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After he pushed through the front entrance, he lowered Evelina to her feet and waited as she turned and took in the interior of the library for the first time. Her jaw dropped as she gazed up at the five floors of books visible from the lobby below. They wrapped around each floor behind beautiful ornate rails and enormous columns. An iron catwalk weaved through the bookshelves overlooking the arcade below.
Seated in the center of the room were three huge oak tables doubled the size in width and depth than the kitchen table in her parents’ home, each surrounded by ten king-size leather chairs. Overhead a magnificent skylight flooded the entire library in natural light. It was absolutely stunning. She had never seen anything so grand. Or so many books in one place.
“It’s beautiful.”
“And look,” Ryan whispered into her ear from behind. “No-one is staring.”
Amazingly, Evelina realized that she had not even noticed the handful of people lounging in the library engrossed in their reading material. Overcome by the environment surrounding her; the patrons had unknowingly merged with the scenery.
“Follow me.” He nudged her from behind and gestured for her to follow.
He led her to a long counter enclosed behind an iron mesh screen like those found in a bank. Except in this case, it was far longer and ran the length of three walls. As she approached the counter, she noticed that behind the mesh screens were even more rows of bookshelves and a spiral staircase that led to the upper floors.
Approaching one of the windows, Ryan placed Evelina on the counter and told the clerk, “I’d like to return this.”
Evelina’s shoulders drooped. She had so wanted to finish reading it.
“And my friend here would like to sign up for a reading card.” He gestured to Evelina.
The clerk nodded then bent to retrieve a large leather-bound ledger. “Your name?”
“Oh, um, er.” She blinked suddenly finding herself tongue-tied. She had never owned a reading card before. The very idea made her speechless with excitement.
“Evelina. Her name is Evelina. Like the book.” He gestured to the book lying on the counter.
“Interesting.” The librarian mumbled without glancing up. “And the last name?”
Perhaps it was the librarian’s disinterest but she suddenly found her voice and was able to respond for herself. “Hepworth.”
Ryan shot her an approving grin accompanied by a wink.
She gasped silently and immediately turned away, pretending to be insulted by his open flirting but secretly pleased. She watched as the clerk wrote her name in the book then spun it around to face Evelina. “Sign here, please.”
She did as ordered and while she did, the clerk busied herself preparing Evelina a card. “Here is your card. Books can be read either in the ladies reading room to the left of the entrance, or are permitted to be taken off the premises as long as they are returned within a month.”
Evelina eyed her new card as if it were the crown jewel.
“Thank you.” This she said to Ryan, her face simply beaming.
He smiled back.
“You’re welcome.” The librarian responded matter-of-factly, drawing their attention back to her. “All of our borrowing material is indexed in the catalogs in alphabetical order based on the author’s last name.”
“Catalogs?”
Still, without looking up, the clerk pointed a finger to somewhere behind Evelina. Turning, she noticed a bank of cabinets with rows of tiny little drawers.
“Each book is assigned an index number. Once you find a book you would like to sign out, bring the index card back here and one of the librarians will fetch the book for you.”
“Oh.” Admittedly, she felt slightly dejected. S
he would have loved to browse the many volumes and run her fingers along their spines.
Ryan pushed his return to the clerk. “She would like to sign this one out.”
Surprised, Evelina could hardly wait for the librarian to do her paperwork before snatching the book out of her hands. Finally, at long last, she would be able to read the book in its entirety.
“Happy?”
