The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium

by Gerald Malcolm Durrell

  “Another noggin, dear boy?” enquired Paul, hopefully.

  “No, no!” shouted Marjorie above the bubbling songs of the birds and the roar of the rain, “the food’s ready and it will spoil if you keep it waiting. Have some wine. Come and sit down, Gerry dear.”

  “Wine, wine, that’s the thing. I’ve got something special for you, dear boy,” said Paul and he went off into the cellar to reappear a moment later with his arms full of bottles, which he placed reverently on the table near me. “A special Gigondas I have discovered,” he said. “Brontosaurus blood I do assure you, my dear fellow, pure prehistoric monster juice. It will go well with the truffles and the guinea-fowl Marjorie’s run up.”

  He uncorked a bottle and splashed the deep red wine into a generously large goblet. He was right. The wine slid into your mouth like red velvet and then, when it reached the back of your tongue, exploded like a firework display into your brain cells.

  “Good, eh?” said Paul, watching my expression. “I found it in a small cave near Carpentras. It was a blistering hot day and the cave was so nice and cool that I sat and drank two bottles of it before I realized what I was doing. It’s a seducing wine, all right. Of course when I got out in the sun again the damn stuff hit me like a sledgehammer. Marjorie had to drive.”

  “I was so ashamed,” said Marjorie, placing in front of me a black truffle the size of a peach encased in a fragile, feather-light overcoat of crisp brown pastry. “He paid for the wine and then bowed to the Patron and fell flat on his face. The Patron and his sons had to lift him into the car. It was disgusting.”

  “Nonsense,” said Paul, “the Patron was enchanted. It gave his wine the accolade it needed.”

  “That’s what you think,” said Marjorie. “Now start, Gerry, before it gets cold.”

  I cut into the globe of golden pastry in front of me and released the scent of the truffle, like the delicious aroma of a damp autumn wood, a million leafy, earthy smells rolled up into one. With the Gigondas as an accompaniment this promised to be a meal for the Gods. We fell silent as we attacked our truffles and listened to the rain on the roof, the roar of thunder and the almost apoplectic singing of the canaries. The bulldog, who had, for no apparent reason, fallen suddenly and deeply in love with me, sat by my chair watching me fixedly with his protuberant brown eyes, panting gently and wheezing.

  “Magnificent, Marjorie,” I said as the last fragment of pastry dissolved like a snowflake on my tongue. “I don’t know why you and Paul don’t set up a restaurant: with your cooking and Paul’s choice of wines you’d be one of the three-star Michelin jobs in next to no time.”

  “Thank you, dear,” said Marjorie, sipping her wine, “but I prefer to cook for a small audience of gourmets rather than a large audience of gourmands.”

  “She’s right, there’s no gainsaying it,” agreed Paul, splashing wine into our glasses with gay abandon. A sudden prolonged roar of thunder directly overhead precluded speech for a long minute and was so fierce and sustained that even the canaries fell silent, intimidated by the sound. When it had finished Marjorie waved her fork at her spouse.

  “You mustn’t forget to give Gerry your thingummy,” she said.

  “Thingummy?” asked Paul, blankly. “What thingummy?”

  “You know,” said Marjorie, impatiently, “your thingummy . . . your manuscript . . . it’s just the right sort of night for him to read it.”

  “Oh, the manuscript . . . yes,” said Paul, enthusiastically. “The very night for him to read it.”

  “I refuse,” I protested. “Your paintings and sculptures are bad enough. I’m damned if I’ll read your literary efforts as well.”

  “Heathen,” said Marjorie, good-naturedly. “Anyway, it’s not Paul’s, it’s someone else’s.”

  “I don’t think he deserves to read it after those disparaging remarks about my art,” said Paul. “It’s too good for him.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “It’s a very curious manuscript I picked up . . .” Paul began, when Marjorie interrupted.

  “Don’t tell him about it, let him read it,” she said. “I might say it gave me nightmares.”

  While Marjorie was serving helpings of guinea-fowl wrapped in an almost tangible aroma of herbs and garlic, Paul went over to the corner of the kitchen where a tottering mound of books, like some ruined castle, lay between two sacks of potatoes and a large barrel of wine. He rummaged around for a bit and then emerged triumphantly with a fat red notebook, very much the worse for wear, and came and put it on the table.

  “There!” he said with satisfaction. “The moment I’d read it I thought of you. I got it among a load of books I bought from the library of old Doctor Lepître, who used to be prison doctor down in Marseilles . I don’t know whether it’s a hoax or what.”

  I opened the book and on the inside of the cover found a bookplate in black, three cypress trees and a sundial under which was written, in Gothic script “Ex Libras Lepître ”. I flipped over the pages and saw that the manuscript was in longhand, some of the most beautiful and elegant copperplate handwriting I had ever seen, the ink now faded to a rusty brown.

  “I wish I had waited until daylight to read it,” said Marjorie with a shudder.

  “What is it? A ghost story?” I asked curiously.

  “No,” said Paul uncertainly, “at least, not exactly. Old Lepître is dead, unfortunately, so I couldn’t find out about it. It’s a very curious story. But the moment I read it I thought of you, knowing your interest in the occult and things that go bump in the night. Read it and tell me what you think. You can have the manuscript if you want it. It might amuse you, anyway.”

  “I would hardly call it amusing,” said Marjorie, “anything but amusing. I think it’s horrid.”

  Some hours later, full of good food and wine, I took the giant golden oil lamp, carefully trimmed, and in its gentle daffodil-yellow light I made my way upstairs to the guest room and a feather bed the size of a barn door. The bulldog had followed me upstairs and sat wheezing, watching me undress and climb into bed. He now lay by the bed looking at me soulfully. The storm continued unabated and the rumble of thunder was almost continuous, while the dazzling flashes of lightning lit up the whole room at intervals. I adjusted the wick of the lamp, moved it closer to me, picked up the red notebook and settled myself back against the pillows to read. The manuscript began without preamble.

  * * * *

  March 16th 1901. Marseilles .

  I have all night lying ahead of me and, as I know I cannot sleep — in spite of my resolve — I thought I would try to write down in detail the thing that has just happened to me. I am afraid that setting it down like this will not make it any the more believable, but it will pass the time until dawn comes and with it my release.

  Firstly I must explain a little about myself and my relationship with Gideon de Teildras Villeray so that the reader (if there ever is one) will understand how I came to be in the depths of France in mid-winter. I am an antiquarian bookseller and can say, in all modesty, that I am at the top of my profession. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I was at the top of my profession. I was even once described by one of my fellow booksellers — I hope more in a spirit of levity than of jealousy — as a “literary truffle hound”, a description which I suppose, in its amusing way, does describe me.

  A hundred or more libraries have passed through my hands, and I have been responsible for a number of important finds; the original Gottenstein manuscript, for example; the rare “Conrad” illustrated Bible, said by some to be as beautiful as the Book of Kells the five new poems by Blake that I unearthed at an unpromising country house sale in the Midlands; and many lesser but none-the-less satisfying discoveries, such as the signed first edition of Alice in Wonderland that I found in a trunk full of rag books and toys in the nursery of a vicarage in Shropshire and a presentation copy of Sonnets from the Portuguese, signed and with a six-line verse written on the fly-leaf by both Robert and Elizabet
h Browning.

  To be able to unearth such things in unlikely places is rather like water divining, either you are born with the gift or not; it is not something you can acquire, though most certainly, with practice, you are able to sharpen your perceptions and make your eye keener. In my spare time I also catalogue some of the smaller and more important libraries, as I get enormous pleasure out of simply being with books. To me the quietness of a library, the smell and the feel of the books, is like the taste and texture of food to a gourmet. It may sound fanciful, but I can stand in a library and hear the myriad voices around me as though I was standing in the middle of a vast choir, a choir of knowledge and beauty.

  Naturally, because of my work, it was at Sotheby’s that I first met Gideon. I had unearthed in a house in Sussex a small but quite interesting collection of first editions and, being curious to know what they would fetch, had attended the sale myself. As the bidding was in progress I got the uncomfortable feeling that I was being watched. I glanced around but could see no one whose attention was not upon the auctioneer. Yet, as the sale proceeded I got more and more uncomfortable. Perhaps this is too strong a word, but I became convinced that I was the object of an intense scrutiny.

  At last the crowd in the saleroom moved slightly and I saw who it was. He was a man of medium height with a handsome but somewhat plump face, piercing and very large dark eyes and smoky-black, curly hair, worn rather long. He was dressed in a well-cut dark overcoat with an astrakhan collar, and in his elegantly gloved hands he carried the sales catalogue and a wide-brimmed dark velour hat. His glittering, gypsy-like eyes were fixed on me intently, but when he saw me looking at him the fierceness of his gaze faded, and he gave me a faint smile and a tiny nod of his head, as if to acknowledge that he had been caught out staring at me in such a vulgar fashion. He turned then, shouldered his way through the people that surrounded him and was soon lost to my sight.

  I don’t, know why but the intense scrutiny of this stranger disconcerted me, to such an extent that I did not follow the rest of the sale with any degree of attention, except to note that the items I had put up fetched more than I had anticipated. The bidding over, I made my way through the crush and out into the street.

  It was a dank, raw day in February, with that unpleasant smoky smell in the air that augurs fog and makes the back of your throat raw. As it looked unpleasantly as though it might drizzle I hailed a cab. I have one of those tall, narrow houses in Smith Street, just off the King’s Road. It was bequeathed to me by my mother and does me very well, It is not in a fashionable part of Town, but the house is quite big enough for a bachelor like myself and his books, for I have, over the years, collected a small but extremely fine library on the various subjects that interest me: Indian art, particularly miniatures; some of the early Natural Histories; a small but rather rare collection of books on the occult a number of volumes on plants and great gardens, and a good collection of first editions of contemporary novelists. My home is simply furnished but comfortable; although I am not rich, I have sufficient for my needs and I keep a good table and very reasonable wine cellar.

  As I paid off the cab and mounted the steps to my front door I saw that, as I had predicted, the fog was starting to descend upon the city. Already it was difficult to see the end of the street. It was obviously going to turn out to be a real peasouper and I was glad to be home. My housekeeper, Mrs Manning, had a bright and cheerful fire burning in my small drawing-room and, next to my favourite chair, she had, as usual, laid out my slippers (for who can relax without slippers?) and on a small table all the accoutrements for a warming punch. I took off my coat and hat, slipped off my shoes and put on my slippers.

  Presently Mrs Manning appeared from the kitchen below and asked me, in view of the weather, if I would mind if she went home since it seemed as if the fog was getting thicker. She had left me some soup, a steak and kidney pie and an apple tart, all of which only needed heating. I said that this would do splendidly, since on many occasions I had looked after myself in this way.

  “There was a gentleman come to see you a bit earlier,” said Mrs Manning.

  “A gentleman? What was his name?” I asked, astonished that anyone should call on such an evening.

  “He wouldn’t give no name, sir,” she replied, “but said he’d call again.”

  I thought that, in all probability, it had something to do with a library I was cataloguing, and thought no more about it. Presently Mrs Manning reappeared, dressed for the street. I let her out of the front door and bolted it securely behind her, before returning to my drink and the warm fire. My cat Neptune appeared from my study upstairs, where his comfortable basket was, gave a faint mieouw of greeting and jumped gracefully on to my lap where, after paddling with his forepaws for a short while, he settled down to dream and doze, purring like a great tortoiseshell hive of bees. Lulled by the fire, the punch and the loud purrs of Neptune, I dropped off to sleep.

  I must have slept heavily for I awoke with a start and was unable to recall what it was that had awakened me. On my lap Neptune rose, stretched and yawned as if he knew he was going to be disturbed. I listened but the house was silent. I had just decided that it must have been the rustling scrunch of coals shifting in the grate when there came an imperious knocking at the front door. I made my way there, repairing, as I went, the damage that sleep had perpetrated on my neat appearance, straightening my collar and tie and smoothing down my hair which is unruly at the best of times.

  I lit the light in the hall, unbolted the front door and threw it open. Shreds of mist swirled in, and there standing on the top step was the curious, gypsy-like man that I had seen watching me so intently at Sotheby’s. Now he was dressed in a well-cut evening suit and was wearing an opera cloak lined with red silk. On his head was a top hat whose shining appearance was blurred by the tiny drops of moisture deposited on it by the fog which moved, like an unhealthy yellow backdrop, behind him. In one gloved hand he held a slender ebony cane with a beautifully worked gold top and he swung this gently between his fingers like a pendulum. When he saw that it was I who had opened the door and not a butler or some skivvy, he straightened up and removed his hat.

  “Good evening,” he said, giving me a most charming smile that showed fine, white, even teeth. His voice had a peculiar husky, lilting, musical quality that was most attractive, an effect enhanced by his slight but noticeable French intonation.

  “Good evening,” I said, puzzled as to what this stranger could possibly want of me.

  “Am I addressing Mr Letting . . . Mr Peter Letting?”

  “Yes. I am Peter Letting.”

  He smiled again, removed his glove and held out a well manicured hand on which a large blood opal gleamed in a gold ring.

  “I am more delighted than I can say at this opportunity of meeting you, sir,” he said, as he shook my hand, “and I must first of all apologize for disturbing you at such a time, on such a night.”

  He drew his cloak around him slightly and glanced at the damp, yellow fog that swirled behind him. Noting this I felt it incumbent upon me to ask him to step inside and state his business, for I felt it would hardly be good manners to keep him standing on the step in such unpleasant weather. He entered the hall, and when I had turned from closing and bolting the front door, I found that he had, divested himself of his hat, stick and cloak, and was standing there, rubbing his hands together looking at me expectantly.

  “Come into the drawing-room, Mr . . .” I paused on a note of interrogation.

  A curious, childlike look of chagrin passed across his face, and he looked at me contritely.

  “My dear sir,” he said, “my dear Mr Letting. How excessively remiss of me. You will be thinking me totally lacking in social graces, forcing my way into your home on such a night and then not even bothering to introduce myself. I do apologize. I am Gideon de Teildras Villeray.”

  “I am pleased to meet you,” I said politely, though in truth I must confess that, in spite of his obvious charm, I
was slightly uneasy, for I could not see what a Frenchman of his undoubted aristocratic lineage would want of an antiquarian bookseller such as myself. “Perhaps,” I continued, “you would care to come in and partake of a little refreshment . . . some wine perhaps, or maybe since the night is so chilly, a little brandy?”

  “You, are very kind and very forgiving,” he said with a slight bow, still smiling his beguiling smile. “A glass of wine would be most welcome, I do assure you.”

  I showed him into my drawing-room and he walked to the fire and held his hands out to the blaze, clenching and unclenching his white fingers so that the opal in his ring fluttered like a spot of blood against his white skin. I selected an excellent bottle of Margaux and transported it carefully up to the drawing-room with two of my best crystal glasses. My visitor had left the fire and was standing by my bookshelves, a volume in his hands. He glanced up as I entered and held up the book.

  “What a superb copy of Eliphas Levi,” he said enthusiastically, “and what a lovely collection of grimoires you have got. I did not know you were interested in the occult.”

  “Not really,” I said, uncorking the wine. “After all, no sane man would believe in witches and warlocks and sabbaths and spells and all that tarradiddle. No, I merely collect them as interesting books which are of value and in many cases, because of their contents, exceedingly amusing.”