A Brief Perusal (And Other Lies I Tell Myself)
“I shall only glance,” she said. “A moment’s perusal at most.”
The infamous last words of any lady about to be the product of her own undoing.
Not, my dear friend, due to finding one’s self in proximity to a gentleman, but something altogether much more alluring…
The scene was set: a gentle spring morning in Norwich, where the mist still clung stubbornly to the cobbles and my intentions were as pure as my coin purse was full. I had no designs upon debauchery, literary or otherwise. Merely a wander. A constitutional. Perhaps, if fate allowed, a brief stroll past the window of a certain bookshop. One must keep an eye on the publishing market, after all.
And then—a bell, a creak, the particular hush of wood and ink and paper. I stepped inside. Just to look.
By the third shelf, I was already in trouble. A new edition of Lady Audley's Secret. A slim volume on ancient poisons. A treatise on astronomy (for I am, as you know, cosmically inclined). A French novel banned in certain circles. And oh—a journal from a naturalist who believed moss had moods. I ask you: how could I leave them there? It would have been cruel.
By the time I reached the rear of the shop, I was rationalizing each volume as essential research. For what, I could not say. But certainly something scandalous and illuminating. Perhaps a heroine with a criminal mind. Or a villain with a library.
At this point, I had collected so many titles that the gentleman behind the counter began offering me knowing looks—the sort that suggest either judgment or shared addiction. It was at that moment that fate intervened again, in the form of a gentleman friend who happened to be passing by (and who, it must be said, is in possession of equal measures strong arms and a tragic weakness for carrying heavy things for women with questionable judgment—not that I have been staring at his arms).
I played it cool. He played along. We pretended I had planned to buy eighteen books. He even added one more to the stack—"for balance," he said, with an entirely straight face. And that, dear reader, is how I ended up parading through Norwich with a man at my side and a library in his arms.
Now comes the difficult part: explaining to my brother how I managed to spend an entire afternoon acquiring the contents of a circulating library, and whether or not this qualifies as a professional expense.
I suspect I shall begin with:
“It was all entirely necessary, dear brother. You see, there was a treatise on moss...”
Penned with the acknowledgement of a lady who may have found herself carried away, but who regrets nothing, on the 4th of May, 1835.
Post-script:
The naturalist’s moss journal is already proving indispensable. My hydrangeas are quite judgmental this week.