The Meaning of Night

by Michael Cox

  ‘And you have made use of this privilege recently?’ I began to feel uncomfortable at the questioning, but as I knew that I had committed no misdemeanour, and because I also knew that Dr Hawtrey was a distinguished bibliophile, I unhesitatingly said that I had been there the previous afternoon, making notes on Gesner’s Bibliotheca Universalis (Zurich, 1545).

  ‘And you were alone?’

  ‘Quite alone.’

  ‘And when did you return the key?’

  I replied that normally I would have taken the key straight back to Mr Carter, but that yesterday I had gone out on the river with Le Grice, leaving the key in his boarding-house – in which I also had use of a room–until we returned.

  ‘So when you came off the river, you took the key back to Mr Carter?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Mr Glyver, I have to tell you that I have received a serious allegation against you. According to information I have been given, I have reason to believe that you have taken a most valuable item from the Library without permission, with the intention of keeping it.’

  I could hardly believe my ears, and my utter surprise must have been only too evident to the Head Master, for he signalled me to sit down, and waited until I had composed myself before speaking again.

  ‘The item in question is the Udall. You know it, perhaps?’

  Naturally I knew it: the unique copy, circa 1566, of Ralph Roister Doister, one of the earliest of English comedies, by Nicholas Udall, a former Head Master of the School. I had examined it only recently, in the course of my researches. A volume of exceptional rarity and value.

  ‘We know that it was in the Library on Tuesday morning, because it was seen by one of the Fellows. It is not there now.’

  ‘I assure you, sir, I know nothing of this. I cannot understand—’

  ‘Then you will have no objection if we examine your belongings?’

  I replied in the affirmative without hesitation, and was soon following Dr Hawtrey’s gowned figure down the stairs and out into School Yard. A few minutes later we were in the room in Le Grice’s boarding-house, where I kept my personal effects and took my breakfast. On opening my trunk, I immediately saw that it was not as I had left it. Beneath a jumble of clothes could plainly be seen the brown calf binding of the missing book.

  ‘Do you still profess ignorance of this matter, Mr Glyver?’

  Before I could reply, Dr Hawtrey had retrieved the book, and ordered me to follow him back to Upper School, where I found Mr Carter and the Vice-Provost – the Provost being absent on business in London – awaiting us.

  I was questioned at some length for over half an hour, during which I felt my anger rising. It was clear that I had been the victim of some mean conspiracy to destroy my reputation, and bring shame and worse – the loss of my scholarship and consequent expulsion – upon my head. Was it possible? They had called me ‘the learned boy’ when I had first come to the School, whilst my prowess at the Wall had been the object of general acclaim. Was I not liked and admired by everyone, boys and masters alike? Yet someone had set out to bring me down – jealous, no doubt, of my abilities and my standing.

  I could hear the blood beating louder and louder in my ears as rage welled up, like some scalding volcanic plume, from the depths of my being. At last I could stand it no longer.

  ‘Sir,’ I cried out, breaking in on the questioning. ‘I have not deserved this, indeed I have not! Can you not see how ridiculous, how risible, this charge is, how worthy of your contempt? I beg you to consider: what possible reason could I have for perpetrating such an act? It would have been the height of folly. Do you suppose that I am such a fool as to attempt to steal so celebrated an item? Only an ignoramus would believe that a book of this rarity could be easily disposed of – and by a mere schoolboy – without suspicion being aroused. Or perhaps you think that I intended to keep the book for myself, which is equally absurd. Discovery would have been inevitable. No, you have been gravely deceived, gentlemen, and I have been the object of a vicious calumny.’

  I must have made an alarming, even intimidating, figure as I fumed and ranted, heedless of the consequences. But the genuineness of my passion was only too evident, and I thought that I could see in Dr Hawtrey’s face that the tide might be turning in my favour.

  For some minutes more, I continued to protest my innocence most vehemently, as well as deriding the ludicrous nature of the charge. At last, Dr Hawtrey signed for me to resume my seat whilst he held a whispered consultation with his two colleagues.

  ‘If you are innocent, as you claim,’ he said at last, ‘then it follows that someone else was responsible for removing the Udall quarto from the Library, and for attempting to implicate you as the thief. You say the key was in your room. How long were you on the river?’

  ‘No more than an hour. The wind was exceptionally keen.’

  There was more consultation between my interrogators.

  ‘We shall make further enquiries,’ said Dr Hawtrey gravely. ‘For the moment, you are free to go. You will not, however, be allowed to use the Library, and you are forbidden to go up town until further notice. Is that clear?’

  The next morning, I was again summoned to see Dr Hawtrey. He immediately informed me that a witness had now come forward, who swore that he had seen me placing the book in my trunk.

  There have been few times in my life when I have been lost for words; but on this occasion, I was momentarily struck dumb, utterly unable to believe what was being said to me. When I came back to myself, I angrily asked for the name of the witness.

  ‘You cannot expect me to give you that,’ said Dr Hawtrey.

  ‘Whoever this witness is, he is lying!’ I cried. ‘As I said before, I have been the victim of some plot. It is obvious, surely, that your witness must also be the thief.’

  Dr Hawtrey shook his head.

  ‘The witness is of impeccable character. Furthermore, his testimony has now been corroborated by another boy.’

  Knowing the impossibility that any witness, let alone two, could exist to a crime that I did not commit, I continued to argue as fiercely as I could for my innocence, and for what I considered to be the true state of the case: that I had been the object of a deliberate and vicious conspiracy. But it was useless. Motive and opportunity were already against me; and now came corroborated testimony, sealing my fate. My arguments were dismissed, and the verdict pronounced. My scholarship was to be terminated and I was requested to leave the School immediately, using any public pretence I wished. If I went without protest, then no further action would be taken against me, and the matter would be closed. If not, then I would face formal expulsion and public disgrace.

  I thought of my poor mother, alone in the parlour at home, filling page after page for Mr Colburn; and then of Miss Lamb, my presumed benefactress, whose generosity had brought me here. For their sakes, I saw that I must go quietly, though I knew that I was innocent. And so I capitulated, though with a heavy heart, and with rage still boiling and bubbling inside me. Dr Hawtrey was kind enough to say how sorry he was to see me leave under such distressing circumstances, for he regarded me as one of the School’s best scholars, and certain to gain a Fellowship at the University in due course. He also tried to mitigate the immediate effects of my sentence by kindly suggesting that I should stay with one of the Fellows, who had a house a few miles from Eton, until my mother was informed, and arrangements could be made for me to be fetched. But I said that I did not wish him to write to my mother, requesting instead that I be allowed to give her my own account of why I would not be returning to Eton. After some thought, Dr Hawtrey agreed. We shook hands, without speaking, and my school days were over. Worse than this, there was now no chance that I would proceed to Cambridge, and my dream of a Fellowship there would remain forever unrealized.

  As I was making my way to Le Grice’s boarding-house, I came upon Daunt in School Yard, standing with one of his new companions – none other than Shillito, whose fat head I had once shut in the
door. (You will observe that, in his published recollections, Daunt stated, quite categorically, that he never saw me again after the evening we returned from attending Evensong in St George’s Chapel. That was a deliberate falsehood, as I shall now reveal.)

  ‘Been to see the Head Master again?’ he called. Shillito gave a little sneer, and I saw straightaway how things were. Daunt had contrived to take the key from Le Grice’s boarding-house and remove the book from the Library; he had then come forward as an unwilling witness – I expect that he put on a good show, playing also, no doubt, on his father’s acquaintance with the Head Master – before enlisting the help of Shillito in his plot. It was also clear why Dr Hawtrey had been so confident in the probity of his main witness. He thought that we were still friends, you see; that we were still the inseparable companions we had once been. He was not aware that I had broken away from Daunt, and so of course he could not believe that my best friend in the School could possibly bear false witness against me.

  ‘Glyver’s a great one for getting his nose into old books,’ I heard Daunt say to Shillito, as if he were speaking on my behalf. ‘My pa’s the same. He and the Head belong to a club for such people.* I expect Glyver’s been talking to the Head about some old book or other. Isn’t that right, Glyver?’

  He looked at me, coolly, insolently, and in that look was concentrated all the petty envy that he harboured against me, and the spiteful desire to make me pay for turning my back on him in favour of other, more congenial, companions. It was all written on his face, and in the attitude of casual defiance that he had adopted, like one who believes that he has unequivocally demonstrated his power over another.

  ‘Care for a walk up town?’ he then asked. Shillito threw me another contemptuous grin.

  ‘Not today,’ I replied, with a smile. ‘I have work to do.’

  My apparent collectedness appeared to unsettle him, and I saw that his mouth had tightened.

  ‘Is that all you can say?’ he asked, blinking a little.

  ‘Nothing else occurs to me. But wait. There is something.’ I drew closer, interposing myself between Daunt and his acolyte. ‘Revenge has a long memory,’ I whispered into his ear. ‘A maxim you might wish to ponder. Good-bye, Daunt.’

  In a moment, I had gone. I did not need to look back. I knew that I would see him again.

  When I recounted this episode to Le Grice, over twenty years later in the comfort of Mivart’s, I experienced again the maddening anger that had consumed me on that day.

  ‘So it was Daunt,’ said Le Grice, after giving a little whistle of surprise. ‘You’ve kept that damned close. Why did you never tell me?’ He seemed rather put out that I had not confided in him; and, in truth, it now seemed absurd to me that I had never thought to do so.

  ‘I should have done,’ I conceded. ‘I see that now. I’d lost everything: my scholarship, my reputation; above all, my future. And it was all because of Daunt. I wished to make him pay, but in my own time and in my own way. But then one thing happened, then another, and the opportunity never came. And once you get into the habit of secrecy, it becomes harder and harder to break it – even for your closest friend.’

  ‘But why the devil is he trying so hard to find you now?’ asked Le Grice, a little pacified by my words. ‘Unless, perhaps, he wishes to make amends …’

  I gave a hollow little laugh.

  ‘A little dinner à deux? Contrite apologies and regret for blackening my name and destroying my prospects? I hardly think so. But you must know a little more about our old school-fellow before you can understand why I do not think that remorse for what he did is the reason for Daunt’s present desire to find me.’

  ‘In that case,’ said Le Grice, ‘let’s settle up and decamp to Albany. We can put our feet up, and you can talk away till dawn if you want.’

  Once ensconced in Le Grice’s comfortable sitting-room, before a blazing fire, I continued with my story.

  The journey home to Sandchurch was made in the company of Tom Grexby, who had travelled up to Eton instantly on receipt of my letter. I met him at the Christopher, but, before I had a chance to speak, he had taken me aside to give me grave news: my mother had been taken ill, and it was not expected that she would recover.

  Shock had been piled on shock, heaping Pelion on Ossa.* To lose so much, in so brief a space! I did not weep – I could not weep. I could only stare, wordlessly, as if I had suddenly found myself in some strange desert landscape, devoid of any familiar landmark. Taking my arm, Tom led me out into the yard, from where we walked slowly down the High Street to Barnes Pool Bridge.

  In my letter to him, I had held back the circumstances that had necessitated my leaving Eton; but as we reached the bridge, having walked most of the way from the Christopher in silence, I laid the matter out before him, though without revealing that I knew the name of the person who had betrayed me.

  ‘My dear fellow!’ he cried. ‘This cannot stand. You are innocent. No, no, this must not be allowed.’

  ‘But I cannot prove my innocence,’ I said, still in a kind of daze, ‘and both circumstance and testimony appear to prove my guilt. No, Tom. I must accept it, and I beg you to do the same.’

  At last he reluctantly agreed that he would take no steps on my behalf, and we walked back to prepare for our journey to Sandchurch. To my relief, Le Grice was on the river, and so I was able to remove my belongings from his boarding-house without the need to lie about why I was leaving so suddenly, or why I would not be returning. When all was safely aboard, Tom climbed up beside me and the coach drove off towards Barnes Pool Bridge, taking me away from Eton for ever.

  When we arrived at the little house on the cliff-top, late that evening, we were met by the village doctor. ‘I’m afraid you’ve come too late, Edward,’ said Dr Penny. ‘She’s gone.’

  I stood in the hall looking blankly at all the old familiar things – the brass clock by the door, ticking away as I had always remembered it; the silhouette portrait of my grandfather, Mr John More of Church Langton; the tall cylindrical pot, decorated with dragons and chrysanthemums, containing my mother’s umbrella and summer parasol – and breathing in the comfortable smell of beeswax polish (my mother had been a tyrant for cleanliness). The parlour door was open, revealing her work-table piled high with paper. The curtains were drawn, though it was broad day outside. A burned-out candle, in its pewter holder, stood precariously on a little stack of books nearby, a mute witness to the final night hours of drudgery.

  I ascended the stairs, oppressed by the insidious presence of death, and opened the door to her room.

  Her last book, Petrus, had only recently been published, and she was preparing to embark on yet another romance for Mr Colburn — the first few pages still lay on the floor by her bed, where they had fallen from her hand. The years of unremitting toil had finally taken their toll, and I could not help feeling glad that her labours were over. Her once beautiful heart-shaped face was lined and sunken, and her hair – of which she had been so proud in her youth – was now thin and grey, though she was but forty years old. Thin, too, were her careworn fingers, stained still with the ink she had expended on meeting her obligations to her publisher. I placed a parting kiss on her cold forehead, and then sat by her side until morning, wrapped in the suffocating silence of death and despair.

  She had been my only parent, and my sole provider until the generosity of my benefactress brought some relief to our circumstances; yet even then she had continued to write, with the same determination, day after day. What had driven her, if not love? What had sustained her, if not love? My dearest mother – no, more than a mother: the best of friends and the wisest of counsellors.

  I would see her no more, bent over her work-table; nor sit with her, excitedly unwrapping her latest production before we placed it proudly on the shelf – made by Billick from the timbers of a French man-of-war shattered at Trafalgar – with all the others. She would tell me no more stories, and would never listen again, with that sweet half-smil
e, as I read to her from my translation of Les mille et une nuits. She had gone, and the world seemed as cold and dark as the room in which she now lay.

  We buried her in the church-yard overlooking the sea at Sandchurch, next to her errant husband, the little-lamented Captain. Tom was by my side; and I was never more glad to have him there. At my request, to the sound of gulls and the distant pounding of the waves, Mr March, the incumbent of Sandchurch, read out a passage from John Donne; and then she was gone for ever, beyond sight and touch and hearing, a withered flower in her shroud of flinty earth.

  My mother’s death provided a reason for my returning home from school that no one questioned; and the same excuse was conveyed by letter to Le Grice and my other friends at Eton. Only Tom knew the truth, and to him I now turned.

  Mr Byam More, my sole surviving relative, offered to become my guardian; but, as I was firmly disinclined to remove to Somerset, it was agreed that Tom would temporarily stand in loco parentis, and that I would be placed under his educational care once again, whilst remaining – alone but for Beth and old Billick – in the house at Sandchurch, which had been left to me by my mother. The fifty sovereigns that I had insisted that she should keep as her own had been laid out on a number of unavoidable expenses; and so it became necessary to apply to Mr More, as my trustee, to release some of my remaining capital in order to maintain the household oeconomy.

  In the meantime, I sought to accustom myself to the unexpected sensation of being master in my own house, at the age of sixteen. To be there alone, without my mother, gave me the most curious sensation at first, as if I half expected to meet her on the stairs, or see her walking down the garden path when I looked out from my bedroom window. Sometimes, at night, I became certain that I could hear her moving around in the parlour. I would hold my breath, heart beating fast, straining to make out what I had heard – whether it was, indeed, the sound of her poor ghost, unable to find rest from pressing pen to paper, pulling up her chair to the great work-table to take up some eternally unfinished work, or simply the timbers of the old house, creaking and straining as the wind howled in from the sea.