Michael Cox - The Meaning of Night

A little more good-humoured raillery on my part followed, after which Dorrie ran off to fetch in some breakfast, Mrs Grainger set to with mop and bucket, and I repaired to my bedchamber to wash my face and change my linen.

With breakfast over, and my chin shaved, I felt revived and ready for the day. Dorrie was off to meet her beau at Gray’s-Inn, and that piece of information immediately settled the matter of what I would do with myself for the next few hours.

‘If you will allow me, Dorrie,’ I said gallantly, ‘I’ll escort you.’

I offered her my arm, an act that appeared to amaze Mrs Grainger greatly, and off we went.

It was a clear bright morning, though there was a stiff breeze off the river. As we walked, Dorrie spoke a little more of Mr Geoffrey Martlemass, whom I began to conceive as a dependable sort of fellow, if a little serious in his outlook, an impression confirmed when we encountered a small man of notably anxious mien, distinguished by a pair of magnificently bushy mutton-chops, *standing by the entrance to Field-court.

‘Dorothy, my love,’ he cried, in an anguished tone, on seeing us. ‘You are past your time. Whatever has happened?’

Dorrie, releasing her arm from mine and taking his, laughed and chided him gently that it was only a minute or two beyond the hour appointed, and that he must not worry so about her.

‘Worry? But naturally I worry,’ he said, apparently distraught that he could ever be thought too solicitous for the welfare of one so precious. We were introduced, and Mr Martlemass, Dorrie’s senior by some years, removed his hat (revealing an almost perfectly bald pate except for two little tufts of hair above each ear) and made a low bow, before grasping my hand and shaking it so vigorously that Dorrie had to tell him to stop.

‘You, sir,’ he said, with great solemnity, replacing his hat and throwing back his shoulders, ‘have the appearance of a man, and yet I know you to be a saint. You amaze me, sir. I thought the age of miracles had passed; but here you are, a living, breathing saint, walking the streets of London.’

In this wise, Mr Martlemass began to heap praises upon my head for, as he put it, ‘rescuing Dorothy and her estimable parent from certain death or worse’. I did not enquire of him what he conceived could be worse than death; but the warmth of his gratitude for the little I had done to remove Dorrie from the life in which I had first found her was most apparent, and rather affecting. I then learned that he was a member of a small philanthropical society that took an especial interest in the rescue and rehabilitation of fallen females, as well as being a churchwarden at St Bride’s, †where he had first encountered Dorrie. Normally I cannot abide a treacly do-gooder, but there was a simple sincerity about Mr Martlemass that I could not help but admire.

I let the little man rattle on, which he seemed determined to do, but at last proclaimed that I must leave them, and so made to go.

‘Oh, Mr Martlemass,’ I said, turning back as though struck by an afterthought. ‘I believe an old College friend of mine has chambers in Gray’s-Inn. We have lost touch, and I would so like to see him again. I wonder whether you know him by any chance – Mr Lewis Pettingale?’

‘Mr Pettingale? You don’t say so! Why, certainly I know the gentleman. He has the set above my employer, Mr Gillory Piggott, QC. Mr Piggott is in Court today,’ he added, lowering his voice somewhat, ‘which is why I have been allowed to take an hour or so for an early fish ordinary at the Three Tuns *with my intended. Mr Piggott is a most considerate employer.’

He directed me to a black-painted door in a range of red-brick houses on the far side of the court. I thanked him, and said that I would try to call on Mr Pettingale the next day, as I had some urgent business to attend to in another part of town.

We parted, and I walked off towards Gray’s-Inn-lane, dirty and dismal even on such a bright day. Stopping at a book-stall, I began idly turning over the mouldering tomes there displayed (ever hopeful, like all bibliophiles, of unearthing some great rarity). After five or ten minutes, I returned to Field-court.

The court was deserted, the love-birds had flown; and so through the black door I went, and up the stairs.

*[‘Suspicion’. Ed. ]

*[The Sultan to whom Scheherazade tells her stories in The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. Ed.]

*[Side-whiskers, narrow at the ears, broad and rounded at the lower jaw. Ed. ]

†[In Fleet Street. Designed by Wren and completed in 1703. Ed. ]

*[The Three Tuns Tavern was in Billingsgate. Its celebrated fish ‘ordinaries’ – i.e. fixed-price meals – were served at one and four o’clock; the charge was 1s. 6d., including butcher’s meat and cheese. Ed. ]

30

Noscitur e sociis *

In my work as private agent for Mr Tredgold, I had learned to follow my nose. It has rarely let me down. There was a distinct smell about Mr Lewis Pettingale, though I knew nothing about him, only that he appeared to be a close associate of Daunt’s. But this was enough for me to give up an hour or two of my time, with the object of making his acquaintance, and to see what might come of it. I had my opening planned. It might be instructive, I thought, to discuss the subject of forged cheques.

On the first floor, a painted name-plate greeted me: ‘Mr L. J. Pettingale’. I put my ear to the door. Someone within coughs. An inner door closes. I knock softly – it would not do simply to walk in – but no one answers. So I enter.

It is a large, well-appointed chamber, with oak panel-work, a stone fireplace, and a plaster ceiling of the Stuart period. To my left as I enter are two tall windows that give out onto the court below. A fire blazes pleasantly in the dog-grate †on the hearth, on either side of which two comfortable chairs are set. Above the fireplace hangs a painting of a bay horse, a terrier at its feet, standing in a park landscape. In the corner of the room, to my right, is another door, closed, through which I can hear the sound of someone attempting, in a thin tenor voice, a version of the aria Il mio tesoro , *to the accompaniment of water splashing.

I decide to leave the singer to his ablutions, settle myself in one of the chairs, feet on the fender, and light up a cigar. I have almost finished smoking it when the door in the corner opens and a tall, thin man emerges, wearing an ornately fashioned brocade dressing-robe, Persian slippers, and a tasselled skull-cap made of red velvet, from beneath which a few meagre strands of straw-coloured hair descend almost to his shoulders. He is about my own age, but looks prematurely aged. His skin is sallow and papery, and from where I am sitting I am not sure that he possesses eyebrows.

‘Good morning,’ I say, smiling broadly, and throwing my cigar butt into the fire.

He stands for a moment, disbelief on his skull-like face. ‘Who the devil are you?’

His voice, like everything else about him, is thin, with a reedy, querulous tremor about it.

‘Grafton, Edward Grafton. Pleased to meet you. Cigar? No? Oh well, bad habit, I’m sure.’

He is taken aback for a moment by my coolness, and then asks haughtily whether he knows me.

‘Well, now, there’s a question,’ I reply. ‘Are you of a philosophical turn? For we might spend a good few hours considering the nature of knowledge. It is a large subject. We might begin with Aquinas, who said that, for any knower, knowledge is after the fashion of his own nature; or, as St Augustine put it …’

But Mr Pettingale seems disinclined to enter into a discussion on this interesting question. He angrily stamps a slippered foot, threatens to call for assistance if I do not leave at once, and grows quite red – almost replicating the colour of his skull-cap – with the exertion of it all. I tell him to calm himself; that I have merely come to seek a professional opinion; and that I knocked at the door but could not make myself heard. Somewhat calmer, he asks whether I am in the profession myself – an instructing solicitor, perhaps? Alas, no, I tell him; my interest is personal, though it is a matter of law on which I wish to consult him. I invite him, with a broad smile, to sit down, which he does, a little reluctantly, looking pleasingly foolish in his dandyish get-up. As he takes his seat, I vacate my own chair and stand with my back to one of the tall windows, through which soft sunshine is now pouring.