The Meaning of Night (64 page)

at the great house, or in London?’

‘Do you need to ask?’ I repeated the question she herself had asked after our walk

in Green Park.

‘No,’ she said, ‘I do not think I do.’?

37:

Non sum qualis eram?

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I did not see Miss Carteret the following morning. When Mrs Rowthorn brought

up my breakfast she informed me that her mistress had gone out early, though it was a

damp and gloomy day for a walk.

‘But it’s a good sign,’ she said, ‘that Miss is out in the air again. She’s been

cooped up in her room for days on end since she came back from London, grieving still

for her poor papa, it’s plain. But she seemed brighter this morning, and it fair did my

heart good to see.’

I had several hours before my train, and so I resolved on a little expedition

through the Park, partly to look upon my inheritance once again, and partly in the hope

that I might encounter Miss Carteret.

Downstairs, I asked the girl I found scrubbing the front step to run and fetch John

Brine.

‘Brine,’ I asked, ‘I have a mind to see the Mausoleum. Is there a key?’

‘I can get that for you, sir,’ he replied, ‘if you’ll wait till I ride up to the great

house. It won’t take more than a quarter of an hour.’

He was as good as his word and I was soon wandering contentedly along

sequestered paths through dripping woods and stately avenues of bare-branched limes,

stopping from time to time to look out at the great house through a veil of drizzle. From

certain vantage points it lay indistinct and spectral, an undifferentiated mass; from others

it gained in definition, its towers and spires rearing sharply up through the mist like the

petrified fingers of some titanic creature. It began to seem suddenly, and curiously,

imperative to drink in every separate prospect to the brim; each detail of arch or window,

each angle and nuance, appeared infinitely and urgently precious to me, like a man who

gazes on the face of the one he loves for the last time.

At length, I found myself standing – wet and cold, and splashed with mud –

before the great double doors of the Mausoleum.

It stood within a dense semi-circle of ivy-clad trees, a substantial domed building

in the Graeco-Egyptian style constructed in the year 1722 by the twenty-first Baron, who

had plundered freely – some might say uncritically – from a number of mausolea

illustrated in Roland Fréart’s Parallele de l’Architecture Antique et de la Moderne? for

his design.

The building consisted of a large central chamber flanked by three smaller wings

and an entrance hall, the whole being shut off by two massive and forbidding lead-faced

doors carrying representations in relief of six inverted torches, three on each door. Two

life-size stone angels on plinths – one bearing a wreath, the other an open book – guarded

the entrance. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out the key Brine had given me and

placed it in the inverted escutcheon.

In the central chamber were four or five imposing tombs, whilst set around the

walls of the three wings were a succession of arcaded and gated loculi, some presently

empty and awaiting their occupants, others closed off by slate panels, each bearing an

inscription.

The first to catch my eye was that of Lord Tansor’s elder brother, whom Mr

Tredgold had mentioned in passing in the Temple Gardens:

Vortigern Arthur Duport

Born January 15th 1791

Died 24th September 1807

‘This is none other than the house of God,

and this is the gate of Heaven’

Gen. xxxvii

(

And then, next to it, was what I had come to see.

I stood in the cold, dank stillness for some minutes contemplating the simple

inscription on the slate panel; but not in a mood of reverence and regret, as I had

expected, but with a pounding heart. This is what I read:

Laura Rose Duport

1796–1823

Sursum Corda

(

The inscription instantly brought to mind the note Mr Carteret had appended to

his Deposition. Sursum Corda:? words from the Latin Eucharist, written on a slip of

paper sent to him by my mother’s friend and companion, Miss Julia Eames. Sursum

Corda. Try as I might, I could not wrench significance from the words; and yet Mr

Carteret had come to a realization about them that he wished to communicate to me.

Musing on this new puzzle, I left the Mausoleum to silence and darkness and took

my way down a muddy path to a gravelled bridle-way that ran alongside the Park wall

back to the South Gates. In ten minutes, disappointed that I had not encountered Miss

Carteret on my ramblings, I arrived back at the Dower House and went into the

stable-yard to give the key of the Mausoleum back to John Brine.

‘You’ll oblige me by getting a duplicate cut, Brine. Discreetly. You understand?’

‘I understand, sir.’

‘Very good. My compliments to your sister.’

He tipped his cap and quickly pocketed the coins I had placed in his hand.

‘Don’t expect we’ll be seeing you for a while, sir.’

I turned back. ‘What? Why do you say that?’

‘I only meant that, with Miss going away —’

‘Going away? What are you talking about?’

‘Beg pardon, sir, I thought you’d have known. She’s going to Paris, sir. To spend

Christmas with her friend. Won’t be back for a month or more.’

Why? Why had she not told me? For a time, as I walked back to Easton to take

the Peterborough coach, I felt sick with doubt and suspicion; but as the coach pulled out

of the market-square, I grew more rational. She had simply forgotten: nothing more. If

our paths had crossed this morning, as we’d both made our separate perambulations of

the Park, she would have undoubtedly have told me of her imminent departure. I was sure

of it.

Back in Temple-street, I sat at my table and took out a sheet of paper. With a

beating heart, I began to write.

1, Temple-street, Whitefriars, London

2nd December, 1853.

Dear Miss Carteret,

I write this short note to thank you, most sincerely, for your recent hospitality, &

in the hope that you will allow me to anticipate an early resumption of our friendship. It

is likely, perhaps, that you may be visiting your aunt in the near future; if so, I trust you

will not consider it forward of me to entertain the further hope – however slight – that

you might inform me, so that I may arrange to call on you, at the usual time. If you are

expecting to remain in Northamptonshire, then perhaps I may – with your permission –

find occasion to visit you in your new accommodation. I wish very much to have your

opinion on the work of Monsieur de Lisle.? The Poèmes antiques seem to me admirable

in every way. Do you know them?

I remain, your friend,

E. Glapthorn.

I waited anxiously for her reply. Would she write? What would she say? Two

days passed, but no word came. I could do nothing but meditate moodily in my rooms,

staring out of the window at the leaden sky, or sitting, with an unopened book on my lap,

for hours on end in a state of desperate vacancy.

Then, on the third day, a letter came. Reverently, I laid it – unopened – on my

work-table, transfixed by the sight of her handwriting. With my forefinger I slowly traced

each letter of the direction, and then pressed the envelope to my face, to drink in the faint

residue of her perfume. At last I reached for my paper-knife to release the enclosed sheet

of paper from its covering.

A wave of relief and joy swept over me as I read her words.

The Dower House

Evenwood, Northamptonshire

5th December, 1853.

Dear Mr Glapthorn,—

Your kind letter reached me just in time. Tomorrow I am to leave for Paris, to

visit my friend Miss Buisson. I regret very much that I forgot to mention this to you when

you were here – my excuse is that the pleasure of your company drove all other thoughts

from my head, & did not realize the omission until after you had gone.

You must think me a very odd friend – for friends, I believe, we have agreed to be

– to have kept such a thing from you, though I did not do so wilfully. But I will hope for

forgiveness, as every sinner must.

I shall not return to England until January or February, but shall think of you

often, and hope you will sometimes think of me. And when I return, I promise to send

word to you – that, you may be assured, will be something I shall not forget to do. You

have shown me such kindness and consideration – & provided me with unlooked-for

mental solace at this dark time – that I should be careless indeed of my own well-being if

I were to deny myself the pleasure of seeing you again, as soon as circumstances permit. I

am familiar with some of the work of M. de Lisle, but not the volume you mention – I

shall take especial care to seek it out while I am in France, so that I may have something

sensible to say about it when next we meet. In the meantime I remain,

Your affectionate friend,

E. Carteret.

I kissed the paper and fell back in my chair. All was well. All was wonderfully

well. Even the prospect of separation from her did not appal me. For was she not my

affectionate friend, and would she not be often thinking of me, as I would be thinking of

her? And when she returned – well, then I trusted to see affectionate friendship blossom

quickly into consuming love.

I pass over the succeeding weeks, for they were bleak and featureless. Mr

Tredgold’s condition was slow to improve, and during the two or three visits I made to

Canterbury I would sit despondently by his bedside, wondering whether the dear

gentleman would ever recover from the life-in-death into which he had been so cruelly

plunged. But his brother continued to hope – in both a professional and a personal

capacity – for better things to come, and assured me that he had seen such cases as this

end in complete recovery. And thus I would return to Temple-street faintly hopeful that,

when I next saw my employer, he would evince some signs of restoration.

But as day succeeded day, my spirits sank lower and lower. London was cold and

dismal – impenetrable, choking fog for days on end, the streets slimy with mud and

grease, the people as yellow and unwholesome-looking as the enveloping miasma. I

found I missed the beautiful face of Miss Emily Carteret most desperately, and began to

convince myself that she would forget me, despite her assurances. And I was bereft of

companionship. Le Grice was away in Scotland, and Bella had been called to the bedside

of a sick relative in Italy. I had seen her soon after my return from Evenwood, at a dinner

given by Kitty Daley to celebrate her protégé’s birthday. Of course both my head and my

heart were full of Miss Carteret, and yet Bella was as captivating as ever. It would have

been the easiest thing in the world to fall in love with her; a man would have been mad

not to do so. But I was such a man – made mad beyond recourse by Miss Carteret.

At the end of the evening, after the other guests had departed, Bella and I stood

looking out into the moonlit garden. As she laid her head on my shoulder, I kissed her

perfumed hair.

‘You have been most gallant tonight, Eddie,’ she whispered. ‘Perhaps absence

really does make the heart grow fonder.’

‘No absence, however long, could make my heart grow fonder of you than it

already is,’ I replied

‘I am glad of it,’ said Bella, holding me closer. ‘But I wish you would not go

away so much. Kitty says I mope like a lovelorn schoolgirl when you are not here, and

that sort of thing, you know, is very bad for business. I had to turn away Sir Toby Dancer

last week, and he is considered a very fine man by all the other girls. So you see, you

must not leave me as you do, or you will have Kitty to answer to.’

‘But, dearest, I cannot help it if my own business takes me from you. And

besides, if your moping helps me keep you to myself, then perhaps I ought to stay away

more often.’

She gave me a sharp pinch on my arm for my impudence and pulled away; but I

could see that her chagrin was only pretended, and soon we had retired to her room,

where I was allowed to admire, and then to occupy, those sweet perfections of flesh that

had been denied to fine Sir Toby Dancer.

I left Blithe Lodge early the next morning, leaving Bella asleep, as was my usual

way. She stirred slightly as I kissed her and I stood for a moment looking down at her

dark hair spread out in tangled profusion over the pillow. ‘Darling Bella,’ I whispered. ‘If

only I could love you as you deserved.’ Then I turned away, and left her to her dreams.

Christmas came and went, and the new year of 1854 was a month old before

anything of significance occurred.

On the second of February, I was called before Mr Donald Orr. A rather frosty

conversation ensued. Mr Orr professed himself to be aware of the fact that I was

continuing to draw a salary without, as far as he could tell, doing much to earn it. But as I

worked in a personal capacity for the Senior Partner, he could do nothing but look

disapprovingly down his thin Scotch nose at me and say he expected Mr Tredgold had