‘Well, I wouldn’t do THAT.’
‘Well, there you are, you’re basically an aristocrat.’
Mirren grinned and dived in with a will. The sauce was utterly divine; the potatoes turned out to have cheese through them, and there was fresh bread on the table to mop up the gravy. It was absolute heaven, with the fire flickering and the candles burning steadily while the rain drummed on the old windowpanes. They were quiet until Mirren sat back with another sigh.
‘Do you want to go back to being posh now?’ said Theo.
‘No, it’s all right,’ said Mirren, ‘because I might burp or something and then I think I would have to go and join a convent and I don’t think I’d like that at all.’
‘Smart thinking. So what is this legacy you’re looking for?’
Mirren looked at him sideways. ‘Hmm, I don’t know, what on earth would one come to Hay-on-Wye for?’
‘A book,’ said Theo.
‘You’re very smart for the youngest son of a nobleman sent on family errands.’
‘Thank you, milady. Had any luck so far?’
‘No,’ said Mirren. ‘There are, like,milesof books here. I mean, actually miles. I think I’d have to look through every one in the world. For a book I don’t even know definitely exists. In fact, I’m beginning to think it doesn’t. I mean, if something exists, it’s on the internet, right?’
‘Uh, usually.’
‘I mean, someone somewhere would have heard of it.’
‘Is there no mention of it at all? What is it?’
‘It’s a children’s book. But with a famous artist illustrating it. Not like printed. Like actual drawings.’
Theo hadn’t realised this. He’d thought it was a printed book. But if it was filled with original Beardsleys ... well. This was something.
‘And nobody’s ever seen it?’
Mirren shook her head. ‘According to the internet, it’s just a rumour. But my great-aunt swears she’d held it.’
‘And have the artist’s illustrations ever shown up sold separately?’
Mirren looked at him strangely. ‘I never thought of that,’ she said.
Theo bent down to his now empty plate with a piece of bread to hide his face.
Mirren pulled out her phone and googled the artist. There were so many drawings, none of which particularly had children in them. There were fairies; ladies and men – bothnaked; Salomes; a mother and child, but nothing that would obviously illustrate the Stevenson.
‘Huh,’ she said. Then she googled ‘lost artwork of Beardsley’ and saw a tiny sentence from an ancient, buried article that had escaped her before, as it didn’t contain the words ‘book’ or ‘Stevenson’. ‘The Longmans commission was never delivered.’
‘Mister Palliser!’ she said in consternation. ‘Bloody hell. I think ... Longmans was the publisher of the original book.’
‘So what does that mean?’ said Theo, unable to hide his eagerness.
‘Well. It’s not proof. But it means something. That it might actually exist!’
Chapter 11
The nice lady had brought them treacle tart and, stuffed to the gills, they had retired with coffee beside the fire, nattering away about other things – this and that, quite a lot about overbearing families, as it happened, and what they thought was going to happen at Christmas time. It was odd, Theo found himself thinking. Although he was theoretically meant to tail this person and then get the book off her, he couldn’t help liking her. She was funny, and frank, and had an infectious laugh.
Mirren, for her part, couldn’t help thinking that the rather pallid, posh-looking chap she’d first glimpsed when she arrived was, once you got to know him, rather chatty and fun, and his pale skin and dark eyes gave him a slightly vampiric aspect – particularly in the firelight – that she didn’t mind at all; in fact, she found it rather attractive. Also, the dog liked him and was lying under his hand as he stroked it gently. This was a big point in his favour. Even though dogs liked everyone, so this was not rational thinking. Well, unless it proved he wasn’t a real vampire.
As she talked about her mother, and he talked about his grumpy uncle, and how he couldn’t do anything about it as long as he had a place to live, they found themselves getting deep and personal and sharing more than they might havedone had they not been the only two people in there, on a filthy night in front of a blazing fire, a long way from home.
