Lempriere's Dictionary (47 page)

An hour, perhaps two had passed. The coachlights had faded to points and been lost in the gloom. Lemprière had given up walking. He had stopped shivering. Sitting by the side of the road, he could hardly be bothered to turn his head at the faint noise rising behind him. He had walked and found nothing but the road and the surrounding darkness. And the snow. The noise was a little louder. It would be a coach. A coach, he thought. The cold was a dull ache in his bones. His face was numb, his head lolling. A coach, no doubt now. His legs were stiff and heavy. There it was, in front of him. It had halted. People getting out. Septimus. Asking, ‘what was he doing here?’ Something on top. Blue. Hello? He should answer at least. Being carried. Lydia’s lap. When he woke up.

‘He is asleep,’ said Lydia.

‘Unconscious,’ said Septimus.

‘Five to one his toes are black.’ Warburton-Burleigh was tugging at his boots. The coach hit a pot hole concealed beneath the snow and they all jumped in their seats as something thudded loudly against the roof. Lydia looked up and blanched.

‘Could not Casterleigh have taken her?’ she asked. ‘After all, he was the first to leave.’

‘We should have tied her face up,’ said the Pug. The coach jolted again, and again there was a harsh thud.

‘Horrible!’ said Lydia, covering her ears to shut out the sound. Lemprière’s head lolled in her lap. The other three were quiet. The coach continued on over the rough London road with the woman’s body lashed to the roof. Every time the coach rode a bump, the head jerked and the stump of metal from its mouth banged on the roof of the coach. Collapsed in the interior, Lemprière dreamed of women leaping through the fields over streams of burning gold. The coach went on through the fields of ice and snow, back towards London.

‘“Danae, the daughter of Acrisius, king of Argos, by Eurydice. She was confined in a brazen tower by her father, who had been informed by an oracle that his daughter’s son would put him to death….”’ Septimus’s voice, there, standing over his desk. Lemprière knew he was awake and struggled up.

‘“His endeavours to prevent Danae from becoming a mother proved, however, fruitless; and Jupiter, who was enamoured of her introduced himself to her bed by changing himself into a shower of gold.” Hmm, good. Didn’t you kill Acrisius at the club that night?’ Septimus imitated quoit-throwing. But his friend was still barely awake. Sometime in the night his own shivering had awoken him. He had risen and written the entry. His sleep was full of strange interruptions.

‘How does it end?’ Septimus was asking. The inquisition would begin soon. He might have died from the cold.

‘Badly,’ Lemprière managed after a long pause. Septimus was still standing over the desk.

‘We looked for you, you know? Search party, torches….’ He remembered a coach, the road, a thudding noise.

‘You found me,’ Lemprière said.

‘No, we found a woman….’ Lemprière had let his head fall back into the pillow. Septimus would not be able to see his face. ‘A dead woman….’ Lemprière thought,
tell him
.

‘A dead woman?’ and before he could catch himself, ‘how did she.… I mean….’

‘Out in the west pasture, more like a bog. Quite horrible. You were
miles away.’ How could he read the entry and not guess? ‘Miles away,’ an instruction?

‘I became lost, thought I was going back to the house. It was dark.’

‘You were outside the house to begin with?’

‘Yes, of course….’ Of course, led by fresh footprints in the snow on the lawn, by a glimpse of Septimus. ‘I thought I saw you, a corridor at the back of the house, a room,’ Lemprière said.

‘Yes,’ said Septimus.

‘On the lawn.’

‘Yes. I took a turn round the lawn, then went back inside. I was looking for you. You missed the fireworks.’ Turn around the lawn. Fireworks.

‘I tried to go around the house,’ Lemprière said. The footprints had not come back.

‘Shall I take this? You have already signed it.’ He was holding the entry. Take it, yes, yes, take it away. The lolling eye, the mouth, take them all away.

‘If you like,’ Lemprière said. The footprints had just stopped. Septimus was folding the entry carefully.

‘You could have died you know? From the cold.’

‘Yes, I know.’ Lemprière looked over at Septimus who was walking towards the door. ‘Thank you,’ he said. Septimus was leaving.

‘Alice de Vere’s a queer bird isn’t she?’ he said.

‘An extraordinary woman,’ replied Lemprière carefully.

‘And you missed the Casterleigh girl.’ This was shouted as he clumped down the stairs. And then, ‘more fool you!’ The front door slammed shut. Exit Septimus, thought Lemprière,
cum mea culpa
, for which my thanks.

In the days which followed Lemprière wrestled with the letter D. He sat at his desk disentangling the thirteen Domitii from one another. There were over twenty people called Dionysius. He had distinguished twenty-four so far and had a nagging feeling there was another. The librarian of Atticus was one, Cicero mentioned him, but there was some business about book stealing, also to do with Cicero - the same one? As the references piled up, walking back and forth between his desk and the pile of books on the far side of the room became a tiresome ritual. Accordingly, he opened all the books and arranged them on the floor in a sort of bookcarpet. Gaps were left for his feet when he wished to walk from one part of the room to another. It was a far superior arrangement and eliminated draughts. He remembered the twenty-fifth Dionysius. Lemprière hopped over the Stoics and part of Euripides to confirm the source. “A slave of Cicero who plundered his master’s library of several books,
Cic. Fam.5. ep. 10 1.13 ep. 77
” he scribbled, that was it. He was rather
sick of “Dionysius”, all twenty-five of them. He worked on haphazardly. He had forgotten Daedalus had built mechanical men,
automata
. And assisted Pasiphae in her unnatural passion. Everyone knew about the flying; his edition had a small picture of Daedalus and Icarus flapping up towards the sun. Perhaps the flying and the automata had become confused in some way and they were flying machines, not flying men. It was possible, though he would rather believe in the flying men. Flying: an extraordinary idea really,
whoosh)
. Lemprière made a clumsy soaring motion with his arms. Heavy carts rumbled down the cobbled street outside. He had an idea that there was another Dionysius, a twenty-sixth, but it would not come. He returned to the Doberes, Dobunni and Dochi, peoples of northern Macedonia, of Gloucestershire and Ethiopia all jammed together in his dictionary; a new geography. Docimus had had too many hot baths.

Through the days and nights which followed, his sleep remained troubled: three hours here, twelve hours there and all at strange times. The dictionary seemed still to impose its own unfathomable schedule. If he forced himself out of bed, on the dot of seven or eight as he should, he would later find himself staring into space, daydreaming, drifting on other currents. It was at one of these times that he found himself thinking of Alice de Vere, Lady de Vere rather, whom Septimus thought was “queer” and he did too really. “An extraordinary woman”. That was good. Had the ring of authority. Pontificating from the mantel-piece, phrases such as “or so one is led to believe” and “If one thing convinces of the truth of the matter, it is this”, they would say, “That Lemprière knows more than he says.” Alice de Vere had promised him wealth beyond all his dreams. What had she asked after all? Give me this small thing and you will have all the wealth and power your ancestor enjoyed. More, whatever you wish. Lemprière remembered Peppard’s pause, “in perpetuity….” The little man would have said more but had stayed his words. “In theory the agreement would go on and on….” Alice de Vere had offered him that theory’s practice. He was a Lemprière, he was entitled to a ninth of all the Company. The agreement told him so. Had that been the message his father sought in his long hours in his study? His father had had some business with Mister Chadwick, and that business had involved the agreement. He knew this because Alice de Vere had told him. And she knew because Skewer had told him. The solicitous Skewer. The shyster.

So the widow had been right, and Lemprière had thought her mad. Peppard should have told him of the agreement’s implications, even if they were fanciful. And Skewer. Skewer had lied to him, had deceived his father. Had run to Alice de Vere and sold his knowledge for a pittance.

Lemprière watched the crowds in the street below as he struggled into
his coat. He had brushed the worst of the mud off when it had dried. Now it had large mottled areas. His boots followed and he checked his pockets, key, coins, the miniature of his mother, whose presence reminded him of Rosalie, and Lydia asking him about her and, ghostly memory, the thuds which had reached him even through his exhaustion in the coach. Days ago. Her head banging on the roof. But when he reached the street, his thoughts turned back to Skewer, and Peppard too, but most of all to Skewer. Mister Skewer had extended to him an open invitation, “any problem, however small.” Those were his words. As Lemprière entered Southampton Street he reflected on that invitation. He
had
a small problem. It concerned betrayals of confidence and he would take Ewen Skewer up on his offer.

His second journey to the solicitor’s office followed the path of the first. Here Septimus had pulled him off a collision course with some dung, the Strand had seen crates of chickens and Warburton-Burleigh’s slurs, goodbye and the continuance of their hurried progress along Fleet Street, up Chancery Lane, a promenade of side-steps until the courtyard which he now entered, crossed and mounted the stairs on the far side. As before, he took them two at a time, but then the parallel shifted and the first schedule ghosted the second, a matter of the minutes which he had earlier spent kicking his heels in the outer office for, as Lemprière approached the door at the top of the staircase, a familiar sound started up. Angry voices. The door opened and he was confronted with the Widow Neagle. She should still be in Skewer’s office. The shoe poised above his head, but she was not, the shoe had been replaced though her fury was evident.

‘Why are you here? Did I not tell you?’ She directed herself at Lemprière. On the other side of the door, Peppard would be settling back into his chair, flustered from the encounter. Skewer would be nursing his head. Lemprière grinned.

‘There is nothing amusing, young man,’ the Widow continued. ‘I am well aware of the impression given by an elderly woman in a temper. You, on the other hand, are blissfully unaware of the reasons for it Mister Lemprière. Until you are, keep your own counsel. You have problems enough of your own.’ Lemprière no longer grinned. The Widow pushed past him and stamped down the stairs. Lemprière was about to knock on the door. He stopped, turned and hurried back down the stairs. The Widow was crossing the courtyard.

‘What problems?’ he demanded as her angry words caught up with him. ‘I was not laughing at your misfortunes. It was Skewer, you see, before….’

‘Do not make the mistake of patronising me, Mister Lemprière.’ She turned again and would have continued but Lemprière caught her arm.

‘I am not patronising you. I am not laughing at you. I am trying to explain.’ He had the same sensation as in the coach when they had disbelieved his acquaintance with Juliette. The Widow was looking at him, not in the least intimidated by this outburst. Her eyes were searching his. His hand dropped from her arm.

‘You ignored my advice. I told you not to trust Skewer, now if you wish to explain yourself, explain yourself to him.’ What problems? Lemprière thought.

‘You were right,’ he said quickly.

‘Of your affairs, I know only this,’ the Widow said. ‘Skewer serves only one master, and you are not he. Nothing he does will benefit you. Now, if you will excuse me….’

‘One master?’ Lemprière wanted to hear more.

‘It is a long story Mister Lemprière, if you wish to hear it.’

‘Might I call on you?’ Lemprière asked. ‘This afternoon perhaps.’

‘After your meeting with Mister Skewer? I fear you would not be welcome then.’

‘Another day, Tomorrow.’

‘Make a choice Mister Lemprière, either come now, or do not trouble me again,’ said the Widow and turned to leave. The tone of her voice left no room for doubt. Skewer’s perfidy. One master. She was disappearing through the opening on the far side of the courtyard. Lemprière hung there, strung between curiosity and mild revenge. The Widow was out of sight, only footsteps.

‘Wait!’ he shouted and ran after her.