Michael Cox - The Meaning of Night

‘Like any right-thinking gentleman would,’ said Brine, a little evasively. ‘I know, because I heard him telling Miss Emily.’

‘Telling her what, Brine? Speak up, if you please, for there must be no secrets now between us.’

‘I’m sorry, sir, but it just don’t seem right, that’s all, speaking of what was said privately.’

I damned the fellow for his scruples. A fine spy he was going to make! I reminded him, rather pointedly, of the terms of our engagement and, after a moment or two, though still somewhat unwillingly, he began to recount the substance of the conversation that he had overheard between Mr Carteret and his daughter.

‘His Lordship had given a dinner for his birthday, and afterwards it fell to me to bring the master and Miss Emily back from the great house in the landau. It’s an old thing that belonged to Mr Carteret’s mother, but it gives good service and—’

‘Brine. The facts, if you please.’

‘To be sure, sir. Well, sir, as I say, I went up to fetch the master and the young miss back in the landau, and I saw straight away that something was up. Black as thunder her face was as I helped her in, and Mr Carteret looking nearly as bad.’

‘Go on.’

‘There was a fair old wind that night – I remember that very well – and we had a rough time of it on our way back, I can tell you, especially coming up from the river, battered and buffeted and I don’t know what. But though the wind was hard in my face, there were times when I could still catch what Master and Miss were saying.’

‘And that’s when Mr Carteret spoke of Pluckrose?’

‘Not by name, though I knew it was him the master was speaking of. He’d driven a carriage up that evening with Mr Phoebus Daunt and another gentleman – it was that same cursed evening that he first spied Agnes. There’d been some trouble in the servants’ hall – Pluckrose had been given his supper there while t’other two gents were upstairs with the quality, and he’d threatened his Lordship’s butler, Mr Cranshaw. I heard all about the rumpus from John Hooper, who saw it all. Well, we got home and I handed her out – Miss Emily, I mean – and blow me, she fair stormed into the house, with her father following, and calling to her to stop. And so I brought the landau round to the yard, and stabled the horses, like tonight, and then went along to the kitchen, for ’twas a rare old night, as I say, and Susan Rowthorn would always have a little something waiting for me, in the way of refreshment, as I might say, on such a night. “Well,” says she when I open the door, “here’s a to-do. Master and Miss are going at it hammer and tongs.” Those were her exact words: hammer and tongs. Now, Miss has a temper – we all knows that. But Susan says she’d never heard the like, doors slamming and I don’t know what.’

‘And what was the cause of the upset, do you suppose?’

‘Oh, I don’t suppose, sir. I had everything pat and in apple-pie order from Susan. She’d heard everything and noted everything, just as it happened, as is her way. I don’t know, sir, as you hadn’t ought to have brought her into your employ rather than me.’

He smiled a stupid smile, and, once again, I silently damned him, and his feeble attempt at humour.

‘Get to it, Brine, and quickly,’ I said impatiently. ‘What did the woman tell you?’

Now, to spare you any more of John Brine’s ramblings, I intend to present my own account of what happened on that fateful evening, when Josiah Pluckrose came to Evenwood in the company of Phoebus Daunt, and Mr Carteret and his daughter fell out with each other for the first time in their lives. It draws directly on the recollections of the Carterets’ housekeeper, Mrs Susan Rowthorn, and of John and Lizzie Brine.

Once returned to the Dower House, having been bumped and blown all the way, Miss Carteret ran inside, with her father calling after her, and went straight up to her room, slamming the door behind her. She had barely had time to ring for her maid, Lizzie Brine, when there was a short knock at the door, and her father entered, still in his greatcoat, and still in an extremely agitated state.

‘Now this will not do, Emily. Really it won’t. You must tell me all, or you and I shall never be friends again. And that’s the long and the short of it.’

‘How can I tell you all when there is nothing to tell?’

She was standing before the window, her travelling cloak over her arm, her hair disarranged from the wind, which continued to howl all around the house. Dismayed and still angered by the turn of events, and feeling that she had been humiliated by her father, she was in no mood for conciliation.

‘Nothing to tell! You can say that? Very well. Here it is. You will have nothing further to do with that man, do you hear? We must of course observe the decencies of social intercourse with our neighbours, but there must be nothing more. I hope I make myself clear.’

‘No, you do not, sir.’ Her anger was now uncontained. ‘May I ask of whom you speak?’

‘Why, Mr Phoebus Daunt, of course, as I said before.’

‘But that is absurd! I have known Mr Phoebus Daunt since I was six years old, and his father is one of your most valued and devoted friends. I know that you do not esteem Phoebus as others do, but I own myself amazed that you should take against him so.’

‘But I saw you, at dinner. He leaned towards you, in a distinctly …’ He paused. ‘In a distinctly intimate manner. Ah! You say nothing. But why should you? That’s your way, I see, to let me think one thing while you are doing another.’

‘He leaned towards me? Is that your accusation?’

‘So you deny, do you, that you have been secretly encouraging his … his attentions?’

He had placed his hands in his pockets, and was rocking back and forth on his heels, as though to say, ‘There! Deny it if you can!’

But deny it she did, and with a kind of cold fury in her voice, though turning her head away as she spoke.

‘I do not know why you treat me so,’ she went on, angrily throwing her cloak on the bed. ‘I have, I hope, been ever attentive to your wishes. I am of age, and you know that I could leave here tomorrow, and marry anyone I pleased.’

‘But not him, not him!’ said Mr Carteret, almost in a moan, passing his hand through his hair as he did so.

‘Why not him, if I so chose?’

‘I beg you again to judge him by the company he keeps.’

She stood for a moment, waiting to see whether her father intended at last to elaborate further on his statement. Just then came another knock at the door. It was Lizzie Brine, who found her mistress and Mr Carteret facing each other in silence.

‘Is anything the matter, Miss?’

She looked at her mistress, then at Mr Carteret. Of course she had heard the door slamming, and the sound of angry voices. Indeed, she had been lingering in the passage for some time before making her presence known. And she was not alone, for the housekeeper, Susan Rowthorn, assiduous as ever in her duties, had already found a pressing reason to climb the stairs as quickly as her short legs would carry her, in order to inspect the room adjacent to Miss Carteret’s, which contained a connecting door, against the key-hole of which Mrs Rowthorn had felt obliged – no doubt for good housekeeping reasons – to place her eye.

‘No, nothing is the matter, Lizzie,’ said Miss Carteret. ‘I shall not need you tonight after all. You may go home. But be here sharp in the morning.’

And so Lizzie bobbed and departed, slowly closing the door behind her. But she did not go home immediately. Instead she tip-toed into the adjacent chamber to join Mrs Rowthorn, who, crouching down by the connecting door, turned and placed a finger on her lips as she entered.