THE STORY GROWS CLEARER.
The Britannique was a handsome hotel on the quay, bright of aspect and
many-balconied. The house had a busy look, and early as it was—not long
after noon—a long table in the gaily-decorated dining-room was already
laid for the table d’hôte. Thereupon Lucius beheld showy pyramids of
those woolly peaches and flavourless grapes and wooden pears which
seem peculiar to the soil of France—the Deadsea apples of a table
d’hôte dessert. Already napkins, spread fan-shape, adorned the glasses,
ranged in double line along the vast perspective of tablecloth. Waiters
were hurrying to and fro across the hall, chamber-maids bawled to
each other—as only French chamber-maids can bawl—on the steep winding
staircase. An insupportable odour of dinner—strongly flavoured with
garlic—pervaded the atmosphere. Tourists were hurriedly consulting
time-tables, as if on the point of departure; other tourists, just
arrived and burdened with luggage, were gazing disconsolately around,
as if doubtful of finding accommodation. Habitués of the hotel were
calmly smoking their midday cigarettes, and waiting for the dainty
little breakfast which the harassed cook was so slow to produce through
yonder hatch in the wall, to which hungry eyes glanced impatiently.
In a scene so busy it hardly seemed likely that Lucius would find any
one willing to lend an ear, or to sit calmly down and thoughtfully
review the past, in order to discover the identity of those English
guests who had taken Félicie Dumarques away from her joyless home. He
made the attempt notwithstanding, and walked into a neat little parlour
to the left, where two disconsolate females—strangers to each other and
regardless of each other’s woes—were poring over the mysteries of a
couple of railway-guides; and where a calm-looking middle-aged female,
with shining black hair and neat little white-lace cap, sat at a desk
making out accounts.
To this tranquil personage Mr. Davoren addressed himself.
‘Could I see the proprietor of the hotel?’
The lady shrugged her shoulders dubiously. As a rule, she told Lucius,
the proprietor did not permit himself to be seen. He had his servants,
who arranged everything.
‘Cannot I afford you any information you may require, monsieur?’ she
asked, with an agreeable smile.
‘That, madame, will depend upon circumstances. May I ask how long you
have been in your present position?’
‘From the age of eighteen. Monsieur Dolfe—the proprietor—is my uncle.’
‘That may be at most ten years,’ said Lucius, with gallantry.
‘It is more than twenty, monsieur.’
Lucius expressed his amazement.
‘Yes, monsieur, I have kept these books more than twenty years.’
‘You must be very tired of them, I should think,’ said Lucius, who saw
that the lady was good-natured, and inclined to oblige him.
‘I am accustomed to them, monsieur, and custom endears even the driest
duty. I took a week’s holiday at Dieppe last summer, for the benefit of
my health, but believe me I missed my books. There was a void. Pleasure
is all very well for people who are used to it, but for a woman of
business—that fatigues!’
‘The inquiry which I wish to make relates to some English people who
were staying for a short time in this house—about four-and-twenty
years ago, and whose names I am anxious to discover.’
Mademoiselle Dolfe elevated her black eyebrows to an almost hazardous
extent.
‘But, monsieur, four-and-twenty years ago! You imagine that I can
recall visitors of four-and-twenty years ago? English visitors—and this
hotel is three-parts filled with English visitors every year from May
to October. Thirty English visitors will sit down to-day at our table
d’hôte, that is to say, English and American, all the same.’
‘It might be impossible to remember them unassisted; yet there are
circumstances connected with these people which might recall them to
you. But you have books in which visitors write their names?’
‘Yes, if it pleases them. They are even asked to write; but there is
no law to compel them; there is no law to prevent them writing a false
name. It is a mere formula. And if I can find the names, supposing you
to know the exact date, how are we to identify them with the people you
want? There are several names signed in the visitors’-book every day in
our busy season. People come and go so quickly. It is an impossibility
which you ask, monsieur.’
‘I think if I had time for a quiet chat with you I might bring back
the circumstances to your recollection. It is a very important matter—a
matter which may seriously affect the happiness of a person very dear
to me, or I would not trouble you.’
‘A person very dear to you! Your betrothed perhaps, monsieur?’ inquired
Mademoiselle Dolfe, with evident sympathy.
Lucius felt that his cause was half won.
‘Yes, madame,’ he said, ‘my betrothed, whose mother was a native of
your city.’
This clenched the matter. Mademoiselle Dolfe was soft-hearted and
sentimental. Even the books, and the perpetual adding-up of dinners
and breakfasts, service, appartements, bougies, siphons, bouteilles,
demi-bouteilles, and those fatal sundries which so fearfully swell
an hotel bill—even this hard exercise of an exact science had not
extinguished that vital spark of heavenly flame which Mademoiselle
Dolfe called her soul. She had been betrothed herself, once upon a
time, to the proprietor of a rival establishment, who had blighted
her affections by proving inconstant to his affianced, and only too
constant to the brandy-bottle. She had not forgotten that springtime of
the heart, those halcyon summer evenings when she and her Gustave had
walked hand-in-hand in the shadowy avenues across yonder bridge. She
sighed, and looked at Lucius with the glance of compassion.
‘Would it be possible for you to give me half-an-hour’s quiet
conversation at any time?’ asked Lucius pleadingly.
‘There is the evening,’ said Mademoiselle Dolfe. ‘My uncle is a severe
sufferer from gout, and rarely leaves his room; but I do not think he
would object to receive you in the evening for half an hour. He has
all the old books of the hotel in his room—they are indeed his only
library. When in want of a distraction he compares the receipts of past
years with our present returns, or examines our former tariffs, with
a view to any modification, the reduction or increase of our present
charges. If you will call this evening at nine o’clock, monsieur, I
will induce my uncle to receive you. His memory is extraordinary; and
he may be able to recall events of which I, in my frivolous girlhood,
took little notice.’
‘I shall be eternally obliged to him, and to you, madame,’ said Lucius.
‘In the mean time, if you will kindly send a porter for my bag, which I
left at the station, I will take up my abode here. I shall then be on
the spot whenever Monsieur Dolfe may be pleased to receive me.’
‘You will stay here to-night, monsieur?’
‘Yes, I will stay to-night. Unhappily I must go on to Paris to-morrow
morning.’
Mademoiselle Dolfe surveyed a table of numbers, and rang for a
chambermaid.
‘Show this gentleman to number eleven,’ she said; and then, turning to
Lucius, she added graciously, ‘It is an airy chamber, giving upon the
river, monsieur, and has but been this instant vacated. I shall have a
dozen applications when the next train from Dieppe comes in.’
Lucius thanked Mademoiselle Dolfe for this mark of favour, and went
up to number eleven to refresh himself after his journey, with the
assistance of as much cold water as can be obtained by hook or by crook
in a foreign hotel. His toilet made, he descended to the coffee-room,
where he endeavoured to derive entertainment from a flabby Rouen
journal while his tardy breakfast was being prepared. This meal
dispatched, he went out into the streets of the city, looked for the
picturesque old bits he remembered on his last visit, mooned away a
pleasant hour in the cathedral, looked in at St. Ouen, and finished
his afternoon in the Museum of Arts, contemplating the familiar old
pictures, and turning the vellum leaves of a noble missal in the
library.
He dined at the table d’hôte, and after dinner returned to the Rue
Jeanne d’Arques.
The little watchmaker had a triumphant air, and at once handed him
a slip of flimsy paper with an address written on it in a niggling
fly-leggish caligraphy.
‘I had a good deal of trouble with my neighbour,’ he said. ‘He is a
disagreeable person, and we have embroiled ourselves a little on the
subject of our several dustbins. He objects to vegetable matter; I
object more strongly to the shells of stale fish, of which he and
his lodgers appear to devour an inordinate quantity, judging from
the contents of his dustbin. When first I put the question about
Mademoiselle Dumarques I found him utterly impracticable. He knew
his landlady’s address, certainly, but it was not his business to
communicate her address to other people; she might object to have her
address made known; it might be a breach of confidence on his part. I
was not a little startled when, with a sudden burst of rage, he brought
his clenched fist down upon the table. “Sacrebleu!” he cried; “I
divine your intention. Traitor! You are going to write to Mademoiselle
Dumarques about my dustbin.” I assured him, as soon as I recovered my
scattered senses, that nothing was farther from my thoughts than his
dustbin. Nay, I suggested that we should henceforward regulate our
dustbins upon a system more in accord with the spirit of the _contrat
social_ than had hitherto prevailed between us. In a word, by some
judicious quotations from the inimitable Jean Jacques, I finally
brought him to a more amiable frame of mind, and induced him to give me
the address, and to tell me all he knows about Mademoiselle Dumarques.’
‘For which devotion to my cause I owe you a thousand thanks,’ said
Lucius.
‘Nay, monsieur, I would do much more to serve a fellow creature. The
address you have there in your hand. It appears that Mademoiselle
Dumarques set up in business for herself some years ago at that
address, where she resides alone, or with some pupil to whom she
confides the secrets of her art.’
Lucius repeated his acknowledgments, and took his leave of the
loquacious watchmaker. But he did not quit the Rue Jeanne d’Arques
without pausing once more to contemplate the quiet old house in which
Lucille’s fair young mother had drooped and died, divided from her only
child, and in a measure deserted by her husband. A shadowed life, with
but a brief glimpse of happiness at best.
He reëntered the hotel a few minutes before nine. The little office on
the left side of the hall, where Mademoiselle Dolfe had been visible
all day, and always employed, was abandoned. Mademoiselle had doubtless
retired into private life, and was ministering to her gouty uncle.
Lucius gave his card to a waiter, requesting that it might be taken to
Mademoiselle Dolfe without delay. The waiter returned sooner than he
could have hoped, and informed him that Monsieur and Mademoiselle would
be happy to receive him.
He followed the waiter to a narrow staircase at the back of the house,
by which they ascended to the entresol. Here, in a small sitting-room,
with a ceiling which a moderate-sized man could easily touch with
his hand, Lucius beheld Monsieur Dolfe reposing in a ponderous
velvet-cushioned chair, with his leg on a rest; a stout man, with very
little hair on his head, but, by way of succedaneum, a gold-embroidered
smoking-cap. The small low room looked upon a courtyard like a
well, and was altogether a stifling apartment. But it was somewhat
luxuriously furnished, Lucius perceived by the subdued light of two
pair of wax candles—the unfinished bougies of the establishment were
evidently consumed here—and Monsieur Dolfe and his niece appeared
eminently satisfied with it, and entirely unaware that it was wanting
in airiness and space.
The books of the hotel, bulky business-like volumes, were ranged on
a shelf in one corner of the room. Lucius’s eye took that direction
immediately; but Monsieur Dolfe was slow and pompous, and sipped his
coffee as if in no hurry to satisfy the stranger’s curiosity.
‘I have told my uncle what you wish, Monsieur Davoren,’ said
Mademoiselle graciously, and with a pleading glance at the old
gentleman in the skull-cap.
‘May I ask your motive in wishing to trace visitors of this
hotel—visitors of twenty-four years back?’ asked Monsieur Dolfe, with
an important air. ‘Is it a will case, some disputed testament, and are
you in the law?’
‘I am a surgeon, as my card will show you,’ said Lucius, ‘and the case
in which I am interested has nothing to do with a will. I wish to
discover the secret of a young lady’s parentage—a lady who at present
bears a name which I believe is not her own.’
‘Humph,’ said Monsieur Dolfe doubtfully; ‘and there is no reward
attaching to your inquiries—you gain nothing if successful?’
‘I may gain a father, or at least a father’s name, for the girl I
love,’ answered Lucius frankly.
Monsieur Dolfe appeared disappointed, but Mademoiselle was enthusiastic.
‘Ah, see you,’ she cried to her uncle, ‘is it not interesting?’
Lucius stated his case plainly. At the name of Dumarques Monsieur Dolfe
pricked up his ears. Something akin to emotion agitated his bloated
face. A quiver of mental pain convulsed his triple chin.
‘You are familiar with the name of Dumarques?’ said Lucius, wondering.
‘Am I familiar with it? Alas, I know it too well!’
‘You knew Félicie Dumarques?’
‘I knew Félicie Dumarques’ mother before she married that old skinflint
who murdered her.’
‘But, my uncle!’ screamed Mademoiselle.
‘_Tais-toi_, child! I know it was slow murder. It came not within the
law. It was an assassination that lasted months and years. How often
have I seen that poor child’s pale face! No smile ever brightened it,
after her marriage with that vile miser. She did not weep; she did not
complain. The angels in heaven are not more spotless than she was as
wife and mother. She only ceased to smile, and she died by inches. No
matter that she lived twenty years after her marriage—it was gradual
death all the same.’
Monsieur Dolfe was profoundly moved. He pushed back his skull-cap,
exposing his bald head, which he rubbed despondently with his fat white
hand.
‘Did I know her? We were neighbours as children. My parents and hers
lived side by side. Her father was a notary—above my father in station;
but she and I played together as children—went to the same school
together as little ones—for the notary was poor, and Lucille—’
‘Lucille!’ repeated Lucius.
‘Yes, Madame Dumarques’ name was Lucille.’
‘I understand. Go on, pray, monsieur.’
‘Monsieur Valneau, Lucille’s father, was poor, I repeat, and the
children—there were several—were brought up anyhow. Thus we saw more
of each other than we might have done otherwise. Lucille and my sister
were fast friends. She spent many an evening in our house, which was
in many ways more comfortable than the wretched _troisième_ occupied
by the Valneau family. This continued till I was sixteen, and Lucille
about fourteen. No word of love had passed between us, as you may
imagine, at that early age; but I had shown my devotion to her as
well as a boy can, and I think she must have known that I adored her.
Whether she ever cared, even in the smallest degree, for me, is a
secret I shall never know. At sixteen years of age my father sent me
to Paris to learn my uncle’s trade—my uncle preceded me, you must know,
monsieur, in this house—and I remained there till I was twenty-three.
When I came back Lucille had been two years married to André Dumarques.
My sister had not had the heart to write me the news. She suffered
it to stun me on my return. Valneau’s difficulties had increased.
Dumarques had offered to marry Lucille and to help her family; so the
poor child was sacrificed.’
‘A sad story,’ said Lucius.
‘And a common one,’ resumed Monsieur Dolfe.
‘The young lady in whom I am interested—in a word, my promised wife—is
the granddaughter of this very Lucille Dumarques,’ said Lucius, to the
profound astonishment of Monsieur Dolfe.
He produced the miniature, which served in some manner for his
credentials.
‘I remember both faces,’ said Monsieur Dolfe. ‘Félicie Dumarques,
and the Englishman who stayed in this house for a week, and was seen
driving about the town with Félicie. Unhappily that set people talking;
but the poor child died only a month later, and carried her secret to
the grave.’
‘There was no shameful secret,’ said Lucius. ‘That man was Félicie’s
husband.’
‘Are you sure of that?’
‘I have it from the best authority. And now, monsieur, you will do me a
service if you can recall the name of that Englishman.’
‘But it is difficult,’ exclaimed Monsieur Dolfe. ‘I was never good at
remembering names, even of my own nation, and to remember an English
name after twenty years—it is impossible.’
‘Not twenty years. It cannot be more than eighteen since that
Englishman was in Rouen. But do not trouble yourself, Monsieur Dolfe.
Even if you remembered, it might be but wasted labour. This gentleman
was especially anxious to keep his marriage a secret. He would
therefore most likely come here in an assumed name.’
‘If he troubled himself to give us any name at all,’ said Monsieur
Dolfe. ‘Many of our guests are nameless—we know them only as Number 10
or Number 20, as the case may be.’
‘But there is a name which I should be very glad if you could
recall, and that is the name of the lady and gentleman—brother and
sister—elderly people—who took Félicie Dumarques away with them, as
attendant to the lady, when she left Rouen. As you were interested in
the Dumarques’ family, that is a circumstance which you may possibly
remember.’
‘I recall it perfectly,’ cried Monsieur Dolfe, ‘that is to say,
the circumstance, but as for the name, it is gone out of my poor
head. But in this case I think the books will show. Tell me the
year—four-and-twenty years ago, you say. It was in the autumn, I
remember. They had been here before, and were excellent customers. The
lady an invalid, small, pale, fragile. The gentleman also small and
pale, but apparently in fair health. He had a valet with him. But the
lady’s-maid had fallen ill on the road. They had sent her back to her
people. But I remember perfectly. It was my idea to recommend Félicie
Dumarques. Her father, with whom I kept on civil terms—in my heart of
hearts I detested him, but an hotel-keeper must have no opinions—had
told me his youngest girl was unhappy at home since her mother’s death,
and wanted a situation as useful companion—or even maid—to a lady. The
little pale old lady looked as if she would be kind—the little pale
old gentleman was evidently rich. There could not be much work to do,
and there would doubtless be liberal pay. In a word, the situation
seemed made for Félicie. I sent for her—the old lady was delighted, and
engaged her on the spot. She was to have twenty-five pounds a year, and
to be treated like a lady. There is the whole story, monsieur.’
‘A thousand thanks for it. But the name.’
‘Ah, how you are impatient! We will come to that presently. Think,
Florine,’ to Mademoiselle Dolfe, who rejoiced in this euphonious name,
‘you were a girl at the time, but you must have some recollection of
the circumstances.’
Florine Dolfe shook her head with a sentimental air; indeed, sentiment
seemed to run in the Dolfe family.
‘Alas, I remember but too well,’ she said. ‘It was in the year
when—when I believed that there was perfect happiness upon the earth;’
namely, before she had been jilted by the faithless Gustave. ‘It was
early in September.’
‘Bring me volume six of the daybook and volume one of the
visitors’-book,’ said Monsieur Dolfe, pointing to the shelves.
His niece brought two bulky volumes, and laid them on the table before
the proprietor. He turned the leaves with a solemn air, as if he had
just completed the purchase of the last of the Sibylline volumes.
‘September ’41,’ said Monsieur Dolfe, running his puny forefinger along
the list of names. ‘2d, Binks, Jones, Dulau, Yokes, Stokes, Delphin.’
Lucius listened intently for some good English name with the initial G.
‘3d, Purdon, Green, Vancing, Thomas, Binoteau, Gaspard, Smith.’ Lucius
shook his head despondently. ‘4th, Lomax, Trevor, Dupuis, Glenlyne.’
Lucius laid his hand on the puffy forefinger.
‘Halt there,’ he said, ‘that sounds like a good name.’
‘Good name or bad name,’ exclaimed the proprietor, ‘those are the
people—Mr. Reginald Glenlyne, Miss Glenlyne, and servant, from
Switzerland, _en route_ for London. Those are the people. Yes, I
remember perfectly. Now look at the daybook.’
He opened the other Sibylline volume, found the date, and pointed
triumphantly to the page headed ‘Numbers 5, 6, and 7,’ beneath which
heading appeared formidable entries of _recherché_ dinners, choice
wines, _bougies_, innumerable teas, coffees, soda-waters, baths,
_voitures_, &c. &c.
‘They occupied our principal suite of apartments,’ said Monsieur Dolfe
grandly; ‘the apartment we give to ambassadors and foreign potentates.
There is no doubt about it—these are the people.’
Monsieur Dolfe might have added, that in this age of economic and
universal travelling he did not often get such good customers. Such
thought was in his mind, but Monsieur Dolfe respected the dignity of
his proprietorial position, and did not give the thought utterance.
This was a grand discovery. Lucius considered that to have found out
the name of these people was a strong point. If the man who signed
himself H. G. was this lady’s nephew, his name was in all probability
Glenlyne also. The initial being the same, it was hardly too much to
conclude that he was a brother’s son, and bore the family name of
his maiden aunt. Lucius felt that he could now approach Mademoiselle
Dumarques in a strong position. He knew so much already that she would
scarcely refuse him any farther information that it was in her power to
give.
He had nothing to offer Monsieur and Mademoiselle Dolfe except the
expression of his gratitude, and that was tendered heartily.
‘If ever I am happy enough to marry the young lady I have told you
about, I will bring my wife here on our wedding tour,’ he said; a
declaration at which Mademoiselle Dolfe melted almost to tears.
‘I should be very glad to see Lucille Valneau’s granddaughter,’ said
Monsieur Dolfe. He too remembered the halcyon days of youth, when he
had loved and dreamed his dream of happiness.
Lucius slept more soundly than he had slept for many nights on the
luxurious spring mattresses of number eleven, lulled by the faint
ripple of the river, the occasional voices of belated pedestrians
softened by distance, the hollow tramp of footsteps on the pavement.
He rose early, breakfasted, and set out for the cemetery on the hill,
where, after patient search, he found the Dumarques’ grave. All the
family, save Julie, slumbered there. Lucille Dumarques, the faithful
and beloved wife of André Dumarques—_Priez pour elle_—and then André
Dumarques, and then Félicie, aged twenty-four; here there was no
surname—only ‘Félicie, daughter of the above-named André Dumarques;’
and then Hortense, at the riper age of forty-one. The grave was
gaily decked with a little blue-and-gold railing, enclosing a tiny
flower-garden, where chrysanthemums and mignonette were blooming in
decent order. The sister in Paris doubtless paid to have this family
resting-place kept neatly.
Here Lucius lingered a little while, in meditative mood, looking down
at the noble curve of the widening river—the green Champagne country on
the opposite shore—and thinking of the life that had ended in such deep
sadness. Then he gathered a sprig of mignonette for Lucille, put it
carefully in his pocket-book, and departed in time to catch the midday
train for Paris.