Lemprière's Dictionary

by Lawrence Norfolk

  ‘What kind of conspiracy?’ persisted Lemprière.

  ‘In truth, I do not know,’ he paused, ‘Something to do with whales I believe. As I said, the woman is deranged. However, we are not here to discuss the fantasies of widows.’ He rose and fetched down a large envelope from the shelf behind him. It was yellowed on one side as though exposed to the sun, bound with tape and dotted with bright, red seals. Skewer broke them and untied the tape. A quantity of papers fell in disarray onto the desk before him. He searched briefly before singling out a smaller envelope sealed in the same manner as the first.

  ‘The will,’ he announced, cracking the seals. Lemprière had been diverted in his thoughts by his encounters with Septimus, the unfortunate widow Neagle and the city itself, but now he experienced a similar sensation to that of the previous evening. Foreboding, curiosity and behind both the tinge of guilt. He wished that the solicitor would cease his cursory inspection of the signatures and begin reading. Skewer looked and declared that the will exhibited no obvious irregularities and was valid at least in form. At length he cleared his throat and began to read.

  “I, Charles Philip Lemprière, do by this my will dispose of such worldly estate that it hath pleased God to bestow upon me: first I will that all my debts be paid and discharged and out of the remainder of my estate I give and bequeath unto my wife, Marianne Wroxley Lemprière, my house and its adjoining lands within the parish of St. Martins on the island of Jersey, and I further give and bequeath unto the said woman the contents of that house with the exception of my private papers not pertaining to the ownership and management of that house and its lands, namely its deeds of title and surveys, which shall go to my son, John Lemprière, and if my son should die without issue then to Jacob Romilly Stokes of Blanche Pierre on the island of Jersey….”

  The will continued in long, elaborate periods, its sense all but lost in convulsions and repetitions, and Lemprière soon gave up his attempt to follow the path of its thought, letting his mind wander where it would. The drone of Skewer’s voice smoothed over any intended inflections or emphases and his intonation sounded oddly soothing. Only the names disturbed the anodyne flow. Septimus confined his natural impulse to somehow speed the ritual along to frequent consultations of his pocket watch whose case he snapped loudly shut at each full-stop. The will proceeded to the accompaniment of these reports while Lemprière daydreamed idly, half-listening, half-waiting for Skewer to finish.

  “… signed, sealed, published and declared as and for his last will, in the presence of us….”

  The will had been attested to by his mother and Jake Stokes. He faintly remembered a solemn little meeting between his father and the last two, and another man. It had not been Mister Skewer. He had been little more than an infant then but wondered now if that meeting had been the occasion of the faded signatures he saw at the foot of the will. It surprised him that he had not remembered that before, but in his heart he knew that he had confronted nothing yet and that such remembrances were often the preludes to battles he was ill-prepared to fight. And he recognised that the floating sense of detachment that he felt from all around him was another side to that coin by which he paid off the past with half-promises and grudging regrets; another day, one more day, but the coin was running low. The solicitor broke in upon these thoughts.

  ‘These are very old,’ he declared as he handed a sheaf of papers gingerly across the desk. Lemprière looked up distractedly,

  ‘What are they?’ he asked.

  ‘Heirlooms, I presume, history of the family, that type of thing….’

  ‘I think you will find they include an agreement between an ancestor of yours and a man named Thomas de Vere,’ predicted Septimus, and Lemprière remembered that his official status at the gathering was that of ‘interested party’.

  ‘Yes, this is it, I believe.’

  Lemprière carefully unfolded a parchment document that the years had yellowed and dried. A complicated arrangement of serrations marked two of its edges; it crackled alarmingly as he smoothed it flat on the desk. Then, standing over it, he began to read.

  “At an assembly of the persons hereunder named holden on the twenty fifth day of April in the sixteen hundredth and third year of Our Lord.

  Agreement betwixte Thomas de Vere fourth Earle of Braith and François Charles Lemprière, merchaunt. Whereas the first person abovenamed by the suffrance of almightie god after Royal assent of our Soveraigne Lord the Kinges most excellent maiestie first thereunto had and obteyned, does entend for the honour of our native Country and for thadvancement of trade and merchaundise within this Realm upon his severall adventures, undertaken with others according to the severall proportions of the sommes of money by them severally sett downe and inregestred under ther owne hands, To make over that portion of his share with those moneys accruing thereto, those benefits and goodes that come of it as of the vyages set forthe to the Est Indies and other the Ilandes and Countries there-aboutes and moneys coming from the sale of suche commodities as uppon further deliberation shalbe resolved to be provided for these partes or otherwyse by buying or barteringe of such goodes wares jewelles or merchaundise as those Ilandes or Countries may yeld or afforthe to the abovementioned second named François Charles Lemprière, merchaunt, who shall retain the service of the abovenamed Thomas de Vere forth earl of Braith at the rate of one tithe of those monies and benefits accruing to that portion of the late-formed Joynt-Stock Companie made over and given freely apart from this portion agreed betwixte both partyes, as his neutral agent and representative in the abovementioned Joynt-Stock Companie trading to the Est Indies and that this agreement shall stand notwithstanding any desuetude or the death of either or both partyes to it, namely Thomas de Vere and François Charles Lemprière, merchaunt. In witness whereof we have caused this letter to be an agreement betwixt us Witness ourselves at London the twenty fifth day of April in the sixteen hundred and third year of Our Lord,

  Thomas de Vere

  Franèois Charles Lemprière”

  Lemprière looked up from the document at the solicitor.

  ‘Rebarbative phrasing,’ pronounced Skewer. ‘Quite outlandish.’

  ‘Certainly odd,’ agreed Septimus. ‘Perhaps Peppard might be prevailed upon for an opinion?’

  ‘Hardly necessary,’ Skewer retorted. ‘An interesting relic, certainly, but its appeal lies in curiosity….’

  ‘What is your interest, Mister Praeceps?’ Lemprière asked.

  ‘None at all….’

  ‘But the letter clearly stated that you were an interested party….’

  ‘I have none at all for myself,’ Septimus continued, ‘but the twelfth Earl of Braith, that is Edmund de Vere, has an interest in this document’s acquisition, that is he would wish to purchase it… on favourable terms of course.’

  ‘It is a course of action I would advise,’ added Skewer. ‘As your father’s solicitor, the disposal of his effects falls within my province and….’

  ‘A moment gentlemen, one moment please.’

  Lemprière straightened and gestured silence with his hands.

  ‘First of all, you sir, are not my father’s solicitor, my father’s solicitor was Mister Chadwick, as is plainly written there.’ He pointed to the original envelope. ‘In fact, I would like to know where is Mister Chadwick?’ he demanded.

  The solicitor’s face took on a grave expression.

  ‘Mister Chadwick passed on, it grieves me to tell, not eight months ago.’ He sighed. ‘I am truly sorry that my efforts have not been satisfactory, if I might….’

  But Lemprière cut him short.

  ‘Please accept my apologies. I meant no offence. Your efforts have been laudable.’

  ‘A hundred guineas for it,’ Septimus cut in crassly.

  ‘Mister Praeceps!’ exclaimed Skewer.

  ‘Two hundred.’

  ‘My father’s bequest to me is not for sale.’ Lemprière answered rigidly and without looking at Septimus.

  ‘Not st
rictly a bequest,’ murmured Skewer.

  ‘Good then, that’s settled,’ Septimus said in conclusion.

  ‘What on earth do you mean?’ Lemprière was fast becoming outraged.

  ‘You refuse to sell, yes?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Good.’ Lemprière hardly knew what to make of this conclusion.

  Septimus’s crude bandying of figures seemed to desecrate the solemnity of the occasion while his ready acceptance of the refusal was so jovial as to make a mockery of his earlier eagerness. He recalled himself.

  ‘Why on earth would the Earl of Braith wish to buy this document? What is his interest?’ Lemprière demanded.

  ‘Oh, family archives,’ Skewer answered. ‘The earldom of Braith is not a particularly ancient one. Recent additions to the peerage, at least in my limited meetings with them, like to, how should I say, firm up the foundations, lay stress on the historical side of things….’

  ‘But the matter’s closed,’ said Septimus.

  ‘And how would the earl know I, I mean my father, had this document? Would Mister Chadwick have told him?’

  ‘Good gracious, no.’ Skewer sounded appalled at the thought. ‘The confidentiality between a solicitor and his client is absolute.’

  ‘Unless Mrs Neagle is to be believed,’ Septimus threw in. The solicitor ignored this and continued.

  ‘It is quite beyond the pale to believe that….’ But Septimus interrupted him again.

  ‘He knows because he holds the other one.’

  ‘Other one?’ Lemprière echoed.

  ‘There are two,’ Septimus continued, ‘obviously; one for the earl and one for this man, your ancestor. It is an agreement is it not? Two copies, one for each.’ This seemed a plausible explanation to Lemprière.

  ‘At any rate, I fear it is not for sale. My apologies to the earl.’ He was resolved. Septimus looked at Lemprière. The solicitor looked at Septimus.

  ‘The other effects are all in order I believe. The inventory lists all the contents. Of course, if you feel that there are any questions you wish answered, any assistance, please return.’

  Lemprière had the impression that Mister Skewer was relieved at the meeting’s being over. He glanced down at the inventory. Most of the entries began, “A document …”; some stated that only. His finger paused on the column.

  ‘A seal is listed here, “A gold seal of our estate,”’ he read aloud. Skewer searched through the papers and handed an object to Lemprière. It was a gold ring, heavy and crudely fashioned. Affixed to the band was a signet whose design was a circle broken on one side. This was set within a square face and the whole shone as if newly minted. There was not a scratch or mark of any kind to be seen. Clearly it had rarely or never been worn. Lemprière looked long and hard at the design, but the faintest sensation of remembrance it evoked in him would not surface.

  ‘A ring,’ he said blankly.

  ‘A seal ring,’ Skewer corrected him.

  On impulse, he put the ring to the seals on the envelope. They did not match.

  ‘It has never been used,’ said Septimus.

  ‘No,’ said Lemprière without thinking. He placed the ring in his pocket and stood up.

  ‘Thank you, Mister Skewer.’

  ‘My condolences, sir.’ Skewer escorted him to the door and handed over the envelope. Septimus followed.

  ‘Your father was a fine man,’ the solicitor said, by way of parting. You did not know him, thought Lemprière, although you are right.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said again and suddenly felt a deep sadness as if the closing of this ritual marked the end of something that he had valued more than he would have guessed possible. He choked it back.

  ‘Shall we go?’ enquired Septimus.

  ‘Yes, yes of course.’ He moved towards the door.

  ‘Goodbye Mister Peppard.’ The clerk looked up from his work as if surprised at being addressed at all.

  ‘Goodbye Mister Lemprière, Mister Praeceps,’ and he bent diligently to his task once more.

  Descending the staircase their footsteps echoed loudly. The meeting with the solicitor seemed to have passed off without trouble. Earlier forebodings of his father’s voice exacting vengeance from beyond the grave had proved baseless and he had dealt with Septimus’s and Skewer’s demands as if born to it, so he thought. And yet there remained, if not unanswered questions, at least answers that begged further questions. Septimus had not explained why his interest in the document had waxed and waned so quickly and he observed that Skewer had supported the case for its sale with suspicious vigour, as if he too had some interest in it.

  There was a further detail that niggled at the back of his mind. It had to do with Peppard. They crossed the road, dodging the ridges of muck piled up by the cart-wheels, and continued down. Septimus was unusually silent. Lemprière kept pace more easily than before, mulling on the questions that bothered him. They had taken a different route from before, cutting around the back of Lincoln’s Inn and as they reached Portugal Road he turned to his silent companion.

  ‘Why did you ask for Peppard’s opinion on this?’ he asked, proffering the envelope. Septimus stopped and looked at it.

  ‘Skewer’s a fool,’ he said shortly, and then was off again, faster than before. Lemprière struggled to keep pace.

  ‘And Peppard is a fool’s clerk then?’ He secretly agreed with Septimus’s estimate of the solicitor. Unfair, he rebuked himself.

  ‘That is Peppard’s misfortune.’

  ‘So why ask him?’

  ‘I did not ask him.’

  ‘But you would have asked him,’ Lemprière persisted. Septimus kicked at an imaginary obstacle.

  ‘Yes, I would have asked him,’ he conceded. ‘Skewer barely recognised that it was an agreement at all. Peppard….’ and he stopped.

  ‘Peppard what?’

  ‘Peppard is the brain of Chadwick, Skewer and Soames. Or so it is said. It would make sense.’ He sniffed. ‘Dammit, I’m starved.’

  ‘Make sense?’ Lemprière prompted.

  ‘Yes. Peppard was thought one of the finest legal minds in London at one time. He was tipped for success, high office, but there was a scandal. This was many years ago, twenty perhaps.’ Lemprière thought back to the clerk and the chastened demeanour he had taken for meekness.

  ‘What kind of scandal?’ he asked in frank curiosity.

  ‘That I am not sure of, something to do with insurance. Maritime insurance, I believe. It was a long time ago.’ Septimus dismissed the subject with an irritable wave of his hand.

  ‘I need to eat,’ he declared, as if Lemprière’s questions simply dissolved in the face of such a pronouncement.

  ‘In fact, I need both to eat and,’ catching sight of a tavern on the corner ahead, ‘drink.’ Lemprière realised that he too was hungry. Tempting cooking smells wafted from the inn were sending messages of enticement to its potential customers. Septimus turned to his companion and spoke quickly.

  ‘Listen, I know that a great deal of all this,’ he waved his arms expansively, ‘is strange to you. If you want to know why Edmund, the earl, wants this scrap of parchment, why not ask him yourself? What I mean is meet him and me both. Yes?’

  Lemprière was somewhat taken aback by this invitation.

  ‘Come this Saturday. We meet at the Craven Arms, at eight o’clock, or thereabouts. You’ll come?’

  ‘Yes, I will,’ resolved Lemprière in a rush.

  ‘Good. Now perhaps we might eat.’ But Lemprière remained where he was.

  ‘I am afraid I have some other business.’ The word sounded alien to his own ears.

  ‘Business? Well, in that case I shall eat alone.’ Septimus seemed not at all put out by this. He smiled broadly, showing his teeth. ‘Saturday, the Craven Arms,’ he called as he turned, waved and strode purposefully away. Lemprière watched him disappear into the tavern, then turned and walked back into Portugal Street.

  Peppard’s grandfather had had a craving for the stage and
so, naturally, he had become a barrister. His mother had had a craving for a solicitor but had married a grocer. After the wedding she had been delivered of a boy and, disappointed in the first instance, was resolved to be rewarded in the second. Peppard cursed silently, one more blot and he would have to copy it afresh. She had bought volumes of case law, battered and bound in red leather. Peppard had read them voraciously. By the time he arrived to study law at Cambridge he was ready to take his final examinations. His indenture with Mister Chadwick was a formality.

  He had been attracted to commercial law for reasons that even now he could not fathom. His lifelong inability to grasp the value of money was, oddly, a boon to this career. The wealthier merchants and financiers felt secure with a man whose eyes did not widen when the counting was done in thousands and his less fortunate clients appreciated those same eyes not closing in boredom when the talk was of shillings and pence. The offices of George Peppard attracted clients in droves, he was courted by several levels of society and there was talk of his being ‘too good for the law’. A post in the treasury was in the offing. He began to think of marriage.

  But there the dream faded. Recalling the days that followed still hurt and he did not like to dwell on the events that filled them. His pen moved quickly, tracing expert strokes over the complex document before him. He finished the last clause, leaving a good footer for the signatories to add their names, blotted the whole, then placed it carefully in his drawer. Looking up, he saw Mister Skewer leaning against the open door of his office.

  ‘You may go if you wish, Peppard.’

  ‘Very well, sir.’ He was both surprised and pleased. Instances of Skewer’s generosity were few and far between. He looked out of his window and saw that the light was failing already.

  The air was cold outside and he walked quickly through the courtyard towards the street. As he did so, he fancied that he heard footsteps somewhere behind him, but when he looked about there was no-one to be seen. He turned and quickened his pace. In the usual run of things he would have dismissed it with little hesitation. But the last few days had not conformed to Peppard’s idea of the usual run of things.