The Meaning of Night (71 page)

here at Evenwood, the last place in the world that Daunt would think to look for them?

And so it was arranged that I would return to London the next day to collect up

the papers and bring them back to Evenwood.

‘Where will you put them?’ I asked.

‘Here,’ she replied, walking over to a small oval portrait by Kneller? of Anthony

Duport, younger brother of the twenty-first Baron, as a boy. Taking down the portrait she

opened a small cupboard concealed in the panelling.

‘Will this do?’

I inspected the interior of the cupboard and pronounced it ideally suited.

‘Then that is settled,’ she said, closing the cupboard and putting back the portrait.

‘And now, dearest, I must attend his Lordship. The Earl of Clarendon is dining with us

tonight.’?

‘My sweet angel,’ I whispered as I kissed her good-bye. ‘Are you sure you wish

to become the custodian of these documents? Perhaps I should remove them to the bank.

If Daunt should —’

She placed her forefinger against my lips to prevent me from saying any more.

‘Dear Edward, how sweet you are to be concerned about me. But you need have

no fears on that score. Phoebus will never come here. The papers will be quite safe, and

so will I. And if there is any other way I can assist you, then I beg you, dearest, to tell me.

I would do anything – anything – for the man I love.’

I left, unseen, by the new way, down the little winding staircase and out onto the

path by Hamnet’s Tower.

At the South Gates of the Park, I stopped. The Dower House could just be

glimpsed through the Plantation: lamps were burning in the drawing-room and in one of

the upstairs rooms. On a sudden impulse, I took the track round into the stable yard. My

luck was in: the door to the tack-room stood open, throwing a pale rectangle of light onto

the cobbles.

‘Good evening, Brine.’

He’d been binding the head of a besom broom when I’d entered and looked round

in surprise at the sound of my voice.

‘Mr Glapthorn, sir! I – we did not expect you.’

‘And you have not seen me,’ I said, closing the door behind me. ‘Have you the

duplicate key I asked for?’

‘Yes, sir.’ He opened a drawer in an old dresser and handed the key to me.

‘I shall need some tools. Can you get me some?’

‘Tools? Why, yes, of course, sir.’ I told him what I required and he went into an

adjoining room, returning in a few minutes with a bag of the necessary implements.

‘Remember, Brine, I was not here. You understand?’ I handed over the usual

consideration.

‘Yes, sir. Of course, sir.’

In a few moments, the bag across my back, I was walking along the gravel

bridle-way that skirts the Park wall and leads up to the Mausoleum. It was just at that

melancholy time when the taste finally goes out of the day and twilight begins to

surrender to the onset of darkness. Somewhere ahead of me a fox barked, and a cold low

wind troubled the trees that lined the path running up from the bridle-way to the clearing

in front of the Mausoleum.

It was past midnight when the slab, inscribed with the words Sursum Corda,

which closed off my mother’s burial chamber, finally yielded to my chisel. I had broken

open the protective gates of the loculus easily enough, but it took nearly an hour to cut

out the rectangular slate slab, and all my strength to support the weight of it and lay it on

the floor. But at last it was done and I turned to see, by the light of the lantern I had

brought from the tack-room, what lay within.

A plain coffin of dark oak, placed lengthways in the space, filled most of the

cavity. Lifting the lantern a little higher revealed a simple brass plate bearing the words

‘Laura Rose Duport’ affixed to the lid of the coffin. There was barely a foot between the

lid and the vaulted roof of the little chamber, and only two or three inches between the

coffin itself and the back wall of the loculus; but on either side there was a narrow gap,

perhaps eight or nine inches wide. I knelt down at the foot of the coffin and reached

forward into the darkness, but only cobwebs and fragments of mortar met my touch.

Moving across to the other side, I reached in again.

At first I could feel nothing; but then my fingers closed round something soft and

separable, almost like a lock of flattened-out hair. Quickly withdrawing my arm and

reaching for the lantern, I peered in.

Protruding from the narrow space between the back wall of the chamber and the

coffin was what I could now see was the edge of a fringed garment of some kind – a

shawl perhaps. I extended my hand behind the rear of the coffin and began to pull, but

immediately met some resistance. I pulled again, with the same result. Lying down on my

side, I stretched into the space and round the edge of the coffin as far as I could. After a

little more gentle tugging and grappling, I finally extracted my discovery from its resting

place and set it down in the yellow light of the lantern to examine it.

It was indeed a fringed shawl – a Paisley shawl, which had been rolled up and

wedged behind the coffin. It seemed of little interest at first, until I began to unroll it.

Then it soon became apparent that there were other objects wrapped inside it. I laid the

shawl out on the floor.

Within another wrapping of white linen I was astonished to find an exquisitely

embroidered christening robe, a pair of tiny silk shoes, and a small book bound in old red

morocco. This last item was quickly identified: it was the first edition of Felltham’s

Resolves, printed in duodecimo for Seile in about 1623.? It bore the bookplate of

William, twenty-third Baron Tansor. There was no doubt in my mind that it was the copy

that my mother had asked Mr Carteret to bring to her from the Library a few months

before her death in 1824. Dr Daunt’s failure to locate the copy listed by Burstall when

compiling his catalogue was now explained. But who had put it here, and why?

That it had been intended, with the other items, to convey some message or

signification was clear. Though it had been in its hiding place for over thirty years, it was

in remarkably good repair, the burial chamber being clean and dry. I examined the

title-page: Resolves: Divine, Morall, Politicall. There was no inscription of any kind, and

so I began slowly turning over the leaves one by one to scrutinize each of the hundred

numbered essays. But I could detect nothing out of the ordinary – no annotations or

marginalia, and nothing inserted between the leaves. But as I was closing the book I

observed that it did not shut quite flat. I then saw why: a sheet of paper had been

carefully pasted over the original end-leaf. On closer examination it was possible to make

out that something had been interpolated between the false and the real end-leaf.

I took out my pocket-knife and began to prise away the false leaf. It proved to

have been only lightly fixed and soon came away to reveal two folded pieces of paper.

It is true indeed that the desire accomplished is sweet to the soul.? Behold, then,

how my labours were rewarded at last. On the first piece of paper were the following

words:

To my dearest Son, —

I write this because I cannot bear to leave you without also leaving some brief

record of the truth. When you see me again it will be as a stranger. I have given you up to

the care of another, and have begged God you will never know that it was not her who

brought you into the world. And yet I am compelled by my conscience to write down

these few words, though keeping what I have written safe by me until I am called to a

better place. Perhaps this piece of paper will one day find its way into your hands, or be

discovered by strangers centuries hence, when all these things will be forever beyond

recall. Perhaps it will moulder with my bones, and you will live in ignorance of your true

identity. I leave its fate to God, to whose tender mercies I also commit the fate of my

sinful soul.

You are fast asleep in a wicker basket belonging to Madame Bertrand, a lady who

has been very kind to us here in Dinan. Today has been warm, but it is cool in the

courtyard, and pleasant to hear the water splashing in the fountain.

And so, my dear sweet little boy, though you are dreaming (of what I cannot

imagine), and though you hardly know what it is to live and breathe and think, and

though you could not understand me even if you were to open those great black eyes of

yours and hear my voice, yet I still wish to say three things to you as if you were fully

conscious and comprehending of my words.

First, the person to whom you will owe your duty as a son is my oldest and

dearest friend. I pray you will love her, and honour her; be always kind to her, never

disparage her memory or hate her for the love she bore me; and remember that faith and

friendship are never truly tried except in extremes. This was said by the author of a little

book that has often brought me comfort in past weeks, and to which I know I shall often

turn hereafter.? I pray you may find such a friend as mine. I have had many blessings in

my life; but truly, her friendship has been the greatest.

Second, the name you now bear is not your own, but do not despise it. As Edward

Glyver you must find your own way through life, using the strengths and talents God has

given you, and nothing else; as Edward Duport you would have ridden in great coaches

and dined off golden platters, not through your own merit, but for no other reason than

that you were the son of a man possessing great inherited wealth and power. Do not think

such things bring happiness, or that contentment cannot be found in honest toil and

simple pleasures. I used to think so, but I have seen my error. Fortune and plenty have

made me shallow, a weightless bubble, a floating feather. I shudder now to think what I

have been. But this is not what I wish for you – or what I now wish for myself. So be

properly proud of your adopted name, make it prosper by your own efforts, and so make

your own children properly proud of it.

Third, do not hate me. Hate only what has driven me to do this thing: inherited

pride and the corruption of privilege. And do not think I have denied you through

indifference, or worse. I have denied you because I love you too much to see you

corrupted, as your father has been corrupted by the blood he holds so dear, crippled

morally by that blind and terrible pride of race, from which, by this act, I have sought to

protect you.

Yet because I am conscious of my sin, in so depriving you of what you might

have had, and my husband of the heir for which he yearns, I have placed everything in

God’s hands. If it is His will to lead you to the truth, then I promise before I die to

provide the means for you to reclaim your true name, if that is what you desire – though I

pray to Him before Whom I must be judged that it is not what you will desire; and that

you will have the strength to disown what you were born to.

So sleep, my beautiful son. When you wake I shall be gone. You will never know

me as your mother, but I shall always know you as my son.

Ever your loving Mother,

L. R. Duport.

Dinan, June, 1820.

The sheet of paper second contained only these words, in a shaky and irregular

hand:

To my dearest Son,—

I have kept my promise to you, and have given you the keys to unlock your true

identity. If God in His wisdom and mercy should lead you to them, use them, or destroy

them, as your heart dictates.

I wept when I came to see you for the last time, playing at my feet, so strong and

so handsome, as I knew you would be. But I shall never see you more, until that day

when the earth gives up its dead, and we are reunited in eternity.

The light is fading. This is all I can write. My heart is full.

Your Mother,

L. R. Duport.

At the bottom of the page, in another hand, was written the following:

She died yesterday. The shawl she was wearing when I closed her poor eyes

encloses these letters to her lost son (the last words she ever wrote), the two mementoes

of his birth, and also the little book which comforted her so greatly and which she wished

he might one day have. She placed all her trust in God to bring these things forth from the

darkness of the grave into the light once more, if it is His will to do so. This is my last

service to her. May God rest her soul. J.E. 1824.

The hand, of course, was that of Julia Eames, who, before her own death, had

written out the two words that had been inscribed on her friend’s burial place and sent

them to Mr Carteret as a hint or clue to the secret she had kept so faithfully for so many

years. How she had contrived to place the shawl and its contents in the loculus before it

was sealed, I could not imagine; yet here they were. The Almighty, it seemed, with a little

help from Miss Julia Eames, had made His will known.

I re-read the letters from my mother, holding them close to the lantern and poring

over every word, especially the beginning of the second letter: ‘I have kept my promise to

you, and have given you the keys to unlock your true identity.’ I thought at first it was a

riddle I would never solve; then I considered again the puzzling remark that I had ‘played