The Meaning of Night (59 page)

first by diligence to Paris, so that their passports could be endorsed, and then made their

way westwards to Rennes. After the letter quoted above, parts of which I did not fully

understand at first, there seems to have been no further communications from Mrs Glyver

to her Ladyship until the sixteenth of June, 1820, which to my mind, strongly suggested

that they were together in France – as indeed proved to be the case. However, there are

letters to her Ladyship from a Mr James Martin, an aide to Sir James Stuart, the

Ambassador in Paris,? written in February and March of the following year – on seeing

them, I remembered that this gentleman had been a guest at Evenwood on more than one

occasion. The purpose of the exchange was to secure accommodation for her Ladyship in

the capital over the summer. I could not help but smile, despite the growing fear I felt

within me, when I saw to where Mr Martin’s replies had been directed: Hôtel de

Québriac, Rue du Chapitre, Rennes.

The letter from Mrs Glyver of the sixteenth of June, 1820, alluded to above, was

written from Dinan to her friend in Paris, to a house in the Rue du Faubourg St Honoré.?

They had left Rennes together during the second week of June, taking lodgings in Dinan

before her Ladyship departed alone for Paris. In her letter, Mrs Glyver begins by

speaking of her imminent return to England. And then comes this extraordinary passage:

Further letters from Mrs Glyver made the matter clear beyond peradventure: my

Lady had given birth to a son in the city of Rennes. He had been born in the Hôtel de

Québriac, Rue du Chapitre, in the month of April of the year 1820.

But there was a deeper matter even than this, of such consequence that I could

scarce believe it; and yet the evidence was here in my hands, in these letters written to her

Ladyship by her friend, Simona Glyver, and also in others she received in Paris from

Miss Eames. Lady Tansor returned to England on the twenty-fifth of September, 1820 –

alone. Where, then, was the child? The thought occurred to me that he might have died;

but letters from Mrs Glyver received by her Ladyship after arriving back at Evenwood

contained regular reports of the child’s progress – the habits he was developing, the

darkening of his hair, the little sounds he made and how they were interpreted, how he

loved to be taken down to the shore to watch the waves crashing in and the gulls soaring

above them. It also appears – astonishing as it is to think of – that the child was brought

surreptitiously to Evenwood during the following summer when Lord Tansor was in

Town, and much discussion ensued concerning his fascination with the white doves that

fluttered around the spires and towers of the great house, and with the goldfish – some of

great size and age – that glided silently through the dark waters of the fish-pond.

I read several of the letters over again, and then a third time, to make sure I had

not deceived myself. But there was no other possible interpretation of the evidence before

me. Lady Tansor had brought her husband’s rightful heir secretly into the world, only to

give him away to another.

So I come at last to my beginning. This was the crime to which I bear witness: the

denial – by a premeditated act of determined duplicity and cruelty (I shall not go so far as

to call it malice, though some might) – of paternity to my cousin, who lives only that he

might pass on what he has inherited from his forefathers to his lawfully begotten son.

This was badly done by my Lady, and I say so as one who loved her dearly. I aver it was

cruel beyond words to so deny my cousin what would have completed his life; that it was

an act of terrible vindictiveness, no one can deny; and to my mind, insofar as it took from

Lord Tansor what was rightfully his, though he remained ignorant of his loss, this act of

denial was, in its effects, criminal.

And yet, having arraigned her, having presented the evidence against her, can I

now condemn her? She paid a terrible price for what she did; she did not act alone–

others, one in particular, were guilty by association, though they aided her out of love and

loyalty; she – and they – are now forever beyond the reach of earthly justice, and have

been judged by Him who judges all. For who of us are without sin? No life is without

secrets; and it may often be that the lesser evil is to keep such secrets hidden. Let me, as

the accuser of Laura, Lady Tansor, therefore plead for clemency. Let her rest.

But the consequences of the crime remain, and they are not so easily remitted. For

what accounts are still to be presented for settlement? Does the boy live? Does he know

who he is? How can this be made right? Oh, my Lady! What have you done!

Since making my discovery, I have wrestled day and night with my conscience: to

keep my Lady’s secret, or place what I know before my cousin? I am tormented by the

knowledge I now possess, as I fear dear Miss Eames had been; but now, at last, I am

impelled to take action – and not only to forestall any accusation that I am withholding

what I know to protect my own interests.

My cousin’s determination to adopt Phoebus Daunt as his heir in law, the device

to which he has pledged himself in order to make good the deficit Nature has apparently

inflicted upon him, renders it imperative that I make the truth known, so that steps may

immediately be taken to find the true heir, if he lives. I can no longer keep silent on this

matter; for if the true-born heir be yet living, then everything must be done to discover

him, and so prevent the disastrous course of action upon which my cousin is set. And

there is another matter of concern to me.

I had just entered the Library, late one afternoon in April, 1853, when I witnessed

Mr Phoebus Daunt softly closing the door of my work-room, where he had no business to

be, and then looking about him to make sure that he was unobserved. A man, I thought, is

never more himself than when he thinks he is alone. I waited, out of sight, for him to quit

the Library through one of the terrace doors. When I got to my room it was immediately

clear that some of the papers on my desk had been disturbed; likewise, when I ascended

to the Muniments Room, I saw that some items from Lady Tansor’s correspondence that

I had been examining earlier were not in the order in which I had left them.

Over the course of succeeding weeks, I would frequently encounter Mr Daunt in

the Library, apparently engaged upon reading some volume or other, or occasionally

writing at one of the tables. I suspected, however, that his real purpose was to seek an

opportunity to enter my work-room, and so gain access to the Muniments Room. But he

never could, for I now always locked the door that led from the Library whenever I left

my room.

This was not the first occasion on which I had found reason to suspect my dear

friend’s son of frankly despicable behaviour. Did I say suspect? Let me be blunt. I know

him to have been guilty of reading Lord Tansor’s private correspondence – including

letters of a highly confidential nature– when he had not been given permission to do so. I

should have spoken out, and it is a matter of the greatest regret that I did not do so. But

the point I wish to make most strongly is this: What action might an unscrupulous person

contemplate if he felt that his expectations – his most considerable expectations – were

threatened in any way? I answer that such a person would stop at nothing to preserve his

position.

Midnight.

He is there, though I cannot see him now – he seems to melt away into the

darkness, to become a shadow. But he was there – is there. I thought at first that it was

John Brine, but it cannot be him. He stands so still, in the shadow of the cypress tree –

watching, waiting; but then when I opened the window, he was gone, taken up by the

darkness.

I have seen him before – on many occasions, but always just out of sight, often at

dusk when I have been returning home across the Park, and more frequently of late.

And then I am certain that there was an attempt last week to break into my study,

where I am now writing, though I could find nothing taken. (My work-room in the great

house I now keep locked at all times, even when I am inside it.) A ladder had been taken

from one of the out-buildings and was found discarded in the shrubbery, and the

woodwork of my window had been damaged.

I feel constantly under his eyes, even when I cannot not see him. What does it

mean? Nothing good, I fear.

For I think I know who sets this watcher on me, and who it is that desires to know

what I now know. He smiles, and asks me how I am, and he shines like the sun in the

estimation of the world; but there is evil in his heart.

My candle is burning low and I must finish.

To those who may read this deposition I say again, that what I have written is the

entire truth, as far as it is known to me, and that I have claimed nothing that has not been

based on evidence provided by the documents in my possession, personal knowledge, and

direct observation.

This I swear on everything I hold most sacred.

By my hand, the ninth of May, in the year eighteen hundred and fifty-four.

P. Carteret.

To Mr Glapthorn

Sir,— If this comes into your hands, then fatal harm will certainly have been done

to me, and you will do me the great kindness of delivering what I have written herein to

your employer, Mr Christopher Tredgold.

The letters from my Lady’s writing-box have been removed to a place of safety,

but I shall have recovered them before our meeting. There is more to tell, but I am much

fatigued and must sleep.

I am not a superstitious man, but I encountered a magpie this afternoon, strutting

across the front lawn, and failed to raise my hat to him, as my mother always encouraged

me to do. This has been on my mind all this evening, but I shall hope that the morning

sun will make me rational once more.

Only one more thing.

I said there is more and may as well tell it quickly.

A slip of paper, enclosed with the letter I received from Miss Eames. The

following phrase on it, in capital letters: Sursum Corda. I have only just realized – to my

shame – what this may signify, and shall wish to present a possible course of action to

you tomorrow relating to it.

P.C.

34:

Quaere verum?

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Overwhelmed by the experience of reading Mr Carteret’s Deposition, I sank back,

exhausted and bewildered, in my chair. The dead had spoken after all, and what a world

of new prospects the words had revealed!

I had been deeply affected by the account of Lady Tansor’s last years, and of her

terrible death; and then to learn, in those carefully composed pages, of my birth in the

Rue du Chapitre, and how I had been taken to the town of Dinan, and of the making of

the box in which, I was sure, ‘Miss Lamb’ had placed her gift of two hundred sovereigns.

It filled me with amazement to read these things; for, since the death of her whom I had

once called mother, I had believed these privities were mine – and mine alone – to know.

But here they were, written down in another’s hand, like cold universal fact. The

sensation was alarming – like turning a corner and meeting oneself.

And to know that I had also been taken to Evenwood as a child! How my heart

danced with a kind of anguished elation! That bewitching palace-castle, with its soaring

towers, which I had beheld in my dreams when young, had been real after all – had been

no figment of fancy, but the perpetuated memory of my father’s house, which would one

day be mine.

Yet there were still so many unanswered questions, still so much to know. I read

Mr Carteret’s words over a second time, and then a third. Late into the night I sat,

re-reading, thinking, wondering.

I appeared to myself like a man in a dream who rushes headlong, heart fit to burst,

towards some eternally receding end: the faster I ran towards my goal, the more it

remained tantalizingly out of reach, always just within sight, but never attainable. Yet

again, I had been shown a fragment of the whole; but the greater truth, of which the

Deposition was a part, was still hidden from me.

The truth? It is always the truth we seek, is it not? A conformity with known fact,

or with some agreed standard, or with what experience tells us is the inescapable nature

of existence. But there is something beyond the merely ‘true’. What we commonly call

‘true – that ‘A’ equals ‘B’, or that Death waits quietly for us all – is often but a shadow or

replica of something greater. Only when this shadow-truth conjoins with meaning, and

above all with meaning experienced, do we see the substance itself, the Truth of truth. I

had no doubt that Mr Carteret’s words had been those of a truthful man; yet still they

were but portions of an elusive entireness.

I was sensible, of course, that I now possessed something that considerably

advanced my claim to be Lord Tansor’s heir; but I had seen enough clever barristers at

work to know that Mr Carteret’s Deposition was susceptible to serious legal objection,