“Child, you should not so madly give away everything you have, before you know the value of it, or what need you may have of it in the future. Do nothing on impulse, you may pay for it with regret.”
“No,” said Fortunata. “Why should I regret giving a thing for which I have no use to someone who will make good and proper use of it? And dare you tell me that you don’t want it?” Certainly his black eyes were glittering, if not with covetousness, with unmistakable longing and pleasure. “Come to supper, and afterward we’ll try how they match together. And I’ll get Father to mind my money for me.”
The French breviary was one of seven manuscripts Jevan had acquired over the years of his dealings with churchmen and other patrons. When he lifted the lid of the chest in which he kept them Fortunata saw them ranged side by side, spines upward, leaning towards one side because he had not quite enough as yet to fill the space neatly. Two had fading titles in Latin inscribed along the spine, one was in a cover dyed red, the rest had all originally been bound in ivory leather drawn over thin wooden boards, but some were old enough to have mellowed into the pleasant pale brown of the lining of her box. She had seen them several times before, but had never paid them such close attention. And there at head and foot of every spine were the little rounded tongues of leather for lifting them in and out.
Jevan drew out his favorite, its binding still almost virgin white, and opened it at random, and the brilliant colors sprang out as if they were just freshly applied, a right-hand border the length of the page, very narrow and delicate, of twining leaves and tendrils and flowers, the rest of the page written in two columns, with one large initial letter, and five smaller ones to open later paragraphs, each one using the letter as a frame for vivid miniatures of flower and fern. The precision of the painting was matched by the limpid lucidity of the blues and reds and golds and greens, but the blues in particular filled and satisfied the eyes with a translucent coolness that was pure pleasure.
“It’s in such mint condition,” said Jevan, stroking the smooth binding lovingly, “that I fancy it was stolen, and brought well away from the place where it belonged before the merchant dared sell it. This is the beginning of the Common of the Saints, hence the large initial. See the violets, and how true their color is!”
Fortunata opened her box on her knees. The color of the lining blended softly with the paler color of the breviary’s binding. The book fitted comfortably within. When the lid was closed on it the soft clinging of the lining held the book secure.
“You see?” she said. “How much better that it should have a use! And truly it does seem that this is the purpose for which it was made.”
There was room for the box within the chest. Jevan closed that lid also over his library, and kneeled for a moment with both long hands pressed upon the wood, caressing and reverent. “Very well! At least you may be sure it will be valued.” He rose to his feet, his eyes still lingering upon the chest that held his treasure, a shadowy private smile of perfect contentment playing round his lips. “Do you know, chick, that I’ve never locked this before? Now I have your gift within it I shall keep it locked for safety.”
They turned towards the door together, his hand on her shoulder. At the head of the stairs that went down into the hall she halted, and turned her face up to him suddenly. “Uncle, you know you said Conan had learned a great deal about your business, through helping you there sometimes? Would he know what value to set on books? Would he recognize it, if by chance he lit on one of immense value?”
Chapter Twelve
On the twenty-sixth day of June Fortunata rose early, and with her first waking thought recalled that it was the day of Aldwin’s funeral. It was taken for granted that the entire household would attend, so much was owed to him, for many reasons, years of service, undistinguished but conscientious, years of familiarity with his harmless, disconsolate figure about the place, and the pity and the vague sense of having somehow failed him, now that he had come to so unexpected an end. And the last words she had ever said to him were a reproach! Deserved, perhaps, but now, less reasonably, reproaching her.
Poor Aldwin! He had never made the most of his blessings, always feared their loss, like a miser with his gold. And he had done a terrible thing to Elave in his haunting fear of being discarded. But he had not deserved to be stabbed from behind and cast into the river, and she had him somehow on her conscience in spite of her anxiety and dread for Elave, whom he had injured. On this of all mornings he filled Fortunata’s mind, and drove her on along a road she was reluctant to take. But if justice is to be denied to the inadequate, grudging, and sad, to whom then is it due?
Early as she was, it seemed that someone else was earlier. The shop would remain closed all this day, shuttered and dim, so there was no occasion for Jevan to be up so early, but he had risen and gone out before Fortunata came down into the hall.
“He’s off to his workshop,” said Margaret, when Fortunata asked after him. “He has some fresh skins to put into the river to soak, but he’ll be back in good time for poor Aldwin’s funeral. Were you wanting him?”
“No, nothing that won’t wait,” said Fortunata. “I missed him, that’s all.”
She was glad that the household was fully occupied with the preparations for one more memorial gathering, so soon after the first, the evening of Uncle William’s wake when this whole cycle of misfortune had begun. Margaret and the maid were busy in the kitchen, and Girard, as soon as he had broken his fast, was out in the yard arranging Aldwin’s last dignified transit to the church he had neglected in life. Fortunata went into the shuttered shop, and without more light than filtered through the joints of the shutters, began swiftly and silently to search along the shelves among the array of uncut skins, tools, every corner of a neat, sparsely furnished room. Everything was open to view. She had scarcely expected to find anything alien here, and did not spend much time on it. She closed the door again upon the shadowy interior, and went back into the empty hall, and up the staircase to Jevan’s bedchamber, over the entry from the street.
Perhaps he had forgotten that she had known from infancy where everything in this house was kept, or overlooked the fact that even those details which had never interested her before might be of grave importance now. She had not yet given him any cause to reflect on such matters, and she was praying inwardly at this moment that she never need give him cause. Whatever she did now, she was going to feel guilt, but that she could bear, since she must. The haunting uncertainty she could not bear.
Never before, Jevan had said, had he troubled to lock up his manuscripts, never until her precious dower box was laid among them. And that might well have been a light, affectionate gesture of praise and thanks to flatter her, but for the fact that he had indeed turned the key on her gift when he was alone in the room at night. She knew it, even before she laid hand to the lid to raise it, and found it locked. Now, if he had kept his keys on his person when he left the house, she could go no further along this fearful road. But he had seen no need for that, for they were there in their usual place, on a hook inside the chest where his clothes were kept, in a corner of the room. Her hand shook as she selected the smallest, and metal grated acidly against metal before she could insert it in the lock of the book chest.