Michael Cox - The Meaning of Night

‘Is there anything to tell, Lizzie?’ I asked.

‘I do not know, sir,’ she replied.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Only this, sir. The day we met on the stair-case, when I was with Hannah Brown …’

‘Yes?’

‘Well, sir, I couldn’t tell you to your face, but then I thought you must know anyway.’

‘Lizzie, this is unlike you,’ I said. ‘You’re sounding like your brother. For God’s sake, spit it out.’

‘I’m sorry, sir. Here it is, as best as I can manage. I’d seen you arrive in the Front Court from the window there, just opposite my mistress’s door. But a few moments before, just as I was coming up these very stairs, I’d seen a gentleman go into her room. I was on my way to the laundry, but I knew that you’d be coming up to my mistress’s sitting-room at any minute. And so I naturally supposed, when I saw you later, that you must have met the gentleman. That’s as clear as I can make it, sir.’

‘And yet I still do not understand,’ I said. ‘There was no gentleman present when I was admitted to Miss Carteret’s sitting-room. Are you sure of what you saw?’

‘Oh yes, sir.’

‘And did you see who it was? Did you recognize him?’

‘I only saw his coat-tails.’

I thought for a moment. ‘Perhaps it was Lord Tansor,’ I suggested.

‘Perhaps,’ said Lizzie, somewhat hesitantly.

‘No, it must have been his Lordship.’ I was now breezily confident that I had hit on the identity of the mysterious gentleman. ‘He had some brief business with Miss Carteret, no doubt – a few words only – and then left the apartment before I arrived. That must be it.’

‘Yes, sir. I’m sure you’re right.’

I sent her on her way, with a little bonus to keep her up to the mark, and knocked on my darling’s door.

She was sitting by one of the arched windows, busily engaged on a piece of embroidery work, when I entered the room. Only on hearing my greeting did she look up and remove her spectacles. ‘Have you brought them?’

I was a little taken aback by the peremptory tone of her question, for which she quickly apologized, saying that she had been racked with worry about my safety.

‘Did anyone see you come?’ she asked apprehensively, getting up to open the window, and look down to the the terrace below. ‘Are you sure no one saw you? Oh Edward, I have been so afraid!’

‘There, there, dearest. I am here now, safe and sound. And here are the papers.’ I opened my bag and took out her father’s Deposition, followed by half a dozen of my mother’s little black volumes, and laid them on the table. She put on her spectacles again, then sat down at the table to examine, with the most intense interest, the words of her poor late papa – the last that he ever wrote. I sat a little way off, watching her turn each page of the Deposition until she reached the end.

‘You are right,’ she said quietly. ‘He died because of what he knew.’ ‘And only one person stood to gain from depriving him of the source of his knowledge.’

She nodded, in mute acknowledgement that she understood to whom I had alluded, gathered the pages together with trembling hands, and then opened one of the little black volumes.

‘I cannot read this,’ she said, peering at the tiny writing, ‘but you are sure, are you, that Mrs Glyver’s words corroborate what my father discovered in Lady Tansor’s papers?’ ‘There is no doubt whatsoever,’ I answered.

After opening one or two of the other volumes and cursorily examining their contents, she gathered them together and placed them, with the Deposition, in the concealed cupboard behind the portrait of Anthony Duport in his blue silk breeches.

‘There,’ she said with a smile, ‘all safe now.’

‘Not quite all,’ I said, reaching into the bag, and taking out the letters that I had removed from Lady Tansor’s tomb, together with the affidavit and the statement of the witnesses to my baptism.

‘What are these?’

‘These,’ I said, ‘are the means by which our futures will be assured: I as Lord Tansor’s son and heir, and you as my wife – mistress of Evenwood!’

She gave a little gasp.

‘I don’t understand—’

‘I have found it at last!’ I cried. ‘The final proof that I have been seeking, the proof that makes my case unanswerable.’

We sat down together at the table, and she read the letters, and then the affidavit.

‘But this is extraordinary!’ she exclaimed. ‘How did you come by these documents?’

Briefly I recounted how the clue sent by Miss Eames to her father had led me to believe that Lady Tansor’s tomb might contain something of critical importance to my case.

‘Oh, Edward, how terrible! But what will you do?’ she asked, her eyes bright with excitement.

‘I have sent copies to Mr Tredgold, and shall consult him as soon as possible on the proper course of action. It may be that he will make an approach to Lord Tansor on my behalf, but I am happy to take whatever advice he gives me on how to proceed. Only think, my dearest Emily, nothing now can stop me claiming what is rightfully mine. We can be married by Christmas!’

She gave me a look of surprise and took off her spectacles.

‘So soon?’

‘Dearest, don’t look so startled! Surely you must feel, as I do, that to delay any longer than necessary would be intolerable?’

‘Of course I do. You silly goose, Edward!’ she laughed, leaning forward to kiss my cheek. ‘I only meant that I had not dared to hope it would be so soon.’ Whereupon she picked up the papers from the table, and placed them with the others in the cupboard behind the portrait.

An hour passed as, blissfully oblivious to time, we laid our plans and fashioned our lovers’ dreams. Where would we live? Perhaps here in the great house, she said. But surely, I countered, his Lordship would wish to provide us with a country property of our own, as well as a house in town. We might travel. We might do anything we wished, for I was Lord Tansor’s only son and heir, who was lost but now was found. How could he deny me anything?

At four o’clock she said that I must go as she was dining with the Langhams.

‘And is Mr George Langham’s heart still broken?’ I asked mischievously.

She hesitated for a moment, as if puzzled by my question. Then she gave a little shake of her head.

‘Oh, that! No, no. He has made a full and complete recovery from his affliction, to the extent that he is now engaged to Miss Maria Berkeley, Sir John Berkeley’s youngest. Now go, before my maid comes to dress me. I don’t wish her to see you here.’

She was all smiles and playful kisses, and I stood for a moment entranced by her gaiety and beauty, until she began to usher me out of the room with many charming little expressions of mock displeasure at my refusal to go, interspersed with more snatched kisses.

At the door I wheeled round to make a sweeping stage bow, hat in hand.

‘I bid you good evening, dear sweet coz, the future Lady Tansor!’

‘Go, you fool!’

One last laughing kiss, and then she turned away, picked up her embroidery, and sat down, spectacles perched on the end of her beautiful nose, beneath the portrait of Anthony Duport in his blue silk breeches.

Back at the Duport Arms, I had just retired to my room after taking some supper when there was a knock at the door.

‘Beggin’ your pardon, sir.’

It was the sullen waiter whose acquaintance I had made during my first stay at the inn. To sullenness he had now added a perceptible degree of shiftiness.

‘Messenger, sir.’ Sniff.

‘A messenger? For me?’

‘Yessir. Downstairs in the parlour.’ Sniff. Sniff. I immediately made my way downstairs, where I found a thin young man dressed in the Duport livery.