Lemprière's Dictionary

by Lawrence Norfolk

  ‘They were connected by a channel underground?’ Lemprière speculated.

  ‘Quite possibly,’ said Lady de Vere. ‘Now, Edmund, being rather more practical than his mother, was determined to undertake the same project and a year ago did indeed drain the east pasture.’

  ‘The west pasture flooded?’

  ‘Of course. Now he has a small army of engineers with their machines in the west pasture. When the weather lifts he will pump out the west pasture, and then, I presume the east again, then the west. When I ask why he wants to spend his life moving a swamp back and forth over half a mile, he tells me it is progress. He is bringing the land back into use. The local farmers understand this lunacy Mister Lemprière, they commend him and believe him exceptionally farsighted. Neither I nor my son chose to act as fools, and yet I do not understand it. I only understand that both bur families, the Lemprières and the De Veres, were once powerful forces and now we are spent. That is all I understand now, Mister Lemprière.’

  Lemprière wrestled with this peculiar story, trying to force a bearing on their previous discussion. It was somewhere in their not being fools. ‘If Edmund, the earl, drains the land, what will he then….’

  ‘Very good Mister Lemprière,’ her voice was steel-hard. ‘He will sell it, and the servants will be paid. If not, not. We all make our choices as we see them.’ Then Lemprière realised that the whole story was in explanation for her outburst; an apology, and he was full of regret that he could not go along with her, but it was impossible. Insanity.

  ‘Thank you for listening Mister Lemprière.’ She was walking over, extending her hand to him, no, picking something off the table. ‘Take it Mister Lemprière. A memento.’ He was being guided to the door and handed Asiaticus’s pamphlet. She was dignified. He was cowed. He could change his mind, tell her that they would fight the Company through every court in England and win too.

  ‘Thank you,’ he was saying, and would have said something more, but what? The door was closing.

  ‘Goodbye Mister Lemprière,’ spoken in a voice which hung in the air as the door closed, click, softly and he was alone in the corridor outside.

  Thomas de Vere looked down on him from his gilt frame. The corridor was lit by girandoles whose light brought a spectrum of dingy yellows and browns out from the woodwork, linen-fold panelling, squabs and plain chairs finely carved from Grenoble wood. The floor was carpeted and Lemprière padded its length with François’s imagined face a gargoyle eyeing him out of gilded amorinos; merchant, venturer, refugee, revenger. Madman. Something had happened to prise him out of sanity, to turn him on his former colleagues and friends, something at Rochelle.

  He took the short flight of stairs at the corridor’s end and followed the unexpected angles of the passage beyond. What was the plan which he had laid out in his head and kept there, a hidden gift for the fourth earl, hanging in his shadowy thoughts? Nothing at all perhaps, or something vast, sprawling and invisible waiting, somewhere out there. He was walking through a high-sided clerestory whose glittering floor of pietra dura suggested another, abandoned use. A staircase at its end led Lemprière down to an area where the passages were narrower, with lower ceilings and the doors off them were plain wood. Unplastered stonework. He did not remember it, but continued, looking into the rooms he passed which all seemed to have different functions. Some were quite empty, some crammed with kitchen furniture or packing cases. There was not a soul in sight and Lemprière was beginning to realise he was lost when a soft pop! sounded in the passage from somewhere outside, then another and another. The sounds rolled around him in the passage, suggesting now one direction, now another. He moved forward, then remembered Septimus’s telling him what to expect during the evening. The sounds he was hearing were the fireworks, but whether they came from in front, behind, or to either side he could not tell. He seemed to have wandered into a basement and now set about retracing his steps. Lemprière turned and walked back towards the staircase, around the corner, then another, both of which he had expected to reveal the steps which would reunite him with the guests, Septimus and the others, Juliette. He continued, but the corners would only show him more of the same; echoing reception rooms, empty salons, long gloomy corridors and doors. Scores of doors.

  Standing at the head of the latest passage, Lemprière was beginning to wish himself back in the safe embrace of his dictionary, home, when in the semi-light at the end of the corridor he noticed an object like an out-size pair of legs. He walked closer.

  It was a step ladder. Directly above it, cut into the low ceiling, was a trap door. Lemprière looked at the trap door. He had wandered aimlessly about the corridors and passages for what seemed like hours. He had become more despondent by the minute. The choices as he saw them were simple. Reluctantly, he began to climb the step ladder which veered from side to side and back and forth as he reached the top and pushed at the trap door. It was unlocked and moved a few inches, but something was on top of it, something which seemed to increase in weight the harder Lemprière pushed. Added to this, the angle of his head dictated he should squint over the top of his spectacles and the whole effort was effectively conducted blind. He was sweating inside the borrowed coat and the step ladder had adopted a wild gyration all its own as Lemprière raised the trap door at last and slid it to one side. A crash sounded somewhere above him and his head came into contact with something rough, some kind of fabric. He pushed against it and suddenly heard quick footsteps moving towards him, then the ladder gave way, he had kicked it out from under him. Why? his thought as he crashed down into the ladder wreckage below. The answer: someone in the room above had clubbed him violently over the head; someone in fact, his last quick thought as he settled into a welcoming bed of splintered step ladder, had knocked him out.

  Capsized carracks floating down the Thames, their undersides blistered with barnacles and the imagined crowd chanting ‘Ballast! Ballast! Ballast!’ amongst other unkind reminders of his too-human failure while Sir Anthony spun in his grave and he, proud and isolate on the podium would colour crimson, twist his scarred thumbs and shift his feet from side to side. Unwelcome lessons in humility. But to be bested by a mechanical toy; it was insupportable and compounded too by the attentions of kindly matrons who had clustered about clucking and cooing, ‘Eben! Eben!’, as the mix of blood and ink had filled his palm, offering snow white handkerchiefs to dip in the condemned man’s life blood, taking souvenirs for the tea time chit chat which would chase his name through their salons and well appointed eateries for weeks, months, years! Captain Guardian knew that the decision to abandon ship was irrevocable, never to be taken lightly, but now was the time for such a decision. Thank the Lord for Mister Byrne, the devil take Maillardet and his creation.

  His comrades had kept a sensible distance, even Pannell, as he suffered himself to be led away clutching a wad of handkerchiefs to his inscribed hand, scattering promises to return them as he followed a bustling, aproned woman out through a side door and began to gather his thoughts, even now hearing sniggers from the puffed up fops and rouged macaronis, ghastly. He would have snickered too at an old buffoon dancing the horn pipe with a collection of cogs, levers and cheap plaster, mechanical trash now, ha! That heartened him, ouch, the woman dabbed cold water on the flesh of his palm, it had been calloused hard as shark’s skin once but not now, no, ouch again. Something soft about life ashore, just look at the youngsters. And it was the ship.

  ‘Hold still sir, there now.’ Gruff thanks were in order and he gave them. As the vile toy had drawn its lines he had become increasingly certain, matching it in his mind’s eye with the image of the Vendragon, they were one and the same. No two ships were exactly alike, really there could be no mistake, and he might have trusted his own judgment too - would that he had - but he had taken a closer look to see it plain. Identical down to the angle of the hold-covers, the same ship. Guardian had known then for certain that he recognised the vessel from somewhere, and that was odd too for it was an Indiaman
, almost the only ship he had never sailed in. But from where? His palm had begun to throb and he clutched the handkerchiefs more tightly. The prospect of handing these blood-soaked badges back to their owners did not enthrall him. The sniggers and covered smiles of his fellow guests…. There might even be sympathy, but that was too awful to contemplate.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said again to the woman who was waiting for some sort of decision on his part. She left and Captain Guardian decided that a brief tour of the house might be in order. He could rejoin the others after the fireworks, a decent interval. Scout out the territory, yes.

  So began Captain Ebenezer Guardian’s tour, an extended exercise in procrastination which would take him through the clatter of the kitchen and silence of the cooler, flagstoned corridor beyond it to peristyled interior courtyards with modillioned columns where the only sound was the slap or clump of his feet over pietra dura or homely floorboards and on, to long deserted galleries with mirrored spiegelkabbinetts, Vauxhall plate by the look of it, but all old and mottled like the neglected work of the stuccadores in the salon which followed where carefully-moulded antique scenes had crumbled into accidental obscenity or nothing at all, up short staircases which led to rooms and passages of obscure function, with the boiserie worm-eaten and uncleaned, and where restorative efforts at trompe l’oeil grisaille fell so far short of their intention as to highlight the general decay even more. It all might have depressed his fragile spirits but for the fact he paid these abundant evidences of the De Veres’ decline little or no mind at all.

  Captain Guardian having reached his decision to walk without aim, allowed his thoughts to bore like ship worm through the caulked planking and compass-timbers of the Vendragon, creeping up and round the rough hempen braid of the ropes, criss crossing the worn canvas from mainsail to top-gallant and down again to the deck which held him like the fragile platform of thought, but still it would not come - the name. Not Vendragon, the true name, there somewhere, locked in the lines and angles of the vessel which formed a template to some elusive original. Where? And when? Captain Guardian snorted in irritation and banged his fist against the door by his side, a mistake. He swore loudly as pain welled up in his bandaged hand once more, shooting up his arm and jolting his shoulder. The door had swung open at the impact to reveal a room beyond. The lamps were lit.

  ‘Pardon me, I seem to be….’ Guardian was taken aback, abashed his outburst might have been overheard as he offered these apologies and peered cautiously around the door. But, the light notwithstanding, no-one was there.

  ‘Hello?’ he called again. There was no reply. He padded in gingerly and looked about, a strong air of trespass hanging about his actions but curiosity had ever been his weak point. Besides, who would know? The room contained a bureau, a writing desk and chair, it was carpeted and at the centre of the carpet stood a low table with chairs clustered about it. A larger desk on the far side of the room was strewn with plans and charts which drew Eben’s gaze. He shut the door behind him quietly and walked over for a closer inspection. There were plans of the estate with dotted lines drawn from east to west and enlarged details on separate sheets along with drawings of machines, huge impractical things to Eben’s untutored eye, with notes about soil composition and water-levels scrawled across them. It appeared to be a drainage project. Casting his eye over all these, Eben could not help but notice a bottle of wine which stood half-empty on the cabinet beside the desk. A moment’s thought convinced him that a tot would not be over-stepping the bounds of hospitality and he opened the cabinet in search of a glass only to find it full of identical bottles, all empty. Odd, he thought, as he swigged direct from the bottle. The evening was improving. Captain Guardian settled back in the chair, took another gulp and resumed work on the imaginary barge whose keel he had scarfed earlier in the day. A rather dull project truth to tell, but he would enliven it somehow. An outrigger perhaps. Lots of pennants … hmm.

  An hour or more passed in this matter, the only event of significance being the end of the bottle and Eben’s discovery of another in the desk’s drawers. A series of dull reports announced the beginning of the fireworks somewhere outside. The world began to take on a roseate glow and the chair supplied all the curves and angles his old body demanded. The barge grew in stature within his imagination. A royal barge perhaps, with buglers on a little platform towards the prow and little heraldic things dangling over the side. And more pennants. The barge was a good thought after all, drifting down a river under a purple sky with rain visible far off in the distance where it would never fall on him, mmth another swig, and cheering crowds along the bank waving pennants which might be designed to complement the colours of those on his boat, a signalling system of sorts whose only word would be harmony, intricately fleshed out in all its meanings by a thousand happy wavers, yes, he was drunk and didn’t care. Thump And canoes! Ornamental canoes towed in strings behind the Thump! This time it registered.

  Eben brought his head up, already rehearsing apologies and taking his feet off the desk, he had got lost, safe haven and the rest of it but, as he looked about the room, it was still quite empty. An intruder? Repel boarders! Eben kicked his feet off the desk, and looked about for a weapon. No chance of a belaying pin, but, but the empty bottle, one of them anyway, yes. Now the target….

  He was a little drunker than he had thought. The floor in the centre of the room seemed to be moving. The chairs arranged about the low table were creeping towards each other and the table itself was moving up and down. Suddenly the table seemed to leap into the air and fall with a thud on its side. It was the carpet, it was swelling in the middle. Something was coming up through the carpet.

  Captain Guardian acted. He marched smartly over to the bulge erupting out of the floor, raised the bottle and brought it down rapping the thing a glancing blow on its highest point. The swelling disappeared and a moment later there was a loud, crashing sound. Then silence. The carpet now dipped where the table had stood. It was a square cavity which Guardian recognised belatedly as a trap door. Perhaps he should have waited before hitting whatever, whoever it was had attempted entry, and mild anxiety began rolling back the alcoholic haze as he shifted the chairs and table to pull the carpet away from the hole in the floor.

  An open trap door was revealed and as Guardian peered down into some kind of passage below, he saw his victim, a spindly-looking youth lying splayed out amongst a lot of broken wood.

  ‘Hey!’ Eben called and waved down at the young man, forgetting the wad of handkerchiefs and the bottle which he held in his right and left hands and which now he let fall, the bottle smashing safely a few feet from his victim, the blood soaked mess landing squarely in his face.

  But Eben paid them no mind. All his thoughts were suddenly on his hand where the name of the ship had earlier been inscribed by Maillardet’s wretched contraption and was now revealed to him, a ragged tattoo of the name he had known all along of course, but twenty, twenty-five years ago or more and he spoke it aloud as if to confirm it, the Falmouth.

  Hey! A yellow fog was rolling back, becoming red, and wet. There was something on Lemprière’s face. Someone above shouted, Falmouth! The thing on his face was preventing him from breathing. Soon he would remove it. Now perhaps. There was something on his head too. Lemprière’s body rose from the pieces of ladder, something red and wet fell into his lap, and above him a bearded face peered through the ceiling and told him that the Falmouth was berthed not one hundred yards from his home. ‘Not the Vendragon at all. I guessed as much…. Just think of it! Lost for twenty years and here it is once more. The Falmouth, I knew it, just knew it. Never forget a ship….’ His head had an egg-shaped bump on it. The man above had hit him and now he was talking about ships, Falmouth, Vendragon. He had fallen off the ladder, that was why it was broken. Now the man had extended his hands down through the trap door. One of them had the word “Falmouth” written on the palm. Painful. Then he recognised the weather-tanned face, which was asking if he was injured. />
  ‘The automaton,’ said Lemprière. His tongue felt thick. ‘You were attacked by the automaton. Your hand….’ That was enough for now.

  ‘Catch hold,’ said the man. ‘I thought you were, I thought it was an attack, you see. I’ll pull you up.’ Lemprière rose, but there was three or four feet between them, it was simply not possible. ‘Wait,’ said the face. ‘I’ll fetch a rope.’ The face disappeared, then returned with an astonished expression upon it. ‘There’s no rope here,’ it said. ‘Someone must have removed it.’ It was an impasse.

  ‘I’ll stay here,’ said Lemprière after a moment’s thought, and this seemed to solve the problem. He rubbed his head. ‘Who are you?’ he asked the face.

  ‘Apologies for striking you. Guardian, Captain Ebenezer Guardian. Retired.’ The name, something inside Lemprière. His face was still wet. He ran a finger down his cheek and saw blood. His nose? No, the cloth. It lay on the floor between his feet. Guardian would have thrown it to revive him. Good idea. He threw it back.

  ‘Lemprière,’ he told the man whose face broke into a smile.

  ‘Lemprière! Well, why did you not tell me? I was expecting an older man. Good God, how are you?’ The man knew him, but how? Then Lemprière remembered the letters in his father’s trunk, Captain Ebenezer Guardian (retired), a name he had glanced at the night of the Pork Club. Guardian thought he was his father.