The Meaning of Night

by Michael Cox

  On a June evening in the year 1820, my mother brought me home to Dorset, tucked up in a plaid blanket and laid on her lap, up the long dusty road that leads from the church to the little white-painted house on the cliff-top. Naturally, she received heartfelt sympathy from her friends and neighbours in Sandchurch. To return husbandless, and with a fatherless child! All about the village, heads could not stop shaking in disbelief at the double calamity. The general commiseration was received by my mother with genuine gratitude, for the sudden death of the Captain had been a severe shock to her, despite his inadequacies as a husband.

  All these things I came to know much later, after my mother’s death. I pass now to my own memories of my childhood at Sandchurch.

  We lived quietly enough – my mother and I, Beth, and Billick, a grizzled old salt, who chopped wood, tended the garden, and drove the trap. The house faced south across a stretch of soft turf towards the Channel, and from my earliest years the strongest memory I have is of the sound of waves and wind, as I lay in my cradle under the apple-tree in the front garden, or in my room, with its little round window set above the porch.

  We had few visitors. Mr Byam More, my mother’s uncle, would come down from Somerset two or three times a year. I also have a clear memory of a pale, sad-eyed lady called Miss Lamb, who sat talking quietly with my mother whilst I played on the rug before the parlour fire, and who reached down to stroke my hair, and ran her fingers across my cheek, in a most gentle and affecting way. I can recall it still.

  For a period of my childhood, my mother suffered from severe depression of spirits, which I now know was caused by the death of her childhood friend, Laura, Lady Tansor, whose name was also unknown to me until after my mother’s death. Her Ladyship (as I later learned) had discreetly supported my mother with little gifts of her own money, and other considerations. But when she died, these payments ceased, and things went hard for Mamma, the Captain’s paltry legacy to her having long since been exhausted; but she determined that she would do all in her power to maintain us both, for as long as possible, in the house at Sandchurch.

  And so it came about that the publisher, Mr Colburn, received on his desk in New Burlington-street a brown-paper package containing Edith; or, The Last of the Fitzalans, the first work of fiction from the pen of a lady living on the Dorset coast. The covering letter sent Mr Colburn her very best compliments, and requested a professional opinion on the work.

  Mr Colburn duly replied to the lady with a courteous two-page critique of its merits and demerits, and concluded by saying that he would be happy to arrange for publication, though on terms that provided for my mother’s contributing towards the costs. This proposal she accepted, using money with which she could ill afford to speculate; but the venture was successful, and Mr Colburn came back gratifyingly quickly with a request for a successor, on much improved terms.

  So began my mother’s literary career, which continued uninterruptedly for over ten years, until her death. Though the income derived from her literary efforts kept us safe and secure, the effort involved was prodigious, and the effects on my mother’s constitution were only too apparent to me as I grew older and observed her slight hunched form forever bent over the big square table that served her for a desk. Sometimes, when I entered the room, she would not even look up, but would speak gently to me as she continued to write, her face close to the paper. ‘What is it, Eddie? Tell Mamma quickly, dear.’ And I would say what I wanted, and she would tell me to ask Beth – and off I would go, back to the concerns of my own world, leaving her to scratch away in hers.

  At the age of six, or thereabouts, I was put into the pedagogic care of Thomas Grexby. When I joined it, Tom’s little school consisted of himself, a plump, blank-faced boy called Cooper, who appeared to find even the most elementary branches of learning deeply mystifying, and me. Master Cooper was set exercises in basic schooling that required him to pass long hours on his own in strenuous concentration, tongue lolling out with the effort, leaving Tom and me to read and talk together. I made rapid progress, for Tom was an excellent teacher, and I was exceedingly eager to learn.

  Under Tom’s care I quickly mastered my reading, writing, and numbers; and, on the firm foundations thus laid down, he encouraged me to build according to my own inclinations. Every subject, and every topic within every subject, to which Tom introduced me assailed me with a keen hunger to know more. In this way, my mind began to fill up with prodigious amounts of undigested information on every conceivable topic, from the principles of Archimedes to the date of the creation of the world according to Archbishop Ussher.*

  Gradually, however, Tom began to impose some rigour on this habit of mental acquisitiveness. I settled down to gain a thorough mastery of the Greek and Latin tongues, as well as a solid grounding in history, and the main vernacular literatures of Europe. Tom was also a dedicated bibliophile, though his attempts to assemble a collection of fine editions of his own were severely curtailed by his always limited means. Still, his knowledge and connoisseurship in this area were considerable, and it was from him that I learned about incunabula and colophons, bindings and dentelles, editions and issues, and all the other minutiae beloved of the bibliographical scholar.

  And so things went on until I reached the age of twelve, at which point my life changed.

  On the day of my twelfth birthday, in March 1832, I came down to breakfast to find my mother sitting at her work-table with a wooden box in her hands.

  ‘Happy birthday, Eddie.’ She smiled. ‘Come and kiss me.’

  I did so most willingly, for I had seen little of her in recent days as she struggled to finish yet another work for Mr Colburn and his increasingly demanding deadlines.

  ‘This is for you, Eddie,’ she said quietly, holding out the box.

  It was deep, hinged, about nine inches square, and made of a rich dark wood, with a band of lighter wood running round an inch or so above the base. The lid had raised angled sides and was inlaid on one of the faces with a coat of arms. Two little brass handles were set on each side, and on the front face was a shield-shaped escutcheon. For several years it stood on my mantel-piece in Temple-street.

  ‘Open it,’ my mother said gently.

  Inside nestled two soft leather purses, each containing a large quantity of gold coins. I tumbled them out onto the table. They amounted to two hundred sovereigns.*

  Naturally, I could not comprehend how so much money could suddenly find its way to us in this way, when my mother’s poor drawn face told so eloquently of what necessity required her to do, constantly and with no prospect of cessation, in order to keep our little family safe from want.

  ‘Where has all this money come from?’ I asked in astonishment. ‘Mamma, is it yours?’

  ‘No, my love,’ my mother replied, ‘it is yours, to do with as you like. A present from an old, old friend, who loved you very much, but who will never see you again. She wished for this to be given to you, so that you may know that she will think of you always.’

  Now, the only friend of my mother’s that I could think of was sad-eyed Miss Lamb; and so for some years I cherished the belief, never contradicted by my mother, that she had been my benefactress. Unsure though I was of the source of my good fortune, however, the weight of the coins, as they lay in my cupped hands, had a powerful effect, for I instantly saw that they would allow me to set my mother free from her literary labours. But she refused to countenance such a thing, and with an affronted resoluteness that I had never seen in her before. After some discussion, it was agreed that the money, except for fifty sovereigns, which I insisted that she must have, would be placed into the hands of her Uncle More, for investment in such a way as he would see fit to produce profit on the sum, until I attained my majority.

  ‘There is more, Eddie,’ she said.

  I was to go to school – to a real school, away from Sandchurch. This special friend of my mother’s, who had loved me very much, had wished for me to be educated as a foundation boy at Eton Colleg
e on reaching the age of twelve, and had made arrangements to this effect. That time had now arrived. When the summer was over, and the leaves had fallen from the chestnut-tree by the front gate, if I had succeeded in the examination, I would become a Scholar of the King’s College of Our Lady of Eton Beside Windsor, founded by that most devout and unworldly of English monarchs, Henry VI. At first, I did not well know how I should contemplate this momentous change, either for good or ill; but Tom Grexby soon put me right. It was the very best thing that could have happened, he said, and he knew – no one better – that it would be the making of me.

  ‘Hold fast, Ned,’ he said, ‘to what we have done together, and go forward to greater things. Your life, your true life, is not here,’ – he pointed to his breast and to the heart beating within it —‘but here,’ pointing now to his head. ‘There is your kingdom,’ he said, ‘and it is yours to extend and enrich as you please, to the ends of the earth.’

  The scholarship examination, taken that July, held no terrors for me, and a letter came soon afterwards with the gratifying intelligence that I had been placed first on the list. Tom and I spent the remainder of the summer reading hard together, and taking long walks along the cliffs in deep conversation about the subjects we both loved. And then the day came; Billick brought the trap round to the front gate, my cases were stowed, and I climbed up beside him. Tom had walked up from the village to see me off and give me a gift to take with me: a fine copy of Glanvill’s Saducismus Triumphatus.* I stared in disbelieving delight to hold in my hands a volume that I had longed to read ever since Tom had set me to consider Hamlet’s celebrated contention to Horatio, on witnessing the appearance of his father’s ghost, that heaven and earth contain more things than we can dream of.*

  ‘A little addition to your philosophical library,’ he said, smiling. ‘But don’t tell your mamma – she might think I am corrupting your young mind. And be prepared, now, to be tested on it when you come home.’ At which he took my hand and shook it hard – the first time anyone had done such a thing. It impressed me strongly that I was no longer a child, but had become a man amongst men.

  When all was ready, we waited in the bright and windy sunshine for my mother to come out from the house. When she did, I noticed that she was carrying something, which I soon saw was the box that had contained the two hundred sovereigns from her friend.

  ‘Take this, Eddie, to remind you of the dear lady who has made this possible. I know you will not let her down, and that you will work hard at your lessons, and become a very great scholar. You will write, won’t you, as soon as you can? And always remember that you are your mamma’s best boy.’

  And then she took my hand, but she did not shake it, as Tom had done, but drew it to her lips and kissed it.

  To Bella, I now told the story of my time as an Eton Colleger; but as it is necessary for the reader of these confessions to be apprised, in some detail, of the events relating to my time at the school, in particular the manner of my leaving it, I propose to describe them at a more suitable place in my narrative, together with the story of my life in the immediately succeeding years.

  Bella listened attentively, occasionally getting up to walk over to the window as I spoke. When I had finished, she sat in thought for a moment.

  ‘You have said little concerning your present employment,’ she said suddenly. ‘Perhaps the answer lies there. I confess that I have never been quite clear in my mind what your duties are at Tredgolds.’

  ‘As I have said before, I work in a private capacity for the Senior Partner.’

  ‘You will forgive me, Eddie, if I say that your answer seems a little evasive.’

  ‘Dearest, you must understand that there are professional confidences involved, which do not permit me to say more. But I assure you that the firm is highly respected, and that my duties there – purely of an advisory nature – can have no bearing on the present matter.’

  ‘But how can you be sure?’

  Her persistence gave me the opportunity that I had been looking for. I got up and began to walk around, as if gripped by some sudden realization.

  ‘Perhaps you are right,’ I said at last. ‘It may be that I have overlooked the possibility of some antagonism arising from my work.’

  I continued to pace the floor, until at last she came over to where I was standing.

  ‘Eddie, what is the matter? You look so strangely.’

  She gripped my hand imploringly.

  It was cruel of me to let her suffer in this way; but as I could not tell her the truth, I had no choice but to let her think that the cause of the note lay in some matter connected with my employment. And so I resorted to the lie direct.

  ‘There is a man,’ I said at last, ‘a client of the firm’s, who blames me for the failure of a case he has recently brought, on which the firm advised.’

  ‘And do you think this man could have written the note?’

  ‘It is possible.’

  ‘But for what purpose? And the note itself – why was it sent to me? And why does it say that you are not what you seem?’

  I told her that the man I suspected of writing the note was rich and powerful, but of notorious reputation; that he might have no other design than to sow discord between us, to pay me back for my perceived part in the failure of his suit. She considered this for a moment, and then shook her head.

  ‘It was sent to me! How did he know about me, or where I lived?’

  ‘Perhaps he has set someone to follow me,’ I ventured. At this, her whole body stiffened, and she gave a little gasp.

  ‘Am I in danger, then?’

  This, I said, was very unlikely, though I begged her not to go out again without the protection of Mr Braithwaite.

  We continued to talk, as midnight came and went. I promised Bella that I would find out the truth and, if my suspicions proved correct, bring charges against the man, assuring her over and over that the implications of the note were false. But she remained visibly agitated, and it was plain that I had succeeded only in making the situation worse by my clumsy fabrication. We lay together on the bed, fully clothed, for an hour or so, saying nothing. Then, just before first light, she asked me to take her back to St John’s Wood.

  We slipped out of the side door of the Clarendon into a bitter yellow fog, walking through the almost deserted streets in silence, each of us wrapped in our own thoughts.

  Arriving at Blithe Lodge, I asked whether I might call on Sunday.

  ‘If you wish,’ she said flatly, taking out a key from her reticule and opening the door.

  She did not turn to kiss me.

  *[‘From the cradle’. Ed.]

  †[In Bond Street. Ed.]

  *[James Ussher (1581–1656), archbishop of Armagh. He is best known for his Annale veteris testamenti (1650–4), in which he established a long-accepted chronology of Scripture and in which he computed the date of the Creation as occurring on 23 October 4004 bc. Ed.]

  *[A former gold English coin worth twenty shillings (i.e. one pound sterling). It is notoriously difficult to estimate comparative values; but using the indexes and formulas provided by J. O’Donoghue, L. Goulding, and G. Allen in Consumer Price Inflation Since 1750 (Office for National Statistics, 2004), in 1832 the value of the two hundred coins was roughly equivalent to £14,000 in today’s money. The coins would have carried the head of William IV (d. 1837). Ed.]

  * [Saducismus Triumphatus; or, Full and Plain Evidence Concerning Witches and Apparitions, by Joseph Glanvill (1636–80), an attempt to convince sceptics that such things were real. It was in fact an enlarged and posthumous edition (with additions by Henry More) of Glanvill’s A Philosophical Endeavour Towards a Defence of the Being of Witches and Apparitions, published in 1666, most of the copies of which were destroyed in the Great Fire of London. Glanvill’s position was that disbelief in demons and witches would inevitably lead to disbelief in God and the immortality of the soul. It is now regarded as one of the most important and influential of all English
works on the subject. The first edition of Saducismus Triumphatus was published for S. Lownds in 1681. Ed.]

  *[‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ Hamlet, I.v. 174–5. Ed.]

  5

  Mors certa*

  I returned to Temple-street, but could not settle. Sleep was impossible; and I had no taste for reading, or for anything else for that matter. I could not even bring myself to take down my much-thumbed copy of Donne’s sermons, which, like a cold bath, would usually invigorate my faculties and set me back on the path of action. I simply sat, sunk in gloomy reflection, before the empty fireplace.

  I deeply regretted lying to Bella; but deceit had become a constant companion. I had already betrayed her in fact, and continued to do so in my heart. I lived for another, hungered for another, dreamed only of possessing another, though she was now lost to me beyond recall. How, then, could I tell Bella the truth? I could only lie to her. It was the lesser evil.

  By the faint gleam of the stair-case lamp below my window, I could see the fog clinging and oozing against the glass. A dreary mood slid into me irresistibly, like a knife. Harder, deeper, it bit. I knew where it would end. I tried, as always, to hold it at bay, but to no avail. The blood began to thump in my temples until I could stand it no more; and so, submitting to my demons, I threw on my great-coat again and descended the stairs. Great Leviathan’s unsleeping, inviting maw beckoned.

  I found her where I knew I would, where they could always be found while a fragment of night remained – returning home from the West-end.

  I caught up with her on the corner of Mount-street. A few words, and the bargain was secured.

  The house was kept by a Jewess, who even at this late hour opened the door to the girl’s knock, and stood regarding us suspiciously as we ascended three cramped flights of stairs to a long low chamber on the third floor.