That she had done with him, done with him for ever, was to remain the
most vivid impression Hyacinth had carried away from Madeira Crescent
the night before. He went home and threw himself on his narrow bed,
where the consolation of sleep again descended on him. But he woke
up with the earliest dawn, and the beginning of a new day was a
quick revival of pain. He was overpast, he had become vague, he was
extinct. Things Sholto had said came back to him, and the compassion
of foreknowledge Madame Grandoni had shown him from the first. Of
Paul Muniment he only thought to wonder if this great fellow-worker
knew. An insurmountable desire to do more than justice to him for
the very reason that there might be a temptation to do less forbade
him to challenge his friend even in imagination. He vaguely asked
himself if _he_ would ever be superseded; but this possibility faded
away in a stronger light—a dazzling vision of some great tribuneship
which swept before him now and again and in which the figure of the
Princess herself seemed merged and blurred. When full morning came at
last and he got up it brought with it in the restlessness making it
impossible he should remain in his room a return of that beginning of
an answerless question, “After all, after all——?” which the Princess
had planted there the night before when she spoke so bravely in the
name of the Revolution. “After all, after all, since nothing else was
tried or would apparently ever be tried——!” He had a sense that his
mind, made up as he believed, would fall to pieces again; but that
sense in turn lost itself in a shudder which was already familiar—the
horror of the public reappearance, in his person, of the imbrued hands
of his mother. This loathing of the idea of a _repetition_ had not
been sharp, strangely enough, till he felt the great, hard hand on his
shoulder; in all his previous meditations the growth of his reluctance
to act for the “party of action” had not been the fear of a personal
stain, but the simple growth of yearning observation. Yet now the idea
of the personal stain made him horribly sick; it seemed by itself to
make service impossible. It passed before him, or rather it stayed,
like a blow dealt back at his mother, already so hideously disfigured;
to suffer it to start out in the life of her son was in a manner to
place her own forgotten, redeemed pollution again in the eye of the
world. The thought that was most of all with him was that he had time,
he had time; he was grateful for that and saw a delicacy, a mercy, in
their having given him a margin, not condemned him to be pressed by
the hours. He had another day, he had two days, he might take three, he
might take several. He knew he should be terribly weary of them before
they were over; but for that matter they would be over whenever he
liked.
Anyhow he went forth again into the streets, into the squares, into the
parks, solicited by an aimless desire to steep himself yet once again
in the great, indifferent city he so knew and so loved and which had
had so many of his smiles and tears and confidences. The day was grey
and damp, though no rain fell, and London had never appeared to him
to wear more proudly and publicly the stamp of her imperial history.
He passed slowly to and fro over Westminster bridge and watched the
black barges drift on the great brown river; looked up at the huge
fretted palace that rose there as a fortress of the social order which
he, like the young David, had been commissioned to attack with a sling
and pebble. At last he made his way to Saint James’s Park and wandered
and pointlessly sat. He watched the swans as from fascination and
followed the thoroughfare that communicates with Pimlico. He stopped
here presently and came back again; then, over the same pavement, he
retraced his steps westward. He looked in the windows of shops—looked
especially into the long, glazed expanse of that establishment in
which at that hour of the day Millicent Henning discharged superior
functions. Her image had descended on him after he came out, and now
it moved before him as he went, it clung to him, it refused to quit
him. He made in truth no effort to drive it away; he held fast to it
in return, and it murmured strange things in his ear. She had been so
jolly to him on Sunday; she was such a strong, obvious simple nature,
with such a generous breast and such a freedom from the sophistries of
civilisation. All he had ever liked in her came back to him now with a
finer air, and there was a moment, during which he again made time on
the bridge that spans the lake in the Park, seemingly absorbed in the
pranks of a young ass in a boat, when he asked himself if at bottom
he hadn’t liked her better almost than any one. He tried to think he
had, he wanted to think he had, and he seemed to see the look her eyes
would have if he should swear to her he had. Something of that sort
had really passed between them on Sunday, only the business coming
up since had brushed it away. Now the taste of the vague, primitive
comfort his Sunday had given him revived, and he asked himself if he
mightn’t have a second and even a deeper draught of it. After he had
thought he couldn’t again wish for anything he found himself wishing he
might believe there was something Millicent could do for him. Mightn’t
she help him—mightn’t she even extricate him? He was looking into a
window—not that of her own shop—when a vision rose before him of a
quick flight with her, for an undefined purpose, to an undefined spot;
and he was glad at that moment to have his back turned to the people
in the street, because his face suddenly grew red to the tips of his
ears. Again and again, all the same, he indulged in the reflexion that
spontaneous, uncultivated minds often have inventions, inspirations.
Moreover, whether Millicent should have any or not, he might at least
feel the firm roundness of her arms about him. He didn’t exactly
know what good this would do him or what door it would open, but he
should like it. The sensation was not one he could afford to defer,
but the nearest moment at which he should be able to enjoy it would
be that evening. He had thrown over everything, but she herself would
be busy all day; nevertheless it would be a gain, it would be a kind
of foretaste, to see her earlier, to have three words with her. He
wrestled with the temptation to go into her haberdasher’s, because he
knew she didn’t like it—he had tried it once of old; as the visits of
gentlemen even when ostensible purchasers (there were people watching
about who could tell who was who) compromised her in the eyes of
her employers. This was not an ordinary case, however; and though he
hovered a long time, undecided, embarrassed, half-ashamed, at last he
went in as by the force of the one, the last, sore personal need left
him. He would just make an appointment with her, and a glance of the
eye and a single word would suffice.
He remembered his way through the labyrinth of the shop; he knew her
department was on the upper floor. He walked through the place, which
was crowded, as if he had as good a right as any one else; and as he
had entertained himself on rising with putting on his holiday garments,
in which he made such a tidy figure, he was not suspected of any
purpose more nefarious than that of looking for some nice thing to give
a lady. He ascended the stairs and found himself in a large room where
made-up articles were ranged and where, though there were twenty people
in it, a glance told him he shouldn’t find Millicent. She was perhaps
in the next one, into which he passed by a wide opening. Here also were
numerous purchasers, most of them ladies; the men were but three or
four and the disposal of the wares all committed to neat young women
attired in black dresses with long trains. It struck him at first that
the young woman he sought was even here not within sight, and he was
turning away to look elsewhere when he suddenly noted a tall gentleman
who stood in the middle of the room and who was none other than Captain
Sholto. It next became plain to him that the person standing upright
before the Captain, as still as a lay-figure and with her back turned
to himself, was the object of his own quest. In spite of her averted
face he instantly “spotted” Millicent; he knew her shop-attitude, the
dressing of her hair behind and the long grand lines of her figure
draped in the last new thing. She was showing off this treasure to the
Captain, who was lost in contemplation. He had been beforehand with
Hyacinth as a false purchaser, but he imitated a real one better than
our young man, as, with his eyes travelling up and down the front of
their beautiful friend’s person, he frowned consideringly and rubbed
his lower lip slowly with his walking-stick. Millicent stood admirably
still—the back view of the garment she displayed was magnificent.
Hyacinth stood for a minute as still as she. By the end of that minute
he was convinced Sholto saw him, and for an instant he thought him
about to make Milly do as much. But Sholto only looked at him very hard
a few seconds, not telling her he was there; to enjoy that satisfaction
he would wait till the interloper had gone. Hyacinth gazed back at him
for the same length of time—what these two pairs of eyes said to each
other requires perhaps no definite mention—and then turned away.
That evening about nine o’clock the Princess Casamassima drove in a
hansom to Hyacinth’s lodgings in Westminster. The door of the house
was a little open and a man stood on the step, smoking his big pipe
and looking up and down. The Princess, seeing him while she was still
at some distance, had hoped he was Hyacinth, but he proved a different
figure indeed from her devoted young friend. He had not a forbidding
countenance, but he faced her very directly as she descended from her
hansom and approached the door. She was used to the last vulgarity of
stare and didn’t mind it; she supposed him one of the lodgers in the
house. He edged away to let her pass and watched her while she tried to
twist life into the limp bell-pull beside the door. It gave no audible
response, so that she said to him: “I wish to ask for Mr. Hyacinth
Robinson. Perhaps you can tell me——”
“Yes, I too,” the man strangely smirked. “I’ve come also for that.”
She seemed to wonder about him. “I think you must be Mr. Schinkel. I’ve
heard of you.”
“You know me by my bad English,” her interlocutor said with a shade of
benevolent coquetry.
“Your English is remarkably good—I wish I spoke German as well. Only
just a hint of an accent, and evidently an excellent vocabulary.”
“I think I’ve heard also of you,” Schinkel returned with freedom.
“Yes, we know each other in our circle, don’t we? We’re all brothers
and sisters.” The Princess was anxious, was in a fever; but she could
still relish the romance of standing in a species of back slum and
fraternising with a personage so like a very tame horse whose collar
galled him. “Then he’s at home, I hope; he’s coming down to you?” she
went on.
“That’s what I don’t know. I’m waiting.”
“Have they gone to call him?”
Schinkel looked at her while he puffed his pipe. “I’ve galled him
myself, but he won’t zay.”
“How do you mean he won’t say?”
“His door’s locked. I’ve knocked many times.”
“I suppose he is out,” said the Princess.
“Yes, he may be out,” Schinkel remarked judicially.
They stood a moment face to face, after which she asked: “Have you any
doubt of it?”
“Oh _es kann sein_. Only the woman of the house told me five minutes
ago that he came in.”
“Well then he probably went out again.”
“Yes, but she didn’t hear him.”
The Princess reflected and was conscious she was flushing. She knew
what Schinkel knew about their young friend’s actual situation and
she wished to be very clear with him and to induce him to be the same
with her. She was rather baffled, however, by the sense that he was
cautious—justly cautious. He was polite and inscrutable, quite like
some of the high personages—ambassadors and cabinet ministers—whom she
used to meet in the great world. “Has the woman been here in the house
ever since?” she asked in a moment.
“No, she went out for ten minutes half an hour ago.”
“Surely then he may have gone out again in that time,” the Princess
argued.
“That’s what I’ve thought. It’s also why I’ve waited here,” said
Schinkel. “I’ve nothing to do,” he added serenely.
“Neither have I,” she returned. “We can wait together.”
“It’s a pity you haven’t some nice room,” the German suggested with
sympathy.
“No indeed; this will do very well. We shall see him the sooner when he
comes back.”
“Yes, but perhaps it won’t be for long.”
“I don’t care for that; I’ll wait. I hope you don’t object to my
company,” she smiled.
“It’s good, it’s good,” Schinkel responded through his smoke.
“Then I’ll send away my cab.” She returned to the vehicle and paid the
driver, who said with expression “Thank you, my lady” and drove off.
“You gave him too much,” observed Schinkel when she came back.
“Oh he looked like a nice man. I’m sure he deserved it.”
“It’s very expensive,” Schinkel went on sociably.
“Yes, and I’ve no money—but it’s done. Was there no one else in the
house while the woman was away?” the Princess resumed.
“No, the people are out; she only has single men. I asked her that.
She has a daughter, but the daughter has gone to see her cousin. The
mother went only a hundred yards, round the corner there, to buy a
pennyworth of milk. She locked this door and put the key in her pocket;
she stayed at the grocer’s, where she got the milk, to have a little
conversation with a friend she met there. You know ladies always stop
like that—_nicht wahr?_ It was half an hour later that I came. She told
me he was at home, and I went up to his room. I got no sound, as I have
told you. I came down and spoke to her again, and she told me what I
say.”
“Then you determined to wait, as I’ve done,” said the Princess.
“Oh yes, I want to see him.”
“So do I, very much.” She said nothing more for a minute, but then
added: “I think we want to see him for the same reason.”
“_Das kann sein—das kann sein._”
The two continued to stand there in the brown evening, and they had
some further conversation of a desultory and irrelevant kind. At
the end of ten minutes the Princess broke out in a low tone, laying
her hand on her companion’s arm: “Mr. Schinkel, this won’t do. I’m
intolerably worried.”
“Yes, that’s the nature of ladies,” the German sagely answered.
“I want to go up to his room,” the Princess said. “You’ll be so good as
to show me where it is.”
“It will do you no good if he’s not there.”
“I’m not sure he’s not there.”
“Well, if he won’t speak it shows he likes better not to have visitors.”
“Oh he may like to have _me_ better than he does you!” she frankly
suggested.
“_Das kann sein—das kann sein._” But Schinkel made no movement to
introduce her into the house.
“There’s nothing to-night—you know what I mean,” she remarked with a
deep look at him.
“Nothing to-night?”
“At the Duke’s. The first party’s on Thursday, the other next Tuesday.”
“_Schön._ I never go to parties,” said Schinkel.
“Neither do I.”
“Except that _this_ is a kind of party—you and me,” he dreadfully
grinned.
“Yes, and the woman of the house doesn’t approve of it.” The footstep
of a jealous landlady had become audible in the passage, through
the open door, which was presently closed from within with a little
reprehensive bang. Something in this touch appeared to quicken
exceedingly the Princess’s impatience and fear; the danger of being
warned off made her wish still more uncontrollably to arrive at the
satisfaction she had come for. “For God’s sake, Mr. Schinkel, take me
up there. If you won’t I’ll go alone,” she pleaded.
Her face was white now and, it need hardly be added, all beautiful with
anxiety. The German took in this impression and then, with no further
word, turned and reopened the door and went forward, followed closely
by his companion.
There was a light in the lower region which tempered the gloom of the
staircase—as high, that is, as the first floor; the ascent the rest
of the way was so dark that the pair went slowly and Schinkel led his
companion by the hand. She gave a suppressed exclamation as she rounded
a sharp turn in the second flight. “Good God, is that his door—with the
light?”
“Yes, you can see under it. There was a light before,” he said without
confusion.
“And why in heaven’s name didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I thought it would worry you.”
“And doesn’t it worry _you_?”
“A little, but I don’t mind,” Schinkel professed. “Very likely he may
have left it.”
“He doesn’t leave candles!” she returned with vehemence. She hurried
up the few remaining steps to the door and paused there with her ear
against it. Her hand grasped the handle and turned it, but the door
resisted. Then she panted to her companion: “We must go in—we must go
in!”
“But what will you do when it’s locked?” he contended.
“You must break it down.”
“It’s very expensive,” said Schinkel.
“Don’t be abject!” cried the Princess. “In a house like this the
fastenings are worth nothing; they’ll easily yield.”
“And if he’s not there—if he comes back and finds what we’ve done?”
She looked at him a moment through the darkness, which was mitigated
only by the small glow proceeding from the chink. “He _is_ there!
Before God he’s there!”
“_Schön, schön_,” said her friend as if he felt the contagion of her
own dread but was deliberating and meant to remain calm. She assured
him that one or two vigorous thrusts with his shoulder would burst the
bolt—certain to be some wretched morsel of tin—and she made way for
him to come close. He did so, he even leaned against the door, but he
gave no violent push, and the Princess waited with her hand against
her heart. Schinkel apparently was still deliberating. At last he gave
a low sigh. “I know they find him the pistol, it’s only for that,” he
mumbled; and the next moment she saw him sway sharply to and fro in
the gloom. She heard a crack and saw the lock had yielded. The door
collapsed: they were in the light; they were in a small room which
looked full of things. The light was that of a single candle on the
mantel; it was so poor that for a moment she made out nothing definite.
Before that moment was over, however, her eyes had attached themselves
to the small bed. There was something on it—something black, something
ambiguous, something outstretched. Schinkel held her back, but only an
instant; she saw everything and with the very vision flung herself,
beside the bed, upon her knees. Hyacinth lay there as if asleep, but
there was a horrible thing, a mess of blood, on the counterpane, in
his side, in his heart. His arm hung limp beside him, downwards, off
the narrow couch; his face was white and his eyes were closed. So
much Schinkel saw, but only for an instant; a convulsive movement of
the Princess, bending over the body while a strange low cry came from
her lips, covered it up. He looked about him for the weapon, for the
pistol, but in her rush at the bed she had pushed it out of sight
with her knees. “It’s a pity they found it—if he hadn’t had it here!”
he wailed to her under his breath. He had determined to remain calm,
so that, on turning round at the quick advent of the little woman of
the house, who had hurried up, white, staring, scared by the sound of
the smashed door, he was able to say very quietly and gravely: “Mr.
Robinson has shot himself through the heart. He must have done it while
you were fetching the milk.” The Princess rose, hearing another person
in the room, and then Schinkel caught sight of the small revolver
lying just under the bed. He picked it up and carefully placed it on
the mantel-shelf—keeping all to himself, with an equal prudence, the
reflexion that it would certainly have served much better for the Duke.