The Meaning of Night (42 page)

repose, which the painter had so skilfully captured, was utterly ravishing.

I held the candle closer, and discerned an inscription: ‘R.S.B. fecit. 1819’. I knew

then, without a doubt, that this was Lord Tansor’s first wife – my beautiful wayward

mother. I tried to reconcile this surpassing beauty with the memories I still had of sad,

faded Miss Lamb, but could not. The artist had painted her in her prime, at the pinnacle

of her beauty and pride – in the very moment before she took the fateful step that was to

change her life, and mine, forever.

Mr Carteret had been right: there was something of her about me, though the

resemblance lay less in the individualities of the physical features than in her expression

of contained energy and purpose. I had seen that same look a thousand times in my

morning mirror. And Mr Carteret had seen it too.

There was a noise behind me. Dr Daunt was standing in the doorway, a book in

his gloved hands.

‘Here you are,’ he said. ‘I thought you would like to see this.’

He handed me a copy of Sir Thomas Browne’s Pseudodoxia Epidemica, the first

edition of 1646.

I smiled, thanked him, and began to examine the book, another constant

companion of mine, but my mind was elsewhere.

‘So you have found you way into Mr Carteret’s sanctum. It seems strange to be

here and not see him sitting in his customary place.’ He gestured towards the bureau.

‘But I see you have also found my Lady. Of course I did not know her – she died before

we came to Evenwood; but people still remember and speak of her. She was, by all

accounts, an extraordinary woman, though one gathers she was not over-scrupulous in the

observance of her wifely duties to Lord Tansor. The portrait is unfinished, as you will

have noticed, which is why it hangs here. Goodness me, is that the time?’

The clock in the library had struck the hour of six.

‘I’m afraid I must return to the Rectory. My wife will be expecting me. Well,

then, Mr Glapthorn, I hope the afternoon has not been too unpleasant for you?’

We parted at the head of the path that led through a gate in the Park wall, past the

Dower House, to the Rectory.

It was bright, clear night, which made our walk back both easy and pleasant. We

had continued to speak of bibliophilic matters until we reached the point on the

carriage-drive where we were to take our leave of each other. The Rector paused for a

moment, looking towards the lights of the Dower House.

‘That poor girl,’ he said.

‘Miss Carteret?’

‘She is alone in the world now, the fate above all others that her poor father

feared. But she has a strong spirit, and has been brought up well.’

‘Perhaps she may marry,’ I said.

‘Marry? Perhaps she may, though I wonder who would have her. My son had

some hopes once in that direction, and my wife – I mean my wife and I, of course– would

not have been against the match. But she would not have him; and I fear also that her

father was not fond of him. Mr Carteret was not a rich man, you know, and his daughter

will now be dependent on Lord Tansor’s generosity. And then she has such decided

opinions on matters that really ought not to concern a young lady. I suppose that comes

of her time abroad. I have never been abroad, and hope I never have to do so. My son,

though, has expressed a wish to go to America, of all places. Well, we shall see. And

now, Mr Glapthorn, I must bid you a very good-evening, and hope we may have the

pleasure of seeing each other again very soon.’

As he made to leave, my eyes strayed towards the baronial towers of the South

Gates, and something that I had been half conscious of all day suddenly rose to the

surface.

‘Dr Daunt, if you don’t mind my asking, why do you suppose Mr Carteret rode

home through the woods? Surely the quicker route from Easton to the Dower House is

through the village.’

‘You are right,’ he replied. ‘The only reason to come into the Park through the

West Gates from the Odstock Road would be if there was a need for Mr Carteret to go up

to the great house, which is closer to that entrance than to this.’

‘And was there such a need, do you know?’

‘I cannot say. And so, Mr Glapthorn, I’ll wish you another good-evening.’

With that, we shook hands and I stood watching him as he walked off towards the

gate in the wall. As he passed through, he turned and waved. And then he was gone.

I took the path that led into the stable yard. There I encountered Mary Baker, the

kitchen-maid crossing the yard, lantern in hand.

‘Good-evening, Mary,’ I said. ‘I hope you’re feeling a little better than when I last

saw you.’

‘Oh, yes, thank-you, sir, you’re very kind. I’m sorry you had to see me like that. It

took me hard, that’s the truth. The master had been so kind to me – so kind to us all. Such

a dear man, as I’m sure you know. What made it worse, I think, was coming so soon after

my sister.’

‘Your sister?’

‘My only sister, sir – Agnes Baker as was. A little older than me, and a mother to

me, too, after our own mother died when we were still little. She worked in the kitchen up

at the great house, under Mrs Bamford, until that brute came and took her away.’

She hesitated, as if in the grip of some strong emotion.

‘I’m sorry, sir, I’m sure you don’t wish to hear all this. I’ll say good-evening, sir.’

She turned to go, but I called out to her to stop. Something was stirring in a dark,

unvisited corner of my memory.

‘Mary, don’t go, please. Sit down a moment and tell me about your sister.’

With a little more gentle persuasion, she agreed to postpone the task she had been

engaged upon and we sat down on a roughly made bench constructed around the thick,

gnarled trunk of an old apple-tree.

‘You mentioned a brute, Mary. What did you mean?’

‘I meant that murdering villain who took my sister away and killed her.’

‘Killed her? You don’t say so.’

‘I should say I do! Killed her, in cold blood. Married her, then killed her. As soon

as I saw him, I knew he was a bad ’un, but Agnes wouldn’t hear of it. It was the only time

we ever argued. But I was right. He was a bad ’un, for all he charmed her.’

‘Go on, Mary.’

‘Well, sir, he called himself a gentleman – dressed like one, I’ll grant you. Even

spoke a bit like one. But he weren’t no gentleman. Not him. Why, he weren’t hardly more

than a servant when he first came to Evenwood.’

‘And how did you sister meet him?’

‘He’d come up from London, with Mr Daunt.’

‘Mr Daunt?’ I said, incredulously. ‘The Rector?’

‘Oh no, sir, Mr Phoebus Daunt, his son. He’d come up with Mr Phoebus and

another gent, for a great dinner to mark his Lordship’s birthday. I was by the gates when

they went past. But he wasn’t invited to the dinner, just Mr Phoebus and the other

gentleman. He seemed like he was a serving-man, or some such, for he was driving the

carriage they all came in, and yet he dressed so well, and thought so much of himself, and

seemed to be on easy terms with the other two gentlemen. Anyways, that’s when he met

Agnes, that evening, in the yard by the ice-house. Oh, he was a sly one. He wheedled and

cooed, and she, poor fool, took it all in and thought he was such a great man, taking

notice of such as she. But he was no better than her – no, he was a lot worse. We were

decent folk, well brought up. But he’d come from nothing, and made his money, Lord

knows how. Why Mr Phoebus took up with him, who could say? He came back a week

later, but not with Mr Phoebus, nor to see him neither. And then – what do you think?

Agnes comes down the next day and says “Well, congratulate me, Mary, for I’m to be

married, and here’s the proof”, and she holds out her hand to show me the ring he’d given

her. After a week! There was nothing anyone could say. She just shut her ears and shook

her head. And off she went, poor lamb. And, if you’ll believe me, sir, that was the last I

saw of her. My poor dear sister, who’d been my closest and dearest friend in the whole

world.’

‘What happened then, Mary?’ I asked, feeling increasingly certain I knew where

this was leading.

‘Well, sir, I had a letter from her a month later to say he’d been as good as his

word and had married her, and that she was set up in fine style. And so of course my

mind was eased a little, though I still couldn’t see how this was to end in anything but

trouble for her, being tied to such as he. I waited and waited, longing to hear from her

again, but no letter came. Six months passed, sir, six whole months, and I was going quite

mad with worry – you ask Mrs Rowthorn if I weren’t. So John Brine, to set my troubled

mind at rest, says he would go down to London and find her and send word back. Oh sir,

how I trembled when his letter came – and weren’t I right to tremble! I couldn’t open it,

so I gave it to Mrs Rowthorn and she read it to me.

‘It was the worst news that there could be: my poor sister had been murdered by

that brute – savagely beaten, so bad, they said, that you could hardly recognize her

darling face. But he had been taken and would stand trial, and so I took some comfort

that he would be hanged for his evil deed, though that was too good for him. But even

that comfort was denied me, for some villainous lawyer got the jury to find another man

guilty. They said this other man had been her lover! My Agnes! She’d never do such a

thing, never. So her husband was set free to murder again, and the other man was hanged

– though Lord knows he was as innocent as my poor dear sister.’

She ceased, tears beginning to well up in her pretty brown eyes. I laid my hand on

hers to offer some comfort before asking my final question.

‘What was the name of your sister’s husband, Mary?’

‘Pluckrose, sir. Josiah Pluckrose.’?

25:

In limine?

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Pluckrose.

I remembered the cynical smile of contempt he had given the Jury when he was

acquitted of the murder of his wife, Mary Baker’s sister, Agnes. ‘You fools,’ he seemed

to be saying. ‘You know I did it, but we’ve been too clever for you.’ And he had me to

thank – me! – for escaping the nozzle.?

He was a beast of a man, tall and heavy, though quick on his feet, with shoulders

even broader than Le Grice’s, and huge hands – one of which, the right, was lacking an

index finger, amputated accidentally during his butchering career. Now, I am afraid of no

man; but there was something about Josiah Pluckrose that I did not care to confront: an

intimation in those narrow eyes of a raw, unbridled capacity for purposeless and terrible

violence, rendered all the more unsettling by the suavity of his dress and manner. Meet

him casually in the street, and by his appearance and manner you would almost think him

a gentleman – almost. He had long ago scrubbed the gore of Smithfield from his fingers,

but the butcher was in him still.

Everything about him proclaimed Josiah Pluckrose to be guilty of the remorseless

murder of his poor wife; and yet, because of me, he had cheated the bells of St

Sepulchre’s,? and lived to murder again. After his acquittal, he returned to his house in

Gerrard-street, in defiance of his neighbours and opinion generally, as if nothing had

happened. Of course Mr Tredgold had never expressed any wish to know how the trick

had been done. I had seen the excellent M. Robert-Houdin? perform in Paris, and had

witnessed for myself the effect of the art of illusion, when practised by a master, on those

who wish to believe in the impossible. I could not use mirrors, or the power of electricity,

to produce the impression of guilt that would condemn an innocent man, and deny

Calcraft,? or some other nubbing cove,? the pleasure of stretching Pluckrose’s miserable

neck; but I had other well-tried means at my disposal, just as productive of complete

persuasion in my audience: documents, apparently in his own hand, setting forth the

unfortunate dupe’s guilty association with Mrs Agnes Pluckrose, née Baker, and

witnesses – some ready to swear to the furious temper of the man and the fact of his

being in the house on the fateful afternoon, and others to affirm the presence of Pluckrose

in a public-house in Shadwell at the time of the murder. Having done their work, the

witnesses – carefully chosen, exhaustively coached, and extremely well paid – had then

sunk back into the deeps of London.

And so it was that, following the conclusion of a new investigation, Mr William

Dimsdale, chemist’s assistant, of Bedford-row, Bloomsbury, stepped out of the Debtors’

Door at Newgate, one cold December morning, to keep his appointment with Mr

Calcraft, whilst Josiah Pluckrose, swinging the heavy silver-headed stick with which he

had smashed his poor wife’s skull, and wearing the boots that had crushed her ribs as she

lay dying, sauntered forth that same morning with a view to taking the air on

Hampstead-heath. After the trial, I was not in the least inclined to congratulate myself on

my triumph, and neither I nor Mr Tredgold felt the least satisfaction that our client had

gone free. And so Pluckrose had been forgotten.

After Mary had gone, and I was walking about the stable-yard, I could not help