Page 9 of The Secret Christmas Bookshop
Fiona frowned.
‘You have been so kind,’ she went on, the words tumbling out of her. ‘I couldn’t have imagined having all this room for my business a year ago. But because I’ve been able to expand here, and word-of-mouth has done wonders, it’s growing steadily – online orders too – so I just … I need more space for it.’
‘You need your own shop,’ Fiona clarified.
Sophie sighed in relief. It was such a plausible reason. ‘I really do.’
‘That’s easy,’ Fiona said. ‘I don’t suppose you’re big enough yet for the old bookshop, but there’s Ye Olde Sweete Shoppe, and that’s been empty since Delores moved away two summers ago. Such a dinky space.’
Sophie cursed silently. ‘I’m not sure …’
‘I’ll give you a tour,’ Fiona went on. ‘It smells like diabetes, but other than that I think it’ll suit you perfectly.’
‘Maybe,’ Sophie replied, hoping she hadn’t just created a brand-new problem for herself. The door opened and a young family came in, a Dalmatian on a lead sniffing curiously at the mat. She could have kissed them all for such a well-timed interruption.
Sophie’s chat with Fiona set off a simmering anxiety that stayed with her all morning. She couldn’t backtrack on her declaration that she needed more space and hope Fiona would forget about it, because Fiona never forgot about anything. She should have denied that she was moving, then carried on with her plans in secret the way she’d alwaysdone. One moment of panic had complicated everything, and in a small, unfair way she blamed Harry Anderly for scattering her thoughts.
She went to Dexter’s bakery at lunchtime and came back with two chicken sandwiches bursting with freshly cooked breast meat, juicy tomatoes and mayonnaise. She pushed open the door with her shoulder, realized Fiona wasn’t behind the counter, and assumed she was making tea in the back. She left her friend’s lunch next to her till, and then saw that, sitting in the middle of her own counter, there was a parcel, wrapped in brown paper and tied up with string.
Sophie put her sandwich down and ran her hands over the smooth, thick paper. Most people used Jiffy bags these days: brown paper and string seemed very old-fashioned.
‘Here’s your tea.’ Fiona put the mug down. ‘Oooh, what’s that?’
‘I don’t know,’ Sophie said. ‘Who dropped it off?’
‘It wasn’t here when I went to make the drinks, and I didn’t hear the door open. But the kettle was loud, so … I haven’t got the foggiest.’
‘There’s no name or address on it,’ Sophie said, ‘so it’s probably for you.’ But she was reluctant to hand it over. She wanted to be the one to loosen the string, to gently peel off the paper and discover what was beneath.
‘It’s on your counter,’ Fiona pointed out. ‘Everyone in Mistingham knows how this shop’s set up.’
‘Maybe it’s from the postman?’
‘Without an address label? Are you going to open it, or stand there exfoliating your hands with it?’
‘The paper’s smooth,’ Sophie protested, but she pulledat the string, the bow loosening easily. She turned the package over, finding the neat folds secured with Sellotape, and slid her finger under the edge. She could feel that the object inside was slightly rough, and for a second she thought she was the most stupid person on the planet: it was clearly the book boards she’d ordered. She had a couple of orders outstanding, so that must be it.
But as she removed the paper she realized she wasn’t being stupid, because inside was a single, thick book. It had a cloth cover, the scarlet material slightly scratchy to touch, with gold foil details: a wind-blown tree, some leaves still attached, some scattering to the bottom edge of the cover. Written on the front, also in gold, it said:
Jane Eyre
by
Charlotte Brontë
‘That’s gorgeous,’ Fiona murmured. ‘I’ve never seen that edition before.’
Sophie turned it over. There was no summary on the back, just more falling gold leaves. She tipped it to look at the spine, which had the title, and then a logo at the bottom. It looked like a tiny house, with a pointed roof and a chimney either side: it wasn’t a publisher’s logo she recognized. That, too, was gold, and so was the ribboned bookmark peeking out at the bottom.
Sophie leafed gently through the pages, and found they were incredibly thin, like the dusty hymn books she’d had to sing from when she’d lived with a foster family in Surrey who never missed the Sunday service. In places, some ofthe ink was so dark it seemed smudged, and the pages were yellowing at the edges.
Inside, it looked and felt like an old book: good quality but around for a long time, exposed to wear and tear and the elements. But the binding – the cover and the foil detailing – was pristine. She could tell it had been expertly bound, and imagined the meticulous steps that had been taken: carefully extracting the old pages that were split into sections – signatures – from the original cover, putting on new tape, then cotton mull over the top to reinforce the adhesive, before adding the book board and then the fabric.
She was about to say all this to Fiona, to tell her about the discrepancies, when a card slipped out of the book and slid onto the counter. Sophie putJane Eyredown and picked it up.
It was a cheerful scene of Mistingham Beach in summer, the sand dotted with brightly coloured parasols and windbreakers, tiny figures in the sea, the offshore wind farm a silvery smudge against the bright blue sky. It was incongruous, this shiny, modern postcard next to the classically bound book.
‘Come on then,’ Fiona said. ‘What does it say?’
