Possession

by A.S. Byatt

“Nothing under LaMotte. No, wait a minute. Here. A cross-reference. We need the reading box. It’s very theological, the reading box. It appears”—she drew out a dog-eared yellowing card, the ink blurring into its fuzzy surface—“it appears she read The Fairy Melusina, in 1872.” She replaced the card in its box, and settled back in her chair, looking across at Roland with the same obfuscating comfortable smile. Roland felt that the notebooks might be bristling with unrecorded observations about Christabel LaMotte that had slipped between Beatrice’s web of categories. He said doggedly, “Do you think I could see what she said? It might be”—he rejected “important”—“it might be of interest to me. I’ve never read Melusina. There seems to be a revival of interest in it.” “I tried once or twice in the old days. It’s terribly long-winded and impenetrable. Gothic, you know, Victorian Gothic, a bit gruesome, in places for a lady’s poem …” “Beatrice—could I just cast my eyes over what Mrs Ash said?” “I’ll just see.” Beatrice rose from her table.