Comes a Stranger (6 page)

“Oh,” said Bobby, quite puzzled. “You mean you began with them?”

“Not quite that. I use them as counters—trading counters. I am always ready to buy any—at a fair market price. Then I put them on the shelves. I've got three
Hours of the Virgin
there at present—two of the Sarum use and one York. It was the laymen's prayer book at that time, you know. Some rich man hears of the library and comes to look round. He has money—he wants culture. The possession of a few rare books or paintings give him that, he thinks, gives him an aroma of that taste and scholarship he does not even begin to understand. As a favour, therefore, I let him buy one or two Incunabula. I can tell you, Mr. Owen, that word alone has been worth hundreds of pounds to the library. Lots of people find it most impressive; it seems to have the same effect on them that Mesopotamia had on the old lady in the story. I can often sell for twenty, fifty, even a hundred times what I gave.”

He chuckled delightedly, and Bobby gave a polite smile, though wondering inwardly whether all this was quite honest. But collectors always had, he supposed, their own standards, and then, too, the purchasers Mr. Broast described were all probably rich enough to gratify their vanity and their wish to be looked upon as patrons of art and learning. Probably they got full value by being able to say to their friends that they had secured the treasure they were showing from the famous Kayne library (‘didn't half like parting, either'). Probably, too, the higher the price they could quote, the greater the interest and admiration displayed by their friends.

As honest as a good many other business deals, Bobby decided. Was it not written long ago that between buying and selling sin sticketh close as the mortar between bricks?

“Now, this other section I don't sell from,” continued Mr. Broast, who, with his strange, uncanny sensibility, seemed to know what doubts were passing through Bobby's mind. “Complete,” he said proudly, “complete and unique. Every book without exception published by the Aldine Press—eight hundred and twenty and three, and every one represented here.”

“How interesting,” said Bobby, who had heard of the Aldine Press, and to show his general knowledge and interest he added: —“I suppose you've the Elzivirs, too?”

Mr. Broast gave him a baleful glare.

“I wouldn't have an Elzivir on my shelves except to sell again,” he snarled. “Second rate in every way, printing, scholarship, everything. The only thing about them was that they were small so they would go in your pocket. That's how they got to be so fashionable, people dancing attendance on kings or great nobles could read them while they were waiting for admittance—at least they could if they had good eyesight. Now the Aldine books—serious scholarship and clear and lovely printing. They were the first to think of making printing fine. And there they all are, on my shelves. Not a gap.”

“I suppose they'll be worth a lot of money,” Bobby said.

Mr. Broast bestowed on him another and still more baleful glare.

“We don't use the money measure of value here,” he snapped. “I've no idea what they would fetch at auction, if that's what you mean.” He paused to give those serried ranks of ancient books just such a look as a mother bestows upon her new-born child. “The whole history of early European printing, of the birth of European thought is there,” he said slowly. “Those shelves, Mr. Owen, tell the growth of the human mind during those years—and I can give you no idea of their monetary value.”

“I'm sure it's awfully interesting,” said Bobby meekly, feeling a bit suppressed.

“Money value is a kind of measure of general value, don't you think, Mr. Broast?” asked Olive, rallying to Bobby's rescue.

“I daresay you're right, my dear young lady,” agreed Mr. Broast, benevolent again.

With those swift, sure movements of his, light on his feet for all his white hairs as any youthful athlete, he passed on a few yards and paused before other shelves, beckoning Bobby and Olive as he did so to follow him.

“There,” he said, pointing to one of the higher shelves. “You see those Miltons? Now they have a money value, more accidental than real in a sense. I expect you know there were eight issues of the first edition of the
Paradise Lost
.”

Bobby tried to look as if this fact had been familiar to him since childhood. Olive however said:

“I thought a first edition meant it all came out at once?”

“All printed at once,” Mr. Broast corrected her. “There was no demand at first. Perhaps you do know,” he added, with a sidelong, slightly malicious look at Bobby, “the story that Milton sold the poem for £5. He was probably still suspect as an adherent of the Puritan party and no one wanted to have too much to do with him or his writings. So when
Paradise Lost
was printed, only a few copies were issued for sale. When they had all been bought then a few more were bound up and put on the market. There were eight of these issues altogether, each with a different title page, during the two years from 1667 to 1669 till the whole printing was disposed of. Well, copies of each issue are on that shelf. That has what I call genuine value—genuine bibliographical value. But they have, too, a very much increased money value because each single copy has association value from having belonged to some celebrated man. The signature of Lord Shaftesbury is in one volume, the bookplate of Samuel Pepys is in another, though I had to take off one or two of no interest that had been put over it. There's the bookplate of his friend, William Hewer, in another, and the last of the series has Dryden's signature. If it is ever necessary to sell—I hope it won't, but maintenance costs are heavy and of course we're private and independent so we don't get any help. But if sale is ever necessary, and I would rather part with association books than others if I have to, I expect the set would fetch a big price. I've been offered £5,000, but I was able to say ‘No, thank you' at the time. If I have to sell, it will be at auction, and we shall see what we shall see. Probably some rich fool,” he added, looking vicious, “will buy them just for showing off and boasting and publicity.”

“Isn't it rather wonderful to have found them all belonging to famous people?” Olive asked.

“It is indeed,” said Mr. Broast and chuckled as if he found his luck amusing. “Now I'll show you something of real interest, the Mandeville leaves—money value and real interest in them,” he said and slipped away.

“They're his chief treasure,” Olive whispered to Bobby. “They're only shown to special people—you must have made a good impression, darling.”

“I didn't think I had,” confessed Bobby. “You never know where to have him. One minute he talks of nothing but how much the things are worth and the next he snaps your head off if you mention money.”

“I think he has two standards,” Olive said, “two standards and two moods. Sometimes he's the perfect bookman and sometimes the complete book dealer. But the book lover is fundamental. He's awfully proud of having the complete set of the eight Milton issues, but if he had to he is quite willing to cash in on their accidental value because they all once belonged to famous people.”

“I used to be awfully fond of Dryden,” Bobby said. “I got him for a prize once—the other chaps in my Form had influenza so I came in on top. I remember I spouted that thing about none but the brave deserve the fair one speech day.” He put up a long arm to the shelf above that Mr. Broast had pointed to, and took down the last of the eight volumes. He opened it and in a puzzled tone he said: —“The fly leaf's blank, there's no name at all.”

With his swift eager step, as of one who knew there was little time so every passing minute must be used, Mr. Broast came quickly back to them, and when he saw what Bobby had in his hand, he gave him a look so fierce, so deadly in what seemed an intensity of rage, that Bobby fairly jumped.

“Oh, I'm sorry,” he stammered, “I just wanted to look at Dryden's signature.”

“It isn't there, is it?” Mr. Broast said softly, yet the anger in his eyes unabated. “No, I've just remembered. I took it to show a friend and put another copy in its place.”

Though nothing more was said, though Mr. Broast plunged at once into a description of the Mandeville leaves, as he called them, yet there still persisted a faint atmosphere of restraint, of unease. More than once Bobby thought he perceived the librarian's swift, piercing glance flashed at him for an instant and then away again. It was as though something of suspicion, of doubt, even of fear conveyed itself in those quick, flashing looks.

“Hang it all,” Bobby said to himself irritably, “what's the matter with the fellow?”

Mr. Broast went on talking. It appeared that no record existed to suggest that Caxton had ever printed an edition of Sir John Mandeville's
Travels
and yet it had always seemed likely that a work of such popularity must have passed through his press. Something, some quite obscure reference in which Mr. Broast had seen a significance no one else had noticed, had put him on the track. He had followed it, he explained, from one faint indication to another.

“Just like a detective following up the clues in a murder,” declared Mr. Broast with another of those quick, searching glances that Bobby had come to expect.

These clues had taken him to the south of France, to an old château there, to the farm to which most of the château furnishings had been removed at the time of the French revolution, on to another château where these furnishings had gone on the Bourbon restoration, finally to an old house in Le Puy where the last survivor of the family lived with many of the old family relics.

There in an attic, in an old chest, Mr. Broast told how he had discovered, used as packing for the broken binding of an ancient housekeeping book containing old recipes, these precious leaves. He had paid the price, a quite exorbitant price, demanded for the housekeeping book—it was old and interesting and worth in itself a pound or two, and Mr. Broast had paid, after suitable bargaining to avert suspicion, the £20 demanded for it, thereby confirming the expressed opinion of the owner that the Paris dealer who, when consulted, laughed at such a figure, was of an ‘
indélicatesse extrême
.'

Bobby gathered, however, that great care during these negotiations had been taken to avoid any hint escaping concerning the precious packing that was in fact the sole object of Mr. Broast's desire, and whereof the value ran into four figures. Again Bobby wondered whether that sort of thing was quite honest. Most collectors, he supposed, would argue that their superior knowledge deserved reward, but was not that a little like the argument of the robber baron that his superior strength deserved reward? No such scruples, however, troubled, it was plain, Mr. Broast, who chuckled cheerfully over his own cleverness in buying for so little something of such rare value without the seller ever suspecting for one moment what he was parting with. Indeed, it was true that but for the acumen and perseverance shown by Mr. Broast these precious pages would probably have remained for ever lost and unknown, their value unsuspected.

“What the whole book itself, intact, would have been worth,” he said, “I hardly dare think. Probably it got worn out in time, came to pieces, and no one was going to bother much about an old book in a foreign language that probably by that time no one could read. Finally most of it would disappear and these few leaves got used for packing. Twelve are consecutive, part of the epilogue, including, by a miracle of good luck, the colophon. Eight were odd leaves. We had to sell those,” added Mr. Broast regretfully, “though I must say we got a whacking price. But the consecutive pages, including the colophon, are here.”

Bobby and Olive duly admired the almost sacred relics, and Mr. Broast explained that the chief value of the colophon was that it gave the date; it showed that this book was the first ever printed anywhere in English.

“It antedates both the
Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers
—we have a superb copy of that, by the way—and the
History of Troy
printed in Bruges, and supposed to have been actually the first book printed in English as it was also the first book printed in French. Now the Mandeville
Travels
comes first, in English and in England, and incidentally proves that Caxton was at work in England before he set up the ‘Red Pale' press. There is the
Dictes
,” he added, pointing to a locked case. “I believe I'm right in saying it's the finest copy known—mint condition. The book next to it is a copy of the 1557 edition by Tottel of poems by the Earl of Surrey and Sir Thomas Wyatt. The Bodleian has the only other known copy, but it's not in such good condition.”

He went on to show others of his treasures, including an indulgence granted to a knight of Surrey, whose name and that of his wife had been written in in now faded ink.

“A trial sheet for the
Dictes
, as I've proved conclusively,” Mr. Broast told them, and pointed out various small technical details on which he relied for proof of the
Dictes
connection. “No doubt drawn off preliminary to beginning the actual printing of the
Dictes
. A precaution to make sure everything was right. Name and date left blank, you see, to be filled in later on. In fact, a printed official form issued in blank to be filled up as required.”

With extreme awe Bobby regarded this progenitor of all those official forms that since have filled the world with their monstrous brood.

There were other treasures to be shown, though none that quite so keenly interested Bobby, whose whole life indeed was cribbed, cabined and confined, by endless printed forms, stretching out as it were to the crack of doom, or at any rate till long after he ought by rights to have been able to sign off.