The Meaning of Night

Scholar, in the year 1832, at the behest of my father’s patron, Lord T—. My first few days were, I confess, miserable enough, for I was homesick and knew no one at the School. We Collegers also had to endure the venerable hardships of Long Chamber – now swept away – and I have the dubious distinction of being amongst the last witnesses of its ancient brutalities.My closest friend and companion during my time at the School was a boy of my own Election,^† whom I shall call G—.I see him now, striding across School Yard on the day of my arrival, like some messenger of Fate. I had made the journey to Eton alone – my father having important diocesan business, and my step-mother being indisposed – and was standing beneath the Founder’s statue, admiring the noble proportions of the Chapel, when I noticed a tall figure detach itself from a knot of boys at the entrance to Long Chamber. He approached with purpose in his dark eyes, clasped my hands warmly, and introduced himself as my new neighbour. Within a moment, the formalities were concluded, and I found myself caught up in a dazzling stream of talk.His long pale face, and the refinement of his features, gave him a rather delicate, almost girlish look; but the effect was countered by the broadness of his shoulders, and by massive square hands that seemed somehow to have made their way to the ends of his arms from some other and coarser body. He appeared, from the first, to possess the experience and wisdom of a more senior boy, and it was he who tutored me in the customs of College life, and elucidated its mysterious patois.And so my thraldom began. I never thought to reflect on why G— had taken such complete charge of me, with whom he had enjoyed no previous acquaintance. But I was a docile young fellow then and, all unthinking of my dignity, was content enough to trot behind in G—’s shadow. Because he seemed indubitably marked out for greatness in some sphere or other, it was by no means disadvantageous for me to be known as his friend, and I was spared from the worst of the torments reserved for new tugs as a consequence of the association.He possessed a formidable precocity of intellect and understanding, which elevated him far above the common herd. He was our Varro,^* having a vast store – almost a superfluity – of obscure knowledge, though it lay tangled and unsorted in his mind, and would spill out constantly in rambling effusions. This made him a kind of magus in our eyes, and bestowed upon him an aura of brilliance and genius. I had been coached by my father, and knew by his example how to recognize the lineaments of the true scholar. G— was no such thing. He hoarded knowledge greedily, but indiscriminately; yet there was something marvellous about it all. His memory was so prodigious, and the exercising of it so expressive and captivating, that he overwhelmed the pedant in me.My education under my father had been thorough but conventional and, like others, I was dazzled by G—’s displays of learning, and struggled hard to keep up with him in the schoolroom. He would even compose Latin Alcaics and Greek Iambics aloud on our Sunday walks, whilst I would labour long over my verses and drive myself nearly mad.We had our differences, naturally. But, particularly when we reached the Fifth Form, there were golden times, of which I still like to think. Summer afternoons on the river, when we would swing down to Skindle’s, past the murmuring woods of Cliveden, then back for a plunge in the cool waters of Boveney Weir; and then I like to recall slow autumn saunters back and forth along the Slough Road, kicking through carpets of elm leaves, whilst G— discoursed torrentially – on what Avicenna had to say about the sophic mercury, or the manner of St Livinus’ martyrdom – before returning to Long Chamber for tea and Genoa cake round the fire.Of his home and family G— never spoke, except to discourage further enquiry. Consequently, no invitations to visit him during the holidays were ever issued; and when I once blushingly suggested that he might care to pass part of the summer with me, I was coldly rebuffed. I remember the incident well, for it coincided with the beginning of a change in our relations. Over the course of a few weeks, he became ever more solitary and aloof, and at times seemed clearly disdainful of my company.I saw him for the last time one perfect autumn evening. We were returning from Windsor, after attending Evensong in St George’s Chapel – whither we and a group of like-minded companions would often resort to feed G—’s passion for the old Church music. G— was in high spirits, and it began to seem as if our progress towards estrangement had been halted. Just as we crossed Barnes Pool Bridge we were met by his fag. G— had been urgently summoned to see the Head Master.As I watched his departing figure, I heard the distant chimes from Lupton’s Tower. Carried on the still evening air, the sound spoke to me with such dolesome import as I stood there – beneath shadowy gables in the empty street – that I felt suddenly bewildered and helpless. It soon became clear that he had left Eton. He never returned.I do not wish to dwell on the reason for the sudden nature of his premature departure from the School. It is as painful for me, his closest friend, to recall the circumstances, as it must be for him.After his departure, G— soon passed into legend. In time, new tugs were regaled with stories of his prowess at the Wall^* or on the river, and of how he confounded his masters with his learning. But I thought only of the flesh-and-blood G—: of the little tricks of speech and gesture; and of the warm-hearted patronage so freely bestowed on his undeserving companion. Life had become a poor dull thing indeed without his enlivening presence.

A touching account, is it not? And I am naturally sensible of the encomia that he has seen fit to bestow on me. We were friends for a time; I acknowledge it. But he comes the litterateur too much – seeing significance where none existed, making much of nothing, dramatizing the mundane: the usual faults of the professional scribbler. This is memory scrubbed and dressed up for public consumption. Worse, he exaggerates our intimacy, and his claims on the matter of our respective intellectual characters are also false, for I was the careful scholar, he the gifted dabbler. I had many other friends in College besides him, and amongst the Oppidans too – Le Grice in particular; and so I was very far from depending solely on Master Phoebus Daunt for company. A dull dog, indeed, I would have been, had that been the case! Finally, he omits to say – though perhaps this is understandable in the light of what happened – that the friendship that we enjoyed when we were first neighbours in Long Chamber had, by the end of our time at Eton, through his perfidy, crumbled to dust.

Yet this was the estimation of my character and abilities that Phoebus Daunt claims to have formed after our first meeting in School Yard, and which he saw fit to lay before the British reading public in the pages of the Saturday Review. But what was my estimation of him; and what was the true nature of our relation? Let me now place the truth before you.

My old schoolmaster, Tom Grexby, had accompanied me from Sandchurch to Windsor. He saw me down to the School, and then put himself up at the Christopher^* for the night. I was glad to know that the dear fellow was close by, though he left early for Dorset the next day, and I did not see him again until the end of the Half.

I did not feel in the least nonplussed by my new surroundings, unlike several of the other new inmates of College, whom I encountered standing or nervously scuffing around their allotted places in Long Chamber, some looking pale and withdrawn, others with affected swaggers that only served to show up their discomfort. I was strong in both body and mind, and knew that I would not be intimidated or hounded by any boy – or master, come to that.

The bed next to mine was empty, but a valise and canvas bag stood on the floor. Naturally, I bent down to look at the handwritten label pasted on the side of the former.

The name of Evenwood, though not of my as yet unseen neighbour, was instantly familiar to me. ‘Miss Lamb has come from Evenwood to see your mamma’; ‘Miss Lamb wishes to kiss you, Eddie, before she leaves for Evenwood’; ‘Miss Lamb says you must come to Evenwood one day to see the deer’. The echoes came ringing back across the years, faint but clear, of the lady in grey silk who had visited my mother when I was young, and who had looked down so sadly and sweetly at me, and had stroked my cheek with her long fingers. I found that I had not thought about her all this time, until the name of this place – Evenwood – had brought her misty image to my mind. Miss Lamb. I smiled fondly at the memory of her name.

Despite my sequestered upbringing at Sandchurch, without many friends to speak of, beyond a few desultory playmates amongst the local boys, I had, and have, a natural gregariousness, though I rarely exercise it. I soon made the acquaintance of my new neighbours in Long Chamber, and accounted for their names and places; together, we then clattered down to take the air in School Yard before dinner.