Re: Antique Store: Louis/Sparrow
He took her hand gently, giving it a brief shake. Funny, she was so perfectly made up in the style of another time completely that it felt odd not to turn her hand over and kiss the back of her glove.
"I am Louis," he confirmed. "Pleased to meet you, Sparrow." He didn't know what he had suspected from the woman who bought expensive gifts, but the clothes, at least, spoke to someone who cared about old things that had belonged to dead people, made in the style of dead times. "Then we will lean toward the former," he said, with a small, warm smile. "Come round the corner, I have your items for you. I'll let you have a look at them before you make a final decision, alright?"
He stepped around the edge of the long glass cabinet. Inside it, hundreds of small, valuable items glittered, lying on scattered, threadbare jewelry pillows, hat pins stabbed into embroidered victorian pin cushions, trembling and shimmering with every step on the floorboards, rich dark tortoiseshell and pale glass stones. Small books and relics, votives, folded collections of soft-edged letters, silver vestas and mottled antique bullets, all of it under glass.
He made an effort to keep the glass clean, but he hadn't displayed any of the items behind it himself. It was meticulous work, laid out in intricate patterns of matte and shine, everything small enough and valuable enough that it needed to be locked away. Sooner or later, he'd need to learn this sort of display work for himself. For now, he simply admired it, and sold it.
The items she had asked for were under the counter, tucked out of sight. The first was the bottle. It had a tag still attached to it - no price, just a brief description on tanned paper, at least fifty years old - Plique-à-Jour Enamel Bottle, 19th cent. The handwriting was black, printed large and upright.
Carefully, he unscrewed the lid. It came off easily, and he tipped it forward to show her the inside. "It's a little dirty," he said, "But it hasn't harmed the translucence, obviously. I believe it's residue of the original perfume." Indeed, at the bottom there was a residue, a little waxy and yellow, gathered so low in the bottle it was invisible from the outside. Did it have a scent? It almost did, warm and inviting - not the honey and vanilla of the woman buying it, but soft black musk and violet and clove, peppery and inviting. Or it didn't smell like anything at all. Or it was orange blossom and sugar cane, spilled heady and dizzying over a boudoir, and dripping onto the floor in splashes, mingling with copper and white, soft meat.
"A little warm water should loosen it nicely without doing any harm." He screwed the lid back on, and handed it to her. "No cracks. If you still want it, we'll consider it done, and I'll show you the book."