The Meaning of Night

by Michael Cox

  I thought of Mr Tredgold, suave and beaming. Mr Tredgold, polishing his eye-glass. ‘You shall stay to luncheon – it is all ready.’ Mr Tredgold, eagerly hospitable. ‘Come again next Sunday.’

  He went on to speak of the effects on his own life of his love for Lady Tansor; how it had made it impossible for him to seek the affections of any other woman, and how, in consequence, he had turned to ‘other means’ – by which I understood his secret interest in voluptuous literature – to assuage the natural passions and inclinations that all men must attempt to master.

  And so to the next passage.After my father died, I became Lord Tansor’s legal adviser, and was often at Evenwood on his Lordship’s business. His wife’s remorse at what she had done was plain to see – it was remarked with sadness by poor Mr Carteret; but only I was aware of the source of her misery. We spoke sometimes, when we found ourselves alone together; and she would take my hand, and call me her true friend, for she knew that I would never betray her, despite the dereliction of my professional duty to her husband, which I felt, and continue to feel, keenly. But there are higher things than professional duty, and I found that my conscience easily submitted to the greater dictates of love, allowing me to serve Lord Tansor to the best of my ability whilst still honouring my sacred vow to his wife. I withheld the truth from him, but I never lied. It is a Jesuitical distinction, I own, and would have been a poor defence; but it served. Yet if he had asked me to my face, then, God forgive me, I would have lied, if that had been her wish.I therefore deceived you further when I said that I had no knowledge of the private arrangement referred to in the agreement between Lady Tansor and Mrs Glyver, and for that I humbly ask you to forgive me.But you have also deceived me, Edward. So let us now be honest with each other.

  On reading these words, perspiration begins to bead on my forehead. I lay down the letter and walk over to the window to try to open it, but it is locked tight shut. I feel entombed in this tenebrous, dusty room, with its hideous brown-painted wainscot, its dark and elaborate furniture and heavy green-plush curtains; and so I close my eyes for a moment and dream of air and light – the open sky and sunlit woods, wind and water, sand and sea, places of peace and freedom.

  A door bangs, and I open my eyes. Feet scurry down the passage, then silence. I return to the letter.

  He had known me all this time, from the moment I had been shown into his drawing-room in Paternoster-row by Albert Harrigan on that Sunday morning in September 1848: despite my subterfuge, my identity had been written on my face as clearly as if I had sent up a card bearing the name ‘Edward Duport (formerly Glyver)’. He had known me! I had stood before him, the son of the woman he continued to adore, and he had seen her in me. Here was the reason for his immediate and obvious regard for me, his willingness to oblige me, his alacrity in offering me employment. He had known me! During all our walks in the Temple Gardens, and our Sundays together, poring over masterpieces of the erotic imagination, and through the working out of all his ‘little problems’. He had known me! As I had laboured – alone and unknown, as I had thought – to reclaim my birthright, he had known me! But he had vowed to keep my mother’s secret safe – even from me; and so, through all the years of my employment, he had watched me, the son of the woman he had loved above all others, knowing who I was, and what I had been born to, but powerless to assist me in the task that I had undertaken. He saw that I had come to him in the guise of Edward Glapthorn for no other purpose than to find some means of regaining my true self. But in this he was also helpless, for – as he had admitted – he had destroyed every trace of his dealings with Lady Tansor, and possessed nothing – no letter, no memorandum, no document of any kind – that could prove conclusively what he and I knew to be the truth about my birth. He could only watch and wait, bound as he was, both by the vow that he had made to my mother, and by the code of his profession.

  But then events began to threaten the accommodation that Mr Tredgold had made with his conscience.

  The first indication of an impending crisis had come when Lord Tansor had indicated to Mr Tredgold that he wished to make Phoebus Daunt the heir to his property, on the single condition that the beneficiary would then take the Duport name. Everything that should have been mine was to go to Daunt, being the step-son of Lord Tansor’s second cousin, Mrs Caroline Daunt, who, by this relationship, might one day complete her triumph and inherit the title herself, as a female collateral descendant of the 1st Baron Tansor.

  What should Mr Tredgold do? He could not tell Lord Tansor that he had a living heir, for that would have been to betray my mother’s secret, even if he had possessed proof of the assertion; but the unworthiness of the prospective heir was, to him, so apparent (though not to Lord Tansor) that his professional conscience almost revolted, and more than once he had been close to laying the whole truth before his noble client in order to prevent this calamitous outcome. The following passage was of particular interest to me:Of course I knew of your former acquaintance with Daunt, as school-fellows, and guessed what estimation you might have of his subsequent endeavours. My own was very low indeed. I had received disturbing reports of his character from Mr Paul Carteret; and, indeed, I had reasons of my own to suspect him of having inclinations of the basest kind. From an early age he had been pushed forward by his step-mother as a kind of substitute for Lord Tansor’s son – his younger son, I should say. Mrs Daunt has always exhibited a tigerish concern for her step-son’s future prosperity (and certainly for her own as well). With great skill and determination, she constantly deployed her influence with Lord Tansor to advance the boy in his estimation. In this she succeeded, beyond all expectation.I did everything I could, on many occasions, to intimate to my client, as far as my professional position allowed, that he would be well advised to reconsider his decision to adopt Daunt as his heir. But I could not persuade his Lordship, and at my final attempt he told me, with some force, that the matter was closed.

  But then had come Mr Carteret’s letter, and all was changed. Mr Tredgold had immediately sensed a startling probability: that his old friend had discovered what he himself had striven to keep secret for so many years. And so I had been despatched to Stamford, with consequences that I have already set out. On Mr Tredgold, these had had a severe effect. To hear, in the report that I had sent from Evenwood, of the fatal attack on Mr Carteret had induced a profound shock, and probably contributed greatly to the paralytic seizure that he subsequently suffered.

  Just then the door opened, and I turned to see Miss Tredgold framed in the opening. The sun had dipped behind the houses on the other side of the street, leaving the room in an even deeper condition of brown-stained gloom than before. She held a light in her hand.

  ‘If you wish, I will take you to my brother.’

  *[‘The lover’s confession’. The title of the famous fourteenth-century poem by John Gower (1325?–1408?). Ed.]

  *[Swiss physician and alchemist (real name Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, 1493–1541). Ed.]

  *[‘Stanzas for Music’, written 28 March 1816, and first published in the volume of Poems issued by John Murray in that year. How widely accepted the rumour was that Laura Fairmile was the subject of these famous stanzas is perhaps debatable, and I have seen it cited nowhere else in the literature. The poem is usually said to have been addressed to Claire Clairmont. Laura Fairmile married Julius Duport in December 1817. Byron himself had married Annabella Milbanke in January 1815. Ed.]

  39

  Quis separabit?*

  I followed Miss Tredgold into the hall and up the dark stairs, along a cold dark landing, and into a darkened room. Mr Tredgold sat hunched in the far corner, by a little desk on which were placed some sheets of paper and writing implements. He was wrapped in a woollen shawl; his head had dropped down over his chest, and his once immaculate feathery hair was disarranged and thin-looking.

  ‘Christopher.’

  Miss Tredgold spoke softly, touching her brother gently on the shoulder, and raising th
e candle so that he might better see her face.

  ‘I have brought Mr Glapthorn.’

  He looked up and nodded.

  She motioned to me to take a seat opposite my employer and placed the candle on the desk.

  ‘Please ring when you are ready,’ she said, indicating a bell-rope just behind Mr Tredgold’s chair.

  As she closed the door behind her, Mr Tredgold leaned forward with surprising vigour and grasped my hand.

  ‘Dear … Edward …’ The words were slurred and came haltingly, but clear enough for me to hear what he was saying.

  ‘Mr Tredgold, sir, I am so very glad to see you …’

  He shook his head. ‘No … No … No time. You have … read the … letter?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘My dear fellow … so very sorry …’

  He fell back in his chair, exhausted by the effort of speaking.

  I glanced at the paper and writing implements on the table by his chair.

  ‘Mr Tredgold, perhaps if you were to write down – if you are able – what you wish to say to me?’

  He nodded, and turned to take up the pen. There was no sound in the room except for the scratching of the nib and the occasional crackle from the dying fire in the grate. The task was slow and laborious, but at length, as the last embers of the fire went out, he laid down the pen and handed me the sheet of paper. It was somewhat rambling, and written in a highly abbreviated, unpunctuated manner. The following is my own more finished version of what I now read.

  ‘My dear boy – for so I think of you, as if you were my own. It breaks my heart that I cannot speak to you as I would wish to do, or help you to regain what is rightfully yours. How you came to the knowledge of your birth is dark to me, but I thank God that you did and that He led you to me, for there is a purpose in all this. I have kept the truth hidden, for love of your mother; but the time has come to put matters right. Yet in my present condition I do not know what I can do, and the death of my poor friend has robbed us both of an invaluable ally. I am certain that Carteret must have come into the possession of documents that would have materially advanced your case – but now they are lost to us, perhaps for ever, and a good man has died because he learned the truth. I now fear for you, dear Edward. Your enemy will be seeking high and low for Laura Tansor’s son, and will stop at nothing to protect his expectations. If he should discover your true identity, then there can be only one consequence. I beg you, therefore, to take every precaution. Be constantly vigilant. Trust no one.’

  He looked at me with a most pitifully anxious expression. When I had finished reading, I took his hand.

  ‘My dear sir, you must not be anxious for me. I am well able to meet whatever danger may present itself; and though the documents that Mr Carteret was carrying may be lost to the enemy, we have something nearly as good.’

  I then told him of my foster-mother’s journals, and the corroboration of them provided by Mr Carteret’s Deposition, on hearing of which he gripped my hands and uttered a strange sort of sigh. A fierce light seemed to burn in his poor pale eyes as he reached again for his pen.

  ‘All is not lost then’ – he wrote – ‘as long as these statements remain safe from Daunt. They are insufficient, as you must know, but they must be safeguarded at all costs – as must the true identity of Edward Glapthorn. And then you and I must apply ourselves to overturning Lord Tansor’s folly, and so set things right at last.’

  ‘They are safe,’ I assured him, ‘and so am I. I have made a copy of the Deposition, which I have brought with me, to leave in your keeping.’ I placed the document on the desk. ‘Daunt can have no reason whatsoever to suspect that Edward Glapthorn is the person he seeks. And you are wrong, sir, to say that we do not have an ally. I believe we do.’

  He leaned forward once more, hands shaking, and wrote the words, ‘An ally?’

  Thus I opened my heart to Mr Tredgold concerning Miss Emily Carteret.

  ‘I love her to the utmost degree. To you, sir, I need say no more; for you know what it means to love in this way.’

  ‘But does she love you, in the same way?’ he wrote.

  ‘Every instinct tells me that she does,’ I replied, ‘though love is undeclared on both sides as yet, and must so remain until she returns from France. But already I would trust her with my life. She has long held Daunt in contempt; only think, sir, how she will regard him once he is revealed in his true colours. I have not the slightest doubt that she will support us in all our endeavours to unmask his villainy, and so expose his true character to Lord Tansor.’ And then I told him of Daunt’s association with Pluckrose; of his criminal career, as described to me by Lewis Pettingale; and finally of my conviction that Mr Carteret had been set upon by Pluckrose, acting on Daunt’s orders.

  He made no attempt to write a response, though the pen was in his hand. Instead he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, apparently overcome with fatigue.

  ‘Sir,’ I said gently. ‘There is one more thing I must say to you.’ Mr Tredgold remained immobile. ‘I believe that I know where the final proof of my identity may be found.’

  He opened his eyes slowly and looked at me.

  As I had spoken the words, Miss Tredgold had entered the room, preventing me from speaking further. On seeing her brother’s face, she pronounced him unfit to continue with the conversation, and I had no choice but to withdraw, though it was agreed that I might come again the following Wednesday, if his condition continued to improve.

  On the train back to London, I reflected that my trip had given me some hope that Mr Tredgold’s returning strength, and the relationship of frankness that now existed between us concerning the things that we had both kept secret from each other, might together effect some improvement in my situation. Whether such optimism was justified remained to be seen; it was a comfort, at any rate, to know that I was no longer quite alone, and that Mr Tredgold and I were united in common cause. More than this, I was now resolved that I must take my fate in my hands, and declare my love to Miss Carteret at the earliest opportunity. And then, I hoped, we would be three.

  When I returned to Temple-street, I found a letter waiting for me, bearing a Paris postmark. I saw immediately that the envelope had not been inscribed by Miss Carteret; but I tore it open all the same. It was a short note from Mademoiselle Buisson.DEAR MR DARK HORSE, —I am bidden by our mutual friend to inform you that she will be returning to England on Monday next and will be most happy to receive you at the house of Mrs Manners on Wednesday. She has a slight indisposition at the present, which prevents her from writing to you herself. I may say, entre nous, that she has been a very dull companion indeed, the blame for which I lay entirely at your door. It has been ‘Mr Glapthorn this’ and ‘Mr Glapthorn that’ these weeks past, as if there was no other topic of conversation in the world but Mr Edward Glapthorn. And then with all Paris to play in, she has done nothing but keep to the house, except for little walks alone in the Bois on fine mornings, with her nose in a book. Today she is reading a tiresome volume of poetry by M. de Lisle, which I had to go out and buy for her with my own money! Et enfin, Mr Glapthorn, you are welcome to her. But do not fall in love with her. I am serious now.Adieu, cher Monsieur,

  MARIE-MADELEINE BUISSON

  I read the note through again, smiling as I called to mind the writer’s little-girlish look, and her mischievously mocking ways. Serious! Flitting, fluttering Miss Buisson could never be serious. Her admonition not to fall in love with her friend was nothing but a piece of ironic teasing; for she must know that it was already too late.