The Meaning of Night Part 9

'What a question!' I replied. 'Have you?'

'Oh yes. Many times I mean I've kissed the same girl many times. I believe she is the most beautiful girl in the world, and I intend to marry her one day.'

He went on to describe the incomparable virtues of his 'little princess', whom I gathered was a neighbour of his at Evenwood; and soon the sulky reticence he had earlier displayed had been replaced by excited volubility as he spoke of how he intended to be a famous writer and make a great deal of money and live at Evenwood with his princess for ever and a day.

'And Uncle Julius is so kind to me,' he said, as we made our way from Hall back to Long Chamber, in which Collegers were then shut up for the night. 'Mamma says that I am almost like a son to him. He is a very great man, you know.'

A little later he came and stood by my bed.

'What's that you have there, Glyver?' he asked.

I was holding the rosewood box in which my sovereigns had been placed, and which my mother had insisted I take with me to Eton to remind myself of my benefactress, whom I continued to believe had been Miss Lamb.

'It's nothing,' I replied. 'Just a box.'

'I've seen that before,' he said, pointing to the lid. 'What is it?'

'It's called a coat of arms,' I replied. 'It's only a decoration, nothing more.'

He continued to stare at the box for some moments before returning to his own bed. Later, in the darkness he whispered: 'I say, Glyver, have you ever been to Evenwood?'

'Of course not,' I whispered back crossly. 'Go to sleep. I'm tired.'

Thus I became the friend and ally of Phoebus Rainsford Daunt his only friend and ally, indeed, for he showed no inclination to seek out any other. The ways of the School appeared to mystify and disgust him in equal measure, making him the inevitable target of the natural vindictiveness of his fellows. He should have been well able to withstand such a.s.saults, being, as I say, a well-made boy, even strong in his way; but he was completely disinclined to offer up any physical resistance to his tormentors whatsoever, and it often fell to me to rescue him from real harm, as when he was set upon, soon after our arrival in Long Chamber, and a.s.sailed with pins in the initiatory operation known as 'p.r.i.c.king for Sheriff'. New Collegers were expected to display cheerfulness and equanimity in the face of such ordeals, and even embrace them merrily. But I fear that Daunt, K.S., was somewhat girlishly vocal in his complaints, in consequence of which he attracted even more unwelcome attention from that cla.s.s of boy who is ever ready and eager to make the lives of his compatriots thoroughly miserable. I myself was never subjected to such troubles after I shut the head of one of the chief tormentors, a grinning oaf by the name of Shillito, in the door to Long Chamber, refusing to release him until his face had near turned blue. I had declined to take part in some piece of horseplay and he had tipped a jug of cold water over me. He did not do it again. Mine is not a forgiving nature.

Daunt calls it 'thralldom', this friendship of ours; but it was a strange kind of slavery in which no submission was asked of the enslaved. He was free to do what he wished, make friends with whom he chose; but he did not. He seemed willingly to embrace his dependent state, despite all I could do to encourage him to find wings of his own.

But if he was weak in this, he was strong in other ways. I found him an able and lively debater on topics of which I was surprised he had any knowledge all, and soon I began to discover an elasticity of mind and comprehension, and also a sort of energetic cunning, that sat strangely with the strain of moping dullness that so often characterized his company.

I saw, too, the solid academic grounding he had received under his father; but with this went a fatal inability to fix the mental eye steadily on its object. He would garner quickly and move on. I, too, was hungry to learn whatever I could of man and the world, but my haste was not self-defeating speed. He a.s.sembled bright impressive surfaces of knowledge admirably, but the inner structures that would keep the building in place were flimsy, and constantly shifting. He was adaptable, fluid, accommodating; always absorbent, never certain or definitive. I sought to know and to comprehend; he sought only to acquire. His genius for such I account it consisted in an ability to shine back the brilliance of others, but in a way that, by some alchemical trans.m.u.tation, served to illuminate and enlarge himself. These qualities did not hold him back in his work: he was generally accounted one of the School's best scholars; but they showed me gifted, as I like to think, with finer instincts, like his own father his true measure.

And so we proceeded together through the School, and began to attain a measure of seniority. He had thrown off his former timidities, and now often distinguished himself on the Playing-fields and on the River. I did not actively dislike him, but his constant presence became tiresome. He simply would not leave me be, and his insistent clinging to my company, to the detriment of my other friendships, began at last to arouse real annoyance in me. I tried several times to extricate myself from him, without much success, until at last I was forced to tell him to his face that I found his company wearisome, and that I had other friends I liked better. This, I suppose, partly accounts for the accusation of 'coldness' from me, though I continued, against my better judgment, to give freely of my time to him when I could, even when I was racking myself hard with a view to gaining the Newcastle9 on leaving the School.

But then came an event that showed me Phoebus Rainsford Daunt in his true colours, and brought about my departure from the School. He mentions this crisis, briefly, and with estimable tact, in the account quoted earlier. I laughed out loud when I read it. Judge for yourself the trustworthiness of our hero as I now set matters before you in their true light.

12:.

Pulvis et umbra1 __________________________________________________________________________________.

One Wednesday afternoon, in the autumn of 1836, as I was returning from Windsor with a small group of companions, to which Daunt had attached himself, I was summoned to see the Head Master, Dr Hawtrey, in Upper School.2 'I believe you have been given exceptional permission to use the Fellows' Library?' he asked.

The Library was strictly out of bounds to all boys; but I confirmed that I had been given the key by one of the Fellows, the Reverend Thomas Carter, whose pupil I had been when he was Lower Master. Mr Carter, having read several papers I had written, was sympathetic to my enthusiastic interest in bibliographical matters, and so had allowed me the temporary freedom of the Library to gather material for a new paper I was writing on the history and character of the collection.

'And you have made use of this privilege recently?'

I began to feel uncomfortable at the questioning, but as I knew I had committed no misdemeanour, and because I knew that Dr Hawtrey was also a distinguished bibliophile, I unhesitatingly said that I had been there the previous afternoon, making notes on Gesner's Bibliotheca Universalis (Zurich, 1545).

'And you were alone?'

'Quite alone.'

'And when did you return the key?'

I replied that normally I would have taken the key straight back to Mr Carter, but that yesterday I had gone out on the river with Le Grice, leaving the key in his boarding house in which I also had use of a room until we returned.

'So when you came off the river, you took the key back to Mr Carter?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Mr Glyver, I have to tell you that I have received a serious allegation against you. According to information I have been given, I have reason to believe that you have taken a most valuable item from the Library without permission, with the intention of keeping it.'

I could hardly believe my ears, and my utter surprise must have been only too evident to the Head Master, for he signalled me to sit down and waited until I had composed myself before speaking again.

'The item in question is the Udall. You know it, perhaps?'

Naturally I knew it: the unique copy, circa 1566, of Ralph Roister Doister, one of the earliest of English comedies, by Nicholas Udall, a former Head Master of the School. I had examined it only recently, in the course of my researches. A volume of exceptional rarity and value.

'We know it was in the library on Tuesday morning, because it was seen by one of the Fellows. It is not there now.'

'I a.s.sure you, sir, I know nothing of this. I cannot understand '

'Then you will have no objection if we examine your belongings?'

I replied without hesitation, and was soon following Dr Hawtrey's gowned figure down the stairs and out into School Yard. A few minutes later we were in the room in Le Grice's boarding house, where I kept my personal effects and took my breakfast. On opening my trunk, I immediately saw that it was not as I had left it. Beneath a jumble of clothes could plainly be seen the brown calf binding of the missing book.

'Do you still deny ignorance of this matter, Mr Glyver?'

Before I could reply, Dr Hawtrey had retrieved the book and ordered me to follow him back to Upper School, where I found Mr Carter and the Vice-Provost the Provost being absent on business in London awaiting us.

I was questioned at some length for over half an hour, during which I felt my anger rising. It was clear that I had been the victim of some mean conspiracy to destroy my reputation and bring shame and worse the loss of my scholarship and consequent expulsion upon my head. Was it possible? They had called me 'the learned boy' when I had first come to the School, whilst my prowess at the Wall had been the object of general acclaim. Was I not liked and admired by everyone, boys and masters alike? Yet someone had set out to bring me down jealous, no doubt, of my abilities and my standing.

I could hear the blood banging louder and louder in my ears as rage welled up, like some scalding volcanic plume, from the depths of my being. At last I could stand it no longer. 'Sir,' I cried out, breaking in on the questioning. 'I have not deserved this, indeed I have not! Can you not see how ridiculous, how risible, this charge is, how worthy of your contempt? I beg you to consider: what possible reason could I have for perpetrating such an act? It would have been the height of folly. Do you suppose I am such a fool as to attempt to steal such a celebrated item? Only an ignoramus would believe that a book of this rarity could be easily disposed of and by a mere schoolboy without suspicion being aroused. Or perhaps you think I intended to keep the book for myself, which is equally absurd. Discovery would have been inevitable. No, you have been gravely deceived, gentlemen, and I have been the object of a vicious calumny.'

I must have made an alarming, even intimidating, figure as I fumed and ranted, heedless of the consequences. But the genuineness of my pa.s.sion was only too evident, and I thought I could see in Dr Hawtrey's face that the tide might be turning in my favour.

For some minutes more, I continued to protest my innocence most vehemently, as well as deriding the ludicrous nature of the charge. At last, Dr Hawtrey signed for me to resume my seat and held a whispered consultation with his two colleagues.

'If you are innocent, as you claim,' he said, 'then it follows that someone else was responsible for removing the Udall quarto from the Library, and for attempting to implicate you as the thief. You say the key was in your room. How long were you on the river for?'

'No more than an hour. The wind was exceptionally keen.'

There was a further consultation.

'We shall make further enquiries,' said Dr Hawtrey, gravely. 'For the moment, you are free to go. You will not, however, be allowed to use the Library, and you are forbidden to go up town until further notice. Is that clear?'

It was clear enough, but I was not finished with them. I wanted to know by what means they had been lead to suspect me, and how they knew where to look for the missing book.

'A note was pa.s.sed under my door last night,' replied Dr Hawtrey.

'A note? Then it will be a simple thing to ident.i.ty the writer, whom you must of course see is the person who stole the Udall quarto.'

'I think not,' returned the Head Master. 'The note was written in Greek capitals of such regularity that they had clearly been traced, which will make it virtually impossible to identify the individual responsible. It took a little time to decipher, but it conveyed its message most effectively.'

The next morning, I was again summoned to see Dr Hawtrey. He immediately informed me that a witness had come forward, who swore that he had seen me placing the book in my trunk.

There have been few times in my life when I have been lost for words; but on this occasion, I was momentarily struck dumb, utterly unable to believe what was being said to me. When I came back to myself, I angrily asked for the name of the witness.

'You cannot expect me to give you that,' said Dr Hawtrey.

'Whoever this witness is, he is lying!' I cried. 'As I said before, I have been the victim of some plot. It is obvious, surely, that your witness must also be the thief.'

Dr Hawtrey shook his head.

'The witness is of impeccable character; and there is no doubt at all that he can have had no motive for doing you harm, and no reason to lie. Furthermore, his testimony has now been corroborated by another boy.'

Knowing the impossibility that any witness, let alone two, could exist to a crime I did not commit, I continued to argue as fiercely as I could for my innocence, and for what I considered to be the true state of the case: that I had been the object of a deliberate and vicious conspiracy. But it was useless. Motive and opportunity were already against me; and now came corroborated testimony, sealing my fate. My arguments were dismissed, and the verdict p.r.o.nounced. My scholarship was to be terminated and I was requested to leave the School immediately, using any public pretence I wished. If I went without protest, then no further action would be taken against me, and the matter would be closed. If not, then I would face formal expulsion and public disgrace.

I thought of my poor mother, alone in the parlour at home, filling page after page for Mr Colburn; and then of Miss Lamb, my presumed benefactress, whose generosity had brought me here. For their sakes, I saw that I must go quietly, though I knew I was innocent. And so I capitulated, with a heavy heart, and with rage boiling and bubbling inside me. Dr Hawtrey was kind enough to say how sorry he was to see me leave under such distressing circ.u.mstances, for I had been widely regarded as one of the School's leading scholars, and likely to gain a Fellowship at the University in due course. He also tried to mitigate the immediate effects of my sentence by kindly suggesting that I should stay with one of the Fellows, who had a house a few miles from Eton, until my mother was informed, and arrangements could be made for me to be fetched. I said that I did not wish him to write to my mother, requesting that I be allowed to give her my own account of why I would not be returning to Eton. After some thought, Dr Hawtrey agreed. We shook hands, without speaking, and my school days were over.

As I was making my way to Le Grice's boarding-house, I came upon Daunt in School Yard, standing with one of his new companions none other than Shillito, whose fat head I had once shut in the door. (You will observe that, in his published recollections, Daunt stated, quite categorically, that he never saw me again after the evening we returned from attending Evensong in St George's Chapel. That was a deliberate falsehood, as I shall now reveal.) 'Been to see the Head Master again?' he called. Shillito gave a little sneer, and I saw straight away how things were. Daunt had contrived to take the key and remove the book from the Library; Daunt had pa.s.sed the note under Dr Hawtrey's door; Daunt had then come forward as an unwilling witness I expect he put on a good show, playing also, no doubt, on his father's acquaintance with the Head Master before enlisting the help of Shillito in his plot. It was also clear why Dr Hawtrey had been so confident in the probity of his main witness. He thought we were still friends, you see; that we were still the inseperable companions we had once been. He was not aware that I'd broken away from him, and so of course he could not believe that my best friend in the school could possibly bear false witness against me.

'Glyver's a great one for getting his nose into old books,' I heard Daunt say to Shillito, as if he were speaking on my behalf. 'My Pa's the same. He and the Head belong to a club for such people.3 I expect Glyver's been talking to the Head about some old book or other. Isn't that right, Glyver?'

He looked at me, coolly, insolently, and in that look was concentrated all the petty envy he harboured against me, and the spiteful desire to make me pay for turning my back on him in favour of other, and more congenial, companions. It was all written on his face, and in the att.i.tude of casual defiance he had adopted, like one who believes he has unequivocally demonstrated his power over another.

'Care for a walk up town?' he then asked. Shillito threw out another contemptuous grin.

'Not today,' I replied, with a smile. 'I have work to do.'

My apparent collectedness appeared to unsettle him, and I saw that his mouth had tightened.

'Is that all you can say?' he asked, blinking a little.

'Nothing else occurs to me. But wait. There is something.' I drew closer, interposing myself between Daunt and his acolyte. 'Revenge has a long memory,' I whispered into his ear. 'A maxim you might wish to ponder. Good-bye, Daunt.'

In a moment, I had gone. I did not need to look back. I knew I would see him again.

When I recounted this episode to Le Grice, over twenty years later in the comfort of Mivart's, I experienced again the maddening anger that had consumed me on that day. There was now no chance that I would proceed to Cambridge, and my dream of a Fellowship would remain forever unrealized.

'So it was Daunt,' said Le Grice, after giving a little whistle of surprise. 'You've kept that d.a.m.ned close.Why did you never tell me?' He seemed rather put out that I hadn't confided in him; and in truth it now seemed absurd to me that I had never thought to do so.

'I should have done,' I conceded. 'I see that now. I'd lost everything: my scholarship, my reputation; above all, my future. And it was all because of Daunt. I wished to make him pay, but in my own time and in my own way. But then one thing happened, then another, and the opportunity never came. And once you get into the habit of secrecy, it becomes harder and harder to break it even for your closest friend.'

'But why the devil is he trying so hard to find you now?' asked Le Grice, a little pacified by my words. 'Unless, perhaps, he wishes to make amends . . .'

I gave a hollow little laugh, 'A little dinner a deux? Contrite apologies and regret for blackening my name and destroying my prospects? I hardly think so. But you must know a little more about our old schoolfellow before you can understand why I do not think that remorse for what he did is the reason for Daunt's present desire to find me.'

'In that case,' said Le Grice, 'let's settle up and decamp to Albany. We can put our feet up, and you can talk away till dawn.'

Once settled in Le Grice's comfortable sitting-roon, before a blazing fire, I continued with my story.

The journey to Sandchurch was made in the company of Tom Grexby, who had travelled up to Eton instantly on receipt of my letter. I met him at the Christopher,4 but, before I had a chance to speak, he had taken me aside to give me grave news: my mother had been taken ill, and it was not expected that she would recover.

Shock had been piled on shock, heaping Pelion on Ossa.5 To lose so much, in so brief a s.p.a.ce! I did not weep I could not weep. I could only stare, wordlessly, as if I had suddenly found myself in some strange desert landscape, devoid of any familiar landmark. Taking my arm, Tom led me out into the yard, from where we walked slowly down the High Street to Barnes Pool Bridge.

In my letter to him, I had held back the circ.u.mstances that necessitated my leaving Eton; but as we reached the bridge, having walked most of the way from the Christopher in silence, I laid the matter out before him, though without revealing that I knew the name of the person who had betrayed me.

'My dear fellow!' he cried, 'this cannot stand. You are innocent. No, no, this must not be allowed.'

'But I cannot prove my innocence,' I said, still in a kind of daze, 'and both circ.u.mstance and testimony appear to prove my guilt. No, Tom. I must accept it, and I beg you to do the same.'

At last he reluctantly agreed that he would take no steps on my behalf, and we walked back to prepare for our jouney to Sandchurch.

When we arrived at the front door of the little house on the cliff-top, late that evening, we were met by Dr Penny. 'I'm afraid you've come too late, Edward,' he said. 'She's gone.'

Her last book, Petrus, had only recently been published, and she had been about to embark on yet another romance for Mr Colburn the first few pages still lay on the floor by her bed, where they had fallen from her hand. The years of unremitting toil had finally taken their toll, and I could not help feeling glad that her labours were over. Her once beautiful heart-shaped face was lined and sunken, and her hair of which she had been so proud in her youth was now thin and grey. I placed a parting kiss on her cold forehead and then sat by her side until morning, wrapped in the oppressive silence of death and despair.

She had been my only parent, and my sole provider until the generosity of my benefactress brought some relief to our circ.u.mstances; yet even then she had continued to write, with the same determination, day after day. What had driven her, if not love? What had sustained her, if not love? My dearest mother no, more than a mother: the best of friends and the wisest of counsellors, who had given me the greatest of gifts: to be myself.

I would see her no more, bent over her work-table; nor sit with her, excitedly unwrapping her latest production before we placed it proudly on the shelf made by Billick from the timbers of a French man-of-war shattered at Trafalgar with all the others. She would tell me no more stories, and would never listen again, with that sweet half-smile, as I read to her from Les milles et une nuits. She had gone, and the world seemed as cold and dark as the room in which she now lay.

We buried her in the church-yard overlooking the sea at Sandchurch, next to her errant husband, the little-lamented Captain. Her death provided a reason for my returning home from school that no one questioned. Only Tom knew the truth, and to him I now turned.

Mr Byam More, my only surviving relative, offered to become my guardian; but, firmly disinclined as I was to remove to the West Country, it was agreed that Tom would temporarily stand in loco parentis, and that I would be placed under his educational care once again whilst remaining alone but for Beth and old Billick in the house at Sandchurch, which had been left to me by my mother. The fifty sovereigns I had insisted that she should keep as her own had been laid out on a number of unavoidable expenses; and so it became necessary to apply to Mr More, as my trustee, to release some of my remaining capital in order to keep things running along. In the meantime, I sought to accustom myself to the curious sensation of being master in my own house, at the age of seventeen. To be there alone, without my mother, gave me the most curious sensation at first, as if I half-expected to meet her on the stairs, or see her walking down the garden path when I looked out from my bedroom window. Sometimes, at night, I became certain that I could hear her moving around in the parlour. I would hold my breath, heart beating fast, straining to make out what I'd heard whether it was indeed the sound of her poor ghost, unable to find rest from pressing pen to paper, pulling up her chair to the great work-table to take up some eternally unfinished work, or simply the timbers of the old house creaking and straining as the wind howled in from the sea.

I lived at Sandchurch, tutored by Tom, and under his informal guardianship, until the autumn of 1838. My former schoolfellows, including Phoebus Daunt, were preparing to leave Eton for the Varsity, and I too wished to continue my studies at some suitable seat of learning. Thus it was that, at Tom's suggestion, I went to Heidelberg, where I enrolled at the University to take a number of cla.s.ses, and indulged myself to the full in the pursuit of my many interests. My intellectual ambitions had been frustrated by having to leave school prematurely, thus forfeiting the chance of proceeding to Cambridge and a Fellowship there; and so, though I did not intend to take a degree, I determined to use the time as well as I could.

I attended lectures and read like a perfect fiend, by day and by night: philosophy, ethics, jurisprudence, rhetoric, logic, cosmology I fairly guzzled them down, like a man dying of thirst. Then I would run furiously back to the favourite subjects of my early youth the old alchemical texts, the Rosicrucian teachings, and the ancient Greek Mysteries and, through one of the professors at the University, I imbibed a new pa.s.sion for the archaeology of the ancient seats of civilization, a.s.syria, Babylonia, and Chaldea. Then I would be eager to search out paintings by the old German Masters in lonely forest-wrapped castles, or would travel on a whim all over the region to hear some local virtuoso play Buxtehude on an early eighteenth-century organ, or a village choir sing a Bach chorale in some white-painted country church. I would haunt the bookshops of the old German towns, unearthing glowing rarities prayer-books, missals, illuminated ma.n.u.scripts from the court of Burgundy, and other bibliographical treasures of which I had knowledge but had never, until now, seen. For I was mad to see, to hear, to know!

That was my golden time (Phoebus Daunt is welcome to his): in particular, the bliss of tracing the track of the Philosophenweg6 with an armful of books on a bright summer's morning; to find my private spot high above the Neckar, from where I could gaze down on the Heiliggeist Church and the Old Bridge through the clear new air; and then to lie back on soft gra.s.s beneath sun-seeped branches with my books and my dreams, with swallows wheeling against clouds that had been painted by Poussin, and an infinity of blue above me.

DOWN comes the great unstoppable hammer. Clang! Clang!

The links are forged; the chain runs out a little further.

He and I. Closer, ever closer, until we are fast bound together.1 13:.

Omnia mutantur1 _______________________________________________________________________.

A man of knowledge increaseth strength, says the proverb;2 and this saying I proved to be true, as I daily increased my store of understanding in the subjects to which I applied myself. I experienced a dizzying feeling of expanding power in my mental and physical capabilities, until I could conceive of no subject too abstruse for my apprehension to grasp, and no task too great for my ability to accomplish.

And yet I suffered continually from bouts of gnawing rage, which often threatened to undermine this swelling self-confidence. A fearful black humour would descend upon me without warning, even on the brightest of days, when the world about me was fresh and new and alive with flowers and hope. And then I would shut out the light and pace about my room like a caged beast, for hours on end, eaten up by only one thought.

How would I be revenged? I turned the question over and over in my mind, imagining the ways in which Phoebus Daunt might be made to feel what I had felt, and the means by which his hopes could be destroyed. He was at Cambridge now, as I knew from Le Grice, both having taken their places at our School's sister foundation, King's College. Daunt, as expected, had secured the Newcastle, and was received at King's with that expectation that naturally surrounds the holder of such a prize. Certainly he continued to display real ability in his studies, but again with that indiscipline and smartness that would have aroused the severe displeasure of his meticulous father. The Rector's old friend, Dr Pa.s.singham of Trinity, did his best to maintain a paternalistic eye on the young man's doings and would, from time to time, communicate discreet pastoral reports on his progress back to Northamptonshire. It was not long before such reports became troublesome to Dr Daunt.

From Le Grice, I received accounts of a number of incidents witnessed by him that testify to a distinct shabbiness of character, and which luridly corroborate the more sober notes of concern that flowed, with increasing frequency, between the Master's Lodge at Trinity and Evenwood Rectory.

The first might perhaps be seen as an undergraduate prank (though it was not so construed by his father when it was reported to him). On being good-humouredly reprimanded by the Dean of the College, for some trivial misdemeanour, young Daunt placed a game hamper before that gentleman's door, directed to him 'With Mr Daunt's compliments'. When opened, the hamper was found to contain a dead cat, with an escort of five skinned rats. On being arraigned and questioned, Daunt coolly maintained his innocence, arguing that he would hardly have affixed his own name to the hamper had he been the culprit. And so he was released with due apology.