The Meaning of Night

by Michael Cox

  ‘As sure as I’m standing here.’

  ‘And wot’s your int’rest in the matter?’ he growled suspiciously.

  ‘Hygiene!’ I declaimed. ‘It is a passion of mine. Filth – physical and moral – appals me. I am an eager promoter of clean water, clean thoughts, and the proper disposal of waste. The streets are awash with filth of every description. I simply wish to enlist you and your comrades in my crusade, by encouraging you to make a start on the permanent removal of filth from Number 42, Weymouth-street, at your earliest convenience.’

  ‘You’re mad,’ said Mr Abraham Gabb, ‘stark mad.’

  Thursday, 30th November 1854

  Cold, clinging fog. There was nothing to see from my window but the dim dark forms of wet roofs and smoking chimneys, and nothing to hear but the muffled sound of people and carriages passing unseen up and down the street, the wheezing cough of the law stationer who lived on the floor below, and the doleful sound of distant bells tolling out the interminable hours. Despite my earlier resolve to strike at Daunt before he struck at me, I found myself sunk again in indolence. The weeks were passing, and still I had done nothing. And this was the reason.

  On the 24th of November, The Times had announced the engagement of the distinguished poet, Mr Phoebus Rainsford Daunt, and Miss Emily Carteret, daughter of the late Mr Paul Carteret. Every day since then I had sat for hours on end, staring at the printed words, and in particular at the conclusion of the announcement: ‘The wedding will take place at St Michael and All Angels, Evenwood, on the 1st of January next. Miss Carteret will be given away by her noble relative, Lord Tansor.’ I had even fallen asleep at the table and woken to find my cheek pressed against the black print.

  But today had been different. The announcement from The Times had been consigned to the flames, along with my irresolution. At one o’clock, I walked out in order to accomplish various errands, ending my expedition with an early dinner at the Wellington,* where I was not known.

  ‘Will you take some beef, sir?’ the waiter asked. ‘Certainly,’ I replied.

  He picked up a heavy, ivory-handled carving-knife, which he first brought to a nice edge with a sharpening steel, before cutting away at the joint most dexterously. It was a joy to behold the succulent slices of flesh falling onto the platter. When he had laid down his knife and brought the steaming plate to my table, I asked him whether he would be good enough to fetch me some brandy-and-water. By the time he returned, I had gone; and so had his knife.

  I made my way home via Weymouth-street, where, to my delight, I encountered great excitement. A large crowd had gathered outside Number 42, and a police van was drawn up in front of the house.

  ‘What is going forward?’ I enquired of a post-man, bag on shoulder, who was standing on the pavement, humming softly to himself as he observed the scene.

  ‘Murder,’ he said, matter-of-factly. ‘Occupier beaten to death and thrown from first-floor window.’ At which he resumed his tuneless humming.

  Silently approbating Mr Abraham Gabb and his associates for their admirable promptitude and efficiency, I went on my way, rejoicing that the terrible violence meted out by Josiah Pluckrose to poor undeserving Agnes Baker, and to the equally undeserving Paul Carteret, had been turned back on the perpetrator. He had escaped a stretching because of me; but I had finally brought him to account.

  So much for Pluckrose. Now – at last – for his master.

  *[An avenger or punisher. Ed.]

  *[In Regent Street (corner of Hanover Street) and Clare Court, Drury Lane, respectively. Ed.]

  *[i.e. a drunken devotee of the god of wine, Bacchus. Ed.]

  *[In Spitalfields, known as one of the worst streets in London for violence and poverty. Ed.]

  [The following sections of the MS are composed of pasted-in strips of unlined paper. The writing on these strips is occasionally almost illegible. Conjectured readings are in square brackets. Ed.]

  *[Corbyn, Beaumont, Stacey & Messer, well-known chemists and druggists, situated at 300 High Holborn. Ed.]

  * [The Cabinet of Venus. See p. 192. Ed.]

  *[See note, pp. 65–6. Ed.]

  *[The sword of Justice wielded by Sir Artegal in Spenser’s Faerie Queene. Ed.]

  †[A public-house at 11 Windmill Street, Haymarket. Ed.]

  *[An inferior, usually juvenile, street thief and pickpocket. Ed.]

  †[The bookseller Bernard Quaritch, 16 Castle Street, Leicester Square. Ed.]

  *[At 160, Piccadilly. Ed.]

  46

  Consummatum est*

  Monday, 11th December 1854

  I awoke with a start at a little after six, having dozed off in my chair an hour or so earlier. It was here at last. The day of reckoning. I had slept lightly, having taken only a small swig of Dalby’s before retiring early. Today, I would need all my wits about me.

  Outside, the street was curiously silent, and the morning light seemed unnaturally bright for the time of year. Then I heard the sound of a shovel being scraped on the pavement. Jumping up, I rushed to the window to find that the usual vista of sooty roofs had been magically transformed by a thick covering of snow, whose purity, dazzling even under a dense slate sky, was quite at odds with the dirt and sin that lay beneath its fleecy embrace.

  My mind was clear, now that the day was finally here, and I felt an eager surge of excitement at the imminent prospect of taking my long-delayed revenge on my enemy. The loss of Pluckrose must surely have unnerved him; and this advantage had been swiftly followed by the arrest of Fordyce Jukes, as related to me in a letter, received the day before, from Mr Tredgold. I had not told him of my betrayal, nor of how everything I had laboured so long to acquire had been lost beyond recall. In a few brief notes sent down to Canterbury, I had assured him that all was going along very well, and that Miss Carteret and I had been laying our plans. In the reply he had now sent to the last of these hastily composed communications, I detected an anxious impatience, which I much regretted; but I was determined, at all costs, to keep my employer in ignorance of the true situation, and of what I was about to do.

  The letter did, however, contain the welcome news concerning Jukes.You may or may not be aware that, following information received from an anonymous source, Jukes has been found in possession of a large number of very precious objects, every one of which appears to have been stolen, over a period of time, from Evenwood. He claims that he merely stored these items under instruction from the person actually responsible for the thefts. And the person he names? None other than Mr Phoebus Daunt! Of course no one believes him. It is too ridiculous, and a dastardly slur on the reputation of a great literary man (so goes the general view). Jukes has certainly had opportunity to carry out the thefts during the time that he has been in my employ, having often accompanied me to Evenwood on business, and at other times he was sent there alone on various errands. I very much fear his protestations will count for little when his case comes on. Nothing, I think, can lessen Lord Tansor’s exalted estimation of Mr Phoebus Daunt. Jukes has of course been dismissed from the firm, and is presently awaiting trial. I shudder that such a person was in my trusted employ for so long, and the anonymous informant, whoever he may be, has my sincere gratitude for thus exposing him. As a result of the police investigation, it has now also emerged that Jukes may have been implicated in the defrauding of his previous employer, Pentecost & Vizard, in the year 1841. He is said to have facilitated a burglary, during which a number of the firm’s blank cheques were stolen, which, if true, makes me shudder that I placed my trust in him for so long.On another matter, what you certainly will not know is that I have decided, in consultation with my brother and sister, that I shall formally retire from the firm on the 31st of this month. Mr Donald Orr is to become Senior Partner (my sister’s views on this promotion are extremely severe), whilst I propose to take a little house in the country, play my violincello, and tend my collections, though I confess that they do not hold the fascination that once they did. Rebecca is to come and kee
p house for me – Harrigan has deserted her, and it now appears that they were never married. It is an arrangement that suits both parties very well. Leaving London is for the best, I think. The world is much changed, and really I wish to have as little to do with it as possible.

  Dear, kind Mr Tredgold! How I wished I could turn back from the path on which my feet were now set! But it was too late. The past had been closed off; the future was dark; I had only my present unshakeable resolve, as minute succeeded minute, and the snow began to fall.

  My first task was to remove my moustachios. When the operation was over, I stood for some moments regarding myself in the cracked mirror above my wash-stand. I was bemused. Who was this person? The boy who dreamed of sailing away to the Country of the Houyhnhnms? Or the young man who wished to become a great scholar? No: I saw clearly who I was, and what I had become. I saw, too, that I did not have, and would never have, the strength to turn aside from visiting retribution on my enemy, and so reclaim my former innocent self. I was damned, and I knew it.

  The thought of who I had once been, before I discovered the truth about myself, suddenly conjured up a vivid memory of an event that I had almost forgotten until revived by some strange unconscious mechanism on this day of vengeance.

  When I was eight, and in my second year at Tom Grexby’s little school, our small band of scholars, three in number by now, was augmented by the son of a corn-factor from Wareham, Rowland Beesley by name, who had been sent to Sandchurch to live temporarily in the care of his aunt. Beesley tried Tom’s patience sorely from the start, and it was not long before he took it into his head to cross me – which, even at that age, was a foolish thing to do.

  After several preliminary skirmishes, in which I think it is fair to say I triumphed decisively, battle was joined in earnest on the day that I brought to school, for Tom’s perusal, my pride and joy – the first volume of the translation of M. Galland’s Les mille et une nuits, from which I used to read to my mother.* I was late for school that morning and had run as fast I could go, down the hill to Tom’s cottage, with my treasure – wrapped in an old piece of dark-green plush that I had borrowed from Beth’s work-basket – tucked tightly under my arm. I arrived ten minutes past the time, panting, and hurriedly placed the book, still wrapped in its plush, on a little table by the front door.

  Towards the end of the morning lesson, Beesley asked to be excused. He returned after a few minutes, took his place, and the lesson continued. When at last Tom said we could go off, I waited until the others had left and then, eager to show him my treasure, jumped up and ran out into the sitting-room.

  The piece of green plush lay on the floor. Of the book there was no sign.

  I let out a howl of rage, then rushed towards the door and out into the street. I knew for sure that Beesley had taken it, and I ran about screaming ‘Scheherazade! Scheherazade!’ like a mad thing, trying to see where he might have hidden my most precious possession; but there was no sign of either the book or the thief. And then I happened to glance into the old stone water-trough that stood just outside the King’s Head. There, floating on the dark-green water, was my book, its pages sodden and torn, the spine ripped off and floating separately, ruined past all remedy.

  There was not a doubt who had been responsible for this outrage; and so the following Sunday, when Beesley and his aunt were in church, as I knew they would be, I made my way to the back garden of Miss Henniker’s house. It was a raw, wet November morning, and through one of the windows I could see a fire burning merrily. On the floor were scattered a number of playthings, amongst them a tin box, which I knew contained my foe’s much-prized army of toy soldiers. He had brought this box to school on his first day, and had set out the contents proudly on Tom’s parlour table: a whole encampment, carved and painted, comprising two or three dozen mounted and foot soldiers, together with tents, camp followers, cannon balls and cannon.

  A little while after Miss Henniker and her nephew had left for church, I saw the maid unlock the terrace doors to shake out a duster. When she had finished her work, I crept to the terrace, and was soon inside the room.

  It burned well, that little wooden army. I stood and watched the conflagration for a moment or two, warming myself by the flames that spat and darted on the hearth, and saying to myself the rhyme that my foster-mother used to sing to me, in which the appearance of Bonaparte was threatened if I did not go to sleep. I smiled to myself as the words now came back to me over the waste of years:And he’ll beat you, beat you, beat you,

  And he’ll beat you all to pap.And he’ll eat you, eat you, eat you,

  Every morsel, snap, snap, snap.

  And now, like Rowland Beesley, another enemy must pay for taking what was mine.

  I have called in a favour and have set someone to watch over the house in Mecklenburgh-square, day and night. Daunt is still there. No one has called. On Thursday, he went to a dinner at the London Tavern* with a number of other literary men. Last night he stayed at home the whole evening. But I know for certain where he will be tonight.

  Last Tuesday week, my spy-a certain William Blunt, of Crucifix-lane, Borough – brought word that Lord Tansor was to give a dinner in Park-lane. It is to be this very evening. The Prime Minister† is to be amongst the guests. There is so much to celebrate! His Lordship has anew heir – he has now been named, in proper legal form, in the recently signed codicil to his Lordship’s will. This would be cause enough to kill the fatted calf; but to increase the general joy, the heir is to marry Miss Emily Carteret, his Lordship’s cousin once removed, who, following the tragic death of her father, will herself succeed to the Tansor title in the course of time. Such an exquisitely fortuitous match! And then, to cap it all, the heir has just published a new work – the thirteenth to be offered to a grateful public – and Lord Tansor has been appointed Her Majesty’s Special Envoy and Plenipotentiary to the Emperors of Brazil and Haiti and the Republics of New Granada and Venezuela. During his Lordship’s absence, the newly married couple are to take up residence at Evenwood, and Lord Tansor further proposes to place the management of his estates, and of his many business interests, in the capable hands of his heir, Mr Phoebus Daunt.

  The establishment in his Lordship’s town-house was a relatively small one; and so, to ensure the smooth running of so large and splendid an occasion, it had been necessary for extra servants to be hired. Advertisements were placed, and Mrs Horatia Venables, proprietress of the Office for Domestic Servants, Great Coram-street, had been engaged by his Lordship’s agent, Captain Tallis, to secure and evaluate applicants for the evening. Amongst those who offered themselves in Great Coram-street for the available positions was a certain Ernest Geddington – a name I had used from time to time in my work.

  ‘I see you have lived as a footman under a butler for Lord Wilmersham,’* said Mrs Venables, looking over her spectacles at Mr Geddington.

  ‘I had that honour,’ replied Mr Geddington.

  ‘And before that, you were a footman in the establishment of the Duke of Devonshire, at Chatsworth?’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘And you have a character from his Grace?’

  ‘One can easily be secured, if it is required.’

  ‘There is no need,’ replied Mrs Venables loftily. ‘Lord Wilmersham’s recommendation here will suffice, though I confess I have not had the pleasure of advising his Lordship before on the hiring of servants; but as this is only a temporary appointment, for one evening only, I am content to forgo the usual formalities. The standard today has been dreadfully low. You will present yourself at Lord Tansor’s residence in Park-lane on Monday morning, at ten o’clock sharp, asking for his Lordship’s butler, Mr James Cranshaw.’ She handed me a paper on which she had indicated my suitability for the position. ‘Livery will be provided. Please to remain here a little longer for your measurements to be taken.’

  I did as I was told. Before I left Mrs Venables’s establishment, I learned that my principal task would be to attend the guests a
s they arrived and departed in their carriages, and to be on hand during the dinner to open doors and perform any other necessary duties.

  It was now half past seven on the great day. I boiled my kettle to make some tea, then cut myself a slice of bread and sat at my work-table to take my breakfast. There was paper all around me. ‘Note on Dr A. Daunt: Feb. 1849’ – ‘Description of Millhead, taken from F. Walker, A Journey Through Lancashire, 1833’ – ‘Memorandum: Information supplied by J. Hooper and others, June 1850’ –‘Evenwood: Architectural and Historical Notes, Sept. 1851’ – ‘The Tansor Barony: Genealogical Notes, March 1852’ – ‘Notes on conversation with W. Le G. re: King’s Coll., June 1852’. Lists, questions, letters. My life, and his. Here, spread across my work-table. Truth and lies.

  Le Grice left for the war last week, fortunately too late to take part in the bloody engagement at Inkerman,* though the reports now coming back, telling of the terrible privations being suffered by our troops, have given me great concern for his immediate prospects. The night before he sailed, we had a farewell dinner at the Ship and Turtle, during which he urged me once again to leave England until he returned.

  ‘It’ll be better, old chap,’ he said.

  Like me, he had concluded that our friend on the river had been Pluckrose. Yet although I had confided in him concerning the punitive action taken by Mr Abraham Gabb and company, Le Grice had come to the same conclusion as I: that, even without the assistance of Pluckrose, Daunt still posed a threat to my safety. But I had not wished to admit the fact, given Le Grice’s impending departure for the East; and so I had given him a false assurance that he need not concern himself on that score.

  ‘I am certain that Daunt will do no harm to me. What possible reason can he have? He is to be married soon, and I am nothing to him any more. I can never forgive him, of course, but I intend to forget him.’

  ‘And Miss Carteret?’

  ‘You mean, of course, the future Mrs Phoebus Duport. I have forgotten her too.’