Maud said, her voice high-edged and clear, "I didn't know. I just thought of the poem, standing there, and then it seemed clear. It was sheer luck."
Roland said, "We thought there might have been a correspondence. I found-a bit of a letter-in London. So I came to see Dr Bailey. That's all there is to it. This could be"-he was about to say "terribly" and held back-"quite important." It could change the face of scholarship, he nearly said, and held back again, driven by some instinct of cunning reserve. "It makes a great difference to our research work, to both our projects. It wasn't known they knew each other."
"Hm," said Sir George, "give those parcels to me. Thanks. I think we should go back down now and show these to Joan. And see if they're anything or nothing. Unless you want to stay and open everything else?" He circled the round walls with his spotlight, revealing a skewed print of Lord Leighton's Proserpina, and a cross-stitched sampler, impossible to read under the dust.
"Not now," said Maud.
"Not immediately," said Roland.
"You may never come back," said Sir George, more threatening than joking apparently, from behind his lance of light, turning through the door. So they progressed back again, Sir George clutching the letters, Maud the opened cocoon of linen and silk, and Roland the three dolls, out of some vague fancy that it was cruel to leave them in the dark.
Lady Bailey was quite excited. They all sat round the fireplace. Sir George put the letters into his wife's lap, and she turned them over and over, under the greedy eyes of the two scholars. Roland told his half-truth about his bit of a letter, not saying when or where he had come across it. "Was it a love letter, then?" Lady Bailey asked, innocent and direct, and Roland said, "Oh no" and then added, "but excited, you know, as though it was important. It was a draft of a first letter. It was important enough to make me come up here to ask Dr Bailey about Christabel LaMotte." He wanted to ask and ask. The date, for God's sake, on the top letter from Ash, was it the same, why were they all together, how long does it go on-how did she answer, what about Blanche and the Prowler…
"Now, what would be the right way to proceed?" said Sir George slowly, and deliberately pompously. 'In your view, young man? In yours, Miss Bailey?"
"Someone should read them-" said Maud. "Oh-"
"And you naturally think you should read them," said Sir George.
"I-we-should like to, very much. Of course."
"So would that American, no doubt."
"Of course she would. If she knew they were there."
"Shall you tell her?"
He watched Maud hesitate, his fierce blue eyes shrewd in the firelight.
"Probably not. Not yet, anyway."
"You'd like the first crack?"
Maud's face flamed, "Of course. Anyone would. In my-in our position…"
"Why shouldn't they read them, George?" Joan Bailey enquired, drawing the first letter out of its envelope, looking casually down at it, not avid, barely curious.
"For one thing, I believe in letting dead bones lie still. Why stir up scandals about our silly fairy poetess? Poor old thing, let her sleep decently."
"We aren't looking for scandals," said Roland. "I don't suppose there is any scandal. I just hope-he told her what he was thinking about poetry-and history-and things like that. It was one of his most fertile periods-he wasn't a great letter-writer-too polite- he said she understood him in the letter I-I-saw-he said-"
"For another thing, Joanie, what do we really know about these two? How do we know they're the proper people to have sight of these-documents? There's two days' reading in that heap, easy. I'm not letting them out of my hands, am I?"
"They could come here," said Lady Bailey.
"It's a bit more than two days," said Maud.
"You see," said Sir George.
"Lady Bailey," said Roland. "What I saw was the first draft of the first letter. Is that it? What does it say?" She put on reading glasses, round in her pleasant large face. She read out:
"Dear Miss LaMotte,
It wasagreat pleasure totalk to you atdearCrabb's breakfast party. Your perception and wisdom stood out through the babble of undergraduate wit, and even surpassedour host's accountofthefinding of Wieland's bust. May I hope thatyou too enjoyed our talk - andmayI have thepleasure ofcalling on you? I know you Hue very quietly, but I would be very quiet -I only want to discuss Dante and Shakespeare and Wordsworth and Coleridge and Goethe and Schiller and Webster and Ford and Sir Thomas Browne et hoc genus omne, notforgetting, of course, Christabel LaMotte and the ambitious Fairy Project. Do answer this. You know, I think, how much a positive answer would give pleasure to
Yours very sincerely
Randolph Henry Ash"
"And the answer?" said Roland. "The answer? I'm sorry-I'm so curious-I've been wondering if she answered, and if so, what she said."
Lady Bailey drew out the top letter of the other sheaf, almost teasingly, like an actress announcing on television the award for the Best Actress of the Year.
"Dear Mr Ash,
No truly -I do not Tease - how should I demean you or myself so - or you demean Yourself to think it. I live circumscribed and self-communing - 'tis bestso - not like a Princess in a thicket, by no means, but more like a very fat and self-satisfied Spider in the centre of her shining Web, if you willforgive me the slightly disagreeable Analogy. Arachne is alady I am greatly sympathetic to, an honest craftswoman, who makes perfect patterns, but is a little inclined to take unorthodox snaps at visiting or trespassingstrangers, not perceiving the distinction between the two, it may be, often until too late. Truly I make but a stammering companion, I have no graces, and as for the wit you may have perceived in me when we met, you saw, you must have seen, only the glimmerings and glister of your own brilliancerefractedfrom the lumpen surface of a dead Moon. I am a creature of my Pen, Mr Ash, my Pen is the best of me, and I enclose a Poem, in earnest of my great goodwill towards you. Now would you not rather have a Poem, however imperfect, than a plate of cucumbersandwiches, however even, howeverdelicately salted, however exquisitely fine-cut? You know you would, and so would I. The Spider in the poem, however, is not my Silken Self but an altogether more Savage and businesslike sister. You cannot but admire their facile diligence? Would Poems came as naturally as Silk Thread. I write Nonsense, but if you care to write again, you shall have a sober essay on theEverlasting Nay, or Schleiermacher's Veil ofIllusion, or the Milk of Paradise, or What you Will.
Yours to command in some things
Christabel LaMotte"
Lady Bailey's reading was slow and halting; words were miscast; she stumbled over hoc genus omne and Arachne. It was like frosted glass between them, Roland and Maud, and the true lineaments of the prose and the feelings of Ash and LaMotte. Sir George appeared to find the reading more than satisfactory. He looked at his watch.
"We've just time to do what I always do with Dick Francis: spoil the suspense by peeking at the end. Then I think we'll put these away until I've had time to consider my position. Take advice. Yes. Ask around a little. You'd have to be getting back, anyway, wouldn't you?"
He was not asking. He looked indulgently at his wife.
"Go on, Joanie. Give us the end of it."
She peered at the texts. She said, "She appears to have asked for her letters back. His is an answer to that.