“Amusing?” he said, coming forward to accept the glass of wine I held out to him. “How do you mean, amusing?”
“Well, don’t you find amusing the thought of grown men mumbling all those silly spells and standing about for hours in the middle of the night expecting Satan to appear? I confess I find it very amusing indeed.”
“I do not,” he said, and then, as if he feared that he had been too abrupt and perhaps rude, he smiled and raised his glass. “Your very good health, Mr Letting.”
We drank. He rolled the wine round his mouth and then raised his eyebrows.
“May I compliment you on your cellar,” he said. “This is an excellent Margaux.”
“Thank you,” I said, flattered, I must confess, that this aristocratic Frenchman should approve my choice in wine. “Won’t you have a chair and perhaps explain to me how I may be of service to you.”
He seated himself elegantly in a chair by the fire, sipped his wine and stared at me thoughtfully for a moment. When his face was in repose you noticed the size and blackness and lustre of his eyes. They seem to probe you, almost as if they could read your very thoughts. The impression they gave made me uncomfortable, to say the least. But then he smiled and immediately the eyes flashed with mischief, good humour and an overwhelming charm.
“I’m afraid that my unexpected arrival so late at night and on such a night . . . must lend an air of mystery to what is, I’m afraid, a very ordinary request that I have to make of you. Simply, it is that I should like you to catalogue a library for me, a comparatively small collection of books, not above twelve hundred I surmise, which was left to me by my aunt when she died last year. As I say, it is only a small collection of books and I have done no more than give it a cursory glance. However, I believe it to contain some quite rare and valuable things and I feel it necessary to have it properly catalogued, a precaution my aunt never took, poor dear. She was a woman with a mind of cotton wool and never, I dare swear, opened a book from the start of her life until the end of it. She led an existence untrammelled and unruffled by the slightest breeze of culture. She had inherited the books from her father and from the day they came into her possession she never paid them the slightest regard. They are a muddled and confused mess, and I would be grateful if you would lend me your expertise in sorting them out. The reason that I have invaded your house at such an hour is force of circumstances, for I must go back to France tomorrow morning very early, and this was my only chance of seeing you. I do hope you can spare the time to do this for me?”
“I shall be happy to be of what assistance I can,” I said, for I must admit that the idea of a trip to France was a pleasant thought, “but I am curious to know why you have picked on me when there are so many people in Paris who could do the job just as well, if not better.”
“I think you do yourself an injustice,” said my visitor. “You must be aware of the excellent reputation you enjoy. I asked a number of people for their advice and when I found that they all spontaneously advised me to ask you, then I was sure that, if you agreed to do the work, I would be getting the very best, my dear Mr Letting.”
I confess I flushed with pleasure, since I had no reason to doubt the man’s sincerity. It was pleasant to know that my colleagues thought so highly of me.
“When would you wish me to commence?” I asked.
He spread his hands and gave an expressive shrug.
“I’m in no hurry,” he said. “Naturally I would have to fall in with your plans. But I was wondering if, say, you could start some time in the spring? The Loire valley is particularly beautiful then and there is no reason why you should not enjoy the countryside as well as catalogue books.”
“The spring would suit me admirably,” I said, pouring out some more wine. Would April be all right?”
“Excellent,” he said. “I would think that the job would take you a month or so, but from my point of view please stay as long as it is necessary. I have a good cellar and a good chef, so I can minister to the wants of the flesh at any rate.”
I fetched my diary and we settled on April the fourteenth as being a suitable date for both of us. My visitor rose to go.
“Just one other thing,” he said as he swirled his cloak around his shoulders. “I would be the first to admit that I have a difficult name both to remember and to pronounce. Therefore, if you would not consider it presumptuous of me, I would like you to call me Gideon and may I call you Peter?”
“Of course,” I said immediately and with some relief, for the name de Teildras Villeray was not one that slid easily off the tongue.
He shook my hand warmly, once again apologized for disturbing me, promised he would write with full details of how to reach him in France and then strode off confidently into the swirling yellow fog and was soon lost to view.
I returned to my warm and comfortable drawing-room and finished the bottle of wine while musing on my strange visitor. The more I thought about it the more curious the whole incident became. For example, why had Gideon not approached me when he first saw me at Sotheby’s? He said that he was in no hurry to have his library catalogued and yet felt it imperative that he should see me, late at night, as if the matter was of great urgency. Surely he could have written to me? Or did he perhaps think that the force of his personality would make me accept a commission that I might otherwise refuse?
I was in two minds about the man himself. As I said, when his face was in repose his eyes were so fiercely brooding and penetrating that they made me uneasy and filled almost with a sense of repugnance. But then when he smiled and his eyes filled with laughter and he talked with that husky, musical voice, I had been charmed in spite of myself. He was, I decided, a very curious character, and I determined that I would try to find out more about him before I went over to France . Having made this resolution, I made my way down to the kitchen, preceded by a now hungry Neptune, and cooked myself a late supper.
A few days later I ran into my old friend Edward Mallenger at a sale. During the course of it I asked him casually if he knew of Gideon. He gave me a very penetrating look from over the top of his glasses.
“Gideon de Teildras Villeray?” he asked. “D’you mean the Count . . . the nephew of the old Marquis de Teildras Villeray?”
“He didn’t tell me he was a Count, but I suppose it must be the same one,” I said. “Do you know anything about him?”
“When the sale is over we’ll go and have a drink and I’ll tell you,” said Edward. “They are a very odd family . . . at least, the old Marquis is distinctly odd.”
The sale over we repaired to the local pub and over a drink Edward told me what he knew of Gideon. It appeared that, many years previously, the Marquis de Teildras Villeray had asked my friend to go to France (Just as Gideon had done with me) to catalogue and value his extensive library. Edward had accepted the commission and had set off for the Marquis’s place in the Gorge du Tarn.
“Do you know that area of France ?” Edward asked.
“I have never been to France at all,” I confessed.
“Well, it’s a desolate area. The house is in a wild and remote district right in the Gorge itself. It’s a rugged country, with huge cliffs and deep gloomy gorges, waterfalls and rushing torrents, not unlike the Gustave Doré drawings for Dante’s Inferno, you know.”
Edward paused to sip his drink thoughtfully, and then occupied himself with lighting a cigar. When it was drawing to his satisfaction, he went on. “In the house, apart from the family retainers of which there only seemed to be three (a small number for such a large establishment) was the uncle and his nephew whom, I take it, was your visitor of the other night. The uncle was — well, not to put too fine a point on it, a most unpleasant old man. He must have been about eighty-five, I suppose, with a really evil, leering face, and an oily manner that he obviously thought was charming. The boy was about fourteen with huge dark eyes in a pale face. He was an intelligent lad, old for his age, but the thing that worried me was that he seemed to be su
ffering from intense fear, a fear, I felt, of his uncle.
“The first night I arrived, after we had had dinner, which was, to my mind meagre and badly-cooked fare for France, I went. to bed early, for I was fatigued after my journey. The old man and the boy stayed up. As luck would have it the dining-room was directly below my bedroom, and so, although I could not hear clearly all that passed between them I could hear enough to discern that the old man was doing his best to persuade his nephew into some course of action that the boy found repugnant, for he was vehement in his refusal. The argument went on for some time, the uncle’s voice getting louder and louder and more angry. Suddenly, I heard the scrape of a chair as the boy stood and shouted, positively shouted, my dear Peter — in French at his uncle: “No, no, I will not be devoured so that you may live . . . I hate you.” I heard it quite clearly and I thought it an astonishing thing for a young boy to say. Then I heard the door of the dining-salon open and bang shut, the boy’s footsteps running up stairs and, eventually, the banging of what I assumed was his bedroom door.
“After a short while I heard the uncle get up from the table and start to come upstairs. There was no mistaking his footfall, for one of his feet was twisted and misshapen and so he walked slowly with a pronounced limp, dragging his left foot. He came slowly up the stairs, and I do assure you, my dear Peter, there was positive evil in this slow, shuffling approach that really made my hair stand on end. I heard him go to the boy’s bedroom door, open it and enter. He called the boy’s name two or three times, softly and cajolingly, but with indescribable menace. Then he said one sentence which I could not catch. After this he closed the boy’s door and for some moments I could hear him dragging and shuffling down the long corridor to his own quarters.
“I opened my door and from the boy’s room I could hear muffled weeping, as though the poor child had his head under the bedclothes. It went on for a long time, and I was very worried. I wanted to go and comfort the lad, but I felt it might embarrass him, and in any case it was really none of my business. But I did not like the situation at all. The whole atmosphere, my dear Peter, was charged with something unpleasant.
“I am not a superstitious man, as you well know, but I lay awake for a long time and wondered if I could stay in the atmosphere of that house for the two or three weeks it would take me to finish the job which I had agreed to do. Fortunately, fate gave me the chance I needed: the very next day I received a telegram to say that my sister had fallen gravely ill and so, quite legitimately, I could ask de Teildras Villeray to release me from my contract. He was, of course, most reluctant to do so, but he eventually agreed with ill-grace.
While I was waiting for the dog cart to arrive to take me to the station, I had a quick look round some of his library. Since it was really extensive it spread all over the house, but the bulk of it was housed in what he referred to as the Long Gallery, a very handsome, long room, that would not have disgraced one of our aristocratic country houses. It was hung with giant mirrors between the bookcases, in fact, the whole house was full of mirrors. I can never remember being in a house with so many before.
“He certainly had a rare and valuable collection of books, particularly on one of your pet subjects, Peter, the occult. I noticed, in my hurried browse, among other things, some most interesting Hebrew manuscripts on witchcraft, as well as an original of Matthew Hopkin’s Discovery of Witches and a truly beautiful copy of Dee’s De Mirabilius Naturae . But then the dog cart arrived and, making my farewells, I left.
“I can tell you, my dear boy, I was never so glad in my life to be quit of a house. I truly believe the old man to have been evil and would not be surprised to learn that he practised witchcraft and was trying to involve that nice young lad in his foul affairs. However, I have no proof of this, you understand, so that is why I would not wish to repeat it. I should imagine that the uncle is now dead, or, if not, he must be in his nineties. As to the boy, I later heard from friends in Paris that there were rumours that his private life was not all that it should be, some talk of his attachment to certain women, you know, but this was all circumstantial, and in any case, as you know dear boy, foreigners have a different set of morals to an Englishman. It is one of the many things that sets us apart from the rest of the world, thank God.”
I had listened with great interest to Edward’s account, and I resolved to ask Gideon about his uncle if I got the chance.
I prepared myself for my trip to France with, I must admit, pleasurable anticipation, and on April the fourteenth I embarked on the train to Dover and thence, uneventfully (even to mal de mer), to Calais . I spent the night in Paris, sampling the delights of French food and wine, and the following day I embarked once more on the train. Eventually I arrived at the bustling station at Tours . Gideon was there to meet me as he had promised he would. He seemed in great spirits and greeted me as if I was an old and valued friend, which, I confess, flattered me. I thanked him for coming to meet me, but he waved my thanks away.
“It’s nothing, my dear Peter.” he said. “I have nothing to do except eat, drink and grow fat. A visit from someone like you is a rare pleasure.”
Outside the station we entered a handsome brougham drawn by two beautiful bay horses and we set off at a spanking pace through the most delicious countryside, all green and gold and shimmering in the sunlight.
We drove for an hour along roads that got progressively narrower and narrower, until we were travelling along between high banks emblazoned with flowers of every sort, while overhead, the branches of the trees on each side of the road entwined, covered with the delicate green leaves of spring. Occasionally there would be a gap in the trees and high banks and I would see the silver gleam of the Loire between the trees. I realized that we were driving parallel to the great river. Once we passed the massive stone gateposts and wrought-iron gates that guarded the drive up to an immense and very beautiful château in gleaming pinky-yellow stone. Gideon saw me looking at it, perhaps with an expression of wonder, for it did look like something out of a fairy tale. He smiled.
“I hope, my dear Peter, that you do not expect to find me living in a monster like that? If so, you will be doomed to disappointment. I am afraid that my château is a miniature one, but big enough for my needs.”
I protested that I did not care if he lived in a cow shed: for me the experience of being in France for the first time and seeing all these new sights and with the prospect of a fascinating job at the end of it, was more than sufficient.
It was not until evening, when the mauve tree shadows were stretched long across the green meadows, that we came to Gideon’s establishment, the Château St Claire. The gateposts were surmounted by two large, delicately carved owls in a pale honey-coloured stone, and I saw that the same motif had been carried out most skilfully in the wrought-iron gates that hung from the pillars.
As soon as we entered the grounds I was struck by the contrast to the countryside we had been passing through, which had been exuberant and unkempt, alive with wild flowers and meadows, shaggy with long rich grass. Here the drive was lined with giant oak and chestnut trees, each the circumference of a small room, gnarled and ancient, with bark as thick as an elephant’s hide. How many hundred years these trees had guarded the entrance to the Château St Claire, I could not imagine, but many of them must have been well-grown when Shakespeare was a young man. The green sward under them was as smooth as baize on a billiard table, and responsible for this, were several herds of spotted fallow deer, grazing peacefully in the setting sun’s rays. The bucks, with their fine twisted antlers, threw up their heads and gazed at us without fear as we clopped past them and down the avenue.
Beyond the green sward I could see a line of gigantic poplars and, gleaming between them, the Loire . Then the drive turned away from the river and the château came into sight. It was, as Gideon had said, small but perfect, as a miniature is perfect. In the evening sun its pale straw-coloured walls glowed and the light gave a soft and delicate patina to the blueish sla
te of the roofs of the main house and its two turrets.
It was surrounded by a wide veranda of great flag stone, hemmed in by a wide balustrade on which were perched above thirty peacocks, their magnificent tails trailing down towards the well-kept lawn. Around the balustrade, the flower beds, beautifully kept, were ablaze with flowers in a hundred different colours that seemed to merge with the tails of the peacocks that trailed amongst them. It was a breathtaking sight. The carriage pulled up by the wide steps, the butler threw open the door of the brougham, and Gideon dismounted, took off his hat and swept me a low bow, grinning mischievously.
“Welcome to the Château St Claire,” he said.
Thus for me began an enchanted three weeks, for it was more of a holiday than work. The miniature, but impeccably kept and furnished château was a joy to live in. The tiny park that meandered along the river bank was also beautifully kept, for every tree looked as if it were freshly groomed, the emerald lawns combed each morning, and the peacocks, trailing their glittering tails amongst the massive trees, as if they had just left the careful hands of Fabergé. Combine this with a fine cellar and a kitchen ruled over by a red balloon of a chef whose deft hands would conjure up the most delicate and aromatic of meals, and you had a close approach to an earthly paradise.
The morning would be spent sorting and cataloguing the books (and a most interesting collection it was) and then in the afternoon Gideon would insist that we went swimming or else for a ride round the park, for he possessed a small stable of very nice horses. In the evenings, after dinner, we would sit on the still sun-warmed terrace and talk, our conversation made warm and friendly by the wine we had consumed and the excellent meal we had eaten.
Gideon was an excellent host, a brilliant raconteur and this, together with his extraordinary gift for mimicry, made him a most entertaining companion. I shall never know now, of course, whether he deliberately exerted all his charm in order to ensnare me. I like to think not; that he quite genuinely liked me and my company. Not that I suppose it matters now. But certainly, as day followed day, I grew fonder and fonder of Gideon.
The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium Page 15