You Owe Me Five Farthings

by Jane Anstey

  “That seems eminently possible,” agreed Simon. “It’s certainly something out of the ordinary.”

  “Valuable too, perhaps,” said Jeremy.

  “It’s written in Middle English,” Simon told Mike, confirming Jeremy’s guess. “The kind they used before Shakespeare’s day. Some very great literature was written around that time.”

  “Chaucer,” said Mike, remembering what his father had said.

  “That’s right. And there’s some great poetry, too. Ever heard of the Morte d’Arthur?”

  Mike shook his head. “I couldn’t make out many of the words at all,” he said.

  “It’s not that difficult to read once you get the knack.”

  Mike leaned over the arm of Simon’s chair to peer at the text.

  “Look. This character is called a thorn. You sound it ‘th.’”

  Mike nodded. “It looks a bit like a ‘p,’ doesn’t it? What about this letter that looks like a D with a bar through it?”

  “That’s called an eth. Lower case, it looks more like an ‘o.’ It’s what became our ‘d.’ Some of the letters look a bit different from ours, like the ‘h’ that curls under, and the ‘s’ that looks like a long ‘f.’ But it’s just the way they were written. There aren’t many actual words that are completely different from today, though the spelling isn’t very standardised.”

  “I see,” said Mike doubtfully.

  “Try this bit.” Simon pointed to a short sentence standing on its own.

  “God haf forgiefen mine mony sinnes and broght (brought?) me saufe to this plase,” read Mike slowly. “What’s ‘saufe’?”

  “What does it look like? Take a letter out and it’s the modern word.”

  Mike thought for a moment. “‘Safe!’”

  “Well done.”

  “It sounds a bit like a Psalm.”

  “That’s probably just the mindset,” Jeremy suggested. “They thought in very biblical terms in those days––especially the monks, and I guess perhaps this was written by one of the monks at Whitehill.”

  “You mean this might actually be a fourteenth-century book?” asked Mike, his eyes bright with excitement.

  “Maybe one that was re-bound in the nineteenth century?” suggested Jeremy. “I’d say that’s probably the vintage of the actual binding.”

  Simon nodded. “I agree about the binding. The text itself could be fourteenth century. But look at the paper, Remy.” He handed the book over. “That’s not medieval parchment. This is a copy, surely. A very faithful one, except that a medieval manuscript would probably have been illustrated.”

  Jeremy got out a magnifying glass and pored over the page, then turned the book over and felt the pages carefully. “Of course,” he said. “I should have realised that. I was so taken with the form of the writing…”

  “I think it must have been originally written in the fourteenth century, looking at the type of English. But this isn’t a printed copy of an early book, as you’d expect for a nineteenth-century volume of this kind. It’s a handwritten facsimile. An actual copy, if you like, of the Middle English text, but written in nineteenth-century ink, with a nineteenth-century pen, not a quill as it would have been on the original parchment.”

  Jeremy nodded. “That’s a bit odd, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe someone at the monastery did it?” Mike suggested. “Maybe they had the original and it was getting fragile so they wanted to make a copy. Victorians liked antiquarian stuff, didn’t they?”

  “That’s a very good idea, Mike,” approved Simon. “Miss Barnard would be proud of you.”

  “There’s a snag, though,” Jeremy pointed out.

  “Oh! Is there?” Mike sounded quite crestfallen.

  Jeremy gave him a reassuring smile. “Whitehill Abbey has been a private house for centuries, ever since the Dissolution in the sixteenth century, when all the monks were evicted and most of the buildings were given to the king’s courtiers. The Benedictines only turned it back into a monastery a few years ago. There were no monks there in the Victorian period.”

  “It could still have been a Victorian who made the copy, though,” Mike persisted. “Maybe they found an ancient book and copied it.”

  Jeremy nodded. “I suppose that’s possible. Well, we must see what the abbot knows.”

  “Let’s hope he gets back to you soon,” said Simon. “Come on, Mike. Have a go at some more of this. Let’s see what it’s all about.”

  Five

  Father Jan Petrowski read through the telephone messages that had been sent through from the abbey switchboard and made a mental note of those he needed to respond to that day. He had long ago decided not to have a personal answering machine on the extension in his office, still less a cell phone he had to carry with him. The lay brothers who manned the switchboard were adept at sorting out those matters they could deal with from those that needed the abbot’s personal attention, and an email list sent out to him once or twice a day was sufficient to cover most eventualities. Anything more urgent was either phoned through direct or conveyed to the prior, who had regular meetings with his superior, and who, in any case, had the authority to make most decisions on his behalf during his occasional absences from the abbey.

  He was intrigued by a message from the rector of St Martin’s with regard to a book the abbey had donated to the Northchurch College Fayre, though he could not immediately perceive the connection between the two. But he had met Jeremy Swanson a few times since the community moved into Whitehill Abbey three years ago, and he thought the message would be worth following up. Besides, after a morning spent in conference with the abbey’s accountants, a conversation with Jeremy offered some light relief.

  “Jan Petrowski here, Remy. You phoned about a book that’s missing?”

  “Yes, I did. Thanks so much for phoning back, Jan.”

  Jan. Not many people called him that now. Most people, even those not of the Catholic persuasion, gave him the courtesy title of Father or Father Abbot. But he could understand that, for an Anglican clergyman, it might seem inappropriate. He himself, after all, had used the rector’s Christian name.

  “We’re concerned that the book may be from your library,” Jeremy went on. “It may not even have been intended as a donation. It came with others in a box, brought by one of the Whitehill brothers, I believe. Mike, my son, was helping to run the bookstall at the Fayre and found this book at the bottom of the box.”

  “I see.” Jan paused for a moment. “I would have to ask Brother Librarian. Might I have a description of the book in question?”

  “Certainly.” The voice on the phone wavered for a moment as though it had gone out of range of the microphone. “I have it here. It’s leather-bound, probably Victorian, but inside there’s a facsimile of a Middle English text on paper. A handwritten copy rather than printed characters, we think.”

  Jan made some notes. He did not recognise the description. But then, the library held an enormous collection of volumes and he did not have the chance to spend much time exploring it. “What is the title?”

  “It’s a diary, or journal, of a Brother Piers. I’m not sure of the dates he mentions––he just gives regnal years––Edward the Third and Richard the Second, I think. Perhaps he was a Whitehill monk himself, in the fourteenth century.”

  Jan’s interest sharpened. “Handwritten, you say?”

  “That’s right. Simon Hellyer, who teaches English at Northchurch College, seems to think it’s a Victorian copy of something much older which has been bound in leather to protect it. Facsimile was his word for it, but that would perhaps imply photography or machine copying, and I don’t think that’s a possibility because of the age of the binding.”

  Jan made another note. “I will certainly ask Brother Librarian. Would it be possible for your son to bring the book here for us to identify? If it was in a box for donations, that should be the end of it, of course––technically it belongs to the college. But I appreciate your coming back to us about
it, just in case there has been a mistake.”

  “We’ll try to drive over later in the week,” Jeremy offered. “But with Christmas almost upon us, I’m pretty busy, as you can imagine. Could you check with your librarian first? We promise to lock the book away safely in the meantime.”

  That seemed a reasonable request. “Yes, of course,” Jan confirmed. “I will give you another call if Brother Librarian wishes to see the book, or if I have any further information on it in the meantime.”

  “Thanks,” Jeremy replied. “We’d really like to know the solution to the mystery.”

  I’ll bet, thought Jan, smiling as he finished the conversation smoothly and politely. Jeremy could never resist a mystery––was well known locally for it. He put the receiver back in its cradle, picked up his notes on the telephone conversation, and set out for the library.

  “It has been found?” The old librarian’s spontaneous cry of delight in response to his query was obviously sincere. “It should never have been put in that box. I did not realise it had––I have been hunting for it all over the library. The lay brother who took the donations to the college must have picked it up by mistake.” The tone of his voice boded no good to the lay brother in question.

  “A strange occurrence,” observed Jan. “Was the book in use by someone?” A note of severity entered his voice. “Why was it lying around where it could be taken by mistake? It sounds as though it could be valuable.”

  “Yes, indeed!” Brother Librarian almost genuflected with reverence, though with respect to the book, Jan suspected, not to his superior. “It is one of our treasured possessions, a copy of one of the original books in the library here that has been lost.”

  “A book originally in the possession of the monastery? Or the private house that it was before we came?”

  “Yes, yes, of the monastery!” answered the librarian, flapping his hands in eagerness. “It must have been copied by one of the Victorian owners of the abbey. This book was packed away in a cupboard and forgotten, and when the house was sold, it lay hidden until we began to make the alterations. But the original is lost, and we only have the copy,” he added quickly.

  “I remember some books being found,” frowned Jan. “But I don’t recall this one.”

  “I myself discovered this book later,” the librarian explained. “It should be in the glass-fronted case over there, under lock and key like the other valuable books we have in the library––those few that remain,” he added.

  Jan looked at him, and the monk’s gaze fell. The abbey had recently had to sell some of the library’s valuable collection of books to pay for unexpected maintenance costs on the ancient building, and the librarian had clearly resented it.

  “You know why we had to sell,” he said mildly.

  The monk nodded. “This book was not one of the most valuable. It is a copy, and of antiquarian interest only to a specialist. It would not sell for a great sum. But even so, it should never have gone to the College Fayre with the rest. What has happened to it, Father?”

  “The Reverend Swanson has it in safe keeping, I understand,” Jan assured him. “His son attends the college and saw it on the bookstall on Saturday, apparently. They will give it back to us if we wish.”

  “Please, please, Jan––Father Abbot! We cannot let this book go. It is precious––and we have already had to sell so many.”

  Jan nodded. “I will ask them to return the book. But Brother Andrew—”

  The librarian looked up at him warily.

  “Take care that you do not become too much taken up with books, especially individual books, and forget our chief task here, which is prayer.”

  The monk shot a quick, less-than-submissive glance from under his eyelids at the abbot, and for a moment their former relationship, in which the hierarchy had been quite different, seemed to loom up out of the past. Then he bowed his head, acknowledging Jan’s present authority. “Indeed, Father. I ask pardon.”

  “Make sure it is in your confession this week,” said Jan. He had seen the look, and it disturbed him. The past was the past, and should remain there. They were no longer master and pupil, but abbot and brother.

  “Yes, Father.” The librarian’s tone was more conciliatory, but Jan wasn’t sure how sincere that was. Age had not much tempered the older man’s fiery independence, nor destroyed his academic appreciation of learning. Jan did not wish to crush him––apart from anything else, he owed him too much personally. But at the same time, the abbey and its possessions, not to mention the members of the community, were his responsibility. He hoped the old librarian would not become too protective of the books in his care. He was still, even in his eighties, a force to be reckoned with, and his tendency to insubordination had not abated much with the years. Jan had no wish to cross swords with him over policy, even though authority was currently in his hands.

  ~ * ~

  On Wednesday afternoon, Simon had an unexpected phone call from Geoff.

  “I’m trying to work out whether we have enough ringers to go ahead with the practice tonight,” the tower captain said. “Have you a mind to come? Ben won’t be with us––his chest is bad again. Rose has promised to be there, and so has Lesley, and Mel and Karen have said they’ll be up from Winchester if the roads aren’t too icy. Janice might make it, but she won’t say for sure. Ken and I can come, so with you we should have six or seven.”

  “Oh,” replied Simon, not committing himself. He still felt very tired and out of sorts, and he had hardly begun to prepare for his holiday. He wasn’t at all sure he wanted to go out this evening, even to ring bells.

  “Also, are you around over Christmas? Remy’s asked me which services we could ring for.”

  That was easier to answer. “I’m booked on a flight to Scotland tomorrow,” said Simon. “So I won’t be with you for Christmas, or the New Year. Sorry.” The apology felt––and sounded––like an afterthought.

  Geoff sighed. “We’re getting desperately short of ringers at St Martin’s these days, especially with Ben out of action. But you know that as well as I do.”

  Simon stayed silent, but it was rather a guilty silence.

  “What about it, then, Simon?” persisted Geoff. “I guess if you’re away over Christmas, it would be good if you could come tonight.”

  Simon’s heart sank another notch. His immediate thought was that Geoff had said Rose would be at the practice––and it would be the first time he’d seen her since their break-up last week. Break-up, he thought bitterly. You can’t break up what was never really in existence. Did he want to see her, or didn’t he? Wasn’t he going away for Christmas and the New Year just so that he wouldn’t see her?

  He took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said, not sure whether the decision was wise or not, but feeling obliged to fall in with Geoff’s plans. He was vice-captain of the ringing band, after all, and quite apart from deserting them over the Christmas period, he hadn’t turned up on Sunday morning, when no doubt they’d been short for service ringing, too.

  He made a sandwich to eat before he went out, trying to gear himself up mentally for a meeting with Rose. He found that he had no idea how he would react, or even how he wanted to react. She had consigned their embryonic relationship to the dustbin, and while he understood and could even admire her reasons for doing that, and the self-sacrificial attitude she had adopted, he couldn’t be sure the anger and loss he felt wouldn’t come to the surface when he saw her. And since their relationship had never been publicly acknowledged, he would have to act, as usual, as though it had never existed. He sighed. He had said he would go, and go he must, whatever the result.

  He was aware, as soon as he pushed open the wicket door in the massive double doors at the west end of the church, that Rose too had come under duress. She was speaking to Geoff when he entered, and her face turned towards him as though against her will, then as quickly away. Her face was white and strained, with purple semi-circles under her eyes. What could have happened? Immediat
ely he forgot his own distress and went across to her.

  “Hallo, Simon,” said Geoff in his slow country drawl. “Thanks for coming. We’ll raise them, now you’re here. You’ll take the tenor as usual, please.” And he went off to round up other members of the band.

  “Rose,” said Simon in a low voice. “How are you? How’s Robert?” All his anger seemed to have drained away, subsumed in loving concern.

  “Okay,” she said quietly. “Much better than he was, and he’ll recover, given time, I’m sure. But he’s had a lot to cope with, and it all has to settle down. I’m not finding that easy.”

  He noticed that she had answered him only obliquely about herself.

  She raised her eyes to look at him for a moment. “And you?”

  He didn’t know how to answer that. The moment would pass, and Geoff would expect him to take the tenor rope and begin the ringing practice. I can’t start to tell her how I feel – not now, not here.

  “I’m okay,” he lied.

  She half-smiled, and his heart turned over. He went across the tower to where the tenor rope hung ready, blue woollen sally at head height, the end of the rope trailing on the ground. He picked it up and took three loose coils in his left hand, while the right held the sally lightly, waiting for the others to be ready. Out of the corner of his eye he could see that Rose was still looking at him, but he couldn’t read her expression.

  “Okay, Lesley,” said Geoff. “Let’s take them up.” And Lesley, her hand on the treble’s sally, began to swing the rope gently. The first bell notes struck, sweet and remote, impersonal, impervious to human emotion. Simon listened to them as he set the tenor moving. The St Martin’s bells had hung in their tower, undisturbed except for necessary repairs, for nearly five hundred years. The tangle of human lives meant nothing to them. It was a kind of comfort, and all he could find at the moment.

  Rose stood watching the other ringers––Lesley taking the treble up slowly and competently, allowing the bigger bells time to match her pace; Geoffrey on the second and his son Ken on the third; the visiting ringers on the fourth and fifth; and Simon raising the tenor with ease and style as usual. She wished she had not responded to Geoff’s pleas and Clive’s encouragement that evening but stayed safe at home, avoiding this fresh exposure to the contrary winds of emotion that seemed to tear at her whenever she saw Simon. She had made her decision, and could make no other. Robert needed her, Clive was trying to make amends for his past inadequacies as a husband, and Simon’s love was just a fantasy which she knew she should never have allowed to move even a few steps towards reality. But standing there, observing the rhythmic swing and sway of the long bell ropes as they moved through the metal guides above her and up through the ceiling into the bell chamber on the next storey, she was suddenly enthralled again––by the bells themselves, and by Simon. His elegant ringing style had always been part of what drew her to him. She herself still struggled to keep control of the bell properly, having to concentrate all the time on the technique that came so easily and automatically to him. It was beautiful to watch him, and involuntarily, the memories of their one evening alone together in Simon’s cottage arose in her mind.