Michael Cox - The Meaning of Night

I felt utterly alone, bereft now of Tom’s sympathetic companionship; for he had been the only person in my life who had truly understood my intellectual passions. During my time as his pupil, by generously and selflessly putting his own extensive knowledge at my complete disposal, and by encouraging me in every possible way, he had given me the means to rise far above the common level of attainment. Eschewing the dead hand of an inflexible system, he had showed me how to think , how to analyse and assimilate, how to impose my will on a subject, and make it my own. All these mental strengths I would need for what lay ahead, and all these I owed to Tom Grexby.

I stood by the grave until I was fairly numb with cold, thinking over the days of my boyhood spent with Tom in his dusty house of books. Though I could not comfort myself with the pious certainties of Christianity, for I had already lost whatever allegiance I might have had to that faith, I remained susceptible to its poetical power, and could not help saying aloud the glorious words of John Donne, which had also been spoken at my mother’s funeral:And into that gate they shall enter, and in that house they shall dwell, where there shall be no Cloud nor Sun, no darknesse nor dazling, but one equall light, no noyse nor silence, but one equall musick, no fears nor hopes, but one equal possession, no foes nor friends, but one equall communion and Identity, no ends nor beginnings; but one equall eternity. *

Desperately cold, and with a heavy heart, I left the church-yard, eager now to seek the warmth and comfort of the King’s Head. Yet, despite my discomfort, I could not help first walking up the cliff path, to take one final look at the old house.

It stood in the freezing gloom, dark and shuttered, the garden untended, the little white fence blown over in the late gales. I do not know what I felt as I regarded the creeping desolation, whether grief for what had been lost, or guilty sorrow for having abandoned my childhood home. Above me, the bare branches of the chestnut-tree, in which I had built my crow’s-nest, creaked and cracked in the bitter wind. I would never again clamber up to my old vantage point, to look out across the ever-changing sea and dream of Scheherazade’s eyes, or of walking with Sindbad through the Valley of Diamonds. *But to the inevitability of change, all things must submit; and so I turned my back on the past and set my face into the east wind, which quickly dried my tears. I had a great work to accomplish, but I trusted, at the last, to come into that gate, and into that house, where all would be well; where, as Donne the preacher had said, fear and hope would be banished for ever, in one equal possession.

Death took another friend that cold January: Prospero Gallini, who died of a broken neck after falling down the stairs. Bella wrote to tell me the terrible news, and of course I immediately went down to Camberwell to be with her.

‘I do not know yet what I shall do,’ she said, as we walked back from the church after the interment, ‘but I must leave here, that is for sure. There are debts to be paid, and the house must be sold. I shall go to London and find a position as soon as I can.’

I told her that she must not fail to inform me when she was settled, and begged her to regard me as her friend and protector in London. As I was leaving, she gave me a charming little edition of Dante’s Vita Nuova that had belonged to her father.

‘This is for my kind and considerate friend,’ she said, ‘whom I shall always think of with affection.’

‘You promise to write to me?’

‘I do.’

Some weeks later, a letter arrived to tell me that she had found a position as companion to a Mrs Daley in St John’s Wood. I was glad of it, for her father’s sake, and determined that I would thereafter do my best, through regular correspondence, to watch over her. This I did, though it was to be four years until we met again.

The great table at which my mother had spent so many weary hours was now set before the window in my new rooms in Temple-street, Whitefriars. On it, the journals that had revealed my lost self were arranged in order, girded round, as at Sandchurch, by yellowing bundles of paper, dozens of them, each bundle now sorted into chronological order, and carrying a label denoting its contents. Blank note-books, fresh from the stationers, were stacked up in readiness; pencils had been sharpened; ink and nibs laid in. I was ready to embark on my great work, to prove my true identity to the world.

I had made an excellent beginning. The agreement drawn up between my mother and Lady Tansor, which lent its circumstantial weight to my claim, was now in my possession; and, by an unexpected stroke of luck, I had secured employment at Tredgolds, Lord Tansor’s legal advisers. What might come of this situation, I could not foresee. But some advantage, surely, would present itself, if I could gain the complete confidence of Mr Christopher Tredgold.

And an advantage, however small, is everything to the resourceful man.

My first visitor to Temple-street had been Le Grice, who arrived unannounced, late one snowy afternoon, a few days after I had returned from Tom’s funeral. His thundering ascent of the wooden stairs, and the three tremendous raps on the door that followed, were unmistakable.

‘Hail, Great King!’ he bellowed, pulling me towards him and slapping me on the back with the flat of his huge hand. He stamped the snow from his boots and then, removing his hat and taking a step back, surveyed my new kingdom.

‘Snug,’ he nodded approvingly, ‘very snug. But who’s that awful little tick on the ground floor? Poked his horrid nose round the door and asked whether I was looking for Mr Glapthorn. Told him, politely, to mind his own business. And who’s Glapthorn, when he’s at home?’

‘The tick goes by the name of Fordyce Jukes,’ I said. ‘Mr Glapthorn is yours truly.’

Naturally, this information produced a look of surprise in my visitor.

‘Glapthorn?’

‘Yes. Does it bother you that I’ve adopted a new name?’

‘Not in the least, old boy,’ he replied. ‘Got your reasons, I expect. Creditors pressing, perhaps? Irate husband, pistol in hand, searching high and low for E. Glyver?’

I could not help giving a little laugh.

‘Either, or both, will do,’ I said.

‘Well, I won’t press you. If a friend wants to change his name, and that same friend wishes to keep his reasons to himself, then let him change it, I say. Luckily, I can continue to call you “G” in either case. But if assistance is required, ask away. Always ready and eager to oblige.’

I assured him that I needed no assistance, financial or otherwise, requesting only that any correspondence sent to Temple-street, or to my employer’s, should be directed to Mr E. Glapthorn.

‘I say,’ he said suddenly, ‘you’re not working for the Government, in some secret capacity, I suppose?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘nothing like that.’

He seemed disappointed, but was true to his word and did not press me further. Then he reached into his pocket and drew out a folded copy of the Saturday Review .

‘By the way, I came across this at the Club. It’s a few months old now. Did you see it? Page twenty-two.’

I had not seen it, for it was not a periodical that I often read. I looked at the date on the cover: 10th October 1848. On the page in question was an article entitled ‘Memories of Eton. By P. Rainsford Daunt’, from which I have previously quoted.

‘Seems to be a good deal about you in it,’ said Le Grice.

So many years had gone by since Daunt had betrayed me; but my desire to make him pay for it was as strong as ever. I had already begun to assemble information on him, which I kept in a tin box under my bed: reviews and critical appreciations of his work, articles that he had written for the literary press, notes on his father from public sources, and my own descriptive impressions of his first home, Millhead, which I had visited the previous November. The archives were small as yet, but would grow as I searched for some aspect of his history and character that I could use against him.