The Unburied (11 page)

‘And what do you believe he had found?’

‘Since he knew nothing of the Anglo-Saxon period, Pepperdine did not recognize that the manuscript he was summarizing was a version of a story in Grimbald’s
Life.
’

Dr Locard started. As calmly as I was able I said, hoping he would not notice the tremor in my voice: ‘I am convinced that it is nothing less than Grimbald’s original text.’

‘In that case, it would establish beyond all argument how much Leofranc altered his source.’

‘And prove that he did not compose the whole thing, as Scuttard absurdly maintains, but merely revised the existing text.’

‘That would constitute an earthquake in Alfredian studies, I assume.’

‘If Grimbald is largely authentic – as I believe – his
Life
would have to be taken seriously as a major source for the period.’

‘You must be eager to begin the search. Let me show you the Library.’

He led me back into the great hall and we ascended an old wooden staircase to the huge upper floor where daylight came in through the top half of the tall windows allowing me to admire the handsome hammerbeam roof.

‘After the looting and the fire,’ Dr Locard explained, ‘hundreds of books and manuscripts were gathered up where they had been thrown. The printed books were placed on the ground floor and were sorted out over the next months and years, but the manuscripts were an immense problem. Many of them were in obscure languages or in hands that were hard to read so the Librarian made a crude division: they were sorted into those which were to be catalogued as soon as possible and those which could wait.’

‘On what basis was this division made?’

‘Those that could wait were for the most part the Foundation’s own muniments – fabric records, rent-rolls, and so on – and they were taken down to the undercroft of the New Library and have hardly been looked at since then. The important ones were brought up here to be catalogued.’

He showed me the section of the shelves on which the manuscripts were kept.

‘And has that been done?’

‘That work only started eight years ago when I became Librarian.’ He paused and said with quiet impressiveness: ‘In another six months I expect to be able to report to the Dean and Chapter that we have finished. Those which remain to be done are for the most part ones which should have been placed in the undercroft in 1643.’

‘I congratulate you, Dr Locard.’

He nodded in brief acknowledgement. ‘Let us go down to the undercroft now.’

We descended the stairs and as we passed along the length of the lower floor, we encountered the young assistant at his desk in one of the bays. ‘Ah, Quitregard,’ said Dr Locard. ‘Would you bring a lamp and accompany us down to the undercroft?’

A moment later we had passed into the part of the building known as the New Library and from which the undercroft was entered, and were making our way carefully down a dark staircase with the young man in front of us to light our way. That was essential for it had no gas-lighting and was nothing more than the ancient cellarage of the old hall, and smelt strongly of dust and spiders and old paper.

The undercroft was huge and for several minutes the two men led me around the maze of ancient book-presses, at each turn more shelves laden with bundles of yellowing manuscript and ancient leathern cartularies coming into view in the flickering light in Quitregard’s hand. It was immediately clear to me that Pepperdine had been right: it would be the work of years rather than months to sift through these heaps of paper and vellum.

Thank goodness’, I said, ‘that I do not have to search down here.’

Dr Locard stopped and turned to look at me: ‘Why do you say that?’

‘Simply because Pepperdine did not search through them and therefore did not find the manuscript here.’

Dr Locard seemed to reflect for a moment and then asked: ‘Tell me, Dr Courtine, was Pepperdine’s correspondent as uninterested in the Anglo-Saxon period as he seems to assume?’

‘Oddly enough, Bullivant did some very valuable work on Anglo-Saxon, finding and publishing some important materials.’

‘So it is odd, is it not, that Pepperdine should refer to the manuscript as something which would not interest him?’

‘You appear to have an idea about that. May I ask what it is?’

‘Simply that we should take into account the question of whom Pepperdine is addressing and what his motives might be. Scholarship is competitive at least as much as it is collaborative – rather as a game is. You play to win but you have to obey the rules.’

‘Are you suggesting he invented the manuscript?’ I asked in dismay. ‘That he found nothing?’

‘Oh no. That would be to break the rules.’

‘Then I’m afraid I don’t understand your point.’

‘It is possible that the reference to the manuscript was the bait for a trap whose purpose was to lure Bullivant into coming to the town and wasting his time and his money looking for it in the wrong place. Time and money that might otherwise be devoted to his scholarly rivalry with Pepperdine.’

It was odd to hear of such devious tactics from a man of the cloth, but I thought of such practices in my own field and accepted that he was right in principle. ‘But Pepperdine said that he had not examined the manuscripts down here. So even if you’re right, Bullivant would not have bothered to search them.’

‘Let us consider the letter more closely.’

We followed Quitregard up the stairs and then he returned to his duties. Once we were back in the Librarian’s Chamber, Dr Locard laid the letter out on his desk and we bent over it together.

‘Pepperdine’s words –
it would be the work of many days, or even weeks, to examine them and not worth the labour
– clearly imply’, I said, ‘that he has not searched downstairs.’

‘But his words are not definitive on that point. I suggest that Bullivant was expected to notice the equivocation.’

‘You mean that he was intended to assume that Pepperdine had done so and was trying to hide the fact?’

‘Precisely.’

With dismay I realized the force of what he was suggesting.

‘And since’, he continued, ‘the manuscripts on the upper floor have been catalogued – except for a few which have at least been examined – and the one you are seeking has never been found, it must be downstairs if it is anywhere.’

His logic seemed irrefutable. I had only three days for my search and so it would be a matter of luck if I happened upon my quarry. I could not hide my dismay.

‘I wish I could offer you some help but my assistants and I are struggling to keep abreast of the work we already have.’

‘You’ve been very generous with your time,’ I muttered. ‘I doubt if I’ll find it, but I can comfort myself with the reflection that if I do, then I’ll deserve all the more credit given the conditions down there.’

I was beginning to walk towards the door when he said: ‘On further reflection, since we will soon start sorting out the material downstairs, nothing will be lost if I spend part of tomorrow morning looking through it with you.’

I turned back. ‘That would be most extraordinarily generous of you,’ I replied.

‘Very well, then, that’s settled. I have a Chapter Meeting at eleven – as always on Thursdays, alas – but I am free for a few hours beforehand. Shall we start at half-past seven, which is when the Library is opened on Thursday mornings?’

‘By all means.’

‘In addition, I will put one of my assistants at your disposal. I can’t spare Quitregard – which is regrettable because he’s worth an army of Pomerances – but I can lend you that somewhat inadequate young man. He has just arrived, by the way, for I noticed him skulking in one of the bays just now. I will introduce him to you.’

We left the room and passed back into the main gallery where we found a tall thin youth standing in one of the embrasures and staring out of the window. He started as we approached and turned towards us a long bony face which seemed to have been vigorously pinched into shape during its making. I thought of it as a Viking head and face – raw and empty except that in the eyes was visible the pain of being young.

‘Allow me to present my second assistant, Pomerance,’ Dr Locard said.

We shook hands and he stammered that he was honoured to meet me.

‘Please provide Dr Courtine with every assistance,’ the Librarian said.

‘I will do my best, sir.’

‘That’s not quite the same,’ Dr Locard said with a smile at me.

I took leave of him and thanked him again. Then my helpmate and I descended with a couple of lamps and, in a state of profound discouragement, I gazed around me. It was possible – indeed, likely – that somewhere in here was an ancient folio that could overturn most of what was accepted about the ninth century. If Grimbald were vindicated then his account of Alfred would be beyond impeachment by the sneering iconoclasts who had dismissed as Leofranc’s anachronistic and self-interested fabrications the king’s passion for the education of all classes, his curiosity about Islam and Moorish culture, his interest in wind-mills for draining marshlands, and so on.

The chances were small but the reward was great, and inspired by this reflection, I started searching through piles of dusty manuscripts. Young Pomerance was not very helpful since he knew no language but his own and lacked the palaeographic expertise required even to spell out the letters of old manuscripts with any facility. But I found his services useful for bringing down great cobwebby bundles of parchment and paper, and cleaning them up a little before I looked at them.

Pomerance left me after a couple of hours, saying it was time for him to go home for his dinner. When I slipped out at one o’clock Dr Locard was not visible but I nodded to Quitregard who smiled back. Just as I was descending the steps outside I encountered a lady coming up them. She was tall and slender and, though only a few years my junior, she was still a beautiful woman with fine features and large grey eyes. She reminded me of someone – though I could not at that moment think who it was. We exchanged the smiles of strangers who suspect that they are linked in some way and are therefore likely to meet.

Wednesday Afternoon

I went to the most respectable of the inns I could see among those in the High-street – the Dolphin – and had a quick luncheon. I returned to the Close through the Old Gatehouse on the north side and as I passed it I glanced in through one of its little mullioned windows and saw a big schoolroom in which about twenty boys were seated. It must be a part of Courtenay’s Academy. At the sight, it all came vividly back to me – the fizzing of the gas-standards, the smell of chalk and slate. With a sigh for my own long past schooldays I hastened on around the Close, exercising that most important faculty of the historian’s resources: the imagination. At the end of the Close I stopped and reflected. It was from the old house before me, which had been Burgoyne’s but had become the New Deanery, that the Dean had hurried a few minutes before his death. And then he had gone or been forced into the Cloisters – without doubt through this very door. I was so intent upon imagining the scene and wondering if I dared risk trying to read the inscription, that I failed to realize that someone was standing in front of me and attempting to attract my attention. It was the young Sacrist and he was with another and much older man also clad in clerical garb.

‘I do beg your pardon, Dr Sisterson,’ I said. ‘I was lost in my thoughts. I was trying to see the events of that day in September 1643 when this precinct earned its place in the pages of infamy.’

‘A novel mode of procedure,’ the other man commented drily. ‘It would save a historian a great deal of tiresome research.’

Dr Sisterson laughed and said: ‘Dr Courtine, this is Dr Sheldrick, our Chancellor.’

We shook hands. When I mentioned my College, Dr Sheldrick said: ‘You must know my young cousin, the Honourable George de Villiers who is an undergraduate there. He is reading for the Classical Tripos.’

‘I know of him, of course, but my own school is the historical.’

‘I’m fully aware of your work and reputation, Dr Courtine,’ he said rather crushingly as if he was rebuking me for it. ‘I am something of a historian myself.’

‘Indeed you are, Chancellor,’ said Dr Sisterson. He turned to me: ‘Dr Sheldrick is writing the history of the Foundation. In fact, the first fascicle has just been published.’

‘Ah yes.’ It occurred to me that it was odd that Austin did not mention this work as one of the sources for the story of Burgoyne. And even odder that Dr Locard had not done so either, though I recollected that he had referred dismissively to the efforts of amateurs. Then I remembered that Dr Sisterson had mentioned Dr Sheldrick’s work when I had met him in the Cathedral. ‘So you mentioned last night.’ I turned to the older man. ‘I believe I noticed the reception to mark its publication that you gave last night?’

There was an odd silence. It seemed that I had raised an awkward topic. ‘I should so much like to read your history, Dr Sheldrick,’ I said quickly. ‘Does it cover the period of Burgoyne and Freeth?’

‘It goes down to the end of the thirteenth century only,’ Dr Sheldrick replied.

To my surprise he did not offer to give me a copy – the merest courtesy between scholars.

‘Dr Sheldrick has, however, written a draft of the next fascicle which covers the Civil War period,’ Dr Sisterson said. ‘In fact, I have it in my possession since he has kindly asked me to read it and give him my humble advice.’

‘I await its publication with the keenest interest.’

Dr Sisterson glanced at his colleague. ‘I wonder if I might lend it to Dr Courtine?’

‘I see no reason why not,’ he answered rather ungraciously.

‘I have it in my office,’ Dr Sisterson told me. ‘Have you time to accompany me there now?’

I expressed my willingness and my gratitude to both gentlemen. We took leave of Dr Sheldrick and walked towards the Sacristy.

‘The Chancellor is a little preoccupied today,’ Dr Sisterson said as soon as the other man was out of earshot. ‘There was a rather unfortunate episode last night during ...’