Michael Cox - The Meaning of Night

After his first wife’s death, his Lordship had given himself completely to the care and instruction of his son. I have no doubt that he mourned his first wife; but he did so, if I may so put it, in his own way. People called him unfeeling, particularly when, within a year or so of Lady Tansor’s death, he began to set his sights on Miss Trevalyn; but that verdict, I think, arose from the habit of impermeable reticence that characterized his whole demeanour, and from a failure on the part of those who criticized him to comprehend the responsibilities of his position.

Towards his son, he displayed a fine and natural capacity for spontaneous affection. He adored the child. There is no other word for it. The boy bore a striking resemblance to his mother, with his large dark eyes and flowing black hair, and, as he grew up, he began to reveal also something of her Ladyship’s character. He was heedless, argumentative, forever pulling at his father’s sleeve and asking to be allowed to do this or that, and then running off in a howling rage when he was denied; and yet I never saw his father angered by these tantrums, for within a moment the boy would be back, afire with some other scheme that was allowed by his father, and off he would go, skipping and whooping like a happy savage. He had such an air of abounding, irreprehensible vigour about him – an abundant and entirely natural charm that made him the favourite of everyone who met him.

And more than all these natural amiabilities, he was his father’s heir. It is impossible to overstate the importance, in the eyes of my cousin, of the boy’s status in this regard. No father wished more for his son; no father did more for his son. Imagine, then, the effect on my cousin when, one black day, Death came softly knocking and took away, not only his child, but also his sole heir.

It was a catastrophe of the greatest possible magnitude, a gargantuan affront, an indignity that my cousin could neither withstand nor comprehend; it was all these things, and more. He was a father, and felt like a father; but he was also Baron Tansor, the 25th of that name. Who now would be the 26th? It prostrated him utterly. He was lost to all comfort, all consolation; and for some weeks we feared – seriously feared – for his sanity.

It is hard for me to write of these things, for as Lord Tansor’s cousin I had, and have, a place in the collateral succession to the Barony. I state here, most solemnly, that this potentiality never overruled the duty I felt I owed to my cousin; his interest was always my first care. What also makes it difficult for me is that the loss of Henry Hereward came upon my cousin just fifteen months after our own dear girl, Jane, had been so cruelly taken from us. Indeed, the two sweet babes often played together, and had been doing so on the afternoon that our little angel fell from the bridge that carries the road from the South Gates across the river to the great house. Our lives were darkened irredeemably from that day.

But it is of my cousin that I write; and I have dwelled on his grief at the death of his only son for this reason: to demonstrate as clearly as I can the terrible nature of the crime I believe was wilfully visited upon him. In the light of what I have said concerning Lord Tansor’s monomaniacal desire to secure an heir for his line (I do not say he was actually mad on this point, but the phrase, I maintain, is metaphorically apt), what would be the greatest harm, barring physical assault or murder, that could be done to such a man as this?

I leave the question unanswered pro tempore , and will now proceed with my deposition. I fear I have rambled somewhat, through trying my best to anticipate the questions and objections of an imagined interlocutor. Having put pen to paper, it has surprised me to find how difficult it has been to confine myself to the salient points; so many things push themselves forward in my mind for attention.

Well, then, to be as brief as I can. The death of his only son and heir might have been borne by my cousin, as far as such a thing can be borne by a sentient human soul, if his second marriage had been productive of other heirs; but it had not been, nor perhaps would ever be. As the years have passed, his Lordship has therefore been obliged to consider his position afresh; and now, in his sixty-third year, he has devised another method to secure his desires in respect of a successor. I shall return to this critical point in due course.

IV

Sunday, 23rd October 1853

In the summer of 1830, our little circle received a most welcome augmentation when the Reverend Achilles Daunt, whom I am now proud to call my friend, was appointed to the living of Evenwood by my cousin. Dr Daunt, accompanied by his second wife and a son from his first marriage, came to us from a Northern parish with a high, and most deserved, reputation as a scholar. Evenwood offers many blessings, but I fear that men of real intellectual accomplishment are not many in number hereabouts, and the addition of Dr Daunt to our society was a great thing indeed for me, providing, as it did, a man of discernment and wide knowledge with whom to share and discuss my own historical and palaeographical interests. I had the honour of assisting my friend, in a modest way, in the preparation of his great catalogue of the Duport Library; and it was at his suggestion that I later took upon myself the task of collecting material towards a history of the Duport family, in which enterprise I am grateful to have been encouraged and supported by my cousin.

My friend’s only son soon became a great favourite with Lord Tansor, who was instrumental in sending the boy to Eton. It became of great concern to me to observe how my cousin began to look upon the Rector’s son almost as his own. I watched this conspicuous liking for the boy grow over time into something other than mere partiality. It became a kind of covetousness that fed on itself, blinding my cousin to all other considerations. The boy was strong, healthy, lively, good at his books, and properly grateful for the attentions that he received from his father’s noble patron; perhaps it was natural for Lord Tansor to see in him a reflection, pale though it was to a less partial observer, of the lost heir. What did not seem natural to me (I hesitate to express criticism of my noble relation, but feel under a solemn obligation to state my opinion) was his Lordship’s patent desire – expressed in countless material benefactions, personally audited by myself in my professional capacity – to possess the Rector’s son as his own (if I may so put it). He could not, of course, buy him outright, like a horse of good stock, or a new carriage; but he could, and did, appropriate him gradually, binding the boy ever more closely to himself by the strongest of chains: self-interest. What young man, just down from the Varsity, could fail to feel flattered to the highest degree, and be mightily emboldened in his self-regard, at being treated with such extraordinary attention by one of the most powerful peers in the realm? Not Mr Phoebus Daunt, certainly.

The notion of adopting Mr Phoebus Daunt as his heir had first occurred to my cousin after the young man came down from Cambridge. As time has passed, it has gradually become fixed in his mind, and, at the time of writing, nothing, it seems, can now persuade his Lordship against pursuing this course of action. It is not for me to question the wisdom or propriety of my cousin’s desire to leave the bulk of his property to this gentleman, on the single condition of his changing his name to that of his noble patron; I will only say that the choice of his heir perhaps does not demonstrate that acuity of judgment that his Lordship has usually displayed in his affairs; further, ever since the disclosure of his decision to the parties concerned, the effect on my friend’s son has been pernicious, serving to magnify a number of deficiencies in his character. This little ceremony took place some three months since, at a private dinner at Evenwood to which only Dr and Mrs Daunt, and their son, were invited; and I may say that, when the news became generally known, it was remarked by many in our local society that, while the young man and his step-mother instantly began to put on airs, and behave in an altogether insufferable manner (I regret the candour of my remarks, but do not withdraw them), the Rector maintained a dignified silence on the matter – in fact, he appeared positively disinclined to speak of it.