Michael Cox - The Meaning of Night

He looked at me, coolly, insolently, and in that look was concentrated all the petty envy that he harboured against me, and the spiteful desire to make me pay for turning my back on him in favour of other, more congenial, companions. It was all written on his face, and in the attitude of casual defiance that he had adopted, like one who believes that he has unequivocally demonstrated his power over another.

‘Care for a walk up town?’ he then asked. Shillito threw me another contemptuous grin.

‘Not today,’ I replied, with a smile. ‘I have work to do.’

My apparent collectedness appeared to unsettle him, and I saw that his mouth had tightened.

‘Is that all you can say?’ he asked, blinking a little.

‘Nothing else occurs to me. But wait. There is something.’ I drew closer, interposing myself between Daunt and his acolyte. ‘Revenge has a long memory,’ I whispered into his ear. ‘A maxim you might wish to ponder. Good-bye, Daunt.’

In a moment, I had gone. I did not need to look back. I knew that I would see him again.

When I recounted this episode to Le Grice, over twenty years later in the comfort of Mivart’s, I experienced again the maddening anger that had consumed me on that day.

‘So it was Daunt,’ said Le Grice, after giving a little whistle of surprise. ‘You’ve kept that damned close. Why did you never tell me?’ He seemed rather put out that I had not confided in him; and, in truth, it now seemed absurd to me that I had never thought to do so.

‘I should have done,’ I conceded. ‘I see that now. I’d lost everything: my scholarship, my reputation; above all, my future. And it was all because of Daunt. I wished to make him pay, but in my own time and in my own way. But then one thing happened, then another, and the opportunity never came. And once you get into the habit of secrecy, it becomes harder and harder to break it – even for your closest friend.’

‘But why the devil is he trying so hard to find you now?’ asked Le Grice, a little pacified by my words. ‘Unless, perhaps, he wishes to make amends …’

I gave a hollow little laugh.

‘A little dinner à deux? Contrite apologies and regret for blackening my name and destroying my prospects? I hardly think so. But you must know a little more about our old school-fellow before you can understand why I do not think that remorse for what he did is the reason for Daunt’s present desire to find me.’

‘In that case,’ said Le Grice, ‘let’s settle up and decamp to Albany. We can put our feet up, and you can talk away till dawn if you want.’

Once ensconced in Le Grice’s comfortable sitting-room, before a blazing fire, I continued with my story.

The journey home to Sandchurch was made in the company of Tom Grexby, who had travelled up to Eton instantly on receipt of my letter. I met him at the Christopher, but, before I had a chance to speak, he had taken me aside to give me grave news: my mother had been taken ill, and it was not expected that she would recover.

Shock had been piled on shock, heaping Pelion on Ossa. *To lose so much, in so brief a space! I did not weep – I could not weep. I could only stare, wordlessly, as if I had suddenly found myself in some strange desert landscape, devoid of any familiar landmark. Taking my arm, Tom led me out into the yard, from where we walked slowly down the High Street to Barnes Pool Bridge.

In my letter to him, I had held back the circumstances that had necessitated my leaving Eton; but as we reached the bridge, having walked most of the way from the Christopher in silence, I laid the matter out before him, though without revealing that I knew the name of the person who had betrayed me.

‘My dear fellow!’ he cried. ‘This cannot stand. You are innocent. No, no, this must not be allowed.’

‘But I cannot prove my innocence,’ I said, still in a kind of daze, ‘and both circumstance and testimony appear to prove my guilt. No, Tom. I must accept it, and I beg you to do the same.’

At last he reluctantly agreed that he would take no steps on my behalf, and we walked back to prepare for our journey to Sandchurch. To my relief, Le Grice was on the river, and so I was able to remove my belongings from his boarding-house without the need to lie about why I was leaving so suddenly, or why I would not be returning. When all was safely aboard, Tom climbed up beside me and the coach drove off towards Barnes Pool Bridge, taking me away from Eton for ever.

When we arrived at the little house on the cliff-top, late that evening, we were met by the village doctor. ‘I’m afraid you’ve come too late, Edward,’ said Dr Penny. ‘She’s gone.’

I stood in the hall looking blankly at all the old familiar things – the brass clock by the door, ticking away as I had always remembered it; the silhouette portrait of my grandfather, Mr John More of Church Langton; the tall cylindrical pot, decorated with dragons and chrysanthemums, containing my mother’s umbrella and summer parasol – and breathing in the comfortable smell of beeswax polish (my mother had been a tyrant for cleanliness). The parlour door was open, revealing her work-table piled high with paper. The curtains were drawn, though it was broad day outside. A burned-out candle, in its pewter holder, stood precariously on a little stack of books nearby, a mute witness to the final night hours of drudgery.

I ascended the stairs, oppressed by the insidious presence of death, and opened the door to her room.

Her last book, Petrus , had only recently been published, and she was preparing to embark on yet another romance for Mr Colburn — the first few pages still lay on the floor by her bed, where they had fallen from her hand. The years of unremitting toil had finally taken their toll, and I could not help feeling glad that her labours were over. Her once beautiful heart-shaped face was lined and sunken, and her hair – of which she had been so proud in her youth – was now thin and grey, though she was but forty years old. Thin, too, were her careworn fingers, stained still with the ink she had expended on meeting her obligations to her publisher. I placed a parting kiss on her cold forehead, and then sat by her side until morning, wrapped in the suffocating silence of death and despair.

She had been my only parent, and my sole provider until the generosity of my benefactress brought some relief to our circumstances; yet even then she had continued to write, with the same determination, day after day. What had driven her, if not love? What had sustained her, if not love? My dearest mother – no, more than a mother: the best of friends and the wisest of counsellors.

I would see her no more, bent over her work-table; nor sit with her, excitedly unwrapping her latest production before we placed it proudly on the shelf – made by Billick from the timbers of a French man-of-war shattered at Trafalgar – with all the others. She would tell me no more stories, and would never listen again, with that sweet half-smile, as I read to her from my translation of Les mille et une nuits . She had gone, and the world seemed as cold and dark as the room in which she now lay.

We buried her in the church-yard overlooking the sea at Sandchurch, next to her errant husband, the little-lamented Captain. Tom was by my side; and I was never more glad to have him there. At my request, to the sound of gulls and the distant pounding of the waves, Mr March, the incumbent of Sandchurch, read out a passage from John Donne; and then she was gone for ever, beyond sight and touch and hearing, a withered flower in her shroud of flinty earth.