ice cream,” said Sophie.

“Exactly. We went for ice cream. Now how could I forget all that?”

“But that’s just one book,” said Sophie. “You can’t have gone for ice cream every time.”

“No,” said Uncle Bertram with a laugh, “not every time. Now before I put this book on the shelf, I need to make sure everyone knows it belongs to me.”

“How do you do that?” asked Sophie.

“Watch,” he told her. He took the book to his desk by the window and picked up his fountain pen. Opening to the first blank page, where the dealer’s original price of seventy-five pounds was still visible in pencil, he wrote, in a neat script, “Ex Libris B.A.C.”

“What does that mean?” said Sophie.

Ex Libris means ‘from the library of,’” said Uncle Bertram. “It’s Latin. And B.A.C. are my initials—Bertram Arthur Collingwood.”

“Do you write that in all your books?”

“Not all,” said Uncle Bertram. “Come with me.” He led her into his bedroom, to the shelf where his Christmas books from Bayfield House stood. “Look into one of those.”

Sophie pulled a tall thick volume out of the bookcase. She barely managed to maneuver it onto the bed, where she opened the cover. In the center of the blank first page was the inscription “Natalis Christi B.A.C. 1984.”

Natalis Christi means ‘Christmas,’” said Uncle Bertram, “and 1984 was the year I chose that book from Bayfield House.”

And now, out there on the shelves of London booksellers, or perhaps already in the homes of collectors, were the books that Bertram had labeled “Natalis Christi B.A.C. 1985” and “Natalis Christi B.A.C. 1992” and dozens more. Sophie had followed her uncle’s habits, and so the books that she now carefully shelved in the sitting room each bore their own “Natalis Christi” inscription—some in the scrawl of her childhood, others in the more decorative script she eventually taught herself. She had shelved about half the books when her mother rang.

“Oh, dear, I’m so sorry. I’ve just heard about the books.”

“I can’t believe Father didn’t tell me,” said Sophie, too tired to be really angry anymore. “I suppose it was his idea.”

“You mustn’t blame your father, Sophie,” said her mother. “It broke his heart; it really did. He told the solicitor to find some other way, but in the end it was the only way to settle the debts of your uncle’s estate, and you know what pressure your father is under about money.”

“I know,” said Sophie. She wanted to blame her father for selling the books, just as she wanted to blame someone for Uncle Bertram’s death, but she knew her mother was right. She knew, also, that her father had lived his entire adult life under the edict placed on him by his own father on his deathbed—preserve Bayfield. At all costs preserve Bayfield. He had promised to do it, and, Sophie thought, that promise had ruined his life.

“Your father has promised to let you take a few books from the library next time you’re here. Something to start filling the shelves. He feels awful; he really does.”

“So do I,” said Sophie. “I just wish he had told me instead of letting me find out like that.”

“You know how your father is,” said Mrs. Collingwood.

“Not so good with bad news,” said Sophie grimly.

“Exactly,” said her mother. “You get some rest, dear, and things will look brighter in the morning. We’ll chat again soon. I just wanted to . . .”

“I know,” said Sophie. “Thanks.”

She sat quietly for a minute, then returned to the task of shelving her Christmas books. When she took the last book from the box, she saw Eric’s note in the bottom, where she had left it. She sat again in her chair, slipped the paper out of its envelope, and read.

After she had read the letter twice over, she closed her eyes and did her best to do what she knew Victoria would tell her to do—mentally take stock of her situation. She had a flat in London, sixteen books, and a sweet letter from a man who had promised never to see her again. The question was: What should she do next?