fifteen months – all the more singular.
Some of the other categories of document – bills, receipts, &c. – showed similar chronological disruptions. After considering the matter for some little time, and going back to the Dower House to consult my own daily journal on the matter of dates, I concluded that a deliberate attempt had been made to remove, and perhaps destroy, any document, no matter how trivial, that dated from July 1819, just before her Ladyship left for France, until after she returned to her husband, at the end of September the following year.
I went to make discreet enquiries of my cousin as to whether any of his first wife’s papers were still in his possession, but it seemed they were not. I even made another search of her former apartments, and other places where I thought perhaps they might be, but could find nothing. And so, baffled, I placed the letters back in the chest.
V
Sunday, 23rd October 1853 (continued)
I see from my journal that it was on the 25th of March 1853 that I received the following communication:DEAR MR CARTERET, —I regret to inform you that my sister, Miss Julia Eames, passed away on Thursday last, the 21st inst. Her family and many friends thank God that, though her sufferings have been great, her final hours were peaceful.Before the end came, my dear sister had strength enough to request, most insistently, that I write you this note, to be sent after God had taken her, to tell you that there is something here she was most desirous for you to have, something placed into her keeping that she said must now pass to you.I therefore hope that you will favour me with a reply at your earliest convenience, stating a day and a time that will suit you to visit us here, so that I may discharge this last duty to my dear departed sister.I am, sir, yours very sincerely,
C. MCBRYDE (MRS)
My cousin happened to be on the Isle of Wight just at that time, advising the Prince-Consort on some matter connected with Her Majesty’s new residence,* and was not to return for some time; and so I immediately arranged with Mrs McBryde to call upon her on the following week.
I was received kindly by this lady, who bore a close resemblance to her late sister, at a well-appointed house in Hyde-Park-square, in that new residential district of London known as Tyburnia.† After the usual introductions and exchanges, during which I commiserated most sincerely with Mrs McBryde for her loss, I was offered tea, which I declined. She then walked over to a large cabinet in the corner of the room, which she proceeded to unlock.
‘This is what my sister wished you to have.’
I had last seen it nearly thirty years ago, standing on a table in my Lady’s sitting-room at Evenwood. A large ebony writing-box, bearing the initials ‘LRD’ in mother-of-pearl on the lid.
‘There is this also.’ She handed me a letter, addressed to myself.
After a few words more, I took my leave. As I had some further business in town the next day, I had taken a room at the Hummums Hotel;‡ and it was to this establishment that I now repaired.
I did not immediately investigate the contents of the box. Instead, I placed it on a table in my room and proceeded to open the letter.
It was, as I had surmised, from Miss Eames, written in an unsteady hand, and dated three days before her death. I transcribe it here.MY DEAR MR CARTERET, —I do not know how much longer I may have on this earth, only that my time is short. Not wishing to pass into the hands of Almighty God without discharging my last duty to my dear friend, the late Laura Tansor, I am therefore arranging for a certain object, entrusted to me on my friend’s death, to be placed in your hands by my sister after my own departure from this life of sin, according to my friend’s wishes. When you read this, therefore, I too will have passed beyond pain and suffering and, in the hope of being delivered of my offences by God’s grace, will walk again through all eternity with her whom I served faithfully in life.For the last years of my friend’s life, her conscience was sorely troubled by an action taken by her some time before, which could be neither admitted nor undone. I – with another – was a party to that action, and my conscience, too, has been burdened, until sometimes I have thought I could stand no more. For though I tried, on several occasions, I could not dissuade my friend from the course of action she was set on taking. I once asked you never to think ill of me. I beg you now to consider what I have done, by the sin of omission, in the light of friendship and trust, in which I know you place the highest value; for I made a solemn promise, on my mother’s Bible, to keep my Lady’s secret safe, never to betray her while she lived, and to hold fast to that promise until such time as it pleased the Almighty to take me to His own. That I have done, as God is my witness, faithfully and unswervingly, through all these years. If I have done wrong in keeping faith with the dearest of friends, then I pray to be forgiven – by the Lord of mercy and judgment, and by those remaining whom my silence may have injured.And so, dear Mr Carteret, I die in the hope that what now passes into your possession may perhaps be used by you to set right what was made wrong by my friend’s action. I do not condemn or blame her for what she did; for who is without sin? She was mortal, and her passion – born of fierce loyalty to a beloved parent – blinded her. She repented of what she had done, truly repented, and sought to make amends. But she was consumed by the constant thought of her sin – she saw it as such; it made her mad, and drove her at last into the arms of death. I go now to meet her, and my heart is glad.The Lord God bless you and keep you. Pray for me, that my unrighteousness be forgiven, and my sin covered.*
J. EAMES
I laid down the letter and turned to open Lady Tansor’s writing-box.
Underneath the hinged slope were a great many papers, the majority of which appeared to be a sequence of letters from Mrs Simona Glyver, sent from the village of Sandchurch in Dorset to Evenwood, and dating from the beginning of July 1819, with one or two others written by this lady from Dinan in France to an address in Paris during the summer of the following year, and yet more sent to her Ladyship from Dorset throughout the late summer and early autumn of 1820, directed first to Paris, and then, from October onwards, to Evenwood. Though not all were dated, I quickly saw that the letters in the box partially filled the fifteen-month gap that I had noticed from my earlier examination of the communications from this lady that were already in my possession. I sat down and began to read through the letters methodically.
I do not have time to record here the contents of each letter in detail. Some were inconsequential and ephemeral, merely containing the usual harmless chatter and gossip characteristic of such exchanges between ladies. But others had an altogether different tone and purpose, especially the earlier communications, written throughout July 1819, which seemed indicative of some great impending crisis. A few extracts from letters written to her Ladyship by Mrs Glyver during that month (in which, I deduce, Miss Eames is referred to as ‘Miss E’) will serve to illustrate the point.
