The Meaning of Night Part 34

Ever yours, E.

A month at least! But it could be borne. I kissed the words she had written: 'I yearn to be free of my duties and to feel myself again in the arms of the man I love above all others, and whom I will always love, world without end.' Could there be any clearer expression of her feelings for me? Surely even Mr Tredgold's cautious heart would melt at such words!

How I pa.s.sed the interminable weeks I need not recount in detail. In an attempt to 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 pa.s.sions. From Mr Nutt's shop in the Strand,2 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 diminis.h.i.+ng 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 s.h.i.+p and Turtle.

A letter from my dear girl arrived at the beginning of August, and then another a few weeks later from Lincolns.h.i.+re, whither the Tansors had decamped at the invitation of the Earl of Newark. She was all sweetness, full of anguished regret that circ.u.mstances 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 n.o.ble 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 pa.s.sionate 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 embarra.s.sed, 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.3 '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:.

Resurgam1 __*

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 a.s.sumed name after the Senior Partner had offered me employment. Finally, I spoke of Daunt's criminal character and of his a.s.sociation 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 Lords.h.i.+p 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 doc.u.ments 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 doc.u.ments 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 doc.u.ment? 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 fl.u.s.tered, and began wringing her hands as she paced round and round. I tried to rea.s.sure her, as I had rea.s.sured 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 doc.u.ments 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, pa.s.sionate 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 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 Kneller2 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 p.r.o.nounced it ideally suited.

'Then that is settled,' she said, closing the cupboard and putting back the portrait. 'And now, dearest, I must attend his Lords.h.i.+p. The Earl of Clarendon is dining with us tonight.'3 'My sweet angel,' I whispered as I kissed her good-bye. 'Are you sure you wish to become the custodian of these doc.u.ments? 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 a.s.sist 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 s.p.a.ce, filled most of the cavity. Lifting the lantern a little higher revealed a simple bra.s.s 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 s.p.a.ce 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 s.p.a.ce 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 1623.4 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 t.i.tle-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.5 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 G.o.d 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 ident.i.ty. I leave its fate to G.o.d, 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 splas.h.i.+ng 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 friends.h.i.+p 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.6 I pray you may find such a friend as mine. I have had many blessings in my life; but truly, her friends.h.i.+p 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d'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 ident.i.ty. If G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 ident.i.ty.' I thought at first it was a riddle I would never solve; then I considered again the puzzling remark that I had 'played 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 s.h.i.+ps that Billick had made for me. Years pa.s.s, 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.