The Meaning of Night (68 page)

Glapthorn this’ and ‘Mr Glapthorn that’ these weeks past, as if there was no other topic

of conversation in the world but Mr Edward Glapthorn. And then with all Paris to play in,

she has done nothing but keep to the house, except for little walks alone in the Bois on

fine mornings, with her nose in a book. Today she is reading a book of poetry by M. de

Lisle, which I had to go out and buy with my own money! Et enfin, Mr Glapthorn, you

are welcome to her. But do not fall in love with her. I am serious now.

Adieu, chère Monsieur,

Marie-Madeleine Buisson.

I read the note through again, smiling as I called to mind the writer’s little-girlish

look and her mischievously mocking ways. Serious! Flitting, fluttering Miss Buisson

could never be serious. Her admonition was nothing but a piece of ironic teasing; for she

must know that it was already too late.

Wednesday came – the day when I should have gone back to Canterbury to see

Mr Tredgold. Instead, at eleven o’clock exactly, I knocked on the door of Mrs Manners’

house in Wilton-crescent and asked if Miss Emily Carteret was at home.

‘She is, sir,’ said the maid. ‘You are expected.’

‘There,’ she said as I entered the drawing-room, ‘I have kept my promise, you

see. I am back, and you are the first person I have seen.’

We quickly fell into a friendly way of conversation. Miss Carteret spoke of how

she’d passed her time in Paris, and I told her of the improvement in Mr Tredgold’s

condition. Lord Tansor, she said, was away, gone to his West Indian estates with Lady

Tansor; the great house had been shut up, and so she would be staying with her aunt in

London until his Lordship returned.

‘Mr Daunt has gone with him,’ she added, with a little sideways look.

‘Why do you tell me that?’ I asked.

‘Because you always seem interested in where Mr Daunt is and what he is doing.’

‘I am sorry to have given that impression,’ I replied. ‘I can assure you that I do

not find Mr Phoebus Daunt in the least bit interesting.’

‘My sentiments exactly,’ she said. ‘So now, Mr Glapthorn, if you will be good

enough to examine me, viva voce, on my knowledge of Monsieur de Lisle, I do not think

you will find me wanting.’

Two hours passed most delightfully; but then Mrs Manners appeared in the

doorway, to remind her niece of some engagement they were both obliged to fulfil. Miss

Carteret accompanied me into the hall.

‘Will you come next Wednesday?’ she asked.

Thus my world began to contract to a single point of all-absorbing interest. I

could think of nothing but Miss Carteret: everything else was driven from my mind. In

between our weekly conversations in Wilton-crescent I lived in a kind of featureless

dream, from which I only awoke to full consciousness every Wednesday morning at

eleven o’clock. I went occasionally to Blithe Lodge of an evening, but always left early

on some excuse or other. When Bella asked me if anything was the matter I would smile

and tell her that I had never felt better.

‘I have a great deal of work to occupy me at the moment,’ I said in answer to one

such enquiry. ‘I shall be more myself when it is all done.’

‘My poor Eddie! You must not work so hard, you know. It will make you ill.

Come and lay your head on my lap.’ When I had settled myself at her feet she began to

run her long fingers gently through my hair as she sang an Italian lullaby, and for a few

sweet minutes I was a child again, listening to the cry of sea birds and the wind coming in

from the Channel as my mother read me to sleep.

I should have resisted her tender ministrations and told Bella the stark truth; but

honesty continued to seem the greater evil when dissimulation spared her from pain. And

as time went by, I began to perceive that my heart had not been entirely conquered by

Miss Carteret; that there yet remained a place in it – small and sequestered, but

impregnable – for Isabella Gallini, of blessed memory.

As spring came on, I began to suggest little outings to Miss Carteret. Would she

and her aunt feel inclined to go the Opera, or to a concert at the Hanover-square rooms?

What would she think about mounting an expedition to view the Assyrian antiquities at

the British Museum? All my proposals, however, were firmly declined. But then one

morning, just as I was despairing of ever getting her out of the confines of her aunt’s

house, she suddenly expressed a wish to see the snakes in the Zoological Gardens. ‘I have

never seen a snake in my life,’ she said, ‘and would very much like to do so. Can it be

arranged?’ ‘Most certainly,’ I said. ‘When shall we go?’

The visit was set for the following week, the sixteenth of April. Mrs Manners was

otherwise engaged, and so we went alone. The rattle-snakes, in particular, delighted her,

and she stood entranced for several minutes without saying a word. Later we walked and

talked in the sunshine as if we had not a care in the world. She laughed at the

hippopotamus, which suddenly plunged into its bath, liberally soaking everyone close by

with cold water, and clapped her hands in amusement at the pelicans being fed. As we

were leaving the Gardens, descending a short flight of steps, she lost her footing and

reached out to me to prevent herself from falling down. I grasped her hand tightly until

she had regained her balance; but I did not let go, and she did not pull away, not

immediately. For some moments we stood a little awkwardly, hand in hand, and then, as

if it were the most natural thing in the world, she gently released herself and placed her

arm through mine as we walked on.

‘Where shall we go now?’ she asked. ‘It is such a beautiful day, and I do not wish

to go home quite yet.’

‘Might you like to see St Paul’s?’

When we arrived, after observing a notice setting out the charges, she expressed

an immediate determination to ascend to the Golden Gallery. I tried to dissuade her,

knowing the final part of the ascent to be dirty and awkward, and unsuitable in my view

for a lady to attempt. But she would not be put off; and so, much against my judgement,

we paid our sixpences and began to mount the steps to the Whispering Gallery. Here we

paused for breath. ‘What shall we whisper?’ she asked, placing her mouth against the

cold stone. ‘You have to speak, not whisper,’ I said.’ ‘Run, then. See if you can hear.’

And so I ran over to the other side of the gallery placed my ear to the wall, and waved my

readiness. At first I could hear nothing, and signalled to her to speak again; then,

gradually, her words began to percolate eerily through the very walls, indistinct, but

sporadically audible: ‘. . . blind fool . . . to mine eyes . . . they behold . . . not what they

see’.? ‘Did you hear it?’ she asked excitedly when I returned to her. ‘Did you mean me to

hear it?’ I asked. ‘Of course. Come. I wish to go up higher.’

And so up we went, past the Clock Room, higher and higher, steeper and steeper,

counting out the narrow steps as we went. At length, after much puffing and laughter at

our situation, stooping through low-ceilinged staircases and holding ourselves close to the

walls of the landings to let other visitors pass by, we emerged into hazy sunlight on the

Golden Gallery, just below the Lantern. Her black dress was dirtied with dust and

cobwebs, and the exertion of climbing over five hundred steps had coloured her cheeks.

As we stepped outside, we were immediately buffeted by a cool wind, and she gripped

my arm tightly as we approached the low iron rail.

We stood in wondering silence. It seemed as if we were on the deck of a great

ship floating across an endless ocean of dirty cloud, through which glimpses could be

caught of great thoroughfares far below crowded with ant-like people and slow-moving

streams of vehicles. The eye picked out familiar steeples and towers, palaces and parks,

and distant factory chimneys belching plumes of black smoke; the sun flashed off

windows and gilded finials, and laid a shimmering cloak of gold over the grey river; but

beyond London-bridge it was as if a dark curtain had been brought down across the port

of the capital: not a single mast of the many ships moored there could be seen. Elsewhere,

too, the drifting haze rendered every detail smudged, indefinite, and dreamlike. From this

point of vantage, one did not so much see the great heaving metropolis below as feel its

pulsing presence. I knew it well, that sense of the living power of Great Leviathan. But to

her, its terrible sublimity came as a revelation, and she stood in a kind of wordless

rapture, her great black eyes open to their widest extent, breathing quickly, and gripping

me so hard that I could feel her finger-nails digging into me through her gloves.

She continued thus for several minutes, holding herself close to me as she looked

down into the misty vastness. The illusion of her dependence on me was thrilling, though

I knew it for what it was. But I look back on that frail and fleeting moment as one of the

happiest of my life, standing with the woman I loved far above the dirty deceitful world

of strife and sin, alone with her on a little platform poised between earth and heaven, with

the restless smoky city sprawled below us, and the infinite sky above.

‘I wonder what it would be like?’ she said at length, in a strange quiet voice.

‘What do you mean?’

‘To throw yourself out from here and fall through all this great height to the hard

earth. What would you think, what would you see and feel as you fell?’

‘You would have to be unhappy indeed to contemplate such an act,’ I said, pulling

her back a little from the rail. ‘And you are not so very unhappy, are you?’

‘Oh no,’ she said brightly. ‘I was not thinking of me. I am not unhappy at all.’

Throughout the month of May, and into the following month, I continued to wait

upon Miss Carteret – whom I had now been allowed to call by her first name – nearly

every day. Sometimes we would sit and talk for an hour or two, or perhaps stroll round

Belgrave-square six or seven times, lost in conversation; at others we would go off on

little expeditions – I recall with especial pleasure taking her to see the wax-work figures

at the late Madame Tussaud’s bazaar? in Baker-street (where, at Emily’s insistence, we

paid an extra sixpence to view the grisly exhibits in the Chamber of Horrors). We went

also to the Botanic Gardens at Kew, and on another occasion took a leisurely trip by

steamboat from Chelsea to Blackwall, during which of course we passed the Temple

Gardens, where I had walked so often with Mr Tredgold, and the Temple Pier, where my

own skiff was moored. To observe her in such proximity to these familiar places gave me

a kind of guilty pleasure, making me smile inwardly with delight, and with the hope that,

one day soon, she would walk with me through those same streets and lanes, sit with me

in the Temple Church, and climb the stairs to my room in the eaves, as mine and mine

alone.

She appeared to take unfeigned pleasure in my company, always greeting me with

a sunny smile as I entered the drawing-room of her aunt’s house, slipping her arm into

mine as we walked, and allowing me to kiss her hand when I arrived to see her and when

I left.

She had become the most companionable of companions, the most considerate of

friends; but now I began to discern unmistakable signs of something more – certain

gestures and looks; a tone of voice; my hand retained a little longer, and held a little

tighter, than previously; the eager bright-eyed greetings; the intentional brush of her body

against mine as we stood waiting to cross a road. These all spoke of something more –

much more – than friendship; and I was overwhelmed with joy to know that love had

finally come upon her, as it had come upon me.

Lord and Lady Tansor returned from the West Indies in the third week of June;

Daunt was making his separate way home, having literary business in New York.

Accordingly, Miss Carteret began to make preparations to leave her aunt’s house for

Evenwood. On the morning before her departure we walked out into Hyde-park. The day

was overcast, and after an hour we found ourselves in a deserted corner of the park

running towards a large oak tree to shelter from a sudden downpour of rain.

We stood for several minutes, huddled closely together and laughing like children

as the raindrops pitter-pattered through the branches. Then, away to the west, came a

faint rumble of thunder, the sound of which caused her to look round anxiously.

‘We are not safe here,’ she said.

I told her there was no danger, and that the storm was too far away to be of

concern.

‘But I am frightened nonetheless.’

‘But, dearest, there is no reason.’

She paused before replying. ‘Perhaps it is not the storm that frightens me,’ she

said softly, with her eyes to the ground, ‘but the greater tumult in my heart.’

In a moment I had pulled her close to me. Her breath was sweet and warm as I

pressed my lips to hers, gently at first, then more urgently. The body I had once thought

immune to desire now yielded willingly, eagerly, to my touch and thrust itself so hard

against mine that I almost lost my balance. And still she would not break off the embrace,