Michael Cox - The Meaning of Night

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 had sent them to Mr Carteret as a hint or clue to the secret that 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 identity.’ I thought at first it was a riddle that I would never solve; then I considered again the 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 ships that Billick had made for me. Time passes, 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.’ 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. Two hundred golden sovereigns – in a rosewood box that still stands on my mantelpiece in Temple-street. But what else did it contain?

In a state of intense excitement, exhilarated beyond words by my discovery, and jubilant that I had solved the riddle left behind by Miss Eames, I replace the slab as best I can, to close the opening of the loculus, then stand for a moment contemplating the inscription. It is a curious sensation, to feel that my mother lies only a few feet from me, 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 my mother’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 first discovered the truth about my birth, 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 blessed Laura Tansor for submitting to her conscience; and I blessed Miss Eames for sending Mr Carteret the clue that had delivered me from the yoke of perpetual dissimulation. The keys to the kingdom were now in my possession, and I was free at last to face the world as Edward Duport, to marry my dearest girl, and to lay my enemy low at last.

*[‘I shall rise again’. Ed. ]

*[The picture in question, of Anthony Charles Duport (1682–1709), by Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646–1723), is now in the National Portrait Gallery. Ed. ]

*[A lantern with a thick protuberant lens of blown glass on one side for concentrating the light. Ed. ]

*[The bookseller Henry Seile (fl. 1619–61). Ed. ]

†[Proverbs, 13: 19. Ed. ]

*[The quotation is from Felltham’s Resolves , xi (‘Of the Trial of Faith and Friendship’). Ed. ]

42

Apparatus belli *

As soon as I enter my sitting-room in Temple-street, I walk straight over to the mantel-piece, snatch up the rosewood box, and take it to my work-table.

It seems empty, but I am now certain that 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 that 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 5th 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 9th day of March in the year 1820, was the lawfully begotten son of Julius Verney Duport, 25th 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 19th of March 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 that 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 for safekeeping the copies that I had made of the new documents. That done, I went forth to take a hearty breakfast.

On the following Monday 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 stair-case door, I encountered Lizzie Brine. Stepping back, I signalled for her to follow me.