ONE NIGHT IN ESSEX STREET.
We go on now to the following year: and I, Charles Strange, take up
the narrative again.
* * * * *
It has been said that the two rooms on the ground-floor of our house
in Essex Street were chiefly given over to the clerks. I had a desk in
the front office; the same desk that I had occupied as a boy; and I
frequently sat at it now. Mr. Lennard's desk stood opposite to mine.
On the first floor the large front room was furnished as a
sitting-room. It was called Mr. Brightman's room, and there he
received his clients. The back room was called my room; but Mr.
Brightman had a desk in it, and I had another. His desk stood in the
middle of the room before the hearthrug; mine was under the window.
One fine Saturday afternoon in February, when it was getting near five
o'clock, I was writing busily at my desk in this latter room, when Mr.
Brightman came in.
"Rather dark for you, is it not, Charles?" he remarked, as he stirred
the fire and sat down in his arm-chair beside it.
"Yes, sir; but I have almost finished."
"What are you going to do with yourself to-morrow?" he presently
asked, when I was putting up my parchments.
"Nothing in particular, sir." I could not help sometimes retaining my
old way of addressing him, as from clerk to master. "Last Sunday I was
with my uncle Stillingfar."
"Then you may as well come down to Clapham and dine with me. Mrs.
Brightman is away for a day or two, and I shall be alone. Come in time
for service."
I promised, and drew a chair to the fire, ready to talk with Mr.
Brightman. He liked a little chat with me at times when the day's work
was over. It turned now on Lord Level, from whom I had heard that
morning. We were not his usual solicitors, but were doing a little
matter of business for him. He and Blanche had been abroad since the
previous November (when they had come up together from Marshdale), and
had now been in Paris for about a month.
"Do they still get on pretty well?" asked Mr. Brightman: for he knew
that there had been differences between them.
"Pretty well," I answered, rather hesitatingly.
And, in truth, it was only pretty well, so far as I was able to form a
judgment. During this sojourn of theirs in Paris I had spent a few
days there with a client, and saw Blanche two or three times. That she
was living in a state of haughty resentment against her husband was
indisputable. Why or wherefore, I knew not. She dropped a mysterious
word to me now and then, of which I could make nothing.
While Mr. Brightman was saying this, a clerk came in, handed a letter
to him and retired.
"What a nuisance!" cried he, as he read it by fire-light. I looked up
at the exclamation.
"Sir Edmund Clavering's coming to town this evening, and wants me to
be here to see him!" he explained. "I can't go home to dinner now."
"Which train is he coming by?" I asked.
"One that is due at Euston Square at six o'clock," replied Mr.
Brightman, referring to the letter. "I wanted to be home early this
evening."
"You are not obliged to wait, sir," I said. I wished to my heart
later--oh, how I wished it!--that he had not waited!
"I suppose I must, Charles. He is a good client, and easily takes
offence. Recollect that breeze we had with him three or four months
ago."
The clocks struck five as he spoke, and we heard the clerks leaving as
usual. I have already stated that no difference was made in the
working hours on Saturdays in those days. Afterwards, Mr. Lennard came
up to ask whether there was anything more to be done.
"Not now," replied Mr. Brightman. "But I tell you what, Lennard," he
added, as a thought seemed to occur to him, "you may as well look in
again to-night, about half-past seven or eight, if it won't
inconvenience you. Sir Edmund Clavering is coming up; I conclude it is
for something special; and I may have instructions to give for Monday
morning."
"Very well," replied Lennard. "I will come."
He went out as he spoke; a spare, gentlemanly man, with a fair
complexion and thin, careworn face. Edgar Lennard was a man of few
words, but attentive and always at his post, a most efficient
superintendent of the office and of the clerks in general.
He left and Mr. Brightman rose, saying he would go and get some dinner
at the Rainbow. I suggested that he should share my modest steak,
adding that Leah could as easily send up enough for two as for one:
but he preferred to go out. I rang the bell as I heard him close the
frontdoor. Watts answered it, and lighted the gas.
"Tell your wife to prepare my dinner at once," I said to him; "or as
soon as possible: Mr. Brightman is coming back to-night. You are going
out, are you not?"
"Yes, sir, about that business. Mr. Lennard said I had better go as
soon as I had had my tea."
"All right. It will take you two or three hours to get there and back
again. See to the fire in the next room; it is to be kept up. And,
Watts, tell Leah not to trouble about vegetables to-day: I can't wait
for them."
In about twenty minutes Leah and the steak appeared. I could not help
looking at her as she placed the tray on the table and settled the
dishes. Thin, haggard, untidy, Leah presented a strange contrast to
the trim, well-dressed upper servant I had known at White Littleham
Rectory. It was Watts who generally waited upon me. When Leah knew
beforehand that she would have to wait, she put herself straight.
Today she had not known. My proper sitting-room upstairs was not much
used in winter. This one was warm and comfortable, with the large fire
kept in it all day, so I generally remained in it. I was not troubled
with clients after office hours.
"I wonder you go such a figure, Leah!" I could not help saying so.
"It is cleaning-day, Mr. Charles. And I did not know I should have to
come up here. Watts has just gone out."
"It is a strange thing to me that you cannot get a woman in to help
you. I have said so before."
"Ah, sir, nobody knows where the shoe pinches but he who wears it."
With this remark, unintelligible as apropos to the question, and a
deep sigh, Leah withdrew. I had finished dinner, and the tray was
taken away before Mr. Brightman returned.
"Now I hope Sir Edmund will be punctual," he cried, as we sat
together, talking over a glass of sherry. "It is half-past six: time
he was here."
"And there he is!" I exclaimed, as a ring and a knock that shook the
house resounded in our ears. After five o'clock the front door was
always closed.
Watts being out, we heard Leah answer the door in her charming
costume. But clients pay little attention to the attire of laundresses
in chambers.
"Good heavens! Can Sir Edmund have taken too much!" uttered Mr.
Brightman, halting as he was about to enter the other room to receive
him. Loud sounds in a man's voice arose from the passage; singing,
laughing, joking with Leah. "Open the door, Charles."
I had already opened it, and saw, not Sir Edmund Clavering, but the
young country client, George Coney, the son of a substantial and
respectable yeoman in Gloucestershire. He appeared to be in exalted
spirits, and had a little exceeded, but was very far from being
intoxicated.
"What, is Mr. Brightman here? I only expected to see you," cried he,
shaking hands with both. "Look here!" holding out a small canvas bag,
and rattling it. "What does that sound like?"
"It sounds like gold," said Mr. Brightman.
"Right, Mr. Brightman; thirty golden sovereigns: and I am as delighted
with them as if they were thirty hundred," said he, opening the bag
and displaying its contents. "Last week I got swindled out of a horse
down at home. Thirty pounds I sold him for, and he and the purchaser
disappeared and forgot to pay. My father went on at me, like our old
mill clacking; not so much for the loss of the thirty pounds, as at my
being done: and all the farmers round about clacked at me, like so
many more mills. Pleasant, that, for a fellow, was it not?"
"Very," said Mr. Brightman, while I laughed.
"I did not care to stand it," went on George Coney. "I obtained a bit
of a clue, and the day before yesterday I came up to London--and I
have met with luck. This afternoon I dropped across the very chap,
where I had waited for him since the morning. He was going into a
public-house, and another with him, and I pinned them in the room,
with a policeman outside, and he pretty soon shelled out the thirty
pounds, rather than be taken. That's luck, I hope." He opened the bag
as he spoke, and displayed the gold.
"Remarkable luck, to get the money," observed Mr. Brightman.
"I expect they had been in luck themselves," continued young Coney,
"for they had more gold with them, and several notes. They were for
paying me in notes, but 'No, thank ye,' said I, 'I know good gold when
I see it, and I'll take it in that.'"
"I am glad you have been so fortunate," said Mr. Brightman. "When do
you return home?"
"I did mean to go to-night, and I called to leave with you this small
deed that my father said I might as well bring up with me, as I was
coming"--producing a thin folded parchment from his capacious
pocketbook. "But I began thinking, as I came along, that I might as
well have a bit of a spree now I am here, and go down by Monday
night's train," added the young man, tying up the bag again, and
slipping it into his pocket. "I shall go to a theatre to-night."
"Not with that bag of gold about you?" said Mr. Brightman.
"Why not?"
"Why not? Because you would have no trace of it left to-morrow
morning."
George Coney laughed good-humouredly. "I can take care of myself,
sir."
"Perhaps so; but you can't take care of the gold. Come, hand it over
to me. Your father will thank me for being determined, and you also,
Mr. George, when you have cooled down from the seductions of London."
"I may want to spend some of it," returned George Coney. "Let's see
how much I have," cried he, turning the loose money out of his
pockets. "Four pounds, seven shillings, and a few halfpence," he
concluded, counting it up.
"A great deal too much to squander or lose in one night," remarked Mr.
Brightman. "Here," added he, unlocking a deep drawer in his desk, "put
your bag in here, and come for it on Monday."
George Coney drew the bag from his pocket, but not without a few
remonstrative shakes of the head, and put it in the drawer. Mr.
Brightman locked it, and restored the bunch of keys to his pocket.
"You are worse than my father is," cried George Coney, half in jest,
half vexed at having yielded. "I wouldn't be as close and stingy for
anything."
"In telling this story twenty years hence, Mr. George, you will say,
What a simpleton I should have made of myself, if that cautious old
lawyer Brightman had not been close and stingy!"
George Coney winked at me and laughed. "Perhaps he's right, after
all."
"I know I am," said Mr. Brightman. "Will you take a glass of sherry?"
"Well; no, I think I had better not. I have had almost enough already,
and I want to carry clear eyes with me to the play. What time does it
begin?"
"About seven, I think; but I am not a theatre-goer myself. Strange can
tell you."
"Then I shall be off," said he, shaking hands with us, as only a
hearty country yeoman knows how to.
He had scarcely gone when Sir Edmund Clavering's knock was heard. Mr.
Brightman went with him into the front room, and I sat reading the
_Times_. Leah, by the way, had made herself presentable, and looked
tidy enough in a clean white cap and apron.
Sir Edmund did not stay long: he left about seven. I heard Mr.
Brightman go back after showing him out, and rake the fire out of the
grate--he was always timidly cautious about fire--and then he returned
to my room.
"No wonder Sir Edmund wanted to see me," cried he. "There's the deuce
of a piece of work down at his place. His cousin wants to dispute the
will and to turn him out. They have been serving notices on the
tenants not to pay the rent."
"What a curious woman she must be!"
Mr. Brightman smiled slightly, but made no answer.
"He did not stay long, sir."
"No, he is going out to dinner."
As Mr. Brightman spoke, he turned up the gas, drew his chair to the
desk and sat down, his back then being towards the fire. "I must look
over these letters and copies of notices which Sir Edmund brought
with him, and has left with me," he remarked. "I don't care to go
home directly."
The next minute he was absorbed in the papers. I put down the _Times_,
and rose. "You do not want me, I suppose, Mr. Brightman," I said. "I
promised Arthur Lake to go to his chambers for an hour."
"I don't want you, Charles. Mind you are not late in coming down to me
to-morrow morning."
So I wished him good-night and departed. Arthur Lake, a full-fledged
barrister now of the Middle Temple, rented a couple of rooms in one of
the courts. His papers were in one room, his bed in the other. He was
a steady fellow, as he always had been, working hard and likely to get
on. We passed many of our evenings together over a quiet chat and a
cigar, I going round to him, or he coming in to me. He had grown up a
little, dandified sort of man, good-humouredly insolent as ever when
the fit took him: but sterling at heart.
Lake was sitting at the fire waiting for me, and began to grumble at
my being late. I mentioned what had hindered me.
"And I have forgotten my cigar-case!" I exclaimed as I sat down. "I
had filled it, all ready, and left it on the table."
"Never mind," said Lake. "I laid in a parcel to-day."
But I did mind, for Lake's "parcels" were never good. He would buy his
cigars so dreadfully strong. Nothing pleased him but those
full-flavoured Lopez, whilst I liked mild Cabanas: so, generally
speaking, I kept to my own. However, I took one, and we sat, talking
and smoking. I smoked it out, abominable though it was, and took
another; but I couldn't stand a second.
"Lake, I cannot smoke your cigars," I said, flinging it into the fire.
"You know I never can. I must run and fetch my own. There goes eight
o'clock."
"What's the matter with them?" asked Lake: his usual question.
"Everything; they are bad all over. I shall be back in a trice."
I went the quickest way, through the passages, which brought me into
Essex Street, and had my latch-key ready to open the door with as I
approached the house. There were three of these latchkeys. I had one;
Lennard another, for it sometimes happened that he had to come in
before or after business hours; and Leah had possession of the third.
But I had no use for mine now, for the door was open. A policeman,
standing by the area railings, recognised me, and wished me
good-evening.
'Whose carelessness is this?' thought I, advancing to the top of the
kitchen stairs and calling to Leah.
It appeared useless to call: no Leah made her appearance. I shut the
front door and went upstairs, wondering whether Mr. Brightman had
left.
Left! I started back as I entered; for there lay Mr. Brightman on the
floor by his desk, as if he had pushed back his chair and fallen from
it.
"What is the matter?" I exclaimed, throwing my hat anywhere, and
hastening to raise him. But his head and shoulders were a dead weight
in my arms, and there was an awful look upon his face, as the gaslight
fell upon it. A look, in short, of death, and not of an easy death.
My pulses beat quicker, man though I was, and my heart beat with them.
Was I alone in that large house with the dead? I let him fall again
and rang the bell violently. I rushed to the door and shouted over the
banisters for Leah; and just as I was leaping down for the policeman I
had seen outside, or any other help that might be at hand, I heard a
latch-key inserted into the lock, and Lennard came in with Dr.
Dickenson. I knew him well, for he had attended Miss Methold in the
days gone by.
As he hastened to Mr. Brightman, Lennard turned to me, speaking in a
whisper:
"Mr. Strange, how did it happen? Was he ill?"
"I know nothing about it, Lennard. I came in a minute ago, and found
him lying here. What do you know? Had you been here before?"
"I came, as Mr. Brightman had directed," he replied. "It was a little
before eight; and when I got upstairs he was lying there as you see. I
tried to rouse him, but could not, and I went off for the doctor."
"Did you leave the front door open?"
"I believe I did, in my flurry and haste. I thought of it as I ran up
the street, but would not lose time in going back to shut it."
"He is gone, Mr. Strange," said Dr. Dickenson, advancing towards me,
for I and Lennard had stood near the door. "It is a case of sudden
death."
I sat down, bewildered. I could not believe it. How awfully sudden!
"Is it apoplexy?" I asked, lifting my head.
"No, I should say not."
"Then what is it?"
"I cannot tell; it may be the heart."
"Are you sure he is dead? Beyond all hope?"
"He is indeed."
A disagreeable doubt rushed over my mind, and I spoke on the impulse
of the moment. "Has he come by his death fairly?"
The surgeon paused before he answered. "I see no reason, as yet, to
infer otherwise. There are no signs of violence about him."
I cannot describe my feelings as we stood looking down at him. Never
had I felt so before. What was I to do next?--how act? A hazy idea was
making itself heard that some weighty responsibility lay upon me.
Just then a cab dashed up to the door; we heard it all too plainly in
the hushed silence; and someone knocked and rang. Lennard went down to
open it, and I told him to send in the policeman and fetch another
doctor. Looking over the banisters I saw George Coney come in.
"Such a downfall to my plans, Mr. Strange," he began, seeing me as he
ascended the stairs. "I went round to my inn to brush myself up before
going to the play, and there I found a letter from my father, which
they had forgotten to give me this morning. Our bailiff's been taken
ill, cannot leave his bed, and father writes that I had better let the
horse and the thirty pounds go for a bad job, and come home, for he
can't have me away longer. So my spree's done for, this time, and I am
on my way to the station, to catch the nine o'clock train."
"Don't go in until you have heard what is there," I whispered, as he
was entering the room. "Mr. Brightman, whom you left well, is lying on
the floor, and----"
"And what?" asked young Coney, looking at me.
"I fear he is dead."
After a dismayed pause he went gently into the room, taking off his
hat reverently and treading on tiptoe. "Poor fellow! poor gentleman!"
he uttered, after looking at him. "What an awful thing! How was he
taken?"
"We do not know how. He was alone."
"What, alone when he was taken! no one to help him!" returned the
young man. "That was hard! What has he died of?"
"Probably the heart," interposed Dr. Dickenson.
"Last summer a carter of ours fell down as he was standing near us; my
father was giving him directions about a load of hay, and when we
picked him up he was dead," spoke the young man. "That was the heart,
they said. But he looked calm and quiet, not as Mr. Brightman looks.
He left seven children, poor chap!"
At that juncture Mr. Lennard returned with the policeman. Another
doctor, he said, would be round directly. After some general
conversation, George Coney looked at his watch.
"Mr. Strange, my time's up. Would it be convenient to give me that
money again? I should like to take it down with me, you see, just to
have the laugh against the old folks at home."
"I will give it you," I said.
But for the very life of me, I could not put my hand into the dead
man's pocket. I beckoned to Lennard. "Can you take out his keys?"
"Let me do it," said Dr. Dickenson, for Lennard did not seem to relish
the task either. "I am more accustomed to death than you are. Which
pocket are they in?"
"The right-hand pocket of his trousers; he always kept them there,"
was my answer.
Dr. Dickenson found the keys and handed them to me. I unlocked the
drawer, being obliged to bend over the dead to do so, and young Coney
stepped forward to receive the bag.
But the bag was not there.