“You’re too good at coming up with ways to torment people with literature.”
“It’s a very special skill,” she agreed as she leaned over to kiss him. “I can get ready for bed, if you don’t want me to go down tonight. I really don’t mind.”
“It’s okay,” he said earnestly, moving his hand to cup her cheek. “I want you to take advantage of it. I don’t want you skipping out.”
Aurelia waited to respond, giving him a chance to change his mind, but he just smiled at her.
“Alright. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Until then, I’ll be anxiously awaiting your story about Peggotty’s buttons.”
She laughed as she got up and walked to the door, turning at the threshold to look back and see him still smiling as he started reading Harriet’s story again.
Downstairs in the shop, Aurelia joined Julia at the Recommended Reads table.
“Who should I talk to tonight?” Julia asked as they waited for the characters to appear.
“What about Miss Clack?”
“No, she’s your problem,” Julia said with a cackle.
“You can’t pawn her off on me—” Aurelia began.
“I’m not! She came out afteryouput her book on the table. I had nothing to do with that one.”
At Aurelia’s look of defeat, Julia’s smile widened.
“Well, she came out with Sergeant Cuff, so I guess she’s not exactly unhappy with her ending.”
“She seems pretty unhappy to me,” Julia said.
“That’s true… It does seem odd that she didn’t come out alone. I guess I can ask Cuff—I’m sure he has a theory about her already.”
After the characters appeared, Julia and Kitty began chatting, as usual. Aurelia was about to ask Cuff if they could talk together upstairs when she paused to watch the scene that was unfolding. Blanche was edging toward Kitty and Julia, pretending to scan the bookshelves with interest when it was clear that she was hoping to either eavesdrop on them or join them.
“I’m almost done withCranford, and then I’ll have finished all your books,” Julia was telling Kitty. “And I’ve already watched the film version ofJane Eyre, and next I’ll watch one ofCranford.”
Finding her opening at last, Blanche said, “I am not surprised to learn there is a play of my story, as well. Surely if someone saw fit to transform droll little Kitty’s story, they saw fit to transform my somewhat more dramatic tale of woe.”
Blanche’s tone had its typical edge, though Aurelia could tell that she was trying to temper it as best she could. Julia and Kitty, too, seemed to sense that Blanche was trying for civility and so made room for Blanche to join them.
Miss Clack and Mrs. Jamieson had begun talking in low voices—no doubt inventing something that someone had done wrong, Aurelia thought—giving her a chance to slip upstairs with Cuff.
As they settled on the mezzanine, Aurelia nodded down toward Miss Clack and said, “You’ve said that sometimes certain characters appear to us for certain reasons. Do you think that’s true for Miss Clack?”
Cuff merely raised an eyebrow as a smirk caught at the corner of his mouth.
“Of course you do,” Aurelia said with a smile. “I’m surprised she came out of your book with you. I would have thought she was unhappy with her ending and would have come out alone.”
“Is she really unhappy with her ending?” Cuff asked professorially, reminding Aurelia of her father.
“Julia says Miss Clack is unhappy about everything.” Aurelia paused, looking down to see her smiling gleefully at something Mrs. Jamieson was telling her. “But she seems to get a thrill out of other people’s misery and drama, doesn’t she?”
“She does,” Cuff agreed.
“Rachel got her happy ending at the close of your novel, which would seem to have made Miss Clack unhappy, but maybe there was enough drama in getting to that ending to make her happy? And she got to take part in the drama, so that must have made her practically ecstatic.”
“That is certainly true. I think, however, there is something else. Something that brought her here, to see you.”
