The Meaning of Night (15 page)

docile young fellow then, and, all unthinking of my dignity, was content enough to trot

behind in G––’s shadow – a friend, but never quite an equal. Because he seemed

indubitably marked out for greatness in some sphere or other, it was by no means

disadvantageous for me to be known as his friend, and I was spared from the worst of the

torments reserved for new tugs as a consequence of the association.

He possessed a formidable precocity of intellect and understanding, which

elevated him far above the common herd. He was our Varro,? having a vast store –

almost a superfluity – of obscure knowledge, though it lay tangled and unsorted in his

mind, and would spill out constantly in rambling effusions. This made him a kind of

magus in our eyes, and bestowed upon him an aura of brilliance and genius. I had been

coached methodically by my father, and knew by his example how to recognize the

lineaments of the true scholar. G–– was no such thing. He hoarded knowledge greedily,

but indiscriminately; yet there was something marvellous about it all. His memory was so

prodigious, and the exercising of it so expressive and captivating, that he overwhelmed

the pedant in me.

My education under my father had been thorough but conventional, and, like

others, I was dazzled by G––’s displays of learning, and struggled hard to keep up with

him in the schoolroom. We read often together: Juvenal was a particular favourite of his,

and he would often declaim the celebrated line in Satire VI that asserts the exercise of

Will as a substitute for Reason.? He would compose Latin Alcaics and Greek Iambics

aloud on our Sunday walks, whilst I would labour long over my verses and drive myself

nearly mad.

We had our differences, naturally. But, particularly when we reached the Fifth

Form, there were golden times, of which I still like to think. Summer afternoons on the

river, when we would swing down to Skindle’s, past the murmuring woods of Cliveden,

then back for a plunge in the cool waters of Boveney Weir; and then I like to recall slow

autumn saunters back and forth along the Slough Road, kicking through carpets of elm

leaves, whilst G–– discoursed torrentially – on what Avicenna had to say about the

sophic mercury, or the manner of St Livinus’ martyrdom – before returning to Long

Chamber for tea and Genoa cake round the fire.

Of his home and family G–– never spoke, except to discourage further enquiry.

Consequently, no invitations to visit him during the holidays were ever issued; and when

I once blushingly suggested that he might care to pass part of the summer at Evenwood, I

was coldly rebuffed. I remember the incident well, for it coincided with the beginning of

a change in our relations. Over the course of a few weeks, he became ever more solitary

and aloof, and at times seemed clearly disdainful of my company.

I saw him for the last time on a perfect evening in late spring. We were returning

from Windsor, after attending Evensong in St George’s Chapel – whither we and a group

of like-minded companions would often resort to feed G––’s passion for the old Church

music. G–– was in high spirits, and it began to seem as if our progress towards

estrangement had been halted. Just as we crossed Barnes Pool Bridge we were met by his

fag. G— had been urgently summoned to see the Head Master.

As I watched his departing figure, I heard the distant chimes from Lupton’s

Tower. Carried on the still evening air, the sound spoke to me with such dolesome import

as I stood there – beneath shadowy gables in the empty street – that I felt suddenly

bewildered and helpless. It soon became clear that he had left Eton. He never returned.

I do not wish to dwell on the reason for the sudden nature of his premature

departure from the School. It is as painful for me, his closest friend, to recall the

circumstances, as it must be for him. I will say only this: he was accused of a most

serious offence, and was required to quit the School immediately, of his own accord, or

be formally expelled, and face public exposure. This, naturally, was a very great scandal;

but throughout it all, I steadfastly maintained his innocence, and maintain it still.

In spite of his disgrace, G–– soon passed into legend. In time, new tugs were

regaled with stories of his prowess at the Wall? or on the river, and of how he

confounded his masters with his learning. But I thought only of the flesh-and-blood G—:

of the little tricks of speech and gesture; and of the warm-hearted patronage so freely

bestowed on his undeserving companion. Life had become a poor dull thing without his

enlivening presence.

My last year at Eton passed drearily. The taste had gone out of the place.

All I could do was apply myself, with desperate assiduity, to my studies. I read

hard and proceeded to the University. There I found new friendships, and renewed old

ones. But the memory of G–– continued to beat quietly within me, like a second heart . . .

A touching account, is it not? And I am naturally sensible of the encomiums he

has seen fit to bestow on me. We were friends for a time: I acknowledge it. But he comes

the littérateur too much – seeing significance where none existed, making much of

nothing, dramatizing the mundane: the usual faults of the professional scribbler. This is

memory scrubbed and dressed up for public consumption. Worse, he exaggerates our

intimacy, and his claims on the matter of our respective intellectual characters are also

false, for I was the careful scholar, he the gifted dabbler. I had many other friends in

College besides him, and amongst the Oppidans too – Le Grice in particular; and so I was

very far from depending solely on Master Phoebus Daunt for company. A dull dog,

indeed, I would have been had that been the case! Finally, he omits to say – though

perhaps this is understandable in the light of what happened – that the friendship we

enjoyed when we were first neighbours in Long Chamber had, by the end of our time at

Eton, through his perfidy, crumbled to dust.

Yet this was the estimation of my character and abilities that Phoebus Daunt

claims to have formed after our first meeting in School Yard, and which he saw fit to lay

before the British reading public in the pages of the Saturday Review. But what was my

estimation of him; and what was the true nature of our relation? Let me now place the

truth before you.

My old schoolmaster, Tom Grexby, had accompanied me from Sandchurch to

Windsor. He saw me down to the School, and then put himself up at the Christopher for

the night. I was glad to know that the dear fellow was close by, though he left early for

Dorset the next day, and I did not see him again until the end of the Half.

I did not feel in the least non-plussed by my new surroundings, unlike several of

the other new inmates of College whom I encountered standing and kicking nervously

around their allotted places in Long Chamber, some looking pale and withdrawn, others

with affected swaggers that only served to show up their discomfort. I was strong in both

body and mind, and knew I would not be intimidated or hounded by any boy – or master,

come to that.

The bed next to mine was empty, but a valise and canvas bag stood on the floor.

Naturally, I bent down to look at the handwritten label pasted on the side of the former.

The name of Evenwood, though not of my as yet unseen neighbour, was instantly

familiar to me. ‘Miss Lamb has come from Evenwood to see your mamma’; ‘Miss Lamb

wishes to kiss you, Eddie, before she leaves for Evenwood’; ‘Miss Lamb says you must

come to Evenwood one day to see the deer’. The echoes came ringing back across the

years, faint but clear, of the lady in grey silk who had sometimes visited my mother when

I was young, and who had looked down so sadly and sweetly at me, and had stroked my

cheek with her long fingers on the last occasion when I remember seeing her. I found I

had not thought about her all this time, until the name of this place – Evenwood – had

brought her misty image to my mind. Miss Lamb. I smiled fondly at the memory of her

name.

Despite my sequestered upbringing at Sandchurch, without many friends to speak

of, beyond a few desultory companions amongst the local boys, I had, and have, a natural

gregariousness. I soon made the acquaintance of my new neighbours in Long Chamber

and accounted for their names and places; together, we then clattered down to take the air

in School Yard before dinner.

I saw him immediately, slouching disconsolately beside the Founder’s statue, and

knew it was my new neighbour in Long Chamber. He stood, hands in pocket,

occasionally kicking the ground, and looking about him purposelessly. He was a little

shorter than me, but a well-formed boy, with dark hair, like mine. None of the other boys

had noticed him, and no one seemed inclined to go over to him. So I did. He was my

neighbour, after all; and, as Fordyce Jukes was to point out to me many years later,

neighbours should be neighbourly.

And so it was in this friendly spirit that I walked towards him with outstretched

hand.

‘Are you Daunt?’

He looked at me suspiciously from beneath the crown of a new hat that allowed a

little too much for future growth.

‘And if I am?’ he said, with a surly pout.

‘Well then,’ says I, cheerfully, still holding out my hand, ‘we are to be neighbours

– friends too, I hope.’

He accepted the proffered greeting at last, but still said nothing. I encouraged him

to come over and join the others, but he was unwilling to leave the little patch of territory

beneath the statue of King Henry in his Garter robes that he appeared to feel he had

secured for his private use. But by now it was time for dinner in Hall and, gracelessly, he

finally relinquished his place, dragging himself along beside me like some reprimanded

but still defiant puppy.

Over our first meal together, I coaxed some hesitant conversation out of him. I

learned that he had been taught at home by his father; that his mamma was dead, though

he had a step-mamma who had been very kind to him; and that he did not much like his

new surroundings. I ventured to say that I supposed he was naturally a little homesick,

like several of the other new boys. At this, something like a spark of life arose in his pale

blue eyes.

‘Yes,’ he said, with a curious sigh, ‘I do miss Evenwood.’

‘Do you know Miss Lamb?’ I asked.

He thought for a moment. ‘I know a Miss Fox,’ he replied, ‘but not a Miss Lamb.’

At which he giggled.

This exchange seemed to encourage him to greater intimacy, for he leaned

forward and, lowering his voice to a whisper, said: ‘I say, Glyver. Have you ever kissed a

girl?’

Well, the truth was, that I had known very few girls of my own age, let alone any

whom I might have wanted to kiss.

‘What a question!’ I replied. ‘Have you?’

‘Oh yes. Many times – I mean I’ve kissed the same girl many times. I believe she

is the most beautiful girl in the world, and I intend to marry her one day.’

He went on to describe the incomparable virtues of his ‘little princess’, whom I

gathered was a neighbour of his at Evenwood; and soon the sulky reticence he had earlier

displayed had been replaced by excited volubility as he spoke of how he intended to be a

famous writer and make a great deal of money and live at Evenwood with his princess for

ever and a day.

‘And Uncle Julius is so kind to me,’ he said, as we made our way from Hall back

to Long Chamber, in which Collegers were then shut up for the night. ‘Mamma says that

I am almost like a son to him. He is a very great man, you know.’

A little later he came and stood by my bed.

‘What’s that you have there, Glyver?’ he asked.

I was holding the rosewood box in which my sovereigns had been placed, and

which my mother had insisted I take with me to Eton to remind myself of my

benefactress, whom I continued to believe had been Miss Lamb.

‘It’s nothing,’ I replied. ‘Just a box.’

‘I’ve seen that before,’ he said, pointing to the lid. ‘What is it?’

‘It’s called a coat of arms,’ I replied. ‘It’s only a decoration, nothing more.’

He continued to stare at the box for some moments before returning to his own

bed. Later, in the darkness he whispered:

‘I say, Glyver, have you ever been to Evenwood?’

‘Of course not,’ I whispered back crossly. ‘Go to sleep. I’m tired.’

Thus I became the friend and ally of Phoebus Rainsford Daunt – his only friend

and ally, indeed, for he showed no inclination to seek out any other. The ways of the

School appeared to mystify and disgust him in equal measure, making him the inevitable

target of the natural vindictiveness of his fellows. He should have been well able to

withstand such assaults, being, as I say, a well-made boy, even strong in his way; but he

was completely disinclined to offer up any physical resistance to his tormentors

whatsoever, and it often fell to me to rescue him from real harm, as when he was set

upon, soon after our arrival in Long Chamber, and assailed with pins in the initiatory

operation known as ‘Pricking for Sheriff’. New Collegers were expected to display

cheerfulness and equanimity in the face of such ordeals, and even embrace them merrily.