The Meaning of Night (70 page)

run through each day as quickly as possible, I resumed some of my former studies –

reacquainting myself with some of the more abstruse Greek philosophers, continuing my

study of hermeticism, and pursuing my bibliographical passions. From Mr Nutt’s shop in

the Strand,? I had purchased a copy of Dr Daunt’s catalogue, the Bibliotheca Duportiana,

and spent several hours a day lost in enraptured perusal of its contents. What a keen and

unfailing pleasure it was to contemplate my eventual possession of each item, as I gorged

on the Rector’s meticulous descriptions. Sometimes at night I would venture out to quell

my always restless demons, but with diminishing returns of satisfaction, until soon I

became quite a hermit, content with purely intellectual pleasures, save for an occasional

dinner with Le Grice at the Ship and Turtle.

A letter from my dear girl arrived at the beginning of August, and then another a

few weeks later from Lincolnshire, whither the Tansors had decamped at the invitation of

the Earl of Newark. She was all sweetness, full of anguished regret that circumstances

had sundered her from the man she loved above all others; and my heart overflowed to

know that she was mine. ‘If I had wings,’ she wrote in her second letter, ‘I would fly with

the speed of angels to be with my dearest love, if only for the briefest moment.’

At last the great house was ready to receive its noble owner back, and in the

second week of September I received a note to say that Miss Carteret would be pleased to

see me at Evenwood at any time I might care to propose.

On my arrival I was shown up to the first floor and entered a long low apartment

above the Library, the chief feature of which was a series of four ancient arched windows

that opened onto the terrace below. I stood for a moment looking about me, gripped by

the thought that my mother, Lady Tansor, had once occupied this very room. At the far

end a door stood ajar, allowing a partial view of an elaborately carved bed – that same

bed in which my poor misguided mother had been laid, mad with grief and remorse, by

John Brine’s father, and from which she never again rose. Through this door my dearest

girl now swept, ran towards me, and threw her arms around me in a passionate embrace.

Many tender words were exchanged, after which we sat together on a seat in one of the

arched windows, from where we could see the Park stretching out beyond the formal

gardens to the Temple of the Winds and the distant woods.

‘How I have missed you!’ I said, kissing her hand.

‘To be parted from the one you love is the greatest of torments,’ she said. ‘I never

thought I would suffer so. But there is an end to all suffering. My love is here with me

once more, and I am the happiest woman alive. Dearest, will you excuse me for a

moment?’ Whereupon she returned to the adjoining bedchamber and closed the door. I

waited, feeling a little foolish and embarrassed, for several minutes until she returned, her

face a little flushed, with a book in her hand.

‘I have brought you a present,’ she said, handing me the book.

It was a handsome copy of Gildon’s edition of Shakespeare’s poems.?

‘My thoughts have been ever on love during my exile,’ she said, ‘and this little

volume has been my constant solace. Now when we are apart, you may read it and be

comforted too, knowing that my tears are on every page. Now tell me what you have

been doing since we last met.’ And so we continued to talk until the light began to fade

and my dear girl said she must call her maid to begin dressing for dinner.

‘I regret I cannot invite you to join us,’ she said as we walked towards the door,

‘but you understand that I am Lord Tansor’s guest now.’

‘Of course,’ I replied. ‘But when may I come again?’

‘Tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Come tomorrow.’

As I was descending the stairs to the vestibule I came upon Lizzie Brine; but as

she was with another servant she made no attempt to speak to me but only gave a little

bob, along with her companion, and went on her way. But when I reached the bottom of

the staircase and looked back, I saw her standing at the top with a curious anxious look

on her face that I found impossible to interpret.

I returned to the Duport Arms in Easton, though I remember nothing of the walk

back, or what I ate for dinner, or how I occupied myself that evening. The next day, my

head still full of my beautiful Emily, I returned to Evenwood as arranged, though this

time, at my dear girl’s suggestion, I made my own way up to her apartments by a little

winding staircase, which was gained through a door leading off the path that ran from the

Library Terrace round the base of Hamnet’s Tower. Once again we sat together in the

window-seat talking and laughing until a servant brought in candles.

‘Sir Hyde Teasedale and his simpering daughter are dining tonight,’ she sighed.

‘She is such a ninny, and her new husband is no better. I declare I have no idea what I

shall say to either of them. But, Lady Tansor being so singularly defective as a hostess, I

seem to have been given the honour of entertaining her husband’s guests, and so I must

away to do my Lord’s bidding. Oh Edward, if only I was not so beholden to Lord Tansor.

It makes me so miserable to think that I must spend my life at his beck and call. And then

what will happen to me when he dies? That wretch Daunt is to inherit Evenwood, and I

cannot possibly stay here when he is master. I was not born for this, but what can I do?

Now my father has gone, I have no one. ’

She bowed her head as she said the words, and I felt my heart beat a little faster.

Now is the time. Now. Tell her now.

‘My darling,’ I said, stroking her hair. ‘Put all your concerns aside. This is not

your future.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I am your future, and you are mine.’

‘Edward, dearest, you are talking in riddles. Speak plainly, my love.’

‘Plainly? Very well. Here it is, as plain as I can make it. My name is not Edward

Glapthorn. It is Edward Glyver, and I am Lord Tansor’s son.’

41:

Resurgam?

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She listened in silence as I told her my story. I spared her no detail. Everything

was laid out before her: the conspiracy devised by Lady Tansor and my foster-mother,

Simona Glyver; my upbringing as Edward Glyver at Sandchurch; my first meeting with

Daunt at Eton and his subsequent betrayal of me; the discovery of the truth concerning

my birth in my foster-mother’s journals, and my continuing quest to find the final proof

that would enable me to claim my rightful place as a member of the Duport family. I told

her also of how I had first come to London as Edward Glapthorn to seek information

from Mr Tredgold on the arrangement made between Lady Tansor and my foster-mother,

and how I had retained my assumed name after the Senior Partner had offered me

employment. Finally, I spoke of Daunt’s criminal character and of his association with

Pluckrose and Pettingale. When I had finished, she walked to the window and looked out

across the darkling Park.

‘This is so hard for me to comprehend,’ she said at last, ‘though at least I now

understand your interest in Mr Phoebus Daunt. Lord Tansor’s son – is it possible? Oh—’

She gave a little cry and placed her hand to her lips. ‘Cousins! We are cousins!’ Then she

turned towards me.

‘Why did you not tell me before?’

‘Dearest Emily, don’t be angered. How I have wished – most desperately – to

bring you into my confidence; but how could I do so until I could be sure that you felt for

me as I feel for you, when so much was at stake? But now I know beyond all doubt – by

your letters and the sweet words you have spoken to me, and by all the tender moments

we have shared – that your love for me is as strong and as unbreakable as mine is for you,

why of course the situation is entirely different. Where true love is, trust and honesty

must follow. There must be no more secrets between us. When we are married —’

‘Married?’ She seemed to sway a little and I reached out to wrap her in my arms.

‘It is what you wish, is it not, my love?’

She nodded slowly. There were tears in her eyes.

‘Of course,’ she said, in a soft low voice. ‘It is what I wish above all things in the

world.’ Then she raised her beautiful tear-stained eyes towards me. ‘But surely, my love,

we can do nothing until you have proved your claim to be Lord Tansor’s son?’

‘No,’ I acknowledged, ‘you are right. But when that day comes – as come it must

– you will be beholden to his Lordship no more, for you will have become the wife of

Edward Duport, the future twenty-sixth Baron Tansor.’

‘Oh, Edward,’ she cried, ‘let it come soon!’ And then she began to weep tender

tears – of joy at the prospect I had presented to her, mixed no doubt with apprehension.

‘You understand, of course, my love,’ I said, ‘how imperative it is that the secrets

we now share must be kept safe – not a word of what I have told you must be spoken of,

or hinted at, to anyone. And for the moment it will be best to keep my visits to you

confidential. For if Daunt should discover that Edward Glapthorn is Edward Glyver, then

my life – and perhaps yours –will certainly be in peril.’

‘Danger? From Mr Daunt?’

‘Oh my love, yes, from Daunt. He is a far worse villain than you think.’

‘In what way?’

‘Do not make me tell you.’

‘What are you saying? Why do you not speak? Tell me, tell me!’

Her eyes were wild, and she seemed once again in the grip of that strange

agitation of spirit I had witnessed in the Temple of the Winds, walking round and round

distractedly in a little circle in the middle of the room. I brought her back to the

window-seat and took her hand.

‘I believe Daunt was responsible for the attack on your father.’

I had expected some powerful uprush of emotion in reaction to my words; but

instead she fell gently towards me in a swoon. I caught her and laid her down on the seat.

She was as pale as death and her hands made strange fluttering movements, as if under

the intermittent influence of some galvanic current. I was on the point of calling for help

when she opened her eyes.

Bye and bye, her colour began to return and she was able to take a sip or two of

wine, which gradually effected a revival of her faculties, though she remained deeply

distressed by what I’d told her, and by what I now revealed concerning the documents her

father had been carrying with him when he had been attacked, and the reason Daunt had

gone to such lengths to obtain them.

‘I do not say that Daunt intended to murder your father,’ I said. ‘Indeed I believe

he did not. But I am certain that he ordered the attack in order to put the documents

proving the existence of a legitimate heir into his hands.’ Then she asked me how I knew

what had been in her father’s bag, and so I told her of the Deposition, at which she

became greatly agitated.

‘But what if Mr Daunt should also obtain this document? How will you then hope

to prosecute your case successfully?’

I replied that I had given a copy to Mr Tredgold and that the original was safe,

together with my foster-mother’s journals, in Temple-street.

‘No, no,’ she cried, her agitation returning. ‘How can they be safe? It must only

be a matter of time before Phoebus discovers who you really are, and where you live.

Perhaps he knows already!’

She became more and more flustered, and began wringing her hands as she paced

round and round. I tried to reassure her, as I had reassured Mr Tredgold, that all the

papers, and the means of identifying me, were beyond Daunt’s reach; but she continued

to shake her head and bite her lip.

‘No, dearest. I counselled you once not to underestimate Phoebus; and yet, in

spite of all you have learned about him, you persist in doing so. What you have told me is

shocking, but it does not come as a surprise to me. He is bad through and through – just

as my father warned me. But he is clever, too, and I truly fear that he will track you

down. Very well, then, we must be cleverer.’

She was now standing motionless in the middle of the room, just beyond the light

of the lamps, a tall, dark, featureless figure. Then she drew nearer, bringing her face close

to mine.

‘You must bring the documents to me – my father’s deposition and your

foster-mother’s journals. I shall be their guardian from now on. Phoebus will never think

of looking here. They will be beyond his reach until they are needed.’

And then she kissed me, a long, slow, passionate kiss, in which she seemed to

pour her soul.

I instantly saw the wisdom of this stratagem. My rooms were always securely

locked; but locks can be broken, and Mrs Grainger’s possession of the only other key

gave me further concern. Suppose she should be followed, or set upon? My dear girl was

right. I had perhaps been remiss in supposing that Daunt could never discover my

whereabouts. I had exposed myself to the ruin of all my hopes by my folly: the

Deposition and the little black volumes containing the daily record of my

foster-mother’s life must be removed to a place of absolute safety; and where better than