The Bookshop of Second Chances by Jackie Fraser (best life changing books .TXT) 📕

I look at her.

‘Well? Didn’t you think?’ She laughs.

I laugh too. ‘I don’t know, I suppose he was quite handsome. You can’t fancy lords, though, Xan, you have to resent them and their privileged nonsense.’

‘He must be rich, if he’s buying back houses. What did Alastair say he did? Property development?’

‘Slum landlord, more like.’

She snorts. ‘Cynic. You won’t be able to say stuff like that to people up here, will you? They’ll all be in thrall to his centuries of oppression.’ She chuckles to herself. ‘My mum is gonna freak when I tell her I’ve met an actual lord.’

‘It’s a bit mad, isn’t it? Anyway, come on, let’s get this lot to town.’

Four

It’s Xanthe’s last day. I left her drinking coffee in the Old Mill, which is, we’ve decided after some experimentation, the best coffee shop. It has a little gallery selling artwork by local potters and painters, and a courtyard garden full of flowers. Jilly and Cerys, the women who run it, are incredibly friendly and helpful, recommending the best places for a bigger shop than you can manage in the Coop, but without driving to Dumfries for the giant Tesco. They’ve introduced me to a builder, and a plumber as well; and they do very good bacon sandwiches.

Xanthe’s stayed longer than she should have done – a week and a half – but she can’t stay for ever; she has a job, and children and dogs to think about. As we ate our breakfast in the sunny kitchen this morning, I told her I’d been thinking, vaguely, about perhaps staying up for a bit. I could spend the summer here. I feel comfortable and at home in the Lodge, surrounded by Uncle Andrew’s belongings, some of which were once my great-grandparents’. (I know this because there’s a note from Uncle Andrew in with the paperwork Alastair gave me. Dear Thea, I thought you might be interested to know that the table in the sitting room belonged to my parents, your great-grandparents. It was a wedding present from my mother’s father, your great-great-grandfather, and was purchased in Dumfries in 1896…)

Now the sun’s out, it’s tempting. It’s too late to do much in the garden but we looked in the fruit cage and I did briefly fantasize about living here permanently. A fruit cage is a good thing to own, after all. Plus it’s wonderfully quiet, being so far from any other houses, and the trees are fantastic. I’m looking forward to being here by myself, although I didn’t say that to Xanthe. I expect it’s pretty miserable in the winter though. And what would I do? I doubt there’s much work. And although that’s not urgent, even selling the books won’t keep me for ever.

Selling the books – that’s why I’m here, outside the bookshop. The dark-green sign says Fortescue’s Books in elegantly curled writing, and Antiquarian and Second-hand Books is painted in gold across the large plate-glass windows. I push the door open and a bell jangles above me. The shop is, I think, converted from a house, a large square Georgian house, like Alastair’s office, which is almost opposite. There aren’t steps at the bookshop, though; the wide, recessed half-glazed front door is at pavement level and opens into a broad sunny space, perhaps knocked through from two smaller rooms. There are what might loosely be described as window displays, although to be honest they’re just piles of books. I think someone should be paying more attention. My suspicion, unfounded of course, is that whoever is in charge thinks such things are beneath them.

The floor is slightly uneven, with large worn flagstones, the walls are probably twelve feet high and lined with bookshelves. The fireplace has been boarded over, but a large green majolica jardinière sits on the hearth, full of tulips. There are stacks of orange Penguins on the mantelpiece, and above them, a framed print of the town hall. A bookcase beside the door holds 1970s and ’80s crime novels and shields the counter from the doorway. There are two middle-aged men browsing; a pair of wooden stepladders so people can climb up to the higher shelves; and signs everywhere. Please use a ladder or ask for assistance if you want something you cannot reach, says the one closest to me. There’s a rack of vintage postcards of the local area in fantastically saturated colours, and a list of Questions to which the answer is No, all of which are quite obnoxious. I can tell Edward Maltravers (or someone who works for him) adds to these as they occur to him, since halfway down it says, Do you have or want to buy Fifty Shades of Grey? Another one says, Are people more important than books? and, My child does not read, will it be okay?

Curmudgeonly, I decide.

Here on the more dimly lit right-hand side, clearly visible from the counter, are the antiquarian books, quarto and folio. A whole shelf of Shakespeare, Victorian and older, and many other things, some titled in Latin. Please don’t touch these books unless you are seriously thinking of buying, says a sign, but feel free to ask for help.

I like books, but I’m no expert. Uncle Andrew owned a lot of books, many of them by people I’ve never heard of. I have the most recent valuation, done the September before last, a year before he died, and the total is rather unexpectedly high. Now I want to know how much the Scotts are worth. I don’t get on with Scott, and I imagine that they might fetch more up here in Scotland, in Edinburgh perhaps, than if I took them home. I’m not sure whether to sell the entire library or not, but I definitely don’t want to keep them all, or even most of them, because of the responsibility as much as anything. And because, think of the other books I could buy with the money. I had a