by Michael Cox
Before Daunt had finished his studies at Cambridge, he had completed Ithaca: A Lyrical Drama, which, with a few other sundry effusions, was duly published by Mr Moxon in the autumn of 1841. Thus was launched the literary career of P. Rainsford Daunt.
Mrs Daunt, now established as the de facto chatelaine of Evenwood, naturally watched these developments with a warm glow of satisfaction; it was most pleasant to observe that her plans for ingratiating her step-son with Lord Tansor were succeeding so well. Her husband, with more discernment, felt a good deal of disquiet at the palpably hollow lionization of his son, when the boy had done nothing, in his view, to deserve the plaudits that he was receiving, other than to have fallen under the capacious wing of his Lordship’s patronage. With the end in sight of his labours on his catalogue, the Rector now felt able to turn his full gaze on the character and future prospects of his son. But his position was weak in respect of Lord Tansor’s growing dominion over his only child. What could be done? Give up his comfortable living in this place of beauty and contentment and risk removal to another Millhead? That was out of the question.
And yet he felt impelled to do his utmost to retrieve his son, and put him back on a path more consonant with his upbringing and antecedents. It might not be possible to bring him to ordination – the Rector’s dearest hope – but it might be possible to dilute the effects of Lord Tansor’s increasingly prodigal attentions.
The Rector thought that he might have a solution to the problem. Removing his son from Evenwood and the influence of Lord Tansor for an extended period might have the effect of somewhat loosening his patron’s grip on his son. He had therefore quietly arranged through a cousin, Archdeacon Septimius Daunt of Dublin, for the boy to spend a further year of study at Trinity College. It now only remained for him to acquaint his son, and Lord Tansor, of his decision.
*[‘Everything changes’. Ed.]
†[Proverbs 24: 5. Ed.]
*[Dr Richard Okes (1797–1888), Provost of King’s. Ed.]
*[Robert Southey was Poet Laureate from 1813 until his death in 1843. Ed.]
†[The poets Richard Hengist Horne (1803–84), Robert Montgomery (1807–55), Aubrey Thomas de Vere (1814–1902), John Abraham Heraud (1799–1887). Ed.]
*[Henry Samborne Drago (1810–72), poet and critic. Ed.]
†[The publisher Edward Moxon (1801–58), whose authors at this time included Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, her future husband Robert Browning, and Tennyson. Ed.]
14
Post nubila, Phoebus*
A week after attaining his majority, P. Rainsford Daunt, plainly agitated and with a rather high colour, could have been seen leaving the Rectory at Evenwood, mounting his father’s borrowed grey cob, and making his way up towards the great house, where he was received as a matter of urgency by a concerned Lord Tansor.
The Rector had summoned his son early in order to present him with his decision that he should further his studies in Dublin, after taking his degree. Words were spoken – I do not have an exact transcript – and things were said, perhaps on both sides, which made compromise on the matter impossible. The Rector certainly told the boy, coolly and frankly, that if he did not fall in with the arrangement, he would himself go to Lord Tansor to request that he intervene on his behalf.
Poor man. He had no conception that it was already too late; that he had lost every chance of influence over his son’s future; and that Lord Tansor would do nothing to support his wishes in the case.
‘I do not, of course, say that it is a bad plan,’ Lord Tansor opined when, that afternoon, the Rector stood before him, ‘for the young man to go to Ireland – that, of course, must be a matter for you to settle with him yourself. I only say that travel in general is overrated, and that people – especially young people – would be better advised to stay at home and look to their prospects there. As for Ireland, there can, I think, be few places on earth in which an English gentleman could feel less at home, or where the natural comforts and amenities of a gentleman’s condition are less susceptible of being supplied.’
After more barking pronouncements of this sort, delivered in Lord Tansor’s best baritone manner, Dr Daunt saw how things lay, and was dismayed. His son did not go to Dublin.
Phoebus Daunt took his degree that summer, and so returned again to Evenwood, on a fine warm day, to ponder his future.
A fictional fragment, part of an uncompleted prose romance entitled Marchmont; or, The Last of the FitzArthurs,* undoubtedly describes that return, though transposed from summer to autumn for dramatic effect. I append part of it here:Fragment from ‘Marchmont’
by
P. RAINSFORD DAUNTBeyond the town the road dips steeply away from the eminence on which the little town of E—is situated, to wind its tree-lined way down towards the river. Gregorius always delighted in this road; but today the sensation of a progressive descent beneath a vault of bare branches, through which sunlight was now slanting, was especially delicious to him after the tedium and discomfort of the journey from Paulborough, sitting with his trunks on the back of the carrier’s cart.At the bottom of the hill, the road divided. Instead of crossing the river at the bridge by the mill, he turned north to take the longer route, along a road that ran through thick woodland, with the aim of entering the Park through its Western Gates. He had in mind to sit a while in the Grecian Temple, which stood on a terraced mound just inside the gates, from where he would be able to see his favourite prospect of the great house across the intervening space of rolling parkland.The woods were chill and damp in this dying part of the year, and he was glad to gain the wicket-gate in the wall that gave onto the Park and pass out into weak sunlight once more. A few yards took him onto a stony path that ran off from the carriage-drive up towards the Temple, built on a steep rise, and surrounded on three sides by a Plantation of good-sized trees. He walked with his eyes deliberately fixed on the gravel path, wishing to give himself the sudden rush of pleasure that he knew he would feel on seeing the house from his intended vantage point.But before he was halfway along the path, he was aware of the sound of a vehicle entering the Park behind him from the western entrance. He was but a little way off the road, and so turned to see who was approaching. A carriage and pair were rattling up the little incline from the gates. Within a moment or two the carriage had drawn level with the spur of the path on which he was standing. As it passed, a face looked out at him. The glimpse had been fleeting, but the image held steady in his mind as he watched the carriage crest the incline and descend towards the house.He remained staring intently after the carriage for several moments after it had disappeared from view, puzzled, in a peculiarly keen way, that he had not immediately resumed his way towards the Temple. That pale and lovely face still hung before his mind’s eye, like a star in a cold dark sky.
Despite the crude attempt to disguise the location (‘Paulborough’ for ‘Peterborough’), and himself (as ‘Gregorius’), wrapped up and prettified though it all is, the place and source of the author’s lyrical remembrance are easily explicated and dated. On the 6th of June 1841, the day Phoebus Daunt came down from Cambridge for the last time, at approximately three o’clock in the afternoon, Miss Emily Carteret, the daughter of Lord Tansor’s secretary, returned to Evenwood after spending two years abroad.
Miss Carteret was at that sweetest of ages – just turned seventeen. She had been residing with her late mother’s younger sister in Paris, and had now come back to Evenwood to settle permanently with her father at the Dower House. Their nearest neighbours were the Daunts, just on the other side of the Park wall, and she and the Rector’s son had each grown up with a decided view of the other’s character and temperament.
Little Miss Carteret had been a serious young lady from an early age, with a serious mind and serious expectations of others. Her young neighbour, though capable of seriousness when he pleased, found her meditative disposition galling, when all he wanted to do was tumble down a slope with her, or climb a tree, or chase the chickens; for she would
think about everything, and for so long at a time, that he would give up coaxing her in exasperation and leave her alone, still thinking, while he attended to his pleasures. For her part, the young lady sometimes thought him uncouth and frightful in his antics, though she knew that he could be kind to her, and that he was by no means a stupid boy.
It would have been strange indeed had not the boy found that her reticence towards him only increased her fascination. Though his junior by four years, Miss Carteret appeared to rule him with the wisdom of ages; and as they grew older, her sovereignty over him became complete. In time, of course, he asked for a kiss. She demurred. He asked again, and she considered a little longer. But at length she capitulated. On his eleventh birthday she knocked at the Rectory door with a present in her hand. ‘You may kiss me now,’ she said. And so he did. He began to call her his Princess.
To him, she was Dulcinea and Guinevere, every aloof and unattainable heroine of legend, every Rosalind and Celia, and every fairy-tale princess of whom he had ever read or dreamed; for she had a serious and haunting beauty, as well as a serious mind. Her father, Mr Paul Carteret, had observed only too plainly which way the wind blew in the mind of Phoebus Daunt with regard to his daughter, even before she had left for the Continent. Now two years of travel and education, as well as some exposure to the best Parisian society, had rendered her allure irresistible.
The fact was that Mr Carteret, in the face of received opinion at Evenwood, unaccountably failed to regard Phoebus Rainsford Daunt as a precocious specimen of British manhood. He had always found the Rector’s son ingratiating, plausible, slippery, cleverly insinuating himself into favour where he could, and ingeniously spiteful in revenge where he could not. It may therefore be supposed that he did not relish the prospect of his daughter’s return to Evenwood, and to the attentions of P. R. Daunt, at a time when that young gentleman’s star was on its seemingly irresistible rise. To put the matter frankly, Mr Carteret disliked and distrusted Lord Tansor’s protégé. On more than one occasion he had come across him in the Muniments Room, where he had no obvious business, rummaging through the documents and deeds that were stored there; and he was sure that he had surreptitiously perused his Lordship’s correspondence as it lay on the secretary’s desk.
But like that of his neighbour, the Rector, Mr Carteret’s position was also dependent on Lord Tansor’s good opinion. It was thus perplexing to Mr Carteret as to how he ought to proceed if and when – as seemed possible – the young man confided to his patron the nature of his feelings for his daughter. Could he actively forbid any amorous advances, especially if they were made with his Lordship’s approval, without the likelihood of severe consequences to his own interests? For the moment, he had no choice but to watch, and hope.
At their first encounter after her return from France, in the presence of her father, Miss Carteret received the young man with courteous reserve. She asked him politely how he had been, agreed that he had changed a good deal since their last meeting, and accepted an early copy of Ithaca, signed by the author. She had grown quite beautiful in her French clothes and bonnet à la mode, with its delicately shaded, pointed ribbons and little bouquet of pale roses, violets, and primroses; but her father was greatly relieved to observe that her character was as thoughtful, and her behaviour as obedient, as before. Gratifyingly, during the many subsequent occasions on which they were obliged to meet over the course of the summer, Miss Carteret studiously continued to maintain the same air of calm and courteous detachment towards her former playfellow.
As the year 1841 drew to a close, P. Rainsford Daunt, BA, set his mind to conquering the world of letters. The following spring, Lord Tansor arranged for his portrait to be painted, and there was intense excitement in the bosom of Mrs Daunt when an invitation addressed to the young gentleman arrived at the Rectory, requesting the pleasure of his presence at Her Majesty’s bal masqué at Buckingham Palace, at which the Court of Edward III and Queen Philippa was recreated in astonishing magnificence. A week later, he was formally presented at Court, at a levee at St James’s Palace, absurdly resplendent in knee breeches, buckle shoes, and a sword.
His saddened father, meanwhile, retreated to his study to correct the proofs of his catalogue; his Lordship spent a good deal of time in town closeted with his legal man, Mr Christopher Tredgold; and I had set my feet on the path that would eventually lead to Cain-court, Strand.
*[‘After clouds, the sun’. Phoebus was the sun god. Ed.]
*[It was published in Daunt’s Scenes of Early Life (1852). Ed.]
15
Apocalypsis*
I left Heidelberg in February 1841, travelling first to Berlin, and thence to France. I arrived in Paris two days before my twenty-first birthday, and settled myself in the Hôtel des Princes† – perhaps a little expensive, but not more than I thought I could afford. As I had reached my majority, the residue of my capital, which had been entrusted to Mr Byam More, was now mine. Inspired by this happy thought, I allowed myself to draw deeply on my reserves, in anticipation of their being very soon replenished, and abandoned myself to the infinitely various pleasures that Paris can offer a young man of tolerable looks, a lively imagination, and a good opinion of himself. But there must be an end to all pleasure, and soon the nagging apprehension that I must soon settle on a way to earn my living began to intrude most unwelcomingly on my days and nights. Reluctantly, after six highly entertaining weeks, I began to make my preparations for returning to England.
Then, on the morning before my intended departure, I ran across Le Grice in Galignani’s Reading Room,‡ which had been my daily place of resort during my stay. We spent a delightful evening recounting the separate courses that our lives had taken over the five years since we had last seen each other. Of course he had news of several old school-fellows, Daunt amongst them. I listened politely, but changed the subject as soon as I decently could. I had no need to be reminded of Phoebus Daunt; he was constantly in my thoughts, and the desire to execute effectual vengeance on him for what he had done to me still burned with a bright and steady flame.
Le Grice was en route to Italy, with no particular purpose in view other than to pass some time in pleasant surroundings and congenial company whilst he considered what to do with himself. Given my own uncertainty on this subject, it did not take much persuasion on his part for me to abandon my plan of returning to Sandchurch, and join him on his ramblings. I immediately wrote to Mr More, requesting him to transfer the balance of my capital to my London account, and sent word to Tom that I would be remaining on the Continent for a little longer. The next morning, Le Grice and I began our journey south.
After many leisurely detours, we arrived at length in Marseilles, from whence we proceeded along the Ligurian coast to Pisa, before finally setting ourselves up, in some splendour, in a noble Florentine palazzo, close to the Duomo. Here we remained for some weeks, indolently indulging ourselves, until the heat of the summer drove us to the cooler air of the mountains and, in due course, to Ancona, on the Adriatic coast.
By the end of August, having made our way north to Venice, Le Grice was beginning to show signs of restlessness. I could not get my fill of churches, and paintings, and sculpture; but these were not at all in Le Grice’s line. One church, he would say wearily, looked very like another, and he expressed similar sentiments when confronted with a succession of Crucifixions and Nativities. At last, in the second week of September, we finally took our leave of each other, promising that we should meet again in London as soon as our circumstances allowed.
Le Grice departed for Trieste to take ship to England, whilst I, after a few days on my own in Venice, headed south again. For the next year or so, with Murray’s Hand-book to Asia Minor as my guide,* I wandered through Greece and the Levant, reaching as far as Damascus, before sailing back through the Cyclades to Brindisi. After sojourns in Naples and Rome, I found myself in Florence once more, in the late summer of 1842.
On our first visit to the city of the Medici,
we had met an American couple, a Mr and Mrs Forrester. Once back in Florence, I presented myself at the Forresters’ residence and, finding that the position of tutor to their two boys had become vacant, owing to the unsuitability of the previous incumbent, I immediately offered my services. I remained in the well-paid and undemanding employment of Mr and Mrs Forrester for the next three and a half years, during which time I grew lazy and, in my idleness, neglected my own studies grievously. I thought often of my former life in England, and how I must one day return; this, however, would always call up the shade of Phoebus Daunt, and the unfinished business that lay between us. (Even in Florence I had been unable to escape him: on my twenty-third birthday I was presented with a copy of his latest volume, The Tartar-King: A Story in XII Cantos, by Mrs Forrester, a notable bluestocking. ‘I doat on Mr Daunt,’ she had sighed, wiltingly. ‘Such a genius, and so young!’)
It was from this time that I began to form certain habits that have occasionally threatened to nullify irrevocably any vestige of the higher talents with which I have been blessed. My lapses were modest then, though I began to hate both myself and the life I was leading. At length, following an unfortunate incident concerning the daughter of a city official, I made my apologies to the Forresters and left Florence in some haste.
I still had no desire to return home, and so I set my course northwards. In Milan, I fell in with an English gentleman, a Mr Bryce Furnivall, from the Department of Printed Books at the British Museum, who was about to depart for St Petersburg. My conversations with Mr Furnivall had rekindled my old bibliographical passions; and when he asked whether I had a mind to accompany him into Russia, I readily agreed.
In St Petersburg we were kindly received by the celebrated bibliographer V. S. Sopikov, whose shop in Gostiny Dvor became my daily place of resort.* Then after a week or so, my companion, Mr Furnivall, was obliged to return to London, but I chose to remain. For I was bewitched by this extraordinary city of white and gold, entranced by its great public buildings and palaces, its wide vistas, its canals and churches. I found a set of rooms close to Nevsky Prospekt, began to learn the Russian language, and even embraced the fearsome winters with a kind of delight. Bundled in furs, I would often wander the streets at night, with the snow falling all about me, to stand contemplatively on the Lion Bridge by the Griboedova Canal, or watch the ice floating downstream on the mighty Neva.