by Michael Cox
Wednesday came – the day when I should have gone back to Canterbury to see Mr Tredgold. But I did not go. Everything that had seemed so demanding of my time and mental energy had fallen away into nothingness; only one desire now commanded my waking hours, and was soon to put all other duties out of mind. Instead of keeping my appointment with Mr Tredgold, I knocked on the door of Mrs Manners’s house in Wilton-crescent, at precisely eleven o’clock, and asked whether Miss Emily Carteret was at home.
‘She is, sir,’ said the maid. ‘You are expected.’
‘There,’ she said as I entered the drawing-room, ‘I have kept my promise, you see. I am back, and you are the first person I have seen.’
How my heart leaped to be in her dear presence once again! We quickly fell into a friendly way of conversation as Miss Carteret spoke of how she had passed her time in Paris, and I told her of the improvement in Mr Tredgold’s condition. Lord Tansor, she said, was away, gone to his West Indian estates with Lady Tansor; the great house had been shut up, and so she would be staying with her aunt in London until his Lordship returned.
‘Mr Daunt has gone with him,’ she added, with a little sideways look.
‘Why do you tell me that?’ I asked.
‘Because you always seem interested in where Mr Daunt is, and what he is doing.’
‘I am sorry to have given that impression,’ I replied. ‘I can assure you that I do not find Mr Phoebus Daunt in the least bit interesting.’
‘My sentiments exactly,’ she said. ‘So now, Mr Glapthorn, if you will be good enough to examine me, viva voce, on my knowledge of Monsieur de Lisle, I do not think you will find me wanting.’
Two hours passed most delightfully; but then Mrs Manners appeared in the doorway, to remind her niece of some engagement that they were both obliged to fulfil. Miss Carteret accompanied me into the hall.
‘Will you come next Wednesday?’ she asked.
Thus my world began to contract to a single point of all-absorbing interest. I could think of nothing but Miss Carteret; everything else was driven from my mind. In between our weekly conversations in Wilton-crescent, I lived in a kind of featureless dream, from which I only awoke to full consciousness every Wednesday morning at eleven o’clock. I went occasionally to Blithe Lodge of an evening, but always left early on some excuse or other. One night, Bella asked me whether anything was the matter: I smiled, and told her that I had never felt better.
‘I have a great deal of work to occupy me at the moment,’ I said in answer to her enquiry. ‘I shall be more myself when it is all done.’
‘My poor Eddie! You must not work so hard, you know. It will make you ill. Come and lay your head on my lap.’ When I had settled myself at her feet, she began to run her long fingers gently through my hair as she sang an Italian lullaby, and for a few sweet minutes I was a child again, listening to the cry of sea birds, and the wind coming in from the Channel as my mother read me to sleep.
I should have resisted her tender ministrations, and told her the stark truth; but honesty continued to seem the greater evil when dissimulation spared her from pain. And as time went by, I began to perceive that my heart had not been entirely conquered by Miss Carteret; that there yet remained a place in it – small and sequestered – for Isabella Gallini, of blessed memory.
As the spring of 1854 came on, I began to suggest little outings to Miss Carteret. Would she and her aunt feel inclined to go the Opera, or to a concert at the Hanover-square Rooms? What would she think about mounting an expedition to view the Assyrian antiquities at the British Museum? All my proposals, however, were regretfully, but firmly, declined. Then one morning, just as I was despairing of ever getting her out of the confines of her aunt’s house, she suddenly expressed a wish to see the snakes in the Zoological Gardens. ‘I have never seen a snake in my life,’ she said, ‘and would very much like to do so. Can it be arranged?’
‘Most certainly,’ I said. ‘When shall we go?’
The visit was set for the following week, the 12th of April. Mrs Manners was otherwise engaged, and so, to my joy, we went alone. The rattle-snakes, in particular, delighted her, and she stood entranced for several minutes without saying a word. Later, we walked and talked in the sunshine as if we had not a care in the world. She laughed at the hippopotamus, which suddenly plunged into its bath, liberally soaking everyone close by with cold water, and clapped her hands in amusement at the pelicans being fed. As we were leaving the Gardens, descending a short flight of steps, she lost her footing, and reached out to me to prevent herself from falling down. I grasped her hand tightly until she had regained her balance; but I did not let go, and she did not pull away, not immediately. For some moments we stood a little awkwardly, hand in hand, and then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, she gently released herself and placed her arm through mine as we walked on.
‘Where shall we go now?’ she asked. ‘It is such a beautiful day, and I do not wish to go home quite yet.’
‘Might you like to see St Paul’s?’
When we arrived at the cathedral, after observing a notice setting out the charges, she expressed an immediate determination to ascend to the Golden Gallery. I tried to dissuade her, knowing the final part of the ascent to be dirty and awkward, and unsuitable, in my view, for a lady to attempt. But she would not be put off; and so, much against my judgment, we paid our sixpences, and began to mount the steps to the Whispering Gallery. Here we paused for breath.
‘What shall we whisper?’ she asked, placing her mouth against the cold stone.
‘You have to speak, not whisper,’ I said. ‘Run, then. See if you can hear.’
And so I ran over to the other side of the gallery, placed my ear to the wall, and waved to indicate my readiness. At first, I could hear nothing, and signalled to her to speak again; then, gradually, her words began to percolate eerily through the very walls, indistinct, but sporadically audible: ‘… blind fool … to mine eyes … they behold … not what they see.’*
‘Did you hear it?’ she asked excitedly when I returned to her.
‘Did you mean me to hear it?’ I asked.
‘Of course. Come. I wish to go up higher.’
And so up we went, past the Clock Room, higher and higher, steeper and steeper, counting out the narrow steps as we went. At length, after much puffing and laughter at our situation, stooping through low-ceilinged stair-cases, and holding ourselves close to the walls of the landings to let other visitors pass by, we emerged into hazy sunlight on the Golden Gallery, just below the Lantern. Her black dress was dirtied with dust and cobwebs, and the exertion of climbing over five hundred steps had coloured her cheeks. As we stepped outside, we were immediately buffeted by a cool wind, and she gripped my arm tightly as we approached the low iron rail.
We stood in wondering silence. It seemed as if we were on the deck of a great ship, floating across an endless ocean of dirty cloud. Great thoroughfares lay far below, crowded with ant-like people and slow-moving streams of vehicles. The eye picked out familiar steeples and towers, palaces and parks, and distant factory chimneys, belching plumes of black smoke; the sun flashed off windows and gilded finials, and laid a shimmering cloak of gold over the grey river; but beyond London-bridge it was as if a dark curtain had been brought down across the port of the capital: not a single mast of the many ships moored there could be seen. Elsewhere, too, the drifting haze rendered every detail smudged, indefinite, and dreamlike. From this point of vantage, one did not so much see the great heaving metropolis below as feel its pulsing presence. I knew it well, that sense of the living power of Great Leviathan. But to her, its terrible sublimity came as a revelation, and she stood in a kind of wordless rapture, her great black eyes open to their widest extent, breathing quickly, and gripping me so hard that I could feel her finger-nails digging into me through her gloves.
She continued thus for several minutes, holding herself close to me as she looked down into the misty vastness. The illusion of her dependence on
me was thrilling, though I knew it for what it was. But I look back on that frail and fleeting moment as one of the happiest of my life, standing with the woman I loved high above the dirty deceitful world of strife and sin, alone with her on a little platform poised between earth and heaven, with the restless smoky city sprawled below us, and the infinite sky above.
‘I wonder what it would be like?’ she said at length, in a strange quiet voice.
‘What do you mean?’
‘To throw yourself out from here and fall through all this great height to the hard earth. What would you think, what would you see and feel as you fell?’
‘You would have to be unhappy indeed to contemplate such an act,’ I said, pulling her back a little from the rail. ‘And you are not so very unhappy, are you?’
‘Oh no,’ she said, suddenly animated. ‘I was not thinking of me. I am not unhappy at all.’
Throughout that spring, and into the month of June, I continued to wait upon Miss Carteret – whom I had now been allowed to call by her first name – nearly every day. Sometimes we would sit and talk for an hour or two, or perhaps stroll round Belgrave-square six or seven times, lost in conversation; at others we would go off on little expeditions – I recall with especial pleasure taking her to see the wax-work figures at the late Madame Tussaud’s Bazaar* in Baker-street (where, at Emily’s insistence, we paid an extra sixpence to view the grisly exhibits in the Chamber of Horrors). We went also to the Botanic Gardens at Kew, and on another occasion took a leisurely trip by steamboat from Chelsea to Blackwall, during which of course we passed the Temple Gardens, where I had walked so often with Mr Tredgold, and the Temple Pier, where my own skiff was moored. To observe her in such proximity to these familiar places gave me a kind of guilty pleasure, making me smile inwardly with delight, and with the hope that, one day soon, she would walk with me through those same streets and lanes, sit with me in the Temple Church, and climb the stairs to my room in the eaves, as mine and mine alone.
She appeared to take unfeigned pleasure in my company, always greeting me with a sunny smile as I entered the drawing-room of her aunt’s house, slipping her arm into mine as we walked, and allowing me to kiss her hand when I arrived to see her, and when I left.
She had become the most companionable of companions, the most considerate of friends; but now I began to discern unmistakable signs of something more – certain gestures and looks; a tone of voice; my hand retained a little longer, and held a little tighter, than previously; the eager, bright-eyed greetings; the intentional brush of her body against mine as we stood waiting to cross a road. These all spoke of something more – much more – than friendship; and I was overwhelmed with joy to know that love had finally come upon her, as it had come upon me.
And then, in the third week of June, Lord and Lady Tansor returned from the West Indies – Daunt was making his separate way home, having literary business in New York. Accordingly, Miss Carteret began to make preparations to leave her aunt’s house for Evenwood. On the morning before her departure, we walked out into Hyde-park. The day was overcast, and after an hour we found ourselves in a deserted corner of the Park, running towards a large oak-tree to shelter from a sudden downpour of rain.
We stood for several minutes, huddled closely together and laughing like children as the raindrops pitter-pattered through the branches. Then, away to the west, came a faint rumble of thunder, the sound of which caused her to look round anxiously.
‘We are not safe here,’ she said.
I told her that there was no danger, and that the storm was too far away to be of concern.
‘But I am frightened nonetheless.’
‘But, dearest, there is no reason.’
She paused before replying. ‘Perhaps it is not the storm that frightens me,’ she said softly, with her eyes to the ground, ‘but the greater tumult in my heart.’
In a moment I had pulled her close to me. Her breath was sweet and warm as I pressed my lips to hers, gently at first, then more urgently. The body I had once thought immune to desire now yielded willingly, eagerly, to my touch and thrust itself so hard against mine that I almost lost my balance. And still she would not break off the embrace. Like some mighty onrush of water, irreversible and immense, she broke against me, battered me, submerged me, until, as if I were a drowning man, my life seemed to pass before my eyes, and I offered myself up to sweet oblivion.
She clung to me, panting, her bonnet fallen back on her shoulders, her hair awry and disordered, her face spattered with rain.
‘I have loved you from the very first moment,’ I whispered.
‘And I you.’
We stood in silence, her head resting on my shoulder, her fingers gently tracing little circles on the nape of my neck, until the rain began to ease.
‘Will you love me always?’ she said.
‘Do you need to ask?’
*[‘Who shall separate us?’ Ed.]
*[Words from the first two lines of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 137: ‘Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes, / That they behold, and see not what they see?’ Ed.]
*[Marie Tussaud, née Grosholtz (1761–1850). During the French Revolution she had assisted the wax modeller Dr Philippe Curtius to make moulds of the heads of decapitated victims of the Terror. She established her Bazaar in Baker Street in 1835. The name ‘Chamber of Horrors’ was coined by a contributor to Punch in 1845 to describe the room containing the gruesome relics of the Revolution, along with newly created figures of murderers and other criminals. Ed.]
40
Nec scire fas est omnia*
From that day onwards I felt renewed, vivified, happier, and more free of care than at any time since my student days in Heidelberg. What could I not achieve, now that I possessed my dear girl’s love! It had been arranged that I would go to Evenwood as soon as she was settled, a prospect that rendered everything else dreary and uninteresting. But then I received a letter from Mr Tredgold, which shamed me back to a contemplation of all the things I had neglected.MY DEAR EDWARD, —I was most concerned when you did not come back to Canterbury as arranged. Many weeks have passed without word from you, & now Mr Orr has written to say that you have not been to Paternoster-row this past month, which makes me fear some harm may have come to you. I am much improved, as you see by my handwriting, & as you could observe for yourself. But as I am still unable to leave Canterbury, I beg you to write to me as speedily as you may, to put my mind at rest that all is well with you.I shall make no mention here of the other matter that has been constantly on my mind since your last visit – I allude of course to the remark that you made as you were leaving, concerning what you have been seeking – other than to say that it is of such moment that it would be foolish, for both of us, to commit anything concerning it to paper. I hope you will write soon, to let me know when I might expect you here, so that we may discuss this matter face to face.May God bless you and protect you, my dear boy.C. TREDGOLD
My employer’s words roused me from my lotos-dream, and I immediately took train to Canterbury.
I found Mr Tredgold sitting in a wicker chair under a lilac-tree, in a sunny garden at the rear of Marden House. He had a rug over his knees, and was in the act of making some notes in a small leather-bound book. His face, shadowed by a wide-brimmed hat, was thin and worn, but he had regained a little of his old suavity of manner, as evidenced by the beaming smile with which he greeted me.
‘Edward, my dear, dear boy! You have come. Sit down! Sit down!’
His speech was a little slurred, and I noticed that his hand was shaking slightly as he polished his eye-glass; but in all other respects he appeared to have suffered no permanent disablement. He wasted no time on idle chatter, but began at once by telling me that a deed had now been enrolled in Chancery to break the entailed portion of Lord Tansor’s inheritance, and that, in anticipation of this succeeding, a new will had been drawn up that would make Phoebus Daunt his Lordship’s legal heir.
‘Lord Tansor has instr
ucted all concerned that he wishes the matter to be expedited,’ said Mr Tredgold, ‘and though of course the law cannot be hurried, it is certain that it will feel obliged to pick up its skirts and do its best to walk a little faster. Sir John Mounteagle has been retained by Lord Tansor to see the deed through Chancery, which he will do with his customary vigour, I have no doubt. I think we may expect matters to be settled by the autumn. And so, Edward, if we are to prevent the will being signed, it will be necessary to lay our hands on some invincible instrument. Do you, as you implied, have possession of such an instrument?’
‘I have nothing in my possession,’ I admitted, ‘except my foster-mother’s journals and Mr Carteret’s Deposition, which, you advised, will be insufficient to prove my case. But I have a strong conviction of where the final proof may be hidden, and I believe that Mr Carteret shared my conviction.’
‘And where might this place be?’
‘In the Mausoleum at Evenwood. In the tomb of Lady Tansor.’
The eye-glass dropped from Mr Tredgold’s trembling fingers.
‘In Lady Tansor’s tomb! What possible grounds do you have for this extraordinary conviction?’
And then I told him of the words that Miss Eames had written on a slip of paper and sent to Mr Carteret – the same words that were graven on my mother’s tomb.
Mr Tredgold took off his hat, and placed his head in his hands. After a little time, in which nothing was said by either of us, he turned his sad blue eyes towards me.
‘What do you wish to do?’
‘With your permission, I wish to put my conviction to the test.’
‘And if I cannot give you my permission?’
‘Then of course I shall take no further action.’
‘Dear Edward,’ he said, the light returning to his eyes, ‘you always say the right thing. I have protected her memory for too long. Carteret was right. What she did was a crime – and I was party to it. She had no right to deny you what should have been yours, and to make you a stranger to your own family. I shall always love her, but the dead must take care of themselves. You are my care now – you, her living son. You have my permission, therefore, to do whatever is required, for the sake of the truth. Come back as soon as you can, and may God forgive us both. And now I feel a little cold. Will you help me inside?’