The Meaning of Night Part 39

I am standing nonchalantly by the front door when I see Cranshaw, followed by a white-faced footman, hurrying into the hall from the conservatory and turning into the dining-room. There is a sudden sc.r.a.ping of chairs and an anxious hush descends on the guests. Then there is a scream and the sound of shouting. Lord Tansor appears in the doorway with Cranshaw, followed by three or four gentleman. One of the gentleman walks towards me while the others head for the conservatory with his Lords.h.i.+p.

'You, fellow,' drawls the gentleman, whom I recognize as Lord Cotterstock's youngest son. 'Run and fetch an officer. Quick as you like.'

'Yes, sir.'

The young man then marches off towards the rear of the house, thinking of course that I have gone off to do his bidding. But I have not.

The hall is crowded now; and in the general commotion I slowly make my way through the throng until I am at the door that leads below stairs. At that moment, happening to look back to a.s.sure myself that no one is taking notice of me, I see her. She is standing alone in the doorway, alabaster pale, the tips of her fingers placed against her lips in a gesture of shock and disbelief. Oh my dearest girl! I am become Death because of thee! And then a little crowd closes round her and she is lost to my sight, forever.

I had no difficulty in making my way un.o.bserved to the bare-boarded room next to the pantry, where I quickly removed my wig and livery and put on the evening clothes that I'd brought with me in a small leather bag. Leaving the shabby suit hanging on its peg, I took up my bag and slipped unseen through a side door leading out into a narrow yard. In no time at all I was in Park-lane hailing a cab.

'Quinn's, Haymarket,' I shout to the cabman.

'Right you are, sir!'

That night, with the snow beginning to fall once more, shrouding the city in silence, I dreamed I was standing on the cliff-top at Sandchurch There is our little white house, and there the chestnut tree by the gate. No school today, so I run, exulting, towards the semi-circles of white-painted stones that edge the flower-beds on either side of the gate. Billick has not yet mended the rope ladder, but it still serves; so up I clamber, into the branches, into my crow's-nest. I have my spy-gla.s.s with me and lay down to scan the s.h.i.+ning horizon. In my mind, every sail is transformed: to the east, a vanguard of triremes sent by Caesar himself; to the west, low in the water, a Spanish treasure-s.h.i.+p freighted down with Indies gold; and, coming up from the south, slow and menacing, a horde of Barbary pirates intent on ravaging our quiet Dorset coast. Then there is a clatter of plates from the kitchen. Through the parlour window I can see Mamma at her work-table. She looks up and smiles as I wave.

Then I awoke and began to weep not for what I had lost or for the times that would never come again, not even for my poor broken heart, least of all for the death of my enemy, but for Lucas Trendle, the innocent red-haired stranger who would never more send bibles and boots to the Africans.

By my hand, Edward Charles Glyver, - MDCCCLV.

Finis.

46:.

Post scriptum1 _________________________________________________________________________________.

THE RECTORY.

EVENWOOD, NORTHAMPTONs.h.i.+RE.

22nd December, 1854.

MR DEAR TREDGOLD, - I write in grat.i.tude for your letter of sympathy to my wife and I. Of course I remember very well meeting you, with Mr Paul Carteret, on the occasion you mention.

It has been a very terrible time for us, made worse by the inexplicable nature of my son's death. In answer to your enquiry concerning the circ.u.mstances, I can therefore say very little. A footman by the name of Geddington, temporarily engaged for the evening, is suspected; but beyond this, nothing is known. The weapon has been found, though it affords no clue to its owner. Robbery has been discounted what little money my son was carrying that evening was still in his pocket-book, and no attempt was made to take his watch and chain of considerable value, and given to him by Lord Tansor. The murder, for such it is deemed by the authorities, seems therefore, on the face of it, to be completely random and motiveless. I have been informed by the police that they believe there may be a connexion with the killing of Mr Lucas Trendle, of the Bank of England, which apparently demonstrates many similarities to my son's. It is supposed that this Geddington may be some kind of madman.

Evenwood, as you may imagine, has been thrown into turmoil. My wife, for whom Phoebus was everything, though she was his mother only by marriage, is inconsolable; and Lord Tansor also is deeply stricken. We have lost a son; and he has lost his heir. And then there is poor Miss Carteret. What grief that young woman has had to bear is beyond comprehension. First her father brutally attacked and killed, and now her intended husband. She is a most pitiful sight. I hardly recognized her when I saw her last.

As for myself, I have the comfort of my faith, and the certain knowledge that the G.o.d of Abraham and Isaac has taken Phoebus unto Himself. My son was held in such high esteem by everyone who knew him, and by the many readers of his works who did not know him, that we have been overwhelmed by kind expressions of condolence. These, too, are a great comfort.

As so often in times of trial, I turn to Sir Thomas Browne. On opening the Religio Medici, soon after the news was brought here of my son's death, my eyes fell on these words: What is made to be immortal, nature cannot nor will the voice of G.o.d destroy.2 This is my faith. This is my hope.

I remain, my dear Sir, yours faithfully, A.B. DAUNT.

May I add here a small request? Will you give my very best regards to Mr Edward Glapthorn, if he is still in your employ? He is a most remarkable young man whom I greatly admire. He will, I'm sure, go far in the world. A.B.D.

Marden House Westgate, Canterbury Kent 9th January, 1855.

DEAR CAPTAIN LE GRICE,- I am in receipt of your enquiry concerning Edward Glyver.

He left England a little before Christmas, and when I last heard from him was in Denmark. From your letter it appears that you have been the recipient of various confidences concerning Edward's history. This, I may say, came as something of a surprise to me; I had thought I was the only person in whom he confided. But it seems none of us can truly claim to know Edward Glyver: to emphasize the point, I am now in correspondence with a Miss Isabella Gallini, with whom, I gather, Edward has enjoyed a close relations.h.i.+p for some time past but which he has never mentioned to me.

He has, I believe, completely given up the idea of pursuing any further the business we both know about, but which it would be unwise of me to describe further. He came here before he left for Denmark and seemed a changed man and not only because of his beardless state. That strange haunted light in his eyes, which I'm sure you must have seen, has been extinguished; and though I do not think he will ever have the comfort of a quiet soul, yet I hope he can now learn to be happy again. He was tormented by the desire to possess something that Fate had decreed could never be his; but I think he has come to understand at last that he is who he was destined to be; that he is Edward Glyver, and no other. I believe he has been helped to this understanding by his feelings for Miss Gallini, and by hers for him. I pray, with her help, that he may continue in his recuperation; for he has been cruelly used I need not name the lady to you. For a time I feared that, following the unfortunate death of a certain person, he might feel at liberty to throw himself on the mercy of this lady; but, having seen him and spoken to him, I am a.s.sured that he will commit no further folly on her behalf. She suffers, I am told; but the business has at least cured Lord Tansor of his irrational aversion to the collateral line, and so she will have the comfort in due course of inheriting both the Tansor t.i.tle and all the property a.s.sociated with it. It may be wrong of me, but I have not informed Edward of this, and do not intend to. I think it would be wise if we could agree to keep this information to ourselves for his own good.

As to the deceased gentleman, the least said the better. You will infer that I do not share the world's good opinion of him though I do not say that he deserved to die. (I might add, in the strictest confidence, that Edward has satisfied me that he can account for his movements on the night of the killing: he was watching a play by Mr Boucicault at the Adelphi Theatre I have seen the ticket and says he can produce an impeccable witness.1 I have told him there is no need and that his word is enough. This, I am sure, will be as welcome to you as it was to me.) I have it on good authority that the princ.i.p.al suspect, a man by the name of Geddington, is also being sought for the recent murder of a gentleman employed at the Bank of England, a Mr Lucas Trendle. Both attacks bear striking similarities, being both (as far as can be ascertained) entirely indiscriminate and having no obvious motive. It has also been firmly established that neither of the victims had any connection with their suspected attacker, Geddington, whose description has now been widely circulated.

When our friend will return to England is at present uncertain. When he does, I hope he will take up an offer I made to him to settle here in Kent and a.s.sist me in my bibliographical pursuits.

I hope this letter will find you safe and well, and I pray that G.o.d will protect you, and all our brave soldiers. We have all been appalled by Mr Russell's reports. 2 Yours sincerely, CHRISTOPHER TREDGOLD.

Blithe Lodge St John's Wood, London April 15th, 1855.

DEAR MR TREDGOLD,- Your letter arrived only this morning, but I hurry to send you a reply.

He is much improved, thank G.o.d, & has been talking a little of his wanderings he went first to Copenhagen, as you know, & then to Faaborg, on the island of Funen, where he remained in virtual solitude for nearly a month. It appears that he then revisited some of his old haunts in and around Heidelberg before travelling first to the island of Mallorca & then to St Bertrand de Comminges in the Pyrenees, where there is a cathedral that he had long wished to see. It was there that he was taken ill it was only by the greatest stroke of luck that another Englishman staying in the hotel, a Mr Bryce Furnivall of the British Museum, was known to him, & it was through Mr Furnivall's good offices that he was brought back to England.

I had not seen him since that snowy night in December last. There had been a falling-out between us, I'm afraid, which I greatly regretted. He stood on the front step & would not come into the house, saying only that he was leaving England for a time and that he had come to ask if, on his return, I would be prepared to receive him again. There was only one answer I could give.

And so he was brought here, nearly two weeks ago now. Yesterday he told me his real name and the truth about his birth replacing the half-truths (I will not say lies) I had formerly been given. I am given to understand that you have been long aware of who he really is he speaks of you most affectionately, and with grat.i.tude for how you have tried to help him. It is a most extraordinary story, and I confess that, at first, I was inclined to think it was all fancy, if not something worse; but I soon saw in his eyes that he was at last speaking the truth. I know also about Miss C-, and how she deceived him in order to deprive him of the proof that would have delivered everything he had dreamed of into his hands. He has told me that he loved her, and that he loves her still. But the death of Mr D- has changed everything. He is shocked, of course, by the dreadful fortuity of it, even though Mr D- harboured an active hate against Edward for reasons we both know. It is well indeed that Edward has accounted to you for his movements on the night Mr D- was killed, or he might himself have fallen under suspicion; but he has accounted for them, to your satisfaction, & therefore to mine & so I have no concern on that score. Indeed he has been most anxious to demonstrate complete frankness about his life, of which until now I had seen but a small part. His honesty has given us a new foundation on which to build our lives together.

For we are to be married Edward wishes you to be the first to know (we have not even told my employer, Mrs Daley). Our intention is to live in Dieppe Mrs Daley has kindly put her house there at our disposal until we find one of our own. I have a little money, and Edward plans to teach English, so we shall get by very well I think.

I know he does not love me at least as I wish him to love me. But he says he likes me more than anyone in the world & I believe him. He has suffered too much at Miss C-'s hands ever to abandon me for her; for the curious thing is that, though he loves her, he does not like her, nor ever can. And because he does not pretend to love me as he loved Miss C-, well then I will take his liking, for I believe it will outlast burning desire and frantic pursuit, and that it will lay down roots as deep as the earth. Yes, I will take his liking. I am foolish enough to believe that it is better to marry a friend than a lover. And if any secrets remain to be told, then I am content for him to keep them.

Yours very sincerely, ISABELLA GALLINI.

Appendix P. Rainsford Daunt (182054) List of Published Works ______________*

Ithaca: A Lyrical Drama (London: Edward Moxon, 1841) The Maid of Minsk: A Poem in Twenty-Two Cantos (London: Edward Moxon, 1842) The Tartar-King: A Story in XII Cantos (London: Edward Moxon, 1843) Agrippa; with Other Poems (London: David Bogue, 1845) The Cave of Merlin: A Poem (London: Edward Moxon, 1846) The Pharaoh's Child: A Romance of Ancient Aegypt (Edward Moxon, 1848) Montezuma: A Drama (Edward Moxon, 1849) The Conquest of Peru: A Dramatic Romance (Edward Moxon, 1850) Scenes of Early Life (London: Chapman & Hall, 1852) Penelope: A Tragedy, in Verse (London: Bell & Daldy, 1853) American Sonnets (London: Longman, Brown, Green & Longman, 1853) Rosa Mundi, and Other Poems (London: Edward Moxon, 1854) The Heir: A Romance of the Modern (Edward Moxon, 1854) Epimetheus; with other posthumous poems (2 vols., London: Edward Moxon, 1854 for 1855).

The Art of the Epic (London: J. Murray, 1856). Posthumous.

Acknowledgements.

In July 2004 I began to lose my sight for the second time. Three months earlier I had undergone surgery on the tumour that has been residing just under my brain for many years and which was now exerting pressure on the optic nerves. For a time it seemed as if the operation had been successful: my sight returned. But then it began to deteriorate again and further treatment was required. Preparatory to this I was prescribed the drug dexamethasone. It had a most remarkable effect, unleas.h.i.+ng unstoppable, furious creative energy. Unable to sleep, I took out the novel I had been working on and thinking about for thirty years. To be accurate, it was actually several discarded first chapters, disjointed scenes, and random pa.s.sages of description. One of the discarded chapters seemed quite promising; and so I started to rewrite it. In the s.p.a.ce of a month I had written 40,000 words; within three months I was approaching 100,000 words. Dexamethasone had kick-started the process; but what is now presented here is overwhelmingly the result of normal brain power.

The Meaning of Night was written out of a long-standing fascination with the middle decades of the nineteenth century and with the fiction it gave rise to. The 1840s and 1850s seem to me to possess a peculiar character recognizably modern, and yet alien in so many ways, and becoming more so. I have made no attempt to emulate the intellectual scale of the mid-Victorian novel, simply to try and evoke some of its narrative qualities, and something of its atmosphere, in a way that is neither sterile pastiche nor wilful satire. Above all, I hope, I have paid successful homage to the G.o.d of story. Like Glyver, I fell early under Scheherazade's spell, and it has been storytellers, above all, who have shaped my literary taste. If Glyver's story has kept his readers turning the page, from the first to the last, then I shall be very happy.

Though I have tried throughout to make the implausible resonate with a degree of plausibility, a real person me has been standing just behind my puppets, including the indefatigable Professor Antrobus, pulling their strings. And in that capacity I have drawn on a number of real things people, places, sources that need to be acknowledged.

David Copperfield started it, when I was how old? Ten? Eleven? From then on I became emotionally drawn to the mid-Victorian world and its fictional portrayals. Since then I have read and researched, in a firmly amateur capacity, and this novel is the result. That d.i.c.kensian well-spring also yielded the name Emily that my wife and I gave to our daughter, the name I always knew she would bear, years before she was born, from the moment I came across it in d.i.c.kens's pages. Inevitably, it became the name of the leading female character of this work almost without thinking though there the resemblance between Miss Carteret and my daughter most certainly ends.

Evenwood Glyver's cursed obsession does not exist, though three places in particular that have gone into its making do: Drayton House, the private home of the Stopford-Sackville family, and Deene Park, the former home of James Thomas Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan (of Balaclava fame) both in my own home county of Northamptons.h.i.+re; and Burghley House, Stamford. Drayton I have yearned after from afar for many years, as a kind of symbol of something fleetingly held and then lost, like childhood. Both Deene and Burghley are periodically open to public view, so enabling one to taste their pleasures directly and regularly. The library of I mean the books collected by Lord William Duport has been based unashamedly on that of the 2nd Earl Spencer at Althorp. Residents of East Northamptons.h.i.+re will also recognize the names of several local places in those of some of the characters Tansor (a charming village outside Oundle) and Glapthorn (ditto), Glyver's princ.i.p.al pseudonym, amongst them.

As far as Glyver's London is concerned, I have tried to be as topographically exact as the demands of the narrative would permit, and have spent many hours poring over contemporary maps and guidebooks; so, for instance, street names, shops, and the location of hotels and restaurants all reflect contemporary reality. With one significant exception: Cain Court is my own invention. I envisage it leading through from Maiden Lane to the Strand, slightly west of the Adelphi Theatre (i.e on the north side of the Strand). Similarly, the historical and legal aspects of Baronies by Writ, and the various legal issues concerned with the Tansor inheritance, are as veracious as I could make them (though of course the family and all their works are completely fict.i.tious). I must acknowledge here the invaluable advice provided by Clive Cheesman, Rouge Dragon Pursuivant, at the College of Arms, on various matters relating to the Tansor Barony. He also most kindly provided the Latin text and English translation of the writ that summoned the first Baron Tansor, Maldwin Duport, to attend parliament in 1264. I cannot thank him enough for the care and courtesy with which he responded to my enquiries. Without his expertise, I do not know what legal and genealogical howlers I might have committed. Anything in that line that may have slipped through the net is, of course, most definitely my responsibility, not his.

With regard to background details, the published sources on which I have drawn are too numerous, too scattered over the years, to list in full. In particular, factual accounts of mid-Victorian London abound and I have freely ransacked them. When I began contemplating this novel, more years ago than I care to think, such works could only be dusted off on the shelves of a major copyright library. Now many of them are freely available on the Web I direct interested readers with pleasure and grat.i.tude to the excellent Victorian Dictionary site created and maintained by Lee Jackson (www.victorianlondon.org ). Indispensable source works of course include Henry Mayhew (who himself turned from fact to fiction in collaboration with his brother Augustus see, for instance, 1851; or, The Adventures of Mr and Mrs Sandboys, and Family, who came up to London to 'enjoy themselves' and to see the Great Exhibition), without whose London Labour and the London Poor of 1851 no one writing or fictionalizing about this period can afford to neglect.

Linguistically and stylistically, the novelists themselves including d.i.c.kens, Charles Reade, Trollope, Charlotte Riddell, George Augustus Sala (together with his admirable non-fiction works), Mary Elizabeth Braddon, and, above all, the divine Wilkie Collins, as well as the serialized and shorter fiction to be found in mid-century magazines such as Temple Bar and Belgravia have all, in their various ways, contributed texture, details, and nuance, though to a text that (I hope) remains distinctly contemporary in its tone and impact rather than a sterile exercise in literary re-enactment.

The thematic underpinnings, such as they are, have benefited by my former a.s.sociations at the University Press in Oxford (the 'Other Place', alas, which does not figure much in this narrative) with a number of academics in the field of nineteenth-century fiction, again too numerous and scattered to mention in full, but amongst whom I must single out (though he will have no idea why) Professor John Sutherland, especially his essential Companion to Victorian Fiction, which has lead me into many pleasurable culs-de-sac.

I also have to thank Michael Meredith, Librarian of Eton College, and Penny Hatfield, the Eton Archivist, for their help on some key details of Glyver and Daunt's time at the school, although they should in no way be held responsible for the fictional results. Thanks must also go to Gordon Biddle, from whom (together with the late Professor Jack Simmons) I had the pleasure of commissioning The Oxford Companion to British Railway History and who helped to establish how Glyver travelled by train from Stamford to London via Cambridge. Details (as Glyver knows) are important. For advice on the technical aspects of Glyver's pa.s.sion for photography, I am grateful to Dr Robin Lenman of the University of Warwick, editor of The Oxford Companion to the Photograph, and another former commissionee (there is no such word, but perhaps there should be).

For Natasha Fairweather, my agent at A.P. Watt, no thanks are profuse enough. By taking me on she gave me much needed hope as I was emerging from a very dark time in my life, and through her commitment and professionalism transformed my life the phrase is not too strong and that of my family. Professionally speaking, I have been lucky in so many ways, but particularly in my agent. Thanks must also go to Derek Johns, who first read proto-snippets from what turned out to be The Meaning of Night over a decade ago; to Linda Shaughnessy and her fantastic team, Teresa Nicolls and Madeleine Butson, for getting the book to so many foreign-language publishers; to Philippa Donovan; and to everyone else at A.P. Watt who have helped, and are helping, to make it all happen.

To my British publisher, Anya Serota at John Murray, I shall always feel immense grat.i.tude. She was the first publisher to read the book, and it was her overwhelming (and completely unexpected) enthusiasm that got the ball well and truly rolling. She has been an unfailing source of encouragement and good sense, and, with Natasha, has given me the confidence to finish what I started. My two other English-language editors Jill Bialosky at Norton in the USA and Ellen Seligman at McLelland and Stuart in Canada have also been enormously supportive. My foreign-language publishers have been equally wonderful, and I must thank them all for putting their faith in me.

My old friend and former colleague David Young, Chairman and CEO of the Time Warner Book Group, deserves especial mention for agreeing to read the first part of the novel. Apart from my agent, he was the first 'pro' to read it, and I shall always be grateful for his encouragement, and for the friends.h.i.+p we've enjoyed over the years.

Finally, like all authors who depend on those close to them for daily support and understanding, what is undeniably real about this novel is the debt I owe to my family: to my darling wife Dizzy and daughter Emily, who have borne the brunt of my illness and without whom I would have no reason to write; my stepchildren Miranda and Barnaby; my grandchildren, Eleanor, Harry, and Dizzy Junior, and my daughter-in-law Becky; my mother-in-law, Jo Crockett, in whose house large chunks of the novel were written; and, last but never least, my wonderful parents, Gordon and Eileen c.o.x, who have supported me through thick and thin.

Real, too, is the final and, to me, precious emotion. It's over.

At last.

Michael c.o.x.

Denford, Northamptons.h.i.+re.

end.