‘Hail, Great King!’ he bellowed, pulling me towards him and slapping me on the back with the flat of his huge hand. He stamped the snow from his boots and then, removing his hat and taking a step back, surveyed my new kingdom.
‘Snug,’ he nodded approvingly, ‘very snug. But who’s that awful little tick on the ground floor? Poked his horrid nose round the door and asked whether I was looking for Mr Glapthorn. Told him, politely, to mind his own business. And who’s Glapthorn, when he’s at home?’
‘The tick goes by the name of Fordyce Jukes,’ I said. ‘Mr Glapthorn is yours truly.’
Naturally, this information produced a look of surprise in my visitor.
‘Glapthorn?’
‘Yes. Does it bother you that I’ve adopted a new name?’
‘Not in the least, old boy,’ he replied. ‘Got your reasons, I expect. Creditors pressing, perhaps? Irate husband, pistol in hand, searching high and low for E. Glyver?’
I could not help giving a little laugh.
‘Either, or both, will do,’ I said.
‘Well, I won’t press you. If a friend wants to change his name, and that same friend wishes to keep his reasons to himself, then let him change it, I say. Luckily, I can continue to call you “G” in either case. But if assistance is required, ask away. Always ready and eager to oblige.’
I assured him that I needed no assistance, financial or otherwise, requesting only that any correspondence sent to Temple-street, or to my employer’s, should be directed to Mr E. Glapthorn.
‘I say,’ he said suddenly, ‘you’re not working for the Government, in some secret capacity, I suppose?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘nothing like that.’
He seemed disappointed, but was true to his word and did not press me further. Then he reached into his pocket and drew out a folded copy of the Saturday Review.
‘By the way, I came across this at the Club. It’s a few months old now. Did you see it? Page twenty-two.’
I had not seen it, for it was not a periodical that I often read. I looked at the date on the cover: 10th October 1848. On the page in question was an article entitled ‘Memories of Eton. By P. Rainsford Daunt’, from which I have previously quoted.
‘Seems to be a good deal about you in it,’ said Le Grice.
So many years had gone by since Daunt had betrayed me; but my desire to make him pay for it was as strong as ever. I had already begun to assemble information on him, which I kept in a tin box under my bed: reviews and critical appreciations of his work, articles that he had written for the literary press, notes on his father from public sources, and my own descriptive impressions of his first home, Millhead, which I had visited the previous November. The archives were small as yet, but would grow as I searched for some aspect of his history and character that I could use against him.
‘I shall read it later,’ I said, throwing the magazine onto my work-table. ‘I’m hungry and wish to eat – copiously. Where shall we go?’
‘The Ship and Turtle! Where else?’ exclaimed Le Grice, throwing open the door. ‘My treat, old boy. London awaits. Take up your coat and hat, Mr Glapthorn, for I shall be your guide.’
In November 1854, settled before a roaring fire in Le Grice’s rooms in Albany, with a glass of brandy in my hand, I found it hard to believe that only six years had passed since I had left Sandchurch for London. It seemed as if a whole lifetime had gone by – so many memories crowding in, so much rosy hope, and so much bleak despair! Faces in the flames; the smell of a September morning; death and desire: impressions and remembrances floated before my eyes, coalesced, and separated again, a multitude of ghosts in an eternal dance.
‘I’ve never told anyone, you know,’ Le Grice was saying quietly, head thrown back, watching the smoke from his cigar curl upwards towards the ceiling, deep in shadow. ‘Never said a word, about this life you’ve been living. Whenever one of the fellows asks, I always say you’re travelling, or that I haven’t heard from you. That’s right, isn’t it? That’s what you wanted?’
He lifted his head and looked directly at me, but I did not reply.
‘I don’t know where all this is leading, G, but if what you say is true …’
‘It’s all true. Every word.’
‘Then of course I understand. You weren’t Edward Glyver, so you may as well be Edward Glapthorn. I thought you must have the money-lenders on your tail, or some such, though you wouldn’t admit it. But you had to keep things close, I see that, until everything could be made right. But what a story, G! I won’t say I can’t believe it, because I must believe it, if you tell me it’s true. There’s more to come, though, that’s clear, and I’m all ears, old boy. But do you want to go on now, or sleep here and carry on in the morning?’
I glanced at the clock. Ten minutes to two.
‘No sleep tonight,’ I said. ‘And now, let me tell you a little more about Mr Tredgold.’
*[‘Hence these tears’ (Terence, Andria). Ed.]
*[Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755–1826), whose most celebrated work, Physiologie du goût, was published in 1825. Ed.]
†[Giambattista Marino (1569–1625), Italian Baroque poet, whose extravagant and sensuous images had an influence on the English poet Richard Crashaw. Ed.]
*[About £12,500. Ed.]
*[‘A Sermon Preached at White-hall. Feburary 29. 1627’. In XXVI Sermons (1660). Ed.]
*[Described in the Second Voyage of Sindbad the Sailor, in The Thousand and One Nights. Ed.]
INTERMEZZO
1849–1853I Mr Tredgold’s CabinetII Madame MathildeIII EvenwoodIV The Pursuit of TruthV In the Temple Gardens
I
Mr Tredgold’s Cabinet
Mr Christopher Tredgold had been as good as his word, and had duly advised that shining ornament of the legal profession, Sir Ephraim Gadd, QC, that he could do worse than engage my pedagogic services to dispense linguistic knowledge to candidates requiring admission to the Inner Temple who lacked the necessary University qualifications, over which persons Sir Ephraim exercised authority as a Bencher.* These duties were not in the least arduous to me, and I fulfilled them easily alongside my daily employment at Tredgolds, of which I shall speak presently.
The marked partiality that Mr Tredgold had shown towards me at our first meeting had again been apparent on the first day of my employment. On my arrival in Paternoster-row, I was immediately taken up to his private office on the first floor by Fordyce Jukes. The latter was one of the longest-serving of Tredgolds’ clerks, and occupied an exalted position behind a high desk by the front door of the establishment, where, as the house’s gatekeeper, he would welcome clients, and conduct them up to one or other of the partners.
His admiration of the Senior Partner knew no bounds; but soon his professions of regard for me, whom he barely knew, became hardly less immoderate. He was continually obliging, ever affable, looking up eagerly from his work to smile, or nod ‘good-day’, as I passed.
I disliked him from the first, with his bull neck and thick flat nose. He wore his hair short, like a workhouse terrier crop, brushing it up at the front into a crown of little black spikes. The straightness of the line where the hair met the flesh of his neck, and around his ears and temples, made the whole arrangement appear like some strange cap or hat that he had placed over a perfectly normal head of hair. I hated too his moth-eaten little dog, his puce, clean-shaven face, and the leering quality of his look. He was always clicking his fingers, shaking his head, or scratching his crown of spikes, whilst in his small green eyes one detected a flickering, unquiet energy, which would never quite show itself plain, but perpetually hid and ducked, like some pursuing assassin melting into doorways and alleys to baffle his victim. All this rendered him repulsive in my eyes.