Michael Cox - The Meaning of Night

‘And is it in Lord Tansor’s power to do all this?’

‘Assuredly. The property he inherited from his father is his to dispose of as he wishes. It will be be necessary for his Lordship to sign a deed of recovery for the entailed property, and to enrol it in Chancery, before he can bequeath this portion of his inheritance to Mr Daunt; but this is a relatively straightforward procedure, and is, indeed, already in hand.’ *

The air had taken on a slight chill as the mid-afternoon sun began to wane.

We had been nearly an hour in the Gardens – an hour that had changed my life for ever.

‘Mr Phoebus Daunt’s prospects are rosy indeed,’ I said, as carelessly as I could, though I was burning inside. ‘A most fortunate young man. Already a distinguished poet, and with expectations before too long of succeeding to Lord Tansor’s wealth and possessions, and to Evenwood itself.’

‘Expectations, yes,’ said Mr Tredgold, ‘though one might perhaps wish to qualify them. Pro tempore , and until the codicil is executed, Mr Daunt remains the prospective heir of his Lordship’s property. But Lord Tansor is fit and robust, his present union may yet be productive of a child; and of course the birth of an heir of the blood, unlikely though that is, would change everything, and would then bring about a revocation of the proposed provisions. Besides, who knows what the future may hold? Nothing is certain.’

For a moment or two we sat looking at each other in awkward silence. Then he stood up and smiled.

‘But you are right, of course. As things presently stand, you may say that Mr Phoebus Daunt is certainly a most fortunate young man. He has already received ample demonstrations of Lord Tansor’s regard for him, and soon he is to be formally anointed, if I may so put it, as his Lordship’s legal heir. When the day comes, Mr Phoebus Daunt, or should I say Mr Phoebus Duport, though he will not be the 26th Baron Tansor, will be a very powerful man indeed.’

We left the Gardens, and began to make our way back to Paternoster-row.

‘Forgive me, Mr Tredgold,’ I said, after we had walked some way in silence, ‘I am unclear as to what part in the proceedings that you have outlined you expect me to play. This is a legal matter, but I am no lawyer. The case is far removed from the Abode of Beauty.’

Mr Tredgold smiled at the reference to my first success for the firm.

‘Indeed it is,’ he said, taking my arm. ‘Well, Edward, here it is. There is what I may call an additional element, of which Lord Tansor is as yet unaware, and which must remain strictly confidential for the time being. I have received a communication – a private communication – from his Lordship’s secretary, Mr Paul Carteret. The circumstances whereby he has come to be employed by his relative are interesting, but need not concern us now. It appears that Mr Carteret – whom I have known and liked for many years – has been troubled for some time by a little discovery that he has made. He has not seen fit to vouchsafe its full nature to me, but his letter appears to suggest that it has a direct and fundamental bearing on the matters that we have just been discussing. In short, Mr Carteret seems to raise the possibility, if my inference is correct, that, unknown to his Lordship, a legitimate and direct heir of the blood exists. This, then, is the little problem that I would like your assistance in resolving. And now, I think I should like some tea. Will you join me?’

The clock on Le Grice’s mantel-piece struck three o’clock.

He had said nothing after I had finished telling him of my conversation with Mr Tredgold in the Temple Gardens. Behind him, in the shadows, towered a portrait of his father, Brigadier-General Sir Hastings Le Grice, of the 22nd Foot, who famously distinguished himself with Napier at the Battle of Meeanee. *Stretched out below, his long legs resting on the brass fender, the general’s son sat gazing at the ceiling, ruminatively twirling the end of his moustache.

‘This is a tangled tale, G,’ he said at last, grasping a poker and leaning forward to stir the dying embers of the fire, ‘so let me see if I’ve got things straight. Old Tansor has taken it into his head to leave everything to Daunt, except his title, which isn’t his to give. You believe you’re Tansor’s heir, but can’t prove it. Now this chap Carteret has come along with a little secret to impart, which may, or may not, have a bearing on the case. So far, so good. But, look here: it’s all very well, you know, to make Daunt pay for what he did to you at school. It’s a long time to bear a grudge, but that’s your business, and I can’t say I mightn’t have felt the same myself. But, hang it, G, you can’t blame Daunt if old Tansor has taken a fancy to him. It’s rum that it should be Daunt, I’ll grant; dashed bad luck actually, but …’

‘Luck?’ I cried. ‘Not luck, not chance, not coincidence! Can’t you see? There’s a fatality at work here, between him and me. It had to be Daunt! It could have been no one else. And there’s worse to come. Much worse.’

‘Well, then,’ said Le Grice, calmly, ‘you’d better push on, as quickly as you can, and tell me the rest. The regiment leaves in three weeks, and if I’m to perish valiantly for Queen and Country, then I must know that all’s well with you before I go. So, speed on, Great King, and let’s hear all about Carteret and his mysterious discovery.’

He refilled his glass and leaned back in his chair once more, whilst I, taking my cue, lit another cigar, and began to tell him of Mr Carteret’s letter, in which, though I did not yet know it, the seeds of an even greater betrayal had been sown.

*[Baronies by Writ are, in fact, a legal fiction. As a result of decisions made in the House of Lords and elsewhere, between the early seventeenth century and the early nineteenth, a doctrine – now considered indefensible – grew up that, where a man had been directly summoned to attend one of a specific list of medieval parliaments, and there was evidence that he had done so, and that he was not the eldest son of a peer or another person also summoned to such a parliament, then he could be taken as thereby honoured with a Barony, in the modern sense of a peerage. It was further construed (as Mr Tredgold rightly says) that such titles were heritable by heirs general of the first baron, though no medieval writ deals with the matter of succession, for the simple reason that they were not then conceived as creating an hereditary title of honour. However, by the mid-nineteenth century the legal doctrine of heritable Baronies by Writ held full sway. Ed. ]

*[The younger son of Sophia Mary Carteret, née Duport (1765–1836), Lord Tansor’s aunt. Ed. ]

* [Penelope: A Tragedy, in Verse (Bell & Daldy, 1853). Ed. ]

*[This process would have ‘barred’, or rendered ineffective, the entailed property – i.e. the oldest part of the Tansor inheritance, which included Evenwood and the other principal estates that had been settled ‘in tail general’ on all heirs inheriting the title of Baron Tansor. As entailed property, it could not in the normal way be disposed of by any one possessor as absolute owner; but by breaking the entail, Lord Tansor would be free to bequeath this property to his nominated heir. Ed. ]

*[The Battle of Meeanee (or Miani), a few miles north of Hyderabad in present-day Pakistan, was fought on 17 February 1843, during the Sind War of that year. A British force of under three thousand men, commanded by Sir Charles Napier (1782–1853), defeated the emirs of Sind, whose army numbered over twenty thousand. Sind was subsequently annexed by Britain. Ed. ]