Michael Cox - The Meaning of Night

‘Well,’ she said, ‘that don’t matter. I’ve still got Albert, such as ’e is. An’ I reckon we’ll stay friends, you an’ me. You’re a chancer, Edward Glapthorn, for all you’re a gennelmun, and so am I. An’ that makes us equals in a way, don’t it? Friends an’ equals. So, gimme a kiss, and let’s ’ear no more about it.’

The second event was of a very different character, and of far more moment.

It was the morning of the 12th of October 1853 – a date indelibly impressed on my memory. I was just leaving my room at Tredgolds, and was on the point of descending to the clerks’ room, when I saw Jukes leap up from his desk at the sound of the front bell. I could not see who the visitor was, but in a moment Jukes was hurrying up the stairs towards me.

‘Lord Tansor himself,’ he whispered excitedly as he passed.

I leaned back against the wall and gazed down.

He was sitting bolt upright, both hands clasping his cane before him. The office, before his arrival, had been quietly going about its business, with just the usual rustle of papers and scraping of pens, and the occasional sound of subdued conversation between the clerks breaking the silence. But in his presence, the atmosphere seemed suddenly charged, somehow put on alert, and a blanket of strained silence instantly descended. All conversation ceased; the clerks moved about the room with concentrated deliberation, opening their drawers with the utmost care, or silently closing doors behind them. I watched this phenomenon closely, and observed that several of the clerks would look up from their work from time to time, and direct apprehensive glances over towards the seated figure, as if, sitting there tapping his foot impatiently as he waited for Jukes to return, he was about to weigh the feather of truth in the scales of justice against their sinful hearts.

In a few moments, Jukes hurried past me again, heading back down the stairs to where the visitor sat. I stepped back into my room as his Lordship followed the clerk to the door of Mr Tredgold’s private office. As Lord Tansor entered, I heard the Senior Partner’s effusive welcome.

Jukes closed the office door and began to make his way back to his position.

‘Lord Tansor,’ he said again, seeing me as he came past my door. He stopped, and leaned his head towards me in a confidential manner. ‘There are firms,’ he said, ‘that would give a great deal – a very great deal – to have such a client. But the SP keeps him tight with us. Oh yes, he’s Tredgolds’ as long as the SP is with us. A great man. One of the first men in the kingdom, you know, though who has heard of him? And he’s ours.’

He delivered this little speech in a rapid whisper, looking back and forth to the door of Mr Tredgold’s office as he did so. Then he nodded quickly, and scampered back down the stairs, scratching his head with one hand, and clicking his fingers with the other.

I walked back to my desk, leaving my door slightly ajar. At length, I heard the Senior Partner’s door open, and the muffled sound of conversation as the two men passed along the passage to the head of the stairs.

‘I’m obliged, Tredgold.’

‘Not at all, your Lordship,’ I heard Mr Tredgold reply. ‘Your instructions in this matter are much appreciated, and shall be acted upon without delay.’

I sprang from my desk and went out into the passage.

‘Oh, pardon me,’ I said to the Senior Partner. ‘I did not realize.’

Mr Tredgold beamed at me. Lord Tansor’s face was expressionless at first, but then he began to regard me more closely.

‘You seem familiar to me,’ he barked.

‘This is Mr Edward Glapthorn,’ prompted Mr Tredgold. ‘The photographer.’

‘Ah, the photographer. Very good. Excellent work, Glapthorn. Excellent.’ Then he turned to the Senior Partner, nodded his goodbye, and immediately descended the stairs with short rapid steps. In the next moment he was gone.

‘I notice it is a fine day outside, Edward,’ said Mr Tredgold, smiling radiantly. ‘Perhaps you might like to join me for a little stroll in the Temple Gardens?’

*[Dolly’s Chop-House, Queen’s Head Passage, Paternoster Row. The London Restaurant was in Chancery Lane. Ed. ]

†[Isaac Pitman’s Stenographic Sound-Hand was first published in 1837. Ed. ]

*[The Peace of Amiens, 27 March 1802, between France and its allies, on the one hand, and Great Britain, on the other. It is generally seen as marking the end of the French Revolutionary Wars. Ed. ]

*[A hotel in Albemarle Street. Ed. ]

†[i.e. owned an opera-box at Her Majesty’s Theatre in the Haymarket. Ed. ]

‡[A roadway for saddle-horses on the south side of Hyde Park, crowded during the Season with the most fashionable riders. Ed. ]

*[Count Alfred Guillaume Gabriel d’Orsay (1801–52), wit, dandy, and artist, who was a prominent member of Lady Blessington’s social and artistic circle at Gore House. Ed. ]

†[In May 1851. Ed. ]

‡[One of the many attractions of the Great Exhibition. The cage had been made by Messrs Chubb. Ed. ]

*[A respectable first-class hotel in Conduit Street. Ed. ]

†[A burglar; safe-breaker. Ed. ]

V

In the Temple Gardens

Once away from the office, and having entered the Temple Gardens, Mr Tredgold began to outline, in his usual circuitous and abstract way, a ‘little problem’ with which he had been presented.

‘Tell me, Edward,’ he began, ‘how extensive is your genealogical knowledge?’

‘I have some slight acquaintance with the subject,’ I replied.

‘I find, my dear Edward, that you have some slight acquaintance with most subjects.’

He beamed, took out his red silk handkerchief, and proceeded to polish his eye-glass as we walked.

‘Baronies by Writ, for instance. What can you tell me about them?’

‘I believe that such dignities are so called because they describe the old practice of summoning men of distinction to sit in the King’s Parliament by the issuing of a writ.’ *

‘Correct!’ exclaimed Mr Tredgold. ‘Now, by several statements of law laid down since Stuart times, these Baronies are held to be heritable by heirs general – that is to say, through females as well as males. The present Lord Tansor’s peerage is just such a Barony. Perhaps,’ he continued, ‘it would be interesting to you, from an antiquarian point of view, to have a brief account of Lord Tansor’s noble line?’

I said that nothing would give me greater pleasure, and begged him to proceed.

‘Very well – pray stop me if any of this is familiar to you. In the reign of Henry III, Lord Maldwin Duport was a person of power and influence. Of Breton extraction, an ancestor having come over with the Conqueror, he was memorably described in one of the chronicles as “a man of iyrn and blud”. A dangerous and belligerent man, we may perhaps assume, but one whose services were much in demand in those uncertain and violent times. He was a great landowner, already a baron by tenure, holding lands in Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Warwickshire, and Northamptonshire, in addition to other properties in the North and the West Country.

‘In December 1264, Maldwin was summoned to attend the rebel Parliament called by Simon de Montfort in the King’s name – Henry himself, along with his son, Prince Edward, being then under lock and key following the Battle of Lewes. Maldwin was subsequently summoned to Parliament in 1283, 1290, and 1295, and his successors continued to be called into the next century and beyond. In the course of time, their constant presence in Parliament was interpreted as constituting a peerage dignity deriving from the 1264 Parliament, thus giving the Barony senior precedence, along with those of Despencer and de Ros, in the English peerage.