Michael Cox - The Meaning of Night

‘Such as Lord Tansor?’

‘Indeed.’

‘And in which particular area of the practice will my duties lie?’ ‘You are a great one for duty, I see, Mr Glapthorn, and it is apparent you are keen to be at it.’

‘At what, Mr Tredgold?’

‘Well, now, let me see. I thought, to begin with, you might wish to cast your eye over some papers relating to a bankruptcy case that we recently conducted. Would that please you?’

‘I am not here to be pleased, Mr Tredgold,’ I replied, ‘I am here to please you, and to earn a living.’

‘But I am pleased,’ he cried, ‘and will be even more so if you will kindly consent to look over these papers.’

‘May I enquire whether you require me to do anything other than read the documents?’

‘Not at this time. Come!’

And with that, he took me by the arm and ushered me down the corridor and into a dark little room, with a large desk in the centre, and a cheerfully crackling fire.

‘Wait here, if you please,’ he said. A few minutes later he returned with a large bundle of papers, and set them down on the desk.

‘Will you be comfortable here?’ ‘Perfectly.’

‘Then I shall leave you to your labours. I shall be out of the office today. Leave when you wish. Good-day, Mr Glapthorn.’

I duly applied myself to the documents that Mr Tredgold had given me. When I had finished reading them, having nothing else to occupy me, I returned to Temple-street. For the remainder of the week, I would come into my little room every morning to find another bundle of papers waiting for me, which I would diligently read through, to no apparent purpose, and then return home. On Friday, as I was about to depart, the door of Mr Tredgold’s office opened.

‘An excellent week’s work, Mr Glapthorn. May I have the pleasure of your company on Sunday, at the usual time?’

Once again, I found myself in Mr Tredgold’s private residence, enjoying a most appetizing collation. Afterwards, as always, we fell into talking about books. As I was being conducted down the side stairs by the man, Harrigan, he handed me a key.

‘Please to use this, sir, at Mr Tredgold’s request, when you next come. No need to knock.’

Astonished at this sign of my standing with the Senior Partner, I looked at Harrigan for a moment, but his face showed no expression. As I did so I noticed, just behind him, a woman of about my own age, regarding me with a similar impassivity. These two persons – whom I had been told were husband and wife, Albert and Rebecca Harrigan by name – were the only other inhabitants of the building on the Sundays when I was entertained by Mr Tredgold. I would catch glimpses of them from time to time, going about their duties silently, and never saying a word to each other.

Another week passed. Every day I walked from Temple-street to Paternoster-row, read carefully through whatever papers Mr Tredgold had left on my desk, and then walked home. As I was leaving my room on the second Friday afternoon, a beaming Mr Tredgold issued another invitation to join him on Sunday in his private residence. This time, I had my key, and let myself in by the side door.

After luncheon was over, and we had settled ourselves on the ottomans in front of the fire, the conversation soon turned towards books. During our bibliographic chats, Mr Tredgold would often get up to pick out some volume from his collection to make a point, or to ask my further opinion on some matter of typography or provenance. On this occasion, he had been speaking of some of the unusual testamentary provisions that the firm had occasionally been asked to prepare, which led me to mention the mock last will and testament drawn up by Aretino *for Pope Leo X’s pet elephant, Hanno, in which the poet solemnly bequeathed the beast’s private parts to one of His Holiness’s Cardinals.

‘Ah, Aretino,’ said Mr Tredgold, beaming and polishing his eyeglass. ‘The infamous Sixteen Postures.’

Now, having become something of a connoisseur in the history of warm literature during my time in Heidelberg (and possessing, as I did, good editions of Rochester and Cleland, †as well as rare examples of the genre from earlier periods), I was instantly familiar with the reference, but taken aback somewhat by my host’s unabashed mention of this celebrated masterpiece of the erotic imagination.

‘Mr Glapthorn.’ He put down his red silk handkerchief and looked steadily at me. ‘Would you mind giving me your opinion on this?’

He stood up and walked over to a large walnut-fronted cabinet that I had often noticed, standing between the two doors that gave access to the room. Taking out a key on a delicate gold chain from his waistcoat pocket, Mr Tredgold unlocked this cabinet to reveal six or eight shelves of tightly packed books, as well as a number of slim, dark-green wooden boxes. Taking down one of the volumes, he re-locked the cabinet, and returned to his seat.

To my astonishment, it was the exquisitely rare 1798 Paris (P. Didot) edition of Aretino’s sonnets, with engravings by Coiny after Carrache, something I had never seen before in all my bibliographic searchings.

‘I have presumed, Mr Glapthorn,’ he said, ‘that such a work is interesting to you – as a scholar and collector. I hope I have not offended in any way?’

‘By no means,’ I replied, turning over the volume slowly in my hands to admire the binding. With the content of the illustrations, as well as the accompanying verses, I was naturally familiar: the muscular bodies, fiercely entwined limbs, and tumescent members, the urgent couplings against tasselled cushions beneath great canopied beds. That my employer should also be familiar with them, however, was wholly unexpected.

The production of the volume led to a more general discussion of the field as a whole, and it soon became clear that, in this department of bibliography at least, Mr Tredgold’s knowledge was considerably in advance even of my own. He invited me back over to the cabinet, unlocked the doors again, and we spent a pleasant hour or so admiring together the gems of venereal literature that he had collected over the course of some twenty years.

‘These, too, may perhaps interest you,’ he said, taking out and opening one of the slim green boxes that I had noticed earlier.

It contained a complete collection, laid lovingly on a bed of soft embossed paper, of those prints by Rowlandson in which the artist had depicted various accommodating ladies in the act of revealing their charms to the fervid male gaze. The other boxes held prints and drawings of a similar nature, by some of the finest practitioners.

My amazement was now complete.

‘It appears, sir,’ I said, smiling, ‘that you have hidden depths.’

‘Well, well,’ he replied, beaming back at me. ‘The law, you know, can be a dreary business. A little harmless diversion is certainly required, from time to time. As a corrective.’

The conversation went on pleasantly over tea as we discussed various rarities in the field of voluptuous literature that we were each keen to locate. Mr Tredgold was particularly eager to augment his collection with a copy of The Cabinet of Venus , the partial, anonymous translation put out in 1658 of the celebrated Geneanthropeia of Sinibaldi. I made a mental note of this, believing that I might know where I could lay my hands on a copy, and thinking that its acquisition would ingratiate me even further with my employer.

At about five o’clock, much later than my usual hour for departing, I rose to take my leave. But before I could say anything, Mr Tredgold had jumped to his feet and had taken me by the hand.

‘May I say, Edward – I hope you will not mind if I presume to address you by your first name – that I have been extremely satisfied by your work.’ One of his hands continued to hold mine tightly, whilst the other he placed gently on my shoulder.