Possession by A.S. Byatt Read Free Book Online Page B

it with a toothcomb.”
    “I don’t think so. I
truly
don’t think so. All the dust is
set
in black rims, it reaches the edges of the paper. No one’s touched it for a long, long time. I guess not ever. I read some.”
    “Useful?”
    “Oh, very. Enormously.”
    Blackadder, reluctant to show excitement, began to clip together bits of paper. “I’d better have a look,” he said. “I’d better see for myself. I’ll get over there. You didn’t disturb anything?”
    “Oh no. Oh no. That is, a lot of the papers simply flew out when the book was opened, but we put them back in place, I think.”
    “I don’t understand it. I thought Cropper was ubiquitous. You’d better keep this absolutely hush-hush, you understand, or it’ll all be winging its way across the Atlantic, whilst the London Library replaces its carpets and installs a coffee machine and Cropper sends us another of his nice helpful smiley-regretful faxes, offering access to the Stant Collection and every possible assistance with microfilm. You haven’t said anything to anyone?”
    “Only the Librarian.”
    “I’ll get over there. Patriotism will have to do instead of funding. Stop the drain.”
    “They wouldn’t—”
    “I wouldn’t trust anyone, faced with Cropper’s cheque-book, not further than I could see.”
    Blackadder was struggling into his overcoat, a shabby British Warm. Roland had given up all thought, in any case not very realistic, of discussing the purloined letters with Blackadder. He did, however, ask, “Can you tell me anything about a writer called LaMotte?”
    “Isidore LaMotte.
Mythologies
, 1832.
Mythologies indigènes de la Bretagne et de la Grande Bretagne
. Also
Mythologies françaises
. A great scholarly compendium of folklore and legends. Suffused by a kind of fashionable search for the Key to All Mythologies but also with Breton national identity and culture. Ash would almost certainly have read them, but I’ve no recollection of any precise use he made of them.…”
    “There was a Miss LaMotte.…”
    “Oh, the daughter. She wrote religious poems, didn’t she? A gloomy little booklet called
Last Things
. And children’s stories.
Tales Told in November
. Things that go bump in the night. And an epic which they say is unreadable.”
    “I think the feminists are interested in her,” said Paola.
    “They would be,” said Blackadder. “They haven’t any time for Randolph Ash. All they want is to read Ellen’s endless journal once our friend in there has actually managed to bring it to the light of day. They think Randolph Ash suppressed Ellen’s writing and fed off her imagination. They’d have a hard time proving that, I think, if they were interested in proof, which I’m not sure they are. They
know
what there is to find before they’ve seen it. All they’ve got to go on is that she spent a lot of time lying on the sofa, and that’s hardly unusual for a lady in her time and circumstances. Their real problem—and Beatrice’s—is that Ellen Ash is
dull
. No Jane Carlyle, more’s the pity. Poor old Beatrice began by wanting to show how self-denying and supportive Ellen Ash was and she messed around looking up every recipe for gooseberry jam and every jaunt to Broadstairs for
twenty-five years
, can you believe it, and woke up to find that no one wanted self-denial and dedication any more, they wanted proof that Ellen was raging with rebellion and pain and untapped talent. Poor Beatrice. One publication to her name, and a slim book called
Helpmeets
without irony doesn’t go down well with today’s feminists. One little anthology in 1950 of wise, witty and tender sayings from the female companions of the great. D. Wordsworth, J. Carlyle, E. Tennyson, Ellen Ash. But the Women’s Studies people can’t get their hands on all that stuff to publish as long as poor old Bea is still the official editor. She doesn’t know what’s hit her.”
    Roland did not want to hear another long speech from Blackadder