Marion D’Arblay at Home
Most of us have, I imagine, been conscious at times of certain
misgivings as to whether the Progress of which we hear so much has
done for us all that it is assumed to have done; whether the undoubted
gain of advancing knowledge has not a somewhat heavy counterpoise of
loss. We moderns are accustomed to look upon a world filled with
objects that would have made our forefathers gasp with admiring
astonishment; and we are accordingly a little puffed up by our
superiority. But the museums and galleries and ancient buildings
sometimes tell a different tale. By them we are made aware that these
same “rude forefathers” were endowed with certain powers and aptitudes
that seem to be denied to the present generation.
Some such reflections as these passed through my mind as I sauntered
about the ancient village of Highgate, having arrived in the
neighbourhood nearly an hour too early. Very delightful the old
village was to look upon, and so it had been, even when the mellow red
brick was new and the plaster on the timber houses was but freshly
laid; when the great elms were saplings and the stage-wagon with its
procession of horses rumbled along the road which now resounds to the
thunder of the electric tram. It was not Time that had made beautiful
its charming old houses and pleasant streets and closes, but fine
workmanship guided by unerring taste.
At four o’clock precisely, by the chime of the church clock, I pushed
open the gate of Ivy Cottage, and as I walked up the flagged path,
read the date, 1709, on a stone tablet let into the brickwork. I had
no occasion to knock, for my approach had been observed, and as I
mounted the threshold the door opened and Miss D’Arblay stood in the
opening.
“Miss Boler saw you coming up the Grove,” she explained, as we shook
hands. “It is surprising how much of the outer world you can see from
a bay window. It is as good as a watch tower.” She disposed of my hat
and stick, and then preceded me into the room to which the window
appertained, where, beside a bright fire, Miss Boler was at the moment
occupied with a brilliantly burnished copper kettle and a silver
teapot. She greeted me with an affable smile, and as much of a bow as
was possible under the circumstances, and then proceeded to make the
tea with an expression of deep concentration.
“I do like punctual people,” she remarked, placing the teapot on a
carved wooden stand. “You know where you are with them. At the very
moment when you turned the corner, Sir, Miss Marion finished buttering
the last muffin and the kettle boiled over. So you won’t have to wait
a moment.”
Miss D’Arblay laughed softly. “You speak as if Dr. Gray had staggered
into the house in a famished condition, roaring for food,” said she.
“Well,” retorted Miss Boler, “you said ‘tea at four o’clock,’ and at
four o’clock the tea was ready and Dr. Gray was here. If he hadn’t
been he would have had to eat leathery muffins, that’s all.”
“Horrible!” exclaimed Miss D’Arblay. “One doesn’t like to think of it;
and there is no need to, as it hasn’t happened. Remember that this is
a gate-legged table, Dr. Gray, when you sit down. They are
delightfully picturesque, but exceedingly bad for the knees of the
unwary.”
I thanked her for the warning, and took my seat with due caution. Then
Miss Boler poured out the tea and uncovered the muffins with the grave
and attentive air of one performing some ceremonial rite.
As the homely, simple meal proceeded, to an accompaniment of desultory
conversation on every-day topics, I found myself looking at the two
women with a certain ill-defined surprise. Both were garbed in
unobtrusive black, and both, in moments of repose, looked somewhat
tired and worn. But in their manner and the subjects of their
conversation, they were astonishingly ordinary and normal. No
stranger, looking at them and listening to their talk, would have
dreamed of the tragedy that overshadowed their lives. But so it
constantly happens. We go into a house of mourning, and are almost
scandalized by its cheerfulness, forgetting that whereas to us the
bereavement is the one salient fact, to the bereaved there is the
necessity of taking up afresh the threads of their lives. Food must be
prepared even while the corpse lies under the roof, and the common
daily round of duty stands still for no human affliction.
But, as I have said, in the pauses of the conversation, when their
faces were in repose, both women looked strained and tired. Especially
was this so in the case of Miss D’Arblay. She was not only pale, but
she had a nervous, shaken manner which I did not like. And as I looked
anxiously at the delicate, pallid face, I noticed, not for the first
time, several linear scratches on the cheek and a small cut on the
temple.
“What have you been doing to yourself?” I asked. “You look as if you
had had a fall.”
“She has,” said Miss Boler in an indignant tone. “It is a marvel that
she is here to tell the tale. The wretches!”
I looked at Miss D’Arblay in consternation. “What wretches?” I asked.
“Ah! indeed!” growled Miss Boler. “I wish I knew. Tell him about it,
Miss Marion.”
“It was really rather a terrifying experience,” said Miss D’Arblay;
“and most mysterious. You know Southwood Lane and the long, steep hill
at the bottom of it?” I nodded, and she continued: “I have been going
down to the studio every day on my bicycle, just to tidy up, and, of
course, I went by Southwood Lane. It is really the only way. But I
always put on the brake at the top of the hill and go down quite
slowly because of the crossroads at the bottom. Well, three days ago I
started as usual and ran down the Lane pretty fast until I got on the
hill. Then I put on the brake; and I could feel at once that it wasn’t
working.”
“Has your bicycle only one brake?” I asked.
“It had. I am having a second one fixed now. Well, when I found that
the brake wasn’t acting, I was terrified. I was already going too fast
to jump off, and the speed increased every moment. I simply flew down
the hill, faster and faster with the wind whistling about my ears and
the trees and the houses whirling past like express trains. Of course,
I could do nothing but steer straight down the hill; but at the bottom
there was the Archway Road with the trams and ’buses and wagons. I
knew that if a tram crossed the bottom of the Lane as I reached the
road, it was practically certain death. I was horribly frightened.
“However, mercifully the Archway Road was clear when I flew across it,
and I steered to run on down Muswell Hill Road, which is nearly in a
line with the lane. But suddenly I saw a steam roller and a heavy
cart, side by side and taking up the whole of the road. There was no
room to pass. The only possible thing was to swerve round, if I could,
into Wood-lane. And I just managed it. But Wood-lane is pretty steep,
and I flew down it faster than ever. That nearly broke down my nerve;
for at the bottom of the lane is the wood—the horrible wood that I can
never even think of without a shudder. And there I seemed to be
rushing towards it to my death.”
She paused and drew a deep breath, and her hand shook so that the cup
which it held rattled in the saucer.
“Well,” she continued, “down the Lane I flew with my heart in my mouth
and the entrance to the wood rushing to meet me. I could see that the
opening in the hurdles was just wide enough for me to pass through,
and I steered for it. I whizzed through into the wood and the bicycle
went bounding down the steep, rough path at a fearful pace until it
came to a sharp turn; and then I don’t quite know what happened. There
was a crash of snapping branches and a violent shock, but I must have
been partly stunned, for the next thing that I remember is opening my
eyes and looking stupidly at a lady who was stooping over me. She had
seen me fly down the Lane, and had followed me into the wood to see
what happened to me. She lived in the Lane, and she very kindly took
me to her house and cared for me until I was quite recovered; and then
she saw me home and wheeled the bicycle.”
“It is a wonder you were not killed outright!” I exclaimed.
“Yes,” she agreed; “it was a narrow escape. But the odd thing is that,
with the exception of these scratches and a few slight bruises, I was
not hurt at all; only very much shaken. And the bicycle was not
damaged a bit.”
“By the way,” said I, “what had happened to the brake?”
“Ah!” exclaimed Miss Boler; “there you are. The villains!”
Miss D’Arblay laughed softly. “Ferocious Arabella!” said she. “But it
is really a most mysterious affair. Naturally, I thought that the wire
of the brake had snapped. But it hadn’t. It had been cut.”
“Are you quite sure of that?” I asked.
“Oh, there is no doubt at all,” she replied. “The man at the repair
shop showed it to me. It wasn’t merely cut in one place. A length of
it had been cut right out. And I can tell within a few minutes when it
was done, for I had been riding the machine in the morning and I know
the brake was all right then. But I left it for a few minutes outside
the gate while I went into the house to change my shoes, and when I
came out, I started on my adventurous journey. In those few minutes
some one must have come along and just snipped the wire through in two
places and taken away the piece.”
“Scoundrel!” muttered Miss Boler; and I agreed with her most
cordially.
“It was an infamous thing to do,” I exclaimed, “and the act of an
abject fool. I suppose you have no idea or suspicion as to who the
idiot might be?”
“Not the slightest,” Miss D’Arblay replied. “I can’t even guess at the
kind of person who would do such a thing. Boys are sometimes very
mischievous, but this is hardly like a boy’s mischief.”
“No,” I agreed, “it is more like the mischief of a mentally defective
adult; the sort of half-baked larrykin who sets fire to a rick if he
gets the chance.”
Miss Boler sniffed. “Looks to me more like deliberate malice,” said
she.
“Mischievous acts usually do,” I rejoined; “but yet they are mostly
the outcome of stupidity that is indifferent to consequences.”
“And it is of no use arguing about it,” said Miss D’Arblay, “because
we don’t know who did it or why he did it, and we have no means of
finding out. But I shall have two brakes in future, and I shall test
them both every time I take the machine out.”
“I hope you will,” said Miss Boler; and this closed the topic so far
as conversation went, though I suspect that, in the interval of
silence that followed, we all continued to pursue it in our thoughts.
And to all of us, doubtless, the mention of Church-yard Bottom Wood
had awakened memories of that fatal morning when the pool gave up its
dead. No reference to the tragedy had yet been made, but it was
inevitable that the thoughts which were at the back of all our minds
should sooner or later come to the surface. They were, in fact,
brought there by me, though unintentionally; for, as I sat at the
table, my eyes had strayed more than once to a bust—or rather a head,
for there were no shoulders—which occupied the centre of the
mantelpiece. It was apparently of lead, and was a portrait, and a very
good one, of Miss D’Arblay’s father. At the first glance I had
recognized the face which I had first seen through the water of the
pool. Miss D’Arblay, who was sitting facing it, caught my glance, and
said: “You are looking at that head of my dear father. I suppose you
recognized it?”
“Yes, instantly. I should take it to be an excellent likeness.”
“It is,” she replied; “and that is something of an achievement in a
self-portrait in the round.”
“Then he modelled it himself?”
“Yes, with the aid of one or two photographs and a couple of mirrors.
I helped him by taking the dimensions with callipers and drawing out a
scale. Then he made a wax cast and a fireproof mould, and we cast it
together in type-metal, as we had no means of melting bronze. Poor
Daddy! How proud he was when we broke away the mould and found the
casting quite perfect!”
She sighed as she gazed fondly on the beloved features, and her eyes
filled. Then, after a brief silence, she turned to me and asked:
“Did Inspector Follett call on you? He said he was going to.”
“Yes, he called yesterday to show me the things that he had found in
the pond. Of course, they were not mine, and he seemed to have no
doubt—and I think he is right—that they belonged to the—to the——”
“Murderer,” said Miss Boler.
“Yes. He seemed to think that they might furnish some kind of clue,
but I am afraid he had nothing very clear in his mind. I suppose that
coin suggested nothing to you?”
Miss D’Arblay shook her head. “Nothing,” she replied. “As it is an
ancient coin, the man may be a collector or a dealer——”
“Or a forger,” interposed Miss Boler.
“Or a forger. But no such person is known to us. And even that is mere
guesswork.”
“Your father was not interested in coins, then?”
“As a sculptor, yes, and more especially in medals and plaquettes. But
not as a collector. He had no desire to possess; only to create. And
so far as I know, he was not acquainted with any collectors. So this
discovery of the inspector’s, so far from solving the mystery, only
adds a fresh problem.”
She reflected for a few moments with knitted brows; then, turning to
me quickly, she asked:
“Did the inspector take you into his confidence at all? He was very
reticent to me, though most kind and sympathetic. But do you think
that he, or the others, are taking any active measures?”
“My impression,” I answered reluctantly, “is that the police are not
in a position to do anything. The truth is that this villain seems to
have got away without leaving a trace.”
“That is what I feared,” she sighed. Then with sudden passion, though
in a quiet, suppressed voice, she exclaimed: “But he must not escape!
It would be too hideous an injustice. Nothing can bring back my dear
father from the grave; but if there is a God of Justice, this
murderous wretch must be called to account and made to pay the penalty
of his crime.”
“He must,” Miss Boler assented in deep, ominous tones, “and he shall;
though God knows how it is to be done.”
“For the present,” said I, “there is nothing to be done but to wait
and see if the police are able to obtain any fresh information; and
meanwhile to turn over every circumstance that you can think of; to
recall the way your father spent his time, the people he knew, and the
possibility in each case that some cause of enmity may have arisen.”
“That is what I have done,” said Miss D’Arblay. “Every night I lie
awake, thinking, thinking; but nothing comes of it. The thing is
incomprehensible. This man must have been a deadly enemy of my
father’s. He must have hated him with the most intense hatred, or he
must have had some strong reason other than mere hatred for making
away with him. But I cannot imagine any person hating my father, and I
certainly have no knowledge of any such person, nor can I conceive of
any reason that any human creature could have had for wishing for my
father’s death. I cannot begin to understand the meaning of what has
happened.”
“But yet,” said I, “there must be a meaning. This man—unless he was a
lunatic, which he apparently was not—must have had a motive for
committing the murder. That motive must have had some background, some
connexion with circumstances of which somebody has knowledge. Sooner
or later those circumstances will almost certainly come to light, and
then the motive for the murder will come into view. But once the
motive is known, it should not be difficult to discover who could be
influenced by such a motive. Let us, for the present, be patient and
see how events shape, but let us also keep a constant watch for any
glimmer of light, for any fact that may bear on either the motive or
the person.”
The two women looked at me earnestly and with an expression of
respectful confidence, of which I knew myself to be wholly
undeserving.
“It gives me new courage,” said Miss D’Arblay, “to hear you speak in
that reasonable, confident tone. I was in despair, but I feel that you
are right. There must be some explanation of this awful thing; and if
there is, it must be possible to discover it. But we ought not to put
the burden of our troubles on you, though you have been so kind.”
“You have done me the honour,” said I, “to allow me to consider myself
your friend. Surely friends should help to bear one another’s
burdens.”
“Yes,” she replied, “in reason; and you have given most generous help
already. But we must not put too much on you. When my father was
alive, he was my great interest and chief concern. Now that he is
gone, the great purpose of my life is to find the wretch who murdered
him and to see that justice is done. That is all that seems to matter
to me. But it is my own affair. I ought not to involve my friends in
it.”
“I can’t admit that,” said I. “The foundation of friendship is
sympathy and service. If I am your friend, then what matters to you
matters to me; and I may say that in the very moment when I first knew
that your father had been murdered, I made the resolve to devote
myself to the discovery and punishment of his murderer by any means
that lay in my power. So you must count me as your ally as well as
your friend.”
As I made this declaration—to an accompaniment of approving growls
from Miss Boler—Marion D’Arblay gave me one quick glance and then
looked down; and once more, her eyes filled. For a few moments she
made no reply; and when, at length, she spoke, her voice trembled.
“You leave me nothing to say,” she murmured, “but to thank you from my
heart. But you little know what it means to us, who felt so helpless,
to know that we have a friend so much wiser and stronger than
ourselves.”
I was a little abashed, knowing my own weakness and helplessness, to
find her putting so much reliance on me. However, there was Thorndyke
in the background; and now I was resolved that, if the thing was in
any way to be compassed, his help must be secured without delay.
A longish pause followed, and as it seemed to me that there was
nothing more to say on this subject until I had seen Thorndyke, I
ventured to open a fresh topic.
“What will happen to your father’s practice?” I asked. “Will you be
able to get any one to carry it on for you?”
“I am glad you asked that,” said Miss D’Arblay, “because, now that you
are our counsellor we can take your opinion, I have already talked the
matter over with Arabella—with Miss Boler.”
“There’s no need to stand on ceremony,” the latter lady interposed.
“Arabella is good enough for me.”
“Arabella is good enough for any one,” said Miss D’Arblay. “Well, the
position is this. The part of my father’s practice that was concerned
with original work—pottery figures and reliefs and models for
goldsmith’s work—will have to go. No one but a sculptor of his own
class could carry that on. But the wax figures for the shop windows
are different. When he first started, he used to model the heads and
limbs in clay and make plaster casts from which to make the gelatine
moulds for the wax-work. But as time went on, these casts accumulated
and he very seldom had need to model fresh heads or limbs. The old
casts could be used over and over again. Now there is a large
collection of plaster models in the studio—heads, arms, legs, and
faces, especially faces—and as I have a fair knowledge of the
wax-work, from watching my father and sometimes helping him, it seemed
that I might be able to carry on that part of the practice.”
“You think you could make the wax figures yourself?” I asked.
“Of course she could,” exclaimed Miss Boler. “She’s her father’s
daughter. Julius D’Arblay was a man who could do anything he turned
his hand to and do it well. And Miss Marion is just like him. She is
quite a good modeller—so her father said; and she wouldn’t have to
make the figures. Only the wax parts.”
“Then they are not wax all over?” said I.
“No,” answered Miss D’Arblay. “They are just dummies; wooden
frameworks covered with stuffed canvas, with wax heads, busts, and
arms, and shaped legs. That was what poor Daddy used to hate about
them. He would have liked to model complete figures.”
“And as to the business side. Could you dispose of them?”
“Yes, if I could do them satisfactorily. The agent who dealt with my
father’s work has already written to me asking if I could carry on. I
know he will help me so far as he can. He was quite fond of my
father.”
“And you have nothing else in view?”
“Nothing by which I could earn a real living. For the last year or two
I have worked at writing and illuminating; addresses, testimonials,
and church services, when I could get them, and filled in the time
writing special window-tickets. But that isn’t very remunerative,
whereas the wax figures would yield quite a good living. And then,”
she added, after a pause, “I have the feeling that Daddy would have
liked me to carry on his work, and I should like it myself. He taught
me quite a lot and I think he meant me to join him when he got old.”
As she had evidently made up her mind, and as her decision seemed
quite a wise one, I concurred with as much enthusiasm as I could
muster.
“I am glad you agree,” said she, “and I know Arabella does. So that is
settled, subject to my being able to carry out the plan. And now, if
we have finished, I should like to show you some of my father’s works.
The house is full of them and so, even, is the garden. Perhaps we had
better go there first before the light fails.”
As the treasures of this singularly interesting home were presented,
one after another, for my inspection, I began to realize the truth of
Miss Boler’s statement. Julius D’Arblay had been a remarkably
versatile man. He had worked in all sorts of mediums and in all
equally well. From the carved stone sundial and the leaden garden
figures to the clock-case decorated with gilded gesso and enriched
with delicate bronze plaquettes, all his works were eloquent of
masterly skill and a fresh, graceful fancy. It seems to me little
short of a tragedy that an artist of his ability should have spent the
greater part of his time in fabricating those absurd, posturing
effigies that simper and smirk so grotesquely in the enormous windows
of Vanity Fair.
I had intended, in compliance with the polite conventions, to make
this, my first visit, a rather short one; but a tentative movement to
depart only elicited protests, and I was easily persuaded to stay
until the exigencies of Dr. Cornish’s practice seemed to call me. When
at last I shut the gate of Ivy Cottage behind me and glanced back at
the two figures standing in the lighted doorway, I had the feeling of
turning away from a house with which, and its inmates, I had been
familiar for years.
On my arrival at Mecklenburgh-square I found a note which had been
left by hand earlier in the evening. It was from Dr. Thorndyke, asking
me, if possible, to lunch with him at his chambers on the morrow. I
looked over my visiting list, and finding that Monday would be a light
day—most of my days here were light days—I wrote a short letter
accepting the invitation and posted it forthwith.