EDWARD CLARE DISCOVERS A LIKENESS.
‘Hazlehurst Rectory, February 22nd.--Dear Ned,--Do you remember my
saying, when Laura refused to have a proper wedding-gown, that her
marriage was altogether an ill-omened business? I told her so, I
told you so; in fact, I think I told everybody so; if it be not an
unpardonable exaggeration to call the handful of wretched dowdies and
frumps in such a place as Hazlehurst everybody. Well, I was right. The
marriage has been a complete _fiasco_. What do you think of our
poor Laura’s coming home from her honeymoon _alone_? Without even
so much as her husband’s portmanteau! She has shut herself up in the
Manor-house, where she lives the life of a female anchorite, and is
so reserved in her manner towards me, her oldest friend, her all but
sister, that even I do not know the cause of this extraordinary state
of affairs.
‘“My dear Celia, don’t ask me anything about it,” she said, when we had
kissed each other, and cried a little, and I had looked at her collar
and cuffs to see if she had brought a new style from Paris.
‘“My dearest, I must ask you,” I replied; “I don’t pretend to be more
than human, and I am burning with curiosity and suppressed indignation.
What does it all mean? Why have you challenged public opinion by coming
home alone? Have you and Mr. Treverton quarrelled?”
‘“No,” she said, decisively; “and that is the last question about my
married life that I shall ever answer, Celia, so you need not ask me
any more.”
‘“Where did you part with him?” I asked, determined not to give way. My
unhappy friend was obstinately silent.
‘“Come and see me as often as you like, so long as you do not talk to
me of my husband,” she said a little later. “But if you insist upon
talking about him, I shall shut my door upon you.”
‘“I hear he has acted most generously with regard to the settlements, so
he cannot be altogether bad,” I said--for you know I am not easily put
down--but Laura was adamant. I could not extort another word from her.
‘Perhaps I ought not to tell you this, Ned, knowing what I do about
your former affection for Laura; but I felt that I must open my heart
to somebody. Parents are so stupid that it’s impossible to tell them
things.
‘I can’t conceive what this poor girl is going to do with her life. He
has settled the whole estate upon her, papa says, and she is awfully
rich. But she is living like a hermit, and not spending more than
her own small income. She even talks of selling the carriage horses,
Tommy and Harry, or sending them back to the plough, though I know
she dotes upon them. If this is meanness, it is too awful. If she has
conscientious scruples about spending John Treverton’s money, it is
simply idiotic. Of the two, I could rather think my friend a miser than
an idiot.
‘And now, my dear Ned, as there is nothing else to tell you about the
dismalest place in the universe, I may as well say good-bye.--Your
loving sister,
‘CELIA.’
‘P.S.--I hope you are writing a book of poems that will make the
Laureate burst with envy. I have no personal animosity to him; but you
are my brother, and, of course, your interest must be paramount.’
This letter reached Edward Clare in his dingy lodgings, in a narrow
side street near the British Museum, lodgings so dingy that it would
have grieved the heart of his country-born and country-bred mother to
see her boy in such a den. But the apartments were quite dear enough
for his slender means. The world had not yet awakened to the stupendous
fact that a new poet had been born into it. Stupid reviewers went on
prosing about Tennyson, Browning, and Swinburne, and the name of Clare
was still unknown, even though it had appeared pretty often at the foot
of a neat triplet of verses filling an odd page in a magazine.
‘I shall never win a name in the magazines,’ the young man told
himself. ‘It is worse than not writing at all. I shall rot unknown in
my garret, or die of hunger and opium, like that poor boy who perished
within a quarter of a mile of this dismal hole, unless I can get some
rich publisher to launch me properly.’
But in the meantime a man must live, and Edward was very glad to get an
occasional guinea or two from a magazine. The supplies from home fell
considerably below his requirements, though to send them strained the
father’s resources. The embryo Laureate liked to take life pleasantly.
He liked to dine at a popular restaurant, and to wash down his dinner
with good Rhine wine, or sound claret. He liked good cigars. He could
not wear cheap boots. He could do without gloves at a pinch, but those
he wore must be the best. When he was in funds he preferred a hansom
to pedestrianism. This, he told himself, was the poetical temperament.
Alfred de Musset was, doubtless, just such a man. He could fancy Heine
leading the same kind of life in Paris, before disease had chained him
to his bed.
That letter from Celia was like vitriol dropped into an open wound.
Edward had not forgiven Laura for accepting John Treverton, or the
estate that went with him. He hated John Treverton with a vigorous
hatred that would stand a great deal of wear and tear. He pondered
long over Celia’s letter, trying to discover the clue to the mystery.
It seemed to him tolerably clear. Mr. and Mrs. Treverton had married
with a deliberate understanding. Love between them there was none, and
they had been too honest to pretend an affection which neither felt.
They had agreed to marry and live apart, sharing the dead man’s wealth,
fulfilling the letter of the law, but not the spirit.
‘I call it sheer dishonesty,’ said Edward. ‘I wonder that Laura can
lend herself to such an underhand course.’
It was all very well to talk about John Treverton’s liberality in
settling the entire estate upon his wife. No doubt they had their
private understanding duly set forth in black and white. The husband
was to have his share of the fortune, and squander it how he pleased in
London or Paris, or any part of the globe that seemed best to him.
‘There never was such confounded luck,’ exclaimed Edward, angry with
Fate for having given this man so much and himself so little; ‘a fellow
who three months ago was a beggar.’
In his idle reverie he found himself thinking what he would have done
in John Treverton’s place, with, say, seven thousand a year at his
disposal.
‘I would have chambers in the Albany,’ he thought, ‘furnished on the
purest æsthetic principles. I’d keep a yacht at Cowes, and three or
four hunters at Melton Mowbray. I’d spend February and March in the
South, and April and May in Paris, where I should have a _pied à terre_
in the Champs Elysées. Yes, one could lead a very pleasant life, as a
bachelor, on seven thousand a year.’
Thus it will be seen that, although Mr. Clare had been seriously in
love with Miss Malcolm, it was the loss of Jasper Treverton’s money
which he felt most keenly, and it was the possession of that fortune
for which he envied John Treverton.
One afternoon in February, one of those rare afternoons on which the
winter sun glorifies the gloomy London streets, Mr. Clare called at the
office of a comic periodical, the editor of which had accepted some of
his lighter verses--society poems in the Praed and Locker manner. Two
or three of his contributions had been published within the last month,
and he came to the office with the pleasant consciousness that there
was a cheque due to him.
‘I shall treat myself to a careful little dinner at the _Restaurant
du Pavillon_,’ he told himself, ‘and a stall at the Prince of
Wales’s to wind up the evening.’
He was not a man of vicious tastes. It was not the _aqua fortis_
of vice, but the champagne of pleasure that he relished. He was too
fond of himself, too careful of his own well-being, to fling away
youth, health, and vigour in the sloughs and sewers of evil living. He
had a refined selfishness that was calculated to keep him pure of low
iniquities. He had no aspiration to scale mountain peaks, but he had
sufficient regard for himself to eschew gutters.
The cheque was ready for him, but when he had signed the formal receipt
the clerk told him the editor wanted to speak to him presently, if he
would be kind enough to wait a few minutes.
‘There’s a gentleman with him, but I don’t suppose he’ll be long,’ said
the clerk, ‘if you don’t mind waiting.’
Mr. Clare did not mind, particularly. He sat down on an office stool,
and made himself a cigarette, while he thoughtfully planned his dinner.
He was not going to be extravagant. A plate of bisque soup, a slice
of salmon _en papilotte_, a wing of chicken with mushrooms, an
omelette, half a bottle of St. Julien, and a glass of vermuth.
While he was musing pleasantly thus, the swinging inner door of the
office was dashed open, and a gentleman walked quickly through to the
open doorway that led into the street, with only a passing nod to the
clerk. Edward Clare just caught a glimpse of his face as he turned to
give that brief salutation.
‘Who’s that?’ he asked, starting up from his stool, and dropping the
half-made cigarette.
‘Mr. Chicot, the artist.’
‘Are you sure?’
The clerk grinned.
‘Pretty positive,’ he said. ‘He comes here every week, sometimes twice
a week. I ought to know him.’
Edward knew the name well. The slap-dash caricatures, more Parisian
in style than English, which adorned the middle page of the weekly
paper called ‘FOLLY AS IT FLIES,’ were all signed ‘Chicot.’
The dancer’s admirers, for the most part, gave her the credit of those
productions, an idea which Mr. Smolendo had taken care to encourage.
It was an advantage that his dancer should be thought a woman of many
accomplishments--a Sarah Bernhardt in a small way.
Edward Clare was mystified. The face which he had seen turned towards
the clerk had presented a wondrous likeness of John Treverton. If this
man who called himself Chicot had been John Treverton’s twin brother,
the two could not have been more alike. Edward was so impressed with
this idea that, instead of waiting to see his editor, he hurried out
into the street, bent upon following Mr. Chicot the artist. The office
was in one of the narrow streets northward of the Strand. If Chicot
had turned to the left, he must be by this time following the strong
current of the Strand, which flows westward at this hour, with its
tide of human life, as regularly as the river flows to the sea. If
he had turned to the right, he was most likely lost in the labyrinth
between Drury Lane and Holborn. In either case--three minutes having
been wasted in surprise and interrogation--there seemed little chance
of catching him.
Edward turned to the right, and went towards Holborn. Accident favoured
him. At the corner of Long Acre he saw Chicot, the artist, button-holed
by an older man, of somewhat raffish aspect. That Chicot was anxious
to get away from the button-holer was obvious, and before Edward could
reach the corner he had done so, and was off at a rapid pace westward.
There would be no chance of overtaking him, except by running; and to
run in Long Acre would be to make oneself unpleasantly conspicuous.
There was no empty hansom within sight. Edward looked round
despairingly. There stood the raffish man watching him, and looking as
if he knew exactly what Mr. Clare wanted.
Edward crossed the street, looked at the raffish man, and lingered,
half inclined to speak. The raffish man anticipated his desire.
‘I think you wanted my friend Chicot,’ he said, in a most insinuating
tone.
He had the accent of a gentleman, and in some wise the look of a
gentleman, though his degradation from that high estate was patent to
every eye. His tall hat, sponged and coaxed to a factitious polish,
was of an exploded shape; his coat was the coat of to-day; his stock
was twenty years old in style, and so frayed and greasy that it might
have been worn ever since it first came into fashion. The hawk’s eye,
the iron lines about the mouth and chin, were warnings to the man’s
fellow-creatures. Here was a man capable of anything--a being so
obviously at war with society as to be bound by no law, daunted by no
penalty.
Edward Clare dimly divined that the creature belonged to the dangerous
classes, but in his excellent opinion of his own cleverness deemed
himself strong enough to cope with half a dozen such seedy sinners.
‘Well, yes, I did rather want to speak to him--er--about a literary
matter. Does he live far from here?’
‘Five minutes’ walk. Cibber Street, Leicester Square. I’ll take you
there if you like. I live in the same house.’
‘Ah, then you can tell me all about him. But it isn’t the pleasantest
thing to stand and talk in an east wind. Come in and take a glass of
something,’ suggested Edward, comprehending that this shabby-genteel
stranger must be plied with drink.
‘Ah,’ thought Mr. Desrolles, ‘he wants something of me. This liberality
is not motiveless.’
Tavern doors opened for them close at hand. They entered the refined
seclusion of a jug and bottle department, and each chose the liquor
he preferred--Edward sherry and soda water, the stranger a glass of
brandy, ‘short.’
‘Have you known Mr. Chicot long?’ asked Edward. ‘Don’t suppose I’m
actuated by impertinent curiosity. It’s a matter of business.’
‘Sir, I know when I am talking to a gentleman,’ replied Desrolles, with
a stately air. ‘I was a gentleman myself once, but it’s so long ago
that the world and I have forgotten it.’
He had emptied his glass by this time, and was gazing thoughtfully,
almost tearfully, at the bottom of it.
‘Take another,’ said Edward.
‘I think I will. These east winds are trying to a man of my age. Have I
known Jack Chicot long? Well, about a year and a half--a little less,
perhaps--but the time is of no moment, I know him well.’
And then Mr. Desrolles proceeded to give his new acquaintance
considerable information as to the outer life of Mr. and Mrs. Chicot.
He did not enter into the secrets of their domesticity, save to admit
that Madame was fonder of the brandy bottle--a lamentable propensity in
so fair a being--than she ought to be, and that Mr. Chicot was not so
fond of Madame as he might be.
‘Tired of her, I suppose?’ said Edward.
‘Precisely. A woman who drinks like a fish and swears like a trooper is
apt to pall upon a man, after some years of married life.’
‘Has this Chicot no other income than what he earns by his pencil?’
asked Edward.
‘Not a sou.’
‘He has not been flush of money lately--since the new year, for
instance?’
‘No.’
‘There has been no change in his way of life since then?’
‘Not the slightest--except, perhaps, that he has worked harder than
ever. The man is a prodigious worker. When first he came to London he
had an idea of succeeding as a painter. He used to be at his easel as
soon as it was light. But since the comic journals have taken him up
he has done nothing but draw on the wood. He is really a very good
creature. I haven’t a word to say against him.’
‘He is remarkably like a man I know,’ said Mr. Clare, musingly; ‘but of
course it can’t be the same. The husband of a French dancer. No, that
isn’t possible. I wish it were,’ he muttered to himself, with clenched
teeth.
‘Is he like some one you know?’ interrogated Desrolles.
‘Wonderfully like, so far as I could make out in the glimpse I got of
his face.’
‘Ah, those glimpses are sometimes deceptive. Is your friend residing in
London?’
‘I don’t know where he is just at present. When last I saw him he was
in the west of England.’
‘Ah, nice country that,’ said Desrolles, kindling with sudden
eagerness. ‘Somersetshire or Devonshire way, you mean, I suppose?’
‘I mean Devonshire.’
‘Charming county--delightful scenery!’
‘Very, for your Londoner, who runs down by express train to spend a
fortnight there. Not quite so lively for your son of the soil, who
sees himself doomed to rot in a God-forsaken hole like Hazlehurst, the
village I came from. What! you know the place!’ exclaimed Edward, for
the man had given a start that betokened surprised recognition of the
name.
‘I do know a village called Hazlehurst, but it’s in Wilts,’ the other
answered, coolly. ‘So the gentleman who resembles my friend Chicot is a
native of Devonshire, and a neighbour of yours?’
‘I didn’t say he was either,’ returned Edward, who did not want to be
catechised by a disreputable-looking stranger. ‘I said I had last seen
him at Hazlehurst. That’s all. And now, as I’ve an appointment at five
o’clock, I must wish you good afternoon.’
They both left the bar together, and went out into Long Acre, whence
the wintry sunshine had departed, giving place to that dull, thick
greyness which envelopes London at eventide, like a curtain.
To those who love the city, as Charles Lamb loved it, for instance,
there is something comfortable even in this all-enshrouding grey,
through which the lamps shine cheerfully, like friendly eyes.
‘I’m sorry I haven’t got my card case with me,’ said Desrolles, feeling
in his breast pocket.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ the other answered, curtly. ‘Good-day to you.’
And so they parted, Edward Clare walking swiftly away towards the
little French restaurant hard by St. Ann’s Church, where he meant to
solace himself with a comfortable dinner.
‘A cad!’ mused Desrolles, looking after him. ‘Provincial, and a cad!
Strange that he should come from Hazlehurst.’
Mr. Clare dined entirely to his own satisfaction, and with what he
considered a severe economy; for he contented himself with half a
bottle of claret, and took only one glass of green chartreuse after his
small cup of black coffee. The coffee made him bright and wakeful, and
he left the purlieus of St. Ann in excellent spirits. He had changed
his mind about the Prince of Wales’s. Instead of indulging himself
with a stall at that luxurious theatre, he would rough it and go to
the pit at the Prince Frederick, to see Mademoiselle Chicot. He had
been haunted by her name on the walls of London, but he had never yet
had the desire to see her. Now all at once his curiosity was aroused.
He went, and admired the dancer, as all the world admired her. He was
early enough to get a seat in the front row of the pit, and from this
position could survey the stalls, which were filled with men, all
declared worshippers of La Chicot. There was one squat figure--a stout
dark man, with sleek black hair, and colourless Jewish face--which
attracted Edward’s particular attention. This man watched the dancer,
from his seat at the end of a row, with an expression that differed
markedly from the vacuous admiration of other countenances. In this
man’s face, dull and weary as it was, there was a look that told of
passion held in reserve, of a purpose to be pursued to the very end. A
dangerous admirer for any woman, most of all perilous for such a woman
as La Chicot.
She saw him, and recognised him, as a familiar presence in an unknown
crowd. One brilliant flash of her dark eyes told as much as this, and
perhaps was a sufficient reward for Joseph Lemuel’s devotion. A slow
smile curled his thick lips, and lost itself in the folds of his fat
chin. He flung no bouquet to the dancer. He had no desire to advertise
his admiration. When the curtain fell upon the brilliant tableau which
ended the burlesque--a picture made up of handsome women in dazzling
dresses and eccentric attitudes, lighted by the broad glare of a
magnesium lamp--Edward left the pit and went round to the narrow side
street on which the stage-door opened. He had an idea that the dancer’s
husband would be waiting to escort her home.
He waited himself in the dark chilly street for about a quarter of
an hour, and then, instead of Mr. Chicot, the artist, he saw his
acquaintance of the tavern stroll slowly to the stage-door, wrapped in
an ancient poncho, made of shaggy stuff, like the skin of a wild beast,
and smoking a gigantic cigar. This gentleman took up his stand outside
the stage-door, and waited patiently for about ten minutes, while
Edward Clare walked slowly up and down on the opposite pavement, which
was in profound shadow.
At last La Chicot came out, a tall, commanding figure in a black silk
gown, which swept the pavement, a sealskin jacket, and a little round
hat set jauntily on her dark hair.
She took Desrolles’ arm as if it were an accustomed thing for him to
escort her; and they went away together, she talking with considerable
animation, and as loud as a lady of the highest rank.
‘Curious,’ thought Edward. ‘Where is the husband all this time?’
The husband was spending his evening at a literary club, of somewhat
Bohemian character, where there was wit to cheer the saddened soul,
and where the nightly talk was of the wildest, breathing ridicule that
spared nothing between heaven and earth, and a deep scorn of fools, and
an honest contempt for formalism and veneer of all kinds--for the art
that follows the fashion of a day, for the literature that is made to
pattern. In such a circle Jack Chicot found temporary oblivion. These
riotous assemblies, this strong rush of talk, were to him as the waters
of Lethe.