Read Online Mrs. God by Peter Straub - Free Book Online Page A

literary guest we had donated manuscripts, papers, diaries, notebooks, drafts, material they knew to be significant as well as things they must have considered nearly worthless. Of course, some of the latter have turned out to be among our most important possessions.”
    â€œManuscripts and diaries? T. S. Eliot and Lawrence and everybody else? Even Theodore Corn—even Isobel?”
    â€œOh, even Isobel, I assure you,” Wall said, smiling. “Especially Isobel, I might say. I don’t quite know how it began, but before long it had become a custom to give something of that sort to the house, as a token repayment for Edith’s hospitality, as an indication of one’s gratitude for Esswood’s beauty and seclusion.… It was part of coming here at all, to leave something like that behind when you left.”
    â€œThat’s extraordinary,” Standish said. “You mean that all these famous people donated original manuscripts and diaries every time they came?”
    â€œEvery year. Year after year. Isobel Standish came to Esswood twice, and I believe she left some very significant items for the library.”
    â€œAnd were these, um, donations, copies of more widely known works? It doesn’t sound—”
    â€œNor should it. I think I’m right in saying that everything of that sort we have is unique to us. None of it can be published or reproduced elsewhere, except by arrangement. Those were the conditions that evolved, you see.”
    Standish felt as though he had licked his finger and pushed it into a socket. The place was a treasure house. Manuscripts of unknown works by some of the century’s greatest writers, early handwritten drafts of famous poems and novels! It was like coming on a warehouse full of unknown paintings by Matisse, Cézanne, and Picasso.
    Robert Wall must have seen some of his excitement in his face, for he said, “I know. Rather takes the breath away, doesn’t it? If you’re the sort of person who can appreciate it properly. Of course, you can see why we are very careful each year in selecting the Esswood Fellows—they have a great deal to live up to.”
    â€œWow,” Standish said. “Absolutely.”
    â€œAnd that was its attraction for me too, I imagine. Apart from its being the only home I’ve ever really known. I went to school and then university, the Seneschals were always very generous when they felt generosity was called for, but I’m afraid I always felt a deep connection to Esswood. So after university I did my best to make myself indispensable, and I’ve been here ever since. Called up in the second war, of course, but I couldn’t wait to get back here. Still the gamekeeper’s boy at heart, I fear. And I do like to think I’ve helped Esswood move into the modern world without losing anything of its past.”
    Wall smiled at Standish. “That’s the thing, you see. The past of Esswood is really still quite alive. I can remember walking out past the long pond with my father one morning, and seeing Edith Seneschal, who seemed to me the loveliest woman in the world, wander toward me with a tall woman, also beautiful, and a stout, distinguished elderly gentleman, and introducing me to Virginia Woolf and Henry James. James was very old then, of course, and it was his last visit to Esswood. He bent down to shake my hand, and he admired my coat. ‘What a lot of buttons you have, young man,’ he said to me. ‘Is your name Buttons?’ I was tongue-tied, hadn’t a clue what to say to him, just gawped up like a gormless fool, which he took awfully well. Later on in life, I read everything I could about them, James and Woolf, as well as all their work—I tried to learn everything possible about all our guests. Scholars included, of course. I see that as one of the essential tasks of running Esswood properly. We screen everybody pretty thoroughly beforehand, and