Michael Cox - The Meaning of Night

She put down her cup.

‘You are a stranger to me, Mr Glapthorn,’ she replied. ‘All I know of you is that you are Mr Tredgold’s representative, that my father left here yesterday to meet you in Stamford, and that you were likely to be returning here today to continue your discussions. My father instructed that a room should be prepared for you, and you are of course welcome to stay for as long as you require, in order to compose your report to Mr Tredgold. I am sure, once that is done, that you will wish to return to London as soon as possible. Mrs Rowthorn will show you to your room.’ At which she rose and rang for the housekeeper.

‘Good-bye, Mr Glapthorn. You must ask Mrs Rowthorn if there is anything you require.’

‘Miss Carteret, I cannot express my sorrow—’

‘It is not for you to be sorry at what has happened,’ she interrupted. ‘You are kind, but I do not need your sympathy. It does not help me. Nothing can help me.’

Mrs Rowthorn soon appeared at the door (I knew enough of housekeepers to suppose that the speed of her arrival signified that she had been eavesdropping on our conversation). I made a slight bow to Miss Carteret, and followed the housekeeper back out into the vestibule.

Minutes later, I was being shown into a small but welcoming room on the second storey of the house. Raising the blind of one of the two windows, I saw that the room looked out across the front lawn and its screen of trees towards the South Gates. I then lay on the bed, closed my eyes, and tried to think.

But my head was full of Miss Carteret, and whenever I attempted to direct my thoughts towards the business of her father’s letter to Mr Tredgold, I could see only her great black eyes under their hooded lids. I tried to think of Bella instead, but found that I could not. At last, I took out paper, pen, and ink, lit a cigar, and began to compose a report to my employer on the circumstances of Mr Carteret’s death, as they had been told to me.

Dusk had fallen by the time I had completed my task and taken some supper, which Mrs Rowthorn brought up on a tray. I had just opened the window, feeling the need to take a draught of the cold evening air, when the silence was broken by the sound of a piano-forte.

The delicate melody and its ravishing harmonies, the affecting shifts from the major to the minor mode, and from pianissimo to forte , took hold of my heart, and wrung it dry. Such pathos, such grief-laden beauty, I had never experienced in my life. I did not immediately recognize the piece – though I know now that it was by the late Monsieur Chopin – but I guessed the player. How could it be anyone else but her? It seemed clear that she was playing for her father, articulating through her instrument, and the composer’s perfect arrangement of tones and rhythm, the agony she could not, or would not, reveal to a stranger.

I listened, spellbound, imagining her long fingers moving over the keys, her eyes washed with tears, her head bowed in the desolation of her grief. But as suddenly as it had begun, the playing stopped, and there came the sound of the lid of the instrument being banged shut. I returned to the window, and looked down into the garden to see her walking quickly across the lawn. Just before reaching the Plantation, she stopped, looked back towards the house, and then moved a little closer towards the trees. Then I saw him, a darker form, emerge from the shadows, and enfold her in his arms.

They remained in a silent embrace for some minutes before she suddenly drew back, and began to speak to him in evident animation, shaking her head violently, and twisting around from time to time to look back at the house. Gone was the reserve and cold restraint that I had witnessed earlier; instead I saw a woman gripped by irresistible emotion. She made to leave, but the man caught her by the arm and pulled her back towards him. They continued to converse, their heads close together, for some minutes; then she broke away once more and appeared to remonstrate with him, pointing from time to time into the shadows behind him. At last she turned and ran back to the house, leaving the man standing with empty outstretched arms for a moment or two. I watched her disappear under the portico, and heard the sound of the front door closing. When I looked back towards the Plantation, the man had gone.

So she had a lover. It could not of course be Daunt, for Mr Tredgold had told me before I left that he was in the West Country, on Lord Tansor’s business; he had also mentioned, in passing, that Daunt’s former amorous designs on Miss Carteret had been firmly discouraged by the young lady, in deference to her papa’s thorough dislike and disapproval of his neighbour’s son, and that they now maintained a civil but unencumbered friendship. But she was beautiful, and unattached, and must have many admirers amongst the county’s bachelors. Doubtless I had witnessed an assignation with some local buck. But the more I considered the dumb-show that had been played out before me, the more puzzling it seemed. One might expect a man who comes a-courting to step up to the front door, and announce himself boldly, not skulk in the shadows; nor did it seem to me that this had been a lovers’ tiff, but something of far greater moment. There was, it appeared, far more to beautiful Miss Carteret than met the eye.

There was a knock at the door, and the housekeeper came in to remove my tray.

‘Mrs Rowthorn,’ I asked, as she was about to leave, ‘these attacks that have taken place recently: how many have there been?’

‘Well, sir, let me see. Mr Burton, who has a farm of Lord Cotterstock’s over at Bulwick – he was the last, poor man. And then there was Squire Emsley’s man, and I believe there was another gentleman from Fotheringhay, but I can’t recall. The poor master would be the third or fourth, I think.’

‘And were they all carrying money?’

‘I believe so – except for the master.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, sir, that the others had all been about their business in Stamford, it being market day when they were attacked. Mr Burton had near fifty pounds taken. But the master keeps his money at the bank in Peterborough, though I don’t know how much he had about him in the normal way of things.’

‘Why, then, did he go to Stamford yesterday?’

‘To meet you, sir, and to go to the bank.’

‘The bank? To withdraw money, perhaps?’

‘Oh no, sir,’ she replied. ‘I believe it was to bring back some papers they’d been holding safe for him. Before he left here, he came to ask me where he could find something big enough to put them in, and I found him an old leather bag of Mr Earl’s – who used to be his Lordship’s gamekeeper – that has been hanging on the back of the pantry door these two years …’

I remembered the item distinctly, and how Mr Carteret had strapped it tightly over his riding-coat in the stable-yard of the hotel.

‘And where is the bag now?’ I asked.

She paused for a moment.

‘Now there’s a thing,’ she said. ‘I don’t seem to recall seeing it when they … excuse me, sir, I do beg your pardon …’

She put the tray down to fumble for her handkerchief, and I apologized for my thoughtlessness. When she had composed herself, and after a few consolatory words, she picked up the tray again, and wished me good-night.

I was certain now that Mr Carteret had not been tracked and set upon by this supposed gang for the money that they believed he might be carrying. This was no crime of opportunity. Mr Carteret had been attacked for a clear and specific purpose; and had I been a betting man, I would have put money on its involving the contents of the missing bag. But it puzzled me to surmise what Mr Carteret had been carrying, if not money, and what could have been so valuable that cold-blooded, brutal murder was no bar to obtaining it.