Michael Cox - The Meaning of Night

But like that of his neighbour, the Rector, Mr Carteret’s position was also dependent on Lord Tansor’s good opinion. It was thus perplexing to Mr Carteret as to how he ought to proceed if and when – as seemed possible – the young man confided to his patron the nature of his feelings for his daughter. Could he actively forbid any amorous advances, especially if they were made with his Lordship’s approval, without the likelihood of severe consequences to his own interests? For the moment, he had no choice but to watch, and hope.

At their first encounter after her return from France, in the presence of her father, Miss Carteret received the young man with courteous reserve. She asked him politely how he had been, agreed that he had changed a good deal since their last meeting, and accepted an early copy of Ithaca , signed by the author. She had grown quite beautiful in her French clothes and bonnet à la mode , with its delicately shaded, pointed ribbons and little bouquet of pale roses, violets, and primroses; but her father was greatly relieved to observe that her character was as thoughtful, and her behaviour as obedient, as before. Gratifyingly, during the many subsequent occasions on which they were obliged to meet over the course of the summer, Miss Carteret studiously continued to maintain the same air of calm and courteous detachment towards her former playfellow.

As the year 1841 drew to a close, P. Rainsford Daunt, BA, set his mind to conquering the world of letters. The following spring, Lord Tansor arranged for his portrait to be painted, and there was intense excitement in the bosom of Mrs Daunt when an invitation addressed to the young gentleman arrived at the Rectory, requesting the pleasure of his presence at Her Majesty’s bal masqué at Buckingham Palace, at which the Court of Edward III and Queen Philippa was recreated in astonishing magnificence. A week later, he was formally presented at Court, at a levee at St James’s Palace, absurdly resplendent in knee breeches, buckle shoes, and a sword.

His saddened father, meanwhile, retreated to his study to correct the proofs of his catalogue; his Lordship spent a good deal of time in town closeted with his legal man, Mr Christopher Tredgold; and I had set my feet on the path that would eventually lead to Cain-court, Strand.

*[‘After clouds, the sun’. Phoebus was the sun god. Ed. ]

*[It was published in Daunt’s Scenes of Early Life (1852). Ed. ]

15

Apocalypsis *

I left Heidelberg in February 1841, travelling first to Berlin, and thence to France. I arrived in Paris two days before my twenty-first birthday, and settled myself in the Hôtel des Princes †– perhaps a little expensive, but not more than I thought I could afford. As I had reached my majority, the residue of my capital, which had been entrusted to Mr Byam More, was now mine. Inspired by this happy thought, I allowed myself to draw deeply on my reserves, in anticipation of their being very soon replenished, and abandoned myself to the infinitely various pleasures that Paris can offer a young man of tolerable looks, a lively imagination, and a good opinion of himself. But there must be an end to all pleasure, and soon the nagging apprehension that I must soon settle on a way to earn my living began to intrude most unwelcomingly on my days and nights. Reluctantly, after six highly entertaining weeks, I began to make my preparations for returning to England.

Then, on the morning before my intended departure, I ran across Le Grice in Galignani’s Reading Room, ‡which had been my daily place of resort during my stay. We spent a delightful evening recounting the separate courses that our lives had taken over the five years since we had last seen each other. Of course he had news of several old school-fellows, Daunt amongst them. I listened politely, but changed the subject as soon as I decently could. I had no need to be reminded of Phoebus Daunt; he was constantly in my thoughts, and the desire to execute effectual vengeance on him for what he had done to me still burned with a bright and steady flame.

Le Grice was en route to Italy, with no particular purpose in view other than to pass some time in pleasant surroundings and congenial company whilst he considered what to do with himself. Given my own uncertainty on this subject, it did not take much persuasion on his part for me to abandon my plan of returning to Sandchurch, and join him on his ramblings. I immediately wrote to Mr More, requesting him to transfer the balance of my capital to my London account, and sent word to Tom that I would be remaining on the Continent for a little longer. The next morning, Le Grice and I began our journey south.

After many leisurely detours, we arrived at length in Marseilles, from whence we proceeded along the Ligurian coast to Pisa, before finally setting ourselves up, in some splendour, in a noble Florentine palazzo, close to the Duomo. Here we remained for some weeks, indolently indulging ourselves, until the heat of the summer drove us to the cooler air of the mountains and, in due course, to Ancona, on the Adriatic coast.

By the end of August, having made our way north to Venice, Le Grice was beginning to show signs of restlessness. I could not get my fill of churches, and paintings, and sculpture; but these were not at all in Le Grice’s line. One church, he would say wearily, looked very like another, and he expressed similar sentiments when confronted with a succession of Crucifixions and Nativities. At last, in the second week of September, we finally took our leave of each other, promising that we should meet again in London as soon as our circumstances allowed.

Le Grice departed for Trieste to take ship to England, whilst I, after a few days on my own in Venice, headed south again. For the next year or so, with Murray’s Hand-book to Asia Minor as my guide, *I wandered through Greece and the Levant, reaching as far as Damascus, before sailing back through the Cyclades to Brindisi. After sojourns in Naples and Rome, I found myself in Florence once more, in the late summer of 1842.

On our first visit to the city of the Medici, we had met an American couple, a Mr and Mrs Forrester. Once back in Florence, I presented myself at the Forresters’ residence and, finding that the position of tutor to their two boys had become vacant, owing to the unsuitability of the previous incumbent, I immediately offered my services. I remained in the well-paid and undemanding employment of Mr and Mrs Forrester for the next three and a half years, during which time I grew lazy and, in my idleness, neglected my own studies grievously. I thought often of my former life in England, and how I must one day return; this, however, would always call up the shade of Phoebus Daunt, and the unfinished business that lay between us. (Even in Florence I had been unable to escape him: on my twenty-third birthday I was presented with a copy of his latest volume, The Tartar-King: A Story in XII Cantos , by Mrs Forrester, a notable bluestocking. ‘I doat on Mr Daunt,’ she had sighed, wiltingly. ‘Such a genius, and so young!’)

It was from this time that I began to form certain habits that have occasionally threatened to nullify irrevocably any vestige of the higher talents with which I have been blessed. My lapses were modest then, though I began to hate both myself and the life I was leading. At length, following an unfortunate incident concerning the daughter of a city official, I made my apologies to the Forresters and left Florence in some haste.

I still had no desire to return home, and so I set my course northwards. In Milan, I fell in with an English gentleman, a Mr Bryce Furnivall, from the Department of Printed Books at the British Museum, who was about to depart for St Petersburg. My conversations with Mr Furnivall had rekindled my old bibliographical passions; and when he asked whether I had a mind to accompany him into Russia, I readily agreed.