This fellow Desrolles was evidently a creature of John Treverton’s. His denial of the identity between the two men went for nothing in Edward’s mind. There must be plenty of people in the neighbourhood of Cibber Street able to identify the missing Chicot, if they could only be brought face to face with him.
‘I wonder you and Mrs. Treverton have not been photographed since your marriage,’ Edward said, one afternoon in the Christmas week, when John Treverton was well enough to join the kettledrum party in the book-room, and they four, Mr. and Mrs. Treverton, Celia, and Edward, were sitting round a glorious fire.
He had been looking over a volume of photographs by the light of the blazing wood, so the question seemed natural enough.
‘Ah, by-the-by, Jack, I really must have you photographed,’ said Laura, gaily. ‘Lady Barker was very particular in her request for our photographs the other day. She has a very fine collection, she tells me.
‘About a hundred and fifty of her bosom friends, I suppose,’ retorted John Treverton, ‘all simpering in the highest style of art, and trying to look unconscious of the photographer’s iron collar gripping them by the scruff of the neck. No, Laura, I am not going to let the sun make a correct map of my wrinkles in order that I may join the simperers in Lady Barker’s photograph album, that fashionable refuge for the destitute in brains, after a drill dinner.’
‘Do you mean to say that you have never been photographed?’ asked Edward.
‘No, I do not. I had my photograph taken by Nadar, a good many years ago, when I was young and frivolous.’
‘Oh, Jack, how I should like to have a picture of what you were years ago,” exclaimed Laura. What has become of all the photographs?’
‘Heaven knows,’ answered John, carelessly; ‘given to Tom, Dick and Harry — scattered to the four winds. I have not kept one of them.’
‘Nadar,’ repeated Edward, musingly; ‘you are talking of the man in Paris, I suppose?’
‘Yes.’
‘You know Paris well?’
‘Every Englishman who has spent a fortnight there would say as much as that,’ answered John Treverton, carelessly. ‘I know my way from the Louvre to the Palais Royal, and I know two or three famous restaurants, where a man may get an excellent dinner, if he likes to pay for it with its weight in gold.’
Nothing more was said upon the subject of photographs. Edward Clare left Hazlehurst next day for London. He was not going to be long away, he told his father and mother, but he wanted to see a manager who had made overtures to him for a legitimate historical drama, in blank verse.
‘He was struck by a dramatic fragment I wrote for one of the magazines,’ said Edward, ‘and he has taken it into his head that I could write as good a play as the “Hunchback” or the “Lady of Lyons.”’
‘Oh, do go and see him, Ted,’ cried Celia, with enthusiasm. ‘It would be awfully jolly if you were to write a play. We should all have to go up to town to see the first performance.’
‘Should we?’ interrupted the Vicar, without looking up from his John Bull, ‘and pray who would find the money for our railway fare, and our hotel bill?”
‘Why you, of course,’ cried Celia. ‘That would be a mere bagatelle. If Edward were to burst upon the world as a successful dramatic author he would be on the high road to fortune, and we could all afford a little extravagance. But who is your manager, Ted, and who are the actors who are to act in your play?’ inquired Celia, anxious for details.
‘I shall say nothing about that till my play is written and accepted,’ answered Edward. ‘The whole affair is in the clouds at present.’
Celia gave a short impatient sigh. So many of her brother’s literary schemes had begun and ended inn the clouds.
‘I suppose I am to take care of your den while you are away,’ she said, presently, “and dust your books and papers?’
‘I shall be glad if you will preserve them from the profane hand of my mother’s last domestic treasure in the shape of a new housemaid,’ answered Edward.
Before any one could ask him any more questions the ‘bus from the ‘George,’ was at the Vicarage gate, waiting to take him to the station at Beechampton; in company with two obese farmers, and a rosy-cheeked girl going out to service, and carrying a nosegay of whiter flowers, a bandbox, and an umbrella.
How sweet and fresh the air was in the clear December morning, almost the last of the year! How picturesque the winding lane, the wide sweep of cultivated valley, and distant belt of hill and moor.
Edward Clare’s eyes roamed across the familiar scene, and saw nothing of its tranquil beauty. His mind was absorbed in the business that lay before him. His heart was full of rancour. He was tormented by that worst of all foes to a man’s peace — an envious mind. The image of John Treverton’s good fortune haunted him like a wicked conscience. He could not go his own way, and forget that his neighbour was luckier than himself. Had Fate smiled upon his poetic efforts, had some sudden and startling success whisked him up into the seventh heaven of literary fame, at the same time filling his pockets, he might possibly have forgiven John Treverton; but with the sense of failure goading him, his angry feelings were perpetually intensifying.
He was in the London streets just as dusk was falling, after a cold, uncomfortable journey. He tools his travelling bag in his hand, and set out on foot to find a lodging, for his funds were scanty, as he had not ventured to ask his father for money since his return to the Vicarage. It was an understood thing that he was to have the run of his teeth at Hazlehurst, and that his muse was to supply all other wants.
He did not go to the street where he had lodged before — a narrow, dismal street, between Holborn and the British Museum. He went to the more crowded quarter, bounded on one side by Leicester Square, on the other by St. Martin’s Lane, and betook himself straight to Cibber Street. He had made up his mind to get a room in that uninviting spot, if any decent shelter were available there.
Before seeking for this accommodation elsewhere, he went to look at the house to which La Chicot’s murder had given such an awful notoriety. He found it more reputable of aspect than when he had last seen it, a few days after the murder. A new wire blind shaded the lower part of the parlour window; new red curtains drooped gracefully over the upper panes. The window itself looked cleaner and brighter than it had ever looked during the stately Mrs. Rawber’s occupation of the ground floor. A new brass plate on the door bore the inscription, ‘Mr. Gerard, surgeon.’
Edward Clare contemplated this shining brass-plate with the blank gaze of disappointment. He concluded, not unnaturally, that the whole house had passed into the possession of Mr. Gerard, surgeon, and that Mrs. Evitt had gone forth into the wilderness of London, where she would be more difficult to find than poor Hagar and her son in the sandy wastes of the great desert. While he stood ruminating upon this apparent change in the aspect of affairs, his eye wandered to a window looking upon the area beneath the parlour, from which there came a comfortable glow of light. The occupant of the basement had not drawn down the illuminated blind which generally shaded her domesticity from the vulgar eye; and, seated by her kitchen fire, indulging in the inexpensive luxury of slumber, Edward beheld that very Mrs. Evitt whom he had supposed lost in the metropolitan labyrinth. He had no doubt as to those corkscrew curls, that vinegar visage. This was the woman with whom he had talked for half an hour one bleak March morning, when he had inspected the scene of the murder, under the pretence of looking for lodgings.
He went up the steps to the door. There were two bells, one labelled ‘SURGERY,’ the other ‘HOUSE.’ Edward rang the latter, which was answered after an interval by the landlady, looking cross and sleepy.
At the sight of Mr. Clare, with his travelling bag in his hand, she scented a lodger, and brightened.
‘Have you a decent bedroom to let, on your second floor?’ he asked, for although he was no believer in the influences of the spirit world, he would have preferred spending the December night upon the bleakest a
nd windiest of the bridges, to lying down to rest in the room where La Chicot had been slain.
“I’ve got my first floor empty,’ said Mrs. Evitt, ‘beautiful rooms, all new papered and painted.’
‘I’d rather go higher up,’ answered Edward. You had a lodger named Desrolles. What has become of him?’
‘Gone to travel in foreign parts,’ replied the landlady. ‘I believe he had money left him. He was quite the gentleman when he started — every-think new, from his portmanchew to his railway rug.’
‘Can I have his rooms for a few nights? I am only in town as a bird of passage, but I don’t want to go to an hotel.’
‘Their charges are so ‘igh, and there’s no privacy in ‘em,’ said Mrs. Evitt, with a sympathetic air, as if she divined lies inmost feelings. ‘You can have Mr. Desrolles’ rooms, sir, and we shan’t quarrel about the rent.’
‘The rooms are clean, I suppose?’ Edward hazarded.
‘Clean!’ exclaimed Mrs. Evitt, lifting up her eyebrows with the indignation of outraged innocence. ‘Nobody that has ever lodged with me would ask that question. Clean! No house of mine ever ‘arboured dirt.’
‘I should like to see the bedroom,’ said Edward. ‘The sitting-room matters very little. I shall be out all the day.’
‘If you’ll wait while I fetch a candle, I’ll show you both rooms,’ replied the landlady. ‘I suppose you want to come in at once?’
‘Yes. I have just come from the country, and have no more luggage than this bag. I can pay you for the rooms in advance, if you like?’
‘Money comes uncommonly handy now that provisions have rose to such a heighth,’ returned Mrs. Evitt, with an insinuating air. ‘Not that I could ever feel an instant’s doubt respecting a young gent of your appearance.’
‘Money down is the best reference,’ said Edward. ‘I’m a stranger in London. Here’s a sovereign. I suppose that’ll square us if I only keep the rooms a week?’
‘There’ll be a trifle for boot-cleaning,’ insinuated Mrs. Evitt.
‘Oh, very well.’
‘And half-a-crown for kitching fire.’
‘Oh, come now, I won’t stand kitchen fire. You don’t suppose I’m going to dine here. If you bring me up a cup of tea of a morning it is all I shall want, and the fire that boils your kettle will boil mine.’
‘A trifle for attendance, then.’
‘I’ll promise nothing. If you make me comfortable, I shall not forget you at parting.’
‘Very well, sir,’ sighed the landlady. ‘I suppose it will come to the same in the end, but I always think it best for all parties to put things clear.’
She retired into the darkness at the end of the narrow passage, the dark brown wainscot of which was dimly lighted by an old-fashioned oil lamp, and returned in a minute or two with a tallow candle in a capacious tin candlestick. With this light she, preceded Mr. Clare up the staircase, whose shallow uneven steps, and heavy balustrade gave evidence of its age.
On the first-floor landing Mrs. Evitt paused to recover her breath, and Edward felt an icy thrill of horror as he found himself opposite the bedroom door.
‘Is that the room where that poor woman was murdered?’ he asked.
‘Yes, sir,” replied Mrs. Evitt, with a deprecating sigh, “it is the room, and I won’t deceive you. But it has been done up so nice that nobody as ever knew it before would be able to recognise it. My landlord acted very liberal; “anything that paint and paper can do to set you right with your lodgers, Mrs. Evitt, shall be done,” says he. “You’ve been a good tenant,” says he, “always punctual to the minute with your rent,” he says, “and I should take it to heart if you was to suffer.” Come in and look at the room, sir, and you’ll see that there isn’t a more cheerful bedroom in this part of London.’
Mrs. Evitt flung open the door with a flourish of pride, and led the way into the room with uplifted candlestick.
‘That’s a brand new bedstead,’ she said, ‘from Maples, in Tottenham Court Road, where all the crowned ‘eds gets their furniture. And there aint a inch of carpet or a bit of bedding that was in the room when — when — what you mentioned took place.’
Mrs. Evitt had pinned her faith upon vivid colour as a charm to exorcise poor Zaïre’s ghost. A sixpenny chintz of all the colours in the rainbow draped window and bed. A painted drugget of corresponding violence hid the worm-eaten old boards, upon which soap, sand, and soda had been vainly expended in the endeavour to remove the dark traces of that awful stream which had travelled from the bed to the threshold. The dressing-table was draped with white muslin and rose-coloured calico. The chimney-piece was resplendent with a pair of Bohemian glass vases, and a gilded clock, Coloured lithographs in the vilest German art brightened the walls.
‘Don’t it look cheerful?’ asked Mrs. Evitt.
‘Is that the little room where the husband used to work?’ inquired Edward, pointing to the door.
‘Yes, but that doesn’t go with the drawing-room floor. I’ve let it to Mr. Gerard for a room to put his books in. He’s such a man for books. They overrun the place.’
‘Who is Mr. Gerard? Oh, by-the-way, that is the surgeon downstairs. How long has he been lodging with you?’
‘It was about a month after poor Madame Chicot’s death when he come. “I’m going to set up in business for myself, Mrs. Evitt,” he says. “I aint rich enough to buy a practice,” says he, “so I must try and make one for myself, somehow,” he says. “Now yours is a crowded neighbourhood, and I think I might do pretty well here, if you let me your ground-floor cheap. It would be for a permanency,” says he, “so that ought to make a difference.” “I’ll do my best to meet you,” says I, “but my rent is high, and I never was a hour behind with it yet, and I never will be.” Well, sir, I let him have the rooms very low, considering their value, for I was that depressed in my sperrits it wasn’t in me to ‘aggle. That ungrateful viper, Mrs. Rawber — a woman I’d waited on hand and foot, and fried onions for her until I’ve many a time turned faint over the frying-pan — and she’s gone and turned her back upon me in my trouble, and took a first-floor over a bootmaker’s, where the smell of the leather must be enough to poison a respectable female!’
‘Has Mr. Gerard succeeded in getting a practice?’ asked Edward.
‘Well, he do have patients,’ answered the landlady, dubiously; ‘gratis ones a many, between the hours of eight and nine every morning. He’s very steady and quiet in his ‘abits, and that moderate that he could live where another would starve. He’s a wonderful clever young man, too; it was him — much more than the grand doctor — that pulled Madame Chicot through, after her accident.’
‘Indeed!’said Edward, becoming suddenly interested; ‘then Mr. Gerard knew the Chicots?’
‘Knew ‘em! I should think he did, indeed, poor young man! He attended Madame Chicot night and day for months, and if it hadn’t been for him I believe she’d have died. There never was a doctor so devoted, and all for love. He didn’t take a penny for his attendance.’
‘A most extraordinary young man,’ said Edward.
They went up to the second-floor, and Mr. Clare was introduced to the apartments upon which Desrolles had turned his back for ever. The furniture was of the shabbiest, but the rooms looked tolerably clean, much cleaner than they had appeared during the occupation of Mr. Desrolles. Edward flung down his travelling-bag, and expressed himself contented with the accommodation.
‘Don’t put me into damp sheets,’ he said, whereupon Mrs. Evitt threw up her hands in horror, and almost wept as she protested against so heartless an imputation.
‘There isn’t a carefuller woman than me about airing linen in all. London,’ she exclaimed. ‘I’m over-particular. I’ve scorched many a good pillercase in my carefulness; but I’m the only loser by that, and I don’t mind.’
‘I must go and get some dinner,’ said Edward.
‘And then I think I’ll drop in at a theatre. I suppose you can give me a latch-key.’
&nbs
p; ‘You can have the very key that Mr. Desrolles had,’ replied Mrs. Evitt, graciously, as if according a peculiar privilege.
‘I don’t care whose key it is as long as it will open the door,’ answered the unappreciative poet; and then he put the key in his pocket, and went out to regale himself cheaply at a French restaurant, and then to the pit of a popular theatre. He had come to London on a particular errand, but he meant to get as much pleasure out of his visit as he could.
From the moment that Edward Clare heard of George Gerard’s attendance upon Madame Chicot he became desirous of making Mr. Gerard’s acquaintance. Here was a man who could help him in the business he had to carry through. Here was a man who must know the dancer’s husband intimately — a man who could identify Jack Chicot in the present Squire of Hazlehurst. This was the man of men whom it was valuable for Edward Clare to know. Having once made up his mind upon this point, Mr. Clare did not lose any time in making use of his opportunities. He called upon Mr. Gerard on the morning after his arrival in town. It was only half-past eight when he presented himself at the surgeon’s door, so anxious was he to secure an interview before Mr. Gerard left home.
He found George Gerard sitting at his modest breakfast of bread and butter and coffee, an open book beside him as he eat. Edward’s eyes marked the neatness of the surgeon’s attire, marked also that his coat had been worn to the last stage of shabbiness at all compatible with respectability. A month’s wear more and the wearer would be out at elbows. He observed also the thick slices of bread and butter — the doubtful-looking coffee, with an odour suggestive of horse-beans. Here, evidently, was a man for whom the struggle of life was hard. Such a man would naturally be easy to deal with.
George Gerard rose to receive his guest with a pleasant smile.
‘Mrs. Evitt told me that you wanted to see me,’ he said, waving his hand to a chair beside his somewhat pinched fire.
A scientific arrangement of fire brick had been adapted to the roomy old grate since Mrs. Rawber’s tenancy, and it now held a minimum of fuel.
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 612