Michael Cox - The Meaning of Night

‘You, fellow,’ he drawled. ‘Run and fetch an officer. Quick as you like. There’s murder done here. Mr Daunt is dead.’

‘Yes, sir.’

The young man then waddled off towards the rear of the house, thinking of course that I had gone off to do his bidding. But I had not.

The hall was crowded now with a great commotion of guests all talking at once, the women in tears, the men standing in groups, loudly discussing the extraordinary turn of events; in the hubbub and confusion, I slowly made my way through the throng until I was at the door that led below stairs, my intention being to leave by one of the side entrances to the residence. At that moment, happening to look back to assure myself that no one was taking notice of me, I saw her.

She was standing alone in the dining-room doorway, alabaster pale, the tips of her fingers placed against her lips in a pathetic gesture of shock and bewilderment. Oh my dearest girl! I am become Death because of thee! Between us was an ocean of noise and tumult; but we were two opposing islands of desperate calm.

I was rooted to the spot, though I knew that every second I delayed brought discovery closer. Then, like the moon appearing from behind a cloud, she turned her face directly towards me, and our eyes met.

For a moment, I was sure, she did not see me; then her gaze seemed to narrow and intensify. But realization was slow to form; she hesitated, and in that briefest of spaces, between doubt and certainty, I turned and headed back through the crowd to the front door, expecting at any moment to hear my name being called out and the alarm raised. I reached the door, but no one stopped me. As I passed out onto the steps, I could not help glancing behind me, to assure myself that I was not about to be apprehended. Again, our eyes locked together as people ran hither and thither. I saw that she knew what I had done, and yet she did nothing. Then a little crowd closed round her and she was lost to my sight, for ever.

I was on the bottom step when I heard her voice.

‘Stop that man!’

Hampered by my silver-buckled pumps, I feared that I would quickly be taken; but when I reached the far side of Park-lane and looked back, I saw to my relief that I had given my pursuers the slip. Shivering with cold and anxiety, I ran like a mad thing through the snow-covered grass to the place where my bag was concealed; there, under the cold sky, beneath which my enemy at last lay dead, I threw off my livery, and put on my suit and coat. In the distance I could hear shouting and the sound of a police whistle.

Leaving the Park, I was soon in Piccadilly, hailing a cab.

‘Temple-street, Whitefriars,’ I shouted to the cabman.

‘Right you are, sir!’

I had prepared myself for discovery. My travelling bag was packed; my documents in order. I hurriedly gathered together a few remaining items: my worn copy of Donne’s sermons; my journal and shorthand epitomes of various documents; the watercolour of my mother’s house; the discarded photograph of Evenwood taken on that hot June afternoon in 1850; and, finally, the rosewood box in which my salvation had lain for so long without my knowing, and the copy of Felltham’s Resolves that I had removed from Lady Tansor’s tomb. This done, I collected together all the remaining papers from my work-table, with the indexed notes that I had made over the years, piled them up in the grate, and threw a match on the heap. At the door, I looked back as the blaze took hold, a crackling furnace, consuming hope and happiness.

With my muffler drawn over my face, I entered Morley’s Hotel, Charing-cross, and called for a brandy-and-water and a room with a fire.

That night, with the snow beginning to fall once more, swathing the city in silence, I dreamed that I was standing on the cliff-top at Sandchurch. There is our little white house, and there the chestnut-tree by the gate. No school today, so I run, exulting, towards the semicircles of white-painted stones that edge the narrow flower-beds on either side of the gate. Billick has not yet mended the rope ladder, but it still serves; so up I clamber, into the branches, into my crow’s-nest. I have my spy-glass with me, and lie down to scan the shining horizon. In my mind, every sail is transformed: to the east, a vanguard of triremes sent by Caesar himself; to the west, low in the water, a Spanish treasure-ship freighted down with Indies gold; and, coming up from the south, slow and menacing, a horde of Barbary pirates intent on ravaging our quiet Dorset coast. Then there is a clatter of plates from the kitchen. Through the parlour window I can see Mamma writing at her work-table. She looks up and smiles as I wave.

Then I awoke and began to weep: not for what I had lost, or for the times that would never come again; not even for my poor broken heart; least of all for the death of my enemy; but for Lucas Trendle, the innocent red-haired stranger, who would never again send Bibles and boots to the Africans.

By my hand,

Edward Charles Glyver,

MDCCCLV

Finis

*[‘It is finished’. Ed. ]

*[See note, p. 15. Ed. ]

*[In Bishopsgate Street. Ed. ]

†[The Earl of Aberdeen (George Hamilton Gordon, 1784–1860). He became Prime Minister after the resignation of the Earl of Derby in 1852. He was widely blamed for the mismanagement of the Crimean War and resigned in February 1855. He would have gone to the dinner alone: his second wife had died in 1833. Ed. ]

*[Apparently fictitious. Ed. ]

*[The battle took place on 5 November 1854 – the day that Florence Nightingale arrived at the hospital at Scutari. Ed. ]

*[Rouge was a preparation of oxide of iron used to clean silver plate. Ed. ]

*[Marie Taglioni (1804–84), the celebrated Swedish-Italian dancer, for whom her father, Filippo Taglioni, created the ballet La Sylphide (1832), the first ballet in which a ballerina danced en pointe for the duration of the work. Ed. ]

*[A rich and expensive dish consisting of ribs of beef larded and braised, together with fresh (or forced) mushrooms, truffles, meat-balls and Madeira. Ed. ]

*[Large ornamental dispensers of sweets, etc. Ed. ]

†[From Handel’s oratorio Judas Maccabaeus , with a libretto by the Revd Thomas Morell. Composed to celebrate the English victory over the Young Pretender at Culloden and the return to London of the victorious Duke of Cumberland. First performed in 1747. Ed. ]

*[The poem from which these lines were taken is ‘From the Persian’, printed in Daunt’s Rosa Mundi; and Other Poems (1854). Ed. ]

Post scriptum *

Marden House

Westgate, Canterbury

Kent

10th December 1854

MY DEAR EDWARD, —

A brief note, to thank you for yours of the 9th. My brother is coming to town this morning, and has undertaken to ask Birtles to deliver this to you.

As you seem disinclined, no doubt for good reason, to come here, then I shall not press you.

I have to inform you, though, that Mr Donald Orr has written to me – somewhat intemperately – concerning what he calls ‘a serious and prolonged dereliction’ of your duties. He has indicated to me that he wishes to terminate your employment at Tredgolds, with immediate effect. I have replied, requesting that, if you so desire, you should be allowed to retain your rooms in Temple-street, for as long as you need them.

If, however, that does not accord with your wishes, then there is a cottage hard by my new residence here, which I think would suit you very well, for as long as you needed it. And so I shall leave it in your hands, to let me know what you wish to do.