Michael Cox - The Meaning of Night

She picked up the torn pieces of music that I had placed on the piano-stool.

‘A favourite piece of my father’s,’ she said, though offering no explanation as to why the sheets had been spoiled in this way. ‘Are you an admirer of Chopin, Mr Glapthorn?’

‘In general, I prefer the music of earlier times – the elder Bach, for instance; but I attended Monsieur Chopin’s concert at Lord Falmouth’s …’

‘July ’forty-eight,’ she broke in. ‘But I was there, too!’

At this, I recounted how I had found myself in London in the summer of that year, soon after taking up residence in Camberwell, and had happened to see an advertisement for the recital. The coincidence of our both being present that evening to hear the maestro play produced a distinct change in her. Her look softened somewhat, and as we talked about our separate recollections of the evening, a faint smile would occasionally moderate the severity of her expression.

‘Miss Carteret,’ I said softly, as I was taking my leave, ‘I hope you will not think it presumptuous of me if I beg you – once more – to see me as a friend, for I truly wish to be so. You have told me that you neither want nor need my sympathy, but I fear I must presume to give it to you, whether you will or no. Please will you let me?’

She said nothing, but at least she did not rebuff me, as formerly; and so, emboldened, I pressed on.

‘I have despatched my report to Mr Tredgold, and so shall return to Stamford this evening, and take train to London tomorrow. But, if I may, I hope you will allow me to return for your father’s funeral. I shall not, of course, presume on your hospitality …’

‘Of course you may return, Mr Glapthorn,’ she interrupted, ‘and I shall not hear of your staying anywhere tonight but here. You will forgive me, I hope, for being so cold with you before. It is my nature, I fear, to let very few people into my confidence. To my disadvantage, I have nothing of my father’s outgoing nature.’

I thanked her for her generosity, and then we spoke a little further of the arrangements that had been put in hand. The inquest was to take place on the following Monday in Easton, the nearest town to Evenwood, under Mr Rickman Godlee, coroner for the district; the interment, at St Michael’s and All Angels, would be tomorrow week.

‘By the way, Mr Glapthorn,’ she said, ‘I am required to speak with some police-officers from Peterborough this afternoon. I have already indicated to the authorities that you would be happy to put yourself at their disposal. I trust that you do not object?’

I replied that, naturally, as the representative of Tredgold, Tredgold & Orr, and perhaps as the last person to have seen her father alive, I would do everything possible to assist those responsible for identifying Mr Carteret’s assailants.

She expressed her gratitude, and informed me that the officers would be arriving at two o’clock, if that would be convenient for me. As this would still give me an hour before I was due at the Rectory, I said that I would return at the appointed time and turned to go.

‘I hope, Miss Carteret,’ I said at the door, ‘that you have friends hereabouts, and that you will not be too much alone in the coming days?’

‘Friends? Of course. But I do not mind being alone. I grew up more or less on my own – after my poor sister died. Solitude holds no terrors for me, I can assure you.’

‘And you are fortunate to have good neighbours, too, I think?’

‘You are referring to Dr and Mrs Daunt, perhaps?’

I briefly recounted my meeting with the Rector, and my decidedly favourable impressions of that gentleman.

‘Dr Daunt is certainly a good neighbour,’ she said. ‘I could wish for no better.’

‘And Mr Phoebus Daunt must be a welcome addition to any society,’ I continued, as disingenuously as I could, for I was determined that my liking for Miss Carteret would not deflect me from learning as much as I could about my enemy.

‘Are you acquainted with Mr Phoebus Daunt?’

Her mouth perceptibly tightened, and I noticed that she passed her hand over her forehead as she spoke, though her eyes held me fast in their gaze.

‘His literary reputation precedes him,’ I replied. ‘Who has not read and admired Ithaca?’

‘Do you mock my distinguished neighbour, Mr Glapthorn?’

I sought, but could not quite find, something in her face that would confirm that her literary estimation of P. Rainsford Daunt coincided with my own.

‘Not at all. It is a very great thing to be a poet, and to be able to write so much poetry at a time is surely enviable.’ ‘Now I know that you are being unkind.’

She looked me straight in the eye, and then she laughed – a clear spontaneous laugh, which instantly produced a similar response in me. The action briefly transformed her face into something even more wonderful, and for a moment or two she stood swaying from side to side in a most charming, child-like manner. Then she sought to check herself, looking away slightly, and affecting to tidy up some flower petals that had fallen from a display on a nearby table-top.

‘I must tell you, Mr Glapthorn, what perhaps you already know, that I grew up with Mr Daunt, and that it is very cruel of you to deride the literary efforts of my childhood companion.’

‘Oh, I do not deride them, Miss Carteret,’ I replied. ‘I do not pay them any heed at all.’

By now she appeared to have collected herself, and turned from the table to hold out her hand.

‘Well, Mr Glapthorn,’ she said, ‘perhaps we shall be friends after all. I do not know how you have made me laugh at such a time as this, but I am glad you have done so, though I must caution you not to underestimate Mr Daunt. He is exceptional in many ways – and not a little like you.’

‘Like me? How so?’

‘For one thing, he is determined to make his mark on the world – as, I believe, from our brief acquaintance, that you are also. For another, I think he would make a dangerous enemy – as you would.’

‘Well, then,’ I replied, ‘I must be sure to keep my opinions concerning his literary productions to myself. It would never do to antagonize so dangerous a man.’

I could not help delivering these words in a swaggering manner, which I immediately regretted when I saw the smile fade from Miss Carteret’s face.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I have warned you. I know him well, as well as anyone, I think, and I say again that he is not a man to be crossed. But perhaps you already know the gentleman as well as his works?’

Of course I lied, and said that I had not yet had the pleasure of meeting him in person, but that I hoped to rectify this as soon as possible.

She moved towards the window to raise up the blind. ‘It is such a beautiful morning,’ she said. ‘Shall we take a turn round the garden?’

And so round we went, several times, at first in silence but then, in answer to my questions, she began to speak of her childhood at Evenwood, and of how she had once become lost in the great house, and thought she would never be found again; then, at my gentle prompting, she told me something of the terrible day that her sister died, which she recalled even now in all its heart-breaking detail, though she had only been four years old when they brought the bedraggled little body back to the Dower House. She fell silent again, the painful memory of that loss no doubt compounding the grief that she felt at the brutal slaying of her father. So, to change the subject, I asked her about her time abroad, and how she had liked Paris, and because she said that she adored the French language, I suggested that we should converse in that tongue, which we proceeded to do until, somewhat overawed by her fluency, I stumbled over a word, and she laughed at my embarrassment.