The Meaning of Night Part 7

He had paused.

'I'm afraid I am not free on Sat.u.r.day, Mr Jukes, but I thank you for your invitation.'

'Of course. I understand, Mr Glapthorn. You are a busy man, I'm sure.'

He edged a little towards the door.

'Well,' he said, in an effort to brighten his tone, 'I shall take my leave.'

I was preparing to apologize again for my rough behaviour, but he forestalled me with a rapid shake of his head. 'Pray, say no more, Mr Glapthorn. All a mistake. No harm done, none at all.'

I nodded. Then a thought struck me.

'A moment, Mr Jukes.'

He looked up.

'Are you a religious man?'

'Religious?' he said, evidently surprised at my question. 'Well, I suppose I am as observant in that way as most. Brought up strictly, though perhaps I have relaxed a little in my ways. But I attend the Temple Church every Sunday morning, and read my bible every day, sir every day.' He raised his head as he said the last words, and pulled his shoulders back in a little gesture of defiance, as if to say, 'There now. Here is villainy!'

'Every day?' I said, quizzically.

'Every day. Regular as clockwork, a few pages before I take Little Fordyce for his walk. It is surprising how much one gets through. Having now got as far as Ezekiel, I am coming towards the end of the Old Testament for the second time this twelvemonth.'

'Well,' I said, 'that is excellent. Excellent. Good day, Mr Jukes, and '

He held up his hand again. 'No need, sir, no need at all.' With which he turned, smiled wanly, and closed the door.

I sat, still in my dripping clothes, looking out of my little dormer window at rags of clouds, drifting overhead like smoke over a battlefield, until I heard him descend the stairs and bang his own door shut.

8:.

Amicus verus1 ________________________________________________________________________.

The following morning, a note came from Le Grice apologizing for his over-consumption of champagne the previous day, and announcing that he would be at the s.h.i.+p and Turtle at his usual hour that evening, if I cared to join him.

He was in voluble mood, and I happily let him regale me with reports of what this fellow or that had been up to, who had said what at the club, and where so and so had been, the gossip supplemented by an excited account of all the business he was engaged upon preparatory to leaving for the war. I was sorry he was going, and was of course anxious for his safety; but it was impossible not to become caught up in his enthusiasm, to the extent that I almost began to regret that I had never thought of going for a soldier myself.

We parted just before midnight. He was heading back to his rooms in Albany2 when he suddenly stopped short.

'By the by,' he called back, 'I almost forgot. This was sent to me at the Club. It's for you.' Reaching into the inside pocket of his great-coat, he handed me a small wrapped package, obviously containing a book.

'You'll never guess who it's from.' I looked at him blankly.

'That fearful tug Daunt. You'll remember him, of course. Pretty thick at school, weren't you, for a time? Scribbles poetry for a living now. Sends his compliments to me with a request to pa.s.s this on to you. Haven't written back yet, of course. Thought I'd speak to you first.' He instantly saw that his words, and the package, had produced an effect, and he reddened.

'I say, G., is anything the matter? You look a little upset.' I delayed my reply as I turned the package over in my hands.

'Has he written to you before?'

'First time, old boy. Not quite my sort. Never expected to hear from him again after going down from the Varsity. d.a.m.ned unpleasant blighter, always putting on airs. Little sign, by all accounts, that he's changed for the better.'

When I did not reply, Le Grice took a step closer and looked me straight in the eye.

'Look here,' he said, 'there's something going on, I can see. Wouldn't dream of pressing you, of course, but glad to help, if I can.'

'You can tell him I'm travelling abroad,' I replied. 'Present whereabouts, unknown. Date of return, uncertain.'

'Right ho. Nothing easier. Consider it done.' He coughed nervously and made to go; but he had only taken a few steps when he suddenly stopped and swung round to face me again.

'There's another thing. You can tell me to go and boil my head, but answer me this, if you can. Why was that fellow following us on the river yesterday? It's no use saying he wasn't, so why not come out with it straight.'

I could have hugged the dear old bear. For weeks I had been living on my nerves, desperately engaged night and day in mental combat with my enemy, my spirit broken by betrayal, racked by rage and despair, but unable to confide in any living soul. I'd believed I had no ally, no strength other than my own with which to contest the great battle of my life; but here was dear old Le Grice, bull-headed in friends.h.i.+p, obstinately loyal, offering me his hand. And if I took it? No one more trustworthy than him, no one more willing to fight by your side to the last breath, no one more forgiving of a friend's sins. Yes, but if I took it? He would need to be told the secrets I have lived with for so long: would he then keep faith with me, stand by me in the final contention, and forgive me? Then he spoke again.

'You and I, G. chalk and cheese. But you're the best friend I have. Do anything for you, don't you know, anything at all. Not good at this sort of thing, so you'll just have to take it as it comes. You're in trouble no point trying to deny it. It's been written on your face for weeks past. Whether it's to do with Daunt, or with this fellow on the river, I can't say. But something's wrong, even though you've tried to pretend all's well. But it isn't, so why not spill it, and let's see what can be done about it?'

There are times in a man's life when he must put his immediate fate into the hands of another, regardless of the risk. In a moment, though doubts remained, I had decided. I would spill it.

'Dinner at Mivart's, tomorrow night,' I said.

And then we shook hands.

I returned home in meditative mood, questioning the wisdom of confiding in Le Grice, but still determined to go through with it. I shrank, though, from the prospect of confessing what had been done to Lucas Trendle in Cain-court, and what I was planning to do now that I had proved myself capable of murder. I was sure, when I had revealed my true history to Le Grice, and set before him the calculated viciousness of our mutual acquaintance, Phoebus Daunt, that I would secure his full-hearted sympathy and support. But would even his staunch soul be put to the test by the knowledge of what I had been driven to do? And could I, even in the name of friends.h.i.+p, ask him to share this burden? Musing thus, I arrived in Temple Street and mounted the stairs.

Once in my rooms, I unwrapped the package Le Grice had given to me. As I'd guessed, it contained a book a small octavo in dark green cloth, untrimmed, bearing the t.i.tle Rosa Mundi. Taking up my paper-knife, I slowly began to cut away the edges, and opened out the t.i.tle-page.

ROSA MUNDI;.

and Other Poems P. RAINSFORD DAUNT.

Misce stult.i.tiam consiliis brevem: Dulce est desipere in loco. Hor. Odes, iv. viii London: Edward Moxon, Dover-street.

MDCCC-LV3.

The fly-leaf had been inscribed by the author: 'To my friend, E.G., with fondest memories of old times, and hope of early reunion'. Beneath the inscription was a couplet, 'When all is known, and naught remains,/But Truth released from falsehood's chains', which I later discovered was a quotation from one of the poems printed in the volume. If there was meaning in it, I could see none.

I threw the book down in disgust, but could not help staring at the open fly-leaf. To see that hand again, after so many years! It had not changed a great deal: I recognized the idiosyncratic flourish of the initial 'T' of 'Truth', the intricate descenders (the bane of his teachers at school), the fussiness of it. But what memory had been aroused by it? Of Latin Alcaics and hexameters, exchanged and criticized? Or of something else?

The next evening, as agreed, I met Le Grice at Mivart's.4 He was awkward and ill at ease, coughing nervously, and constantly running his finger around the inside of his s.h.i.+rt collar, as if it was too tight. As we lit our cigars I asked him if he was still willing to hear what I had come to tell him.

'Absolutely, old boy. Ready and waiting. Fire away.'

'Of course I may count on your complete your complete, mind discretion?'

He laid down his cigar, positively bristling with indignation.

'When I give my word to some fellow at the club,' he said, with impressive seriousness, 'then he may expect me to keep it, no questions asked. When I give my word to you, therefore, there can be not the slightest doubt not the slightest that I shall be inclined, under any provocation, to betray whatever confidence you may honour me with. Hope I've made myself clear.' Having delivered himself of this short, but emphatic, speech, he picked up his cigar again and sent me a look that plainly said, 'There: I've said what needed to be said: now contradict me if you dare.'

No, he would never betray me, as others had done; he would be true to his word. But I had resolved that there would be a limit to what I would tell him not because I distrusted him, or even that I feared he might repudiate our friends.h.i.+p when he learned what I had done, and what was now in my mind; but because there was mortal danger in knowing all, to which I would not expose him for all the world.

Calling for another bottle, I began to tell him, in outline, what I now propose to tell you, my unknown reader, in full and complete form the extraordinary circ.u.mstances of my birth; the character and designs of my enemy; and the futile pa.s.sion that has made it impossible that I can ever love again.

If it is true, as the ancient sage averred, that confession of our faults is the next thing to innocency,5 then I hope this narrative will weigh something in my favour with those who may read it.

I begin with my name. When 'Veritas' warned Bella that Edward Glapthorn was not what he seems, he lived up to his pseudonym. To Bella, to my employer, to my neighbours in Temple-street, and to others with whom you will soon become acquainted, I was Edward Glapthorn. But I was born Edward Charles Glyver the name by which I had been known at Eton, when I first met Willoughby Le Grice, and by which, shortened to 'G.', he has known me ever since. And if you had asked me, on our being introduced at dinner, I would have told you that I was the only son of Captain and Mrs Edward Glyver, of Sandchurch, Dorset. Yet even this was not my true name, and they were not my parents. It all began, you see, in deceit; and only when the truth is told at last will expiation be made and the poor unquiet soul, from whom all these troubles have flowed, find peace at last.

You have already learned something of the early history of Edward Glapthorn, which, though incomplete, was also a true account of the upbringing of Edward Glyver. I shall return to that history, and its continuance, in due course. But let us first put a little flesh on the bones of Phoebus Rainsford Daunt, my ill.u.s.trious but as yet shadowy enemy, whose name has already graced the pages of this narrative.

He will already be known to many of you, of course, through his literary works. No doubt, in due course, for the delectation of posterity, some enterprising drudge will a.s.semble an anodyne Life and Letters (in three fat volumes), which will reveal nothing whatsoever concerning the true character and proclivities of its subject. Let me be your guide instead like Virgil leading Dante through the descending circles of h.e.l.l.

By what authority do I presume to take on such a role? My own. I have become the detective of his life, seeking, over many years, to learn everything I could about my enemy. You will find this strange. No doubt it is. The scholar's temperament, however, which I possess in abundance, is not content with facile generalities, or with unsubstantiated testimony, still less with the distortions of self-promotion. The scholar, like the lawyer, requires corroboration, verification, and firm doc.u.mentary evidence, of a primary character; he sifts, and weighs, and patiently acc.u.mulates; he a.n.a.lyses, compares, and combines; he applies the nicest of discrimination to separate fact from fabrication, and possibility from probability. Using such methods, I have devoted myself to many objects of study in the course of my life, as I shall describe; but to none of these have I given so much of my time and care as to this pre-eminent subject. Luck, too, has played its part; for my enemy has attained to celebrity, and this always loosens tongues. 'Ah yes, I knew him when he was a boy.' 'Phoebus Daunt the poet? Indeed I remember him.' 'You should speak to so-and-so. He knows a good deal more about the family than me.' And so it proceeds, piece by piece, memory by memory, until, at last, a picture begins to emerge, rich and detailed.

It is all there for the picking, if you know how. The princ.i.p.al sources on which I have drawn are as follows: the fragmentary recollections of Daunt's time at Eton, which appeared in the Sat.u.r.day Review of October the tenth, 1849; a fuller memoir of his childhood, adolescence, and literary career, punctuated throughout with little droppings of maudlin verse and published in 1853 as Scenes of Early Life; the personal testimony of Dr T-, the physician who attended Daunt's mother before and immediately after her son's birth; the unpublished diary of Dr A.B. Daunt, his father (which, I regret to say, came into my hands by unorthodox means); and the recollections of friends and neighbours, as well as those of numerous servants and other attendants.

Why I began on this biographical quest will soon be told. But now Phoebus the radiant one attends us. Let us not keep him waiting.

Part the Second Phoebus Rising 18201850 I have never yet found Pride in a n.o.ble nature: nor humility in an unworthy mind.

[Owen Felltham, Resolves (1623), vi, 'Of Arrogancy']

9:.

Ora et labora1 _____________________________________________________________________.

He was born according to his own account published in Scenes of Early Life on the last stroke of midnight, as heralded by a venerable long-case clock that stood on the landing outside his mother's room, on the last day of the year 1819, in the industrial town of Millhead, in Lancas.h.i.+re.

A little while before this great event, his father had been presented to the living of Millhead by his College, when his Fellows.h.i.+p there was forfeited by marriage. At Cambridge, as a young Fellow of Trinity who had already taken the degree of Doctor of Divinity and, by way of diversion from theological dispute, had produced an admirable edition of Catullus, Achilles Daunt had acquired the reputation of a man who had much to do in the world of learning, and meant to do it. Certainly his many friends expected much of him, and but for his sudden and, to some, inexplicable decision to marry, his abilities would, by common consent, have carried him with little effort to high College and University office.

It was at least widely acknowledged that he had married for love, which is a n.o.ble thing for a man of ambition and limited personal means to do. The lady in question, though undeniably a beauty and of acceptable parentage, was of delicate const.i.tution, and had no fortune. Yet love is its own justification, and of course is irresistible.

When Dr Daunt conveyed his decision to the Master of his College, that placid gentleman did his kindly best to dissuade him from a step that would certainly delay, if it did not actually curtail, his University career. For the fact was that the College just then had only one vacant living of which to dispose. Dr Pa.s.singham spoke frankly: he did not think this living would do for a man of Daunt's temper and standing. The stipend was small, barely enough for a single man; the parish was poor, and the work hard, with no curate to lend his aid.

And then the place itself: an utterly unlovely spot, scarred by long-established mine workings and, in latter years, by numerous foundries, workshops, and other manufactories, around which had grown up a waste of smoke-blackened brick. Dr Pa.s.singham did not say so, but he considered Millhead, which he had visited only once, to be the kind of place with which no gentleman would wish willingly to be a.s.sociated.

After some minutes of attempting quiet persuasion, it began to vex the Master somewhat that Dr Daunt did not respond to his well-meant words in the way he had hoped, persisting instead in a desire to accept the living, and its attendant hards.h.i.+ps, at all costs. At last, Dr Pa.s.singham had no choice but to shake his head sadly and agree to put the arrangements in hand with all speed.

And so, on a cold day in March, 1819, the Reverend Achilles Daunt took up residence, with his new wife, at Millhead Vicarage. The house which I have personally visited and inspected closely stands, squat and dismal, with its back to a desolate tract of moor and facing a gloomy view of tall black chimneys and ugly, close-packed dwellings in the valley below. Here, indeed, was a change for Dr Daunt. Gone were the lawns and groves and mellow stone courts of the ancient University. To his daily contemplation now lay a very different prospect, peopled by a very different humanity.

But the new inc.u.mbent of Millhead Vicarage was determined to work hard for his northern flock; and certainly it could not be denied that in this, his first, ministry he performed his duties with unswerving diligence. He became especially celebrated in the district for his well-prepared sermons, delivered with intellectual pa.s.sion and dramatic power, which soon began to draw large congregations to St Symphorian's of a Sunday.

In appearance, he matched the heroic and manly names his parents had seen fit to give him: a tall and confident figure, broad-shouldered, deep-voiced, bearded like a prophet. As he tramped the wet and dirty streets of Millhead, he exuded an intimidating air of conscious merit. To the world at large, he seemed a rock and a rampart, a citadel against which nothing could prevail. Yet, by degrees, he began to find that great things were not easy to accomplish in this place of toil, where kindred spirits were few. His work amongst the working poor of the town began to depress him more than he felt it ought to have done; nor did preferment and removal from Millhead come quickly, as he had hoped it would. In short, Dr Daunt became something of a disappointed man.

The imminent birth of his first child did a little to lift his spirits; but, alas, the arrival in the world of baby Phoebus brought tragedy in its wake. Within three days of presenting Dr Daunt with his son and heir, his pretty little wife was dead, and he was left alone, save for the perpetually howling infant, in the dreary house on the hill, with no prospect that he could see of ever being able to leave.

The extremity of his grief brought him to the brink of despair. Great silences descended on the house when, for days on end, the Vicar would shun all human contact. During this black period, solicitous friends from their little circle came to offer succour to the Vicar in his bewilderment. Amongst the most attentive was Miss Caroline Petrie, one of those who had sat admiringly before Dr Daunt's pulpit at St Symphorian's. Gradually, Miss Petrie became established as the chief agent of the Vicar's recuperation; she concluded matters most satisfactorily by becoming the second Mrs Daunt in the autumn of 1821.

Of the transition from the one state of spiritual and mental annihilation to the other of rest.i.tuted faith and confidence, Dr Daunt never spoke; one can only guess at the compromises he had to make with both soul and conscience. But make them he did, with some advantage to himself, and grave disadvantage to me, as will appear.

The formidable Miss Caroline Petrie, who brought with her to Millhead Vicarage a small but welcome annuity, was as different from the first Mrs Daunt as could be. She exhibited strength of mind, as well as body at every point. Her bearing was what one would naturally call regal, conveying a dignity of form and expression that immediately commanded attention in both high and low. Partly this was due to her unusual height (she was fully a head taller even than Dr Daunt, and had the advantage of literally looking down upon practically everyone to whom she spoke); partly it arose from her striking physiognomy.

At this time she was nine-and-twenty, and had been living quietly with her uncle for several years, both her parents having died some time before. She was no beauty in the conventional sense, as the first Mrs Daunt had been, the impression created by her features being rather of tribulation vanquished indeed she carried the visible signature of suffering overcome in the disfiguring etchings of small-pox.

Yet any poet worth his laurels, or painter hungry for inspiration, would have flown instantly into a fine frenzy at first sight of that imperious face. It seemed always set in an austere intensity of expression, as though she had at that very moment looked up from the absorbed perusal of some improving work of irresistible interest though such works were in fact largely unknown to her. But there was a mitigating softness, too, a yielding about the mouth and eyes that, as one became aware of it, transposed the whole effect of her countenance from the minor to the major key. Besides which she had spirit, the most charming manners when she wished, and blunt good sense. She had ambition, too, as events were soon to show.

With the money she brought to the marriage, a nurse Mrs Tackley by name was employed to watch over the infant Phoebus, which she did most capably until the boy was two years old, when his step-mamma a.s.sumed full responsibility for his upbringing and welfare. As a consequence, the boy's character grew to resemble hers in many points, particularly with regard to her worldly outlook, which stood in distinct contrast to the longing of her husband to take up the life of the cloistered scholar once again. It was extraordinary how close they became, and how often Dr Daunt would encounter them locked closely together in conversation, like two conspirators. Though he was still, of course, responsible for the boy's formal education, in all other respects it seemed that his wife had taken over from him as the dominant influence on his son's life; and even here, in the study, his authority was frequently undermined. The boy generally applied himself well to his lessons; but if he wished at any time to go and ride his pony, or fish in the stream at the bottom of the garden, instead of getting declensions into his head, then he only had to appeal to his step-mamma and he would be instantly released from his labours. On other occasions, too, the Vicar would find his wishes thwarted, and his orders countermanded. One day, he required the boy to accompany him to one of the worst parts of the town, where utter poverty and hopelessness were starkly manifest on every corner, feeling no doubt that the experience would be useful in awakening in his son some compa.s.sion for the plight of those so much less fortunate than himself. But they were intercepted at the front door by his furious wife, who proclaimed that under no circ.u.mstances was dear Phoebus to be exposed to such disgusting sights. The Vicar protested; but argument was useless. He went down into the town alone, and never again attempted to take his son with him. From these and other instances of the second Mrs Daunt's ascendancy, it is impossible not to conclude that, gradually, and by means he was unable to resist, Dr Daunt's son was being taken away from him.

By an evil chance, or perhaps as a consequence of that fatality which, I believe, has shaped my history, the Vicar's wife was the second cousin of Julius Hereward Verney Duport, twenty-fifth Baron Tansor, of Evenwood Park in the County of Northamptons.h.i.+re whose first wife has already been briefly mentioned in connection with my mother. Several comfortable livings in Northamptons.h.i.+re lay in the gift of Mrs Daunt's n.o.ble relative, and that of Evenwood itself fell vacant in the summer of 1830. On learning of this, with fire in her eyes, Mrs Daunt instantly flew south to press her new husband's claims with his Lords.h.i.+p.

Already, however, something more than wifely duty appears to have been animating this redoubtable lady. Accounts concur that she had often expressed a wish to remove herself and her husband and particularly her dear boy, Phoebus from Millhead, which she detested; and it was doubtless kind of her to offer to lay Dr Daunt's abilities before Lord Tansor. Her husband, I am sure, was touched by his wife's selfless alacrity in this matter. I suspect, however, that selflessness was not her guiding principle, and that in rus.h.i.+ng south, with such demonstrable urgency, she was in fact obeying the urgings of her own ambitious heart. For if her suit was successful, she would no longer be a distant and forgotten relation existing in the outer darkness of Millhead: she would now be counted amongst the Duports of Evenwood and who knows where that might lead?

I have no records of the meeting between Mrs Daunt and Lord Tansor; but, from Mrs Daunt's point of view, it must have been accounted a success. An invitation to join her was speedily sent back to Dr Daunt in the North; the boy Phoebus was packed off to relations in Suffolk; and the outcome was, that Mr and Mrs Daunt returned together from Northamptons.h.i.+re two weeks later in high spirits.

There followed an anxious wait; but Lord Tansor did not disappoint. Barely a fortnight had pa.s.sed before a letter tremendous in its condescension arrived, confirming Dr Daunt as the new Rector of St Michael and All Angels, Evenwood.

According to one of my informants, on the day after his return from his Suffolk relations, the boy Phoebus was called before his step-mother. Sitting in a small b.u.t.ton-backed chair set in front of the drawing-room window that same chair in which the first Mrs Daunt had often sat, looking forlornly out across the remnant of moor that lay between the vicarage and the encroaching town she was heard to impress upon the boy the significance of his father's translation to Evenwood, and what it would mean for them all. I am told that she addressed him in deep melodious tones as her 'dear child', and tenderly stroked his hair.

Then she told him something of their relations and patrons, Lord and Lady Tansor; how great was their standing in the county, and in the country at large; how they also had a grand house in London, which he might see in due course if he was very good; and how he was to call them Aunt and Uncle Duport.

'You know, don't you, that your Uncle Duport does not have a little boy of his own any more,' she said, taking his hand and walking him to the window. 'If you are very good, as I know you will be, I am sure your uncle will be especially kind to you, for he misses having a son dreadfully, you know, and it would be such a considerate thing if you were to pretend sometimes to be his very own boy. Could you do that, Phoebus dear? You will always be your Papa's boy, of course and mine, too. It is only a sort of game, you know. But think what it would mean to poor Uncle Duport, who has no son of his own, as your Papa does, to have you constantly by him, and to be able to show you things, and perhaps take you to places. You would like that, wouldn't you? To be taken to nice places? '

And the boy, of course, said he would. And then she told him of all the wonders of Evenwood.

'Are there chimneys at Evenwood?' the boy asked.

'Why, yes, my dear, but they are not like Millhead chimneys, all dirty and horrid.'

'And is my Uncle Duport a very great man?'

'Yes indeed,' she said, looking out across the black valley with a slyly triumphant smile breaking across her face, 'a very great man.'

At the appointed time, the family's belongings and household goods were despatched south, and the Vicarage at last stood shuttered and empty. As the fly rattled away from the gloomy windswept house, I picture Dr Daunt leaning back against the seat, closing his eyes, and offering up a silent prayer of thanks to his G.o.d. His deliverance had come at last.

He was about to come into his kingdom.

10:.

In Arcadia1 ______________________________________________________________________.

Thus came the Daunt family to Evenwood, the place on which all my hopes and ambitions have rested for so long.

His new situation suited Dr Daunt completely. With four hundred pounds a year from his stipend, and another hundred from his glebe lands, he was now able to keep a carriage and a good table, and generally a.s.sume a position of some consequence in the neighbourhood. No longer beset by the adversities of his Millhead living, the Dr Daunt lay becalmed and contented in the sunlit harbour of Evenwood.

Light and s.p.a.cious, the Rectory a former prebendal manor-house was set amidst well-tended gardens, beyond which was a sweet prospect of sloping meadows and, across the river, the inviting darkness of close-set woodland. Much of the Rector's work such as it was in this small and prosperous country parish could be easily delegated to his curate, Mr Samuel Tidy, a fidgetty young man who stood deeply in awe of Dr Daunt (and even more of his wife). Lord Tansor laid infrequent demands on his Rector, and those few duties required of him were easily fulfilled. Soon the Rector found himself with ample time, and more than sufficient income, to pursue at his leisure those intellectual and antiquarian interests to which he had clung so desperately at Millhead, and he saw no reason why he should not do so.

It was not long before his wife set to work forging as close a bond as possible between the Rectory and the great house. Her kins.h.i.+p with the Duport family undoubtedly gave her a degree of privilege, which she adroitly used to her advantage. To Lord Tansor, she quickly made herself indispensable, much as she had done to her husband after the death of his first wife. Nothing was too much trouble. She would not hear of his Lords.h.i.+p being incommoded in any way whatsoever, no matter how small the circ.u.mstance. Naturally, she did not undertake any menial tasks herself, displaying instead a winning ability to get them done by other people. She soon became possessed of a thorough knowledge of the house's domestic arrangements, and began to exert a degree of control over them that was wonderful to behold. She did all this, moreover, without a word of complaint from the below-stairs population, who to a man and woman, even including Cranshaw, his Lords.h.i.+p's long-serving butler demurred to her commands like old campaigners to the orders of a much-loved general. Indeed, she insinuated herself into all the doings of the household with such tact, combined with effortless charm, that no one appeared in the least affronted by what otherwise might have been seen as rank impudence.

Lord Tansor was delighted by the active deference and domestic a.s.sistance of his relative, whom he had barely known before her marriage to the Rector, but whom he now regarded as a signal adornment to the society of Evenwood. Mrs Daunt's diplomatic skills were also put to work on mild Lady Tansor, who, far from feeling injured or indignant at the former's swift a.s.sumption of dominance in her house, was touchingly grateful to be relieved of duties which, in truth, she was only too glad to relinquish.