The Lost Bookshop(44)

‘Shall we?’ Armand held the door open for me.

I wasn’t sure what kind of den of iniquity we were entering, but I had a wonderful sense that we were going to find something out of the ordinary.

A nervous-looking fellow of similar vintage to ourselves was kneeling on the floor with his head halfway inside a cardboard box, quietly muttering expletives as he searched for something within.

‘I understand you are distributing works that breach the British obscenity law,’ Armand said in what was quite a passable London accent.

The man jumped up and propelled his wiry frame towards us with such haste that I took a step backwards (which was quite a feat in itself, as the shop left little room to manoeuvre).

‘Armand Hassan, you bastard!’ he cried, which caused Armand to smile broadly and then both men hugged like long-lost brothers reunited.

‘I knew it was you,’ he said with a slight German accent, laughing.

‘Herr Lahr, may I present my colleague, Mademoiselle Opaline—’

‘Gray,’ I interrupted. ‘Miss Gray,’ and I proffered my hand.

‘Freut mich,’ he said, which I interpreted as a good thing.

He offered to make us some coffee, but Armand declined, saying that we didn’t have much time before the auction.

‘I have your copy here. Price as agreed – I must cover myself for any legal repercussions, you understand.’

‘Of course,’ said Armand. ‘My client is very eager to have it.’

My curiosity was almost a fourth presence in the room! When he handed over the small rectangle wrapped in brown paper and Armand began to count out the notes, I asked if I might open it.

‘Why not?’ Armand replied.

I unwrapped it slowly, tantalisingly, and saw the title, Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

‘D.H. Lawrence,’ Armand confirmed.

‘The man is a literary genius and yet we must sell his books illegally like this,’ Herr Lahr opined.

I wanted a copy very badly. I wanted twenty. Yet I was aware of how selling such controversial literature might bring unwelcome attention to my little shop. But I simply had to read it and so I negotiated a price with him for a copy of my own before we drove to Sotheby’s carrying our prohibited literature on the back seat.





Through Sotheby’s dark passages an excited throng tumbled into the large auction gallery, sweeping us both along with them. Armand took my hand and led me to a little alcove at the side of the room, where we stood pressed up against each other and the wall. For one heady moment, I inhaled his scent and again was transported back to that night and the heat of his body. I coughed several times and tried to count the number of people in the room to distract myself.

‘Gosh, what a scene! I wonder what is up for auction.’

‘You did not see the catalogue? It is the original manuscript of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.’

‘Good grief!’

Armand borrowed a leaflet from a man who was seated beside us and handed it to me.

‘A Christmas Gift to a Dear Child in Memory of a Summer Day.’ I had simply adored his book as a child and was surprised to learn that Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), a mathematician at Oxford, had lovingly penned and illustrated the little book in 1864 as a gift to the Liddell family. The story went that on a boat trip down the Thames, he first told his surreal story to the daughters of the dean, Henry Liddell. Eventually, he was persuaded to publish the work and the rest was history.

‘This is fascinating!’ I said, having completely forgotten my ardent thoughts of a moment earlier.

‘There are rumours that the bidding could exceed ten thousand pounds.’

Barely noticed in the crowd was a small, elderly woman in a black dress. Armand pointed her out as Alice Liddell Hargreaves.

I turned to him and said, ‘You don’t mean … it couldn’t be!’

He nodded, gratified by being the one in the know.

‘She is the original “Alice”. She held on to the manuscript all this time, but since the death of her husband, she has been drowning in tax bills.’

‘Not Reginald Hargreaves, the cricketer?’ They were a high-profile couple in London society. It must have pained her greatly to put the manuscript up for auction. She sat at the very front, her head erect and her pride intact.

The bidding began hesitantly, as it often does, while the buyers get the measure of each other. There’s a certain amount of poker playing in the auction room and no one wished to show their hand too soon.

‘Eight thousand, five hundred to the man in the alcove,’ announced the auctioneer, as I felt Armand’s hand go up.

‘You never said you were bidding,’ I whispered.

‘On behalf of a client,’ he said, always with that mysterious air. Another wealthy client; he seemed to collect them like snowdrops in springtime.

As the bidding rose higher and higher, attention focused on a short, well-dressed man with an unmistakable air of authority.

‘Fifteen thousand pounds,’ he announced, in a strong American accent, as though to bring this charade to a close.

‘Who’s that?’ I asked.

‘Merde! That, my dear Opaline, is the Terror of the Auction Room.’

The gavel came down with a decisive bang and the tense silence shattered into a cacophony of voices. Some in wonderment, most aghast that such a quintessential English work was now lost to an American. The man wiped his glasses, as some bidders went to congratulate him.