The Bookman's Tale by Charlie Lovett Page B

longer than two hours to examine the library in enough detail to recommend a course of action, but he could at least do some browsing and get an idea of what he was up against. He felt the rusty wheels of his bookseller’s mind slowly begin to turn, and thoughts of the mysterious watercolor faded away.
    His first find came almost immediately. Because they were already laying out on the table, he started with the oversized books. At the bottom of the pile Peter saw two matching volumes. The deep brown calf binding was clearly at least a hundred years older than the other volumes, and on the spine, stamped in gold, were the words
A Dictionary of the English Language
. Any other bookman might have been disappointed that the set, though in excellent condition, was not a first edition; Peter was thrilled to read on the title page of Samuel Johnson’s magnum opus, “Fourth Edition.” The fourth edition, Francis Leland had explained years ago, included Johnson’s final corrections and additions. “I’d love to have one for the Devereaux collection,” Francis had said.
    Peter decided in that moment that he would not sell the volumes to Ridgefield; he would buy them from Alderson at a fair price and donate them to the Devereaux Room in memory of Amanda—his Amanda. Though he had thousands of books to look at, he could not resist lingering over the Johnson for a few minutes. In the “Advertisement” he read words of comfort to a twentieth-century widower who fears his own weaknesses: “Perfection is unattainable, but nearer and nearer approaches may be made; and finding my dictionary about to be reprinted, I have endeavoured, by a revisal, to make it less reprehensible.” A noble undertaking, thought Peter. He wondered if he would have made quicker progress if Dr. Strayer had simply told him,
Peter, I believe that by revisal you could make yourself less reprehensible
.
    With cases full of books beckoning him, Peter set the Johnson aside and turned to his work. After an hour he had found a few fine eighteenth-century titles and sorted through several shelves of worthless volumes of nineteenth-century sermons. He had just sat down on the floor to begin work on the lower shelves when he heard a knock on the open door. He looked up to see a mousy woman, shoulders hunched, strands of hair flying in all directions, standing in the doorway. She wore a plain gray dress that had all the tailoring of a potato sack and her feet were encased in a pair of muddy Wellington boots. He thought at first she must be one of the gardeners, but then she brushed the strands of hair away from her face and he saw the same high forehead and sharp chin as his host. She was too old to be his daughter; Peter could only assume this was John Alderson’s sister.
    “Been walking,” she said, almost inaudibly, as if these two mumbled words would explain not only the mud on her boots but everything about her, from her choice of wardrobe to her defensive stance, arms clasped across her insubstantial breasts.
    “Is the sun still out?” asked Peter, who knew that in England, whenever a social situation left one at a loss for words, one could always bring up the weather. He used this rejoinder to pull himself up from the floor, but neither her stance nor her tone of voice invited him to move any closer.
    She stared at him for a long moment, then looked around the room, her eyes resting on the one shelf that had been empty before Peter set to work. Then, when Peter had nearly forgotten his query, she growled, “No.”
    “Pity,” said Peter, forcing a smile. In a conversation with a stranger, he was used to being the one who was socially inept. He found it unnerving that he should be better at making small talk than someone else.
    After another long pause, and still without moving, she said, “Brother show you the box?” Her eyes did not stray from her own feet as she muttered this enigmatic question.
    “No,” said Peter, unable to elaborate as he had