AT BOULOGNE-SUR-MER.
I had an unfortunate friend at Boulogne in the year 1865--then and many
years before. He lived on the ramparts in the upper town; had put on
that shabby military air, capped with a naval _couvre-chef_ (to use a
Paris street word that is expressive, as street words often are), which
distinguishes the British inhabitant of Boulogne-sur-mer; and was the
companion of a group of majors and skippers, sprinkled with commercial
men of erratic book-keeping tendencies. He had lost tone. He took me to
his club; nothing more than a taproom, reserved to himself and men with
whom he would not have exchanged a cigar light in London. The jokes were
bad and flat. A laid-up captain of an old London boat--sad old rascal
was he!--led the conversation. Who was drunk last night? How did the
Major get the key into the lock? Who paid for Todger's last go? "My
word," said I, to my friend, who had liquored himself out of one of the
snuggest civil berths I know, "how you can spend your time with those
blackguards, surpasses my comprehension." They amused him, he said. He
must drink with them, or play whist with another set, whose cards--he
emphatically added, giving me to understand much thereby--he did not
like. It was only for a short time, and he would be quit of them. This
was his day dream. My friend was always on the point of getting rid of
Boulogne; everything was just settled; and so, buoyed with a hope that
never staled, death caught him one summer's afternoon, in the Rue
Siblequin, and it was the bibulous sea captain and the very shady major
who shambled after him, when he was borne through those pretty _Petits
Arbres_ to the English section of the cemetery. Wrecks of many happy
families lie around him in that narrow field of rest; and passing
through on my state errands, I have thought once or twice, what sermons
indeed are there not in the headstones of Boulogne cemetery.
I was with my poor friend in the December of 1865. I was on way home to
pass a cheery Christmas with my own people--a luxury which was not often
reserved for me--and he had persuaded me to give him a couple of days.
It would have been hard to refuse Hanger, who had been gazing across
Channel so many weary months, seeing friends off whither he might not
follow; and wondering when he should trip down the ladder, and bustle
with the steward in the cabin, and ask the sailors whether we shall have
a fine passage. To see men and women and children crowding home to their
English Christmas from every corner of Europe, and to be left behind to
eat plum-pudding in a back parlour of an imitation British tavern, with
an obsolete skipper, and a ruined military man, whose family blushed
whenever his name was mentioned, was trying. Hanger protested he had no
sentiment about Christmas, but he nearly wrung my hand off when he took
leave of me.
It was while we were sauntering along the port, pushing hard against a
blustering northerly wind, and I was trying to get at the truth about
Hanger's affairs, advising him at every turn to grasp the bull by the
horns, adopt strong measures, look his creditors full in the face--the
common counsel people give their friends, but so seldom apply in their
own instance--that we were accosted by a man who had just landed from
the Folkestone boat. He wanted a place--yes, a cheap place--where they
spoke English and gave English fare. Hanger hastened to refer him to his
own British tavern, and, turning to me, said, "Must give Cross a good
turn--a useful fellow in an emergency."
I returned with Hanger to the tavern, much against my will; but he
insisted I should not give myself airs, but consent to be his guest to
the extent of some bitter ale. Cross's new client was before a joint of
cold beef, on the merits of which, combined with pickled onions, pickled
by the identical hands of Mrs. Cross, Cross could not be prevailed upon
to be quiet.
"Not a bad bit of beef," said the stranger, helping himself to a
prodigious slice. "Another pint of beer."
Cross carried off the tankard, and returned, still muttering--"Not bad
beef, I should think not--nor bad ale neither. Had the beef over from
the old country."
The stranger brought his fist with tremendous force upon the table, and
roared--"That's right, landlord; that's it; stick to that."
Cross, thus encouraged, would have treated the company to a copious
dissertation on the merits of British fare, had not the company chorused
him down with--"Now Cross is off! Cross on beef! Cross on beer!"
In a furious passion Cross left the room, rowing that he would be even
with "the captain" before the day was over. Hanger considered himself
bound to ask the stranger whether he was satisfied with his
recommendation.
"Couldn't be better, thankee," the stranger answered; "but the landlord
doesn't seem to know much about the place. New comer, I suppose?"
"Was forty years ago," the old captain said, looking round for a laugh;
"but he doesn't go out of the street once a month."
"I asked him where Marquise was, and be hanged if he could tell me. I
want to know particularly."
The major glanced at the captain, and the captain at a third companion.
Was somebody wanted? Who was hiding at Marquise?
"Thought every fool knew that," the captain said, in the belief that he
had made a palpable hit.
"Every fool who lives in these parts, leastwise," the stranger retorted.
"Perhaps you'll direct me?'
"Now, look you here, sir," the captain was proceeding, leisurely
emphasizing each word with a puff of tobacco smoke.
But the stranger would not be patient. He changed his tone, and
answered, fiercely--
"I'm in no mind for fun or chaff. I've got d----d serious business on
hand; and if you can tell me how to get to Marquise, tell me straight
off, and ha' done with it--and I shall be obliged to you." With this he
finished his second tankard of ale.
Hanger, feeling some responsibility about the man he had introduced,
approached him with marked urbanity, and offered his services--
"I know Marquise and Wimille."
"Wimille! that's it!" the stranger cried. "Right you are. That's my
direction. This is business. Yes, between Marquise and Wimille."
"Precisely," Hanger continued, as we proceeded towards the door.
I heard the major growl between his teeth in our rear--"Hanger's got him
well in tow."
I should have been glad to show the man his way, and leave him to follow
it; but Hanger, who could not resist an adventure, drew me aside and
said--"We may as well drive to Marquise as anywhere else. We shall be
back easily for the _table d'hôte_." The expedition was not to my taste;
but I yielded. The stranger was glad of our company, for the reason,
which he bluntly explained, that we might be of some use to him; for the
place was not exactly at Marquise nor at Wimille. We hired a carriage,
and were soon clattering along the Calais road, muffled to our noses to
face the icy wind.
The stranger soon communicated his name, saying, "My name is Reuben
Sharp, and I don't care who knows it. Ask who Reuben Sharp is at
Maidstone: they'll tell you."
Reuben Sharp was a respectable farmer--it was not necessary for him to
tell us that. He was a man something over fifty: sharp eyes, round head,
ruddy face, short hair flaked with white, which he matted over his
forehead at intervals with a flaming bandanna; a voice built to call
across a field or two; limbs equal to any country work or sport. In
short, an individual as peculiar to England as her chalk cliffs. When he
found that we knew something--and more than something--of the
hunting-field, and that I knew his country, including Squire Lufton, to
say nothing of the Lion at Farningham (one of the sweetest and most
charming hostelries in all England), he took me to his heart, and told
me his mission and his grief.
"I don't know how I shall meet him," Reuben Sharp said; "I'm not quite
certain about myself. The man I'm going to see--this Matthew
Glendore--has done me and mine a bitter wrong. The villain brought
dishonour on my family. I knew he was in difficulties when he came into
our parts, and took two rooms in Mother Gaselee's cottage. But he was a
gentleman, every inch of it, in appearance. A d--d good shot; rode well;
and--you know what fools girls are!"
I could only listen: any question might prove a most indiscreet one.
Hanger was not quite so sensitive. "Fools!" he cried--"they are
answerable for more mischief in the world than all the men and children,
and the rest of the animal creation put together."
"And yet no man's worth a woman's little finger, if you know what I
mean," Reuben Sharp went on, struggling manfully to get clear expression
for the tumult of painful feeling that was in him. "They don't know what
the world is; you cannot make 'em understand. The best fall into the
hands of the worst men. She was the best, and he was the worst: the
best, that she was. And I sent him to her, where she was living like an
honest woman, and learning to be a lady, in London."
"And who is this Matthew Glendore, whom you are going to see?"
"The worst of men--the basest; and he's on his death-bed! and I'm to
forgive him! I!
"Where is she? where is she, Glendore? for I know you through your
disguise."
We stared at the farmer while he raved, lit his cigar, and then, in the
torrent of his passion, let it out again. As we dipped to the hollow in
which Wimille lay, passing carts laden with iron ore, Sharp became more
excited.
"We cannot be far off now. He's lying at one of the iron-masters'
houses, half a mile beyond this Wimille. Let's stop: I must have some
brandy-and-water."
Hanger joyfully fell in with this proposition, vowing that he was
frozen, and really could not stand the cold without, unless he had
something warm within, any longer. We alighted at the village cabaret,
and drew near the sweet-smelling wood fire, from which the buxom
landlady drove two old men for our convenience. I protested they should
not be disturbed; but they went off shivering, as they begged us to do
them the honour of taking up their post in the chimney-corner.
We threw our coats off, and the grog was brought. The woman produced a
little carafon of brandy.
"Tell her to bring the bottle," Sharp shouted, impatiently. "Does she
take us to be school girls? Let the water be boiling. Ask her--Does she
know anything of this Matthew Glendore?"
The farmer mixed himself a stiff glass of brandy-and-water, while he
watched Hanger questioning the landlady with many bows and smiles.
"Plenty of palavering," Sharp muttered; then shouted--"Does she know the
scoundrel?"
"One minute, my friend," Hanger mildly observed, meaning to convey to
Sharp that he was asking a favour of gentlemen, not roaring his order to
slaves. "Permit me to get the good woman's answers. Yes; she knows
Monsieur Glendore."
"Mounseer Glendore! She knows no good of him."
"On the contrary," mildly pursued Hanger, sipping his grog, and nicely
balancing it with sugar to his taste--"on the contrary, my good sir,
she says he is a brave fellow--what she calls a _brave garçon_."
"Doesn't know him then, Mounseer Glendore! I wonder how many disguises
he has worn in his life--how many women he has trapped and ruined! Ask
her how long he has been here?"
The landlady answered--"Two years about the middle of next month."
"And he has never left this since?" Sharp went on, mixing himself by
this time a second glass of brandy-and-water.
The landlady had never been a day without seeing him. He came to play
his game of dominoes in the evening frequently. The dominoes exasperated
the farmer. He would as soon see a man with crochet needles.
"D--n him!" Sharp shouted; "just like him."
I now ventured to interfere. Reuben Sharp was becoming violent with
passion inflamed by brandy. The landlady was certain poor Monsieur
Glendore would never rise from his bed again. I said to
Sharp--"Whatever the wrong may be this man has done you, Mr. Sharp, pray
remember he is dying. He is passing beyond your judgment."
"Is he? Passing from my grip, is he? No--no--Herbert Daker."
Sharp had sprung from his chair, and was shaking his fist in the air.
"Daker! Herbert Daker!" I seized Reuben Sharp by the shoulder, and shook
him violently. "What do you know about Herbert Daker?"
Sharp turned upon me a face shattered with rage, and hissed at me. "What
do I know about him? What do _you_ about him? Are you his friend?"
"I am not: never will, nor can be," was my reply. Sharp wrung my hand
till it felt bloodless. "Herbert Daker is Matthew Glendore--Mounseer
Glendore. When did you meet him?"
"On the Boulogne steamer, about three years ago, when he was crossing
with his wife."
"Then!" Sharp exclaimed, and again he took a draught of
brandy-and-water.
At this moment Hanger, who had been talking with the landlady, joined
us, and whispered--"Be calm, gentlemen; this is a time for calmness.
Glendore is at hand--in a little cottage on Monsieur Guibert's works.
Madame says if we wish to see him alive, we had better lose no time. The
clergyman from Boulogne arrived about an hour ago, and is with him now.
His wife!----"
"His wife!" Sharp was now a pitiable spectacle. He finished his glass,
and caught Hanger by the collar of his coat--staring into his face to
get at all the truth. "Glendore's wife!"
Hanger was as cool as man could be. He disengaged himself deliberately
from the farmer's grip, put the table between them, and went smoothly on
with the further observation he had to make!
"I repeat, according to the landlady, whose word we have no reason to
doubt, his wife is with him--and his mother!"
Sharp struck the table and roared that it was impossible. I stood in
hopeless bewilderment.
"Would it be decent to intrude at such a moment?"
"Decent!" Sharp was frantically endeavouring to button up his coat.
"D--n it, decent! Which is the way? My girl--my poor girl!"
"Show him," I contrived to say to Hanger, and he took the landlady's
directions, while I passed my arm through Reuben Sharp's. We stumbled
and blundered along in Hanger's footsteps, round muddy corners, past
heaps of yellow ore, Sharp muttering and cursing and gesticulating by
the way. We came suddenly to a halt at the little green door of a
four-roomed cottage.
"Knock! knock!" Sharp shouted, pressing with his whole weight against
the door. "Let me see her!--the villain!--Mounseer Glendore!--No, no,
Herbert Daker!"
The power of observation is at its quickest in moments of intense
excitement. I remember looking with the utmost calmness at Sharp's face
and figure, as he stood gasping before the door of Herbert Daker's
lodging. It was the head of a satyr in anger.
"Daker--Herbert Daker!" Sharp cried.
The door was suddenly thrown open, and an English clergyman, unruffled
and full of dignity, stood in the entrance. Sharp was a bold, untutored
man; but he dared not force his way past the priest.
"Quiet, gentlemen--be quiet. Step in--but quiet--quiet."
We were in the chamber of Matthew Glendore in a moment. A lady rose from
the bedside. Humble, and yet stately, a white face with red and swollen
eyelids, eyes with command in them. We were uncovered, and in an instant
wholly subdued.
"My child--my girl!" Reuben Sharp moaned.
The clergyman approached him, and laid his hand upon him.
"Whom do you want?"
"Mrs. Daker--my--"
The pale lady, full of grief, advanced a step, and looking full in the
face of Reuben Sharp, said, "I, sir, am Mrs. Daker."
I had never seen that lady before.
"You!" Sharp shouted, shaking with rage.
But the minister firmly laid his hand upon him now, saying, "Hush! in
the chamber of death! His mother is at his bedside; spare her."
At this, a little figure with a ghastly face rose from the farther side
of the bed.
"Mrs. Rowe!" I cried.
She had not the power left to scream; and her head fell heavily upon the
pillow of the dying man.
"Enough, enough!" the clergyman said with authority--closing the door of
the chamber wherein Herbert Daker, the "Mr. Charles" of the Rue
Millevoye, lay dead!