Victory

Renzi flushed. ‘Er, I’ve been rather busy, you’ll understand.’

She bit her lip. ‘I shall ask the marquess for a letter of introduction to any publishing house you choose. He is not to be ignored you may believe, Nicholas.’

‘Thank you, dear sister, but I can manage the affair myself,’ Renzi replied quickly. ‘A dish of tea with me? There’s some superior China black we’ve been saving for—’

‘Thank you, no,’ Cecilia said coolly, standing and smoothing her dress. ‘I find that I’m overborne with business. Good day, sir.’

Renzi glowered at the wall. She was right, of course. Sooner or later he must approach a publisher. The act of writing was the most gratifying and intellectually rewarding thing he had done in his life. The single-minded pursuit of meaning, its expression and, in fact, the entire act of creation placed his mind on a plane that lifted him above his mortal existence.

But what if he went to a publisher and was told that his first-born was not fit to see the light of day, that it was the mere vaporising of a dilettante amateur? His excuse for taking wings into the empyrean would be snatched from him and then he would be forced to return and . . . It couldn’t be faced.

Therefore it could not be risked: he wouldn’t go. The logic was simple.

Or was it? If he did not go he would never know if the work he had shaped so lovingly with his own hands might be valued by others – he would never see his scratchings on sheaves of paper transformed into a handsome leather-bound volume that would be launched into the far reaches of the world, or have gracious correspondence with enraptured readers, knowing his work delighted so many others.

And at last he would be able to lay before Cecilia his magnum opus to her wide-eyed delight, before falling to his knees and begging her hand in marriage. Dammit – it had to be done.

But how was he to approach a publisher and persuade them that his work was worthy enough to print? And, more to the point, was it that one put forward a sum in consideration to set them in motion or, much more improbably, was Cecilia right that they could be open to suggestions of some sort of body-and-soul advance against future sales?

Renzi was by no means a stranger to the warren of booksellers in both Piccadilly and Paternoster Row as a book buyer, but for a would-be author it was a different matter. The latter was the haunt of the lower sort of hackery – as well as impoverished aspirants to letters eking out a living. The former, with St James’s Street and Pall Mall, was where the better sort was to be found, where Samuel Johnson, Goldsmith, even Wilkes and Franklin had begun their ventures into print.

He dressed carefully, unsure of just what authors wore about town. He settled on his sober deep-brown but added a rather more flamboyant lace cravat and romantically raked hat to set the tone.

In his library there were works from all the publishers of note but he did not know enough about them to impel him from one to another. Then he recalled that John Murray, the ‘doyen of belles-lettres’, had himself seen service as an officer in the Navy during the Seven Years’ War and presumably would be the more sympathetic.

The fly-leaf of a book, however, revealed that the publisher was in Fleet Street, rather nearer to Paternoster Row than he would have liked, but at least the right side of Blackfriars Bridge. Soon he was standing outside an undistinguished four-storey red-brick house with a well-polished brass plaque on the door simply proclaiming, ‘Mr Murray’.

Through that door there might be a new future – or the ruin of a dream. The literary lions of society did not know he existed and he had no recognition from academia: by what right did he claim the attention of probably the most successful publisher in London?

In an agony of indecision he paced up and down until he’d summoned up courage to knock. He met with a quick impression of dark opulence, a discreet staircase and a kindly-looking gentleman in half-spectacles who stopped in surprise. ‘May I help you, sir?’

‘Is Mr Murray at liberty to see me, do you think? A – a private matter concerning any advice he might be able to provide.’

‘Then it’s an author you are, sir? If you’ll kindly wait I’ll see if I can secure an appointment for you.’

He was back promptly. ‘Mr Murray would be pleased to receive you now. I do hope we shall be seeing more of you, sir.’

Ushered into a spacious and undeniably literary study, Renzi was taken aback by the youth of the individual who rose to meet him. ‘Er, Nicholas Renzi. Do I address Mr John Murray?’

‘You do, sir,’ he answered, then smiled. ‘I am the child of the father, so to speak.’

‘Then you have no service in the Navy?’

His eyes narrowed. ‘No, Mr Renzi, my father did. I have not, thank God. Might I enquire what it is you want of me?’

The gaze was confident and intelligent, and more than a little disconcerting, but Renzi pressed on: ‘Mr Murray, you are a publisher of note and I would value your counsel exceedingly.’

‘Yes?’

‘Over these past few years I have laboured on a work that I flatter myself has its merit. It’s close to completion and I’m now at a stand with regard to how I might proceed, er, to be published.’

‘I would be honoured to advise, Mr Renzi. First, do tell me something of your origins.’

‘My origins? If by that you are alluding to any academic or literary qualifications I might possess then I must —’

‘No, sir. Your background of a personal nature – your upbringing, experiences of life, tragic circumstances, perhaps . . .’

‘Sir, the book must speak for itself, surely.’