The Meaning of Night (72 page)

at her feet’, and in an instant all became wondrously, deliriously clear.

A picture of Miss Lamb rushes into my mind: sad, thin Miss Lamb, running her

long gloved fingers down my cheek as she watched me playing on the floor beside her

with the fleet of little wooden ships that Billick had made for me. Years pass, and another

memory of her is called up: ‘A present from an old, old friend who loved you very much,

but who will never see you again.’ Two hundred golden guineas – in a rosewood box that

still stands on my mantle-piece in Temple-street. And then a final, conclusive,

recollection: a receipt for the construction of a small box made of rosewood by Mr James

Beach, carpenter, Church-hill, Easton, found by Mr Carteret in my mother’s papers after

her death.

In a state of reckless excitement, I move the slab as best I can back over the

opening to the loculus and stand for a moment contemplating the inscription. It is a

curious sensation, to feel that my mother lies only a few feet from where I now stand,

within that cold narrow space, encased in lead and wood; and yet she has spoken to me

directly, in her own voice, through the letters I now hold in my hand. The tears course

down my face and I fall to my knees. What do I feel? Elation, certainly, at my triumph;

but also anger, at the gross folly and selfishness of Lady Tansor’s actions; and love for

her to whose care I was consigned. I think of the portrait of her Ladyship that hung above

Mr Carteret’s desk and recall her haunting, imperious beauty; and then I think of her

friend, Simona Glyver, always bent over her work-table, writing her books, keeping her

secrets. When I discovered the truth, I resented her faithfulness to her reckless friend; but

I was wrong to do so. I called her my mother once. What shall I call her now? She did not

carry me in her womb; but she cared for me, scolded me when I was bad, protected me,

comforted me, and loved me. Who was she, then, but my mother?

Yet I bless Lady Tansor for submitting to her conscience; and I bless Miss Eames

for sending Mr Carteret the clue that has delivered me from the yoke of perpetual

dissimulation. The keys to the kingdom are now in my possession, and I am free at last to

face the world as Edward Duport, and to lay my enemy low at last.

42:

Apparatus belli?

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September the 15th, 1854.

As soon as I enter my sitting- room in Temple-street, I walk straight over to the

mantelpiece, snatch up the rosewood box, and take it to my work-table.

It seems empty, but I know it is not. I shake it, and start to pick at it with my

pocket-knife. A minute goes by, then two; but, as my hands now wander over every inch

of its surface, pressing, pulling and probing, I know it will eventually yield up its secret

place.

And it does. I have wriggled the tiny key in the escutcheon this way and that a

dozen times; but this time, when I disengage it slightly and start to turn it a little way

from the vertical position, it seems to engage with something; and then a miracle

happens. With a soft click, a little drawer slides out from below an inlaid band of paler

wood an inch or so from the bottom of the box. The trick is so cunningly wrought that I

wonder at the country skills of Mr James Beach.

The drawer is large enough to contain two folded documents, which I now

remove and, trembling, lay out on my table.

The first is an affidavit, written in my mother’s hand, sworn and signed in the

presence of a Rennes notary, and dated the fifth day of June, 1820. It states briefly, but

categorically, that the child born in the house of Madame H. de Québriac, Hôtel de

Québriac, Rue du Chapitre, in the city of Rennes, on the twenty-third of day of April in

the year 1820, was the lawfully begotten son of Julius Verney Duport, twenty-fifth Baron

Tansor, of Evenwood, in the county of Northamptonshire, and his wife, Laura Rose; and

that the said child, Edward Charles Duport, had been placed in the permanent care of Mrs

Simona Glyver, wife of Captain Edward Glyver, late of the 11th Regiment of Light

Dragoons, of Sandchurch in the county of Dorset, at the express wish of his mother, the

said Laura Rose Duport, to be brought up as her own. Beside my mother’s signature –

witnessed by Madame de Québriac and another person whose name I cannot make out –

is a small wax seal bearing an impression of the Duport arms, taken perhaps from a signet

ring. With the affidavit is a short statement signed by two witnesses to my baptism in the

Church of St-Sauveur, on the twenty-ninth of April, 1820.

Together with Mr Carteret’s Deposition and the letters removed from Lady

Tansor’s tomb, and supported by the corroboration provided in my foster-mother’s

journals, my hand is now full and unbeatable. I spend the rest of the day, and most of the

evening, copying out extracts of particular relevance to my case from the journals, which

I paste into a note-book, along with copies of the other critical documents. Then, having

written up my own journal for the day, I sit in my arm-chair and fall fast asleep.

When I awoke, cold and hungry, my first thought was that I must have dreamed

the discovery I had made in Lady Tansor’s tomb, and of forcing the rosewood box to give

up its secret. But there, on my work-table, lay the two letters, and the signed affidavit,

palpable and present to both sight and touch. They were golden arrows, tipped with truth,

waiting to be shot into the villainous heart of Phoebus Daunt. After so long, I had been

given the means to destroy my enemy, and take up my true station in life. A day would

soon come when I would leave behind this present sorry life of confusion and duplicity

for ever and come into the golden place prepared for me by the Iron Master, with my

dearest girl by my side.

My first task of the day was to write to Mr Tredgold, telling him how my

conviction had been so triumphantly vindicated, and sending him the copies I had made

of the new documents for safekeeping. That done, I went forth to take a hearty breakfast.

The following morning I returned to Evenwood.

Once again, making sure I was unobserved, I climbed the flight of winding stairs

up to my dearest girl’s apartments. In the corridor, as I emerged through the staircase

door, I encountered Lizzie Brine. I stepped back and signalled for her to follow me.

‘Is there anything to tell, Lizzie?’ I asked.

‘I do not know, sir,’ she replied.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Only this, sir. The day we met on the staircase, when I was with Hannah Blunt,

her Ladyship’s maid.’

‘Yes?’

‘Well, sir, I couldn’t tell you to your face, but then I thought you must know

anyway.’

‘Lizzie, this is unlike you,’ I said. ‘You’re sounding like your brother. For God’s

sake, spit it out.’

‘I’m sorry, sir. Here it is, as best as I can manage. I’d seen you arrive in the front

court from the window there, just opposite my mistress’s door. But a few moments

before, just as I was coming up these very stairs, I’d seen a gentleman go into her room. I

was on my way to the laundry, but I knew that you’d be coming up to my mistress’s

sitting-room at any minute. And so I naturally supposed, when I saw you later, that you

must have met the gentleman. That’s as clear as I can make it, sir.’

‘And yet I still do not understand,’ I said. ‘There was no gentleman present when

I was admitted to Miss Carteret’s sitting-room. Are you sure of what you saw?’

‘Oh yes, sir.’

‘And did you see who it was? Did you recognize him?

‘I only saw his coat-tails.’

I thought for a moment. ‘Perhaps it was Lord Tansor,’ I suggested.

‘Perhaps,’ said Lizzie, somewhat hesitantly.

‘No perhaps about it, Lizzie.’ I was now breezily confident that I had hit on the

identity of the mystery gentleman. ‘It was his Lordship. He had some brief business with

Miss Carteret, no doubt – a few words only – and must have left the apartment before I

arrived. That must be it.’

‘Yes, sir. I’m sure you’re right.’

I sent her on her way, with a little bonus to keep her up to the mark, and knocked

on my darling’s door.

She was sitting by one of the arched windows, busily engaged on a piece of

embroidery work, when I entered the room. Only on hearing my greeting did she look up

and remove her spectacles.

‘Have you brought them?’

I was a little taken aback by the peremptory tone of her question, for which she

quickly apologized, saying that she had been racked with worry about my safety.

‘Did anyone see you come?’ she asked apprehensively, getting up to open the

window and look down to the the terrace below. ‘Are you sure no one saw you? Oh

Edward, I have been so afraid that something would prevent you bringing the papers.’

She began to weep, and I took her in my arms to comfort her.

‘There, there, dearest. I am here now, safe and sound. And here are the papers.’ I

opened my bag and took out her father’s Deposition, and half a dozen of my mother’s

little black volumes, and laid them on the table. She put on her spectacles again and sat

down at the table to examine them with the most intense interest, especially of course the

words of her poor late papa – the last he ever wrote. I sat a little way off, watching her

turn each page until she reached the end.

‘You are right,’ she said quietly. ‘He died because of what he knew.’

‘And only one person stood to gain from depriving him of the source of his

knowledge.’

She nodded, in mute acknowledgement that she understood to whom I had

alluded, gathered the pages together with trembling hands, and then opened one of the

little black volumes.

‘I cannot read this,’ she said, peering at the tiny writing, ‘but you are sure, are

you, that Mrs Glyver’s words corroborate what my father discovered in Lady Tansor’s

papers?’

‘There is no doubt whatsoever,’ I answered.

‘And everything is here? There are no more volumes in your lodgings?’

‘The remaining volumes have nothing to say concerning Lady Tansor. Everything

that bears directly on the matter is here.’

This appeared to settle her anxiety a little, and, after opening one or two of the

other volumes and cursorily examining their contents, she gathered them together and

placed them, with the Deposition, in the concealed cupboard behind the portrait of

Anthony Duport in his blue silk breeches.

‘There now,’ she said with a smile, ‘all safe now.’

‘Not quite all,’ I said, reaching into the bag and taking out the letters I had

removed from Lady Tansor’s tomb and the affidavit.

I saw her eyes dart eagerly towards the documents I now laid on the table, and the

instant expression of hungry curiosity.

‘What are these?’ Again, the question was brusquely posed, her gaze fixed and

concentrated.

‘These’, I said, ‘are the means by which our futures will be assured: I as Lord

Tansor’s son and heir, and you as my wife – mistress of Evenwood!’

She gave a little gasp.

‘I don’t understand —’

‘I have found it at last,’ I cried. ‘The final proof I have been seeking, the proof

that makes my case unanswerable.’

We sat down together at the table and she read the letters, and then the affidavit.

‘But this is extraordinary!’ she exclaimed. ‘How did you come by these

documents?’ Briefly, I recounted how the clue sent by Miss Eames to her father had led

me to believe that Lady Tansor’s tomb might contain something of critical importance to

my case.

‘What will you do?’ she asked, her eyes bright with excitement.

‘I have sent copies to Mr Tredgold, and shall consult him as soon as possible on

the proper course of action. It may be that he will make an approach to Lord Tansor on

my behalf, but I am happy to take whatever advice he gives me on how to proceed. Only

think, my dearest Emily, nothing now can stop me claiming what is rightfully mine. We

can be married by Christmas!’

‘So soon?’

‘Dearest, don’t look so startled! Surely you must feel, as I do, that to delay any

longer than necessary would be intolerable?’

‘Of course I do. You silly goose, Edward!’ she laughed, leaning forward to kiss

my cheek. ‘I only meant that I had not dared to hope it would be so soon.’ Whereupon

she picked up the papers from the table and placed them with the others in the cupboard

behind the portrait.

An hour passed as, blissfully oblivious to time, we laid our plans and fashioned

our lovers’ dreams. Where would we live? Perhaps here in the great house, she said. But

surely, I countered, his Lordship would wish to provide us with a country property of our

own, as well as a house in Town. We might travel. We might do anything we wished, for

I was Lord Tansor’s only son and heir, who was lost but now was found. How could he

deny me anything?

At four o’clock she said I must go as she was dining at the Langhams.

‘And is Mr George Langham’s heart still broken?’ I asked mischievously.

She hesitated for a moment, as if puzzled by my question. Then she gave a little

shake of her head.

‘Oh, that! ‘No, no. He has made a full and complete recovery from his broken