THE MAN IN THE STREET
Rachel's perturbation was only the greater from her success in
concealing, or at least suppressing it, during the actual process of
this singular interview. You may hold your breath without moving a
muscle, but the muscles will make up for it when their turn comes, and
it was so with Rachel and her nerves; they rose upon her even on the
platform, and she climbed the many stairs in a tremor from head to foot.
And at the top, in the open night, and at all the many corners of a
square that is nothing of the kind, from hoarse throat and on fluttering
placard, it was "Trial and Verdict," or "Sensational Verdict at the Old
Bailey," here as at the other end of the town.
But now all Rachel's thoughts were of this mysterious Mr. Steel; of his
inexplicable behavior towards her, and of her own attitude towards him.
Yet, when all was said, or when all that had been said could be
remembered, would his behavior be found so very inexplicable? Rachel was
not devoid of a proper vanity, albeit that night she had probably less
than most women with a tithe of her personal attractions; and yet upon
reflection she could conceive but one explanation of such conduct in an
elderly man.
"There is no fool like an old fool," quoted Rachel to herself; and it
was remarkable that until this moment she had never thought of Mr. Steel
as either elderly or old. His eyes were young; his voice was young; she
could hear him and see him still, so the strong impression was not all
on one side. No more, it would seem, was the fascination. Rachel,
indeed, owned to no such feeling, even in her inmost heart. But she did
begin to blame herself, alike for her reception of advances which might
well have been dictated by mere eccentric benevolence, and for her
readiness now to put another construction upon them. And all this time
she was threading the streets of Chelsea at a pace suggestive of a
destination and a purpose, while in her mind she did nothing but look
back.
Impulsive by nature, Rachel had also the courage of each impulse while
it lasted; on the other hand, if quick to act, she was only too ready to
regret. Like many another whose self-reliance is largely on the surface,
an achievement of the will and not the gift of a temperament, she
usually paid for a display of spirit with the most dispiriting
reaction; and this was precisely the case in point. Rachel was ashamed
alike of her rudeness and her vanity; the latter she traced to its
source. It was inspired by vague memories of other women who had been
through the same ordeal as herself. One had been handed a bouquet in the
dock; another had been overwhelmed by proposals of marriage. Rachel
herself had received letters of which the first line was enough. But
there had been no letter from Mr. Steel. Ah! but he had attended her
trial; she remembered him now, his continual presence had impressed
itself very subtly upon her mind, without the definite memory of a
single glance; and after the trial he sent her his card, he dogged her
in the train! What was she to think? There was the voice in which he had
offered her his aid; there was the look in his eyes; there was the
delicate indirectness of that offer.
A year or two ago, with all her independence, Rachel would not have been
so ready to repel one whose advances, however unwarrantable in
themselves, were yet marked by so many evidences of sympathy and
consideration. She had not always been suspicious and repellent; and she
sighed to think how sadly she must have changed, even before the
nightmare of the last few weeks.
But a more poignant reminder of her married life was now in store for
Rachel Minchin. She had come to Chelsea because it was the only portion
of the town in which she had the semblance of a friend; but there did
live in Tite Street a young couple with whom the Minchins had at one
time been on friendly terms. That was in the day of plenty and
extravagance; and the acquaintance, formed at an hotel in the Trossachs,
had not ripened in town as the two wives could have wished. It was Mrs.
Carrington, however, who had found the Minchins their furnished house,
while her husband certainly interested himself in Rachel's defence.
Carrington was a barrister, who never himself touched criminal work, but
he had spoken to a friend who did, to wit the brilliant terror of female
witnesses, and caustic critic of the police, to whom Rachel owed so
little. But to Carrington himself she owed much--more indeed than she
cared to calculate--for he was not a man whom she liked. She wished to
thank him for his kindness, to give certain undertakings and to ask his
advice, but it was Mrs. Carrington whom she really hoped to see. There
was a good heart, or Rachel was much mistaken. They would have seen more
of each other if Mrs. Carrington had had her way. Rachel remembered her
on the occasion of the solitary visit she had received at Holloway--for
Mrs. Carrington had been the visitor.
"Don't tell Jim," she had said, "when you get off and come to see us."
And she had kissed her captive sister in a way that made poor Rachel
sometimes think she had a friend in England after all; but that was
before her committal; and thereafter from that quarter not a word. It
was not Mrs. Carrington whom Rachel blamed, however, and those last
words of hers implied an invitation which had never been withdrawn. But
invitation or no invitation, friend or no friend, Mrs. Carrington she
would have to see. And even he would be different now that he knew she
was innocent; and if it was easy to see what he had believed of her
before, well, so much the more credit to him for what he had done.
So Rachel had decided before quitting the precincts of the Old Bailey;
but her subsequent experiences in street and train so absorbed her that
she was full of the interview that was over when she ought to have been
preparing for the one still before her. And, in her absence of mind, the
force of habit had taken advantage of her; instead of going on to Tite
Street, she turned too soon, and turned again, and was now appalled to
find herself in the very street in which her husband had met his death.
The little street was as quiet as ever; Rachel stood quite still, and
for the moment she was the only person in it. She stole up to the house.
The blinds were down, and it was in darkness, otherwise all was as she
remembered it only too well. Her breath came quickly. It was a strange
trick her feet had played her, bringing her here against her will! Yet
she had thought of coming as a last resort. The furnished house should
be hers for some months yet; it had been taken for six months from July,
and this was only the end of November. At the worst--if no one would
take her in--
She shuddered at the unfinished thought; and yet there was something in
it that appealed to Rachel. To go back there, if only for the shortest
time--to show her face openly where it was known--not to slink and hide
as though she were really guilty! That might give her back her
self-respect; that might make others respect her too. But could she do
it, even if she would? Could she bring herself to set foot inside that
house again?
Rachel felt tremulously in her pocket; there had been more keys than
one, and that which had been in her possession when she was arrested
was in it still. Nobody had asked her for it; she had kept it for this;
dare she use it after all? The street was still empty; it is the
quietest little street in Chelsea. There would never be a better chance.
Rachel crept up the steps. If she should be seen!
She was not; but a footstep rang somewhere in the night, and on that the
key was fitted and the door opened without another moment's hesitation.
Rachel entered, the door shut noisily behind her, and then her own step
rang in turn upon the floor. It was bare boards; and as Rachel felt her
way to the electric switches, beyond the dining-room door, her fingers
missed the pictures on the walls. This prepared her for what she found
when the white light sprang out above her head. The house had been
dismantled; not a stick in the rooms, not so much as a stair-rod on the
stairs, nor a blind to the window at their head.
The furniture removed while the use of it belonged legally to her! Had
they made so sure of her conviction as all that? Rachel's blood came
straight from zero to the boil; this was monstrous, this was illegal and
wicked. The house was hers for other two months; and there were things
of hers in it, she had left everything behind her. If they had been
removed, then this outrage was little short of felony, and she would
invoke the law from whose clutches she herself had escaped. Rachel had
expected to be terrified in the house; she was filled insted with anger
and indignation.
It was as she expected; not a trunk had been left; and the removal had
taken place that very week. This would account for the electric light
being still intact. Rachel discovered it by picking up a crumpled
newspaper, which seemed to have contained bread and cheese; it did
contain a report of the first day of the trial. They might have waited
till her trial was over; they should suffer for their impatience, it was
their turn. So angry was Rachel that her own room wounded her with no
memories of the past. It was an empty room, and nothing more; and only
on her return to the lower floor did that last dread night come back to
her in all its horror and all its pitifulness.
The double doors of the late professor! Rachel forgot her grudge against
his widow; she pulled the outer door, and pushed the inner one, just as
she had done in the small hours of that fatal morning, but this time all
was darkness within. She had to put on the electric light for herself.
The necessity she could not have explained, but it existed in her mind;
she must see the room again. And the first thing she saw was that the
window was broken still.
Rachel looked at it more closely than she had done on the morning when
she had given her incriminating opinion to the police, and the longer
she looked the less reason did she see to alter that opinion. The broken
glass might have been placed upon the sill in order to promote the very
theory which had been so gullibly adopted by the police, and the watch
and chain hidden in the chimney for the same purpose. They might have
hanged the man who kept them; and surely this was not the first thief
who had slunk away empty-handed after the committal of a crime
infinitely greater than the one contemplated.
Rachel had never wavered in these ideas, but neither had she dwelt on
them to any extent, and now they came one instant only to go the next.
Her husband was dead--that was once more the paramount thought--and she
his widow had been acquitted on a charge of murdering him. But for the
moment she was thinking only of him, and her eyes hung over the spot
where she had seen him sitting dead--once without dreaming it--and soon
they filled. Perhaps she was remembering all that had been good in him,
perhaps all that had been evil in herself; her lips quivered, and her
eyes filled. But it was hard to pity one who was at rest, hard for her
with the world to face afresh that night, without a single friend. The
Carringtons? Well, she would see; and now she had a very definite point
upon which to consult Mr. Carrington. That helped her, and she went,
quietly and unseen as she had come.
There was still a light in the ground-floor windows of the Tite Street
house, strong lights and voices; it was the dining-room, for the
Minchins had dined there once; and the voices did not include a feminine
one that Rachel could perceive. If there were people dining with them,
the ladies must have gone upstairs, and Mrs. Carrington was the woman to
see Rachel for five minutes, and the one woman in England to whom she
could turn. It was an opportunity not to miss--she had not the courage
to let it pass--and yet it required almost as much to ring the bell. And
even as she rang--but not until that moment--did Rachel recognize and
admit to herself the motive which had brought her to that door. It was
not to obtain the advice of a clever man; it was the sympathy of another
woman that she needed that night more than anything else in all the
world.
She was shown at once into the study behind the dining-room, and
immediately the voices in the latter ceased. This was ominous; it was
for Mrs. Carrington that Rachel had asked; and the omen was instantly
fulfilled. It was Mr. Carrington who came into the room, dark, dapper,
and duskily flushed with his own hospitality, but without the genial
front which Rachel had liked best in him. His voice also, when he had
carefully shut the door behind him, was unnaturally stiff.
"I congratulate you," he said, with a bow but nothing more; and Rachel
saw there and then how it was to be; for with her at least this man had
never been stiff before, having indeed offended her with his familiarity
at the time when her husband and he were best friends.
"I owe it very largely to you," faltered Rachel. "How can I thank you?"
Carrington said it was not necessary.
"Then I only hope," said Rachel, on one of her impulses, "that you don't
disagree with the verdict?"
"I didn't read the case," replied Carrington glibly, and with neither
more nor less of the contemptuous superiority with which he would have
referred to any other Old Bailey trial; but the man himself was quick to
see the brutality of such a statement, and quicker yet to tone it down.
"It wasn't necessary," he added, with a touch of the early manner which
she had never liked; "you see, I knew you."
The insincerity was so obvious that Rachel could scarcely bring herself
to confess that she had come to ask his advice. "What was the point?" he
said to that, so crisply that the only point which Rachel could think of
was the fresh, raw grievance of the empty house.
"Didn't your solicitor tell you?" asked Carrington. "He came to me about
it; but I suppose--"
Rachel knew well what he supposed.
"He should have told you to-night," added Carrington, "at any rate. The
rent was only paid for half the term--quite right--the usual way. The
permanent tenant wanted to be done with the house altogether, and that
entitled her to take her things out. No, I'm afraid you have no
grievance there, Mrs. Minchin."
"And pray," demanded Rachel, "where are my things?"
"Ah, your solicitor will tell you that--when you give him the chance! He
very properly would not care to bother you about trifles until the case
against you was satisfactorily disposed of. By the way, I hope you don't
mind my cigar? We were smoking in the next room."
"I have taken you from your guests," said Rachel, miserably. "I know I
ought not to have come at such an hour."
Carrington did not contradict her.
"But there seemed so much to speak about," she went desperately on.
"There are the money matters and--and--"
"If you will come to my chambers," said Carrington, "I shall be
delighted to go into things with you, and to advise you to the best of
my ability. If you could manage to come at half-past nine on Monday
morning, I would be there early and could give you twenty minutes."
He wrote down the address, and, handing it to Rachel, rang the bell.
This drove her to despair; evidently it never occurred to him that she
was faint with weariness and hunger, that she had nowhere to go for the
night, and not the price of a decent meal, much less a bed, in her
purse. And even now her pride prevented her from telling the truth; but
it would not silence her supreme desire.
"Oh!" she cried; "oh, may I not speak to your wife?"
"Not to-night, if you don't mind," replied Carrington, with his bow and
smile. "We can't both desert our guests."
"Only for a minute!" pleaded Rachel. "I wouldn't keep her more!"
"Not to-night," he repeated, with a broader smile, a clearer
enunciation, and a decision so obviously irrevocable that Rachel said no
more. But she would not see the hand that he could afford to hold out to
her now; and as for going near his chambers, never, never, though she
starved!
"No, I wouldn't have kept her," she sobbed in the street; "but she would
have kept me! I know her! I know her! She would have had pity on me, in
spite of him; but now I can never go near either of them again!"
Then where was she to go? God knew! No respectable hotel would take her
in without luggage or a deposit. What was she to do?
But while she wondered her feet were carrying her once more in the old
direction, and as she walked an idea came. She was very near the fatal
little street at the time. She turned about, and then to the left. In a
few moments she was timorously knocking at the door of a house with a
card in the window.
"It's you!" cried the woman who came, almost shutting the door in
Rachel's face, leaving just space enough for her own.
"You have a room to let," said Rachel, steadily.
"But not to you," said the woman, quickly; and Rachel was not
surprised, the other was so pale, so strangely agitated.
"But why?" she asked. "I have been acquitted--thanks partly to your own
evidence--and yet you of all women will not take me in! Do you mean to
tell me that you actually think I did it still?"
Rachel fully expected an affirmative. She was prepared for that opinion
now from all the world; but for once a surprise was in store for her.
The pale woman shifted her eyes, then raised them doggedly, and the look
in them brought a sudden glow to Rachel's heart.
"No, I don't think that, and never did," said the one independent
witness for the defence. "But others do, and I am too near where it
happened; it might empty my house and keep it empty."
Rachel seized her hand.
"Never mind, never mind," she whispered. "It is better, ten thousand
times, that you should believe in me, that any woman should! Thank you,
and God bless you, for that!"
She was turning away, when she faced about upon the steps, gazing past
the woman who believed in her, along the passage beyond, an unspoken
question beneath the tears in her eyes.
"He is not here," said the landlady, quickly.
"But he did get over it?"
"So we hope; but he was at death's door that morning, and for days and
weeks. Now he's abroad again--I'm sure I don't know where."
Rachel said good-night, and this time the door not only shut before she
had time to change her mind again, but she heard the bolts shot as she
reached the pavement. The fact did not strike her. She was thinking for
a moment of the innocent young foreigner who had brought matters to a
crisis between her husband and herself. On the whole she was glad that
he was not in England--yet there would have been one friend.
And now her own case was really desperate; it was late at night; she was
famished and worn out in body and mind, nor could she see the slightest
prospect of a lodging for the night.
And that she would have had in the condemned cell, with food and warmth
and rest, and the blessed certainty of a speedy issue out of all her
afflictions.
It was a bitter irony, after all, this acquittal!
There was but one place for her now. She would perish there of cold and
horror; but she might buy something to eat, and take it with her; and at
least she could rest, and would be alone, in the empty house, the house
of misery and murder, that was yet the one shelter that she knew of in
all London.
She crept to the King's road, and returned with a few sandwiches,
walking better in her eagerness to break a fast which she had only felt
since excitement had given place to despair. But now it was making her
faint and ill. And she hurried, weary though she was.
But in the little street itself she stood aghast. A crowd filled it; the
crowd stood before the empty house of sorrow and of crime; and in a
moment Rachel saw the cause.
It was her own fault. She had left the light burning in the upper room,
the bedroom on the second floor.
Rachel joined the skirts of the crowd--drawn by an irresistible
fascination--and listened to what was being said. All eyes were upon the
lighted window of the bedroom--watching for herself, as she soon
discovered--and this made her doubly safe where she stood behind the
press.
"She's up there, I tell yer," said one.
"Not her! It's a ghost."
"Her 'usband's ghost, then."
"But vere's a chap 'ere wot sore 'er fice to fice in the next street;
an' followed 'er and 'eard the door go; an' w'en 'e come back wiv 'is
pals, vere was vat light."
"Let's 'ave 'er aht of it."
"Yuss, she ain't no right there."
"No; the condemned cell's the plice for 'er!"
"Give us a stone afore the copper comes!"
And Rachel saw the first stone flung, and heard the first glass break;
and within a very few minutes there was not a whole pane left in the
front of the house; but that was all the damage which Rachel herself saw
done.
A hand touched her lightly on the shoulder.
"Do you still pin your faith to the man in the street?" said a voice.
And, though she had heard it for the first time that very evening, it
was a voice that Rachel seemed to have known all her life.