The Meaning of Night

by Michael Cox

  The place was sparsely but decently furnished, and moderately clean. At the far end of the room, beneath a boarded-up window, a ginger kitten slept in a box festooned with bright red ribbons and with his name, ‘Tyger’, written in crude letters on the side; on a table close by lay a pile of unfinished needlework, the arm of a thick velvet dress hanging down towards the floor like a dead thing. At the other end of the room, alongside a half-curtained window that gave onto the street, stood a single French bed-stead draped with a patched and faded cover, too short for concealing the unemptied chamber-pot beneath.

  ‘Do you have a name?’ she asked.

  ‘Geddington,’ I replied, smiling. ‘Ernest Geddington. General footman. And what do they call you?’

  ‘You may call me Lady Jane,’ came her answer, in a tone of strained jocularity. ‘And now, Mr Ernest Geddington, general footman, I suppose you must be ready to judge the quality of the goods on offer.’

  She was a slight, auburn-haired girl of about twenty years of age, and spoke with a quiet Cockney intonation roughened by her life in smoke-filled places. Her attempt at levity was hollow. Her eyes were tired, the smile forced. I noticed her red knuckles, her thin white legs, and that she coughed quietly every few seconds. Swaying uneasily on her tired and swollen feet, she began undressing until she stood before me, shivering slightly, in just her chemise and drawers.

  She led me backwards towards the bed-stead, and sat down.

  ‘Your carriage awaits you, Mr Geddington,’ she said, the exhaustion now plain in a barely withheld yawn.

  ‘Oh no, my lady,’ said I, turning her round as I spoke. ‘I know my place. I’ll take the back stairs, if you please.’

  And so to Bluegate-fields, dangerous and deadly. A black gash of damp stone leads up from a narrow court, and into another kind of fog, dry and burning, which hurts the eyes as it curls and drifts about the room. A Lascar is huddled on the dirty, rain-stained floor, another attenuated figure mumbles in a far corner, and an empty divan awaits.

  I lie down, am handed the instrument of dreams, loaded with its potent freight, and the dissolution begins. Clouds, piercing sunlight, the shining peaks of eternal mountains, and a cold green sea. An elephant gazes at me with a look of ineffable compassion in its small dark eyes. A man with red hair whose face I cannot see.

  The boundaries of this world are forever shifting – from day to night, joy to sorrow, love to hate, and from life itself to death; and who can say at what moment we may suddenly cross over the border, from one state of existence to another, like heat applied to some flammable substance? I have been given my own ever-changing margins, across which I move, continually and hungrily, like a migrating animal. Now civilized, now untamed; now responsive to decency and human concern, now viciously attuned to the darkest of desires.

  I admit these degradations because they are true, as true as anything else in this confession; as true as the killing of Lucas Trendle and my hatred of Phoebus Daunt; and as true as the cursed love I hold, and will always hold, for her whom I cannot yet name. If these acts disgust you, then it must be so. I do not – cannot – seek to excuse them, or explain them; for the terrible itching urge to wander perpetually, like some poor Ahasuerus,* between light and darkness, will stay with me, driving me under its goad, until the day of my death.

  A reviving cigar and I return to the fog-weighted streets. Once again, I wearily climb the stairs to my rooms in Temple-street as the day struggles into life.

  On reaching my sitting-room, I slumped heavily into the chair by the fireplace I had left some hours before and fell into a deep untroubled sleep.

  I awoke with a start a little before noon, thinking of Jukes.

  Fordyce Jukes was my neighbour on the ground floor. I loathed his greasy, cunning look and insinuating manners: ‘So nice to see you, Mr Glapthorn. Always a pleasure, Mr Glapthorn. A touch cold today, Mr Glapthorn.’ I learned to expect the opportune opening of his door as I passed up or down the stairs; the glutinous smile of greeting; and always the infallible sense of a watching eye at my back.

  It was Jukes! I was sure of it. I should have seen it immediately. He had followed me that night to Cain-court. He knew it all.

  He was a clerk in the offices of Tredgold, Tredgold & Orr, solicitors, of Paternoster-row, where I was also employed, and of which I shall have occasion to speak more fully hereafter. Clever enough, certainly; educated enough, with sufficient knowledge of my comings and goings to ensnare me. Yes, it must be Jukes. Under the pretence of civility, his eye was always upon me, as if he half knew that I was not what I seemed. And he had recently had the opportunity to snoop amongst my papers, as I shall later relate. We had never spoken of Bella, it was true; our conversations had been scrupulously neutral on all personal matters; but he had watched me, followed me, and had found her out.

  What had begun it? I knew him to be a damned inquisitive meddler; my nocturnal ramblings were frequent, and the stairs would have creaked out my exits to his always receptive ears. An urge one night – impossible for him to resist – to follow me out, to see where I went and what I did, was repeated on other nights until a habit was formed. How many shadows had welcomed his watching eye; how many doorways, how many dark and secret places?

  Then, one night in late October, he followed me again, a little earlier than usual, puzzled by the apparent lack of any specific intent or objective, as I made my way to Threadneedle-street. He could not see Lucas Trendle standing outside the Bank; only I could see him. But he continued to watch, still puzzled, as I proceeded westwards towards the Strand.

  He could not know why I committed the deed that he witnessed, but he knew that I did it. He knew.

  The revelation galvanized me. After splashing my face with cold water, I descended the stairs. Jukes’s door stayed closed, and there was no sound from within, for these were of course his usual hours at Tredgolds. But I knew that he must have contrived to be absent from the office for the afternoon in order to carry out his intention to confront me at Stoke Newington, or at least to satisfy himself that I had accepted his invitation to pay my last respects to Lucas Trendle. All the same, I stopped at the foot of the stair-case and contemplated forcing an entrance to his chambers, in order to secure confirmation that the hand responsible for the two anonymous notes was his. But this, I decided, was both foolhardy and unnecessary; so I stepped out into the street, to execute the plan I had formed.

  I was in Chancery-lane in time for the half-past-twelve omnibus to Stoke Newington, for it was now the 3rd of November, and Mr Lucas Trendle was to be buried. The omnibus came and left without me – I did not intend to take any chances. I therefore held back, observing every face that passed along the street, every stationary or loitering figure. Then I moved to the back of the queue for the next green ‘Favourite’, which I boarded, immediately descending as it pulled away. Satisfied that I had not been followed, I finally took my place on the one o’clock vehicle, and arrived at last at my destination.

  Through the Portals of Death,* surmounted by hieroglyphs announcing ‘The Gates of the Abode of the Mortal Part of Man’, I walked into Abney Cemetery, in the quiet village of Stoke Newington. London lay behind me, beneath a louring and obscuring red-yellow pall interposed between earth and sky, the progeny of a million chimneys. Here the air was clear, the day dull, but with a promise of brightness.

  It wanted an hour until the time. I wandered, as a casual visitor might, amongst the spacious lawns and Lebanon cedars, observing the monuments of granite and marble – some striking, most of a becoming simplicity, for this was a resting-place for Non-Conformist mortality; the petrified angels; the columns and draped urns. I examined the small Gothic Chapel, and then made my way over to a fenced-off spot, around a large and venerable chestnut-tree, that marked the favourite place of retirement of Dr Watts,* friend of the former Lady Abney, and tutor to her daughters.

  Lingering there, I looked about me, taking in the patterns of paths and walkways, and trying to picture to my
self how events might unfold.

  Would Jukes risk a direct approach in such a place? Would he take me quietly aside, and put some proposal to me for the maintenance of his silence? I could not feel in the least physically threatened by him – a stunted, weaselly fellow – and was, in any case, well prepared for that eventuality. I would take the initiative, and suggest a civilized discussion of the matter, gentleman to gentleman. He would be appreciative of my consideration; no need for unpleasantness, no need at all. Simply a little matter of business. A stroll, perhaps, towards the Chapel, and a further meeting arranged – at some mutually convenient place and time in Town – in order to conclude matters. Then I would secure my advantage, complete and final.

  Thus I imagined as I continued to stroll slowly up and down the path, as if in sober contemplation of my surroundings. I took out my watch. A few moments later the church clock tolled three.

  I turned back towards the gates to see a hearse pulled by four horses – ostrich-plumed and richly caparisoned – enter the grounds, followed by two mourning coaches, and a number of smaller carriages swathed in rich black velvet. I counted four mutes in their gowns, and a little group of perhaps half a dozen pages. A moderately expensive affair, I reflected, in spite of Mr Trendle’s plain theology.

  A small knot of villagers, not of the family party, followed the procession a little way behind. I scanned this group closely, moving nearer, and as quickly as I dared, to try to make out my man.

  The cortège entered through one of the arches of the Chapel; the coffin was removed by the bearers and taken inside; the mourners descended and followed the doleful burden.

  I had stationed myself a short distance off. His mother – there – for sure; a slight figure holding for support the arm of a tall younger gentleman, perhaps his brother. I did not detect a wife or children, for which I was grateful. But the sight of his poor mother unnerved me momentarily, as I saw again in memory the rictus smile that her son had given me as I had withdrawn the knife from his neck.

  As the members of the family party took their places in the Chapel, I surveyed the accompanying group for a second time. Jukes must surely be amongst them, though his distinctive squat figure was not apparent to me. Then the thought struck me that he might have sent an agent; unlikely as it seemed, I swept my eye once more over the onlookers, and moved closer, until I became a part of the little crowd.

  ‘Were you acquainted with Mr Trendle, sir?’

  The plaintive enquirer was a little person of some rotundity, who gazed up at me through pale grey-green eyes from behind a pair of gold spectacles.

  ‘Slightly, ma’am,’ I replied.

  My companion shook her head slowly from side to side. ‘Such a wonderful man – wonderful. So good and generous, so adoring of his mamma. You know Mrs Trendle, I dare say?’

  ‘Slightly.’

  ‘But perhaps not her late husband?’

  ‘No, indeed.’

  I did not wish to keep up the conversation, but she came back again.

  ‘You are of the Chapel, perhaps?’

  I replied that I had known the deceased only through business.

  ‘Ah, business. I do not understand business. But Mr Trendle did. Such a clever man! What the dear people in Africa will do without him, I cannot think.’

  She continued her lament for some time, expounding in particular, with a curious kind of wistful relish, upon the wickedness and certain damnation of the person who had thus deprived the Africans of their great champion.

  Eventually, unencouraged by any response from me, she smiled faintly and waddled away, her fluttering mourning clothes making her seem like a great aggregated ball of soot that had escaped from the prison of fog that still lay in a dark looming bar across the murmuring city at our back, pressing down on the poor souls beneath like the weight of sin itself.

  No sign. Nothing. I moved about the crowd, anxious to be part of it, but wary of any individual contact. When would he come? Would he come?

  In due course, the Chapel bell tolled out, and the coffin, followed by the mourners and their attendants, was carried back out to the awaiting hearse. Slowly, the procession wound its way to the place that had been prepared.

  The ceremony of interment was duly performed by an elderly white-haired clergyman, accompanied by the usual displays of grief. I found myself unwillingly regarding the coffin as it was lowered gently into the receiving earth, the last mortal home of the unfortunate Lucas Trendle, late of the Bank of England. For I had put him there, and for nothing he had done to me.

  The party began to disperse. I looked once more at his mother, and at the gentleman I had seen accompanying her earlier. From beneath the rim of his hat peeked a narrow curtain of red hair.

  Eventually, I was left alone at the graveside with the diggers and their assistants. Of Fordyce Jukes there was not a trace.

  I waited for nearly an hour, and then made my way back towards the Egyptian portals, with darkness coming on. The gatekeeper tipped his hat as he let me through a smaller side entrance. I took a deep breath. The wretched Jukes had played me for a fool, sending me all the way out here as a prank, for which he would pay dearly when the moment of reckoning came.

  But then, just as I was passing beneath the deeply shadowed arch into the outer world, I felt a tap on my shoulder as a person – a man – pushed past me. I had instinctively swung to the left, towards the shoulder on which I had received the tap; but he had gone to the right, quickly becoming absorbed in a remaining group of mourners standing just outside the gates, and disappearing into the deepening gloom.

  It had not been Jukes. He was taller, broader, quick on his feet. It had not been Jukes.

  I returned to Temple-street, dejected and confused. As I passed through the stair-case entrance, the door of the ground-floor chamber opened.

  ‘Good evening, Mr Glapthorn,’ said Fordyce Jukes. ‘I trust you’ve had a pleasant day?’

  *[‘Death is certain’. Ed.]

  *[The Wandering Jew of legend. Ed.]

  *[The monumental gates, in the Egyptian style, that lead into the cemetery. Ed.]

  *[Isaac Watts (1674–1748), the Dissenting divine, poet, and hymn-writer. The cemetery, laid out on the former Fleetwood-Abney estate, had been opened in May 1840. Ed.]

  6

  Vocat*

  The conviction that Fordyce Jukes was my blackmailer would not leave me; and yet he had not been at Stoke Newington, nor had any attempt been made by any other person or persons to make themselves known to me – except for that tap on the shoulder, that unsettling sense of gentle but firm pressure deliberately applied. An accidental brush by a hastily departing stranger, no doubt. But not the first such ‘accident’ – I still thought of the incident outside the Diorama. And not the last.

  Why had Jukes sent me out to Stoke Newington, if he had not intended to reveal himself to me there? I could reach no other conclusion but that he was biding his time; that the second note, summoning me to the interment of my victim, had been designed to apply a little additional twist of the knife, which I would repay with compound interest. Two communications had been received. Perhaps a third would bring matters to a head.

  I kept a close eye on Jukes from that moment on. From my sitting-room window, if I placed my face close against the glass, I could just see down to where the stair-case gave onto the street. I observed him carrying in his provisions, or passing the time of day with the occupants of neighbouring chambers, sometimes taking his mangy little dog out for a walk by the river. His work hours were regular, his private activities innocent.

  Nothing happened. The expected third communication did not come; there was no soft knock on the door, and no indication of an unravelling plan. Slowly, over the following days, I began to gain ground on my enfeebled self, and, with returning strength and concentration, emerged one morning after a sound night’s sleep – the first for a week or more – to rededicate myself to the destruction of my enemy.

  Of his history and char
acter you shall know more – much more – as this narrative continues. He was ever in my mind. I breathed him in every day, for his fate was anchored to mine. ‘And I shall cover his head with the mountains of my wrath, and press him down, / And he shall be forgotten by men.’ This is an untypically fine line from the epic pen of P. Rainsford Daunt (The Maid of Minsk, Book III); but there is a finer by Mr Tennyson, which I had constantly before my mental eye: ‘I was born to other things.’*

  On the Sunday following the interment of Lucas Trendle, I called at Blithe Lodge, as arranged, and was shown into the back parlour by Charlotte, the Scottish housemaid. I waited for some little time until, at last, I heard the sound of Bella’s distinctive tripping tread on the stairs.

  ‘How are you, Eddie?’ she asked. She did not take my hand, or kiss me spontaneously, as she might once have done, or even proffer her own cheek to be kissed.

  We exchanged the usual pleasantries as she sat down on a chaiselongue by the tall sash window that looked down over the dark garden below.

  ‘Well, then,’ she said, ‘tell me what you’ve been doing. Things have been so busy here. So much to do, and so many things to think about! And with Mary leaving – you know of course that Captain Patrick Davenport is going to marry her! Such excitement – and so brave of him! But she deserves it, the dear girl, and he does love her so. Kitty has a new girl coming tomorrow, but of course we never know how these things will work out, and then Kitty herself has gone back to France, and so it falls to me to conduct the interview, as well as everything else, and you know that Charlie is to go to Scotland for her sister’s confinement …’

  She twittered on in this inconsequential way for some minutes, laughing from time to time, and curling her fingers around in her lap as she spoke. But the old light in her eyes had gone. I saw and felt the change. I did not have to ask the reason. I could see that she had considered, in the cold light of day, what I had told her at the Clarendon Hotel, and had found it wanting – fatally so. A tale told to a child; a demeaning, absurd fantasy of a paste-board villain and his mysterious henchman – one of my mother’s stories, perhaps, dusted down for the purpose. All to hide the truth – whatever hideous truth it was – about Edward Glapthorn, who was not what he seemed. It was only too apparent that she had taken ‘Veritas’ at his word.