The Meaning of Night

by Michael Cox

  He had paused.

  ‘I’m afraid I am not free on Saturday, Mr Jukes, but I thank you for your invitation.’

  ‘Of course. I understand, Mr Glapthorn. You are a busy man, I’m sure.’

  He edged a little towards the door.

  ‘Well,’ he said, in an effort to brighten his tone, ‘I shall take my leave.’

  I was preparing to apologize again for my rough behaviour, but he forestalled me with a rapid shake of his head. ‘Pray, say no more, Mr Glapthorn. All a mistake. No harm done, none at all.’

  I nodded. Then a thought struck me. Perhaps I might be wrong in acquitting him.

  ‘A moment, Mr Jukes.’

  He looked up.

  ‘Are you a religious man?’

  ‘Religious?’ he said, evidently surprised at my question. ‘Well, I suppose I am as observant in that way as most. I was brought up strictly, though perhaps I have relaxed a little in my ways. But I attend the Temple Church every Sunday morning, and read my Bible every day, sir – every day.’ He raised his head as he spoke the last words, and pulled his shoulders back in a little gesture of defiance, as if to say, ‘There now. Here is villainy!’

  ‘Every day?’ I said, quizzically.

  ‘Every day. Regular as clockwork, a few pages before I take Little Fordyce for his walk. It is surprising how much one gets through. I am coming towards the end of the Old Testament for the second time this twelvemonth.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘that is excellent. Excellent. Good-day, Mr Jukes, and—’

  He held up his hand again. ‘No need, sir, no need at all.’ With which he turned, smiled wanly, and closed the door.

  I sat, still in my dripping clothes, looking out of my little dormer window at rags of clouds, drifting like smoke over a battlefield, until I heard him descend the stairs and bang his own door shut.

  *[‘In doubt’. Ed.]

  *[‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ was published in The Examiner on 9 December 1854. The poem was reprinted in Maud, and Other Poems (1855). Ed.]

  8

  Amicus venus*

  The following morning, a note came from Le Grice apologizing for his over-consumption of champagne the previous day, and announcing that he would be at the Ship and Turtle at his usual hour that evening, if I cared to join him.

  He was in voluble mood, and I happily let him regale me with reports of what this fellow or that had been up to, who had said what at the Club, and where so-and-so had been, the gossip supplemented by an excited account of all the business upon which he was then engaged, preparatory to leaving for the war. I was sorry that he was going, and was of course anxious for his safety; but it was impossible not to become caught up in his enthusiasm, to the extent that I almost began to regret that I had never thought of going for a soldier myself.

  We parted just before midnight. He was heading back to his rooms in Albany† when he suddenly stopped short.

  ‘By the by,’ he called back, ‘I almost forgot. This was sent to me at the Club. It’s for you.’ Reaching into the inside pocket of his greatcoat, he handed me a small wrapped package, obviously containing a book.

  ‘You’ll never guess who it’s from.’ I looked at him blankly.

  ‘That fearful tug* Daunt. You’ll remember him, of course. Pretty thick at school, weren’t you, for a time? Scribbles poetry for a living now. Sends his compliments to me with a request to pass this on to you. Haven’t written back yet, of course. Thought I’d speak to you first.’

  He instantly saw that his words, and the package, had produced an effect, and he reddened.

  ‘I say, G, is anything the matter? You look a little upset.’

  I delayed my reply as I turned the package over in my hands.

  ‘Has he written to you before?’

  ‘First time, old boy. Not quite my sort. Never expected to hear from him again after going down from the Varsity. Damned unpleasant blighter, always putting on airs. Little sign, by all accounts, that he’s changed for the better.’

  When I did not reply, Le Grice took a step closer and looked me straight in the eye.

  ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘there’s something going on, I can see. Wouldn’t dream of pressing you, of course, but glad to help, if I can.’

  ‘You can tell him I’m travelling abroad,’ I replied. ‘Present whereabouts, unknown. Date of return, uncertain.’

  ‘Right-oh. Nothing easier. Consider it done.’ He coughed nervously and made to go; but he had only taken a few steps when he suddenly stopped and swung round to face me again.

  ‘There’s another thing. You can tell me to go and boil my head, but answer me this, if you can. Why was that fellow following us on the river yesterday? It’s no use saying he wasn’t, so why not come out with it straight?’

  I could have hugged the dear old bear. For weeks I had been living on my nerves, desperately engaged night and day in mental combat with my enemy, my spirit broken by betrayal, racked by rage and despair, but unable to confide in any living soul. I had believed that I had no ally, no strength other than my own with which to contest the great battle of my life; but here was dear old Le Grice, bull-headed in friendship, obstinately loyal, offering me his hand. And if I took it? There was no one more trustworthy than him, no one more willing to fight by your side to the last breath, no one more forgiving of a friend’s sins. Yes, but if I took it? He would need to be told the secrets that I had been living with for so long. Would he then keep faith with me, stand by me in the final contention, and forgive me? Then he spoke again.

  ‘You and me, G – chalk and cheese. But you’re the best friend I have. Do anything for you, don’t you know, anything at all. Not good at this sort of thing, so you’ll just have to take it as it comes. You’re in trouble – no point trying to deny it. It’s been written on your face for weeks past. Whether it’s to do with Daunt, or with this fellow on the river, I can’t say. But something’s wrong, even though you’ve tried to pretend all’s well. But it isn’t, so why not spill it, and let’s see what can be done about it?’

  There are times in a man’s life when he must put his immediate fate into the hands of another, regardless of the risk. In a moment, though doubts remained, I had decided. I would spill it.

  ‘Dinner at Mivart’s,* tomorrow night,’ I said.

  And then we shook hands.

  I returned home in meditative mood, questioning the wisdom of confiding in Le Grice, but still determined to go through with it. I shrank, though, from the prospect of confessing what had been done to Lucas Trendle in Cain-court, and what I was planning to do, now that I had proved myself capable of murder. I was sure, when I had revealed my true history to Le Grice, and set before him the calculated viciousness of our mutual acquaintance, Phoebus Daunt, that I would secure his full-hearted sympathy and support. But would even his staunch soul be put to the test by the knowledge of what I had been driven to do? And could I, even in the name of friendship, ask him to share this burden? Musing thus, I arrived in Temple-street and mounted the stairs.

  Once in my rooms, I unwrapped the package Le Grice had given to me. As I had guessed, it contained a book – a small octavo in dark-green cloth, untrimmed, bearing the title Rosa Mundi. Taking up my paper-knife, I slowly began to cut away the edges, and opened out the title-page.*

  The fly-leaf had been inscribed by the author: ‘To my friend, E.G., with fondest memories of old times, and hope of early reunion.’ Beneath the inscription was a couplet, ‘When all is known, and naught remains, / But Truth released from falsehood’s chains,’ which I later discovered was a quotation from one of the poems printed in the volume. If there was meaning in it, I could see none.

  I threw the book down in disgust, but could not help staring at the open fly-leaf. To see that hand again, after so many years! It had not changed a great deal; I recognized the idiosyncratic flourish of the initial ‘T’ of ‘Truth’, the intricate descenders (the bane of his teachers at school), the fussiness of it. But what memory had been aro
used by it? Of Latin Alcaics and hexameters, exchanged and criticized? Or of something else?

  The next evening, as arranged, I met Le Grice at Mivart’s.

  He was awkward and ill at ease, coughing nervously, and constantly running his finger around the inside of his shirt collar, as if it were too tight. As we lit our cigars, I asked him whether he was still willing to hear what I had come to tell him.

  ‘Absolutely, old boy. Ready and waiting. Fire away.’

  ‘Of course I may count on your complete – your complete, mind – discretion?’

  He laid down his cigar, positively bristling with indignation.

  ‘When I give my word to some fellow at the Club,’ he said, with impressive seriousness, ‘then he may expect me to keep it, no questions asked. When I give my word to you, therefore, there can be not the slightest doubt – not the slightest – that I shall be inclined, under any provocation, to betray whatever confidence you may honour me with. Hope I’ve made myself clear.’ Having delivered himself of this short, but emphatic, speech, he picked up his cigar again and sent me a look that plainly said, ‘There, I’ve said what needed to be said; now contradict me, if you dare.’

  No, he would never betray me, as others had done; he would be true to his word. But I had resolved that there would be a limit to what I would tell him – not because I distrusted him, or even that I feared he might repudiate our friendship when he learned what I had done, and what was now in my mind to do; but because there was mortal danger in knowing all, to which I would not expose him for all the world.

  Calling for another bottle, I began to tell him, in outline, what I now propose to tell you, my unknown reader, in full and complete form – the extraordinary circumstances of my birth; the character and designs of my enemy; and the futile passion that has made it impossible that I can ever love again.

  If it is true, as the ancient sage averred, that confession of our faults is the next thing to innocency,* then I hope this narrative will weigh something in my favour with those who may read it.

  I began with my name. When ‘Veritas’ warned Bella that Edward Glapthorn was not what he seems, he lived up to his pseudonym. To Bella, to my employer, to my neighbours in Temple-street, and to others with whom you will soon become acquainted, I was Edward Glapthorn. But I was born Edward Charles Glyver – the name by which I had been known at Eton, when I first met Willoughby Le Grice, and by which, shortened to ‘G’, he has known me ever since. Yet even this was not my true name, and Captain and Mrs Edward Glyver of Sandchurch, Dorset, were not my parents. It all began, you see, in deceit; and only when the truth is told at last will expiation be made and the poor unquiet soul, from whom all these troubles have flowed, find peace at last.

  You have already learned something of the early history of Edward Glapthorn, which, though incomplete, was also a true account of the upbringing of Edward Glyver. I shall return to that history, and its continuance, in due course. But let us first put a little flesh on the bones of Phoebus Rainsford Daunt, my illustrious but as yet shadowy enemy, whose name has already graced the pages of this narrative.

  He will already be known to many of you, of course, through his literary works. No doubt, in due course, for the delectation of posterity, some enterprising drudge will assemble an anodyne Life and Letters (in three fat, unreadable volumes), which will reveal nothing whatsoever concerning the true character and proclivities of its subject.† Until then, let me be your guide instead – like Virgil leading Dante through the descending circles of Hell.

  By what authority do I presume to take on such a role? My own. I have become the detective of his life, seeking, over many years, to learn everything I could about my enemy. You will find this strange. No doubt it is. The scholar’s temperament, however, which I possess in abundance, is not content with facile generalities, or with unsubstantiated testimony, still less with the distortions of self-promotion. The scholar, like the lawyer, requires corroboration, verification, and firm documentary evidence, of a primary character; he sifts, and weighs, and patiently accumulates; he analyses, compares, and combines; he applies the nicest of discrimination to separate fact from fabrication, and possibility from probability. Using such methods, I have devoted myself to many objects of study in the course of my life, as I shall describe; but to none of these have I given so much of my time and care as to this pre-eminent subject. Luck, too, has played its part; for my enemy has attained celebrity, and this always loosens tongues. ‘Ah yes, I knew him when he was a boy.’ ‘Phoebus Daunt – the poet? Indeed I remember him.’ ‘You should speak to so-and-so. He knows a good deal more about the family than I.’ And so it proceeds, piece by piece, memory by memory, until, at last, a picture begins to emerge, rich and detailed.

  It is all there for the picking, if you know how. The principal sources on which I have drawn are as follows: the fragmentary recollections of Daunt’s time at Eton, which appeared in the Saturday Review of the 10th of October 1848; a fuller memoir of his childhood, adolescence, and literary career, punctuated throughout with little droppings of maudlin verse, and published in 1852 as Scenes of Early Life; the personal testimony of Dr T—, the physician who attended Daunt’s mother before and immediately after her son’s birth; extracts from the unpublished journal of Dr A. B. Daunt, his father (which, I regret to say, came into my hands by unorthodox means); and the recollections of friends and neighbours, as well as those of numerous servants and other attendants.

  Why I began on this biographical quest will soon be told. But now Phoebus – the radiant one – attends us. Let us not keep him waiting.

  *[‘A true friend’. Ed.]

  †[On the north side of Piccadilly, almost opposite Fortnum & Mason. Formerly Melbourne House, built in 1770, it was converted into sixty-nine elegant bachelor apartments in 1802 by Henry Holland. The author properly refers to it as ‘Albany’ (without the definite article). Ed.]

  *[Now obsolete Eton slang for a boy on the foundation (King’s Scholar or Colleger), from the Latin togati, or ‘wearers of gowns’. Ed.]

  *[At 51 Brook Street, Berkeley Square. Opened in 1812 by James Mivart, it is now better known as Claridge’s. Ed.]

  *[The volume was published in December 1854, post-dated 1855. The Latin motto from Horace reads: ‘Mix with your wise counsels some brief folly. / In due place to forget one’s wisdom is sweet.’ Ed.]

  *[Publilius Syrus (42 BC), Maxims. Ed.]

  †[An attempt was begun by J.R. Wildgoose (1831–89) in 1874 but was abandoned. A fragmentary biographical assessment of Daunt, based on Wildgoose’s researches, appeared in the latter’s Adventures in Literature (1884). Wildgoose was himself a minor poet and author of a short life of Daunt’s contemporary, Mortimer Findlay (1812–78). As far as I am aware, no further attempts have been made to memorialize Daunt’s life and work. Ed.]

  PART THE SECOND

  Phoebus Rising

  1819–1948

  I have never yet found Pride in a noble nature: nor humility in an unworthy mind.

  Owen Felltham, Resolves (1623), vi, ‘Of Arrogancy’

  9

  Ora et labora*

  He was born – according to his own account published in Scenes of Early Life – on the last stroke of midnight, as heralded by a venerable long-case clock that stood on the landing outside his mother’s room, on the last day of the year 1819, in the industrial town of Millhead, in Lancashire.

  A year or so before this great event, his father had been presented to the living of Millhead by his College, when his Fellowship there was forfeited by marriage. At Cambridge, as a young Fellow of Trinity who had already taken the degree of Doctor of Divinity and, by way of diversion from theological dispute, had produced an admirable edition of Catullus, the Reverend Achilles Daunt had acquired the reputation of a man who had much to do in the world of learning, and meant to do it. Certainly his many friends expected much of him, and but for his sudden – and, to some, inexplicable – decision to marry, his abilities would, by common c
onsent, have carried him with little effort to high College and University office.

  It was at least widely acknowledged that he had married for love, which is a noble thing for a man of ambition and limited personal means to do. The lady in question, though undeniably a beauty and of acceptable parentage, was of delicate constitution, and had no fortune. Yet love is its own justification, and of course is irresistible.

  When Dr Daunt conveyed his decision to the Master of his College, that placid gentleman did his kindly best to dissuade him from a step that would certainly delay, if it did not actually curtail, his University career. For the fact was that the College just then had only one vacant living of which to dispose. Dr Passingham spoke frankly: he did not think that this living would do for a man of Daunt’s temper and standing. The stipend was small, barely enough for a single man; the parish was poor, and the work hard, with no curate to lend his aid.

  And then the place itself: an utterly unlovely spot, scarred by long-established mine workings and, in latter years, by numerous foundries, workshops, and other manufactories, around which had grown up a waste of smoke-blackened brick. Dr Passingham did not say so, but he considered Millhead, which he had visited only once, to be the kind of place with which no gentleman would wish willingly to be associated.

  After some minutes of attempting quiet persuasion, it began to vex the Master somewhat that Dr Daunt did not respond to his well-meant words in the way that he had hoped, persisting instead in a desire to accept the living, and its attendant hardships, at all costs. At last, Dr Passingham had no choice but to shake his head sadly and agree to put the arrangements in hand with all speed.

  And so, on a cold day in December 1818, the Reverend Achilles Daunt took up residence, with his new wife, at Millhead Vicarage. The house – which I have personally visited and inspected – stands, squat and dismal, with its back to a desolate tract of moor, facing a gloomy view of tall black chimneys and ugly, close-packed dwellings in the valley below. Here, indeed, was a change for Dr Daunt. Gone were the lawns and groves and mellow stone courts of the ancient University. To his daily contemplation now lay a very different prospect, peopled by a very different humanity.