Michael Cox - The Meaning of Night

A thick drizzle began to come on. At first I paid no heed to it; but as I turned along the Odstock Road, towards the West Gates of the Park, I felt my trousers begin to cling to my legs and grow heavy as they soaked up the moisture in the air, and by the time I passed through the woods and into the open space of the Park itself, my hat and coat were dripping wet, my boots were muddied, and I was altogether a sorry sight.

The Library Terrace came suddenly into view. To my right was Hamnet’s Tower, with the windows of the Muniments Room looking out from the first floor. And there, above the Library, running the length of the terrace, were the windows of my mother’s former apartments, occupied now by my faithless love. Of course I could not help wondering whether she had returned from London and was there, looking out over the misty, soaking gardens towards the woods through which her father had passed on his last journey home. What would she think, if she saw my tall dishevelled figure striding through the murk? That I had come to kill her? Or her lover? But as I drew closer, scrutinizing each of the windows in turn, there was no sign of her beautiful pale face, and so I walked on.

I decided that there was no alternative but to present myself foursquare at the front door and ask to see Lord Tansor; and this is what I did. Luckily, the door was opened by my sometime informant, John Hooper, whose acquaintance I had made when photographing the house four years earlier.

‘Mr Glapthorn,’ he said. ‘Please come in, sir. Are you expected?’

‘No, Hooper, I am not. But I wish to speak with his Lordship on a matter of importance. Is he at home?’

‘He is in his study, sir, if you will follow me.’

He conducted me through a series of state rooms until we reached a pair of green-painted double doors. Hooper knocked softly.

‘Enter!’

The footman went in first, bowed, and said: ‘Mr Glapthorn, from Tredgolds, to see you, my Lord.’

The apartment was small and dark, but richly furnished. Lord Tansor sat behind a desk facing us. Through a wide sash window behind him, I glimpsed the main carriage-road that led out across the river to descend finally past the Dower House to the South Gates, the road that I had trodden so often in past months. A green-shaded lamp illuminated the documents on which his Lordship had been working. He laid down his pen and stared at me.

‘Glapthorn? The photographer?’ He glanced down at a sheet of paper. ‘I have no note here of an interview with anyone from Tredgolds today.’

‘No, my Lord,’ I replied. ‘I beg your pardon, most sincerely, for calling on you unannounced. But I do so on a matter of the greatest moment.’

‘That will be all, Hooper.’

The footman bowed and left, quietly closing the door behind him.

‘A matter of importance, you say? Has Tredgold sent you?’

‘No, my Lord. I come on my own account.’ His eyes narrowed.

‘What possible business can you and I have?’ His voice was hard, disdainful, and intimidating. But I had expected no less from the 25th Baron Tansor.

‘It concerns your late wife, my Lord.’

At this, Lord Tansor’s face grew dark, and he motioned me to a chair set before his desk.

‘You have my attention, Mr Glapthorn,’ he said, leaning back and throwing out a most challenging stare. ‘But be brief.’

I took in a deep lungful of air and began my story: how I had discovered that Lady Tansor had kept the secret of his son’s birth from him, and how the boy had been brought up by another in ignorance of his true identity. I paused.

For a moment or two he said nothing. And then, with unmistakable menace: ‘You had better have proof for what you allege, Mr Glapthorn. It will go hard with you if you do not.’

‘I shall come to the proof shortly, my Lord. If I may continue?’ He nodded. ‘The boy, as I say, grew up not knowing that he was a Duport – that he was your heir. It was only after the death of the woman who brought him up, your late wife’s closest friend, that he discovered the truth. The boy was by then a man; and that man lives.’

Lord Tansor’s face had now grown pale and I saw that, beneath his iron self-control, he was in the grip of mounting emotion.

‘Lives?’

‘Yes, my Lord.’

‘And where is he now?’

‘He is here before you, my Lord. I am your son. I am your heir, lawfully begotten.’

His shock at my words was now palpable; but he said nothing. Then he rose slowly from his chair, and turned towards the window behind him. He stood there, hands held stiffly behind his back, rigid, silent, looking out across the gravelled entrance court. Without turning to look at me, he uttered the single word: ‘Proof!’

My mouth was dry; my body all a-tremble. For of course I had no proof. The evidence – incontrovertible, incontestable – that I could have placed before him only a week before had been taken from me, and was now beyond recovery. All I had was circumstantial and unsubstantiated assertion. I saw my future hanging by the merest thread.

‘Proof!’ he barked, turning now towards me. ‘You claimed you had proof. Show it to me at once!’

‘My Lord …’ I hesitated, fatally, and he immediately saw my discomfort.

‘Well?’

‘Letters,’ I replied, ‘in her Ladyship’s own hand, and a signed affidavit, properly executed and witnessed, confirming my true parentage. These documents corroborated the daily record of events left behind in my foster-mother’s journals.’

‘And you have these things with you?’ he asked, though he could see that I had come empty-handed, without a bag or case of any sort. I had no choice now but to make my admission.

‘They are gone, my Lord.’

‘Gone? You have lost them?’

‘No, my Lord. They were stolen. From me, and from Mr Carteret.’

Anger began to suffuse his face. His mouth tightened.

‘What in God’s name has Carteret to do with this?’

Vainly, I attempted to explain how his secretary had come across the crucial letters hidden in the writing-box left to Miss Eames, and how they had been taken from him when he had been attacked. But even as I spoke, I knew that he would not believe what I was about to tell him.

‘And whom do you accuse of stealing these documents, from you and Carteret?’ The question hung in the air for a brief moment as he regarded me, grimly expectant.

‘I accuse Mr Phoebus Daunt.’

Seconds passed. One, two, three … Seconds? No, a lifetime of agony. Outside, the partial light of late afternoon was giving way to the encroaching darkness. The world seemed to turn with infinite slowness as I waited for Lord Tansor’s reply to my assertion. On his next words, I knew, all would be won, or lost. Then he spoke.

‘You are pretty cool, sir, for a damned liar. I’ll give you that. You want money, I suppose, and think this cock-and-bull story of yours is a way to do it.’

‘No, my Lord!’ I jumped up from my chair, and we faced each other, eye to eye, across the desk; but it was not how I had imagined it would be. He recognized no evidences of consanguinity; he felt no tug of that indissoluble golden thread that should unite parent and child across time and space. He did not know me as his son.

‘I’ll tell you what I think, Mr Glapthorn,’ he said, pulling back his shoulders. ‘I think you are a rogue, sir. A common rogue. And an unemployed one, too, for you can expect to be dismissed from Tredgolds with immediate effect. I shall write to your principal this very evening. And then I shall bring charges against you, sir. What do you think of that? And I’m not sure I shan’t have you horsewhipped out of my house for your damned effrontery. You accuse Mr Daunt! Are you mad? A man of agreed distinction, who enjoys universal respect! And you brand him a thief and a murderer? You’ll pay for this slander, sir, most dearly. We’ll have every penny off you, sir. We’ll have the clothes off your back, sir. You’ll rue the day you tried to get the better of me!’