The Manuscript in a Black Box
An extract
This novel is set in the Isle of Axholme, with a dual timeline - one story set in the 1600s at the time of the Drainage of the land by Cornelius Vermuyden and the other story set in the present day. In this extract Emily, who has just moved to the Isle, discovers the Mechanics Institute Library in her search for her family history.
Emily had seen the Mechanic’s Institute library. It would have been hard to miss it from her office window, an ancient two storeyed brick building across the market square, with a series of arched windows on the ground floor and elegant row of sash windows above. She’d absently read the opening hours above the dilapidated door as she mulled over a legal problem or bit into her sandwich at lunchtime. Tuesday 11am-1.30pm, Thursday 1.30pm-4pm, Fri 7.30pm-9.30pm. Unusual times, open on a Friday night. On a Friday night. Did you need to be a member to visit a private library? Not to go and enquire surely. She looked at the clock over the cooker – 6.50pm.
Given a purpose for the evening, Emily cracked her last two eggs into a pan and made scrambled egg on toast. Before she sat down to eat, she retrieved her dad’s notes from the bottom of the pile on her desk and read them as she ate, smiling at his neat copper plate writing in which he’d copied down everything he’d found on the internet. It would never have occurred to him to print it out.
The Epworth Mechanics' Institute Library was founded in 1837, by William Read and is housed in the old Manor Court House. It is one of the few surviving working libraries of the Mechanics Institute movement, which was a forerunner of the public library system. The Epworth Mechanics' still operates as a private subscription library, which is open to the public. It maintains an extensive fiction library and a local history resource.
On the next page he’d written a list of the information he hoped to find about the ancestors who’d lived in the Isle. Torns and Taylors – local newspaper – Births, Deaths and Marriages entries 1800- 1923. Only a hundred and twenty three years to check then. Any articles? Possible family archives lodged with library. Then there was a list of names and dates. Emily folded the paper away and left her pan and plate in the sink, eager to start her new project.
It was a warm evening and she enjoyed the walk into Epworth, past fields of greening barley and then through quiet residential streets. Only in the centre were there signs of life; a small queue in the Fish and Chip shop; people popping in and out of Co-op and a gaggle of teenagers on the swings by the church.
            The door to the Library was closed but there were lights on the top floor so she pushed it open and followed a series of blue paper arrows up a flight of dusty wooden stairs. The light on the stairs was dim but the murmur of voices ahead encouraged her. She emerged onto a landing with bare floorboards stacked with sagging cardboard boxes and hesitated, faced with closed doors to her right and her left. Just then the right hand door flew open and a tiny lady who might have been sixty or ninety popped out. She stopped and gave Emily a bright smile.
           ‘Hello, are you lost?’
           ‘I’m looking for the library.’
           ‘Then you’re not lost at all.’ The lady stepped back and gestured to the door. ‘Come in and I’ll show you round.’
           Emily stepped into a room of books. Not just a room lined with bookshelves, but a room that seemed to be made up entirely of books themselves. There must have been shelves in there somewhere but they were hidden by the thousands of volumes. Around the edges of the room boxes of books were crammed end to end and wherever there was a suggestion of floor space, books had been piled, twenty or thirty high. The scent of dust and paper hung in the air.
           ‘Go in, go in,’ the little lady propelled Emily further into the room and she made out a desk, under stacks of yet more books and behind it a young man with glasses and shoulder length hair.
           ‘I’ve got a new member for you, Brian. Look after her. I’m going to Co-op so we can all have a drink.’ The lady patted Emily’s arm and disappeared through the door.
‘Hi,’ Emily said to the young man. ‘I think I’ve come to join the library.’ She looked round, wondering how on earth she was going to find anything to help her dad’s research .
           ‘It’s not always like this,’ Brian said. ‘We’re having a clearout and it kind of got out of hand.’
           ‘It kind of looks like it,’ Emily smiled.
           ‘People donate books all the time and we’re not great at getting rid of the old ones, so it builds up. And then we decide to have a blitz and this happens.’ He waved his hand vaguely. ‘But don’t worry, we plan on clearing it by next week.’ He grinned. ‘You can still join tonight and if you want anything special, Denis will find it for you.’
           ‘Denis?’ Emily asked.
           ‘He helps me on a Friday. I’m the Librarian, voluntary obviously, and he’s my assistant. He’s nearly eighty but he knows where everything is. Even in all this lot.’
           ‘Do you only have donated books then?’ Her dad was going to be disappointed.
           ‘Oh no. We have our core stock of books dating back to when the library was founded…’
           ‘In 1837,’ Emily finished, ‘my dad told me.’
           Brian looked pleased. ‘We have first editions of quite a lot of 19th Century novels, some of them classics but most by authors you’ve never heard of. If you wander through the shelves at the far end you’ll find some real treasures.’
           Emily warmed to his enthusiasm, even though it looked like a dead end for her research. ‘I guess I might as well join while I’m here. What do I need to do?’
           ‘It’s fifteen pence to join, then a penny a week for each book you take out. We’re a private subscription library,’ he said apologetically.
           ‘I think I should be able to stretch to that,’ Emily smiled and took out her purse. Brian gave her a form to fill in and passed her succession of pens until she found one that worked.
           The little lady came back in then and disappeared among the bookshelves. Emily wondered how they’d managed to fit a kettle in there and whether it was safe.
           ‘That’s Eva,’ Brian said, ‘and here’s Denis, just in time for a drink, as usual.’
           A tall, stooped gentleman with a ruff of fluffy white hair around the bald dome of his head came in.
           ‘How’s the cataloguing going Denis?’ Brian asked.
           ‘Not too bad. I’m trying to throw out at least one book for each one I keep, but it’s not easy.’
           ‘The book sale’s going to be a bit short on stock then. You will join us for a drink,’ he turned to Emily as Eva emerged from behind the shelves. Instead of the expected tea and biscuits she was holding aloft a silver tray with four long stemmed wine glasses, each filled with honey coloured wine. ‘Eva has a good eye for wine and she usually gets us a bargain.
‘A nice Chablis,’ Eva said, putting the tray down on a space, hastily cleared by Denis. ‘Bit pricey but with our new member I thought we’d treat ourselves. Cheers.’ She handed a glass to Emily, who found she didn’t want to refuse. She leaned gingerly against a book case and as she sipped her wine she explained what she was looking for.
‘My dad’s traced the family tree back to the Isle in around 1800. He thinks they were farmers or farm workers and he wants me to see if I can find out any more about them.’
           Denis considered. ‘You’d be better in the Lincoln Archives for that. They keep all the records.’
           ‘Yeah, he’s been there. That’s how he got so far back. And he’s a member of one of those internet family history sites. But he’d heard of this place,’ she nodded round at the crowded shelves, ‘and he thought I might pick up some local stories, maybe a bit of background on how the Isle was when his ancestors lived here.’
           Brian nodded, ‘Denis is right. You’d need the Archives for the official records. But we’ve got copies of the local newspaper going back to when it launched. Not as far back as 1800 but still nineteenth century. And we’ve got some local family archives which have been donated, diaries and stock books from the farms, that sort of thing.’
           ‘That sounds perfect,’ Emily said, ‘I’ll have a look first and if there’s anything interesting, maybe dad could come through himself. I take it I can’t borrow stuff from the archives?’
           All three shook their heads firmly.
           ‘Thought not.’