The Meaning of Night

by Michael Cox

  I was amazed to find that I was still completely calm, as if I were contemplating some scene of surpassing, soul-easing beauty. All fear of danger, all apprehension of discovery, all confusion of purpose, all doubt, had fallen away. I saw nothing before me but this single figure of flesh, blood, and bone. The world was suddenly silent, as if Great Leviathan himself were holding his breath.

  Daunt’s footsteps were marked out in the pristine snow. One-two-three-four-five-six … I counted them as I carefully placed my own feet in each one. And then I called out to him.

  ‘Sir! Mr Daunt, sir!’

  He turned.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘A message from Lord Tansor, sir.’

  He walked back towards me – ten paces.

  ‘Well?’

  We were almost face to face – and still he did not know me! There was not the faintest glimmer of recognition in his eyes. Just a moment longer, dear Phoebus. Then you will know me.

  My right hand slipped inside my jacket, and round the bone handle of the freshly sharpened knife that had last been used to carve beef at the Wellington. The smoke of his cigar curled upwards to the cold sky, the end glowing as he inhaled.

  ‘Don’t just stand there, you stupid fellow. Give me your message.’

  ‘My message? Why, here it is.’

  It was done in a moment. The long pointed knife easily penetrated his evening suit, but I was not sure the wound was fatal. So I instantly withdrew the bloodied blade and then, as he staggered forward slightly, I readied myself for a second thrust, this time at his uncovered throat. He looked up at me, blinking rapidly. The cigar fell from his lips and lay smouldering on the ground.

  Still upright, though swaying a little from side to side, he blinked at me again, this time in disbelief, and opened his mouth, as if to speak; but nothing came out. I took a step towards him; as I did so, his mouth opened again. This time, with a kind of breathless gurgle, he managed three words:

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Ernest Geddington, footman, at your service, sir.’

  Coughing slightly, he was now leaning his head against my shoulder. I found it rather a touching gesture. We stood there for a moment, like lovers embracing. For the first time, I noticed that his thick black hair was brushed to conceal a little bald patch around the crown of his head.

  Cradling my enemy in one arm, I raised the knife and struck the second blow.

  ‘Revenge has a long memory,’ I whispered, as he slipped slowly down into the snow.

  He lay there, on a pillow of wine-red blood, his face as white as the shroud of cold snow into which his body had fallen. My breath met the bitter air, forming little spurting clouds; but my enemy breathed no more. I kneeled down, and looked into his face.

  Snow flecked his beard. A little trickle of blood had drained from his mouth, staining his perfectly laundered shirt. His eyes were open, staring blankly at the over-arching sky.

  Our great journey was at an end. But how had it ended? In victory, or defeat? And for whom? The two of us, Edward Glyver and Phoebus Daunt, friends once, had been brought to this moment by a power that neither of us could control, or understand. He would never now enjoy the things that were rightfully mine; but I, too, had been denied their possession. I had taken my revenge, and he had paid the price that I had set for the many injuries he had done to me; but I felt scant comfort, and not a trace of elation, only the dull sense of a duty done.

  I reached into my pocket and took out a piece of paper, on which I had copied some lines from a poem in the volume that Daunt had given to Le Grice.The night has come upon me.

  No more the breaking day, No more the noontide’s glare,

  No more the evening’s ray,

  Soft as lovers’ sighs.

  For Death is the meaning of night;

  The eternal shadow

  Into which all lives must fall,

  All hopes expire.*

  They had struck me, on first reading them, as having – unusually for the author – some small merit, and I had carried them around with me ever since, as a kind of talisman. But I would need them no more. Placing the crumpled paper in his stiffening hands, I picked up the knife, and left him alone to face eternity.

  In a large earthenware bowl, on a table outside the kitchen, were dozens of dirty knives and forks soaking in hot water. Casually, I dropped the carving knife into the bowl as I walked past, along with my blood-soaked gloves, and went back up the stairs to the vestibule.

  ‘Geddington!’

  It was Mr Cranshaw, wearing an expression of deep disapproval.

  ‘Where are your gloves, man?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Cranshaw,’ I replied. ‘I’m afraid I dirtied them.’

  ‘Then go down and get some more. At once.’

  He turned away; but then a servant, white-faced, suddenly appeared, hastening into the vestibule from the door that led out to the conservatory. He signalled to Mr Cranshaw, who went over to him. Whatever was said to him produced an expression of immediate shock in the butler. He said a few words to the servant, and then hurried into the dining-room.

  Soon there was a sudden scraping of chairs, and an anxious hush descended on the guests, followed by a scream and the sound of shouting. Lord Tansor, walking quickly with unseeing eyes, appeared in the doorway with Cranshaw, followed by three or four gentlemen, including Lord Cotterstock’s son, who broke away and came towards me.

  ‘You, fellow,’ he drawled. ‘Run and fetch an officer. Quick as you like. There’s murder done here. Mr Daunt is dead.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The young man then waddled off towards the rear of the house, thinking of course that I had gone off to do his bidding. But I had not.

  The hall was crowded now with a great commotion of guests all talking at once, the women in tears, the men standing in groups, loudly discussing the extraordinary turn of events; in the hubbub and confusion, I slowly made my way through the throng until I was at the door that led below stairs, my intention being to leave by one of the side entrances to the residence. At that moment, happening to look back to assure myself that no one was taking notice of me, I saw her.

  She was standing alone in the dining-room doorway, alabaster pale, the tips of her fingers placed against her lips in a pathetic gesture of shock and bewilderment. Oh my dearest girl! I am become Death because of thee! Between us was an ocean of noise and tumult; but we were two opposing islands of desperate calm.

  I was rooted to the spot, though I knew that every second I delayed brought discovery closer. Then, like the moon appearing from behind a cloud, she turned her face directly towards me, and our eyes met.

  For a moment, I was sure, she did not see me; then her gaze seemed to narrow and intensify. But realization was slow to form; she hesitated, and in that briefest of spaces, between doubt and certainty, I turned and headed back through the crowd to the front door, expecting at any moment to hear my name being called out and the alarm raised. I reached the door, but no one stopped me. As I passed out onto the steps, I could not help glancing behind me, to assure myself that I was not about to be apprehended. Again, our eyes locked together as people ran hither and thither. I saw that she knew what I had done, and yet she did nothing. Then a little crowd closed round her and she was lost to my sight, for ever.

  I was on the bottom step when I heard her voice.

  ‘Stop that man!’

  Hampered by my silver-buckled pumps, I feared that I would quickly be taken; but when I reached the far side of Park-lane and looked back, I saw to my relief that I had given my pursuers the slip. Shivering with cold and anxiety, I ran like a mad thing through the snow-covered grass to the place where my bag was concealed; there, under the cold sky, beneath which my enemy at last lay dead, I threw off my livery, and put on my suit and coat. In the distance I could hear shouting and the sound of a police whistle.

  Leaving the Park, I was soon in Piccadilly, hailing a cab.

  ‘Temple-street, White
friars,’ I shouted to the cabman.

  ‘Right you are, sir!’

  I had prepared myself for discovery. My travelling bag was packed; my documents in order. I hurriedly gathered together a few remaining items: my worn copy of Donne’s sermons; my journal and shorthand epitomes of various documents; the watercolour of my mother’s house; the discarded photograph of Evenwood taken on that hot June afternoon in 1850; and, finally, the rosewood box in which my salvation had lain for so long without my knowing, and the copy of Felltham’s Resolves that I had removed from Lady Tansor’s tomb. This done, I collected together all the remaining papers from my work-table, with the indexed notes that I had made over the years, piled them up in the grate, and threw a match on the heap. At the door, I looked back as the blaze took hold, a crackling furnace, consuming hope and happiness.

  With my muffler drawn over my face, I entered Morley’s Hotel, Charing-cross, and called for a brandy-and-water and a room with a fire.

  That night, with the snow beginning to fall once more, swathing the city in silence, I dreamed that I was standing on the cliff-top at Sandchurch. There is our little white house, and there the chestnut-tree by the gate. No school today, so I run, exulting, towards the semicircles of white-painted stones that edge the narrow flower-beds on either side of the gate. Billick has not yet mended the rope ladder, but it still serves; so up I clamber, into the branches, into my crow’s-nest. I have my spy-glass with me, and lie down to scan the shining horizon. In my mind, every sail is transformed: to the east, a vanguard of triremes sent by Caesar himself; to the west, low in the water, a Spanish treasure-ship freighted down with Indies gold; and, coming up from the south, slow and menacing, a horde of Barbary pirates intent on ravaging our quiet Dorset coast. Then there is a clatter of plates from the kitchen. Through the parlour window I can see Mamma writing at her work-table. She looks up and smiles as I wave.

  Then I awoke and began to weep: not for what I had lost, or for the times that would never come again; not even for my poor broken heart; least of all for the death of my enemy; but for Lucas Trendle, the innocent red-haired stranger, who would never again send Bibles and boots to the Africans.

  By my hand,

  Edward Charles Glyver,

  MDCCCLV

  Finis

  *[‘It is finished’. Ed.]

  *[See note, p. 15. Ed.]

  *[In Bishopsgate Street. Ed.]

  †[The Earl of Aberdeen (George Hamilton Gordon, 1784–1860). He became Prime Minister after the resignation of the Earl of Derby in 1852. He was widely blamed for the mismanagement of the Crimean War and resigned in February 1855. He would have gone to the dinner alone: his second wife had died in 1833. Ed.]

  *[Apparently fictitious. Ed.]

  *[The battle took place on 5 November 1854 – the day that Florence Nightingale arrived at the hospital at Scutari. Ed.]

  *[Rouge was a preparation of oxide of iron used to clean silver plate. Ed.]

  *[Marie Taglioni (1804–84), the celebrated Swedish-Italian dancer, for whom her father, Filippo Taglioni, created the ballet La Sylphide (1832), the first ballet in which a ballerina danced en pointe for the duration of the work. Ed.]

  *[A rich and expensive dish consisting of ribs of beef larded and braised, together with fresh (or forced) mushrooms, truffles, meat-balls and Madeira. Ed.]

  *[Large ornamental dispensers of sweets, etc. Ed.]

  †[From Handel’s oratorio Judas Maccabaeus, with a libretto by the Revd Thomas Morell. Composed to celebrate the English victory over the Young Pretender at Culloden and the return to London of the victorious Duke of Cumberland. First performed in 1747. Ed.]

  *[The poem from which these lines were taken is ‘From the Persian’, printed in Daunt’s Rosa Mundi; and Other Poems (1854). Ed.]

  Post scriptum*

  Marden House

  Westgate, Canterbury

  Kent

  10th December 1854

  MY DEAR EDWARD, —

  A brief note, to thank you for yours of the 9th. My brother is coming to town this morning, and has undertaken to ask Birtles to deliver this to you.

  As you seem disinclined, no doubt for good reason, to come here, then I shall not press you.

  I have to inform you, though, that Mr Donald Orr has written to me – somewhat intemperately – concerning what he calls ‘a serious and prolonged dereliction’ of your duties. He has indicated to me that he wishes to terminate your employment at Tredgolds, with immediate effect. I have replied, requesting that, if you so desire, you should be allowed to retain your rooms in Temple-street, for as long as you need them.

  If, however, that does not accord with your wishes, then there is a cottage hard by my new residence here, which I think would suit you very well, for as long as you needed it. And so I shall leave it in your hands, to let me know what you wish to do.

  You did not respond to my offer to speak to Sir Ephraim, on a strictly confidential and theoretical basis, concerning the presentation of the evidence to Lord T that you now hold. I make it again. Should you wish to avail yourself of it, I think we can be certain that Sir Ephraim’s advocacy would carry great weight with his Lordship.

  And so, in anticipation of hearing from you more fully, I wish you God speed, my dear boy, as the season of our Lord’s birth approaches, and hope that all continues to go forward as you would wish, and to assure you that I am ready to advise you at any time, and give whatever help I can of a legal character. I pray for an early and successful resolution of your enterprise, regardless of the consequences for myself, to which I beg you to pay no heed. Do what must be done, and set right the injustice that you have suffered, for the peace of your mother’s dear soul. And may God reward your labours at last. Write when you can.

  Yours, most affectionately,

  C. TREDGOLD

  THE RECTORY

  EVENWOOD

  NORTHAMPTONSHIRE

  22nd December 1854

  DEAR MR TREDGOLD, —

  I write in gratitude for your letter of sympathy to my wife and me. Of course I remember very well meeting you, with Mr Paul Carteret, on the occasion you mention.

  It has been a most terrible time for us, made worse by the violent nature of my son’s death. We were first told that a footman by the name of Geddington, temporarily engaged for the evening, was suspected, though there was no obvious reason for the attack; but then came the extraordinary news that the true culprit was Mr Glapthorn, whom I must now call by the name of Glyver. I am sensible that you, too, will have been as utterly shocked as we were to learn that so talented and remarkable a man as Mr Glyver could have committed such a deed. His motives are utterly mysterious, though I now remember (which I had completely forgotten until now) that he was at school with my son. Whether that distant relationship affords any clue to his actions, I cannot say. I have been informed by the police that they believe there may be a connexion with the recent killing of Mr Lucas Trendle, of the Bank of England, which apparently demonstrated many similarities to my son’s. It is supposed that Mr Glyver is suffering from some mental affliction – indeed that he may be actually insane. Of his whereabouts, as I expect you know, there is no sign, & it is likely, I suppose, that he has left the country.

  Evenwood, as you may imagine, has been thrown into turmoil. My wife, for whom Phoebus was everything, though she was his mother only by marriage, is inconsolable; and Lord Tansor also is deeply stricken. We have lost a son; he has lost his heir. And then there is poor Miss Carteret. What grief that young woman has had to bear is beyond comprehension. First her father brutally attacked and killed, & now her intended husband. She is a most pitiful sight. I hardly recognized her when I saw her last.

  As for myself, I have the comfort of my faith, and the certain knowledge that the God of Abraham and Isaac has taken Phoebus unto Himself. My son was held in such high esteem by everyone who knew him, & by the many readers of his works who did not know him, that we have been overwhelmed by kind expressions of condolence. T
hese, too, have been a great comfort.

  As so often in times of trial, I turn to Sir Thomas Browne. On opening the Religio Medici, soon after the news was brought here of my son’s death, my eyes fell on these words:

  ‘What is made to be immortal, nature cannot – nor will the voice of God – destroy.’

  This is my faith. This is my hope.

  I remain, my dear Sir, yours faithfully,

  A.B. DAUNT

  Marden House

  Westgate, Canterbury

  Kent

  9th January 1855

  DEAR CAPTAIN LE GRICE, —

  I am in receipt of your enquiry concerning Edward Glyver.

  From your letter it appears that you have been the recipient of various confidences concerning Edward’s history. This, I may say, came as something of a surprise to me; I had thought I was the only person in whom he confided. But it seems that none of us can truly claim to know Edward Glyver; to emphasize the point, I am now in correspondence with a Miss Isabella Gallini, with whom, I gather, Edward enjoyed a close relationship for some time past, but which he had never mentioned to me.

  And now it has come to this. I cannot say that I did not fear it would; or to another outcome that, perhaps, we would both have regretted even more. We shall never see him again – of that I am certain. You tell me that you urged him to go abroad, and to give up the business we both know about. If only he had taken your advice! But by then it was past all remedy – you must have seen, as I did, that fixed, haunted look in his eyes.

  Miss Carteret suffers, I am told; but the business has at least cured Lord Tansor of his irrational aversion to the collateral line, and so she will have the comfort in due course of inheriting both the Tansor title, and all the property associated with it. What Edward will feel if he learns of this, I cannot imagine.

  As to the deceased gentleman, the least said the better. You will infer that I did not share the world’s good opinion of him – though I do not say that he deserved to die. He did great wrong – to Edward, certainly; but there are other things concerning Phoebus Daunt that may never now be told – at least until much time has passed and no more hurt or harm can be done. But there has been enough of death and deceit; and for what purpose?