The Meaning of Night Part 12

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 and walked over to a little French writing-desk, opened a drawer, and took out a piece of paper.

'This, I think, is the doc.u.ment you seek.'

18:.

Hinc illae lacrimae1 ___*

I was amazed. I had expected lawyerly evasion and procrastination, 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 Northamptons.h.i.+re 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 doc.u.ment had been signed by both parties and dated: '20th 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 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 they had been engaged upon.

'I believe,' Mr Tredgold went on, 'that Mr Edward Glyver can be a.s.sured 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 doc.u.ment?'

'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 doc.u.ment, having only recently joined the firm. My father was Lord Tansor's legal adviser, and so it was natural that her Ladys.h.i.+p 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 if Lord Tansor himself was aware that his wife had consulted your father on this matter?'

Mr Tredgold cleaned his eye-gla.s.s.

'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 Ladys.h.i.+p'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, in all respects, 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 unantic.i.p.ated 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 protege of no less a person than M. Brillat-Savarin2 himself. We spoke about Mr Thackeray's Pendennis,3 which we both admired, and then discovered that the Senior Partner had spent some time in Heidelberg as a student, thus precipitating some mutually happy memories of the town and its environs.

'The receipt 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 gla.s.s-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).4 'Very fine,' I said admiringly.

Mr Tredgold's remarks on the character, provenance, and rarity of the volume were accurate and judicious, and though 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 said was my obviously superior judgement on such matters, and ventured to suggest 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, I had formed a plan which 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, and 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 offering my services to the firm in some junior capacity; but instead, Mr Tredgold offered to employ me as his private a.s.sistant 'My personal private a.s.sistant', as he was at some pains to emphasize charged with various duties arising from the Senior Partner's day-to-day business at Tredgolds. In addition, he offered to introduce me to Sir Ephraim Gadd, Q.C., the recipient of many of Tredgolds' most lucrative briefs, who was at that moment seeking someone to act as tutor in the cla.s.sical 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 a.s.sure 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,5 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 December, in just over six 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 took possession of my new rooms just in time to celebrate Christmas, 1849, in the Temple Church.

Amongst the first letters I received in my new home was one from Signor Gallini and Bella (with whom I had determined I should not lose contact), wis.h.i.+ng me the compliments of the season and sending their very best hopes that I would prosper in my new career. The next day I picked up two more letters from the accommodation address I had taken in Upper Thames-street, hard by, in order to receive correspondence directed to Edward Glyver.

The first 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, the original asking price had not been achieved. The proceeds had been disposed according to my instructions: the money owed to Mr More had been remitted to him, and this, on top of other necessary disburs.e.m.e.nts, 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 second letter was from Dr Penny, the physician who had attended my mother in her last illness.

Sandchurch, Dorset 30th December, 1849 My dear Edward - It is with very great sorrow that I have to inform you that poor Tom Grexby pa.s.sed 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 8 o'clock.

The funeral is today week. I am sorry to be the bearer of such mournful news.

I remain, yours very sincerely, Matthew Penny A week later, on a cold 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 overlooking the grey waters of the Channel. A bitter wind was driving 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 succ.u.mb 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 companions.h.i.+p; for he had been the only person in my life who had truly understood my intellectual pa.s.sions. 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 a.n.a.lyse and a.s.similate, 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 an equall communion and Ident.i.ty, 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 Sinbad through the Valley of Diamonds.6 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 said, fear and hope would be banished forever, in one equal possession.

My first visitor to Temple-street was Le Grice, who arrived unannounced, late one snowy afternoon, a week or so after I'd returned from Tom's funeral. His thundering ascent of the wooden stairs, and the three tremendous raps on the door that followed, were unmistakable.

'Hail, Great King!' he bellowed, pulling me towards him and slapping me on the back with the flat of his great hand. He stamped the snow from his boots and then, removing his hat and taking a step back, surveyed my new kingdom.

'Snug,' he nodded approvingly, 'very snug. But who's that awful little tick on the ground floor? Poked his horrid nose round the door and asked if I was looking for Mr Glapthorn. Told him, politely, to mind his own business. And who's Glapthorn, when he's at home?'

'The tick goes by the name of Fordyce Jukes,' I said. 'Mr Glapthorn is yours truly.'

Naturally, this information produced a look of surprise in my visitor.

'Glapthorn?'

'Yes. Does it bother you that I've adopted a new name?

'Not in the least, old boy,' he replied. 'Got your reasons, I expect. Creditors pressing, perhaps? Irate husband, pistol in hand, searching high and low for E. Glyver?'

I could not help giving a little laugh.

'Either, or both, will do,' I said.

'Well, I won't press you. If a friend wants to change his name, and that same friend wishes to keep his reasons to himself, then let him change it, I say. Luckily, I can continue to call you "G." in either case. But if a.s.sistance is required, ask away. Always ready and eager to oblige.'

I a.s.sured him that I needed no a.s.sistance, financial or otherwise, requesting only that any correspondence sent to Temple-street, or to my employer's, should be directed to Mr E. Glapthorn.

'I say,' he said suddenly, 'you're not working for the Government, in some secret capacity, I suppose?'

'No,' I said, 'nothing like that.'

He seemed disappointed, but was true to his word and did not press me further. Then he reached into his pocket and drew out a folded copy of the Sat.u.r.day Review.

'By the way, I came across this at the Club. It's a few months' old now. Did you see it? Page twenty-two.'

I had not seen it, for it was not a periodical I often read. I looked at the date on the cover: October the tenth, 1849. On the page in question was an article ent.i.tled 'Memories of Eton. By P. Rainsford Daunt'.

'Seems to be a good deal about you in it,' said Le Grice So many years had gone by since Daunt had betrayed me; but my desire for vengeance was as strong as ever. I had already begun to a.s.semble information on him, which I kept in a tin box under my bed: reviews and critical appreciations of his work, articles he had written for the literary press, notes on his father from public sources, and my own descriptive impressions of his first home, Millhead, which I had visited the previous November. The archives were small as yet, but would grow as I searched for some aspect of his history and character that I could use against him.

'I shall read it later,' I said, throwing the magazine onto my work-table. 'I'm hungry and wish to eat copiously. Where shall we go?'

'The s.h.i.+p and Turtle! Where else!' exclaimed Le Grice, throwing open the door. 'My treat, old boy. London awaits. Take up your coat and hat, Mr Glapthorn, for I shall be your guide.'

January the twenty-fifth, 1850. The great table at which my mother had spent so many weary hours is now set before the window in my new rooms. On it, the journals that had revealed my lost self are 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, are stacked up in readiness; pencils have been sharpened; ink and nibs laid in. I am ready to embark on my great enterprise, to prove my true ident.i.ty to the world.

I have made an excellent beginning. The agreement drawn up between my mother and Lady Tansor, which lent its circ.u.mstantial weight to my claim, is now in my possession; and, by an unexpected stroke of luck, I have secured employment at Tredgolds, Lord Tansor's legal advisers. What might come of this situation, I cannot foresee. But some advantage, surely, will present itself, if I can gain the complete confidence of Mr Christopher Tredgold.

And an advantage, however small, is everything to the resourceful man.7 Settled before a roaring fire in Le Grice's rooms in Albany, with a gla.s.s of brandy in my hand, it was hard to believe that only five years had pa.s.sed since leaving Sandchurch for London. It seemed as if a whole lifetime had gone by so many memories crowding in, so much rosy hope, and so much bleak despair. Faces in the flames; the smell of a September morning; death and desire: impressions and remembrances floated before my eyes, coalesced, and separated again, a mult.i.tude of ghosts in an eternal dance.

'I've never told anyone, you know,' Le Grice was saying quietly, head thrown back, watching the smoke from his cigar curl upwards towards the ceiling, deep in shadow. 'Never said a word, about this life you've been living. Whenever one of the fellows asks, I always say you're travelling, or that I haven't heard from you. That's right, isn't it? That's what you wanted?'

He lifted his head and looked directly at me, but I did not reply.

'I don't know where all this is leading, G., but if what you say is true . . .'

'It's all true. Every word.'

'Then of course I understand. You weren't Edward Glyver, so you may as well be Edward Glapthorn. I thought you must have the money-lenders on your tail, or some such, though you wouldn't admit it. But you had to keep things close, I see that, until everything could be made right. But what a story, G! I won't say I can't believe it, because I must believe it, if you tell me it's true. There's more to come, though, that's clear, and I'm all ears, old boy. But do you want to go on now, or sleep here and carry on in the morning?'

I glanced at the clock. Ten minutes to two.

'No sleep tonight,' I said.

Intermezzo 18501853 I Mr Tredgold's Cabinet II Madame Mathilde III Evenwood IV The Pursuit of Truth V In the Temple Gardens I.

Mr Tredgold's Cabinet _______________________________________________________________________.

Mr Christopher Tredgold had been as good as his word, and had duly advised that s.h.i.+ning ornament of the legal profession, Sir Ephraim Gadd, Q.C., that he could do worse than engage my pedagogic services to dispense linguistic knowledge to candidates requiring admission to the Inner Temple who lacked the necessary University qualifications, over which persons Sir Ephraim exercised authority as a Bencher. These duties were not in the least arduous to me, and I fulfilled them easily alongside my daily employment at Tredgolds, of which I shall speak presently.

The marked partiality Mr Tredgold had shown towards me at our first meeting had again been apparent on the first day of my employment. On my arrival in Paternoster-row, I was immediately taken up to his private office on the first floor by Fordyce Jukes. He was one of the longest serving of Tredgold's clerks, and occupied an exalted position behind a high desk by the front door of the establishment, where, as the house's gatekeeper, he would welcome clients and conduct them up to one or other of the partners.

His admiration of the Senior Partner knew no bounds; but soon his professions of regard for me, whom he barely knew, became hardly less temperate. He was continually obliging, ever affable, looking up eagerly from his work to smile, or nod 'good-day', as I pa.s.sed.

I disliked him from the first, with his bull neck and thick flat nose. He wore his hair short, like a workhouse terrier crop, brus.h.i.+ng it up at the front into a crown of little black spikes. The straightness of the line where the hair met the flesh of his neck, and around his ears and temples, made the whole arrangement appear like some strange cap or hat that he had placed over a perfectly normal head of hair.

I hated too his moth-eaten little dog, his putty-coloured clean-shaven face, and the leering quality of his look. He was always clicking his fingers, shaking his head, or scratching his crown of spikes, whilst in his small green eyes one detected a flickering, unquiet energy, which would never quite show itself plain, but perpetually hid and ducked, like some pursuing a.s.sa.s.sin melting into doorways and alleys to baffle his victim. All this rendered him repulsive in my eyes.

Before long, so insistent had his attentions become whenever I appeared of a morning, I had taken to avoiding the house's front door and instead would gain my room by means of the side-stairs. But still I would often encounter him, at the end of a day, hovering in the street.