The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium

by Gerald Malcolm Durrell

  At length, the local train I had changed to dragged itself, grimy and puffing, into the station of Fontaine. I disembarked and made my way with my luggage to the tiny booking office and minute waiting-room. Here, to my relief I found that there was an old-fashioned, pot-bellied stove stuffed with chestnut roots and glowing almost red hot. I piled my luggage in the corner and spent some time thawing myself out, for the heating on the train had been minimal. There was no sign of Gideon. Presently, warmed by the fire and a nip of brandy, I had taken from my travelling flask, I began to feel better. Half an hour passed and I began to worry about Gideon’s absence. I went out on to the platform and discovered that the grey sky seemed to have moved closer to the earth and a few snowflakes were starting to fall, huge lacy ones the size of a half crown, that augured a snowstorm of considerable dimensions in the not too distant future. I was just wondering if I should try walking to the village when I heard the clop of hooves and made out a dog cart coming along the road driven by Gideon muffled up in a glossy fur coat and wearing an astrakhan hat.

  “I’m so very sorry, Peter, for keeping you waiting like this,” he said, wringing my hand, “but we seem to have one catastrophe after another. Come, let me help you with your bags and I will tell you all about it as we drive.”

  We collected my baggage, bundled it into the dog cart and then I climbed up on to the box alongside Gideon and covered myself thankfully with the thick fur rug he had brought. He turned the horse, cracked his whip and we went, bowling down the snowflakes which were now falling quite fast. The wind whipped our faces and made our eyes water, but still Gideon kept the horse at a fast trot.

  “I am anxious to get there before the snowstorm really starts,” he said, “that is why I am going at this uncivilized pace. Once these snowstorms start up here they can be very severe. One can get snowed in for days at a time.”

  “It is certainly becoming a grim winter,” I said.

  “The worst we’ve had here for fifty years,” said Gideon.

  We came to the village and Gideon was silent as he guided his horse through the narrow, deserted streets, already white with settling snow. Occasionally a dog would run out of an alley and run barking alongside us for a way, but otherwise there was no sign of life. The village could have been deserted for all evidence to the contrary.

  “I am afraid that once again, my dear Peter, I shall have to trespass upon your good nature,” said Gideon, smiling at me, his hat and his eyebrows white with snow. “Sooner or later my demands on our friendship will exhaust your patience.”

  “Nonsense,” I said, “just tell me what the problem is.”

  “Well,” said Gideon, “I was to leave you in the charge of François and his wife, who were my uncle’s servants. Unfortunately, when I went to the house this morning I found that François’s wife Marie, had slipped on the icy front steps and had fallen some thirty feet on to the rocks and broken her legs. They are, I’m afraid, splintered very badly, and I don’t hold out much hope for them being saved.”

  “Poor woman, how dreadful,” I exclaimed.

  “Yes,” Gideon continued. “Of course François was nearly frantic when I got there, and so there was nothing for it but to drive them both to the hospital in Milau which took me over two hours, hence my being so late meeting you.”

  “That doesn’t matter at all,” I said. “Of course you had to drive them to the hospital.”

  “Yes, but it created another problem as well,” said Gideon. “You see, none of the villagers liked my uncle, and François and Marie were the only couple who would work for him. With both of them in Milau, there is no one to look after you, at least for two or three days until François comes back.”

  “My dear chap, don’t let that worry you,” I laughed. “I am quite used to fending for myself, I do assure you. If I have food and wine and a fire I will be very well found I promise you.”

  “Oh, you’ll have all that,” said Gideon. “The larder is well stocked, and down in the game room there is a haunch of venison, half a wild boar, some pheasants and partridge and a few brace of wild duck. There is wine aplenty, since my uncle kept quite a good cellar, and the cellar is full of chestnut roots and pine logs, so you will be warm. You will also have for company the animals.”

  “Animals, what animals?” I asked, curious.

  “A small dog called Agrippa,” said Gideon, laughing, “a very large and idiotic cat called Clair de Lune, or Clair for short, a whole cage of canaries and various finches and an extremely old parrot called Octavius.”

  “A positive menagerie,” I exclaimed. “It’s a good thing that I like animals.”

  “Seriously, Peter,” asked Gideon, giving me one of his very penetrating looks, “are you sure you will be all right? It seems a terrible imposition to me.”

  “Nonsense,” I said heartily, “what are friends for?”

  The snow was coming down with a vengeance and we could only see a yard or two beyond the horse’s ears, so dense were the whirling clouds of huge flakes. We had now entered one of the many tributary gorges that led into the Gorge du Tarn proper. On our left the brown and black cliffs, dappled with patches of snow on sundry crevices and ledges, loomed over us, in places actually overhanging the narrow road. On our right the ground dropped away, almost sheer, five or six hundred feet into the gorge below where, through the wind-blown curtains of snow, one could catch occasional glimpses of the green river, its tumbled rocks snow-wigged, their edges crusted with ice. The road was rough, snow and water worn, and in places covered with a sheet of ice which made the horse slip and stumble and slowed our progress. Once a small avalanche of snow slid down the cliff face with a hissing sound and thumped on to the road in front of us, making the horse shy so badly that Gideon had to fight to keep control. For several hair-raising minutes I feared that we, the dog cart and the terrified horse might slide over the edge of the gorge and plunge down into the river below, But eventually Gideon got it under control and we crawled along our way.

  Eventually the gorge widened a little and presently we rounded a corner and there before us was the strange bulk of Gideon’s uncle’s house. It was an extraordinary edifice and I feel I should describe it in some detail. To begin with the whole thing was perched on top of a massive rock that protruded from the river far below so that it formed what could only be described as an island, shaped not unlike an isosceles triangle, with the house on top. It was connected to the road by a massive and very old stone bridge. The tall outside walls of the house fell sheer down to the rocks and river below, but as you crossed the bridge and drove under a huge arch, guarded by thick oak doors, you found that the house was built round a large centre courtyard, cobblestoned and with a pond with a fountain in the middle. This depicted a dolphin held up by cherubs, the whole thing polished with ice, and with icicles hanging from it.

  All the many windows that looked down into the court were shuttered with a fringe of huge icicles hanging from every cornice. Between the windows were monstrous gargoyles depicting various forms of animal life, known and unknown to science, each one seeming more malign than the last and their appearance not improved by the ice and snow that blurred their outlines so that they seemed to be peering at you from snowy ambush. As Gideon drew the horse to a standstill by the steps that led to the front door we could hear the barking of the dog inside. My friend opened the front door with a large, rusty key and immediately the dog tumbled out, barking vociferously and wagging its tail with pleasure. The large black and white cat was more circumspect and did not deign to come out into the snow, but merely stood, arching its back and mewing in the doorway. Gideon helped me carry my bags into the large marble hall where a handsome staircase led to the upper floors of the house. All the pictures, mirrors and furniture were covered with dust sheets.

  “I am sorry about the covers,” said Gideon. It seemed to me that, as soon as he had entered the house, he had become nervous and ill at ease. “I meant to remove them all this morning and make it more habit
able for you, but what with one thing and another I did not manage it.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said, making a fuss of the dog and cat, who were both vying for my attention. “I shan’t be inhabiting all the house, so I will just remove the sheets in those parts that I shall use.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Gideon, running his hands through his hair in a nervous fashion. “Your bed is made up . . . the bedroom is the second door on the left as you reach the top of the stairs. Now, come with me and I’ll show you the kitchen and cellar.”

  He led me across the hall to a door that was hidden under the main staircase. Opening this he made his way down broad stone steps that spiralled their way down into the gloom. Presently we reached a passageway that led to a gigantic stone-flagged kitchen and, adjoining it, cavernous cellars and a capacious larder, cold as a glacier, with the carcases of game, chicken, duck, legs of lamb and saddles of beef hanging from hooks or lying on the marble shelves that ran around the walls. in the kitchen was a great range, each fire carefully laid, and on the huge table in the centre had been arranged various commodities that Gideon thought I might need, rice, lentils as black as soot, potatoes, carrots and other vegetables in large baskets, pottery jars of butter and conserves, and a pile of freshly-baled loaves. On the opposite side of the kitchen to the cellars and larder lay the wine store, approached through a heavy door, bolted and padlocked. Obviously Gideon’s uncle had not trusted his staff when it came to alcoholic beverages. The cellar was small, but I saw at a glance it contained some excellent vintages.

  “Do not stint yourself, Peter,” said Gideon. “There are some really quite nice wines in there and they will be some small compensation for staying in the gloomy place alone.”

  “You want me to spend my time in an inebriated state?” I laughed. “I would never get the books valued. But don’t worry Gideon, I shall be quite all right. I have food and Wine enough for an army, plenty of fuel for the fire, a dog and a cat and birds to bear me company and a large and interesting library. What more could any man want?”

  “The books, by the way, are mainly in the Long Gallery, on the south side of the house. I won’t show it to you . . . it’s easy enough to find, and I really must be on my way,” said Gideon, leading the way up into the hall once more. He delved into his pocket and produced a huge bunch of ancient keys. “The keys of the kingdom,” he said with a faint smile. “I don’t think anything is locked, but if it is, please open it. I will tell François that he is to come back here and look after you as soon as his wife is out of danger, and I, myself, will return in about four weeks’ time. By then you should have finished your task.”

  “Easily,” I said. “In fact, if I get it done before then I will send you a telegram.”

  “Seriously, Peter,” he said, taking my hand, “I am really most deeply in your debt for what you are doing. I shall not forget it.”

  “Rubbish, my friend,” I said. “It gives me great pleasure to be of service to you.”

  I stood in the doorway of the house, the dog panting by my side, the cat arching itself around my legs and purring loudly, and watched Gideon get back into the dog cart, wrap the rug around himself and then flick the horses with the reins. As they broke into a trot and he steered them towards the entrance to the courtyard he raised his whip in salute. He disappeared through the archway and soon the sound of the hoof beats were muffled by the snow and faded altogether. Picking up the warm, silky body of the cat and whistling to the dog, which had chased the dog cart to the archway, barking exuberantly, I went back into the house and bolted the front door behind me.

  The first thing to do was to explore the house and ascertain where the various books were that I had come to work with, and thus to make up my mind which rooms I needed to open. On a table in the hall I had spotted a large six-branched silver candelabra loaded with candles and with a box of matches lying beside it. I decided to use this in my exploration since it would relieve me of the tedium of having to open and close innumerable shutters. Lighting the candles and accompanied by the eager, bustling dog, whose nails rattled on the bare floors like castanets, I started off.

  The whole of the ground floor consisted of three very large rooms and one smaller one, which comprised the drawing-room, the dining-room, a study and then this smaller salon. Strangely enough, this room — which I called the blue salon since it was decorated in various shades of blue and gold — was the only one that was locked, and it took me some time to find the right key for it. This salon formed one end of the house and so it was a long, narrow, shoe-box shape, with large windows at each end.

  The door by which one entered was mid-way down one of the longer walls and hanging on the wall opposite was one of the biggest mirrors I have ever seen. It must have been fully nine feet high, stretching from floor level almost to the ceiling and some thirty-five feet in length. The mirror itself was slightly tarnished, which gave it a pleasant blueish tinge, like the waters of a shallow lake, but it still reflected dearly and accurately. The whole was encompassed in a wide and very ornate gold frame, carved to depict various nymphs and satyrs, unicorns, griffons and other fabulous beasts. The frame in itself was a work of art. By seating oneself in one of the comfortable chairs that stood one on each side of the fireplace one could see the whole room reflected in this remarkable mirror and, although the room was somewhat narrow, this gave one a great sense of space.

  Owing to the size, the convenience and — I must admit — the novelty of the room, I decided to make it my living-room, and in a very short space of time I had the dust covers off the furniture and a roaring blaze of chestnut roots in the hearth. Then I moved in the cage of finches and canaries and placed them at one end of the room together with Octavius the parrot, who seemed pleased by the change for he shuffled his feathers, cocked his head on one side and whistled a few bars of the Marseillaise. The dog and cat immediately stretched themselves out in front of the blaze and fell into a contented sleep. Thus, deserted by my companions, I took my candelabra and continued my investigation of the house alone.

  The next floor I found comprised mainly of bed– and bathrooms, but a whole wing of the house (which formed the hollow square in which the courtyard lay) was one enormous room, the Long Gallery as Gideon had called it. Down one side of this long, wide room there were very tall windows, and opposite each window was a mirror, similar to the one downstairs, but long and narrow. Between these mirrors stood the bookcases of polished oak and piled on the shelves haphazardly were a myriad of books, some on their sides, some upside down in total confusion. Even a cursory glance was enough to tell me that the library was so muddled that it would take me some considerable time to sort the books into subjects before I could even start to catalogue and value them.

  Leaving the Long Gallery shrouded in dust sheets and with the shutters still closed, I went one floor higher. Here there were only attics. In one of them I came upon the gilt frame of a mirror and I shivered, for I presumed that this was the attic in which Gideon’s uncle had been found dead. The mirror frame was identical with the one in the blue salon, but on a much smaller scale. Here, again were the satyrs, the unicorns, the griffons and hippogryphs, but in addition was a small area at the top of the frame, carved like a medallion, in which were inscribed the words: I am your servant. Feed and liberate me. I am you. It did not seem to make sense. I closed the attic door and, chiding myself for being a coward, locked it securely and in consequence felt much better.

  When I made my way downstairs to the blue salon I was greeted with rapture by both dog and cat, as if I had been away on a journey of many days. I realized that they were hungry. Simultaneously I realized that I was hungry too, for the excitement of arriving at the house and exploring it had made me forget to prepare myself any luncheon and it was now past six o’clock in the evening. Accompanied by the eager animals, I made my way down to the kitchen to cook some food for us all. For the dog I stewed some scraps of mutton, and a little chicken for the cat, combined with some boiled ric
e and potatoes, they were delighted with this menu. For myself I grilled a large steak with an assortment of vegetables and chose from the cellar an excellent bottle of red wine.

  When this was ready I carried it up to the blue salon and, pulling my chair up to the fire, made myself comfortable and fell to hungrily. Presently the dog and the cat, replete with food, joined me and spread themselves out in front of the fire. I got up and closed the door once they were settled, for there was a cold draught from the big hall which, with its marble floor, was now as cold as an ice-chest. Finishing my food I lay back contentedly in my chair sipping my wine and watching the blue flames run to and fro over the chestnut roots in the fire. I was relaxed and happy and the wine, rich and heavy, was having a soporific effect upon me. I slept for perhaps an hour. Suddenly, I was fully awake with every nerve tingling, as if someone had shouted my name. I listened, but the only sounds were the soft breathing of the sleeping dog and the contented purr of the cat curled up on the chair opposite me. It was so silent that I could hear the faint bubble and crackle of the chestnut roots in the fire. Feeling sure I must have imagined a sound and yet unaccountably uneasy for no discernible reason, I threw another log on the fire and settled myself back in the chair to doze.

  It was then that I glanced across at the mirror opposite me and noticed that, in the reflection, the door to the salon that I had carefully closed was now ajar. Surprised; I twisted round in my chair and looked at the real door, only to find it was securely closed as I had left it. I looked again into the mirror and made sure my eyes — aided by the wine — were not playing me tricks, but sure enough, in the reflection the door appeared to be slightly ajar.

  I was sitting there looking at it and wondering what trick of light and reflection could produce the effect of an open door when the door responsible for the reflection was securely closed, when I noticed something that made me sit up, astonished and uneasy. The door in the reflection was being pushed open still further. I looked at the real door again and saw that it was still firmly shut. Yet its reflection in the mirror was opening, slowly millimetre by millimetre. I sat there watching it, the hair on the nape of my neck stirring. Suddenly, round the edge of the door, on the carpet, there appeared something that at first glance I thought was some sort of caterpillar. It was long, wrinkled and yellowish-white in colour, and at one end it had a long blackened horn. It humped itself up and scrabbled at the surface of the carpet with its horn in a way that I had seen no caterpillar behave. Then, slowly, it retreated behind the door.