Читать книгу Treasure of the Romarins - Ronda Williams - Страница 4

“It looks like a little cupboard without a knob.” Calvin pushed against the panel embedded in the back of the bookshelf. “Well, it’s not moving.”

“Here, let me try.” Natalie pulled something out of her pocket. “I carry this Leatherman everywhere. Uncle Richard gave it to me for my birthday last year after I got stuck in that wine cellar at The Dog and Duck, remember?”

Calvin snorted. “You thought you were going to the loo—too many pints.”

She unfolded the Leatherman tool and said proudly, “It’s the Limited Edition Damascus Wave. I’ve already used it to dismantle a radio and whittle a panpipe.” She flipped through the different devices on the tool. “Maybe there’s a catch in one of the grooves in the panel. We should try this one.” Natalie unfolded a slim blade and gingerly slid it along the edge of the door. “I don’t feel anything,” she said.

“We need more light,” her brother suggested, and pulled an object from his shirt pocket that looked like a fancy fountain pen. “This helps with my zoology research. It’s more powerful than most penlights, so I can pick up details that I’d miss otherwise.” He scanned the door’s surface with the light. “These carvings are really quite beautiful,” he noted.

In the middle of the panel was a wide, branching tree with fruit hanging from its limbs. “Look how detailed the leaves are!” Natalie marveled. “You can even see tiny veins in them.”

Calvin wiped his glasses on his t-shirt and crouched closer to the carved door. “There’s a snake winding its way up the tree. At first I thought it was part of the roots, but you can see his forked tongue and crafty eyes.”

Next to the tree was a naked woman peering up into the branches. The snake seemed to be coming towards her. “This must be the Tree of Knowledge,” said Natalie. “There’s Eve and the serpent.”

“It’s a very beautiful and intricate carving for a door nobody sees,” mused Calvin. “I wish we could open it!”

Natalie took the light and shined it once again at the tree. “There must be a lock somewhere. I just know this is a secret compartment! Uncle said the house is full of secrets if you look hard enough.”

“I found a hidden door inside my wardrobe once,” Calvin said. “Inside was a bunch of dried flowers. I bet they’re still there. I used to hide umm … other stuff in it, when we were still living here.”

“I don’t want to know,” Natalie murmured. She was still peering intently at the carving, her face now inches from the door. “Hold on! There’s a small hole in the tree trunk. It looks like part of the knots in the bark, but it’s too regular to be an accident. It looks like a hexagon or something. She pulled out her Leatherman again. “I have just the thing. I know there’s a small hex tool on this.” She unfolded it and inserted it carefully into the knot of the tree-trunk. “It fits! she cried, pressing ever so slightly. They heard a faint click. “Something happened,” she said.

“Try turning it,” suggested Calvin.

Gingerly she twisted the tool towards the right, and suddenly the whole knot of the tree spun around as well, while sinking deeper into the trunk.

“Now push on the door,” said Calvin.

“Have you done this before?” she asked him archly.

“No, but it just seems the logical thing to do.”

She pushed on the carving gently at first, afraid she might crack the tiny figures. But it didn’t move, so she pushed harder. Suddenly the whole carving creaked back into the shelf and sank down into the wall.

They looked at each other solemnly. Calvin was holding his breath. “This feels important,” he whispered.

Natalie nodded. “I know. I feel it too. I’m afraid to look in there. I have this feeling it’s going to change our lives.”

“Let’s look inside. Uncle Richard wanted us to find this. That’s why he was so specific about us removing all of these books! We’ve always known that we could trust him, and he’d never lead us astray, so we shouldn’t be afraid.” For some reason he couldn’t comprehend, Calvin was also afraid to look inside.

“Hold your light up,” Natalie said resolutely. “There could be spiders in here.” She reached into the space behind the carving, a relatively small enclosure with metal walls. “There’s some air flow in here,” she observed. The only thing inside was a leather portfolio about the size of a school binder. She pulled it slowly from the safe.

“Are your hands clean?” asked Calvin. “That looks really old.”

“I think there are some cotton gloves around here. Uncle Richard always wore them when he handled rare books and manuscripts. I think we’d better as well.” She got up off the floor and searched through drawers by the work table. “Here they are. Bring the portfolio over to the table.”

Calvin laid it down reverently and they both donned the gloves. “Keep the lamp down low,” he urged. “Light can be damaging to old documents as well.”

They looked at the cover of the portfolio. The leather was tooled, depicting a beautiful picture of a garden with a stream running through it. It looked like an exotic, almost tropical place.

“Do you think this is the Garden of Eden?” asked Natalie. “It might relate to the carving on the door.”

“It could be. That would make sense.” Calvin scratched his head. “I don’t see any people that could be Adam or Eve though, or the tree that was on the panel. It was very distinctive looking.”

“But the flowers are in the same style,” she noted.

“They’re very strange looking,” Calvin added.

“Maybe they’re those space flowers you read about,” she joked. “I certainly don’t recognize any of them.” Thoughtfully, she said, “They could be pictures of extinct species. If that was the case, whoever made this portfolio had to have access to some very old documents.” She shrugged. “But then again, maybe they’re just stylized flower motifs, dreamed up by the artist who made this portfolio. I can just imagine an old monk, toiling away in a monastery somewhere.”

“Thank God for those monks,” Calvin said with feeling. “Some spent their entire lives copying precious manuscripts. If they didn’t do that, much of our ancient history and literature would have been forever lost to us.”

Calvin adjusted his glasses, and Natalie recognized the same gleam in his eyes that he always had when he was expounding on an idea that interested him. “During the Dark Ages,” he continued, “barbarians swept across Europe, burning and pillaging everything in their path, including libraries. Most folks back then were too busy rebuilding their lives to worry about a bunch of old books. The monks took this as their sacred task. “

“Well, our sacred task is to open this portfolio and try to make sense of it all,” Natalie interrupted.

He unlaced the leather ties on the portfolio and laid it open. They both stared wordlessly at what lay inside. “Is this what it looks like?” asked Natalie finally.

“It’s looks to be at least 300 years old, or else it’s a very clever reproduction.” He bent down closer and examined it minutely. “Made from parchment, which is good news, because it’s tougher than paper.”

“I can’t believe it!” Natalie said breathlessly. “If this turns out to be authentic, we have just found one of the earliest copies of Paradise Lost! And written by hand, no less!”

“This could even be the original copy,” said Calvin with mounting excitement. “John Milton dictated the poem to his daughters, I think, but I don’t see evidence of that here. This book looks like his own hand-writing.”

“How on earth do you know that?” Natalie asked.

“I just dusted his biography–right before I found the cupboard!” He ran back to the hidden compartment and searched the nearby shelves until he found the book. “There was a photo of one of his manuscripts in here,” he said flipping through the pages with growing excitement. “Ah! Here it is!”

He laid the book down next to the manuscript and together they compared the handwriting. “There! You see?” Calvin exclaimed triumphantly.

“I can’t believe it!” Natalie repeated. “They are remarkably similar. I knew Uncle Richard often came across rare books, but this is priceless!”

“But let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Calvin cautioned. “It could be a forgery, after all.”

At that moment Mrs. Murphy shouted at the bottom of the stairs, “Come down for dinner, you filthy bookworms!”

~

After dinner, they were completely exhausted. “I don’t think we should tackle that manuscript till we’ve had a good night’s rest,” suggested Natalie. “It’s been a long day.”

Her brother let out a huge yawn. “I agree,” he said. “You might think I’m being paranoid, and I’m not kidding when I say this, but I honestly think Mrs. Murphy has been drugging our dinner ever since we learned how to read.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” she said in agreement. “I have a very clear memory of her yelling at me one morning when I was probably only six or seven. “I’m sick and tired of you children staying up all night reading and waking up looking like little zombies from some horror movie, with temperaments to match!” Natalie laughed at the memory. “I distinctly recall her walking away muttering, ‘And I’m going to do something about it, by God!’”

“I wonder what she gives us,” mused Calvin. “I bet it’s laudanum!”

“Laudanum?” Natalie laughed, shaking her dark head. “You’ve been reading too many Victorian novels! No…I rather think our lethargy is due to her comfort food. It seems to make one rather too comfortable.”

“Well, if Mrs. Murphy ‘helped’ us get sleepy tonight, I, for one, am grateful,” he replied. “I’m going to have enough trouble quieting my thoughts after our discovery this evening.”

“Well, we’ve got to try, in any case,” said Natalie. “Otherwise our brains are going to be pudding, and we’ll need to be sharp tomorrow if we’re going to figure out that manuscript.”

After much tossing and turning, Natalie finally drifted off to sleep and dreamed she was meandering through a distant garden of impossible beauty.

~

Calvin woke early the next morning and stretched his arms. He looked out the window, shaking his head sadly. It was a blustery and rainy morning. Looks like our fall sunshine won’t be making an appearance today, he thought glumly. He remembered his recent trip to Africa with fondness. How he loved the dry heat of the Serengeti! The weather in England sometimes makes one feel like one will never be warm again, he reflected bitterly. If this manuscript business took too long, he might miss the annual migration.

Calvin had fallen in love with wild animals from the very moment he first laid eyes on a real tiger, in the West Midland Safari Park. While Natalie’s first memory was of their arrival at this house, Calvin’s was of his trip to the park. He was almost certain he had been with his mother, who had bought him a large stuffed tiger in one of the gift shops.

“There, Calvin!” she’d said, as he wrapped the animal in his chubby arms. “Now you have your Hobbes.” Calvin rubbed his eyes. Thinking about his mother made him feel sentimental and sad, so he tried not to think about her very much.

After he finished his doctorate in zoology, he was offered a job at National Geographic, a dream come true. When his uncle died so unexpectedly three weeks ago, the magazine had generously given him a three-month sabbatical to settle his affairs. Luckily, Natalie was a self-supporting author, so her time was always her own. As she presently had no looming deadlines hanging over her head, she had plenty of leisure time to spend at their childhood home.

Calvin stepped into his favorite sheepskin slippers and pulled on his robe. After locating his glasses under his pillow, he headed down the hall and knocked softly on his sister’s door. She had always been a late sleeper, and it was oftentimes an effort for her to wake up and get straight to writing, except when she was under a deadline. She worked well under pressure, but was a terrible procrastinator otherwise.

“Ten more minutes,” he heard her mumble beyond her door.

“Fine, I’ll be back,” Calvin warned. He knew it was useless to argue. Even in college, she barely made it to class in time, often with items of clothing inside-out or missing altogether. His sister spent many mornings shivering in a thin sweater at the Department of Plant Sciences, because she had rushed out the door without her coat.

Calvin headed downstairs to fetch coffee for them both. In the kitchen, Mrs. Murphy was already busy making breakfast.

Calvin looked around happily. “You sure are going all out, Mrs. Murphy,” he noticed. “It looks like you’re making the full Irish breakfast!”

She looked quite satisfied with herself. “Oh yes, I’ve made eggs, sausage, bacon, grilled tomatoes and black-and-white pudding.” She went on, “Oh, and of course my own brown bread with sweet butter.”

Calvin gave her a huge bear hug.

“Off me, you big goon!” she cried, and pushed him away with a laugh. “I’m not doing this just for you. We have a visitor.”

“Oh? Who is it?”

Just then a man appeared in the kitchen doorway, wearing a dapper black overcoat and carrying a cane with a lion’s head topper.

“Il est moi, votre Oncle Julien,” the gentleman said brightly. “Now where is my breakfast?”

Calvin gave his uncle a warm hug. Julien was younger than Richard by fifteen years. He lived in Paris, and was a former head librarian of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Julien had persuaded his brother to become a librarian as well. Richard had just graduated from the Royal Naval College in Greenwich and had every intention of making his career as an officer. After one visit from Julien, however, Richard abruptly changed his mind—and the course of his life. He took a position at the Bodleian instead, as a part-time library assistant. He quickly worked his way up the ranks, after it became obvious that he was extremely passionate and thorough about every detail of his job. In time, he was appointed head librarian while still in his 30s.

Pressently, Natalie shuffled into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes. She saw her uncle standing in the room and cried, “You’re back!”

“Of course I’m back,” he said with feigned gravity. “You summoned me.”