The Meaning of Night (36 page)

her, regarding me calmly. I had expected a homely, round person, like Mr Carteret; a

welcoming domestic angel. She wore spectacles, like her father, but that was as far as the

resemblance went; and, far from detracting from the uncommon beauty of her face, they

seemed only to heighten it – a phenomenon I have often observed.

She possessed the exaggerated prettiness of a doll, but elevated and made noble.

Her heavy-lidded eyes – almond-shaped, and as dark as her hair – were exceptionally

large, and dominated her face, which was as pale as a November moon. Her nose was

perhaps a little long, her upper lip perhaps a little short; and the mole on her left cheek

might have been considered by some to be a blemish. But hers was not a perfection of

individual features: her beauty was somehow greater by far than the sum of its parts, as

music played transcends the written notes.

I desired Miss Emily Carteret from that very first moment, as I had desired no

other woman. Her soul seemed to beckon to mine, and I had no choice but to follow

where she led. Yet, if my true identity could be proved, we were cousins, with Duport

blood in common. The thought was thrilling, and seemed to make my desire for her all

the keener.

My reveries were interrupted by Mrs Rowthorn.

‘Oh, Miss,’ she said, with evident agitation, ‘here’s a gentleman been knocking to

see your poor father.’

‘Thank you, Susan,’ replied Miss Carteret calmly. ‘Please bring some tea into the

drawing-room – and tell Mary that she may go home if she wishes.’

Mrs Rowthorn dropped a slight curtsy and hurried back down the stairs to the

kitchen.

‘Mr Glapthorn, I think. Won’t you come in?’

I followed her into the room from which she had just emerged. The blinds had

been drawn, and lamps had been lit. She stood with her back to the window while

motioning me with a slow wave of her hand to take a seat on a small upholstered chair in

front of her.

‘Miss Carteret,’ I began, looking up at her, ‘I hardly know what to say. This is the

most appalling news. If I can — ’

She interrupted the little speech of condolence I had planned to give. ‘Thank you,

Mr Glapthorn, but I neither desire nor need your support at this difficult time – for that, I

think, is what you were about to offer me. My uncle, Lord Tansor, has put everything

necessary in hand.’

‘Miss Carteret,’ I said, ‘you know my name, and I infer you also know that I had

arranged to see your father here today on a confidential matter.’

I paused, but she said nothing in response and so I continued.

‘I came here with the authority of Mr Christopher Tredgold, of Tredgold,

Tredgold & Orr, whose name I also infer is not unfamiliar to you.’

Still she stood, silently attentive.

‘I undertook to keep Mr Tredgold fully informed of my time here, and that

undertaking I must of course honour. May I ask – are you able to tell me – how this

dreadful thing happened?’

She did not answer for a moment but instead turned away, looking at the blank

surface of the window-blind. Then, with her back still towards me, she began to recount,

in a level, matter-of-fact tone, how her father’s horse – the little black horse I had seen

him mount in the yard of the George – had been found trotting riderless through the Park

at about six o’clock the previous evening, on the track that led down from Molesey

Woods. A search party had been sent out. They soon found him, just inside the line of

trees, close to where the road entered the Park from the Odstock Road. He was alive but

unconscious, fearfully beaten about the face and head, and had been taken on a cart back

to the great house, where his body still lay. Lord Tansor had immediately been informed

and had sent to Peterborough for his own local physician; but before the medical

gentleman arrived, Mr Carteret had died.

‘They believe he had been followed from Stamford,’ she said, now turning away

from the window and fixing her gaze on me.

It appeared that there had been a number of such attacks over the past few

months, carried out by a gang of four or five ruffians, whose ploy was to follow farmers

and others who appeared likely to be returning home from market with money in their

bags. A farmer from Bulwick had been badly assaulted only the week before, though

until now there had been no fatalities. The attacks had caused outrage in the vicinity, and

had been the subject of furious calls for action to be taken in the pages of the Stamford

Mercury.

She stood looking down at me, sitting awkwardly, like some scolded schoolboy,

in my little chair.

She had the most extraordinary unblinking stare I have ever seen. Her dark,

fathomless eyes revealed nothing of herself, seeming instead like perfect mechanical

devices. They immediately put me in mind of the lenses of my cameras: hard,

penetrative, all-seeing; impassively absorbing, capturing and registering every detail and

nuance of any object that came into view, but giving nothing back. The discomfort of that

gaze, its disconcerting combination of impenetrability and knowingness, affected me

intensely, producing a kind of paralysis of will. I felt she knew me instantly for what I

was, and for who I was, in all my disguises. It appeared to me that those eyes had taken in

all the degradations of my life, and recorded all my doings committed beneath the light of

heaven, or the cloak of night – saw, too, what I was capable of, and what, with time and

opportunity, I would do. I suddenly felt unaccountably afraid of her; for I knew then that

I would hav e no choice but to love her, with nothing given back.

At that moment we were interrupted by Mrs Rowthorn bringing in a tray of tea.

For the first time since our interview began, Miss Carteret moved away from the window

and took a seat opposite me. She poured out the beverage, which we drank in silence.

‘Miss Carteret,’ I said at length, ‘this is difficult for me to ask, but it will, as I say,

be necessary for me to give Mr Tredgold as full a report as possible of the recent terrible

events. I shall therefore need to inform myself, as far as I can, of the precise

circumstances of your father’s death. It is possible, indeed probable, that I was the last

person to see him alive, other than his attackers, and that in itself involves me in the

tragedy. But I would also beg you to think of me as your friend – and his also – for

though I only met him for the first time yesterday, I had already grown to like and respect

him.’

She put down her cup.

‘You are a stranger to me, Mr Glapthorn,’ she replied. ‘All I know of you is that

you are Mr Tredgold’s representative, that my father left here yesterday to meet you in

Stamford, and that you were likely to be returning here today to continue your

discussions. My father instructed that a room should be prepared for you, and you are of

course welcome to stay for as long as you require, in order to compose your report to Mr

Tredgold. I am sure, once that is done, that you will wish to return to London as soon as

possible. Mrs Rowthorn will show you to your room.’ At which she rose and rang for the

housekeeper.

‘Goodbye, Mr Glapthorn. You must ask Mrs Rowthorn if there is anything you

require.’

‘Miss Carteret, I cannot express my sorrow –– ’

‘It is not for you to be sorry at what has happened,’ she interrupted. ‘You are

kind, but I do not need your sympathy. It does not help me. Nothing can help me.’

Mrs Rowthorn soon appeared at the door (I knew enough of housekeepers to

suppose that the speed of her arrival signified that she had been eavesdropping on our

conversation). I made a slight bow to Miss Carteret, and followed the housekeeper back

out into the vestibule.

Minutes later, I was being shown into a small but welcoming room on the third

storey of the house. Raising the blind of one of the two dormer windows, I saw that the

room looked out across the front lawn and its screen of trees towards the South Gates. I

then lay on the bed, closed my eyes, and tried to think.

But my head was full of Miss Carteret, and whenever I attempted to direct my

thoughts towards the business of her father’s letter to Mr Tredgold, I could see only her

great coal-black eyes under their hooded lids. I tried to think of Bella instead, but found I

could not. At last, I took out paper, pen, and ink, lit a cigar, and began to compose a

report to my employer on the circumstances of Mr Carteret’s death, as they had been told

to me.

Dusk had fallen by the time I had completed my task and taken some supper,

which Mrs Rowthorn brought up on a tray. I had just opened the window, feeling the

need to take a draught of the cold evening air, when the silence was broken by the sound

of a piano-forte.

The delicate melody and its ravishing harmonies, the affecting shifts from the

major to the minor mode, and from pianissimo to forte, took hold of my heart and wrung

it dry. Such pathos, such aching beauty, I had never experienced in my life. I did not

immediately recognize the piece – though I know now that it was by the late Monsieur

Chopin – but I guessed the player. How could it be anyone else but her? She was playing

for her father, articulating through her instrument, and the composer’s perfect

arrangement of tones and rhythm, the grief she could not, or would not, reveal to a

stranger.

I listened, spellbound, imagining her long fingers moving over the keys, her eyes

washed with tears, her head bowed in the desolation of her agony. But as suddenly as it

had begun, the playing stopped, and there came the sound of the lid of the instrument

being banged shut. I returned to the window and looked down into the garden to see her

walking quickly across the lawn. Just before reaching the Plantation she stopped, looked

back towards the house, and then moved a little closer towards the trees. Then I saw him,

a darker form, emerge from the shadows and enfold her in his arms.

They remained in a silent embrace for some minutes before she suddenly drew

back and began to speak to him in evident animation, shaking her head violently and

twisting around from time to time to look back at the house. Gone was the reserve and

cold restraint I had witnessed earlier: instead I saw a woman gripped by irresistible

emotion. She made to leave, but the man caught her by the arm and pulled her back

towards him. They continued to converse, their heads close together, for some minutes;

then she broke away once more and appeared to remonstrate with him, pointing from

time to time into the shadows behind him. At last she turned and ran back to the house,

leaving the man standing with empty outstretched arms for a moment or two. I watched

her disappear under the portico and heard the sound of the front door closing. When I

looked back towards the Plantation, the man had gone.

So she had a lover. It could not of course be Daunt, for he was in the West

Country, on Lord Tansor’s business; I also remembered Mr Tredgold telling me that

Daunt’s former amorous designs on Miss Carteret had been firmly discouraged by the

young lady, in deference to her papa’s thorough dislike and disapproval of his

neighbour’s son, and that they now maintained a civil but unencumbered friendship. But

she was beautiful, and unattached, and must have many admirers amongst the county’s

bachelors. Doubtless I had witnessed an assignation with some local buck. But the more I

considered the dumb-show that had been played out before me, the more puzzling it

seemed. One might expect a man who comes a-courting to step up to the front door and

announce himself boldly, not skulk in the shadows; nor did it seem to me that this had

been a lovers’ tiff, but something of far greater moment than the usual causes of such

quarrels. There was, it appeared, far more to beautiful Miss Carteret than met the eye.

There was a knock at the door, and the housekeeper came in to remove my tray.

‘Mrs Rowthorn,’ I asked, as she was about to leave, ‘these attacks that have taken

place recently: how many have there been?’

‘Well, sir, let me see. Mr Burton, who has a farm of Lord Cotterstock’s over at

Bulwick – he was the last, poor man. And then there was Squire Emsley’s man, and I

believe there was another gentleman from Fotheringhay, but I can’t recall. The poor

master would be the third or fourth, I think.’

‘And were they all carrying money?’

‘I believe so – except for the master.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, sir, that the others had all been about their business in Stamford, it being

market day when they were attacked. Mr Burton had near a hundred pounds taken. But

the master keeps his money at the bank in Peterborough, though I don’t know how much

he had about him in the normal way of things.’

‘Why, then, did he go to Stamford yesterday?’

‘To meet you, sir, and to go to the bank.’

‘The bank? To withdraw money, perhaps?’

‘Oh no, sir,’ she replied. ‘I believe it was to bring back some papers they’d been

holding safe for him. Before he left here, he came to ask me where he could find

something big enough to put them in, and I found him an old leather bag of Mr Earl’s –

who used to be his Lordship’s gamekeeper – that has been hanging on the back of the