The Meaning of Night (7 page)

to finish yet another work for Mr Colburn and his increasingly demanding deadlines.

‘This is for you, Eddie,’ she said quietly, holding out the box.

It was deep, hinged, about nine inches square, and made of a rich dark wood, with

a pale band of lighter wood running round an inch or so above the base. The lid had

raised angled sides and was inlaid on one of the faces with a coat of arms. Two little

brass handles were set on each side, and on the front face was a shield-shaped

escutcheon. It stands yet on my mantelpiece in Temple-street.

‘Open it,’ my mother said gently.

Inside, nestled two soft leather purses, each containing a large quantity of gold

coins. I tumbled them out onto the table. They amounted to two hundred sovereigns.?

Naturally, I could not comprehend how so much money could suddenly find its

way to us in this way, when my mother’s poor drawn face told so eloquently of what

necessity required her to do, constantly and with no prospect of cessation, in order to

keep our little family safe from want.

‘Where has all this money come from?’ I asked in astonishment. ‘Mamma, is it

yours?’

‘No, my love,’ my mother replied, ‘it is yours, to do with as you like. A present

from an old, old friend, who loved you very much, but who will never see you again. She

wished for this to be given to you, so that you may know that she will think of you

always.’

Now, the only friend of my mother’s I could think of was sad-eyed Miss Lamb;

and so for some years I cherished the belief, never contradicted by my mother, that she

had been my benefactress. Unsure though I was of the source of my good fortune,

however, the weight of the coins, as they lay in my cupped hands, had a powerful effect,

for I instantly saw that they would allow me to set my mother free from her literary

labours. But she refused to countenance such a thing, and with an affronted resoluteness

that I had never seen in her before. After some discussion, it was agreed that the money,

except for fifty sovereigns, which I insisted she must have, would be placed into the

hands of her uncle, for investment in such a way as he would see fit to produce profit on

the sum, until I attained my majority.

‘There is more, Eddie,’ she said.

I was to go to school – to a real school, away from Sandchurch. This special

friend of my mother’s, who had loved me very much, had wished for me to be educated

as a foundation boy at Eton College on reaching the age of twelve, and had made

arrangements to this effect. That time had now arrived. When the summer was over, and

the leaves had fallen from the chestnut-tree by the front gate, in which was my beloved

crow’s-nest of dreams overlooking the grey waters beyond the cliff edge, and if I

succeeded in the examination, I would become a Scholar of the King’s College of Our

Lady of Eton Beside Windsor, founded by that most devout and unworldly of English

monarchs, Henry VI. At first, I did not well know how I should contemplate this

momentous change, either for good or ill; but Tom Grexby soon put me right. It was the

very best thing that could have happened, he said, and he knew – no one better – that it

would be the making of me.

‘Hold fast, Ed,’ he said, ‘to what we have done together, and go forward to

greater things. Your life, your true life, is not here – ’ he pointed to his breast and the

heart beating within it – ‘ but here – ’, pointing now to his head. ‘There is your kingdom,’

he said, ‘and it is yours to extend and enrich as you please, to the ends of the earth.’

The scholarship examination, taken that July, held no terrors for me, and a letter

came soon afterwards with the gratifying intelligence that I had been placed first on the

list. Tom and I spent the remainder of the summer reading hard together, and taking long

walks along the cliffs in deep conversation about the subjects we both loved. And then

the day came; Billick brought the trap round to the front gate, my cases were stowed, and

I climbed up beside him. Tom had walked up from the village to see me off and give me

a gift to take with me: it was Glanvill’s Saducismus Triumphatus, the edition printed by

Newcomb for Lownds in 1682.? I stared in disbelieving delight to hold in my hands a

volume I had longed to read ever since Tom had set me to consider Hamlet’s celebrated

contention to Horatio, on witnessing the appearance of his father’s ghost, that heaven and

earth contain more things than we can dream of.?

‘A little addition to your philosophical library,’ he said, smiling. ‘But don’t tell

your mamma – she might think I am corrupting your young mind. And be prepared, now,

to be tested on it when you come home.’ I thanked him most heartily, at which he took

my hand and shook it hard – the first time anyone had done such a thing. It impressed me

strongly that I was no longer a child, but had become a man amongst men.

When all was ready, we waited in the bright and windy sunshine for my mother to

come out from the house. When she did, I noticed that she was carrying something,

which I soon saw was the box that had contained the two hundred sovereigns from her

friend.

‘Take this, Eddie, to remind you of the dear lady who has made this possible. I

know you will not let her down, and that you will work hard at your lessons and become

a very great scholar. You will write, won’t you, as soon as you can? And always

remember that you are your mamma’s best boy.’

And then she took my hand, but she did not shake it, as Tom had done, but placed

it to her lips and kissed it.

To Bella, I now told the story of my time as an Eton Colleger; but as the events

relating to my time at the school, in particular the manner of my leaving it, are needful

for the reader of these confessions to know in some detail, I propose to describe them at a

more suitable place in my narrative, together with the story of my life in the immediately

succeeding years.

Bella listened attentively, occasionally getting up to walk over to the window as I

spoke. When I had finished, she sat in thought for a moment.

‘You have said little concerning your present employment,’ she said suddenly.

‘Perhaps the answer lies there. I confess that I have never been quite clear in my mind

what your duties are at Tredgolds.’

‘As I have said before, I work in a private capacity for the Senior Partner.’

‘You will forgive me, Eddie, if I say that your answer seems a little evasive.’

‘Dearest, you must understand that there are professional confidences involved,

which do not permit me to say more. But I assure you that the firm is highly respected,

and that my duties there – purely of an advisory nature – can have no bearing on the

present matter.’

‘But how can you be sure?’

Her persistence gave me the opportunity I had been looking for. I got up and

began to walk around, as if gripped by some deep thought.

‘Perhaps you are right,’ I said at last. ‘Perhaps I have overlooked the possibility of

some antagonism arising from my work.’

I continued to pace the floor, until at last she came over to where I was standing.

‘Eddie, what is the matter? You look so strangely.’

She gripped my hand imploringly.

It was cruel of me to let her suffer in this way; but as I could not tell her the truth,

I had no choice but to let her think that the cause of the note lay in some matter connected

with my employment. And so I resorted to the lie direct.

‘There is a man,’ I said at last, ‘a client of the firm’s, who blames me for the

failure of a case he has recently brought, on which the firm advised.’

‘And do you think this man could have written the note?’

‘It is possible.’

‘But for what purpose? And the note itself – why was it sent to me? And why

does it say that you are not what you seem?’

I told her the man I suspected of writing the note was rich and powerful, but of

notorious reputation; that he might have no other wish than to sow discord between us, to

pay me back for my perceived part in the failure of his suit. She considered this for a

moment, and then shook her head.

‘It was sent to me! How did he know about me, or where I lived?’

‘Perhaps he has set someone to follow me,’ I ventured. At this, her whole body

stiffened, and she gave a little gasp.

‘Am I in danger, then?’

This, I said, was very unlikely, though I begged her not to go out again without

the protection of Mr Braithwaite.

We continued to talk, as midnight came and went. I promised Bella that I would

find out the truth and, if my suspicions proved correct, bring charges against the man,

assuring her over and over that the implications of the note were false. But she remained

visibly agitated, and it was plain that I had succeeded only in making the situation worse

by my clumsy fabrication. We lay together on the bed, fully clothed, for an hour or so,

saying nothing. Then, just before first light, she asked me to take her back to St John’s

Wood.

We slipped out of the side-door of the Clarendon into a bitter yellow fog, walking

through the almost deserted streets in silence, each of us wrapped in our own thoughts.

Arriving at Blithe Lodge, I asked if I might call on Sunday.

‘If you wish,’ she said flatly, taking out a key from her reticule and opening the

door.

She did not turn to kiss me.

5:

Mors certa?

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I returned to Temple-street, but could not settle. Sleep was impossible; and I had

no taste for reading, or for anything else for that matter. I could not even bring myself to

take down my much-thumbed copy of Donne’s sermons – which, like a cold bath, would

usually invigorate my faculties and set me back on the path of action. I simply sat, sunk

in gloomy reflection, before the empty fireplace.

I deeply regretted lying to Bella; but deceit had become a habit with me: I had

already betrayed her, and continued to do so. I lived for another, hungered for another,

dreamed only of possessing another, though she was now lost to me forever. How, then,

could I tell her the truth? I could only lie to her. It was the lesser evil.

By the faint gleam of the staircase lamp below my window I could see the fog

clinging and oozing against the glass. A dreary mood slid into me irresistibly, like a

knife. Harder, deeper, it bit. I knew where it would end. I tried, as always, to hold it at

bay, but to no avail. The blood began to thump in my temples until I could stand it no

more; and so, submitting to my demons, as I knew I would, I threw on my great-coat

again and descended the stairs. Great Leviathan’s unsleeping, inviting maw beckoned.

I found her where I knew I would, where they could always be found while a

fragment of night remained – returning home from the West-end.

I caught up with her on the corner of Mount-street. A few words passed, and the

bargain was secured.

The house was kept by a Jewess, who even at this late hour opened the door to her

knock and regarded us suspiciously as we ascended three cramped flights of stairs to a

long low chamber on the third floor.

The place was sparsely but decently furnished, and moderately clean. At the far

end of the room, beneath a boarded-up window, a ginger kitten slept in a box festooned

with bright red ribbons and with his name, ‘Tyger’, written in crude letters on the side; on

a table close by lay a pile of half-finished needlework, the arm of a thick velvet dress

hanging down towards the floor like a dead thing. At the other end of the room, alongside

a half-curtained window that gave onto the street, stood a single French bed-stead draped

with a patched and faded cover, too short for concealing the unemptied chamber-pot

beneath.

‘Do you have a name?’ she asked.

‘Geddington,’ I replied, smiling. ‘Ernest Geddington. General footman. And what

do they call you?’

‘You may call me Lady Jane,’ came her answer, in a tone of strained jocularity.

‘And now, Mr Ernest Geddington, general footman, I suppose you must be ready to judge

the quality of the goods on offer.’

She is a slight, auburn-haired girl of about twenty years of age and speaks with a

quiet Cockney intonation roughened by her life in smoke-filled places. Her attempt at

levity is hollow. Her eyes are tired, the smile forced. I notice her red knuckles, her thin

white legs, and that she coughs quietly every few seconds. Swaying uneasily on her tired

and swollen feet, she begins undressing until she stands before me, shivering slightly, in

just her chemise and drawers.

She leads me backwards towards the bedstead, and sits down.

‘Your carriage awaits you, Mr Geddington,’ she says, the exhaustion now plain in

a barely withheld yawn.

‘Oh no, my lady,’ says I, turning her round as I speak. ‘I know my place. I’ll take

the back stairs, if you please.’

And so to Bluegate-fields, dangerous and deadly. A black gash of damp stone

leads up from a narrow court and into another kind of fog, dry and burning, which hurts

the eyes as it curls and drifts about the room. A Lascar is huddled on the dirty,

rain-stained floor, another attenuated figure mumbles in a far corner, and an empty divan