The Small Hand Read online

  ‘Ah, mais oui, the rain, the rain. But our storms go as quickly as they come. It’s the mountains.’

  ‘The road is treacherous. I’m not used to such bends.’

  He laughed. ‘Well, you are here. You are welcome.’

  We had climbed three flights of stone stairs and walked along a short corridor to the door which he now opened, standing aside to let me pass.

  ‘Welcome,’ he said again.

  I felt real warmth in his greeting. Hospitality to strangers was an important part of the monastic rule, for all that these monks did not receive many.

  I walked into the small, square room. The window opposite looked directly on to the pine-covered slopes and the jagged mountain peak. The sun was out, slanting towards us and lighting the deep, dark green of the trees, catching the whitewashed stone walls of the surrounding monastery buildings.

  ‘Ah,’ the Guest Master said, beaming, ‘beautiful. But you should see it in the snow. That is a sight.’

  ‘I imagine you have few guests in winter.’

  ‘None, Monsieur. For some months we are impassable. Now, here … your bed. Table. Your chair. On here you see a letter from the Abbot to you, a letter also from Dom Martin, the Librarian. This list is our timetable. Here is a small map. But I will fetch you at the times you will meet. You are welcome to walk outside anywhere save the private cloister. You are welcome, most welcome, to attend any service in the chapel and I will take you in half an hour, to show you where this is, where you may sit, the dining room. But for now I will bring you refreshment in this room, so that you may get used to the place. You will meet the brothers also about the monastery, the brothers at work. Of course, please greet them. They are glad to welcome a guest. Now, I will leave you to become at home, and I will return with some food and drink.’

  The room was peaceful. The sun moved round to shine on the white wall and the white cover of the iron-framed single bed. The window was open slightly. I could hear the distant sound of the cowbells.

  For a moment, I thought that I would weep.

  Instead, the walls seemed to shimmer and fold in upon themselves like a pack of cards and I fainted at Frère Jean-Marc’s feet.

  Eleven

  woke to find myself lying on the bed with the kindly and concerned face of the Guest Master looking down on me. There was another monk on my left side, holding my wrist to take the pulse, an older man with wrinkled, parchment-like skin and soft blue eyes.

  ‘Now, Monsieur Snow, lie still, relax, You gave us a great shock. This is Dom Benoît, our Infirmarian. Il est médecin. His English is a little less than mine.’

  I struggled to sit up but the old man restrained me gently. ‘Un moment,’ he said. ‘You do not race away …’

  I lay back. Through the window I could see the mountain peak and a translucent blue sky. I felt strangely calm and at peace.

  IN THE END, Dom Benoît seemed to decide that I was none the worse for my fainting attack and allowed me to sit up. There was a tray of food on the table by the window, with a carafe of water, and I went to it after both men had left, feeling suddenly hungry. The Guest Master had said that I should rest for the afternoon, sleep if possible, and that he would come back later to check up on me and, if the Infirmarian agreed, take me to my appointment with the Librarian.

  I ate a bowl of thick vegetable soup that tasted strongly of celery, some creamy Brie-like cheese and fresh bread, a small salad and a bowl of cherries and grapes. The water must have come from a spring in the mountains – it had the unmistakable coolness and fresh taste that only such water has.

  I felt perfectly well now, but slightly light-headed. I supposed that I had fainted in the aftermath of the morning’s awful drive, though I do not remember ever passing out in my life before. I noticed that there was a faint redness on my upper arm where Dom Benoît had probably taken my blood pressure. I was being looked after with care.

  As I ate I looked at the letters that had been left for me. The first, from the Librarian, suggested a meeting that evening, when he would be glad to show me both the First Folio and any other books I might like to see. I would also be welcome to visit the book bindery. The letter from the Abbot was brief, formal and courteous, simply bidding me welcome and hoping that he would be able to see me at some point during my stay.

  The timetable, which had been typed out to give me an idea of how the monastic day and night were organised, was a formidable one. There was a daily mass, all the usual offices, the angelus and much time for private prayer and meditation. The monks ate together only once a day, in the evening, otherwise meals were taken in the solitude of their cells, or at their work.

  There was a map of both the inside and the outside of the monastery, with a dotted red line, or cross, indicating areas to which I did not have access. But I was free to walk almost anywhere outside. I could go into the chapel, the refectory, the library and the communal areas of the cloisters. It seemed that I was also free to visit the kitchens and the carpentry shops and the cellars, the dairy and the cow-sheds if I wished.

  When I began to eat I had thought I would take a walk in the grounds near to the buildings as soon as I had finished the last mouthful. But I had barely begun to eat the fruit when a tiredness came over me that made my head swim and my limbs feel as heavy as if they had been filled with sawdust.

  I opened the window more, so that the sweet air blew in from the mountain, with a breath of pine. Then I lay down and, to the gentle sound of the cowbells, I fell into the deepest sleep I have ever known.

  I WOKE INTO a soft mauve twilight. The stars had come out behind the mountain and there was a full moon. I lay still, enjoying the extraordinary silence. The morning’s drive through the storm and the horror of almost running over the child seemed to belong to another time. I felt as if I had been in this small, whitewashed, peaceful room for weeks. After a few moments, I heard the bell sound somewhere in the monastery, calling the monks to more prayer, more solemn chant.

  I got up cautiously but I was no longer in the least dizzy, though my limbs still felt heavy. I went to the window to breathe in the evening air. A fresh jug of water had been placed on the table and I drank a glass of it with as much relish as I had ever drunk a glass of fine wine.

  I watched the sky darken and the stars grow brighter. I wondered if I could find my way outside. I felt like walking at least a little way, but as I was thinking of it I heard quick footsteps and the Guest Master tapped and came in, smiling. He was a man whose face seemed to be set in a permanent beam of welcome and good spirits.

  ‘Ah, Monsieur Snow, bonsoir, bonsoir. It is good. I came in and each time …’ He made a gesture of sleep, closing his eyes, with his hands to the side of his head.

  ‘Thank you, yes. I slept like a newborn.’

  ‘And so, you seem well again, but the Infirmarian will come again once more to be sure.’

  ‘No, I’m fine. Please don’t trouble the father again. Is it too late for my meeting with the Librarian?’

  ‘Ah, I fear yes. But he will be pleased to meet with you tomorrow morning. I did not wake you. It was better.’

  ‘I was wondering if I could take a short walk outside? I feel I need some fresh air.’

  ‘Ah. Now, let me see. I have the office soon, but yes, come with me, come with me, take a little air – it is very mild. I will come to fetch you inside after the office and then it will be bringing your supper. We retire to bed early you see, and then tomorrow you will eat in the refectory with us, our guest. Please.’ He held open the door for me and we went out of the room and down the corridor.

  The stone staircase led into a long, cool cloister and as we walked down it I heard the sound of footsteps coming from all sides, soft, quick, pattering on the stone, and then the monks appeared, hoods up, heads bowed, arms folded within the wide sleeves of their habits.

  But the Guest Master led me out of a door at the far end of the cloister and into a wide courtyard under the stars. He pointed to a door in th
e wall.

  ‘There, please, walk out of there and into the cloister garden. You will find it so still and pleasant. I will return for you in twenty minutes. Tomorrow, you see, you will find it easy to make your own way about.’

  He beamed and turned back, going quickly after the other monks towards the chapel, from where the bell continued to toll.

  Twelve

  walked between the monastery buildings towards the cloister at the far end. No one was here save a scraggy little black and white cat which streaked away into the shadows on my approach. I looked with pleasure at the beauty of the pattern made by the line of arches and at the stones of the floor. There was no sound. The singing of the monks at their office was contained somewhere deep within the walls. At the end of the cloister, I stepped off the path and onto closely cut grass. I had found myself in the garden, though one without any flowerbeds or trees. I stopped. I was surrounded by cloisters on three sides, on the fourth by another building. There was moonlight enough to see by.

  I wondered what kind of men came here to stay not for a few days’ retreat or refreshment, but for life. Unusual men, it might seem. Yet the Guest Master was robust and energetic, a man you might meet anywhere.

  I wondered how I would find the Librarian and the Abbot. And as I did so, I began to cross the grass. It was as I reached the centre of the large rectangular garden that I noticed the pool. It too was rectangular, with wide stone surrounds and set level with the ground. I wondered if there were fish living a cool mysterious life in its depths.

  It was as I drew close to it and looked down that I felt the small hand holding mine. I thought my heart would stop. But this time the hand did not clutch mine and there was no sense that I was being pulled forward. It was, as on that first evening, merely a child’s hand in mine.

  I looked down into the still, dark water on which the moonlight rested and as I looked I saw. What I saw was so clear and so strange and so real that I could not doubt it then, as I have never doubted it since.

  I saw the face of a child in the water. It was upturned to look directly at me. There was no distortion from the water, it was not the moonlight playing tricks with the shadows. Everything was so still that there was not the slightest ripple to disturb the surface. It was not easy to guess at his age but he was perhaps three or four. He had a solemn and very beautiful face and the curls of his hair framed it. His eyes were wide open. It was not a dead face, this was a living, breathing child, though I saw no limbs or body, only the face. I looked into his eyes and he looked back into mine, and as we looked the grip of the small hand tightened. I could hardly breathe. The child’s eyes had a particular expression. They were beseeching me, urging me. I closed my eyes. When I opened them, he was still there.

  Now the small hand was tightening in mine and I felt the dreadful pull I had experienced before to throw myself forward into the water. I could not look at the child’s face, because I knew that I would be unable to refuse what he wanted. His expression was one of such longing and need that I could never hold out against him. I closed my eyes, but then the pull of the hand became so strong that I was terrified of losing my balance. I felt both afraid and unwell, my heart pounding and my limbs weak so that, as I turned away from the pool, using every last ounce of determination, I stumbled and fell forward. As I did so, I reached my left hand across and tried to prise the grasp of the small fingers away, but there was nothing to take hold of, though the sensation of being held by them did not lessen.

  ‘Leave me alone,’ I said. ‘Please go. Please go.’ I heard myself speak but my voice sounded odd, a harsh whispered cry as I struggled to control my breathing.

  The hand still tugged mine, urging me to stand up, urging me to do what it wanted me to do, go where it wanted me to go.

  ‘Let me go!’ I shouted, and my shout echoed out into the silent cloisters.

  I heard an exclamation and a hurried movement towards me across the grass and Frère Jean-Marc was kneeling beside me, taking me by the shoulders and lifting me easily into a sitting position, tutting in a gentle voice and telling me to be calm.

  After a moment, my breathing slowed and I stopped shaking. A slight breeze came from the mountain, cool on my face, smelling of the pine trees.

  ‘Tell me,’ the monk said, his face full of concern, ‘tell me what is troubling to you. Tell me – what is it that is making you afraid?’

  Thirteen

  here could have been no place more calming to the senses or enriching to the spirit than the great library at the monastery of Saint Mathieu. Sitting there the next day in that quiet and beautiful space, I counted myself one of the most fortunate men on earth, and nothing that had happened to me seemed to be more than the brush of a gnat against my skin.

  The library was housed in a three-storey building separate from the rest, with a spiral stone staircase leading from the cloisters firstly into a simple reading room set with pale wooden desks, then up to the one holding, so the Librarian told me, all the sacred books and manuscripts, many of them in multiple copies.

  But it was the topmost room, with its tall, narrow windows letting in lances of clear light and with a gallery all the way round, which took my breath away. If I could compare it to any other library I knew, it would be to the Bodleian’s Duke Humfrey, that awe-inspiring space, but the monastery library was more spacious and without any claustrophobic feel.

  At first, I had simply stood and gazed round me at the magnificence of the shelving, the solemnity of the huge collection, the order and symmetry of the great room. If the books had all been empty boxes it would still have been mightily impressive. There were slender stone pillars and recessed reading desks in the arched spaces between them.

  The floor was of polished honey-coloured wood and there was a central row of tables. At the far end, behind a carved wooden screen, was the office of the Librarian. Along the opposite end were tall cupboards which contained, I was told, the most precious manuscripts in the collection.

  The cupboards were not locked. When I noted this, the Librarian simply smiled. ‘Mais pourquoi?’

  Indeed. Where else in the world would so many rare and precious items be entirely safe from theft? The only reason they were kept out of sight was to protect them from damage.

  THE LIBRARIAN HAD brought me book after wonderful book, simply for my delight – illuminated manuscripts, rare psalters, Bibles with magnificent bindings. He was an old man, rather bent, and he moved, as I had noticed all the monks moved, at a slow and measured pace, as if rush and hurry were not only wasteful of energy but unspiritual. Everything was accomplished but no one hurried. His English was almost flawless – he told me that he had spent five years studying at St John’s College, Cambridge – and his interest and learning were wide, his pleasure in the library clear to see. He had a special dispensation to speak to me, but he did not waste a word any more than he wasted a movement.

  I had slept well and dreamlessly after a late visit from the Infirmarian, who had given me what he described as ‘un peu de somnifère gentil’ – a dark green liquid in a medicine glass. He had checked me over and seemed satisfied that I was not physically ill. Frère Jean-Marc had brought my breakfast and explained that the Abbot had been spoken to and would like to see me at two o’clock but that he felt a visit to the library would be the best medicine. He was right.

  ‘And now,’ the Librarian, Dom Martin, had said, coming towards the reading desk at which I was sitting in one of the alcoves.

  From there, I could look into the body of the library, and the sunshine making a few lozenges of brightness on the wooden floor. The place smelled as all such places do, of paper and leather, polish and age and wisdom – a powerful intoxicant to anyone whose life is bound up, as mine had long been, with books.

  ‘Here it is. Perhaps you have seen one of these before – there are over two hundred in the world, after all – but you will not have seen this particular one. I think you are about to have a wonderful surprise.’ He smiled, his ol
d face full of a sort of teasing delight as he held the book in his hands.

  I had indeed seen a Shakespeare First Folio before. As he said, it is not particularly rare and I had looked closely at several both in England and abroad. I had also spent some time before coming to Saint Mathieu checking two existing Folios, so that I would be able to judge whether what I was to be shown was genuine. It was not impossible. The whereabouts of only a couple of hundred copies are known now, but the book would have had a printing of perhaps 750. Even if most of those did not survive, there was nothing to say several might not still remain, buried in some library – possibly, a library such as this one.

  The book Dom Martin held in his outstretched hands was large. He laid it down with care on the desk before me but he did not wait for me to examine it. One of the innumerable bells was ringing, summoning him away to prayer. He walked out of the great room and I heard his footsteps going away down the stone staircase as the bell continued to toll. Two other monks, who had been at some quiet work, followed him and I was left alone to examine what I knew within a few moments to be, with precious little doubt, a very fine copy of the First Folio. That in itself was exciting enough, but in addition, on the title page, the book bore the signature of Ben Jonson. Of course I would need to check, but from memory I was sure the signature was right. So this, then, was his copy of Shakespeare that I held in my hands. It was a remarkable moment.

  I spent some time turning the pages carefully, revelling in the book and hoping that I might manage to procure it for Sir Edgar Merriman. After a moment, I looked up and around that handsome room. I felt well. I felt quite calm. I also felt safe, as I no longer felt truly safe anywhere outside, for fear of what might happen and of feeling the small hand creeping into mine. I steered my attention quickly back to the book before me.