‘Yes, Mr. Gerard, I very much want half an hour’s talk with you.’
‘I can give you just half an hour before I start for my day’s work,’ answered Gerard, with a business-like air and a glance at the neat little clock on the chimney piece.
The room was curiously changed since Mrs. Rawber’s occupation. It had then appeared the model of the vulgar lodging-house parlour. It now looked the room of a student. George Gerard had been able to spend very little money on the decoration of his apartments, but he had lined the walls with deal shelves, and the shelves were filled with books; such volumes as your genuine book hunter collects with loving toil in the lanes and by-ways of London. He had put a substantial old-fashioned writing table in the window, a pair of comfortable arm-chairs by the hearth, a skeleton clock, and a couple of bronze figures — picked up in one of the back slums of Covent Garden for a song — on the mantel-piece. The general effect was of a room which a gentleman might occupy without a blush.
Edward Clare saw all this, not without a sharp pang of envy. He recognised, in the capacity to endure such an existence, the power to climb the rugged hill of fame.
‘This is the kind of fellow to succeed in life,’ he thought. ‘But one can’t expect this dodged endurance in a man of poetic temperament.’
‘Do you wish to consult me professionally?’ asked Gerard.
‘No. What I have to say relates to a very serious matter, but it is neither a professional question for you, nor a personal affair of mine. You knew the Chicots.’
It was Gerard’s turn to be interested. He looked at the speaker with sudden intensity, which brightened every feature in his face.
‘Yes. What of them? Did you know them? I never saw you here when she was ill. You knew them in Paris, perhaps?’
‘No; I never saw Madame Chicot off the stage. But I am deeply interested in the discovery of her murderer: not for my own sake, but for the protection of some one I esteem. Have you seen John Chicot since the murder?’
‘No. If I had — —’
George Gerard stopped suddenly, and left his sentence unfinished.
‘If you had you would have given him up to the police, as his wife’s murderer. Is that what you were going to say?’
‘Something very near it. I have strong reason to believe that he killed her; and yet there is ground for doubt. If he were the murderer why should he alarm the house? He might have gone quietly away, and the crime would not have been discovered for hours afterwards.
‘An excess of caution, no doubt. Murderers often over-act their parts. Yet, if you look at the thing you will see he was obliged to give the alarm. Had he not done so, had he gone away and left his wife lying dead, it would have been obvious that he, and he alone, was her assassin. By rousing the household he put on at least the semblance of innocence, however his flight might belie it afterwards.’
‘It is a profound mystery,’ said Gerard.
‘A mystery only to those who refuse to accept the natural solution of the enigma. Here was a man with a drunken wife. It is an acknowledged fact, I believe, that Madame Chicot was a drunkard?’
‘Yes, poor soul. He might have let her kill herself with the brandy bottle. He would not have had long to wait.’
‘A man so fettered pray bet desperate. Suppose that I could prove to you that this Chicot had the strongest possible temptation to rid himself of his wife by any means, fair or foul. Suppose I could tell you that his inheritance of a large estate was contingent upon his marriage with another woman, that he had already, in order to secure that estate, contracted a bigamous marriage with that other woman — she innocent as an angel, poor girl, throughout the plot. Suppose I could prove all this, what would you say of Jack Chicot then?’
‘Most assuredly I would say that he did the deed. Only show me that he had a motive strong enough to urge him to crime — I know of my own experience that he was tired of his wife — and I will accept the evidence that points to him as the murderer.’
‘Do you think that evidence strong enough to convict him?’
‘On that point I am doubtful. His flight is damning evidence against him; and then there is the fact that at the bottom of his colour-box there lay a dagger which corresponded in form to the gash upon that poor creature’s throat. I found that dagger, and it is now in the possession of the police. It bears the dark tarnished stain that blood leaves upon steel, and I have no doubt in my own mind that it was with that dagger La Chicot was killed. But these two points comprise the whole evidence against the husband. They are strong enough to afford a presumption against his innocence; but I doubt if they are strong enough to hang him.’
‘Let it be so. I don’t want to hang him. But I do want, to rescue the woman I once fondly loved — for whom I still care more than for any other woman on earth — from a marriage that may end in her misery and untimely death. What must be the fate of such a man as this Chicot, if he is, as you believe, and as I believe, guilty? Either remorse will drive him mad, or he will go on from crime to crime, sinking lower in the scale of humanity. Let me but strip the mask from his face, separate him for ever from his innocent wife, and I am content. To do this I want your aid. Jack Chicot has disappeared from the ken of all who knew him. The man who bore that name is now a gentleman of landed estate, respected and respectable. Will you be disinterested enough to waste a couple of days, and travel over three hundred miles, in order to help me to identify the late adventurer in the present lord of the manor. Your journey shall not cost you sixpence.’
‘If I go at all, I shall go at my own expense,’ answered Gerard curtly; ‘but you must first show me an adequate reason for doing what you ask.’
‘To do that I must tell you a long story,’ answered Edward.
And then, without mentioning the names of people or of places, he told the story of Jasper Treverton’s will, and of Laura Malcolm’s marriage. The facts, as he stated them, went far to show John Treverton a scheming scoundrel, capable of committing a crime of the darkest kind to further his own interest.
‘The case against hire looks black, I admit,’ said Gerard, when Clare had finished. ‘But there is one difficult point in the story. You say that in order to secure the fortune Chicot married the young lady in the January before Madame Chicot’s death. Now if he had made up his mind to get rid of his lawful wife by foul means, why did he not do it before he contracted that marriage instead of afterwards? The crime would have been the same, the danger of detection no greater. The murder committed after the second marriage was an anachronism.’
‘Who can fathom his motives? He may have had no design against his wife’s life when he married the lady I know. He may have believed it possible to so arrange his life that no one would ever recognise Jack Chicot in the country Squire. He may have thought that he could buy his freedom from Madame Chicot. Perhaps it was only when he found that her love, or her jealousy, was not to be hoodwinked that he conceived the idea of murder. No man — assuredly, no man of decent antecedents — reaches the lowest depth of iniquity all at once.’
‘Well,’ sighed Gerard, after a pause, ‘I will go with you, and see this man. I had a curious interest in that poor creature’s career. I would have done much to save her from the consequence of her own folly, had it been possible. Yes, I will go with you, I should like to know the end of the story.’
It was agreed between the two young men that they were to go to Devonshire together in the first week of the new year, Edward Clare remaining only a week in London. Gerard was to accompany Clare as his friend, and to stay at the Vicarage as his guest.
CHAPTER XV. GEORGE GERARD.
JOHN TREVERTON was out of the doctor’s hands before Christmas was over, and able to appear on his mare Black Bess, with his wife, mounted on the gentlest of grey Arabs, at the lawn meet which was held at the Manor House on New Year’s Day. It was the first time the hounds had met there since the death of old John Treverton, Jasper’s father, who had been a hunting man. Jasper had never cared f
or field sports, and had subscribed to the hounds as a duty. But now, John Treverton, the younger, who loved horses and hounds, as it is natural to an Englishman to love them, meant that things should be as they had been in the days of his great uncle, generally known among the elder section of the community as ‘the old Squire.’ He had bought a couple of hunters and a first-rate hack for himself, an Arabian, and a smart cob for his wife; and Laura and he had ridden for many a mile over the moor in the mild afternoons of early autumn, getting into good form for the work they were to do in the winter.
Laura took kindly to the cob, and petted the Arab to a distracting degree. After a month’s experience on the moors, and a good many standing jumps over furze and water, she began to ride really well, and her husband looked forward to the delight of piloting her across the country in pursuit of the red deer, before the hunting season was over. But he meant, if he erred at all, to err on the side of caution, and on this New Year’s Day he had declared that he should only take Laura quietly through the lanes, and let her have a peep at the hounds from a distance. Celia, in the shortest of habits, a mere petticoat, and the most coquettish of hats, was mounted on her fathers steady-going roadster, a stalwart animal of prodigious girth, which contemplated the hounds with unvarying equanimity.
‘What has become of your brother?’ Laura asked, as she and Celia waited about, side by side, watching the assembling of the field. ‘I haven’t seen him since my childrens’ party.’
Oh, didn’t I tell you? He is in London making arrangements about a play that he is to write for one of the big theatres. Mother had a letter from him this morning. He is coming home the day after to-morrow, and he is going to bring a London acquaintance to stay two or three days at the Vicarage. A young doctor, good-looking, clever, a bachelor. Now, Laura, don’t you really think the world must be coming to an end very soon?’
‘No, dear; but I congratulate you on the bachelor. He will be an acquisition. You must bring him to us.’
‘Oh, but Edward says he can only stay two or three days. He has his practice to attend to. He is only coming for a breath of country air.’
‘Poor fellow. What is his name?’
‘Edward did not tell us that. Something horrid, I daresay. Smith or Jones, or Johnson — a name to dispel all pleasant illusions.’
‘Here comes Mr. Sampson.’
‘Yes, on the horse he drives in his dog-cart. Could you believe, Laura, that a horse could support existence with so much bone and so little flesh?’
This was all Laura heard about the expected guest at the Vicarage, but poor Celia was in a flutter of wondering anticipation for the next two days. She took particular pains to make her brother’s den attractive, yet sighed as she reflected how much of the stranger’s brief visit would be spent within the closed doors of that masculine snuggery.
‘I wonder whether he is fond of tea,’ she mused, when she had given the last heightening touch to the multifarious frivolities of the poet’s study; ‘and whether I shall be allowed to join them at kettledrum. Very likely he is one of those dreadfully mannish men who hate to talk to girls, and look glum whenever they’re forced to endure women’s society. A doctor? scientific, perhaps, and devoted to dry bones. Edward calls him handsome; but I daresay that was only said in order to prepossess us in his favour, and secure a civil reception for him.’
Thus, in maiden meditation, mused the damsel on that January evening when her brother and her brother’s friend were expected. The omnibus from the ‘George,’ was to bring there from the station, and that omnibus would be due at a quarter-past seven. It was now striking seven by the deep-toned church clock; a solemn chime that had counted out Celia’s hours ever since she could remember. She hardly knew time or herself out of earshot of that grave old clock.
‘Seven,’ she exclaimed,’ ‘and my hair anyhow.’
She slipped off to her room, lighted her dressing-table candles, and took up her hand mirror, the better to survey the edifice of frizzy little curls which crowned her small, neatly shaped head.
‘Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls,’ she sang gaily, smiling at herself in the glass, as she put her pet ringlets in their proper places, and smoothed the corner of an eyebrow with her little finger.
‘What a blessing not to be obliged to powder, and to have lips that are naturally red,’ she said to herself. ‘It might almost reconcile one to be buried alive in a village.’
She put on her prettiest gown in honour of the visitor. It was by no means an elaborate costume. There were no intricacies of style, no artistic combinations of material. Celia’s best indoor gown was only a dark green French merino, brightened by a good deal of ribbon, artfully disposed in unexpected bows and knots, and floating sash ends. Happily, the colour suited Celia’s complexion, and the soft fabric fell in graceful folds upon her slender figure. Altogether Celia felt herself looking nice, when she put out her candles and ran downstairs.
A substantial tea-dinner was waiting for the travellers in the dining-room, to the sore discomfort of the vicar, who hated a tea-dinner, and was accustomed to dine at a punctual half-past six.
‘Why must we have a makeshift meal of this kind?’ he asked, fretfully. ‘Why couldn’t these young men be here in time for our regular dinner?’
‘Why because there was no train to bring them, you dear, stupid, old pater,’ retorted the flippant Celia. ‘I’m sure the table looks quite too lovely.’
A fine piece of cold roast beef at the end opposite the urn and tea-tray, a pigeon pie, a salad, an apple pasty, a home-made cake or two, diamond cut jars of marmalade and jam, and a noble glass bowl of junket, did not promise badly for two hungry young men; but the vicar looked across the board, from Dan even to Beer-sheba, and found it all barren.
‘I suppose nobody has thought of ordering anything hot for me,’ he remarked with an injured air.
It was a tradition in the family that the Vicar could not eat a cold dinner. It was not that he would not, but that he could not. The consequences were too awful. No one but himself knew the agonies which he suffered if he was forced to dine on cold beef or mutton. His system could accommodate lobster, he could even reconcile nature to cold chicken, but his internal economy would have nothing to do with cold mutton or beef.
‘Dearest creature,’ said Celia, raising herself on tiptoe in order to caress her father’s iron grey beard, ‘there is a particular dish of cutlets for you with the mushroom sauce your soul loveth.’
The Vicar gave a sigh of satisfaction, and just at that moment the wheels of the omnibus sounded on the road outside, the Vicarage gate fell back with a clang, and Mr. Clare and his daughter went out to receive the travellers, while Mrs. Clare, who had been indulging herself with a nap by the drawing-room fire, opened her eyes, and began to wonder vaguely whether it was night or morning.
What sort of man did Celia behold when she went into the lamplit hall, sheltering herself shyly under her father’s wing, to welcome her brother and his guest? Not at all the kind of young man she expected to see, yet his appearance impressed her favourably, notwithstanding. He was strikingly original, she told Laura afterwards, and that in an age of hum-drum was much. She saw a tall, broad-shouldered man, with marked features, well shaped yet somewhat rugged, a pale complexion slightly pitted with smallpox, black hair and beard, dark grey eyes, with a wonderful power and light in them, under thick black brows.
‘The idea of calling this stern-looking creature handsome,’ thought Celia, while her father and Mr. Gerard were shaking hands, and then in the next instant the stern-looking creature smiled, and Celia admitted to herself that his smile was nice.
‘You must be desperately hungry,’ said the Vicar, ‘unless you’ve dined on the way.’
‘Dined on the way,’ echoed Edward, peevishly. ‘We’ve travelled third-class, and we’ve had nothing but a split soda and a couple of Abernethy biscuits since nine this morning.’
‘Poor dear things,’ cried Celia, with intense pity, �
�but I can’t help being rather glad, for you will so enjoy your tea.’
Edward had introduced his friend to his father and sister, and now presented him to Mrs. Clare, who came out of the drawing-room smiling blandly, and trying not to look sleepy.
They all went into the dining-room, where the table which the Vicar had despised seemed to the two young men a land of promise. The urn hissed, and Celia made the tea, while Mrs. Clare sat at the other end of the board and carved the beef with a liberal, motherly hand. It was quite a merry party, for George Gerard had plenty to say for himself, and the Vicar was pleased to get hold of an intelligent young mail, fresh from London, and steeped to the lips in the knowledge of metropolitan politics, which are about a month ahead of rural politics. They sat at table for an hour and a halt, and the three-quarters of an hour during which Gerard leaned back in his chair, talking to Celia on one side and the Vicar on the other, and consuming numerous cups of tea, was in that young man’s estimation the pleasantest part of the time.
It was long, very long, since Gerard had found himself in so bright a room; or in such agreeable company. The homelike air of his surroundings warmed his heart, which had been chilled by long homelessness. The family history that lay behind his hard career was not a happy one. A profligate father wasting his opportunities and squandering his resources, it mother struggling nobly against adversity, trying against all disadvantages to maintain, by her own efforts in art and literature, a home for her unworthy husband and her idolised sun, A boyhood at a cheap Scotch university, and, just on the threshold of manhood, the loss of this patient, dearly loved mother, some years a widow. And then the young man had found himself face to face with stern necessity, and in a hard, indifferent world that knew nothing of him and cared nothing for him.
He had begun the battle of life with a determination to place himself among those who conquer. His ambition was hard and bitter. He had none of those incentives to effort that sweeten toil, where a man knows that he is working for mother, or wife or children. There was no creature of his own race to rejoice in his success, or to compassionate his ill-fortune. If nature had not made him of strong stuff he would roost likely have drifted to the gutter. For a weaker soul the unaided struggle would have been too dreary.
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 613