The Meaning of Night Part 31

'Perfectly. Except -'

'Yes?'

'The music, which I found torn to pieces - '

'The piece was, as I think I told you, one of my father's favourites. I played it for the last time that evening, and vowed I would never play it again. It had nothing to do with Mr Langham, and neither did the song I sang tonight.'

'Then I am satisfied,' I said, giving her a grave little bow, 'though I feel I have pushed our friendship too far.'

'We must all do what we feel we must, Mr Glapthorn. But perhaps you will agree to reciprocate, for friendship's sake. I, too, am curious to know something.'

'And what is that?'

'A question you refused to answer when we first met. What was your business with my father?'

I was unprepared both for the nature and the directness of the question, and only an ingrained habit of vigilance in matters of professional and private business prevented me from laying the whole thing before her. But, whether by accident or design, she had made it harder for me to prevaricate, as I'd been able to do when she'd asked me the same question before, though still I made a clumsy attempt to do so.

'As I said before,' I began, 'it is a question of professional confidence -'

'And is a professional confidence more binding than a personal one?' she asked.

I was cornered. She had answered my question concerning her meeting in the Plantation; I had no choice but to respond in kind, though I took refuge in brevity, hoping thereby to answer her as honestly as I could whilst revealing as little as possible.

'Your father wrote to Mr Tredgold on a matter pertaining to the Tansor succession. My princ.i.p.al felt it would not be appropriate for him to meet Mr Carteret in person, as he had requested; and so I was sent instead.'

'A matter pertaining to the succession? Surely that is something that my father would have felt obliged to put before Lord Tansor, not Mr Tredgold.'

'I can make no comment on that,' I replied. 'I can only say that it was your father's express wish that his communication to Mr Tredgold should be kept strictly confidential.'

'But what could possibly have made him act in such a way? He was a most loyal servant to Lord Tansor. It would have been against his deepest principles to go behind his Lordship's back.'

'Miss Carteret,' I said, 'I have already revealed more of the business than my employer would have wished me to do; and indeed I can add nothing more to what I have already said. Your father told me nothing when we met in Stamford, and his untimely death has sealed my ignorance concerning the reason for his letter to my princ.i.p.al. Whatever he wished to reveal to Mr Tredgold, through me, must now remain forever unknown.'

How I hated myself for the lie. She did not deserve to be treated so, as if she was an enemy to my interests, like Phoebus Daunt, whom she appeared to detest almost as much I did. That alone absolved her from all suspicion of duplicity. I had no reason not to trust her, and every reason to draw her into my confidence. She had declared herself my friend, and had shown me courtesy and kindness, and a degree of partiality that I flattered myself betokened incipient affection. She had a right, surely, to claim my trust. Yes, she had a right to know what her father had written in his Deposition, and to understand what it signified for me, and for her. This was not the time, not quite yet; but just a little longer, and then I would put all deceit aside forever.

Had she sensed the falsehood? I could not tell, for nothing disturbed the enigmatic serenity of her face. She appeared to be turning over what I'd said. Then, as if a thought had struck her, she asked: 'Do you suppose it might concern Mr Daunt I mean the matter my father wished to bring to Mr Tredgold's attention?'

'I really cannot say.'

'But you would tell me, if you knew, wouldn't you? As a friend.'

She had moved closer to me and was standing, with one hand resting on the piano-forte, looking directly into my eyes.

'It would be impossible to deny a true friend,' I said.

'Well then, we have balanced the books, Mr Glapthorn.' The smile broadened. 'Confidences have been exchanged, and our debts paid. I am so glad you came. When we next meet, I shall have left here for good. It will be strange, to pa.s.s by the Dower House and know that someone else is living here. But you will come and see me again, I hope, at the great house, or in London?'

'Do you need to ask?' I repeated the question she herself had asked after our walk in Green Park.

'No,' she said, 'I do not think I do.'

37:.

Non sum qualis eram1 _______*

I did not see Miss Carteret the following morning. When Mrs Rowthorn brought up my breakfast she informed me that her mistress had gone out early, though it was a damp and gloomy day for a walk.

'But it's a good sign,' she said, 'that Miss is out in the air again. She's been cooped up in her room for days on end since she came back from London, grieving still for her poor papa, it's plain. But she seemed brighter this morning, and it fair did my heart good to see.'

I had several hours before my train, and so I resolved on a little expedition through the Park, partly to look upon my inheritance once again, and partly in the hope that I might encounter Miss Carteret.

Downstairs, I asked the girl I found scrubbing the front step to run and fetch John Brine.

'Brine,' I asked, 'I have a mind to see the Mausoleum. Is there a key?'

'I can get that for you, sir,' he replied, 'if you'll wait till I ride up to the great house. It won't take more than a quarter of an hour.'

He was as good as his word and I was soon wandering contentedly along sequestered paths through dripping woods and stately avenues of bare-branched limes, stopping from time to time to look out at the great house through a veil of drizzle. From certain vantage points it lay indistinct and spectral, an undifferentiated ma.s.s; from others it gained in definition, its towers and spires rearing sharply up through the mist like the petrified fingers of some t.i.tanic creature. It began to seem suddenly, and curiously, imperative to drink in every separate prospect to the brim; each detail of arch or window, each angle and nuance, appeared infinitely and urgently precious to me, like a man who gazes on the face of the one he loves for the last time.

At length, I found myself standing wet and cold, and splashed with mud before the great double doors of the Mausoleum.

It stood within a dense semi-circle of ivy-clad trees, a substantial domed building in the Graeco-Egyptian style constructed in the year 1722 by the twenty-first Baron, who had plundered freely some might say uncritically from a number of mausolea ill.u.s.trated in Roland Freart's Parallele de l'Architecture Antique et de la Moderne2 for his design.

The building consisted of a large central chamber flanked by three smaller wings and an entrance hall, the whole being shut off by two ma.s.sive and forbidding lead-faced doors carrying representations in relief of six inverted torches, three on each door. Two life-size stone angels on plinths one bearing a wreath, the other an open book guarded the entrance. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out the key Brine had given me and placed it in the inverted escutcheon.

In the central chamber were four or five imposing tombs, whilst set around the walls of the three wings were a succession of arcaded and gated loculi, some presently empty and awaiting their occupants, others closed off by slate panels, each bearing an inscription.

The first to catch my eye was that of Lord Tansor's elder brother, whom Mr Tredgold had mentioned in pa.s.sing in the Temple Gardens: VORTIGERN ARTHUR DUPORT.

Born January 15th 1791 Died 24th September 1807 'This is none other than the house of G.o.d, and this is the gate of Heaven'

Gen. x.x.xvii And then, next to it, was what I had come to see.

I stood in the cold, dank stillness for some minutes contemplating the simple inscription on the slate panel; but not in a mood of reverence and regret, as I had expected, but with a pounding heart. This is what I read: Laura Rose Duport 17961823 Sursum Corda .

The inscription instantly brought to mind the note Mr Carteret had appended to his Deposition. SURSUM CORDA:3 words from the Latin Eucharist, written on a slip of paper sent to him by my mother's friend and companion, Miss Julia Eames. SURSUM CORDA. Try as I might, I could not wrench significance from the words; and yet Mr Carteret had come to a realization about them that he wished to communicate to me.

Musing on this new puzzle, I left the Mausoleum to silence and darkness and took my way down a muddy path to a gravelled bridle-way that ran alongside the Park wall back to the South Gates. In ten minutes, disappointed that I had not encountered Miss Carteret on my ramblings, I arrived back at the Dower House and went into the stable-yard to give the key of the Mausoleum back to John Brine.

'You'll oblige me by getting a duplicate cut, Brine. Discreetly. You understand?'

'I understand, sir.'

'Very good. My compliments to your sister.'

He tipped his cap and quickly pocketed the coins I had placed in his hand.

'Don't expect we'll be seeing you for a while, sir.'

I turned back. 'What? Why do you say that?'

'I only meant that, with Miss going away -'

'Going away? What are you talking about?'

'Beg pardon, sir, I thought you'd have known. She's going to Paris, sir. To spend Christmas with her friend. Won't be back for a month or more.'

Why? Why had she not told me? For a time, as I walked back to Easton to take the Peterborough coach, I felt sick with doubt and suspicion; but as the coach pulled out of the market-square, I grew more rational. She had simply forgotten: nothing more. If our paths had crossed this morning, as we'd both made our separate perambulations of the Park, she would have undoubtedly have told me of her imminent departure. I was sure of it.

Back in Temple-street, I sat at my table and took out a sheet of paper. With a beating heart, I began to write.

1, Temple-street, Whitefriars, London 2nd December, 1853.

Dear Miss Carteret, I write this short note to thank you, most sincerely, for your recent hospitality, & in the hope that you will allow me to antic.i.p.ate an early resumption of our friendship. It is likely, perhaps, that you may be visiting your aunt in the near future; if so, I trust you will not consider it forward of me to entertain the further hope however slight that you might inform me, so that I may arrange to call on you, at the usual time. If you are expecting to remain in Northamptonshire, then perhaps I may with your permission find occasion to visit you in your new accommodation. I wish very much to have your opinion on the work of Monsieur de Lisle.4 The Poemes antiques seem to me admirable in every way. Do you know them?

I remain, your friend, E. GLAPTHORN.

I waited anxiously for her reply. Would she write? What would she say? Two days pa.s.sed, but no word came. I could do nothing but meditate moodily in my rooms, staring out of the window at the leaden sky, or sitting, with an unopened book on my lap, for hours on end in a state of desperate vacancy.

Then, on the third day, a letter came. Reverently, I laid it unopened on my work-table, transfixed by the sight of her handwriting. With my forefinger I slowly traced each letter of the direction, and then pressed the envelope to my face, to drink in the faint residue of her perfume. At last I reached for my paper-knife to release the enclosed sheet of paper from its covering.

A wave of relief and joy swept over me as I read her words.

The Dower House Evenwood, Northamptonshire 5th December, 1853.

Dear Mr Glapthorn,- Your kind letter reached me just in time. Tomorrow I am to leave for Paris, to visit my friend Miss Buisson. I regret very much that I forgot to mention this to you when you were here my excuse is that the pleasure of your company drove all other thoughts from my head, & did not realize the omission until after you had gone.

You must think me a very odd friend for friends, I believe, we have agreed to be to have kept such a thing from you, though I did not do so wilfully. But I will hope for forgiveness, as every sinner must.

I shall not return to England until January or February, but shall think of you often, and hope you will sometimes think of me. And when I return, I promise to send word to you that, you may be a.s.sured, will be something I shall not forget to do. You have shown me such kindness and consideration & provided me with unlooked-for mental solace at this dark time that I should be careless indeed of my own well-being if I were to deny myself the pleasure of seeing you again, as soon as circ.u.mstances permit. I am familiar with some of the work of M. de Lisle, but not the volume you mention I shall take especial care to seek it out while I am in France, so that I may have something sensible to say about it when next we meet. In the meantime I remain, Your affectionate friend, E. CARTERET.

I kissed the paper and fell back in my chair. All was well. All was wonderfully well. Even the prospect of separation from her did not appal me. For was she not my affectionate friend, and would she not be often thinking of me, as I would be thinking of her? And when she returned well, then I trusted to see affectionate friendship blossom quickly into consuming love.

I pa.s.s over the succeeding weeks, for they were bleak and featureless. Mr Tredgold's condition was slow to improve, and during the two or three visits I made to Canterbury I would sit despondently by his bedside, wondering whether the dear gentleman would ever recover from the life-in-death into which he had been so cruelly plunged. But his brother continued to hope in both a professional and a personal capacity for better things to come, and a.s.sured me that he had seen such cases as this end in complete recovery. And thus I would return to Temple-street faintly hopeful that, when I next saw my employer, he would evince some signs of restoration.

But as day succeeded day, my spirits sank lower and lower. London was cold and dismal impenetrable, choking fog for days on end, the streets slimy with mud and grease, the people as yellow and unwholesome-looking as the enveloping miasma. I found I missed the beautiful face of Miss Emily Carteret most desperately, and began to convince myself that she would forget me, despite her a.s.surances. And I was bereft of companionship. Le Grice was away in Scotland, and Bella had been called to the bedside of a sick relative in Italy. I had seen her soon after my return from Evenwood, at a dinner given by Kitty Daley to celebrate her protege's birthday. Of course both my head and my heart were full of Miss Carteret, and yet Bella was as captivating as ever. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to fall in love with her; a man would have been mad not to do so. But I was such a man made mad beyond recourse by Miss Carteret.

At the end of the evening, after the other guests had departed, Bella and I stood looking out into the moonlit garden. As she laid her head on my shoulder, I kissed her perfumed hair.

'You have been most gallant tonight, Eddie,' she whispered. 'Perhaps absence really does make the heart grow fonder.'

'No absence, however long, could make my heart grow fonder of you than it already is,' I replied 'I am glad of it,' said Bella, holding me closer. 'But I wish you would not go away so much. Kitty says I mope like a lovelorn schoolgirl when you are not here, and that sort of thing, you know, is very bad for business. I had to turn away Sir Toby Dancer last week, and he is considered a very fine man by all the other girls. So you see, you must not leave me as you do, or you will have Kitty to answer to.'

'But, dearest, I cannot help it if my own business takes me from you. And besides, if your moping helps me keep you to myself, then perhaps I ought to stay away more often.'

She gave me a sharp pinch on my arm for my impudence and pulled away; but I could see that her chagrin was only pretended, and soon we had retired to her room, where I was allowed to admire, and then to occupy, those sweet perfections of flesh that had been denied to fine Sir Toby Dancer.

I left Blithe Lodge early the next morning, leaving Bella asleep, as was my usual way. She stirred slightly as I kissed her and I stood for a moment looking down at her dark hair spread out in tangled profusion over the pillow. 'Darling Bella,' I whispered. 'If only I could love you as you deserved.' Then I turned away, and left her to her dreams.

Christmas came and went, and the new year of 1854 was a month old before anything of significance occurred.

On the second of February, I was called before Mr Donald Orr. A rather frosty conversation ensued. Mr Orr professed himself to be aware of the fact that I was continuing to draw a salary without, as far as he could tell, doing much to earn it. But as I worked in a personal capacity for the Senior Partner, he could do nothing but look disapprovingly down his thin Scotch nose at me and say he expected Mr Tredgold had had his reasons for employing me. 'You are right,' I said brightly. 'He did.'

'But this is not a situation that can continue indefinitely.' He regarded me somewhat threateningly. 'If Mr Tredgold Heaven forbid should fail to recover, then certain steps will have to be taken concerning the const.i.tution of the firm. In that sad eventuality, Mr Glapthorn, it may prove necessary, regretfully, to dispense with your services, given your then redundant a.s.sociation with the Senior Partner. Perhaps I need say no more.' On this friendly note, the interview was swiftly terminated.

That night I drank heavily, compounding my folly by succ.u.mbing to the temptation of my bottle of Dalby's.5 In my dreams I saw Evenwood, but not as I had dreamed of it as a child, nor as I had seen it in the clear light of day; but at some future time when a great catastrophe had laid waste its former plenteousness and toppled its soaring towers. Only the Mausoleum remained intact amidst the disfiguration and desolation. I saw myself standing once more before the loculus containing the tomb of Laura Tansor, and beating my hands against the slate slab until they bled, desperate to gain access to where she lay; but the slab remains immovable and I turn away to see Lord Tansor, perfectly attired as ever and smiling, standing in the gloom beside me. He speaks: What do you know? Nothing What have you achieved? Nothing Who are you? n.o.body.

And then he throws his head back and laughs until I can stand no more. I reach into my pocket, take out a long knife secreted therein, and plunge it into his heart. When I wake, I am drenched in sweat and my hands will not stop shaking.

Then, as dawn breaks, I believe I understand what Mr Carteret had wanted to tell me.

SURSUM CORDA. The words themselves were of no significance. But what they were graven upon was. For not only did the slab of slate that carried these words shut out the living from the abode of the dead: it also shut in the truth.

38:.

Confessio amantis1 _*

Long days followed, of uncertainty and near despair, interspersed with periods of fevered elation. Was I right, or was I wrong? Did what I had dreamed of finding lie within the tomb of the woman who had given me life, or had I become a deluded obsessionist? And how could I prove my conviction, except by an act of the grossest violation? Backwards and forwards, round and round, hither and thither, my mental turmoil increased. One moment I was triumphantly sure of my ground, the next prostrated by confusion. Abandoning both food and exercise, and resorting more and more to my drops, I lay on my bed trapped in the coils of hideous nightmares, oblivious to both the coming of night and the breaking of the day.

I continued thus until my bottle of Dalby's stood empty by my bed. Incapable as I then was of going out to procure some more, I subsided into a state of stuporous vacancy until I was roused by the gentle prodding of Mrs Grainger, who, finding me in this alarming condition and believing I was in the throes of death, had called upon the a.s.sistance of my neighbour, Fordyce Jukes, who now stood behind her scratching his head.

'This is rum,' I heard him say, 'very rum indeed.'

'Is the gentleman dead, sir?' asked Mrs Grainger plaintively.

'Dead?' said Jukes with a contemptuous click of his fingers. 'Dead? Why of course he's not dead, woman. Can't you see he's breathing? Is there food here? No? Well run and get some. And some strong ale. Be quick now, or we'll all have died before you get back.'

'Should I bring a doctor, sir?'

'Doctor?' Jukes appeared to consider the question at some length. 'No,' he said at last. 'No need for a doctor. No need at all. Come along, come along!'

Though I could see and hear quite clearly, I found I was unable to speak or to move either my head or my limbs, and I remained in this curious suspended state for some time. It seemed that Jukes had left my bedside, for I could hear the familiar creaking of the floor-boards in the sitting-room. Then, some time later, though whether hours or minutes I cannot say, I began to find strength returning and turned my head to look about me.

On the table beside my bed stood an empty plate, with the remains of a chop and a half-eaten potato; beside it was a tankard of ale, partially consumed. Of either Mrs Grainger or Jukes there was no sign.

I concluded that food had been obtained for and partaken by me, and that I had then fallen asleep, though I had no memory of doing either. Slowly, I pulled myself out of bed and, on unsteady feet, dragged myself to the door that led to my sitting-room.

'Mr Glapthorn, sir, so pleased to see you feeling better! Let me a.s.sist you.'

Jukes, who had been sitting in my chair reading a copy of The Times, sprang to his feet and ushered me over to where he had been sitting.

'That's it, take my arm, sir, take my arm. There we are. Goodness me, what a sc.r.a.pe you got yourself in, Mr Glapthorn. I'll tell you what, sir: you appear to have stepped up to death's very front door, sir. But all's well now. Food and rest was what you needed, and what you must take great care to provide yourself with in the future if I may be so bold. I've been sitting with you since yesterday. Oh no, sir -.' He held up his hand and shook his head from side to side in grinning admonishment as I attempted to speak. 'Pray don't say a word. It would be like your good self to thank me for my trouble, but I beg to insist that you will do nothing of the sort. Trouble? Why what possible trouble have I been put to? None whatsoever, I a.s.sure you. A fellow-toiler in the Tredgold vineyard, and neighbour to boot, taken ill? Why, only one course of action possible. Pleasure and the satisfaction of a duty done are ample, though undeserved, reward for the little I have been able to do. And so, Mr Glapthorn, if you are feeling better, I shall leave you to your recuperation, but on the strict understanding strict, mind! that you will take better care yourself hereafter, and that you will allow me to call again tomorrow morning to see how you are.'

And then, having set a cushion at my back, placed a rug over my legs, and thrown a log on the fire, he made a low bow and sidled away, leaving me aghast at the situation I had awoken to find myself in.

I immediately threw off the rug and stumbled over to my work-table. Everything appeared to be exactly as I remembered it; nothing had been moved, I was sure of that. The pen still lay across an unfinished letter to Dr Shakeshaft on the merits of various English translations of Paracelsus2 precisely where I'd left it; the papers tied up in their labelled stacks appeared undisturbed; and the spines of my mother's journals, each one a familiar old friend, were still ranged in the strictly undeviating line in which I always took care to leave them To the cabinet next, containing all my notes and indexed abstracts: nothing out of place, and each drawer shut tight shut. I let out a little sigh of relief.

And yet the thought of Jukes having the liberty of my room continued to rankle, and I began to examine everything again with redoubled care, looking for any sign that he had been through my papers or other possessions. But then I checked myself. Odious as Jukes was, I knew that Mr Tredgold trusted him, so why should I not do the same? These sudden baseless suspicions to which I was prey only served to cloud my judgement, and divert me from my true goal. Thus did I argue myself out of unreason, though I determined that Fordyce Jukes should never be given an opportunity to enter my rooms again. To this end, when he knocked on my door the next morning, as promised, I did not open it to him, but simply told him through the keyhole that I was much improved (which I was) and that I did not require his a.s.sistance.