The Meaning of Night

by Michael Cox

‘So you do not feel the same loyalty to your mistress as you did to her father?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘You might say that, sir, though I would not,’ Lizzie replied. ‘But it is true that, circumstances having changed so suddenly, we must look to ourselves a little more than we used.’

  ‘Tell me, Lizzie, do you like your mistress? Is she kind to you?’

  The question caused her brother to look at her a little asquint, as if in anticipation of her reply, which did not come immediately.

  ‘I do not complain,’ she said at last. ‘That would not be my place. I am sure, as my mistress has often told me, that I am slow and clumsy, and that I do not have the delicate manners of the French girl who looked after her in Paris, and who she is always setting up as an example to me. It may be, too, that I am stupid, for of course I would not expect a lady possessed of such accomplishments as Miss Carteret to think much of a poor girl like me.’

  She glanced in a deliberate way towards the volume of poetry lying on the table.

  I thanked her for her frankness and, after a few more words, took my leave.

  Outside the cottage door, the arrangements were concluded with a handshake. And so it was that John Brine, formerly Mr Paul Carteret’s man, together with his sister Lizzie, Miss Carteret’s maid, became my eyes and ears in and around the Dower House at Evenwood.

  As John Brine and I walked back, I had one other matter that I particularly wished to set before my new agent.

  ‘Brine, I wish you’d tell me about Josiah Pluckrose.’

  The effect of my words was extraordinary.

  ‘Pluckrose!’ he roared, his face colouring. ‘What have you to do with that murdering devil? Tell me, or by God I’ll knock you down where you stand, agreement or no!’

  Naturally, under normal circumstances, I would not for a moment have tolerated such insolence from a common fellow like John Brine; even as things were, I was within an inch of teaching him a lesson that he would not forget, for I was easily his match in height and weight, and I knew, perhaps better than he, how to conduct myself in such situations. But I drew back; for, after all, what difference of opinion could possibly exist between us regarding Josiah Pluckrose?

  ‘I have only one aim in view with respect to that gentleman,’ I said, ‘and that is to send him as speedily as possible, with my very best regards, to the deepest pit of hell.’ Whereupon Brine’s face took on a more compliant expression and he began to apologize, in a fumbling embarrassed sort of way, for his outburst; but I stopped him and told him straight away of my conversation with the housemaid Mary Baker, though of course I did not go so far as to divulge my prior acquaintance with friend Pluckrose.

  And then he told me, in a quiet, feeling way, which almost endeared me to the fellow, that he had once entertained what he termed a ‘fondness’ for Agnes Baker, which it was left to me to interpret how I would.

  ‘Well, Brine,’ I said, as we walked under the gate-house arch, ‘I see there is common ground between us on the matter of Josiah Pluckrose. But what I would particularly like to know,’ I continued, feeling the need for another cigar, but having no more about me, ‘is how such a man came to be associated with Mr Phoebus Daunt. I cannot be alone in observing the incompatibility of the relationship. Can you tell me, for instance, how Mr Carteret viewed the matter?’

  ‘Like any right-thinking gentleman would,’ said Brine, a little evasively. ‘I know, because I heard him telling Miss Emily.’

  ‘Telling her what, Brine? Speak up, if you please, for there must be no secrets now between us.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, but it just don’t seem right, that’s all, speaking of what was said privately.’

  I damned the fellow for his scruples. A fine spy he was going to make! I reminded him, rather pointedly, of the terms of our engagement and, after a moment or two, though still somewhat unwillingly, he began to recount the substance of the conversation that he had overheard between Mr Carteret and his daughter.

  ‘His Lordship had given a dinner for his birthday, and afterwards it fell to me to bring the master and Miss Emily back from the great house in the landau. It’s an old thing that belonged to Mr Carteret’s mother, but it gives good service and—’

  ‘Brine. The facts, if you please.’

  ‘To be sure, sir. Well, sir, as I say, I went up to fetch the master and the young miss back in the landau, and I saw straight away that something was up. Black as thunder her face was as I helped her in, and Mr Carteret looking nearly as bad.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘There was a fair old wind that night – I remember that very well – and we had a rough time of it on our way back, I can tell you, especially coming up from the river, battered and buffeted and I don’t know what. But though the wind was hard in my face, there were times when I could still catch what Master and Miss were saying.’

  ‘And that’s when Mr Carteret spoke of Pluckrose?’

  ‘Not by name, though I knew it was him the master was speaking of. He’d driven a carriage up that evening with Mr Phoebus Daunt and another gentleman – it was that same cursed evening that he first spied Agnes. There’d been some trouble in the servants’ hall – Pluckrose had been given his supper there while t’other two gents were upstairs with the quality, and he’d threatened his Lordship’s butler, Mr Cranshaw. I heard all about the rumpus from John Hooper, who saw it all. Well, we got home and I handed her out – Miss Emily, I mean – and blow me, she fair stormed into the house, with her father following, and calling to her to stop. And so I brought the landau round to the yard, and stabled the horses, like tonight, and then went along to the kitchen, for ’twas a rare old night, as I say, and Susan Rowthorn would always have a little something waiting for me, in the way of refreshment, as I might say, on such a night. “Well,” says she when I open the door, “here’s a to-do. Master and Miss are going at it hammer and tongs.” Those were her exact words: hammer and tongs. Now, Miss has a temper – we all knows that. But Susan says she’d never heard the like, doors slamming and I don’t know what.’

  ‘And what was the cause of the upset, do you suppose?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t suppose, sir. I had everything pat and in apple-pie order from Susan. She’d heard everything and noted everything, just as it happened, as is her way. I don’t know, sir, as you hadn’t ought to have brought her into your employ rather than me.’

  He smiled a stupid smile, and, once again, I silently damned him, and his feeble attempt at humour.

  ‘Get to it, Brine, and quickly,’ I said impatiently. ‘What did the woman tell you?’

  Now, to spare you any more of John Brine’s ramblings, I intend to present my own account of what happened on that fateful evening, when Josiah Pluckrose came to Evenwood in the company of Phoebus Daunt, and Mr Carteret and his daughter fell out with each other for the first time in their lives. It draws directly on the recollections of the Carterets’ housekeeper, Mrs Susan Rowthorn, and of John and Lizzie Brine.

  Once returned to the Dower House, having been bumped and blown all the way, Miss Carteret ran inside, with her father calling after her, and went straight up to her room, slamming the door behind her. She had barely had time to ring for her maid, Lizzie Brine, when there was a short knock at the door, and her father entered, still in his greatcoat, and still in an extremely agitated state.

  ‘Now this will not do, Emily. Really it won’t. You must tell me all, or you and I shall never be friends again. And that’s the long and the short of it.’

  ‘How can I tell you all when there is nothing to tell?’

  She was standing before the window, her travelling cloak over her arm, her hair disarranged from the wind, which continued to howl all around the house. Dismayed and still angered by the turn of events, and feeling that she had been humiliated by her father, she was in no mood for conciliation.

  ‘Nothing to tell! You can say that? Very well. Here it is. You will have nothing further to do with that man, do you hear? We must of cou
rse observe the decencies of social intercourse with our neighbours, but there must be nothing more. I hope I make myself clear.’

  ‘No, you do not, sir.’ Her anger was now uncontained. ‘May I ask of whom you speak?’

  ‘Why, Mr Phoebus Daunt, of course, as I said before.’

  ‘But that is absurd! I have known Mr Phoebus Daunt since I was six years old, and his father is one of your most valued and devoted friends. I know that you do not esteem Phoebus as others do, but I own myself amazed that you should take against him so.’

  ‘But I saw you, at dinner. He leaned towards you, in a distinctly …’ He paused. ‘In a distinctly intimate manner. Ah! You say nothing. But why should you? That’s your way, I see, to let me think one thing while you are doing another.’

  ‘He leaned towards me? Is that your accusation?’

  ‘So you deny, do you, that you have been secretly encouraging his … his attentions?’

  He had placed his hands in his pockets, and was rocking back and forth on his heels, as though to say, ‘There! Deny it if you can!’

  But deny it she did, and with a kind of cold fury in her voice, though turning her head away as she spoke.

  ‘I do not know why you treat me so,’ she went on, angrily throwing her cloak on the bed. ‘I have, I hope, been ever attentive to your wishes. I am of age, and you know that I could leave here tomorrow, and marry anyone I pleased.’

  ‘But not him, not him!’ said Mr Carteret, almost in a moan, passing his hand through his hair as he did so.

  ‘Why not him, if I so chose?’

  ‘I beg you again to judge him by the company he keeps.’

  She stood for a moment, waiting to see whether her father intended at last to elaborate further on his statement. Just then came another knock at the door. It was Lizzie Brine, who found her mistress and Mr Carteret facing each other in silence.

  ‘Is anything the matter, Miss?’

  She looked at her mistress, then at Mr Carteret. Of course she had heard the door slamming, and the sound of angry voices. Indeed, she had been lingering in the passage for some time before making her presence known. And she was not alone, for the housekeeper, Susan Rowthorn, assiduous as ever in her duties, had already found a pressing reason to climb the stairs as quickly as her short legs would carry her, in order to inspect the room adjacent to Miss Carteret’s, which contained a connecting door, against the key-hole of which Mrs Rowthorn had felt obliged – no doubt for good housekeeping reasons – to place her eye.

  ‘No, nothing is the matter, Lizzie,’ said Miss Carteret. ‘I shall not need you tonight after all. You may go home. But be here sharp in the morning.’

  And so Lizzie bobbed and departed, slowly closing the door behind her. But she did not go home immediately. Instead she tip-toed into the adjacent chamber to join Mrs Rowthorn, who, crouching down by the connecting door, turned and placed a finger on her lips as she entered.

  Left alone once more (or so they thought), father and daughter stood awkwardly for a moment or two, saying nothing. It was Miss Carteret who spoke first.

  ‘Father, as you love me, I must ask you to be plain with me. What company is Mr Phoebus Daunt keeping that appears to be so abhorrent to you? Surely you do not refer to Mr Pettingale?’

  ‘No, not Mr Pettingale. Though I do not know that gentleman, I have no reason to believe anything ill of him.’

  ‘Then whom do you mean?’

  ‘I mean the other … person. A more loathsome, villainous creature I have never seen. And he calls himself an associate of Mr Phoebus Daunt’s! You see! This swaggering brute, this … this Moloch in human form, comes here, to Evenwood, in the company of Mr Daunt. There now: what do you say to that?’

  ‘What can I say?’ she asked. She was calm now, standing framed by the curtained window in that characteristic pose of hers, hands crossed in front of her, her head tilted slightly back and to one side, her face devoid of all expression. ‘I do not know the person you describe. If he is, indeed, an associate of Mr Phoebus Daunt’s, well then, that is Mr Daunt’s affair, not ours. There may be perfectly good reasons why it is necessary for him, perhaps temporarily, to have dealings with the person you describe. You must see that we are not in a position to judge on this point. As for Mr Daunt himself, I can assure you, on my dear mother’s life, and before Heaven, that I can find no reason – no reason at all – to rebuke myself for any dereliction of the duty that a daughter owes to a father.’

  Though she had said nothing very specific, her attitude, and the emphatic tone in which she had delivered the words, appeared to have a composing effect on Mr Carteret, who ceased continually removing his spectacles, and now replaced his handkerchief in his pocket.

  ‘And am I truly wrong, then, my dear?’ The question was asked quietly, almost plaintively.

  ‘Wrong, father?’

  ‘Wrong to think you cherish a secret regard for Mr Phoebus Daunt.’

  ‘Dearest father …’ Here she reached forward, and took his hand in hers. ‘I feel for him as I have always done. He is our neighbour, and my childhood friend. That is all. And if you force me to be direct, then I will say that I do not like Mr Daunt, though I will always be civil to him, for his father’s sake. If you have mistaken civility for affection, then I am sorry, but I really cannot be blamed.’

  She was smiling now, and what father could have resisted such a smile? And so Mr Carteret kissed his daughter, and said that he was a foolish old man to think that she could ever go against him.

  Then a thought seemed to strike him.

  ‘But, my dear,’ he asked anxiously, ‘you will want to get married, I suppose, some not very distant day?’

  ‘Perhaps I shall,’ she said gently. ‘But not yet, Papa, not yet.’

  ‘And not to him, my dear.’

  ‘No, Papa. Not to him.’

  He nodded, kissed her again, and wished her good-night. As he turned the corner of the passage that led to his bedchamber, Mrs Rowthorn, with Lizzie Brine in tow, quietly returned to the kitchen.

  This, then, is a true and accurate record, or as true and accurate as I am able to make it, of what passed that night between Mr Paul Carteret and his daughter.

  But was anything left unsaid? And were there secrets in each heart that neither could tell to the other?

  *[‘We win by degrees’. Ed.]

  *[The poet Felicia Dorothea Hemans (1793–1835), author of Tales and Historic Scenes in Verse (1819), The Forest Sanctuary, and Other Poems (1825), Records of Women, with Other Poems (1828), Songs of the Affections, with Other Poems (1830), and many other works. She also published translations of the sixteenth-century Portuguese poet Luís Vaz de Camões. Ed.]

  †[Harriet Martineau (1802–76), social reformer and woman of letters. Her works included Letters on Mesmerism (1845), Eastern Life, Present and Past (1848), Household Education and her radical History of the Thirty Years’ Peace (both 1849), and her novel Deerbrook (1839). Ed.]

  27

  Sub rosa*

  After walking back to the stable-yard, I entered the Dower House by the kitchen door. There I came upon Susan Rowthorn deep in conversation with the cook, Mrs Barnes. In my professional work I always like to cultivate servants; and here was just the opportunity that I had been seeking.

  ‘Will you take some food in your room, sir?’ asked the housekeeper.

  ‘I’ll take some food, certainly,’ I replied, ‘but I’ll take it here with you, if I may.’

  My gallantry having produced its desired effect, I left the two women to their preparations, while I returned to my room to replenish the supply of cigars that I usually keep about my person.

  At the foot of the stair-case, I stopped.

  Just inside the front door stood a black leather imperial,† together with three or four smaller bags. Was someone leaving? Or someone visiting? I noted the initials on the lid of the trunk: ‘M-MB’. A visitor, I concluded. Another question for Mrs Rowthorn.

  Having re-supplied myself with
cigars from my bag, I returned to the kitchen, noticing en route that the drawing-room door, which had been shut when I was examining the trunk, was now open. Naturally I peeped inside, but the room was empty, although my nose, which is sensitive to such things, caught a faint and intriguing scent of lavender lingering on the air.

  The meal prepared by Mrs Barnes was a hearty one and, after my excursion to the Temple and the ride back in the landau with Miss Carteret, most welcome. I sat by the fire, allowing Mrs Rowthorn full rein, for an hour or more. What she told me, as I tucked into a chop with two broiled kidneys, lubricated with a generous go of gin-punch, and followed up by a slice of most excellent apple-pie, I have incorporated into the preceding account. One question only remained.

  ‘I suppose Miss Carteret is engaged with her visitors?’

  ‘Oh, only one visitor, sir,’ offered Mrs Rowthorn. ‘Miss Buisson.’

  ‘Ah, yes. A relative, perhaps?’

  ‘No, sir, a friend. From her Paris days. John Brine has just gone to take her things up to her room. What a shock for her, poor lamb, to get here at last and find us all in such a state.’

  I asked whether Miss Buisson had known Mr Carteret well, to which Mrs Rowthorn replied that the young lady had paid many visits to England, and that she had been a particular favourite of her late master’s.

  ‘I suppose Miss Carteret must have many friends of her own sex in the neighbourhood,’ I ventured.

  ‘Friends?’ came the answer. ‘Well, yes, you could say so. Miss Langham, and Sir Granville Lorimer’s girl; but, strange to say, no one like Miss Buisson.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Inseparable, sir. That is the word I should use. Like sisters, they are when together, though of course so unlike in looks and character.’ She shook her head. ‘No. Miss has no other friend like Miss Buisson.’

  As I was about to leave, John Brine came down the hall stairs. He coloured slightly on seeing me, but I quickly diverted the womens’ attention by knocking over my third (or was it fourth?) glass of gin-punch. Apologizing for my clumsiness, I made good my escape.

  Back in my room, I lit another cigar, kicked off my boots, and lay down on my bed.