Michael Cox - The Meaning of Night

He had been invited to a dinner given by the Provost. At the head of the table, Dr Okes *sat in earnest discussion with the College’s Visitor, Bishop Kaye, whilst on either side a dozen or so men conversed at their ease. Daunt, one of three freshmen present, found himself sitting next to Le Grice; on the other side of the table sat a senior Fellow of the College, Dr George Maxton, a gentlemen well advanced in years and of much-impaired hearing.

Towards the conclusion of the meal, Daunt leaned forward and, with a fixed smile, spoke to this venerable figure.

‘Well, Dr Maxton, and how are you enjoying yourself?’

The good gentleman, seeing himself addressed, but hearing nothing above the surrounding chatter, merely smiled back and nodded.

‘You think it a pretty fair spread, do you, you old fool?’ Another nod.

Daunt continued, still smiling.

‘The oysters were barely tolerable, the hock execrable, the conversation tiresome, and yet you have found it all perfectly to your taste. What a rattlepate you are.’

Daunt persisted in this impertinent and insulting vein for some minutes, making the most uncomplimentary remarks to the poor deaf gentleman across the table as though he were discoursing on the most common topics. All the while, Dr Maxton, unaware of what was really being said to him, received the young man’s impudence with mute gestures of touching courtesy; and still Daunt continued to derogate his fellow guest, smiling as he did so. This, as Le Grice observed, was behaviour most unbecoming to a gentleman.

There were other – indeed, numerous – instances of such behaviour during Daunt’s time at the Varsity, all of them displaying an innate viciousness and egotism. I eagerly read Le Grice’s reports, which formed the beginnings of what was to become an extensive repository of information concerning the history and character of Phoebus Daunt.

I would be revenged on him. This became an article of faith with me. But I must first come to know him as I knew myself: his family, his friends and acquaintances, his places of resort – all the externalities of his life; and then the internal impulsions: his hopes and fears, his uncertainties and desires, his ambitions, and all the secret corners of his heart. Only when the subject of Phoebus Rainsford Daunt had been completely mastered would I know where the blow should fall that would bring catastrophe upon him. For the moment, I must bide my time, until I returned to England, to begin setting my plans in motion.

At Evenwood, Dr Daunt’s great work on the Duport Library was drawing to its triumphant close after nearly eight years’ labour. It had become a famous enterprise, with articles on its progress appearing regularly in the periodical press, and the publication of the final catalogue, with its attendant notes and commentaries, was eagerly awaited by the community of scholars and collectors, both in England and on the Continent. The Rector had written and received hundreds of letters during the course of his work, to the extent that Lord Tansor had agreed to hire an amanuensis to assist him in the completion of the great task. His own private secretary, Mr Paul Carteret, had also been seconded to help the Rector when required; and so, aided by this little team, and driven daily by his own unbounded eagerness and energy, the end was now in sight.

Mr Carteret’s assistance had proved invaluable, especially his extensive knowledge of the Duport family, of which he was himself a member. His familiarity with the family papers, stored in the Muniments Room at Evenwood, enabled Dr Daunt to establish where, when, and from whom the 23rd Baron Tansor had purchased particular items, as well as the provenance of some of the books in the collection that had been acquired in earlier times. To Mr Carteret was also delegated the important and demanding task of listing and describing the manuscript holdings, which were a particular interest of his.

Lord Tansor had wanted a superior kind of inventory of his goods; but he was not so much the Philistine that he did not feel satisfied by the true nature of his asset, nor take pride in what had been laid down by his grandfather for the benefit of posterity. Its material value proved, in the end, difficult to calculate, except that it was almost beyond price; but its worth in other terms had been indubitably confirmed by Dr Daunt’s work, and it now stood to the world as one of the most important collections of its kind in Europe. For this confirmation alone, and the great renown thrown on his name by the publication of the catalogue, Lord Tansor was well pleased.

The intellectual and artistic glories of the Duport Collection had come to him from his grandfather through his father. To whom would they now pass? How could they be transmitted, intact, to the next generation, and to the next, and to their heirs and descendants, and thus become a living symbol of the continuity that his soul craved? For still no heir had been vouchsafed to his union with the second Lady Tansor. In his Lordship’s mind, the completion of Dr Daunt’s work merely served to underscore his precarious dynastic position. His wife was now a poor stick of a woman, who meekly followed her husband around, in town and country, forlorn and ineffectual. There was, it seemed, no hope.

It was just at this time that Lord Tansor – egged on, I suspect, by his relative, Mrs Daunt – began to lavish signs of especial favour on the Rector’s son. What follows is based on information I obtained some years after the events described.

During the Long Vacation of 1839, Lord Tansor began to express the opinion that it would be good for his Rector’s son if he ‘ran around a little’, by which his Lordship meant to imply that a period of harmless leisure would not go amiss, even for so accomplished a scholar. He suggested that a few weeks spent at his house in Park-lane, whither he was himself about to repair with Lady Tansor, would be productive of useful amusement for the young man. The young man’s step-mamma fairly purred with delight to hear Lord Tansor expatiating so enthusiastically on what might be done for her step-son by way of a social education.

As to his future, once his time at the Varsity was over, the young man himself expressed a certain open-mindedness on the subject, which, doubtless, alarmed his father, but which may not have been displeasing to Lord Tansor, whose nods of tacit approval as the lad held forth on the various possibilities that might lie before him after taking his degree – none of which involved ordination, and one of which, a career in letters, went completely against his father’s inclinations – were observed and inwardly deplored by the helpless Rector.

That summer, Phoebus Daunt duly ‘ran around a little’ under the watchful eye of Lord Tansor. The debauchery was not excessive. A succession of tedious dinners in Park-lane, at which Cabinet ministers, political journalists of the more serious persuasion, distinguished ecclesiastics, military and naval magnates, and other public men, predominated; for light relief, an afternoon concert in the Park, or an expedition to the races (which he particularly enjoyed). Then to Cowes for some sailing and a round of dull parties. Lord Tansor would hold the flat of his right hand out stiffly, fingers and thumb closed tight together, arm bent at the elbow, just behind the boy’s back, as he introduced him. ‘Phoebus, my boy,’ – he had taken to calling him ‘my boy’ —‘this is Lord Cotterstock, my neighbour. He would like to meet you.’ ‘Phoebus, my boy, have you made the acquaintance yet of Mrs Gough-Palmer, wife of the Ambassador?’ ‘The Prime Minister will be down tomorrow, my boy, and I should like you to meet him.’ And Phoebus would meet them, and charm them, and generally reflect the rays of Lord Tansor’s good opinion of him like a mirror until everyone was convinced that he was the very best fellow alive.