I was on the bottom step when I heard her voice.
‘Stop that man!’
Hampered by my silver-buckled pumps, I feared that I would quickly be taken; but when I reached the far side of Park-lane and looked back, I saw to my relief that I had given my pursuers the slip. Shivering with cold and anxiety, I ran like a mad thing through the snow-covered grass to the place where my bag was concealed; there, under the cold sky, beneath which my enemy at last lay dead, I threw off my livery, and put on my suit and coat. In the distance I could hear shouting and the sound of a police whistle.
Leaving the Park, I was soon in Piccadilly, hailing a cab.
‘Temple-street, Whitefriars,’ I shouted to the cabman.
‘Right you are, sir!’
I had prepared myself for discovery. My travelling bag was packed; my documents in order. I hurriedly gathered together a few remaining items: my worn copy of Donne’s sermons; my journal and shorthand epitomes of various documents; the watercolour of my mother’s house; the discarded photograph of Evenwood taken on that hot June afternoon in 1850; and, finally, the rosewood box in which my salvation had lain for so long without my knowing, and the copy of Felltham’s Resolves that I had removed from Lady Tansor’s tomb. This done, I collected together all the remaining papers from my work-table, with the indexed notes that I had made over the years, piled them up in the grate, and threw a match on the heap. At the door, I looked back as the blaze took hold, a crackling furnace, consuming hope and happiness.
With my muffler drawn over my face, I entered Morley’s Hotel, Charing-cross, and called for a brandy-and-water and a room with a fire.
That night, with the snow beginning to fall once more, swathing the city in silence, I dreamed that I was standing on the cliff-top at Sandchurch. There is our little white house, and there the chestnut-tree by the gate. No school today, so I run, exulting, towards the semicircles of white-painted stones that edge the narrow flower-beds on either side of the gate. Billick has not yet mended the rope ladder, but it still serves; so up I clamber, into the branches, into my crow’s-nest. I have my spy-glass with me, and lie down to scan the shining horizon. In my mind, every sail is transformed: to the east, a vanguard of triremes sent by Caesar himself; to the west, low in the water, a Spanish treasure-ship freighted down with Indies gold; and, coming up from the south, slow and menacing, a horde of Barbary pirates intent on ravaging our quiet Dorset coast. Then there is a clatter of plates from the kitchen. Through the parlour window I can see Mamma writing at her work-table. She looks up and smiles as I wave.
Then I awoke and began to weep: not for what I had lost, or for the times that would never come again; not even for my poor broken heart; least of all for the death of my enemy; but for Lucas Trendle, the innocent red-haired stranger, who would never again send Bibles and boots to the Africans.
By my hand,
Edward Charles Glyver,
MDCCCLV
Finis
*[‘It is finished’. Ed.]
*[See note, p. 15. Ed.]
*[In Bishopsgate Street. Ed.]
†[The Earl of Aberdeen (George Hamilton Gordon, 1784–1860). He became Prime Minister after the resignation of the Earl of Derby in 1852. He was widely blamed for the mismanagement of the Crimean War and resigned in February 1855. He would have gone to the dinner alone: his second wife had died in 1833. Ed.]
*[Apparently fictitious. Ed.]
*[The battle took place on 5 November 1854 – the day that Florence Nightingale arrived at the hospital at Scutari. Ed.]
*[Rouge was a preparation of oxide of iron used to clean silver plate. Ed.]
*[Marie Taglioni (1804–84), the celebrated Swedish-Italian dancer, for whom her father, Filippo Taglioni, created the ballet La Sylphide (1832), the first ballet in which a ballerina danced en pointe for the duration of the work. Ed.]
*[A rich and expensive dish consisting of ribs of beef larded and braised, together with fresh (or forced) mushrooms, truffles, meat-balls and Madeira. Ed.]
*[Large ornamental dispensers of sweets, etc. Ed.]
†[From Handel’s oratorio Judas Maccabaeus, with a libretto by the Revd Thomas Morell. Composed to celebrate the English victory over the Young Pretender at Culloden and the return to London of the victorious Duke of Cumberland. First performed in 1747. Ed.]
*[The poem from which these lines were taken is ‘From the Persian’, printed in Daunt’s Rosa Mundi; and Other Poems (1854). Ed.]
Post scriptum*
Marden House
Westgate, Canterbury
Kent
10th December 1854
MY DEAR EDWARD, —
A brief note, to thank you for yours of the 9th. My brother is coming to town this morning, and has undertaken to ask Birtles to deliver this to you.
As you seem disinclined, no doubt for good reason, to come here, then I shall not press you.
I have to inform you, though, that Mr Donald Orr has written to me – somewhat intemperately – concerning what he calls ‘a serious and prolonged dereliction’ of your duties. He has indicated to me that he wishes to terminate your employment at Tredgolds, with immediate effect. I have replied, requesting that, if you so desire, you should be allowed to retain your rooms in Temple-street, for as long as you need them.
If, however, that does not accord with your wishes, then there is a cottage hard by my new residence here, which I think would suit you very well, for as long as you needed it. And so I shall leave it in your hands, to let me know what you wish to do.
You did not respond to my offer to speak to Sir Ephraim, on a strictly confidential and theoretical basis, concerning the presentation of the evidence to Lord T that you now hold. I make it again. Should you wish to avail yourself of it, I think we can be certain that Sir Ephraim’s advocacy would carry great weight with his Lordship.
And so, in anticipation of hearing from you more fully, I wish you God speed, my dear boy, as the season of our Lord’s birth approaches, and hope that all continues to go forward as you would wish, and to assure you that I am ready to advise you at any time, and give whatever help I can of a legal character. I pray for an early and successful resolution of your enterprise, regardless of the consequences for myself, to which I beg you to pay no heed. Do what must be done, and set right the injustice that you have suffered, for the peace of your mother’s dear soul. And may God reward your labours at last. Write when you can.
Yours, most affectionately,
C. TREDGOLD
THE RECTORY
EVENWOOD
NORTHAMPTONSHIRE
22nd December 1854
DEAR MR TREDGOLD, —
I write in gratitude for your letter of sympathy to my wife and me. Of course I remember very well meeting you, with Mr Paul Carteret, on the occasion you mention.
It has been a most terrible time for us, made worse by the violent nature of my son’s death. We were first told that a footman by the name of Geddington, temporarily engaged for the evening, was suspected, though there was no obvious reason for the attack; but then came the extraordinary news that the true culprit was Mr Glapthorn, whom I must now call by the name of Glyver. I am sensible that you, too, will have been as utterly shocked as we were to learn that so talented and remarkable a man as Mr Glyver could have committed such a deed. His motives are utterly mysterious, though I now remember (which I had completely forgotten until now) that he was at school with my son. Whether that distant relationship affords any clue to his actions, I cannot say. I have been informed by the police that they believe there may be a connexion with the recent killing of Mr Lucas Trendle, of the Bank of England, which apparently demonstrated many similarities to my son’s. It is supposed that Mr Glyver is suffering from some mental affliction – indeed that he may be actually insane. Of his whereabouts, as I expect you know, there is no sign, & it is likely, I suppose, that he has left the country.