The Meaning of Night

‘Beg pardon, sir, I thought you’d have known. She’s going to Paris, sir. To spend Christmas with her friend, Miss Buisson. Won’t be back for a month or more.’

Why? Why had she not told me? For a time, as I walked back to Easton to take the Peterborough coach, I felt sick with doubt and suspicion; but as the coach pulled out of the market-square, I grew more rational. She had merely forgotten, nothing more. If our paths had crossed this morning, as we had both made our separate perambulations of the Park, she would undoubtedly have told me of her imminent departure. I was sure of it.

Back in Temple-street that afternoon, I sat at my table and took out a sheet of paper. With a beating heart, I began to write.

1, Temple-street, Whitefriars, London

2nd December 1853

DEAR MISS CARTERET, —

I write this short note to thank you, most sincerely, for your recent hospitality, & in the hope that you will allow me to anticipate an early resumption of our friendship.

It is likely, perhaps, that you may be visiting your aunt in the near future; if so, I trust you will not consider it forward of me to entertain the further hope – however slight – that you might inform me, so that I may arrange to call on you, at the usual time. If you are expecting to remain in Northamptonshire, then perhaps I may – with your permission – find occasion to visit you in your new accommodation. I wish very much to have your opinion on the work of Monsieur de Lisle.^* The Poemes antiques seem to me admirable in every way. Do you know them?

I remain, your friend,

E. GLAPTHORN

I waited anxiously for her reply. Would she write? What would she say? Two days passed, but no word came. I could do nothing but meditate moodily in my rooms, staring out of the window at the leaden sky, or sitting, with an unopened book on my lap, for hours on end in a state of desperate vacancy.

Then, on the third day, a letter came. Reverently, I laid it – unopened – on my work-table, transfixed by the sight of her handwriting. With my forefinger I slowly traced each letter of the direction,^* and then pressed the envelope to my face, to drink in the faint residue of her perfume. At last I reached for my paper-knife to release the enclosed sheet of paper from its covering.

A wave of relief and joy swept over me as I read her words.

The Dower House, Evenwood, Northamptonshire

5th December 1853

DEAR MR GLAPTHORN, —

Your kind letter reached me just in time. Tomorrow I am to leave for Paris, to visit my friend Miss Buisson. I regret very much that I failed to mention this to you when you were here – my excuse is that the pleasure of your company drove all other thoughts from my head, & I did not realize the omission until after you had gone.

You must think me a very odd friend – for friends, I believe, we have agreed to be – to have kept such a thing from you, though I did not do so wilfully. But I will hope for forgiveness, as every sinner must.

I shall not return to England until January or February, but shall think of you often, and hope you will sometimes think of me. And when I return, I promise to send word to you – that, you may be assured, will be something I shall not forget to do. You have shown me such kindness and consideration – & provided me with unlooked-for mental solace at this dark time – that I should be careless indeed of my own well-being if I were to deny myself the pleasure of seeing you again, as soon as circumstances permit.

I am familiar with some of the work of M. de Lisle, but not the volume you mention – I shall take especial care to seek it out while I am in France, so that I may have something sensible to say about it when next we meet. In the meantime, I remain,

Your affectionate friend,

E. CARTERET

I kissed the paper and fell back in my chair. All was well. All was wonderfully well. Even the prospect of separation from her did not appal me. For was she not my affectionate friend, and would she not be often thinking of me, as I would be thinking of her? And when she returned – well, then I trusted to see affectionate friendship blossom quickly into consuming love.

I pass over the succeeding weeks, for they were bleak and featureless. I sat at my work-table for hour after hour, writing notes and memoranda to myself on the various problems that still required resolution: the death of Mr Carteret, and how best to act on what he had revealed in his Deposition; the now urgent necessity to find unimpugnable evidence to prove my true identity in law; the reason why Miss Eames had sent Mr Carteret the words SURSUM CORDA; and last, but by no means least, the means by which I was to expose my enemy’s true character. If only I could have called on Mr Tredgold’s counsel! But his condition had been slow to improve, and, during the two or three visits that I made to Canterbury, I would sit despondently by his bedside, wondering whether the dear gentleman would ever recover from the life-in-death into which he had been so cruelly plunged. His brother, however, continued to hope – in both a professional and a personal capacity – for better things to come, and assured me that he had seen such cases end in complete recovery. And thus I would return to Temple- street faintly hopeful that, when I next saw my employer, he would evince some signs of restoration.

But as day succeeded day, my spirits sank lower and lower. London was cold and dismal – impenetrable, with choking fog for days on end, the streets slimy with mud and grease, the people as yellow and unwholesome-looking as the enveloping miasma. I found that I missed the beautiful face of Miss Emily Carteret most desperately, and began to convince myself that she would forget me, despite her assurances. To compound matters, I was bereft of companionship. Le Grice was away in Scotland, and Bella had been called to the bedside of a sick relative in Italy. I had seen her soon after my return from Evenwood, at a dinner given by Kitty Daley to celebrate her protegee’s birthday. Of course both my head and my heart were full of Miss Carteret, and yet Bella was as captivating as ever. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to fall in love with her; a man would have been mad not to do so. But I was such a man – made mad beyond recourse by Miss Carteret.

At the end of the evening, after the other guests had departed, Bella and I stood looking out into the moonlit garden. As she laid her head on my shoulder, I kissed her perfumed hair.

‘You have been most gallant tonight, Eddie,’ she whispered. ‘Perhaps absence really does make the heart grow