The Meaning of Night

by Michael Cox

  ‘Do you need to ask?’ I repeated the question that she herself had put to me after our walk in Green-park.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘I do not think I do.’

  *[‘Love conquers all’ (Virgil, Eclogues). Ed.]

  * [Hieroglyphikes of the Life of Man (1638) by the English poet Francis Quarles (1592–1644). Ed.]

  *[Colza was a thick, viscous vegetable oil used in lamps before the invention of paraffin in 1878. Ed.]

  *[Turkey declared war on Russia in October 1853. The Turks defeated the Russians at Oltenitza on 4 November, but the Turkish naval squadron was destroyed by the Russian Black Sea Fleet at Sinope on the 30th of that month – an action that caused outrage in England. These were the preliminary engagements of what was to become the Crimean War. Britain and France declared war on Russia in March 1854. Ed.]

  †[By Charlotte M. Yonge (1823–1901), published in 1853. The novel, which dramatizes the spiritual struggles of its principal character, Guy Morville, reflected its author’s Tractarian beliefs and was one of the most successful novels of the century. Ed.]

  *[The first volume of The Stones of Venice by John Ruskin (1819–1900), in which he championed Gothic architecture, was published in March 1851; volume II followed in July 1853, and volume III in October 1853. Ed.]

  †[Opus 28. Composed 1836–9, published in 1839. Ed.]

  ‡[‘At my heart, at my breast’, from Schumann’s song-cycle for female voice and piano, Frauenliebe und Leben (‘A Woman’s Life and Love’, 1840). Ed.]

  37

  Non sum qualis eram*

  I did not see Miss Carteret the next morning. When Mrs Rowthorn came up with my breakfast, she informed me that her mistress had gone out early, though it was a damp and gloomy day for a walk.

  ‘But it’s a good sign,’ she said, ‘that Miss is out in the air again. She’s been cooped up in her room for days on end since she came back from London, grieving still for her poor papa, it’s plain. But she seemed brighter this morning, and it fair did my heart good to see.’

  I had several hours before my train was due to leave, and so I resolved on a little expedition through the Park, partly to look upon my inheritance once again, and partly in the hope that I might encounter Miss Carteret.

  Downstairs, I asked the girl that I found scrubbing the front step to run and fetch John Brine.

  ‘Brine,’ I asked, ‘I have a mind to see the Mausoleum. Is there a key?’

  ‘I can get that for you, sir,’ he replied, ‘if you’ll wait till I ride up to the great house. It won’t take more than a quarter of an hour.’

  He was as good as his word, and I was soon wandering contentedly along sequestered paths through dripping woods and stately avenues of bare-branched limes, stopping from time to time to look out at the great house through a veil of drizzle. From certain vantage points it lay indistinct and spectral, an undifferentiated mass; from others it gained in definition, its towers and spires rearing sharply up through the mist like the petrified fingers of some titanic creature. It began to seem suddenly, and curiously, imperative to drink in every separate prospect to the brim; each detail of arch or window, each angle and nuance, appeared infinitely and urgently precious to me, as if I were a man gazing on the face of the one he loves for the last time.

  At length, I found myself standing – wet and cold, and splashed with mud – before the great double doors of the Mausoleum.

  It stood within a dense semi-circle of ivy-clad trees, a substantial domed building in the Graeco-Egyptian style, constructed in the year 1722 by the 21st Baron, who for his design had plundered freely – some might say uncritically – from a number of mausolea illustrated in Roland Fréart’s Parallele de l’Architecture Antique et de la Moderne.*

  The building consisted of a large central chamber flanked by three smaller wings, and an entrance hall, the whole being shut off by two massive and forbidding lead-faced doors, carrying representations in relief of six inverted torches, three on each door. Two life-size stone angels on plinths – one bearing a wreath, the other an open book – guarded the entrance. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out the key that Brine had given me and placed it in the inverted escutcheon.

  In the central chamber were four or five imposing tombs, whilst set around the walls of the three wings were a succession of arcaded and gated loculi, some presently empty and awaiting their occupants, others closed off by slate panels, each bearing an inscription.

  The first panel to catch my attention was that of Lord Tansor’s elder brother, Vortigern, whom Mr Tredgold had told me had died of an epileptic seizure; then I turned to the panel closing off the loculus that contained the remains of Henry Hereward Duport, my own brother. And then, next to it, was what I had come to see.

  I stood in the cold, dank stillness for some minutes, contemplating the simple inscription on the slate panel; but not in a mood of reverence and regret, as I had expected, but with a pounding heart. This is what I read:

  Laura Rose Duport

  1796–1824

  Sursum Corda

  The inscription instantly brought to mind the note that Mr Carteret had appended to his Deposition. SORSUM CORDA: the words from the Latin Eucharist written on a slip of paper sent to him by my mother’s friend and companion, Miss Julia Eames. SURSUM CORDA. Try as I might, I could not wrench significance from the words; and yet Mr Carteret had come to a realization about them that he wished to communicate to me.

  Musing on this new puzzle, I left the Mausoleum to silence and darkness, and took my way down a muddy path to a gravelled bridle-way that ran alongside the Park wall back to the South Gates. Disappointed that I had not encountered Miss Carteret on my ramblings, I arrived back at the Dower House, and went into the stable-yard to return the key of the Mausoleum to John Brine.

  ‘You’ll oblige me by getting a duplicate cut, Brine. Discreetly. You understand?’

  ‘I understand, sir.’

  ‘Very good. My compliments to your sister.’ He tipped his cap, and quickly pocketed the coins that I had placed in his hand.

  ‘Don’t expect we’ll be seeing you for a while, sir.’

  I turned back. ‘What? Why do you say that?’

  ‘I only meant that, with Miss going away—’

  ‘Going away? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Beg pardon, sir, I thought you’d have known. She’s going to Paris, sir. To spend Christmas with her friend, Miss Buisson. Won’t be back for a month or more.’

  Why? Why had she not told me? For a time, as I walked back to Easton to take the Peterborough coach, I felt sick with doubt and suspicion; but as the coach pulled out of the market-square, I grew more rational. She had merely forgotten, nothing more. If our paths had crossed this morning, as we had both made our separate perambulations of the Park, she would undoubtedly have told me of her imminent departure. I was sure of it.

  Back in Temple-street that afternoon, I sat at my table and took out a sheet of paper. With a beating heart, I began to write.

  1, Temple-street, Whitefriars, London

  2nd December 1853

  DEAR MISS CARTERET, —

  I write this short note to thank you, most sincerely, for your recent hospitality, & in the hope that you will allow me to anticipate an early resumption of our friendship.

  It is likely, perhaps, that you may be visiting your aunt in the near future; if so, I trust you will not consider it forward of me to entertain the further hope – however slight – that you might inform me, so that I may arrange to call on you, at the usual time. If you are expecting to remain in Northamptonshire, then perhaps I may – with your permission – find occasion to visit you in your new accommodation. I wish very much to have your opinion on the work of Monsieur de Lisle.* The Poèmes antiques seem to me admirable in every way. Do you know them?

  I remain, your friend,

  E. GLAPTHORN

  I waited anxiously for her reply. Would she write? What would she say? Two days passed, but no word came. I could d
o nothing but meditate moodily in my rooms, staring out of the window at the leaden sky, or sitting, with an unopened book on my lap, for hours on end in a state of desperate vacancy.

  Then, on the third day, a letter came. Reverently, I laid it – unopened – on my work-table, transfixed by the sight of her handwriting. With my forefinger I slowly traced each letter of the direction,* and then pressed the envelope to my face, to drink in the faint residue of her perfume. At last I reached for my paper-knife to release the enclosed sheet of paper from its covering.

  A wave of relief and joy swept over me as I read her words.

  The Dower House, Evenwood, Northamptonshire

  5th December 1853

  DEAR MR GLAPTHORN, —

  Your kind letter reached me just in time. Tomorrow I am to leave for Paris, to visit my friend Miss Buisson. I regret very much that I failed to mention this to you when you were here – my excuse is that the pleasure of your company drove all other thoughts from my head, & I did not realize the omission until after you had gone.

  You must think me a very odd friend – for friends, I believe, we have agreed to be – to have kept such a thing from you, though I did not do so wilfully. But I will hope for forgiveness, as every sinner must.

  I shall not return to England until January or February, but shall think of you often, and hope you will sometimes think of me. And when I return, I promise to send word to you – that, you may be assured, will be something I shall not forget to do. You have shown me such kindness and consideration – & provided me with unlooked-for mental solace at this dark time – that I should be careless indeed of my own well-being if I were to deny myself the pleasure of seeing you again, as soon as circumstances permit.

  I am familiar with some of the work of M. de Lisle, but not the volume you mention – I shall take especial care to seek it out while I am in France, so that I may have something sensible to say about it when next we meet. In the meantime, I remain,

  Your affectionate friend,

  E. CARTERET

  I kissed the paper and fell back in my chair. All was well. All was wonderfully well. Even the prospect of separation from her did not appal me. For was she not my affectionate friend, and would she not be often thinking of me, as I would be thinking of her? And when she returned – well, then I trusted to see affectionate friendship blossom quickly into consuming love.

  I pass over the succeeding weeks, for they were bleak and featureless. I sat at my work-table for hour after hour, writing notes and memoranda to myself on the various problems that still required resolution: the death of Mr Carteret, and how best to act on what he had revealed in his Deposition; the now urgent necessity to find unimpugnable evidence to prove my true identity in law; the reason why Miss Eames had sent Mr Carteret the words SURSUM CORDA; and last, but by no means least, the means by which I was to expose my enemy’s true character. If only I could have called on Mr Tredgold’s counsel! But his condition had been slow to improve, and, during the two or three visits that I made to Canterbury, I would sit despondently by his bedside, wondering whether the dear gentleman would ever recover from the life-in-death into which he had been so cruelly plunged. His brother, however, continued to hope – in both a professional and a personal capacity – for better things to come, and assured me that he had seen such cases end in complete recovery. And thus I would return to Temple-street faintly hopeful that, when I next saw my employer, he would evince some signs of restoration.

  But as day succeeded day, my spirits sank lower and lower. London was cold and dismal – impenetrable, with choking fog for days on end, the streets slimy with mud and grease, the people as yellow and unwholesome-looking as the enveloping miasma. I found that I missed the beautiful face of Miss Emily Carteret most desperately, and began to convince myself that she would forget me, despite her assurances. To compound matters, I was bereft of companionship. Le Grice was away in Scotland, and Bella had been called to the bedside of a sick relative in Italy. I had seen her soon after my return from Evenwood, at a dinner given by Kitty Daley to celebrate her protégéé’s birthday. Of course both my head and my heart were full of Miss Carteret, and yet Bella was as captivating as ever. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to fall in love with her; a man would have been mad not to do so. But I was such a man – made mad beyond recourse by Miss Carteret.

  At the end of the evening, after the other guests had departed, Bella and I stood looking out into the moonlit garden. As she laid her head on my shoulder, I kissed her perfumed hair.

  ‘You have been most gallant tonight, Eddie,’ she whispered. ‘Perhaps absence really does make the heart grow fonder.’

  ‘No absence, however long, could make my heart grow fonder of you than it already is,’ I replied.

  ‘I am glad of it,’ said Bella, holding me closer. ‘But I wish you would not go away so much. Kitty says I mope like a lovelorn schoolgirl when you are not here, and that sort of thing, you know, is very bad for business. I had to turn away Sir Toby Dancer last week, and he is considered a very fine man by all the other girls. So you see, you must not leave me as you do, or you will have Kitty to answer to.’

  ‘But, dearest, I cannot help it if my own business takes me from you. And besides, if your moping helps me keep you to myself, then perhaps I ought to stay away more often.’

  She gave me a sharp pinch on my arm for my impudence and pulled away; but I could see that her chagrin was only pretended, and soon we had retired to her room, where I was allowed to admire, and then to occupy, those sweet perfections of flesh that had been denied to fine Sir Toby Dancer.

  I left Blithe Lodge early the next morning, leaving Bella asleep. She stirred slightly as I kissed her, and I stood for a moment looking down at her dark hair spread out in tangled profusion over the pillow. ‘Darling Bella,’ I whispered. ‘If only I could love you.’ Then I turned away, and left her to her dreams.

  Christmas came and went, and the new year of 1854 was a month old before anything of significance occurred.

  On the 2nd of February, I was called before Mr Donald Orr. A rather frosty conversation ensued. Mr Orr professed himself to be aware of the fact that I was continuing to draw a salary without, as far as he could tell, doing much to earn it. But as I worked in a personal capacity for the Senior Partner, he could do nothing but look disapprovingly down his thin Scots nose at me, and say that he expected Mr Tredgold had had his reasons for employing me.

  ‘You are right,’ I replied with a satisfied smile. ‘He did.’

  ‘But this is not a situation that can continue indefinitely.’ He regarded me somewhat threateningly. ‘If Mr Tredgold – Heaven forbid – should fail to recover, then certain steps will have to be taken concerning the constitution of the firm. In that sad eventuality, Mr Glapthorn, it may prove necessary, regretfully, to dispense with your services, given your then redundant association with the Senior Partner. Perhaps I need say no more.’ On this friendly note, the interview was swiftly terminated.

  That night I drank heavily, compounding my folly by succumbing to the temptation of my bottle of Dalby’s.* In my dreams I saw Evenwood, but not as I had dreamed of it as a child, nor as I had seen it in the clear light of day; but at some future time, when a great catastrophe had laid waste its former plenteousness, and toppled its soaring towers. Only the Mausoleum remained intact amidst the disfiguration and desolation. I saw myself standing once more before the loculus containing the tomb of Laura Tansor, and beating my hands against the slate slab until they bled, desperate to gain access to where she lay; but the slab remains immovable and I turn away to see Lord Tansor, perfectly attired as ever, and smiling, standing in the gloom beside me.

  He speaks:

  What do you know? Nothing.

  What have you achieved? Nothing.

  Who are you? Nobody.

  And then he throws his head back and laughs until I can stand no more. I reach into my pocket, take out a long knife secreted therein, and plunge it into his he
art. When I awoke, I was drenched in sweat and my hands would not stop shaking.

  Then, as dawn broke, I understood what Mr Carteret had wanted to tell me.

  Sursum Corda. The words themselves meant nothing. But what they were graven upon was of the greatest significance. For not only did the slab of slate that carried these words shut out the living from the abode of the dead; it also shut in the truth.

  *[‘I am not what I was’. Ed.]

  *[Published in 1650. Ed.]

  *[Charles-Marie-René Leconte de Lisle (1818–94), leader of the Parnassian poets. His Poèmes antiques were published in 1852. Ed.]

  *[i.e. the address. Ed.]

  *[Dalby’s Carminative, one of many patent medicines containing laudanum. Ed.]

  38

  Confessio amantis*

  Long days followed, of uncertainty and near despair, interspersed with periods of fevered elation. Was I right? Did the final proof I had dreamed of finding lie within the tomb of the woman who had given me life, or had I become a deluded obsessionist? And how could I prove my conviction, except by an act of the grossest violation? Backwards and forwards, round and round, hither and thither, my mental turmoil increased. One moment I was triumphantly sure of my ground, the next prostrated by confusion. Abandoning both food and exercise, and resorting more and more to my drops, I lay on my bed trapped in the coils of hideous nightmares, oblivious to both the coming of night and the breaking of the day.

  I continued thus until my bottle of Dalby’s stood empty by my bed. Incapable as I then was of going out to procure more, I subsided into a state of stuporous vacancy until I was roused by the gentle prodding of Mrs Grainger, who, finding me in this alarming condition and believing I was in the throes of death, had called upon the assistance of my neighbour, Fordyce Jukes, who now stood behind her, scratching his head.

  ‘This is rum,’ I heard him say, ‘very rum indeed.’

  ‘Is the gentleman dead, sir?’ asked Mrs Grainger plaintively.