The Meaning of Night (74 page)

great black eyes.

‘You must let me go, sir,’ she said, ‘or it will be the worse for you. Unlock the

door immediately!’

Ignoring her demand, I returned to where she was standing and threw her back

into the window-seat. Her eyes began to dart round the room as if she were looking for

some means of escape, or perhaps for a weapon with which to attack me. If she would

only have smiled then, and confessed it had all been a silly joke! I would have instantly

folded her in my arms and forgiven her. But she did not smile. She sat bolt upright,

breathing hard, her eyes wide open, larger than I had ever seen them, like an enraged

prophetess inspired with the god’s fury.

‘And may I enquire if you love Mr Phoebus Daunt?’

‘Love him?’ She leaned her cheek against the glass, and a strange calm came over

her.

‘I simply ask because you gave me the clear impression – as did your friend, Miss

Buisson – that he was repellent to you.’

‘There is no word to describe what I feel for Phoebus. He is my sun, my moon,

my stars. My life is his to command.’ Her breath had misted the pane and she began

slowly tracing out a letter, then another, and then a third and a fourth: P-H-O-E . . . Stung

now to real anger, I snatched her hand away and rubbed out the letters.

‘Why did you lie to me?’

‘Because you are nothing to me, and because it was necessary to keep you fed

with lies until you delivered up the evidence of your true identity to me.’

She glances at the portrait of young Anthony Duport in his juvenile finery, hand

on hip, a dark-blue sash across his chest. Her words are like a knife to the heart. In two

strides I am standing beneath the portrait. I take hold of it with one hand and attempt to

open the cupboard it conceals with the other. It is locked. Relief floods through me.

‘Would you like the key?’ She takes out her reticule and reaches into it. ‘I said I

would keep everything safe.’ Smiling, she holds out a little black key.

I take it, insert it in the lock of the cupboard, and the door swings open. Then I

pick up a candle from a nearby table and peer inside. But I can see nothing. I stand closer

and feel all around. The cupboard is empty.

‘You see,’ I hear her say. ‘All safe. No one will find your secrets now. No one.’

And then I know that I have been defeated; that every hope and dream I have

cherished has been turned to dust and ashes.

What do you know? Nothing.

What have you achieved? Nothing.

Who are you? Nobody.

I do not have to ask where the papers are. He has them now. The keys that would

have unlocked the gates of Paradise for me are now in my enemy’s hands.

I am still standing with my back to her, staring into the empty cavity, when she

speaks.

‘I have loved him ever since I can remember. Even when I was a little girl, he was

my prince, and I was his princess. We knew then that we would marry some day, and

dreamed of living together in some great house, just like Evenwood. My father always

hated Phoebus; but we quickly learned to feign indifference to each other in public, and

became more cunning in our ways as we grew older. No one suspected the truth; only

once, at a dinner given in honour of Lord Tansor’s birthday, did we forget ourselves. It

was such a little thing – not much more than a glance – but my father saw it. He was

angry with me – angrier than I had ever seen him; but I persuaded him that he was wrong,

and that Phoebus meant nothing to me. He believed me, of course. He always believed

me. Everyone did.’

‘But Daunt killed your father!’ I cried. ‘How could you continue to love him?’

She turned her face towards me, and I shivered to see the look in her eyes.

‘I hated father, for hating Phoebus. His stupid prejudice kept us apart.’

‘But he did not deserve to die!’

‘No.’ She spoke quietly now. ‘He did not, and was not meant to. That oaf

Pluckrose went too far, as usual. Phoebus was wrong to have brought him into it – he

acknowledges it, and we have both suffered grievously for what Pluckrose did.

Afterwards, when Pluckrose brought the letters to Phoebus and told him what he’d done,

Phoebus was beside himself with rage – both at Pluckrose and at himself for entrusting

the task to him; but what could he do? I despised my father – he was weak, subservient.

A secretary! He was a Duport through his mother. How could Lord Tansor treat his

cousin so? And how could my father bear the ignominy, the indignity, of his position?

And yet he should not have died. He should not have died.’

The repeated phrase trailed off into silence. Was she crying? Really crying? She

was not lost, then, to all decent feeling. Some humanity remained.

‘You have said enough to show me how utterly I have been deceived.’ She did not

look at me. Her head was pressed against the window-pane, through which she was

gazing out into the gathering dark. ‘But this I must know: how did you first discover what

Lady Tansor had done?’

‘Dear Edward!’ Oh, her voice! So soft, so inviting, so beguiling! She held out her

hand, long and white. I took it, and sat down beside her.

‘I did not mean you to love me, you know. But when it was clear that you did –

well, it made things so much easier. I know Marie-Madeleine warned you —’

‘Miss Buisson! She knew?’

‘But of course. Marie-Madeleine and I have no secrets. We are the closest of

friends. Sometimes I tell her things that even Phoebus doesn’t know about me. But I

suppose by the time she wrote to you that things had gone too far, hadn’t they? Poor

sweet Edward!’ She leaned forward and began to brush my hair away from my forehead;

but in my mesmeric state I seemed powerless to stop her.

‘And, you know, I found your attentions rather pleasant. It made Marie-Madeleine

terribly cross.’ She gave a sly little laugh. ‘On more than one occasion she told me I

shouldn’t encourage them – that it was unnecessarily cruel. But I found I couldn’t help

myself; and as time went on, well, I began to think I might be falling in love with you –

just a very little bit. It was bad of me, I know, and it shocked Marie-Madeleine even more

when I told her. The little minx! I think she would have liked to have had you for herself!

But you were asking me how we came to learn about Lady Tansor’s little escapade.

‘It happened purely by chance. My father had asked me to assist him in the

translation of some letters in French dating from the time of the infamous twentieth

Baron Tansor. He, you may know, turned Papist and went into exile with James II, who

made him a Duke.? It was rare for my father to allow anyone into his work-room, except

of course Lord Tansor, but on this occasion he made an exception. When I had finished

the task he requested me to take the papers up to the Muniments Room. As I was about to

go back down, my eye was caught by an iron-bound chest. It bore a label identifying the

contents as the private papers of Lord Tansor’s first wife. Now I have always been rather

fascinated by Laura Tansor. Such a remarkable person! The most beautiful woman in

England, they used to say. Clever, too, by all accounts, though headstrong and passionate;

but that only made her more admirable in my eyes. And so of course I could not help

peeping into the chest. What do you think I pulled out first? A letter, dated the sixteenth

of June, 1820, to Lady Tansor in Paris, from a friend – identified only by the initial letter

‘S.’ – in the town of Dinan, which I’m sure you will know is in Brittany, not far from the

city of Rennes. I did not have time to read the letter in its entirety for I heard my father’s

step on the stairs; but I had read enough to know that it contained an extraordinary

possibility. I just had time to memorize two sentences. I remember them still. Would you

like to hear them? I kiss your beautiful son every night and assure him that his mamma

will love him for ever. And I shall love him too. Did they mean what they appeared to

mean, I wondered?

‘Naturally, I immediately told Phoebus of my little adventure, and we talked long

and often of the mystery I had uncovered. He tried, several times, to get up to the

Muniments Room, but with little success; and this vexed him greatly. By now, you see,

he was aware that he was to be made Lord Tansor’s heir. If a child had been born to

Laura Tansor – well, I do not need to tell you what Phoebus thought of that. Of course the

child might have been the result of some illicit liaison; but, legitimate or not, it was

imperative to find out more if he was to feel secure in his prospects.

‘It fell to me to keep watch on my father, which I did by offering to assist him

further with his work. It was in this way that I found out that he was planning to remove

certain of Lady Tansor’s letters to the bank in Stamford. Then, after I learned that he

intended to retrieve those same letters in advance of his meeting with you at the George

Hotel, Phoebus conceived the plan of using Pluckrose to waylay my father on his return

to Evenwood and take the papers, under the guise of a robbery. The rest you know.’

‘And did you know that I was Edward Glyver before I told you?’

She shook her head.

‘Not for certain, though we suspected as much.’

‘How?’

She stood up, walked over to a cabinet on the far wall, and took out a book.

‘This is yours, is it not?’

It was my copy of Donne’s Devotions, which I had been reading the night before

Mr Carteret’s funeral.

‘It was given to Mrs Daunt by Luke Groves – the waiter at the Duport Arms in

Easton, you know. Groves thought it must be yours – it had fallen down behind the bed in

your room – though it had another’s name inscribed in it. Of course the name – Edward

Glyver – was very familiar to Phoebus. Very familiar indeed. There might be a simple

explanation – the book might have come to you quite coincidentally in a number of ways.

But Phoebus distrusts coincidence. He says that there is a reason for everything. So our

guard was up from that moment.’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘it seems that I have been very nicely skewered. I congratulate you

both.’

‘I warned you, when we first met, not to underestimate him; and then I warned

you again. But you would not listen. You thought you could outwit him; but you can’t.

He knows all about you – everything. He is the cleverest man I know. No one will ever

get the better of him.’ She gave me an arch smile. ‘Don’t you wonder that I’m not afraid

of you?’

‘I will not harm you.’

‘No, I don’t believe you will. Because you love me still, don’t you?’

I do not answer. I have nothing left to say to her. She continues to speak, but I am

barely listening. Somewhere a half-formed thought is beginning to crawl out of the

darkness into which my mind has been plunged. It grows stronger and more distinct, until

at last it fills my mind to overflowing and I can think of nothing else.

‘Edward! Edward!’

Slowly I focus my attention on her; but I feel nothing. Yet one question remains.

‘Why did you do this? Once my identity had been proved, I could have offered

you everything Daunt could give you – and more.’

‘Dear Edward! Have you not been listening? I love him. And as I told you, I will

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

In a daze I reach for my hat. She says nothing, but watches closely as I pick up

my volume of Donne and walk to the door. As I am unlocking it, my eye is caught by an

open box of cigars on a nearby table.

‘Would you like a cigar?’ I hear her ask. ‘Please help yourself. They are

Phoebus’s favourite. Ramón Allones.’

I open the door and walk out into the corridor.

I do not look back.

I passed a fearful night contemplating the ruin of my great project. The gates of

Paradise have been closed upon me, and will never be opened again. I was heart-sick at

my defeat by the woman in whom I had been so foolish – so utterly and unforgivably

foolish – as to place my trust. She had played me with infinite skill, until the hook had

pierced my gullet; and now I must live out my life drained of all hope, tormented night

and day by the loss of my true self, and of her – so beautiful, so treacherous! – whom I

would love unto death. I have been betrayed, too, it seems, by the Iron Master. Another

place has been prepared for me – not Evenwood, the dream-palace of my childhood

fancies, but some modest dwelling amongst other modest dwellings, where I shall live

and die, unnoticed and unremembered, in perpetual exile from the life that should have

been mine.

But I shall not die unavenged.

Friday, 20th October, 1854.

I have seen him. I was heavily disguised, dressed in moleskin trousers, a greasy

black coat, a coarse unbuttoned shirt, and a cap and dirty muffler, all purchased from a

Jew-clothesman in Holywell-street. Towards six o’clock, after spending several

uncomfortable hours in the vicinity of Mecklenburgh-square, I was rewarded at last by

the sight of my quarry leaving his house and making his way westwards towards

Gower-street.

Close at last – close enough to see his black beard and his handsome dark eyes,

and the shimmer on his silk hat as he passes under a lamp. He walks with a determinedly

confident air, swinging his stick, his long coat trailing out behind him like a king’s train.