*[‘Under guardianship or scholastic discipline’; i.e. undergraduates. Ed.]
†[Alexander Wale of St John’s College, then Senior Proctor. The incident took place in April 1829. Ed.]
*[i.e. sent down from the university for a specified time. Ed.]
PART THE FOURTH
The Breaking of the Seal
October–November 1853
Nothing wraps a man in such a mist of errors, as his
own curiosity in searching things beyond him.
Owen Felltham, Resolves (1623), xxvii,
‘Of Curiosity in Knowledge’
29
Suspicio*
That night, I took my supper at Quinn’s – oysters, a lobster, some dried sprats on the side, followed by a bottle of the peerless Clos Vougeot from the Hotel de Paris. It was still early, and the Haymarket had not yet put on its midnight face. Through the window I contemplated the usual metropolitan bustle, the familiar panorama of unremarkable people doing unremarkable things, which you may see out of any window in London at eight o’clock on a Friday evening. But in a few hours’ time, after the crowds had poured out of the Theatre, taken their supper at Dubourg’s or the Café de l’Europe, and made their laughing way home to warmth and comfort, this broad and glittering thoroughfare of shops, restaurants, and cigar-divans would take on a very different aspect, transformed then into a heaving, swollen river of the damned. What is your pleasure, sir? You may find it here, or hereabouts, with little trouble, at any hour of the night after St Martin’s Church has tolled the final stroke of twelve. Liquor in which to drown; tobacco and song; boys or girls, or both – the choice is yours. Ah! How often have I thrown myself into that continually replenished stream!
Evenwood! Had I dreamed thee? Here, lying at my ease once more on the scaly back of Great Leviathan, feeling the monster’s deep, slow breath beneath me, its rumbling pulsing heart beating in time with my own, the things that I had so recently seen and heard and touched now seemed as real in imagination, and as unreal in fact, as the palace of Schahriar.* And had I truly breathed the same air as Miss Emily Carteret, when I had stood so close to her that I could see the rise and fall of her breast, so close that I only had to stretch out my fingers to caress that pale flesh?
I loved her. That was the plain and simple truth. It had come upon me suddenly on swift wings, pitiless as death: inescapable, and undeniable. I felt no joy at my new condition, for how can the conquered slave be joyful? I loved her, without hope that she would ever return my love. I loved her, and it was bitter to me that I must break my dearest Bella’s heart. For there is no mistress like Love. And what cares she for those who suffer when their dearest one betrays them for love of another? Love only smiles a conqueror’s smile, to see her kingdom advanced.
A second bottle of the Clos Vougeot was perhaps a mistake, and at a little after ten o’clock I walked out into the street, somewhat unsteadily, with a light head and a heavy heart. It had begun to rain and, assailed by melancholy thoughts, and feeling a great need for company, I headed off to Leadenhall-street, in the hope of finding Le Grice taking his usual Friday supper at the Ship and Turtle. He had been there, as I had expected, but I had missed him by a matter of minutes, and no one could tell me where he had gone. Cursing, I found myself back in the street again. Normally, in such a mood of restless melancholy, I would have taken myself northwards, to Blithe Lodge; but I was too much of a coward to face Bella just yet. I would need a little time, to regain some composure, and to learn dissimulation.
Down to Trafalgar-square through the dirt and murk I wandered, and then eastwards along the Strand – aimlessly, as I thought; but before long I had passed St Stephen, Walbrook, and had begun to walk at a more purposeful pace.
Welcome, welcome! I had been gone too long, the opium-master said.
And so, bowing low, he led me through the kitchen, dark and vaporous, to a truckle-bed set against a greasy, dripping wall in the far room, where, curling myself up, I laid my head on a filthy bolster whilst the master, with many soothing words, plied me speedily with my means of transportation.
In Bluegate-fields I had a dream. And in my dream I lay on a cold mountain, with only the stars above me; but I could not move, for I was held down fast with heavy chains, about my legs and feet, around my chest and arms, and in a great loop around my neck. And I cried out for ease – from the bitter cold and from the pressing, suffocative weight of the chains – but no help came, and no voice returned my call, until at last I seemed to faint away.
A sleep within a sleep. A dream within a dream. I awake – from what? And my heart leaps, for now I stand in sunshine, warm and vivifying, in a secluded courtyard, where water plays and birds sing. ‘Is she here?’ I ask. ‘She is,’ comes the reply. And so I turn and see her, standing by the fountain, and smiling so sweetly that I think my heart will burst. In black mourning no more, but in a comely robe of dazzling white samite, with her dark hair flowing free, she holds out her hand to me: ‘Will you come?’
She leads me through an arched door into a deserted candlelit ballroom; faint echoes of a strange music reach us from some unimaginable distance. She turns to me. ‘Have you met Mr Verdant?’ And then a sudden wind extinguishes all the lights, and I hear water lapping at my feet.
‘I do apologize,’ I hear her saying from somewhere in the darkness. ‘But I have forgotten your name.’ She laughs. ‘A liar needs a good memory.’ And then she is gone, and I am left alone on a drear and lonely shore. I look out to see a heaving black ocean, with a pale-yellow light suffusing the horizon. In the distance, something is bobbing on the waves. I strain my eyes; and then, with a fearful pang, I see what it is.
A blackbird, stiff and dead, its wings outstretched, drifting into eternity.
The carriage-clock that stood on the mantel-piece struck half past five. It was now Sunday morning, and I had spent a second profitless night seeking oblivion in the company of my demons, returning home feeling sick and tired, and falling asleep in my chair in my coat and boots.
When I awoke, the room was cold, and had a strangely desolate air about it, though it was full of familiar things: my mother’s work-table, covered in papers as usual; next to it, the cabinet with its little drawers, overflowing with the notes I had made on the documents and journals she left behind; the curtained-off area at one end containing cameras and other photographic necessaries; the faded Turkey rug; the rows of books, each one a well-remembered old friend; the tripod-table on which I kept my travelling copy of Donne’s sermons; the portrait of my mother, which used to hang over the fireplace in the best parlour at Sandchurch; and, on the mantel-piece, next to the clock, the rosewood box that had once held ‘Miss Lamb’s’ two hundred sovereigns.
I sat staring into the empty hearth, exhausted in body, and troubled in spirit. What was happening to me? I had no happiness, no contentment, only restiveness and agitation. I was adrift on an ocean of mystery, like the blackbird in my dream – powerless, frozen. What dark creatures inhabited the unseen deeps beneath me? What landfall awaited me? Or was this my fate, to be forever pushed and pulled, now this way, now that, by the winds and currents of circumstance, without respite? The goal that I had once had constantly before me – simple and supreme – of proving my claim to be the lawfully begotten son of Lord Tansor, seemed to have become dismembered and dispersed, like a great imperial galleon full of treasure dashed to pieces on a rocky shore.