Michael Cox - The Meaning of Night

By and by, 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 had told her, and by what I now revealed concerning the documents that her father had been carrying with him when he had been attacked, as well as the reason that 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 by Pluckrose to gain possession of the documents proving the existence of a legitimate heir.’

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 document? How will you then hope to prosecute your case successfully?’

‘He will not find it,’ I said, with a confident smile.

Before coming to Evenwood, I had realized that Mr Carteret’s Deposition, together with the little black volumes containing the daily record of my foster-mother’s life, must now be removed to a place of absolute safety. My rooms in Temple-street were always securely locked; but locks can be picked; and Mrs Grainger’s possession of the only other key had given me further concern: suppose she should be followed, or set upon? And then there was Jukes, whom I already suspected of snooping through my private papers. And so I had determined, once I had made my confession to her, and had been forgiven for keeping so much from her, to ask my dearest girl to become the custodian of these most precious items.

‘But how can you be so sure that he won’t find them?’ she asked, her anxiety still plainly apparent.

I told her that I had given a copy of the Deposition to Mr Tredgold, and that I intended to place the original, as well as my mother’s journals, beyond Daunt’s reach.

‘But where, dearest?’ she cried, looking most pathetically apprehensive.

‘Here,’ I replied. ‘Here, with you.’

And then relief seemed to flood over her dear sweet face. ‘Yes, yes,’ she sighed. ‘Of course, you are right! Here is the last place in the world that he will think of looking! He would never have a reason to come into these apartments, nor can he know that you have taken me into your confidence. But I am still fearful for you, my love, so very fearful, until you can bring the documents from London.’

I took her hand and kissed it, assuring her that I would waste no time but would return to London in the morning to collect the Deposition and the journals, and bring them back to Evenwood.

‘Where shall we put them?’ I asked.

She thought for a moment, and then an idea struck her. ‘Here,’ she said, running over to a small oval portrait of Anthony Duport, *younger brother of the 21st 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 door and replacing the portrait.

We sat together in the window, holding hands, talking quietly, as close as two hearts can be. She called me her dearest love; I told her that she was my angel. Then we kissed our good-byes.

‘My sweet girl,’ I whispered. ‘Are you sure that you wish to become the custodian of these documents? Perhaps, after all, I should remove them to the bank. If Daunt should—’

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

‘Dearest Edward, you have asked me to do this for you, and I have said I will. Whatever you ask of me, now and in the future, I will do my best to carry out.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘You know that I shall soon, I hope, commit myself to honour and obey you, in sickness and in health, and so there is no harm in beginning now. It is such a little thing to ask of me, after all, and I would do anything – anything – for the man I love.’

She walked with me to the door, and we kissed for one last time.

‘Come back to me soon, my dearest love,’ she whispered. ‘I shall count the minutes till you return.’

I left, unseen, by the new way, down the little winding stair-case 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 had been binding the head of a besom broom when I had 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? And a lantern.’

‘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, and a bull’s-eye lamp. *

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

‘Yes, sir. Of course, sir.’

In a few moments, with 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 savour 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. My head had been full of my dearest girl; but as I approached the lonely building, my wildly joyous mood began to seep away as I contemplated the awful reality of what I had come here to do.

Sursum Corda. What else had Miss Eames intimated, in sending these words to Mr Carteret, than that what they were inscribed upon covered something of crucial significance? This was the instinctive conclusion that I had reached, and on which I was now about to act. But it was a fearful prospect: to break into my mother’s tomb, without the least idea of what I was looking for. I prayed that, whatever was hidden there, if it was hidden there, would be easily found within the loculus itself. But if it should be in the coffin! That might be a horror beyond even my ability to face.

I entered through the great double doors, using the key that Brine had provided, and went about my work.

It was past midnight when the slab that 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 lamp that 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; on either side, however, there was a narrow gap, perhaps eight or nine inches wide. I kneeled 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.