It was a simple enough arrangement.I Laura Rose Duport of Evenwood in the County of Northamptonshire do hereby solemnly and irrevocably absolve Simona Frances Glyver of Sandchurch in the County of Dorset from all accountability charge blame censure prosecution or crimination in law in relation to any private arrangement concerning my personal affairs that the said Simona Frances Glyver and I Laura Rose Duport may agree to or undertake and do further instruct that the said Simona Frances Glyver be exculpated and remitted from any prosecution or crimination in law in toto and in all respects from any consequences whatsoever and whenever that may arise from the said arrangement and that further and finally the provisions contained herein shall be incorporated at the proper time and place into those of my last will and testament.
The document had been signed by both parties and dated: ‘30th July 1819’.
‘This was drawn up by—?’
‘Mr Anson Tredgold, my late father. An old gentlemen then, I fear,’ replied his son, shaking his head.
I did not ask whether such an agreement would ever have held in law if challenged; for I saw that it did not matter. It had been a gesture merely, a willing acquiescence on Lady Tansor’s part to her friend’s natural desire to possess an illusion of protection, if all failed, from the clearly dangerous confederacy upon which they had been engaged.
‘I believe,’ Mr Tredgold went on, ‘that Mr Edward Glyver can be assured that nothing in this arrangement can now devolve upon him in any way at all. It remains – well, I should say it remains an unexecuted curiosity. As I said before, something extraordinary.’
He beamed.
‘Do you – did your father – have knowledge of the nature of the private arrangement referred to in this document?’
‘I’m glad you have asked me that, Mr Glapthorn,’ he replied, after a discernible pause. ‘I, of course, was not party to the drawing up of the document, having only recently joined the firm. My father was Lord Tansor’s legal adviser, and so it was natural that her Ladyship should have come to him to put her arrangements in hand. But after receiving your letter, I did undertake a little delving. My father was a methodical and prudent man, as we lawyers of course must be; but on this occasion he was, I fear, a little lax in his dealings with Lady Tansor. For I do not find he left any note or other sort of memorandum on the matter. He was, as I say, an elderly gentleman …’
‘And do you know whether Lord Tansor himself was aware that his wife had consulted your father on this matter?’
Mr Tredgold cleaned his eye-glass.
‘As to that, I think I can say with certainty that he did not. I can also say that the agreement you have in your hand was not finally incorporated into her Ladyship’s will, for she came to me some time later, with Lord Tansor’s full knowledge this time, specifically to prescribe new testamentary provisions following the birth of her son, Henry Hereward Duport.’
I had one final matter to raise with the Senior Partner.
‘Mrs Glyver …’
‘Yes?’
‘I believe certain arrangements were put in place, of a practical nature?’
‘That is so: a monthly remittance, which this office disposed through Dimsdale & Co.’
‘And that arrangement ceased … ?’
‘On the death of Lady Tansor, in the year 1824.’
‘I see. Well, then, Mr Tredgold, I need detain you no further. The business appears to have been concluded to the satisfaction of all concerned, and I think I can report to Mr Edward Glyver that he need have no further disquiet regarding this matter.’
I rose to go, but Mr Tredgold suddenly sprang up from his chair, with a speed that surprised me.
‘By no means, Mr Glapthorn,’ he said, taking my arm. ‘I shall not hear of it! You shall stay to luncheon – it is all ready.’
And with this wholly unanticipated expression of civility towards me, I was escorted to an adjoining room, where a substantial cold collation had been laid out. We chatted easily for an hour or more over what was a really excellent repast – prepared and brought in for Mr Tredgold by a protégé of no less a person than M. Brillat-Savarin* himself. We soon discovered that the Senior Partner had spent some time in Heidelberg as a student, which precipitated some mutually happy memories of the town and its environs.
‘The receipt that you showed me earlier, Mr Glapthorn,’ he said at length. ‘Do you perhaps share Mr Glyver’s bibliographical interests?’
I replied that I had made some study of the subject.
‘Perhaps, then, you would give me your opinion on something?’
Whereupon he went to a glass-fronted case in the far corner of the room and took out a volume to show me – Battista Marino’s Epithalami (Paris, 1616 – the first collected edition, and the only edition printed outside Italy).†
‘Very fine,’ I said admiringly.
Mr Tredgold’s remarks on the character, provenance, and rarity of the volume were accurate and judicious, and although his knowledge of the field in general was inferior to my own, he nevertheless impressed me with the extent of his expertise. He affected to defer immediately to what he kindly claimed was my obviously superior judgment on such matters, and ventured to suggest that we might arrange another visit, at which he could show me more of his collection at leisure.
So it was that I charmed Mr Christopher Tredgold.
I left by one of the side entrances, escorted down to the street door by the serving man who had let me in a few hours before. Just as we reached the bottom, Mr Tredgold shouted down: ‘Come again, next Sunday.’
And I did; and the next Sunday, and the following. By my fifth visit to Paternoster-row, in early October, I had formed a plan that I hoped would take advantage of my increasingly friendly connexion with the Senior Partner.
‘I fear, Mr Tredgold,’ I said, as I was about to depart for Camberwell, ‘that this may have to be the last of our pleasant Sundays.’ He looked up, and for once the beam had vanished.
‘What? Why do you say so?’
‘My employment with Mr Glyver was, as you know, only temporary. It will be over as soon as he returns from the Continent in the next few days and I can discharge the final portions of my duty to him in person.’
‘But what will you do then?’ asked Mr Tredgold, with every appearance of genuine concern.
I shook my head and said that I had no immediate prospect of further employment.
‘Why, then,’ he beamed, ‘I can give you one.’
It had fallen out even better than I had dared hope. I had envisaged the possibility of finding a way to join the firm in some junior or even menial capacity; but instead, here was Mr Tredgold offering to employ me as his assistant. In addition, he offered to introduce me to Sir Ephraim Gadd, QC, the recipient of many of Tredgolds’ most lucrative briefs, who was at that moment seeking someone to act as tutor in the Classical languages to those applying for admission to the Inner Temple who had not taken a degree.
‘But I have no degree either,’ said I.
Mr Tredgold smiled – seraphically – once more.
‘That, I can assure you, will be no bar. Sir Ephraim is always ready to take the advice of Tredgold, Tredgold & Orr.’
With my new position came a good salary of a hundred and fifty pounds per annum,* and a set of top-floor rooms in Temple-street, in a building owned by the firm, for which only a modest rent was requested. It was agreed that I would begin my employment – the precise nature of which remained almost deliberately vague – on the first day of November, in just over four weeks’ time, when the rooms I had been given were vacated by their present temporary occupant.