Lempriere's Dictionary by Lawrence Norfolk Page B

he had spoken to the minister. The priest had seemed preoccupied when he had walked in, had seemed sceptical when asked for guidance, and scornful when Lemprière had brought himself finally to tell of what he had seen. He had not raised his expectations overmuch.
    The sun shone down. On impulse he made a run at the venerable and ancient tree about which the lane ahead curved respectfully. Without stopping, he shinned up the trunk and swung himself into the cage of branches where he sat and enjoyed the novel prospect the height afforded him. The baying of hounds could be heard faintly from some miles away and the sun broke through the leaves in vivid flashes as the breeze rustled the canopy of leaves which shaded him. A long line of ants was making slow progress along the branch to his left. He perched there and watched them for some minutes. He had not thought of ants as tree-dwellers. What determination was it that marshalled them in so orderly a file? He heard the sound of light footsteps below. Lemprière turning and angling himself to get a view. His hand reached out for a branch to steady himself. Alarums and calls to battle among the ants go unheeded by Lemprière. Fat white insect larvae crawling with ants are exposed briefly as Lemprière’s hand takes hold of the rotted branch and it crumbles like paper beneath his touch.
    The sun was suddenly very bright as Lemprière made an uncontrolled descent from the tree and landed heavily in the dust of the track. As hestruggled to right himself, an unknown hand took firm hold of his collar and helped him to his feet.
    ‘Your liking for the soil befits a farmer, not a scholar,’ said a familiar voice.
    Stumbling and dusting at the same time, her words brought his head up with a start. Juliette smiled her sweetest smile. A strand of jet-black hair had escaped the clutches of her bonnet and lay across her cheek, dimpled. Lemprière was shaken and tongue-tied. How ridiculous he must seem to her, five years her elder at least and behaving like a truant. No wonder she wanted to laugh at him. But she smiled with, not at him. He coughed and managed a smile in return.
    ‘Good morning, Miss Casterleigh.’ That seemed acceptable. A silence followed. They looked at each other. He should try something else, a compliment.
    ‘Your hair….’ And he stopped. Anything he said about her hair would border on the scandalous, so black and thick….
    ‘Oh dear.’ She caught the loose strand and tucked it beneath her bonnet. ‘I would not have noticed,’ running her fingers over her ears, her head tilted back a little.
    ‘No, no I didn’t mean to…. I mean, it looked very nice, at least I think it was very….’ It was all going terribly wrong. Perhaps he should feign madness and run. Madmen could make the most appalling indiscretions and be excused. But Aphrodite, with the experience of two and one millennia behind her, seemed to understand John Lemprière well enough.
    ‘Your fall has saved me a journey,’ she announced brightly. ‘Father has a favour to beg of you….’ And Lemprière listened, as much to the sound of her voice as to the message, while Juliette explained that the Casterleigh library, which had been bought wholesale from a bankrupt estate on the mainland, had a very curious omission.
    ‘Of the several thousand volumes….’ She dropped the figure lightly but saw from the expression on his face that the hook had caught. Several thousands! An almost unimaginable figure in Lemprière’s experience. ‘Of the several thousands of volumes,’ she continued, ‘there are none of those in whose study
you
have distinguished yourself, Doctor Lemprière.’
    ‘Not yet a doctor,’ Lemprière murmured.
    ‘Among them all, the Ancient authors go unrepresented and Father believes this is a matter for concern, you would understand, and that you are the man to redress it.’ She talked on lightly. Her father would be grateful if Lemprière might advise on some suitable