A Scandal in Battersea (Elemental Masters #12)(7)
Nearly every one of the mismatched tables was taken, and there was no hope of getting a seat near the fire. Cigarette smoke formed a haze up near the ceiling. And . . . just to add to the visual cacophony of mismatched furniture, linens and crockery, the place had been bedecked in garlands and scarlet bows and tinsel for Christmas, which further irritated him. Beatrice Leek was holding forth in her usual corner but paused in one of her interminable stories to give him a look that was one part contempt, one part amusement and one part warning. And to his chagrin, he spotted that new girl, another would-be poet he’d wanted to introduce to his occult set, sitting right next to the Leek woman. He would have no chance at her now.
He spotted a tiny table and chair in the coldest corner of the room, right up against the windows, and made his way there, feeling sour the entire time. He was slightly mollified by the excellent ham sandwiches—unlike far too many places patronized by either socialists or artists or both, the food here was outstanding. But although he was not precisely being ostracized, it was quite clear that Beatrice had poisoned her little clan against him, and the rest of the people here were too bound up in their own conversations and interests to pay him any heed. He ate quickly, seeing no chance for any opportunity here today, paid for his fare, then went and stood ostentatiously at the fire, leaning up against the mantelpiece and having a smoke himself to soothe his injured temper. He was, by heaven, going to make sure he was completely warmed before he went out into that damned mess. And to the devil with the people who cast him annoyed glances for soaking up the heat. He had paid, and he was entitled to it.
He kept one eye on the street, and as soon as he saw a cab pull up outside, he shoved his way to the door regardless of the objections of those he’d jostled. He barged into the middle of the three who had clambered out of a two-person hansom in order to engage the driver before he trotted off.
“I say there!” objected one of them, but he ignored them. The driver, who had not expected to get a fare this soon, ignored them as well.
“Where to, guv?” the man asked, as the three who had arrived sniffed with ostentatious contempt and made their way into the tearoom.
Alexandre had not even thought of a destination, at least, not consciously, but his subconscious must have been working on the combination of “warmth,” “satisfaction,” and “idle occupation,” for his mouth opened and out came, “Treadman’s Books. Thirty-three Store Street.”
“That’d be Bloomsbury, ain’t it?” the man said, but it was obviously a rhetorical question. “Right you are, guv.”
Alexandre swung himself up into the cab, the man gave his horse a smart touch of the whip, and they were off.
The traffic was abominable, but the man made good time anyway, and soon enough had pulled up in front of the dark windows of Treadman’s. Treadman’s was always dark; the proprietor preferred to keep the lighting dim to save fading of his books. Yet Treadman’s, so far as Alexandre had been able to tell, was always open. He paid the cabby and hurried inside.
Rather than a bell, Treadman had a curious little clockwork contraption over the door that wound up when the door was opened, allowing a couple of beaters on a small drum to beat out a rapid tattoo when the door closed. Treadman himself was not behind the counter at the front, but Alexandre had barely had time to look around and shake the snow off his coat and onto the mat when he appeared, seemingly out of nowhere.
“Ah, Master Harcourt,” the tall, thin man with the perpetual stoop and squint of a scholar said, looking over his spectacles. “It has been some little while. I have several volumes I held aside for you. Would you care to take them to a reading room to look them over, or would you prefer to browse?”
Treadman was no ordinary book merchant. He specialized in the rare, the occult, the esoteric, the profane and the obscene. He treated all books equally. There had never once, in all the time Alexandre had known him, been a moment when so much as a flicker of disapproval passed over that thin, contemplative face, no matter what Alexandre bought.
“I judge the condition of books, I do not judge the content,” he had said once, to someone else, but within Alexandre’s hearing.
The first floor was devoted to rare books of . . . ordinary content. The third and fourth floors held literature that in other times would have gotten Treadman burned at the stake—and might these days have gotten him hauled into court for obscenity. Except that Treadman was clearly well connected enough to avoid that particular unpleasantness. Alexandre suspected he was supplying a long list of politicians, peers of the realm, and wealthy captains of the business world with those of their pleasures that could be contained within two covers.
The second floor was made up of a block of little “reading rooms.” Each one had a lock, a good light, and a comfortable chair and reading desk. There, in complete security and privacy, a prospective customer could examine the wares he had selected—or Treadman had selected for him—at his leisure. There was no chance someone could, accidentally or purposefully, look over one’s shoulder to see what one was perusing.
This was not the only use for these rooms. There were scholars that were too impoverished to buy some of the rare books Treadman offered. For a select, trusted few, Treadman would rent the books, allowing these scholars to study and even copy them so long as they never left the store.
There were also times when two people were in contention over the same book. If it was the contents of the book, rather than the rarity, that someone was after, Treadman would, for a higher rental fee, keep the wealthier party at bay while the poorer one copied what he wanted.