Chapter Six #3
She entered one of the smallest, and I followed. Barely more than a shop front, where a handful of books were displayed on
a pyramid-shaped stand, it felt cramped inside. A woman with mussed gray hair and tortoiseshell reading glasses on a chain
sat behind a small desk in the corner. She took one look at Diana, then at me, and said, “Downstairs is free.”
The steps to the basement were narrow and precipitous. Diana flicked a switch, and a strip light came on overhead, bright
and with a persistent hum. The space was home to piles of cardboard boxes. Some had been opened and were packed with books.
Two stacks of folding chairs leaned against a wall, as if meetings regularly took place down here. The only natural light
came from a frosted window set high up, through which we could see the blurred silhouettes of a security grille and the feet
of passersby. In the back corner was a tiny cloakroom beside a small kitchenette. The walls were painted white and plastered
with posters advertising bygone literary events.
Diana took two chairs and unfolded them with a deft shake. She placed them in the middle of the room, one facing the other.
“Coffee?” she asked. “Cup of tea?”
I shook my head.
She sat in one of the chairs, and after a moment’s hesitation I took the other. She said, “I’ll get straight to the point,
because I appreciate that this morning came as a shock. For what it’s worth, I didn’t want to introduce you to Magnus that
way, but here we are.”
I started to speak, but she held up a finger. “Let me finish, if you don’t mind. Then I’m happy to hear whatever you want
to say. I know you must be feeling used.”
I nodded.
“What do you know about your father’s manuscript collection?”
“It burned,” I said. It was a story I’d heard many times from my mother.
There was no one in your father’s house that night. They were all staying in London. I saw the neighbors interviewed on the
news. They had smelled the smoke first and called the firefighters, but by the time the fire trucks arrived, the flames had
taken hold and it was too late to save the library. The neighbors spoke vividly about how horrible the smell of burning vellum
was and how the ashes of the burnt manuscripts floated through the smoky dawn like fireflies. Your dad and your granddad,
who was still alive then, rushed back from London and in the papers the next day there was a photograph of them looking stricken
in front of the charred remains of the library.
“It did,” Diana said. “What else do you know about it?”
“He has people scouring auctions and collections around the world looking for manuscripts important enough to replace the
ones he lost.” Just like Ashurbanipal, just like the other men throughout history who’d made it their life’s work to create
libraries.
“What do you know about the contents of the collection?”
While my parents were dating, my mother had only been allowed to see the collection once, a source of bitterness to her.
Of all the people who could be trusted with the books, a restorer has to be high on the list, but of course I wasn’t good
enough for them.
I only knew what she’d told me about it and what I’d read about the collection online. “Not a lot,” I said.
“It was world class. The medical books dated back to the ancient Greeks and possibly earlier. Your grandfather had also managed
to bring together some of the lost volumes from the library of John Dee. Books on alchemy and sorcery. He had some exquisite
texts in Arabic. Early treatises on mathematics. Books on Jewish mysticism. The collection was eclectic and esoteric. What
your great-grandfather, grandfather, and father all had in common was that every book they acquired was the very best. So
the loss was unimaginable.”
I heard your grandfather collapsed when he saw the burnt out library, and your father refused to talk about it for a long time.
“I know,” I said.
“Of course.”
She leaned forward, a new intensity in her eyes. It reminded me of the first day we met. She said, “How would you feel if
I told you that the collection survived the fire?”
“I would tell you that you’re wrong.”
“I’m not. The core of the collection survived. Some of the best books had been moved to another location before the fire.
Afterward, it was decided to keep them there and to tell no one, because it was such a lucky escape. Your father and grandfather
were terrified that whoever burned down the library would come after the books again.”
“No. That can’t be.” The total destruction of the collection was part of the lore of the Beaufort family.
“It can and it is. Your father’s family are very good at keeping secrets.”
That was true. My father kept me a secret. I wasn’t mentioned in any of his official biographies.
“What you showed me at Tracy’s, was that—”
I remembered every detail of those manuscripts. Their quality and rarity had been exceptional.
“They were part of his original collection, yes.”
“How many books survived?”
“About two hundred. Ten percent of the collection, but the finest ten percent. If you agree to work on your father’s collection,
you’ll have access to them all. They’ve never been properly looked at, certainly not published on.”
This I knew to be true. My grandfather had famously kept the collection closely guarded, which had appalled Mum.
Your father’s library contained extraordinary books.
Books that were believed to have been lost to humanity.
The Beaufort men had no problem believing themselves to be worthy keepers of the manuscripts, and they also believed nobody else was worthy of seeing them.
The manuscripts were for their eyes and the eyes of their heirs only.
That was the scale of their self-importance.
Diana took a piece of paper from her bag and passed it to me. “This is a comprehensive list of the surviving manuscripts.”
I took it from her and read it. I was amazed.
“They’re your birthright,” Diana said. “Now, tell me I did the wrong thing getting you and him together. Tell me I was wrong,
and you’ll never see this list again, let alone any more of the manuscripts.”