by Michael Cox
‘As I stated in my letter, I have been engaged by Mr Edward Glyver as a confidential secretary, to assist him in the ordering and final disposal of his late mother’s papers.’
‘Ah,’ beamed Mr Tredgold, ‘the authoress.’
‘You know her work?’
‘By reputation.’
It did not strike me as odd then, though it did later, that Mr Tredgold was aware of the identity that lay behind the anonymous and pseudonymous works of my mother. He nodded at me to continue.
‘Mr Glyver is presently residing on the Continent and wishes to conclude his mother’s affairs as quickly as possible. As it is impossible for him to take on the whole task himself, he has delegated the business side of things to me.’
‘Ah,’ said Mr Tredgold, ‘the business side. Indeed.’ Another polish of the eye-glass. ‘May I ask, Mr Glapthorn, you will excuse me, whether you have some authority on which we may proceed?’
I had come prepared for this, and reached into my coat.
‘A letter from Mr Edward Glyver,’ I said, ‘granting me temporary power of agency over his affairs.’
‘I see,’ he replied, taking the document and looking over it. ‘A little irregular perhaps, but this all looks to be in order, although of course I have not had the pleasure of meeting Mr Glyver, and I do not think we hold any correspondence from him.’
Again I was prepared.
‘A corroborating signature, perhaps?’ I asked.
‘Certainly that might suffice,’ said Mr Tredgold, and I handed him a receipt, signed of course by myself, for the supplying of a handsome pocket translation of Plato by Ficino (Lyons, 1550, in a pretty French binding) by Field & Co., Regent’s Quadrangle. This appeared to satisfy the Senior Partner, who, having polished his glass once more, leaned back and responded with a further question.
‘You spoke of a confidential matter in respect of the late distinguished authoress, Mr Glyver’s mother. May I know what it concerns?’
His cerulean eyes widened a little as he tilted his head to one side and stroked back a delicate feather of hair from his forehead.
‘I have found mention in Mrs Glyver’s papers of an agreement between herself and a certain lady, whom I have inferred must be a client of your firm’s. The late Laura, Lady Tansor?’
Mr Tredgold said nothing.
‘Unfortunately, Mrs Glyver does not seem to have retained a copy of this agreement, and her son is naturally concerned that it might contain some undertaking that he is obliged to discharge on her behalf.’
‘Most commendable,’ said Mr Tredgold. He rose from his chair, walked over to a little French writing-desk, opened a drawer, and took out a piece of paper.
‘This, I think, is the document you seek.’
*[‘The die is cast’. Ed.]
*[Robert Browning was born at 6 Southampton Street, Camberwell, on 7 May 1812. Ed.]
*[Louis-Jacques Mandé Daguerre (1787–1851), French photographic pioneer and inventor of the Daguerreotype process. Ed.]
*[Lacock Abbey, near Chippenham in Wiltshire. Ed.]
†[What Sir John Herschel later called ‘negatives’, the term we still use. Ed.]
*[Paternoster Row was completely destroyed during the Blitz, on 29 December 1940. Ed.]
*[A double chair, on which two people could sit side by side. Ed.]
18
Hinc illae lacrimae*
I was amazed. I had expected lawyerly evasion and procrastination from Mr Tredgold, a firm rebuff even; but not such an easy and rapid capitulation to my request.
It was a simple enough arrangement.I Laura Rose Duport of Evenwood in the County of Northamptonshire do hereby solemnly and irrevocably absolve Simona Frances Glyver of Sandchurch in the County of Dorset from all accountability charge blame censure prosecution or crimination in law in relation to any private arrangement concerning my personal affairs that the said Simona Frances Glyver and I Laura Rose Duport may agree to or undertake and do further instruct that the said Simona Frances Glyver be exculpated and remitted from any prosecution or crimination in law in toto and in all respects from any consequences whatsoever and whenever that may arise from the said arrangement and that further and finally the provisions contained herein shall be incorporated at the proper time and place into those of my last will and testament.
The document had been signed by both parties and dated: ‘30th July 1819’.
‘This was drawn up by—?’
‘Mr Anson Tredgold, my late father. An old gentlemen then, I fear,’ replied his son, shaking his head.
I did not ask whether such an agreement would ever have held in law if challenged; for I saw that it did not matter. It had been a gesture merely, a willing acquiescence on Lady Tansor’s part to her friend’s natural desire to possess an illusion of protection, if all failed, from the clearly dangerous confederacy upon which they had been engaged.
‘I believe,’ Mr Tredgold went on, ‘that Mr Edward Glyver can be assured that nothing in this arrangement can now devolve upon him in any way at all. It remains – well, I should say it remains an unexecuted curiosity. As I said before, something extraordinary.’
He beamed.
‘Do you – did your father – have knowledge of the nature of the private arrangement referred to in this document?’
‘I’m glad you have asked me that, Mr Glapthorn,’ he replied, after a discernible pause. ‘I, of course, was not party to the drawing up of the document, having only recently joined the firm. My father was Lord Tansor’s legal adviser, and so it was natural that her Ladyship should have come to him to put her arrangements in hand. But after receiving your letter, I did undertake a little delving. My father was a methodical and prudent man, as we lawyers of course must be; but on this occasion he was, I fear, a little lax in his dealings with Lady Tansor. For I do not find he left any note or other sort of memorandum on the matter. He was, as I say, an elderly gentleman …’
‘And do you know whether Lord Tansor himself was aware that his wife had consulted your father on this matter?’
Mr Tredgold cleaned his eye-glass.
‘As to that, I think I can say with certainty that he did not. I can also say that the agreement you have in your hand was not finally incorporated into her Ladyship’s will, for she came to me some time later, with Lord Tansor’s full knowledge this time, specifically to prescribe new testamentary provisions following the birth of her son, Henry Hereward Duport.’
I had one final matter to raise with the Senior Partner.
‘Mrs Glyver …’
‘Yes?’
‘I believe certain arrangements were put in place, of a practical nature?’
‘That is so: a monthly remittance, which this office disposed through Dimsdale & Co.’
‘And that arrangement ceased … ?’
‘On the death of Lady Tansor, in the year 1824.’
‘I see. Well, then, Mr Tredgold, I need detain you no further. The business appears to have been concluded to the satisfaction of all concerned, and I think I can report to Mr Edward Glyver that he need have no further disquiet regarding this matter.’
I rose to go, but Mr Tredgold suddenly sprang up from his chair, with a speed that surprised me.
‘By no means, Mr Glapthorn,’ he said, taking my arm. ‘I shall not hear of it! You shall stay to luncheon – it is all ready.’
And with this wholly unanticipated expression of civility towards me, I was escorted to an adjoining room, where a substantial cold collation had been laid out. We chatted easily for an hour or more over what was a really excellent repast – prepared and brought in for Mr Tredgold by a protégé of no less a person than M. Brillat-Savarin* himself. We soon discovered that the Senior Partner had spent some time in Heidelberg as a student, which precipitated some mutually happy memories of the town and its environs.
‘The receipt that you showed me earlier, Mr Glapthorn,’ he said at length. ‘Do you perhaps share Mr Glyver’s bibliographical interests?’
I replied that I had made some study of the subject.
‘Perhaps, then, you would give me your opinion on something?’
Whereupon he went to a glass-fronted case in the far corner of the room and took out a volume to show me – Battista Marino’s Epithalami (Paris, 1616 – the first collected edition, and the only edition printed outside Italy).†
‘Very fine,’ I said admiringly.
Mr Tredgold’s remarks on the character, provenance, and rarity of the volume were accurate and judicious, and although his knowledge of the field in general was inferior to my own, he nevertheless impressed me with the extent of his expertise. He affected to defer immediately to what he kindly claimed was my obviously superior judgment on such matters, and ventured to suggest that we might arrange another visit, at which he could show me more of his collection at leisure.
So it was that I charmed Mr Christopher Tredgold.
I left by one of the side entrances, escorted down to the street door by the serving man who had let me in a few hours before. Just as we reached the bottom, Mr Tredgold shouted down: ‘Come again, next Sunday.’
And I did; and the next Sunday, and the following. By my fifth visit to Paternoster-row, in early October, I had formed a plan that I hoped would take advantage of my increasingly friendly connexion with the Senior Partner.
‘I fear, Mr Tredgold,’ I said, as I was about to depart for Camberwell, ‘that this may have to be the last of our pleasant Sundays.’ He looked up, and for once the beam had vanished.
‘What? Why do you say so?’
‘My employment with Mr Glyver was, as you know, only temporary. It will be over as soon as he returns from the Continent in the next few days and I can discharge the final portions of my duty to him in person.’
‘But what will you do then?’ asked Mr Tredgold, with every appearance of genuine concern.
I shook my head and said that I had no immediate prospect of further employment.
‘Why, then,’ he beamed, ‘I can give you one.’
It had fallen out even better than I had dared hope. I had envisaged the possibility of finding a way to join the firm in some junior or even menial capacity; but instead, here was Mr Tredgold offering to employ me as his assistant. In addition, he offered to introduce me to Sir Ephraim Gadd, QC, the recipient of many of Tredgolds’ most lucrative briefs, who was at that moment seeking someone to act as tutor in the Classical languages to those applying for admission to the Inner Temple who had not taken a degree.
‘But I have no degree either,’ said I.
Mr Tredgold smiled – seraphically – once more.
‘That, I can assure you, will be no bar. Sir Ephraim is always ready to take the advice of Tredgold, Tredgold & Orr.’
With my new position came a good salary of a hundred and fifty pounds per annum,* and a set of top-floor rooms in Temple-street, in a building owned by the firm, for which only a modest rent was requested. It was agreed that I would begin my employment – the precise nature of which remained almost deliberately vague – on the first day of November, in just over four weeks’ time, when the rooms I had been given were vacated by their present temporary occupant.
I returned to Camberwell elated by my triumph, but saddened at having to leave my comfortable lodgings. Signor Gallini, from whom I had received many kindnesses and attentions in the short time we had been acquainted, was the first new friend I made in London, and it was a real sadness to leave his quiet little house, not to mention the charms of the delectable Miss Bella, and move into the teeming heart of the city. But leave I did, and duly left Camberwell for Temple-street at the end of October. Now settled on this new course, I celebrated Christmas 1848 in the Temple Church, singing my heart out alongside the devout amongst my new neighbours, in a mood of genuine thanksgiving.
The first letter that I received in my new home was from Signor Gallini and Bella (with whom I had determined I should not lose contact), wishing me the compliments of the season and sending their very best hopes that I would prosper in my new career. A few days after Christmas two more letters were delivered, this time to the accommodation address that I had taken in Upper Thames-street, hard by, in order to receive any correspondence that might be directed to Edward Glyver.
One was from Mr Gosling, my mother’s legal man in Weymouth, advising me that the house at Sandchurch had been sold but indicating that, owing to its somewhat parlous condition, we had not achieved the price we had anticipated. The proceeds had been disposed of according to my instructions: the money owed to Mr More had been remitted to him, and this, in addition to other necessary disbursements, had left a balance of £107 4s. and 6d. This was far less than I had expected, but at least I now had employment, and a roof over my head.
The other letter was from Dr Penny, the physician who had attended my mother in her last illness.
Sandchurch, Dorset
4th January 1849MY DEAR EDWARD, —It is with very great sorrow that I have to inform you that poor Tom Grexby passed away last evening. The end was swift and painless, I am glad to say, though quite unexpected.I had seen him only the day before and he seemed quite well. He was taken ill during the afternoon. I was called, but he was unconscious when I arrived and I could do nothing for him. He died, quite peacefully, just after eight o’clock.The funeral is today week the 11th. I am sorry to be the bearer of such mournful news.I remain, yours very sincerely,MATTHEW PENNY
A week later, on a bitter January afternoon, I returned to Sandchurch, for the last time in my life, to see my dear friend and former schoolmaster laid to rest in the little church-yard overlooking the grey waters of the Channel. A keen wind was coming in from the east, and the ground was flint-hard underfoot from several days’ hard frost. I remained alone in the church-yard after everyone else had departed, watching the last vestiges of day succumb to the onset of darkness, until it became impossible to distinguish where the sky ended and the heaving expanse of black water began.
I felt utterly alone, bereft now of Tom’s sympathetic companionship; for he had been the only person in my life who had truly understood my intellectual passions. During my time as his pupil, by generously and selflessly putting his own extensive knowledge at my complete disposal, and by encouraging me in every possible way, he had given me the means to rise far above the common level of attainment. Eschewing the dead hand of an inflexible system, he had showed me how to think, how to analyse and assimilate, how to impose my will on a subject, and make it my own. All these mental strengths I would need for what lay ahead, and all these I owed to Tom Grexby.
I stood by the grave until I was fairly numb with cold, thinking over the days of my boyhood spent with Tom in his dusty house of books. Though I could not comfort myself with the pious certainties of Christianity, for I had already lost whatever allegiance I might have had to that faith, I remained susceptible to its poetical power, and could not help saying aloud the glorious words of John Donne, which had also been spoken at my mother’s funeral:And into that gate they shall enter, and in that house they shall dwell, where there shall be no Cloud nor Sun, no darknesse nor dazling, but one equall light, no noyse nor silence, but one equall musick, no fears nor hopes, but one equal possession, no foes nor friends, but one equall communion and Identity, no ends nor beginnings; but one equall eternity.*
Desperately cold, and with a heavy heart, I left the church-yard, eager now to seek the warmth and comfort of the King’s Head. Yet, despite my discomfort, I could not help first walking up the cliff path, to take one final look at the old house.
It stood in the freezing gloom, dark and shuttered, the garden untended, the little white fence blown over in the late gales. I do not know what I felt as I regarded the creeping desolation, whether grief for what had been lost, or guilty sorrow for having abandoned my childhood home. Above me, the bare branches of the chestnut-tree, in which I had built my crow’s-nest, creaked and cracked in the bitter wind. I would never again clamber up to my old vantage point, to look out
across the ever-changing sea and dream of Scheherazade’s eyes, or of walking with Sindbad through the Valley of Diamonds.* But to the inevitability of change, all things must submit; and so I turned my back on the past and set my face into the east wind, which quickly dried my tears. I had a great work to accomplish, but I trusted, at the last, to come into that gate, and into that house, where all would be well; where, as Donne the preacher had said, fear and hope would be banished for ever, in one equal possession.
Death took another friend that cold January: Prospero Gallini, who died of a broken neck after falling down the stairs. Bella wrote to tell me the terrible news, and of course I immediately went down to Camberwell to be with her.
‘I do not know yet what I shall do,’ she said, as we walked back from the church after the interment, ‘but I must leave here, that is for sure. There are debts to be paid, and the house must be sold. I shall go to London and find a position as soon as I can.’
I told her that she must not fail to inform me when she was settled, and begged her to regard me as her friend and protector in London. As I was leaving, she gave me a charming little edition of Dante’s Vita Nuova that had belonged to her father.
‘This is for my kind and considerate friend,’ she said, ‘whom I shall always think of with affection.’
‘You promise to write to me?’
‘I do.’
Some weeks later, a letter arrived to tell me that she had found a position as companion to a Mrs Daley in St John’s Wood. I was glad of it, for her father’s sake, and determined that I would thereafter do my best, through regular correspondence, to watch over her. This I did, though it was to be four years until we met again.
The great table at which my mother had spent so many weary hours was now set before the window in my new rooms in Temple-street, Whitefriars. On it, the journals that had revealed my lost self were arranged in order, girded round, as at Sandchurch, by yellowing bundles of paper, dozens of them, each bundle now sorted into chronological order, and carrying a label denoting its contents. Blank note-books, fresh from the stationers, were stacked up in readiness; pencils had been sharpened; ink and nibs laid in. I was ready to embark on my great work, to prove my true identity to the world.
