The Meaning of Night

by Michael Cox

  Mademoiselle had been regarding Miss Carteret and me with an expression of intense interest, her eyes darting from one to the other as each of us spoke.

  ‘I think,’ she said slowly, pursing her lips in concentration, ‘that Mr Glapthorn is what I have heard called in English a dark horse. Yes, that is what I think. Vous êtes un homme de mystère.’

  ‘Well,’ I smiled, ‘I am not sure whether to be flattered or not.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Mademoiselle, ‘flattered, of course. A hint of mystery in a person is always an advantageous characteristic.’

  ‘So you think I am mysterious?’

  ‘Assuredly.’

  ‘And what do you think, Miss Carteret?’

  ‘I think we are all mysterious,’ she replied, opening her eyes to their fullest extent. ‘It is a question of degree. Everyone has things they would prefer to hide from the view of others, even from those to whom they are close – little secret sins, frailties, fears, even hopes that dare not be spoken; yet, on the whole, these are venial mysteries and do not prevent those who love us best from knowing us as we essentially are, both for good and bad. But there are those who are not at all what they seem. Such people, I think, are wholly mysterious. Their true selves are deliberately and entirely masked, leaving only a false aspect for others to know.’

  Her unwavering gaze was uncomfortable, and the ensuing silence even more so. She was speaking generally, of course; yet there was an unmistakable pointedness to her words that struck me very forcefully. Mademoiselle gave a sigh, indicative of impatience with her serious friend, whilst I smiled weakly and, in an attempt to steer the conversation in another direction, asked Miss Carteret how long she would be staying in London.

  ‘Marie-Madeleine leaves for Paris tomorrow. I shall remain here a little longer, having nothing to draw me back to Evenwood.’

  ‘Not even Mr Phoebus Daunt?’ I asked.

  At this, Mademoiselle Buisson gave out a little scream of laughter, and rocked back and forth on the sofa.

  ‘Mr Phoebus Daunt! You think she would go back for him? But you are teasing, I think, Mr Glapthorn.’

  ‘Why would Miss Carteret not wish to see her old friend?’ I asked, with an exaggeratedly uncomprehending expression.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ replied Mademoiselle, smiling, ‘her old friend and playfellow.’

  ‘Mr Glapthorn does not share the world’s admiration of Mr Phoebus Daunt,’ said Miss Carteret. ‘Indeed, he holds quite a severe opinion of him. Isn’t that right, Mr Glapthorn?’

  ‘But Mr Phoebus Daunt is so utterly charming!’ cried Mademoiselle Buisson. ‘And so clever, and so handsome! Are you jealous of him, Mr Glapthorn?’

  ‘By no means, I assure you.’

  ‘Do you know him, then?’ asked Mademoiselle, smiling.

  ‘Mr Glapthorn knows him only by reputation,’ said Miss Carteret, also smiling, ‘which he believes to be sufficient grounds for disliking him.’

  They looked at each other as if they were playing some sort of game, the rules of which were known only by the two of them.

  ‘Do I infer, then, Miss Carteret,’ I asked, ‘that we share a similar view of Mr Daunt’s character and talents after all? When we last spoke on this subject you appeared inclined to defend him.’

  ‘As I implied then, I owe Mr Daunt the courtesy due to a long acquaintance, and to a close neighbour. But I do not seek to defend him. He is well able to defend himself, against your opinion, and against mine.’

  ‘Well,’ said Mademoiselle, ‘if you wish to have my considered opinion of Mr Phoebus Daunt, here it is. He is insufferable. That is my opinion – the long and the short of it, as you say in English. So you see, Mr Glapthorn, we are all of one mind on the subject.’

  I said that I was glad of it.

  ‘But you know, Emily,’ she continued, turning to her friend, ‘I can think of an excellent reason for you to go back to Evenwood.’

  ‘And what is that?’ asked Miss Carteret.

  ‘Why, Mr Phoebus Daunt is not there!’

  Mademoiselle seemed excessively pleased by the cleverness of her riposte. She clapped her hands together, kissed Miss Carteret on the cheek, and leaped to her feet. Then she began to dance around the room, skipping and twirling, and singing, ‘Où est le soleil? Où est le soleil?’ until she sat down once more next to Miss Carteret, flushed and bright-eyed.

  ‘And where has the sun gone?’ I asked.

  ‘To America,’ said Miss Carteret. As she spoke, she regarded her friend with a quizzical uplift of her eyebrows, and again I felt an unmistakable undercurrent of complicity. ‘He has embarked upon a lecture tour.’

  ‘And what is he to lecture on?’ I asked.

  ‘His subject, I believe, is to be “The Art of the Epic”.’

  I could not stop myself from letting out a contemptuous guffaw. The Art of the Epic! Of all things! Then I checked myself, thinking that I might perhaps be reprimanded by Miss Carteret for my discourtesy towards her old playfellow; but I was gratified to see that both she and Mademoiselle were also laughing, Miss Carteret quietly and discreetly, her friend more openly.

  ‘You see, Emily,’ said Mademoiselle at length, ‘Mr Glapthorn is a kindred spirit. He feels things as we do. We can tell him all our secrets, and never fear that he will betray us.’

  Miss Carteret rose, walked to the window, and looked out into the street.

  ‘It’s so stuffy in here,’ she said. ‘Shall we walk out for half an hour?’

  It did not take long for the two ladies to procure shawls and bonnets, and soon we were walking through carpets of fallen leaves in Hyde-park. We rested for a while on a bench overlooking the Serpentine; but Mademoiselle Buisson was restless and, after a minute or two, she wandered off a little way, leaving Miss Carteret and me alone for the first time.

  ‘Miss Carteret,’ I ventured, after we had sat for a few moments looking out over the water, ‘may I enquire whether the police are any closer to apprehending your father’s attackers?’

  Her eyes remained fixed on some distant point as she made her reply.

  ‘A man from Easton – a known ruffian – was questioned, but has since been released without charge. I have no hope at all that the police will ever identify those responsible.’

  She said this in a rather pat way, as if my question had been anticipated, and the answer prepared. Her beautiful face looked strained, and I noticed that she was playing with the fringes of her shawl in a distracted manner.

  ‘Forgive me,’ I said softly. ‘The question was insensitive.’

  ‘No!’ She had now turned to look at me, and I saw that her eyes were full of tears. ‘No. You speak out of kindness, I know that, and I am grateful for your concern, truly I am. But my heart is so full – with grief for my father, and with uncertainty as to what I shall do now. My father’s death has thrown everything into doubt. I have no way of earning my living, and do not even know whether I shall be permitted to continue to remain in my present home.’

  ‘Surely Lord Tansor will be sensitive to your position, and to the duty he owes to you as his relative?’

  ‘Lord Tansor will only do what serves his own interests,’ she replied, somewhat tartly. ‘I do not complain that he has never shown me consideration in the past, but he is certainly under no obligation to do so in the future. He gave my father employment at the behest of his aunt, my grandmother; but he did so with some reluctance, though the appointment proved of inestimable benefit to him. My father was his cousin, yet he was sometimes treated no better than a servant. I cannot deny that our material circumstances provided compensation; but we owned nothing. Everything we had was in the gift of Lord Tansor; we lived by the grace and favour of his Lordship, not as members of the family in our own right and dignity. I could never make my father see the inequity of our situation, but I felt the shame and injustice of it greatly. How, then, can I consider my relationship to his Lordship to offer any guarantee of security and independence?’

  ‘But perhaps h
is Lordship will treat you generously, after all.’

  ‘He may. I have Duport blood in me, and that is always of the greatest consideration to Lord Tansor. But I cannot count on things turning out to my advantage, and do not wish to be perpetually beholden to Lord Tansor.’

  I then made the observation that a lady always had another means at her disposal to settle herself in a comfortable way of life.

  ‘You mean marriage, I suppose. But who would want to marry me? I have no money of my own, and my father left little enough. I am almost thirty years old – no, do not say that my age is of no account. I know very well that it is. No, Mr Glapthorn, I am a lost cause. I shall live and die a spinster.’

  ‘There is one person, surely, who would marry you.’

  ‘And who is that?’

  ‘Why, Mr Phoebus Daunt, of course.’

  ‘Really, Mr Glapthorn, you are quite obsessed by Mr Phoebus Daunt. He seems to have become a fixed idea for you.’

  ‘But you admit that I am right?’

  ‘I admit no such thing. Any inclinations in that direction that Mr Daunt might have harboured have long since withered away. Even if my father had approved of him, which he did not, I could never have reciprocated his feelings. I do not love Mr Daunt; and, for me, having had the example of my parents constantly before me, love is the only reason for marriage. And now, shall we agree to speak no more of Mr Daunt? He bores me in company, and it bores me even more to hear him spoken of. I am determined to find some way of settling my future, on my own terms and to my own satisfaction, without having to cast myself on Mr Daunt and his expectations. Now tell me, have you read Mr Currer Bell’s Villette?’*

  With this question she began to quiz me on my tastes and opinions. Was I an admirer of Mr Dickens? What was my estimation of the work of Mr Wilkie Collins? Was not Mr Tennyson’s In Memoriam an incomparably fine achievement?† Had I been to any concerts or recitals lately? Did I see any merit in the work of Mr Rossetti and his associates?‡

  She showed an informed and discerning interest in each topic that arose in the course of our discussion, and we soon found that our views on the merits or otherwise of various authors and artists coincided most fortuitously; little by little, we began to speak like two people who had silently acknowledged a mutual liking for each other. Then Mademoiselle Buisson returned to where we were sitting.

  ‘It is getting a little cold, ma chère,’ she said, taking her friend by the hand to encourage her to stand up, ‘and I am hungry. Shall we go back? My compliments to you, Mr Glapthorn. I can see by her face that Emily has benefited from her conversation with you. What were you talking about?’

  ‘Nothing that would interest you, dear,’ said Miss Carteret as she pulled her shawl round her. ‘We have been quite serious, haven’t we, Mr Glapthorn?’

  ‘And yet it has made you happy,’ observed Mademoiselle thoughtfully. ‘You must visit her again soon, Mr Glapthorn, and be serious once more, and then I shall not worry about her when I return home.’

  We walked back to Wilton-crescent in high spirits, with Mademoiselle chattering and laughing, Miss Carteret smiling with quiet satisfaction, whilst I glowed inside with a new happiness.

  When we reached the house, Mademoiselle skipped nimbly up the steps.

  ‘Good-bye, Mr Glapthorn,’ she called back from the front door. Then she stopped and thought for a moment. ‘It is a curious name, is it not? Glapthorn. Most curious, and most suitable for a dark horse.’ And with that, she disappeared into the house, laughing.

  I turned to Miss Carteret.

  ‘May I call again?’

  She offered her hand to me, which I took in mine, and held for a most precious moment.

  ‘Do you need to ask?’

  *[‘Love is a credulous thing’. Ed.]

  *[‘Emily, my dear, aren’t you going to introduce me to this gentleman?’ Ed.

  *[The pseudonym, of course, of Charlotte Brontë. Villette was published in January 1853. Ed.]

  †[In Memoriam A.H.H. (i.e. Arthur Henry Hallam, 1811–33) was published by Edward Moxon (Daunt’s publisher) in 1850, the year that Tennyson was appointed Poet Laureate following the death of Wordsworth. Ed.]

  ‡[The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, founded in 1848 by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–82), John Everett Millais (1829–96), William Holman Hunt (1827–1910), and others. Ed.]

  36

  Amor vincit omnia*

  I paid my second visit to Wilton-crescent the following Friday, my heart full of bright hope that Miss Carteret would receive me with the same warmth with which our last meeting had concluded. I was more in love with her than ever; and now I was beginning to allow myself to believe that, in time, she might love me too. On this occasion, I was introduced to Mrs Fletcher Manners – a bustling, pretty-looking woman, only half a dozen years or so older than her niece – and invited to take luncheon with the two ladies. Afterwards, when Mrs Manners left to pay her afternoon calls, Miss Carteret and I were left alone in the drawing-room.

  ‘This has been most delightful, Mr Glapthorn,’ she said, as soon as her aunt had gone. ‘But I’m afraid I shall be returning to Evenwood tomorrow, and so will not have the pleasure of receiving you again for some time – unless …’

  I immediately took the hint.

  ‘It is possible that I may have occasion to visit Evenwood in the near future. Dr Daunt and I are slaves to the bibliophilic passion – I mean that we love old books, and share a number of other antiquarian and scholarly interests. He has asked me to look over the proofs of a translation that he has prepared, and it will be best if I return these to him in person. When I do so, perhaps you would not mind if I called at the Dower House.’

  ‘You would be most welcome,’ she said. Then she sighed. ‘Though I do not know how much longer I shall be able to call the Dower House my home. Sir Hyde Teasedale has expressed a wish to acquire the tenancy for his daughter, who is soon to be married; and I fear Lord Tansor will look upon a paying tenant with rather more favour than a dependent relative.’

  ‘But he will not turn you out, surely?’

  ‘No, I am sure he will not. But I have little money of my own and will be unable to match the price that Sir Hyde is willing to pay for the let of the property.’

  ‘Then Lord Tansor must find you somewhere else. Has he spoken to you on this subject?’

  ‘Only briefly. But let us not be gloomy. Lord Tansor will not let me starve, I am sure.’

  We conversed for a little longer, and I experienced again, as I had done by the Serpentine the previous week, that luxurious sense of having her all to myself. A little of her old reserve yet remained; but I left the house that afternoon emboldened by the cordiality of her manner towards me, and feeling hope rise within me that I did not love her in vain.

  I immediately wrote to Dr Daunt, and it was arranged that I would go up to Northamptonshire with the proofs of his translation the Thursday following, being the first day of December.

  The Rector and I passed a stimulating afternoon discussing Iamblichus, and Dr Daunt professed himself in my debt for the few trifling amendments to his translation and commentary that I had ventured to suggest.

  ‘This has been most kind of you, Mr Glapthorn,’ he said, ‘most kind. I have given you a deal of trouble, I dare say. And a trip to the country in such weather is doubly burdensome.’

  It was blowing hard outside, as it had been for a day or more, and the accompanying rain had turned the surrounding roads and tracks into quagmires.

  ‘Pray do not mention it,’ I replied. ‘I am willing to endure any discomfort for the sake of learning, and for the prospect of such a conversation as we have enjoyed this afternoon.’

  ‘You are kind to say so. But will you stay and take some tea? I am afraid my wife is not at home, and my son is abroad, on a lecture tour; so it will be just us two. But I can dangle a little temptation before you – a particularly fine copy of Quarles’s Hieroglyphikes* that I have lately acquired, on which I’d value your o
pinion, if you have no more pressing engagement.’

  I could not refuse the good old gentleman, and so tea was called for and taken, and the work in question produced and discussed, followed by several others of a similar character. It was not until a little after four o’clock, as darkness fell, that I made my escape.

  The wind was blowing in strong gusts from the east, lashing the rain against my face as I picked my way through the slippery ruts of the track that led from the Rectory to the Dower House. With the rain coming on suddenly harder, I abandoned my original intention of walking round to the front of the house, and ran as fast as I could across the stable-yard to knock on the kitchen door, which was soon opened by Mrs Rowthorn.

  ‘Mr Glapthorn, sir, come in, come in.’ She ushered me inside, where I found John Brine warming his toes by the kitchen fire.

  ‘Were you expected, sir?’ asked the housekeeper.

  ‘I’ve been at the Rectory and wished to pay my compliments to Miss Carteret, if she is at home, before I return to Easton.’

  ‘Oh yes, sir, she’s at home. Would you like to come up and wait?’

  ‘Perhaps I could dry myself by the fire for five minutes first,’ I said, taking off my coat and walking over to stand next to where John Brine was sitting. After a minute or two, Mrs Rowthorn scuttled upstairs on some errand, giving me the opportunity to ask Brine whether he had any news.

  ‘Nothing much to tell, sir. Miss Carteret has kept to the house these past few days, and has received only Mrs Daunt, who has been twice now since Miss came back from London. Mr Phoebus Daunt, as you know, will not return for some weeks.’

  ‘Miss Carteret has not been out, you say?’

  ‘No, sir – except, that is, to wait on Lord Tansor.’

  ‘Brine, you really are a most infuriating fellow. Could you not have told me this before? When did your mistress wait on Lord Tansor?’