The Meaning of Night (11 page)

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 friendship, 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 friendship, 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

title Rosa Mundi. Taking up my paper-knife, I slowly began to cut away the edges, and

opened out the title-page.

ROSA MUNDI;

and

Other Poems

P. Rainsford Daunt

Misce stultitiam consiliis brevem:

Dulce est desipere in loco. Hor. Odes, iv. viii

London: Edward Moxon, Dover-street.

MDCCC-LV?

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.?

He was awkward and ill at ease, coughing nervously, and constantly running his

finger around the inside of his shirt 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 friendship 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

circumstances of my birth; the character and designs of my enemy; and the futile passion

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,? 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 illustrious 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

assemble 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 Hell.

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 documentary evidence, of a

primary character; he sifts, and weighs, and patiently accumulates; he analyses,

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 principal sources on which I

have drawn are as follows: the fragmentary recollections of Daunt’s time at Eton, which

appeared in the Saturday 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.?

Phoebus Rising 1820–1850

I have never yet found Pride in a noble nature: nor humility in an unworthy mind.

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

(

9:

Ora et labora?

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___

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 Lancashire.

A little while before this great event, his father had been presented to the living of

Millhead by his College, when his Fellowship 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 noble

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 constitution, 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 Passingham 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

Passingham 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 associated.

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