The Meaning of Night

Always your eye is drawn upwards, to a riot of gables and fluted chimneys, and, dominating all, six soaring towers topped with arched, intricately leaded cupolas. Behind the formality of Holland’s frontage, the remains of earlier ages ramble in picturesque confusion: cobbled alleys between high walls, a vaulted cloister opening onto gardens. Tudor brick mingles with smooth ashlar; oriels and battlements oppose Classical columns and pediments. And, in the midst, a sequestered mediaeval courtyard filled with urns and statuary, heavy in summer with the scent of lavender and lilies, and echoing always to the sound of birds and trickling water.

Evenwood. I had wandered its corridors and great rooms in dreams, collected representations of it, greedily hoarded every published account of its history and character, no matter how trite and inconsequential, from William Camden to the pamphlet published in 1825 by Dr Daunt’s predecessor as Rector. For years it had been, not a built thing of stone and timber and glass, which could be touched and gazed upon under the light of sun and moon, but a misty dream-place of unattainable perfection, like the great Pavilion of the Caliphat described so perfectly by Mr Tennyson.^*

Now it was spread out before me. No dream, it stood planted deep in the earth that my own feet were treading, washed by the rain of centuries, warmed and illuminated by countless dawns, raised and shaped by dead generations of mortal men.

I was overwhelmed, almost choked by tears, at the first sight of the place that I had seen only with the interior eye. And then – it was almost like the sensation of physical pain – I became certain that I had seen it before; not in books and paintings, not in fancy, but with my own eyes. I said to myself: I have been here. I have breathed this air, heard these sounds of wind through the trees, and the music of distant waters. In an instant I was a child again, dreaming of a great building, half palace, half fortress, with soaring spires and towers reaching to the sky. But how could these things be? The name of this place held dim childhood associations, but no recollection of ever having been brought here. Whence came, then, this certainty of re-acquaintance?

In a kind of daze, confused by the confluence of the real and the unreal, I walked a little further, and the perspective began to shift. Shadows and angles emerged to soften or delineate; definitions hardened, elevations extended and attenuated. A dog barked, and I saw rooks wheeling and cawing about the towers and chimneys, and white doves fluttering. Between high enclosing walls was a fishpond, dark and still, overlooked by two little pavilions of pale stone. As I drew nearer still, details of ordinary human activity began to emerge: planted things, a broom leaning against a wall, window-curtains moving in the warm breeze, smoke drifting up from a chimney stack, a water pail set down in a gateway.

We know, from the account of his life published in the Saturday Review, that Evenwood burst upon young Phoebus Daunt like Paul’s vision. It seemed – they were his words – ‘almost as if I had not lived before’.

I do not blame the boy Phoebus for feeling thus on encountering the beauty of Evenwood for the first time. No one with eyes to see, or a heart to feel, could be unmoved by the place. I, too, felt as he did when I first caught sight of its cupolas and battlements, rising up through the summer haze; and with greater familiarity came greater attachment, until, even in memory, Evenwood assumed such a power to enthral that it sometimes made me sick with a desire to spend my life within its bounds, and to possess it utterly.

If Phoebus Daunt truly experienced such an epiphany on his first coming upon Evenwood, then I freely absolve him. Remove it from the tally, with my blessing. But if he believed the words that he wrote in his public recollections, that Evenwood was ‘an Eden made for me alone’, he was culpably wrong.

It had been made for me.

My travelling chest, containing my camera, tripod, and other necessary equipment, had been placed on a trolley in a narrow yard leading off the entrance court. The footman who assisted me in the task, one John Hooper, was a pleasant, amenable fellow, and we chatted easily as he helped pull the trolley to the first location. In due course, I would have occasion to apply to him, discreetly, for information concerning certain matters connected with Evenwood, which he was happy to supply.

I had brought with me a dozen dark slides containing negatives prepared according to the process recently introduced by Monsieur Blanquart-Evrard.^* For three hours I worked away, and was satisfied that Lord Tansor would be well pleased with the results.

I had just finished taking several views of the Orangery, and was stepping through a little gate set in an ancient fragment of flint wall, when I was brought up short by the sound of someone laughing. Before me was a broad sweep of close-cut grass on which four figures, two ladies, and two gentlemen, were engaged in a game of croquet.

I would not have been aware of his presence had he not laughed; but as soon as I heard that distinctive note, and the concluding snort, I knew it was him.

He seemed to have grown taller, and was broader in the shoulder than I remembered; and now he had a dark beard, which, with the silk handkerchief that he had tied round his head, gave him a distinctly piratical air. There he was, in the flesh: P. Rainsford Daunt, the celebrated poet, whose latest volume, The Conquest of Peru, had just been published, to great acclaim.

I stood spellbound. To see him here, leaning on his mallet, and to hear his voice paying gallant compliments to his partner, a strikingly tall young lady with dark hair, seemed to twist the knife into the wound that had been festering within in me for so long. I considered for a moment whether I should make myself known to him; but then, looking down at my dusty boots, I noticed that I had a tear in the knee of my trousers where I had kneeled down on the gravel of the entrance court to adjust my tripod. Altogether I made a rather sorry sight, with my dirty hands and high colour, for it had been warm work, pulling the trolley from one location to the next. Daunt, by contrast, stood elegantly at his ease on the new-mown lawn, waistcoat shimmering in the sunlight, unaware of his former friend concealed in the shadow of a large laurel bush.

I confess that I could not help feeling envious of him, which gave the knife yet another little turn. He looked so assured, so settled in comfort. If I had known then the full extent of his good fortune, I might have been tempted into some rash deed. But, in my ignorance, I simply stood observing him, thinking of when we had last spoken together in School Yard, and wondering whether he still remembered what I had whispered to him. I doubted it. He looked like a man who slept well. It seemed almost a pity to disturb his peaceful slumbers; but one day my words would come back to him.

And then he would remember.

I remained out of sight behind the laurel bush for a quarter of an hour or more, until Daunt and his companions picked up their mallets, and returned to a small shaded terrace, where tea had been laid out for them. He strolled back with the tall young lady, whilst the other two followed behind, chatting and laughing.

It was now a little before five o’clock, and so I returned to the entrance court. I was beginning to pack up my things when Mr Tredgold appeared on the steps.