Michael Cox - The Meaning of Night

I pass over the succeeding weeks, for they were bleak and featureless. I sat at my work-table for hour after hour, writing notes and memoranda to myself on the various problems that still required resolution: the death of Mr Carteret, and how best to act on what he had revealed in his Deposition; the now urgent necessity to find unimpugnable evidence to prove my true identity in law; the reason why Miss Eames had sent Mr Carteret the words SURSUM CORDA; and last, but by no means least, the means by which I was to expose my enemy’s true character. If only I could have called on Mr Tredgold’s counsel! But his condition had been slow to improve, and, during the two or three visits that I made to Canterbury, I would sit despondently by his bedside, wondering whether the dear gentleman would ever recover from the life-in-death into which he had been so cruelly plunged. His brother, however, continued to hope – in both a professional and a personal capacity – for better things to come, and assured me that he had seen such cases end in complete recovery. And thus I would return to Temple-street faintly hopeful that, when I next saw my employer, he would evince some signs of restoration.

But as day succeeded day, my spirits sank lower and lower. London was cold and dismal – impenetrable, with choking fog for days on end, the streets slimy with mud and grease, the people as yellow and unwholesome-looking as the enveloping miasma. I found that I missed the beautiful face of Miss Emily Carteret most desperately, and began to convince myself that she would forget me, despite her assurances. To compound matters, I was bereft of companionship. Le Grice was away in Scotland, and Bella had been called to the bedside of a sick relative in Italy. I had seen her soon after my return from Evenwood, at a dinner given by Kitty Daley to celebrate her protégéé’s birthday. Of course both my head and my heart were full of Miss Carteret, and yet Bella was as captivating as ever. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to fall in love with her; a man would have been mad not to do so. But I was such a man – made mad beyond recourse by Miss Carteret.

At the end of the evening, after the other guests had departed, Bella and I stood looking out into the moonlit garden. As she laid her head on my shoulder, I kissed her perfumed hair.

‘You have been most gallant tonight, Eddie,’ she whispered. ‘Perhaps absence really does make the heart grow fonder.’

‘No absence, however long, could make my heart grow fonder of you than it already is,’ I replied.

‘I am glad of it,’ said Bella, holding me closer. ‘But I wish you would not go away so much. Kitty says I mope like a lovelorn schoolgirl when you are not here, and that sort of thing, you know, is very bad for business. I had to turn away Sir Toby Dancer last week, and he is considered a very fine man by all the other girls. So you see, you must not leave me as you do, or you will have Kitty to answer to.’

‘But, dearest, I cannot help it if my own business takes me from you. And besides, if your moping helps me keep you to myself, then perhaps I ought to stay away more often.’

She gave me a sharp pinch on my arm for my impudence and pulled away; but I could see that her chagrin was only pretended, and soon we had retired to her room, where I was allowed to admire, and then to occupy, those sweet perfections of flesh that had been denied to fine Sir Toby Dancer.

I left Blithe Lodge early the next morning, leaving Bella asleep. She stirred slightly as I kissed her, and I stood for a moment looking down at her dark hair spread out in tangled profusion over the pillow. ‘Darling Bella,’ I whispered. ‘If only I could love you.’ Then I turned away, and left her to her dreams.

Christmas came and went, and the new year of 1854 was a month old before anything of significance occurred.

On the 2nd of February, I was called before Mr Donald Orr. A rather frosty conversation ensued. Mr Orr professed himself to be aware of the fact that I was continuing to draw a salary without, as far as he could tell, doing much to earn it. But as I worked in a personal capacity for the Senior Partner, he could do nothing but look disapprovingly down his thin Scots nose at me, and say that he expected Mr Tredgold had had his reasons for employing me.

‘You are right,’ I replied with a satisfied smile. ‘He did.’

‘But this is not a situation that can continue indefinitely.’ He regarded me somewhat threateningly. ‘If Mr Tredgold – Heaven forbid – should fail to recover, then certain steps will have to be taken concerning the constitution of the firm. In that sad eventuality, Mr Glapthorn, it may prove necessary, regretfully, to dispense with your services, given your then redundant association with the Senior Partner. Perhaps I need say no more.’ On this friendly note, the interview was swiftly terminated.

That night I drank heavily, compounding my folly by succumbing to the temptation of my bottle of Dalby’s. *In my dreams I saw Evenwood, but not as I had dreamed of it as a child, nor as I had seen it in the clear light of day; but at some future time, when a great catastrophe had laid waste its former plenteousness, and toppled its soaring towers. Only the Mausoleum remained intact amidst the disfiguration and desolation. I saw myself standing once more before the loculus containing the tomb of Laura Tansor, and beating my hands against the slate slab until they bled, desperate to gain access to where she lay; but the slab remains immovable and I turn away to see Lord Tansor, perfectly attired as ever, and smiling, standing in the gloom beside me.

He speaks:

What do you know? Nothing.

What have you achieved? Nothing.

Who are you? Nobody.

And then he throws his head back and laughs until I can stand no more. I reach into my pocket, take out a long knife secreted therein, and plunge it into his heart. When I awoke, I was drenched in sweat and my hands would not stop shaking.

Then, as dawn broke, I understood what Mr Carteret had wanted to tell me.

Sursum Corda. The words themselves meant nothing. But what they were graven upon was of the greatest significance. For not only did the slab of slate that carried these words shut out the living from the abode of the dead; it also shut in the truth.

*[‘I am not what I was’. Ed. ]

*[Published in 1650. Ed. ]

*[Charles-Marie-René Leconte de Lisle (1818–94), leader of the Parnassian poets. His Poèmes antiques were published in 1852. Ed. ]

*[i.e. the address. Ed. ]

*[Dalby’s Carminative, one of many patent medicines containing laudanum. Ed. ]

38

Confessio amantis *

Long days followed, of uncertainty and near despair, interspersed with periods of fevered elation. Was I right? Did the final proof I had dreamed of finding lie within the tomb of the woman who had given me life, or had I become a deluded obsessionist? And how could I prove my conviction, except by an act of the grossest violation? Backwards and forwards, round and round, hither and thither, my mental turmoil increased. One moment I was triumphantly sure of my ground, the next prostrated by confusion. Abandoning both food and exercise, and resorting more and more to my drops, I lay on my bed trapped in the coils of hideous nightmares, oblivious to both the coming of night and the breaking of the day.

I continued thus until my bottle of Dalby’s stood empty by my bed. Incapable as I then was of going out to procure more, I subsided into a state of stuporous vacancy until I was roused by the gentle prodding of Mrs Grainger, who, finding me in this alarming condition and believing I was in the throes of death, had called upon the assistance of my neighbour, Fordyce Jukes, who now stood behind her, scratching his head.