The Meaning of Night (34 page)

Lord Tansor, though gratified to hear this, was nonetheless inclined to think that

the lad had been prodigiously lucky. Imagine his surprise, therefore, when, at a further

interview some months later, he learned that the profit from the first venture had been

invested in a second, with similar satisfactory results. He began to think that the boy

might have a nose for these things – he had known such people; and, in the course of

time, after further demonstrations of Daunt’s financial instincts, he decided to place some

of his own money into the young man’s hands. No doubt he awaited the outcome with

not a little anxiety.

But he was not disappointed. His investment was returned to him within three

months, together with a substantial profit. There was, as Mr Tredgold had suggested, no

better way for Daunt to have recommended himself to Lord Tansor. Reading the many

laudatory reviews of his work, was one thing; but this new talent was of a different order

altogether. It impressed Lord Tansor, the consummate man of affairs, as no number of

blank-verse epics could have done. Gradually, and with due diligence, his Lordship

began to delegate little matters of business to Daunt, until by the time of which I now

write his protégé had his fingers in a number of exceedingly large Duport pies.

I made the observation that Mr Daunt must now be a man of some means.

‘It would appear so,’ Mr Tredgold replied. ‘However, he has received nothing

from Lord Tansor, as far as I know, other than the two hundred pounds I have mentioned;

nor, I think, has Dr Daunt contributed to his upkeep. Whatever he has made of that

principal sum, by way of speculation and investment, must have supported him in the life

he presently leads.’

I thought to myself that he must be a genius indeed, to make such a sum go so far.

‘Unluckily,’ said Mr Tredgold, brushing a speck from his lapel, ‘I appear to have

arranged your meeting with Mr Carteret on a day when Mr Daunt is away from

Evenwood – he is in the West Country, inspecting a property recently acquired by Lord

Tansor. But there will be other opportunities, I am sure, for you to make his

acquaintance. And so, Edward, I think I have said all I wished to say, and now I wish you

bon voyage. I shall await your report, whether written or in person, with the greatest

interest.’

We shook hands, and I turned to go; but as I did so, I felt Mr Tredgold’s hand on

my shoulder.

‘Take care, Edward,’ he said quietly.

I had expected to see his usual beaming smile. But it was not there.

That evening I went to Blithe Lodge. Bella was in captivating mood, and I was

utterly charmed by her, as we sat by the fire in Kitty Daley’s private sitting-room, talking

of this and that, and laughing at tid-bits of Academy gossip.

‘You are such a dear,’ I said, feeling a sudden uprush of affection for her as she

sat in the firelight, gazing dreamily into the flames.

‘Am I?’ she asked, smiling. Then she leaned forward, cupping my face between

her long fingers so that I felt the gentle impress of her rings on my skin, and kissing me

tenderly.

‘An absolute, utter, and complete dear.’

‘You are quite sentimental tonight,’ she said, stroking my hair. ‘It is very

pleasant. I hope you don’t have a guilty conscience.’

‘Why should I have a guilty conscience?’

‘You ask me that!’ she laughed. ‘Every man who comes here has one, whether

they admit it or not. Why shouldn’t you?’

‘That is rather hard, when all I wished to do was to pay you a compliment.’

‘Men are such martyrs,’ she said, giving my nose a mischievous little tweak. Then

she sat down at my feet, placed her head on my lap, and gazed into the fire once again.

Outside, the rain began to lash against the front windows of the house.

‘Isn’t it delicious,’ she said, looking up, ‘to hear the rain and the wind, while we

are so warm and safe?’ Then, resting her head on my lap once again, she whispered:

‘Will I always be dear to you, Mr Edward Glapthorn?’

I bent down and kissed her perfumed hair.

‘Always.’

The following afternoon I took an express train northwards to Stamford, arriving

at the George Hotel just before dark.

I awoke the next morning to find that the day had broken grey, wet, and cold.

Being market day, the town was full of local farmers and labourers; and by noon, the

hotel was overflowing with a noisy bustling herd of muddy-booted, red-cheeked

gentlemen, all eager to partake of the establishment’s amenities.

In the tap-room, thick clouds of pungent pipe smoke mingled with the appetizing

aromas of roast meats and strong ale. The press of burly country bodies, and waiters

rushing hither and thither, made it impossible at first to make out if anyone there

appeared to be waiting for me. After a few moments, however, a space in the mêlée

cleared temporarily and I saw a man, seated on a settle in front of the window that looked

out onto the long cobbled yard round which the hotel was built. He was occupied in

reading a newspaper, from the perusal of which he occasionally looked about him with a

slightly anxious air. I knew immediately that it was Mr Paul Carteret.

In appearance, he was a series of rounds. A round face, from which sprouted a

closely clipped black-and-silver beard, like a well-kept lawn; large round eyes behind

round spectacles; round ears, a perfectly round button nose above a cherubic round

mouth, all set upon a small round body – not corpulent, simply round. You instantly saw

a natural disposition towards goodness, his roundness seeming appropriately indicative of

a corresponding completeness of character – that enviable, unaffected integration of

feeling and temperament in which there is excess neither of preening self-regard nor

impatience with the failings of others.

‘Have I the honour of addressing Mr Paul Carteret?’

He looked up from his paper and smiled.

‘Mr Edward Glapthorn, I think. Yes. Mr Glapthorn it is, I am sure. I am very

pleased to meet you, sir.’

He rose from his seat, though his lack of height still caused him to look up at me

as he did so, and held out his hand, with which he gripped mine with remarkable

firmness.

He called over a waiter and we commenced on some pleasant preliminaries

before, at last, he looked hard at me and said:

‘Well, Mr Glapthorn, we had better start.’

After we had taken our drinks, we left the din and smoke of the tap-room and

walked over the Town Bridge and up towards the soaring spire of St Mary’s Church,

which looked back from atop its little hill towards the River Welland. Mr Carteret set a

brisk pace, turning round every now and again as if he expected to see someone

following close behind.

‘Are you a superstitious man, Mr Glapthorn?’

‘I do not believe so,’ I answered, curious as to the question, and somewhat

breathless at trying to keep up with the little man as we ascended the hill. ‘I am what I

think is termed a fatalist.’

‘Ah,’ he said, smiling, ‘Desine fata deum flecti sperere precando.’?

‘I must confess’, I replied, recognizing the quotation, ‘that prayer is not a regular

habit of mine.’

I had hardly finished saying the words when my companion suddenly stopped and

turned to me.

‘Would you be surprised, Mr Glapthorn, if I told you that I have seen you

before?’

I felt a sudden jump of my heart as he spoke the words. But they had been spoken

smilingly, and without threat; and so I replied as pleasantly as I could.

‘I do not think that can be the case. I have never been in Stamford before, and I

am sure I have not had the pleasure of meeting you in London.’

‘I did not mean in the flesh, Mr Glapthorn,’ he said, with another smile. ‘I have

seen you in my dreams.’

The course of our conversation was now beginning to unsettle me; but still he

continued to smile as he spoke, and still I felt the absence of menace.

‘In fact, I have seen you often – or, rather, someone very like you. You have a

distinctiveness, Mr Glapthorn – a very remarkable distinctiveness – about your

physiognomy that, once seen, is, I am sure, impossible to eradicate from one’s memory. I

am a connoisseur of distinctiveness: I like to know what makes a thing what it is – its

unique arrangement of particularities. For instance, why one nose, an appendage we all

share, is never exactly the same as another, even though it may appear identical to casual

observation. Why the smallest difference in the shape of position of a facial feature –

eyelids, for example – can engender unforgettable individuality. Yes, I have seen you

before, Mr Glapthorn.’

He chuckled.

‘Forgive me,’ he continued, ‘I am being mischievous. All I mean to say is, that

you bear a striking resemblance to someone I see every day of my life, though, again, not

in the flesh.’

‘Indeed,’ I replied, ‘and may I ask who this person is?’

‘Was,’ he said. ‘Deceased, some years now, though her portrait hangs over my

desk and I look up at her daily. A most distinctive face – in its particularities. Most

distinctive. I often catch myself looking at her, several times a day; and of course it is

natural, as a result, that I see her in my dreams, too. And you, in turn, remind me of the

face I often dream of.’

‘You say I resemble this lady?’

‘I saw it immediately.’

‘Well, then, these particularities, as you term them, must be shared by millions of

soul across the earth.’

‘Or stamped, like a coin, on our children.’

He chuckled again.

‘Don’t look so alarmed, Mr Glapthorn. You look as if you have seen a ghost.

What a serious fellow you are! All I mean to say is, that you have the look of this lady

about you – as perhaps a good many other persons in this world do, as you rightly

observe. And as I see her often, in a manner of speaking, and hold her in affectionate

memory, I believe your resemblance to her is a sign that we shall be good friends

hereafter.’

And then he smiled, clapped me on the shoulder, and hurried me up the hill, for it

had started to rain hard once more.

‘Here,’ he said.

We had reached the top of St Mary’s Hill. Quickly ascending a short but steep

flight of steps, we ran through the cramped little graveyard into the porch, to take shelter

from the rapidly intensifying downpour.

He seated himself on one of the rough stone benches hewn out of the inside walls

on either side and signalled to me to take my place opposite. The floor of the porch was

still muddied over following a recent interment – the newly filled grave was just within

my view beyond the porch opening – and our shelter was lit by two Gothic windows; but

they were unglazed and the rain, blown in by strong gusts of wind, soon began to pound

against the back of my coat. Mr Carteret, however, seemed not to notice the discomfort

and sat smiling at me, his round hands gripping his parted knees, and looking as settled

and comfortable as if he had been sitting before a blazing fire.

‘May I ask, Mr Glapthorn,’ he asked, leaning forward a little across the wet and

muddy flagstones, ‘how my letter was received in Paternoster-row?’

‘Mr Tredgold was, of course, concerned by its implications.’

He did not reply immediately, and I noticed for the first time a look of weariness

in his large round eyes, which regarded me intently from behind his thick round

spectacles. ‘You come here, Mr Glapthorn, as I understand, with the full authority and

confidence of Mr Christopher Tredgold, whom I have had the pleasure of knowing these

many years past. I am perfectly happy, as a consequence, to put my complete trust in Mr

Tredgold in his choice of a surrogate.’

I said I appreciated his sentiments, and assured him that I had been charged with

no other task than to listen, note, and report back to my principal. Mr Carteret nodded in

approval, and thereupon I assumed the neutral manner of an unengaged intermediary,

opened my pocket-book, and proceeded to take down in shorthand what he now began to

tell me. A précis of his account, mostly in his own words, with some few interjections of

my own, follows.

‘I have been employed’, he said, ‘by my cousin, Lord Tansor, as his confidential

private secretary for over thirty years. My dear and much lamented mother was alive

then, but my father had recently died. A good man, but I fear an irresponsible one, like

his father before him. He left us with debt and discredit, the consequences of foolish and

reckless investments in concerns about which he knew nothing.

‘After my father’s death, Lord Tansor was kind enough to allow my late wife and

I, together with my mother, to take up residence with his step-mother in the Dower House

at Evenwood, which he refurbished at his own expense. He also offered me employment

as his secretary.

‘For my cousin’s treatment of me, when my brother and I were left almost

destitute, I shall always feel the deepest gratitude. While I live as his employee, I intend

to serve him as well as I can, with no other end in view than to earn my salary to the best

of my ability.

‘Mr Tredgold will, I’m sure, have told you that Lord Tansor has no heir. His only

son, Henry Hereward, died when still quite a boy. The shock to my cousin was beyond