Michael Cox - The Meaning of Night

I nodded. ‘Indeed. Yes. Thank you, Brine. Oh, by the way, could you arrange for this to get to Peterborough, in time for the midday railway mail?’ I handed him the second account that I had written for Mr Tredgold, describing the reported circumstances of the fatal attack on Mr Carteret.

‘You will need some money,’ I added, taking out some coins. ‘This should suffice.’

He made no reply, but merely nodded as he took the proffered money.

I retraced my steps to the garden, and then walked across the lawn to the gate-house. As I stepped out onto the roadway, I noticed something dark lying on the ground and stooped down to examine it more closely. It was the remains of a half-smoked cigar, sufficient for me – by now a seasoned connoisseur – to recognize one of the premier Havana brands, Ramón Allones no less. Miss Carteret’s lover was a man of discernment. I threw the stump on the ground, and proceeded on my way.

A little before gaining the point at the summit of the long incline from where the great house could be seen, I stopped and turned to look back. Below and behind me were the turrets of the gate-house; to the right, the Plantation, with a glimpse of the Dower House beyond. Further to the right was the boundary wall, on the other side of which could be seen the roof of the Rectory and the spire of St Michael’s and All Angels. The irresistible swell and spread of pure fresh morning light was breaking along the distant line of the river; to the west the great arc of woodland that clothed the higher ground towards Molesey and Easton stood in silent half-shadow.

I turned and resumed my trudge up the remainder of the long slope. The road here begins to swing through a gentle curve, flanked on either side by a short avenue of oaks, and then levels out before descending to cross an arched bridge across the Evenbrook, which can be seen making its sinuous way eastwards through the Park. I emerged from the trees and stopped.

The house was spread out below, its magical splendour even more dizzyingly captivating in the misty October light than I remembered it from my first visit in high summer. I proceeded down the slope, across the bridge, and at last found myself standing in the inner courtyard. Before me were the main doors to the house, on each side of which two elegant Doric columns supported a pediment carrying the Tansor arms and an inscription: ‘What thing so Fair but Time will not Pare. Anno 1560’. A little further off, to left and right, abutting into the forecourt, two of the many cupola-topped towers for which Evenwood is celebrated soared into the brightening air; a little way beyond the southernmost of these was a small archway, through which I could discern a cobbled courtyard.

I did not stop to consider what I would say or do if I encountered anyone. I had laid no plans, had no alibi or excuse prepared. Without thinking, I found myself walking through the archway and into the courtyard beyond, heedless of the possible consequences. I was simply intoxicated by the grave beauty of the building, which seemed to drive away all calculated and rational thought.

I had entered one of the oldest parts of the house. Three sides of the court consisted of open-arched cloisters, unchanged since the Middle Ages; the fourth, forming the outer wall at this point and containing the Chapel, was a closed-in range, altered in the last century, with four rectangular windows of painted glass, two on each side of an ogee-arched door standing at the top of a little semicircular flight of steps. Surmounting the roof of this range was a magnificent clock of brightly coloured wood within an intricate Gothic housing, the gilded panels of which were now catching the first gleams of the early morning sun.

As I ascended the steps, the bell of this instrument tolled the half-hour. I looked at my pocket-watch: half-past six. The household would already be about its business, but still I paid no heed to the prospect of being discovered while creeping uninvited about the building. I pushed open the door and entered.

The interior of the Chapel, wainscoted in dark wood and paved in white marble, was cool and silent. I noted, with approval, the pretty little three-manual pipe-organ of the last century, which I knew from my researches had been made by Snetzler. *On either side of a central aisle, three or four rows of ornately carved chairs stood facing a simple railed-off altar, above which hung a painting of the Sacrifice of Isaac. Before the altar, placed on trestles and lit by four tall candles in massive golden holders, stood the open coffin of Mr Paul Carteret.

The upper part of his body had been covered by a white cloth. I gently pulled it back and looked down at the man I had last seen trotting out of the George Hotel in Stamford, anticipating a good tea and the company of his daughter.

Death had not been kind to him. His jaw had been temporarily bound; but the rest of his poor round face showed all too clearly the violence that had been meted out to him. The left eye was closed and undamaged, but the right had gone completely, reduced to a horrifying mess of bone and pulp, along with much of that side of the face. I had seen such injuries before, on many dangerous midnights in London, and knew with cold certainty that whoever had visited this violence upon him had done so with truly murderous intent, having, I guessed, something of overwhelming moment to lose if their victim survived the attack. I was now sure that Mr Carteret had been doomed from the moment he took horse from Stamford: he had been carrying his own death warrant in the bag he had strapped round him, and which had now disappeared.

Though I went to church dutifully throughout my childhood, I had retained little of what is generally called religion, except for a visceral conviction that our lives are controlled by some universal mechanism that is greater than ourselves. Perhaps that was what others call God. Perhaps not. At any rate, it was not reducible to forms and rituals, and required only stoical assent and resignation, since I considered mediation or intervention to be useless. Yet, after pulling the cloth back over Mr Carteret’s face, I found myself bowing my head nonetheless – not in prayer, for I had no listening deity to whom to pray, but in common human sympathy.

It was as I stood in this apparent attitude of reverential supplication that I heard the door to the Chapel open.

A tall, white-bearded figure in clerical garb stood framed in the doorway. He had removed his hat, revealing two wings of white hair swept back on either side of a broad highway of pink flesh. It could be no other than the Reverend Achilles Brabazon Daunt, Rector of Evenwood.

‘I beg your pardon,’ I heard him say, in deep plangent tones. ‘I had not expected to find anyone here at this hour.’

He did not leave, however, but closed the door behind him, and walked down the aisle towards me.

‘I do not think I have had the pleasure of your acquaintance.’

There was no help for it now, so I told him my name and the simple truth: that I had come up to meet Mr Carteret on a matter of business; that he had invited me to stay on for a day or so; and that it had only been on my arrival at the Dower House, the previous day, that I had learned the terrible news.

We exchanged the usual pieties, dwelled a little on the iniquity of men, and discussed the likelihood of the attackers being apprehended.

‘This must not stand,’ he said, shaking his head slowly, ‘indeed, it must not. These wretches will certainly be discovered, I have no doubt on that score. Such a crime cannot stay hidden. God sees all – and so do men’s neighbours, I have found. Lord Tansor is placing an advertisement in the Mercury , offering a substantial reward for any information that leads to a successful prosecution. That, I think, may loosen a few tongues. Such atrocities are common, I believe, in London, but not here; no, not here.’