Iain Pears - An Instance of the Fingerpost

I was welcomed into the kitchen—I was old enough an acquaintance to knock on the kitchen door—and greeted with great warmth. Half an hour’s conversation was required before I could bring myself and her round to the matter at hand. I explained that I was a close acquaintance of Mr. Cola’s.

“I am glad to hear it, Anthony,” she said gravely. “If he is a friend of yours, then he cannot be so bad to know.”

“Why do you say that? Has he misbehaved?”

“Not exactly,” she conceded. “In fact in all respects he is a man of great politeness. But he is a papist, and I have never had such a person in the house before. Nor do I want one again. Although I do believe we may yet win him over. Do you know, he prayed with us the other night? And went to church with Mr. Lower last Sunday, and said he found the experience very uplifting?”

“I am gratified to hear it. And for my part I can confirm that he is a man of kindness, since he is treating the mother of our servant at moderate cost. I think you can sleep easy in your beds at night. However, what I wish to ask you is this—could I go to his room, for he borrowed something from me which I need badly in my work. And I hear he has gone off for a week.”

It was no sooner asked than agreed and, as I knew where the room was, I was left in peace to mount the two pair of stairs to the little attic which Cola rented out. Inside, all was as spick and span as I would have expected from a room under the tutelage of Mrs. Bulstrode, who regarded dust as the devil’s seed, and never ceased her campaigns of exorcism. Cola’s belongings were few and for the most part contained in a great traveling trunk. And that trunk, unfortunately, was securely locked.

Having come so far, I was determined not to go away empty-handed, and I examined that great traveling lock with the most particular attention, in the hope that it would suddenly spring open before my eyes. But it was designed not only to ward off the attentions of thieves, but also of the likes of Mrs. Bulstrode, who was certain to have examined it if an easy opportunity presented itself, for her curiosity about the unknown was as great as that of the most diligent experimentalist. Violence or the key were the only options, and I could employ neither.

My long hard glaring at the chest made little impact in persuading it to open up to me, and eventually I accepted that no amount of wishing would make the slightest difference. With, the greatest reluctance, and no small amount of resentment, I rose from my haunches, and made to leave. But first, out of simple irritation, I gave the chest a powerful kick, to demonstrate that I was not best pleased.

And the lock sprang open with a heavy thud, the clasp being very ingeniously spring-loaded, a device I had never seen before. I was astonished at this, and at a loss to explain how it might be that a man could be so rash as to leave all his possessions unprotected in such a fashion—unaware until I read the manuscript that the heavy fall endured on the journey from London had broken the lock in such a way that it could no longer be relied upon.

Gifts from God should never be spurned. It had pleased Him to grant my wishes, and I was sure that it was for a good reason. With a prayer of thanks on my lips, I knelt down in front of the chest as though it were an altar, and began to search in as methodical a fashion as Cola himself had used to search the house of Sarah Blundy.

I will not list his possessions, comment on the quality of the clothing or the bags of money which gave the lie to his stories of poverty. For he had in his possession at least one hundred pounds in gold; far from being reduced to having to take patients to survive, he had enough to live as a gentleman for well over a year. No; I will merely mention that I swiftly discovered three books, wrapped up in a chemise near the bottom of the chest as though they were the most precious objects on earth, and accompanied by a sheet of paper which gave the name of a tavern in Cheapside called the Bells, and several other scribbles which seemed also to be addresses.

The first book was particularly gorgeous, tooled in gold, with a fine metal clasp, intricately carved and chased. It was my passion as a bibliographer which made me pause and examine it, for it was the finest Venetian work, and such splendid workmanship is only rarely seen in this country. I had a pang of the greatest envy when I saw it and I swear that, had I been only a fraction less honest, I would have taken it as well. It is a fine thing, no doubt, that so many books are now printed and that their cost steadily falls, even for the best scholarship. I count myself lucky that I live in this country, where books can be had at moderate expense (though still more than the Netherlands; had I a longing for travel I would go there, for I could buy many books and have the cost of the travel in the money saved). But sometimes it is borne in on me that there are disadvantages to this happy situation.

Of course it is the learning which is important. Of course the quality of scholarship must come first, and it is better that wisdom should reach the most people possible, for sine doc-trina, vita est quasi mortis imago, says Dionysius Cato; without learning life is but the image of death. And of course, were it other, I could afford many fewer books. But sometimes I regret the days when people valued books properly, and spent lavishly on them. Occasionally, in the Bodleian, when my concentration deserts me, and my spirits flag, I order up one of those wonderful codexes that have found their way into the library. Or I go into a college and look through a book of hours, marveling at the love and skill which went into the creation of such glorious works. I imagine the men who made them, the scribes and the paper makers and the illustrators and the binders, and contrast them with the poor sad works I have on my own shelves. It is like the difference between a Quaker meeting house and a Catholic church. One is devoted to the word, and nothing but; it has its virtue, I suppose. But God is more than mere word, although He was that in the beginning. The speech of man alone is all but dumb in the task of expressing His glory, and the meanness of the Protestant constructions is an insult to His name. We now live in an age where the houses of politicians are grander than the houses of God. What does that say about our corruption?

So I sat awhile and feasted my eyes on this little book of Cola’s, and traced my finger over the complexities of the binding. A room—no, merely a shelf—of books like these would give me the greatest possible joy, although I knew I might as well aim to become Chancellor of England as hope to possess such a wonder. It was a Psalter, and a fine example, and I flipped open the little clasp and opened it up to see whether the printing matched the binding, for I knew well that Venetian work was the finest to be had.

And received a tremendous shock; for inside, the book had been hollowed out into two carefully cut cavities. Initially, my distress was for the book, as to butcher such a wonderful object was the nearest thing to sacrilege I could imagine. Then I concentrated on the three little bottles that nestled so carefully in the hollows, each sealed by wax at the top. One contained a dark, thick liquid like oil, one a clear fluid which might as well have been water. The third, however, was the most interesting, for it was the most elaborate bottle of all, covered in gold and jewels and worth, in my inexperienced estimation, many dozens of pounds. This contained nothing except a thick, ill-shaped lump of old wood. What it meant was obvious, even to a dolt like myself.

So I placed the book aside and, consumed by curiosity for the first, examined the others with only a casual eye until I realized what they were. It was several minutes, as I flicked through and considered, before it dawned on me that here was something of great and strange significance. For both volumes were the same, one from Sarah’s house and the other, I assumed, Cola had already. Each was a volume from Livy’s history, in the same edition as the one which Dr. Wal-lis had so urgently entreated me to find for him many months previously.