Lempriere's Dictionary (9 page)

‘Yes,’ replied Lemprière. His hand was gripped then released. The Viscount watched as a maid appeared and conducted him through a door in the wall adjoining that through which he had entered. They crossed a corridor then paused at a second door. The maid knocked and, hearing no reply, ushered Lemprière into the room which housed the library.

‘Thank you,’ he murmured, as she left him. The door clicked softly shut.

The shelves were stacked from floor to ceiling. The highest, six or eight feet out of reach, were served by a ladder mounted on castors which ran in brass tracks set into the floor. A long table of polished walnut ran almost the length of the room to a large window which admitted a pale, luminous light. At the other end of the table, a mahogany long-case clock softly ticked away the seconds. The air was heavy with a dry, musty odour. Essence of books, Lemprière breathed.

He looked around the room and his eyes widened. Moroccan leather bindings of red, blue and olive, elaborately tooled and inscribed in gold and silver. Enamelled Cloisonné bindings from Germany, pointillé bindings
from France, perhaps even the work of the Gascon, he speculated, before the gleam of parcel gilt silver caught his eye, the hand of Gentile? The collector of this library was a rival to Grolier. Juliette had given the impression that the collection was the rag-ends of a country seat fallen on hard times. He was unprepared for a latterday Alexandria. Here was fine work by Derome and Dubuisson, several from Padeloupe, the master to both. The fantastic designs and floral extravagances of the Le Monnier group held his attention for a moment, before Payne’s characteristic leather-lined spines tempted him. Stormont, French Shell, Antique and a thousand other marblings accompanied scrolling dentelles, intricate cartouches and endpapers of every imaginable hue. A lexicon of the binder’s art unfolded with the pages of each book as Lemprière picked up one, only to replace it when another caught his eye. Here was the
Astrolabdium
of Johannes Angelus, Ascham’s
Toxophilus
, the
Book of Hours
in Latin and Dutch. Many strange books of which he had never heard held him for a moment:
Decades de Orbo Novo
from the pen of Pietro Martire d’Angheri, Ibn Bakhtishu’s
On the Uses of Animals
, Ludwig Holberg’s
Nikolai Klimii Iter Subterraneum
.

Every land he could think of seemed to be represented somewhere in the library. And every age from the church fathers to the latest authors. Encyclopedias, devotional manuals, works of poetry and science, pamphlets and handbooks, all were ranged on the shelves which encircled him. He moved up and down, fascinated by the accumulation of learning before him. The volumes seemed to be organised thematically. Blith Hancock’s
The Astronomy of Comets
led naturally enough to Copernicus’
De Revolutionibus Orbium Caelestium
, thence to William Molyneux’s
Sciothericum Telescopicum
and Banfield’s
New Treatise on Astronomy
. From there the emphasis shifted to navigation with Daniel Fenning’s
New and Easy Guide to Globes
succeeding Harding’s
Essay on Tables of Latitude
, and a great number of accounts of voyages. But every so often a jarring inconsistency or organisational caprice would bring the young man up short in his search for the controlling principle behind their order. Johannes Bisselius’
Argonautica Americana
sat well with Primèler’s
Tour from Gibraltar to Tangiers
and both accorded with Chetwood’s
The Voyages, Dangerous Adventures and Miraculous Escapes of Captain Falconar
, but when the next book on the shelf was
Poems
by Maria and Henrietta Falconar, he hardly knew what to think. That the names corresponded was plain as the nose on his face, but why this should suddenly govern the arrangement he could not guess.

Similar acts of whimsy occurred all over the library.

Marsden’s
Account of the Island of Jamaica
, Brooks on
Weights and Measures in the East Indies
and Hanway’s
History of British Trade in the Caspian Sea
clustered harmoniously amongst other works on trade and travel. But to
suddenly happen upon Giovanni Gallini’s
Critical Observations on Dancing
in their midst confounded him utterly. He felt as though he were in the presence of a mind which, having consented to lay bare its workings before him, yet remained beyond comprehension, inscrutable and disdainful of his efforts. It struck him that the library was organised, by whatever principle, in a cycle. He could choose any volume, its companions would lead him ineluctably back to it. And round and round and round, he thought gloomily. Without A to Z, without Then and Now, he was a hapless Theseus hunting a listless Minotaur, both knowing that without beginnings or ends there can be no entrances or exits. Only pointless wanderings and rearrivals.

Lemprière thought back to the book on globes. This room, this library is a globe, he mused. Here are all times and, just as surely, here are all places. If I reach up and take in my hand Basinius, Rudolphus Agricola or Aeneas Sylvius, as I might, who would say I am not in the France, Germany or Italy where they originated? I am not of course, but it is as likely that I
may
be. I would have to leave this Library to say that I am
not
, to be sure of that. And if I consult Vesalius’
De Fabrica Corporis Humani
, then whose body is it that I consult? And if I take down Struthius’
De Arte Sphugmica
, and I read of the action of the pulse, then whose pulse do I take? And if I listen to that pulse by the ticking of that clock, do I measure my pulse or the timepiece? He was growing confused. For if it is the clock that measures the pulse, what then measures the clock? The wisdom of the library was beginning to seep into his understanding as he tried to think of time, the ticking of the clock, as nothing but an idle clatter.

The young, man stood rapt at these strange thoughts. He felt that he had arrived, quite by accident, in an alien and compelling landscape and that opening his eyes to look around him he had seen all and recognised nothing. He stayed stock-still, his back to the window while the silent rows of books regarded him from their shelves. He closed his eyes and imagined he heard them murmuring. A deep, low babel of accents and languages, merging, indistinct. And, he opened his eyes wide, he
did
hear them. He heard their voices! But his amazement was short-lived as the explanation for this phenomenon walked into the room in the shape of Juliette and, a second later, Mister Orbilius Quint.

Grey-haired, stooping slightly, Quint’s movements were oddly birdlike as he advanced stiffly across the room. Juliette sat herself unceremoniously on the edge of the table.

‘Well, well, if my pupil hasn’t returned to aid me in my labours.’ His voice grated on Lemprière’s ears.

‘Good, good, shall we work, hmm? Or are we to stand idle and wait for the mongol hordes? Come now, John….’

Orbilius Quint was rapidly easing himself into the role of magister, but his former pupil was not going to submit to an authority which had irked him ten years ago and merely irritated him now. No, my dear Quint, he thought, I’ll not be your amanuensis, this is my arena, the library, it is you who will pass under the yoke this time. But aloud, he said only that he hadn’t expected to see Mister Quint, that he would welcome his help (which had not, in truth, been offered) and of course the sooner they began the better. They both busied themselves preparing pens, paper and blotters and it was Lemprière who, having readied his implements, took the initiative.

‘Let us begin at the beginning,’ he announced, ‘with Homer.’

‘The question, I think, is of the edition rather than his inclusion, hmm?’ countered Quint.

‘The best edition being of course….’

‘… that of Heyne,’ Quint capped his sentence.

‘No, that of Eustathius of Thessalonica is without doubt the best. But, being almost completely unavailable, Heyne will do in its stead.’

Honours were shared on a roughly equal basis and they proceeded to Hesiod where Lemprière argued successfully for Parma’s edition, published the previous year, and won his cause chiefly by the fact that Quint had not heard of it. Juliette, without the least understanding of the varying merits of the Ascraean Bard’s editors, understood well enough the varying merits of their advocates. She fanned the flames of their rivalry with exclamations of support or caution as they jousted over abstruse points of grammar, corrupted fragments, and the finer distinctions of classical palaeography. Their pages were littered with the corpuses of dead authors and the air grew thick with disputed emendations.

Lemprière fought hard for Oppian on fish. Quint conceded the
Halieuticon
, but was adamant on the
Cynegeticon
. Quint insisted on quoting twenty lines of Bacchylidês.

‘Bravo!’ exclaimed Juliette as he finished. Lemprière responded with six possible construals of a line from Anáxilas and drew a similar commendation. Each maintained a rigid politeness with regard to the other but both knew that this was what they did best, this in a sense was what they were. Their catalyst tossed her head and slapped the table with her hands as the battle raged from Athens to Rome. In vain did Quint try to quell her enthusiasm, she drove them on, perched there at the end of the table. Lemprière contended that Caesar had no place in the literary pantheon.

‘Either they were notes or he understood not the first principles of grammar,’ he argued impatiently. Quint was familiar with that line of thought but would not be drawn.

‘He justifies his place as a strategist,’ he declared flatly.

‘And the Aeneid as a travel guide,’ rejoined the younger man, exposing the argument.

‘Ah, but not, not the same thing at all, you see….’

But Lemprière was gaining the upper hand. Cato’s
De Re Rustica
provoked a tussle, Quint favouring Ausonius Pompona’s edition, Lemprière the more modern one by Gesner. Lemprière eventually gave way, but stood firm on half a dozen more. His thoughts had never been so clear, his arguments so incisive. He quoted long passages with ease, halting only to explain a textual crux here, a corrupt reading there. All was clear, and as he moved towards proving this point or discrediting that, he kept the old man in his sight, the real object, the target of his endeavours. Juliette now was openly favouring his advances. It spurred him on.

The light was fading outside when they arrived at Sextus Propertius. Quint was sweating while his adversary wore a half-concealed smile, as if savouring a private joke.

‘The edition of Santenus, I have heard, is excellent. Concise, learned….’

‘I think not,’ Lemprière cut him off.

‘That of Barthius then….’

‘No, Propertius is unworthy of inclusion.’

And Quint found himself in the strange position of defending a poet he detested against the charges of one whom he knew to be his passionate advocate. But Lemprière would not be swayed, the poems were lascivious, colloquial, ungrammatical and filled with clumsy archaisms.

‘… and if we love him for his learning we may as well be satisfied with Ovid,’ he finished dismissively. Quint was tempted to agree with all these charges, but committed to the opposing view, he argued fiercely against each. Still Lemprière would not be persuaded. Juliette was growing clamorous.

‘Unless,’ the young man conceded, ‘he be represented by his fifth book alone, for the first four seem quite inadmissable.’

Quint jumped at the compromise.

‘Quite, quite, the fifth book, yes I quite …’ tumbling the words out in flustered agreement. Lemprière held back for a moment, then leaned forward at his former teacher.

‘There is no fifth book.’

He dropped the fact like a stone into a calm pool which swallows it and sucks it down out of sight, leaving only ripples that lap gently towards the bank and fall back in silence before reaching it. The room was instantly very still.

‘It is late, I must go,’ muttered the old man. Without looking at either of them he turned to make his way out. It was only as he was closing the door
that Lemprière saw the humiliation on his face. And in that instant he was sorry. Sorry, with a deep regret for what he had done and confirmed in the certainty that he was wrong. The door closed and, for a moment, only the soft ticking of the clock could be heard in the library. But Juliette did not think he was wrong. No, Juliette did not think he was wrong at all. She ran to him as he hung his head. She placed her cool palm against his cheek and, for the barest fraction of a second, touched her lips to it.

‘Bravo my warrior.’

Her hot whisper in his ear.

“My thanks to you Mister Lemprière, and this token of my satisfaction at your labours. Between us we will keep the booksellers of England in pocket for a decade.”

The note was signed only with a ‘C’. For Casterleigh. He turned the book over in his hands. It was beautiful. ‘Ovidius Publius Naso
Metamorphoses
’ stencilled in silver on the black calf-skin. He opened it at random,

Rumor in ambiguo est; aliis violentior aequo
Visa dea est…
.