The Meaning of Night (48 page)

perfectly innocent party in the business.’

‘You might say so,’ he replied, smiling. ‘I questioned him myself, of course, on

behalf of the University authorities, and could only conclude, with the police, that he had

played no part in the conspiracy.’

He smiled again, and I took my cue.

‘May I ask, then, if you entertained any personal doubts on the matter?’

‘Well now, Mr Glapthorn, it would not be right, not right at all, you know, to

bring my personal feelings into this. As I say, what I have told you is a matter of public

record. Beyond that – well, I am sure you understand. It does not signify in the least, of

course, that I am by nature of a rather doubting turn of mind. And besides, the affair did

not lay too deep a stain on Mr Pettingale’s character. After going down from here, I

believe he was called to the Bar by Gray’s-Inn.’

‘And Mr Pettingale’s friend, Mr Phoebus Daunt?’

‘There is no reason at all to believe that he was implicated in the crime in any

way. He was certainly not asked to account for himself by the police, or indeed by the

University. The only connexion I could establish, in the course of questioning Mr

Pettingale, was that he had accompanied his friend to Newmarket on several occasions.’

I thought for a moment.

‘For the conspiracy to have been brought off successfully, the criminals would

have needed to have obtained a number of the firm’s cheques, as well as a specimen of

the necessary signature. The latter could perhaps have been got from the receipt sent to

Verdant for payment of Mr Pettingale’s original loan. As for the blank cheques, was

there, perhaps, an earlier break-in?’

‘You are right,’ said Dr Maunder. ‘There had been a break-in, some weeks before

Mr Pettingale sought legal help on the matter of the outstanding debt, and, again,

suspicion fell on Verdant. But the curious thing is that, after a very thorough search by

the firm’s senior clerk, no cheques were found to be missing. How the blank cheques

were obtained, therefore, remains a mystery. Perhaps they, too, had been forged, though I

think that is rather unlikely. And now, Mr Glapthorn, if you will excuse me, I have an

appointment with the Master.’

‘I am most grateful to you for your frankness’ I said. ‘But will you allow me one

final question? You have not mentioned the name of the solicitor in the case.’

‘Ah, yes. I regret I cannot now remember, if indeed I ever knew.’

I thanked him again, and he showed me to the door.

Leaving Trinity College, I took an omnibus from the Market-square back to the

station, and had only a few minutes to wait before the next train to London. As we rattled

southwards, I felt a curious elation of spirits, as though a door – be it ever so small – had

opened an inch or so and let in a little gleam of precious light on the darkness through

which I had been wandering.

Of Mr Lewis Pettingale’s guilt in the clever conspiracy described to me by Dr

Maunder, I had not the least doubt; but it was clear he had not worked alone. This

Leonard Verdant, now: he had been a co-conspirator for sure, indicated, I thought, by his

possession of a most unlikely name, concealing – who? I had my suspicions, but they

could not yet be tested. And then there was Mr Phoebus Daunt. Ah, Phoebus, the radiant

one, unsullied and incorrupt! There he stood, as ever, whistling innocently in the

shadows. Was he as guilty as his friend Pettingale and the elusive Mr Verdant? If so,

what other iniquities did he have to his credit? At last, I began to sense that I was gaining

ground on my enemy; that I had been given something that might, perhaps, give me the

means I needed to destroy him.

I was returning to London with no more knowledge of why Mr Carteret had

written his letter to Mr Tredgold than when I had started out; and the expectations I had

cherished that the secretary might be in possession of information to support my cause

had also been shattered by his death. The only certainty I had brought back was that what

Mr Carteret knew concerning the Tansor succession had led, directly or indirectly, to this

catastrophe. I had no choice now but to lay the matter before my employer, in the hope

that he could suggest a way to inform ourselves more particularly on the nature of Mr

Carteret’s discovery.

As for me, what a change had been wrought in the matter of a few days! I had left

London convinced I was falling in love with Bella. I returned the helpless slave of

another, in whose presence I constantly burned to be, and for love of whom I must turn

my back on the certainty of happiness.

November 1853

Nothing wraps a man in such a mist of errors, as his own curiosity in searching

things beyond him.

[Owen Felltham, Resolves (1623), xxvii, ‘Of Curiosity in Knowledge’]

(

29:

Suspicio?

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On my return to London I took my supper at Quinn’s – oysters, a lobster, some

dried sprats on the side, and a bottle of the peerless Clos Vougeot. It was still early, and

the Haymarket had not yet put on its midnight face. Through the window I contemplated

the usual metropolitan bustle, the familiar panorama of unremarkable comings and goings

of the highest and the lowest, and of all stations in between, which you may see out of

any window in London at eight o’clock on a Thursday evening. But in a few hours’ time,

after the crowds had poured out of the Theatre, taken their supper at Dubourg’s or the

Café de l’Europe, and made their laughing way home to warmth and comfort, this broad

thoroughfare of shops, restaurants, and cigar-divans, nobly flanked on one side by its

theatre, and on the other by its colonnaded opera-house, would take on a very different

aspect, transformed into a heaving, swollen river of the damned and the walking dead.

What is your pleasure, sir? You may find it here, or hereabouts, with little trouble, at any

hour of the night after St Martin’s Church has tolled the final stroke of twelve. Liquor in

which to drown; tobacco and song; boys or girls, or both – the choice is yours. Ah! How

often have I thrown myself into that continually replenished stream!

Evenwood: had I dreamed thee? Here, lying at my ease once more on the scaly

back of Great Leviathan, feeling the monster’s deep, slow breath beneath me, its

rumbling pulsing heart beating in time with my own, the things I had so recently seen and

heard and touched now seemed as real in imagination, and as unreal in fact, as the palace

of Schahriar.? And had I truly breathed the same air as Miss Emily Carteret, when I had

stood so close to her that I could see the rise and fall of her breast, so close that I only had

to stretch out my fingers to stroke that pale flesh?

I loved her. That was the plain and simple truth. It had come upon me suddenly on

swift wings, pitiless as death: inescapable, and undeniable. I felt no joy at my new

condition, for how can the conquered slave be joyful? I loved her, without hope that she

would ever return my love. I loved her, and it was bitter to me that I must break my

dearest Bella’s heart. For there is no mistress like Love. And what cares she for those

who suffer when their dearest one betrays them for love of another? Love only smiles a

conqueror’s smile, to see her kingdom advanced.

A second bottle of the Clos Vougeot was perhaps a mistake, and soon after nine

o’clock I walked out into the street, a little unsteadily, with a light head and a heavy

heart. It had begun to rain and, assailed by melancholy thoughts, and feeling a great need

for company, I headed off to Leadenhall Street, in the hope of finding Le Grice taking his

usual Saturday supper in the Ship and Turtle. He had been there, as I’d expected, but I

had missed him by a matter of minutes, and no one could tell me where he had gone.

Cursing, I found myself back in the street again. Normally, in such a mood of restless

melancholy, I would have taken myself northwards, to Blithe Lodge; but I was too much

of a coward to face Bella just yet. I would need a little time, to regain some composure,

and to learn dissimulation.

Down to Trafalgar Square through the dirt and murk I wandered, and then

eastwards along the Strand – aimlessly, as I thought; but before long I had passed St

Stephen, Walbrook, and had begun to walk at a more purposeful pace.

Welcome, welcome! I had been gone too long, the opium-master said.

And so, bowing low, he led me through the kitchen, dark and vaporous, to a

truckle-bed set against a greasy, dripping wall in the far room, where, curling myself up, I

laid my head on a filthy bolster whilst the master, with many soothing words, plied me

speedily with my means of transportation.

In Bluegate-fields I had a dream. And in my dream I lay on a cold mountain, with

only the stars above me; but I could not move, for I was held down fast with heavy

chains, about my legs and feet, around my chest and arms, and in a great loop around my

neck. And I cried out for ease – from the bitter cold and from the pressing, suffocative

weight of the chains – but no help came, and no voice returned my call, until at last I

seemed to faint away.

A sleep within a sleep. A dream within a dream. I awake – from what? And my

heart leaps, for now I stand in sunshine, warm and vivifying, in a secluded courtyard,

where water plays and birds sing. ‘Is she here?’ I ask. ‘She is,’ comes the reply. And so I

turn and see her, standing by the fountain, and smiling so sweetly that I think my heart

will burst. In black mourning no more, but in a comely robe of dazzling white samite,

with her dark hair flowing free, she holds out her hand to me: ‘Will you come?’

She leads me through an arched door into a deserted candlelit ballroom; faint

echoes of a strange music reach us from some unimaginable distance. She turns to me.

‘Have you met Mr Verdant?’ And then a sudden wind extinguishes all the lights, and I

hear water lapping at my feet.

‘I do apologize,’ I hear her saying from somewhere in the darkness. ‘But I have

forgotten your name.’ She laughs. ‘A liar needs a good memory.’ And then she is gone,

and I am left alone on a drear and lonely shore. I look out to see a heaving black ocean,

with a pale yellow light suffusing the horizon. In the distance, something is bobbing on

the waves. I strain my eyes; and then, with a fearful pang, I see what it is.

A bird, stiff and dead, its wings outstretched, drifting into eternity.

Four o’clock in the morning by the carriage-clock that stands on the mantelpiece.

The room is cold, and has a strangely desolate air about it, though it is full of familiar

things: my mother’s work-table, covered in papers as usual; next to it, the cabinet with its

little drawers, full of the notes I’d made on the documents and journals she left behind;

the curtained-off area at one end containing cameras and other photographic

paraphernalia; the faded Turkey rug; the rows of books, each one a well-remembered old

friend; the charming Chippendale tripod-table on which I keep an edition of Donne’s

sermons and the copy of Les milles et une nuits that Tom Grexby had bought me for my

eighth birthday; the portrait of my mother, which used to hang over the fireplace in the

best parlour at home; and, on the mantelpiece, next to a little rosewood clock I had found

hidden away in my mother’s bedroom, the box that had once held ‘Miss Lamb’s’ two

hundred sovereigns.

I sit by the empty hearth in my coat and boots. I am troubled in spirit, and once

again, as it had done on my last night at Evenwood, the sleep my mind and body crave

flees from me, like some taunting nymph.

What is happening to me? I have no happiness, no contentment, only restiveness

and agitation. I am adrift on an ocean of mystery, like the bird in my dream – powerless,

frozen. What dark creatures inhabit the unseen deeps beneath me? What landfall awaits

me? Or is this my fate, to be forever pushed and pulled, now this way, now that, by the

winds and currents of circumstance, without respite? The goal I had once had constantly

before me – simple and supreme – of proving my claim to be the lawfully begotten son of

Lord Tansor, seemed to have become dismembered and dispersed, like a great imperial

galleon full of treasure dashed to pieces on a rocky shore.

There was a piece of paper lying on the tripod-table beside me, a stub of pencil

with it. Seizing both, I began to compose a hasty memorandum to myself, outlining the

problems confronting me that were now demanding resolution.

I read over what I had written, three, four, five times, in mounting despair. These

disjoined and yet, it seemed, inter-twined and co-essential conundrums swirled and

chattered and roared around my head like Satan’s legions, refusing utterly to coagulate

into a single reasoned conclusion, until I could stand it no more.

I stood up and was in the process of throwing off my great-coat, having resolved

to see what soaking my head in a basin of cold water would do to rid myself of these

pestering devils, when something fell out of the pocket and landed on the hearth-rug.