Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon

by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

  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 lie 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 o 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 con-tempt 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.

  CHAPTER II. SHALL IT BE ‘YES’ OR ‘NO’?

  ‘THIS looks as if he were serious, doesn’t it?’ asked La Chicot.

  The question was addressed to Mr. Desrolles. The two were standing side by side in the wintry dusk, in front of one of the windows that looked into Cibber Street, contemplating the contents of jewel-case, which La, Chicot held open.

  Embedded in the white velvet lining there lay a collet necklace of diamonds, each stone as big as a
prize pea; such a necklace as Desrolles could not remember to have seen, even in the jewellers’ windows, before which he had sometimes paused out of sheer idleness, to contemplate such finery.

  ‘Serious!’ he echoed. ‘I told you from the first that Joseph Lemuel was a, prince.’

  ‘You don’t suppose I am going to keep it?’ Said La Chicot.

  ‘I don’t suppose you, or any other woman, would send it back, if it were a free gift,’ answered Desrolles.

  ‘It is not a free gift. It is to be mine if I consent to run away from my husband and live in Paris as Mr. Lemuel’s mistress. I am to have a villa at Passy, and fifteen hundred a year’

  ‘Princely!’ exclaimed Desrolles.

  ‘And I am to leave Jack free to live his own life. Don’t you think he would be glad?’

  There was something almost tigerish in the look which emphasised this question.

  I think that it would not matter one jot to you whether he were glad or sorry. He would make a row, I suppose, but you would be safe on the other side of the Channel.’

  ‘He would get a divorce,’ said La Chicot’. Your English law breaks a, marriage as easily as it makes one. And then he would marry that other woman.’

  ‘What other woman?’

  ‘I don’t know — but there is another. He owned, as much the last time we quarreled.’

  ‘A divorce would make, you a great lady. Joseph Lemuel would marry you. The man is your slave; you could twist him round your little finger. And then, instead of your little box at Passy, you might have a mansion in the Champs Elysées, among the ambassadors. You could go to the races in a four-in-hand. You might be the most fashionable woman in Paris.’

  And I began life washing dirty linen, in the river at Auray, among a lot of termagants who hated me because I was young and handsome. I had not much pleasure in those days, my friend.’

  ‘Your Parisian life would be a change. You must be very tired of London.’

  ‘Tired! But I detest it prettily, your city of narrow streets and dismal Sundays.’

  ‘And you must have had enough dancing.’

  ‘I begin to be tired of it. Since my accident I have not the old spirit.’

  She had the jewel-case in her hand still, and was turning it about, admiring the brightness of the stones, which sparkled in the dim light. Presently she went back to her low chain by the fire, and let the case lie open in her lap, with the fire glow shining on the gems, until the pure white stones took all the colours of the rainbow.

  ‘I can fancy myself in a box at the opera, in a tight-fitting ruby velvet dress, with no ornaments but this necklace and single diamonds for eardrops,’ mused La Chicot. ‘I do not think there are many women in Paris who would surpass me.

  ‘Not one.’

  ‘And I should look on while other women danced for my amusement,’ she pursued. ‘After all, the life of a stage dancer is poor thing at best. There are only so many rungs of the ladder between me and a dancing girl at a fair. I am getting tired of it.’

  ‘You will be a good deal more tired when you are a few years older,’ said Desrolles.

  ‘At six and twenty one need not think of age.’

  ‘No; but at six and thirty age will think of you.’

  ‘I have asked for a week to consider his offer,’ said La Chicot. ‘This day week I am to give him an answer, yes or no. If I keep the diamonds, it will mean yes. If I send them back to him, it will mean no.’

  I can’t imagine any woman saying no to such a necklace as that,’ said Desrolles.

  What is it Worth, after all? Fifteen years ago a string of glass beads bought in the market at Auray would have made me happier than those diamonds can make me now.’

  ‘If you are going to moralise, I can’t follow you. I should say, at a rough guess, those diamonds must be worth three thousand pounds.’

  They are to be taken or left,’ said La Chicot, in French, with her careless shrug.

  Where do you mean to keep them?’ inquired Desrolles. ‘If your husband were to see them, there would be a row. You must not leave them in his way.’

  ‘Pas si bête,’ replied La Chicot. ‘See here.’

  She flung back the loose collar of her cashmere morning gown, and clasped the necklace round her throat. Then she drew the collar together again, and the diamonds were hidden.

  I shall wear the necklace night and clay till I make up my mind whether to keep it or not,’ she said. ‘Where I go the diamonds will go — nobody will see them — nobody will rob me of them while I am alive. What is the matter?’ she asked suddenly, startled by a passing distortion of Desrolles’ face.

  ‘Nothing. Only a spasm.’

  ‘I thought you were going to have a fit.’

  ‘I did feel queer for the moment. My old complaint.’

  Ah, I thought as much. Have some brandy’

  Though La, Chicot made light of Mr. Lemuel’s offering in her talk with Desrolles, she was not the less impressed by it. After she had come from the theatre that night she sat on the floor in her dingy bedroom with a looking-glass in her hand, gloating over her reflection with that string of jewels round her neck, turning her swan-like throat every way to catch the rays of the candle, thinking how glorious she would look with those shining stars upon her ivory neck, thinking what a new and delightful life Joseph Lemuel’s wealth could give her; a life of riot and dissipation fine clothes, epicurean dinners, late hours, and perfect idleness. She even thought of all the famous restaurants in Paris where she would like to dine; fairy places on the Boulevard, all lights, and gilding, and crimson velvet, which she knew only from the outside; houses where vice was more at home than virtue, and where a single cutlet in its paper frill cost more than a poor man’s family dinner. She looped round the shabby room, with its blackened ceiling and discoloured paper, on which the damp had made ugly blotches; the tawdry curtains, the rickety dead dressing-table disguised in dirty muslin and ranged Nottingham lace — and the threadbare carpet. How miserable it all was! She and her husband had once gone with the crowd to see the house of a Parisian courtesan, who had died in the zenith of her days. She remembered with what almost reverential feeling the mob had gazed at the delicate satin draperies of boudoir and salon, the porcelain, the tapestries, the antique lace, the tiny cabinet pictures which shone like jewels on the satin walls. Vice so exalted was almost virtue.

  In the during-room, paramount over all other objects, was enshrined the portrait of the departed goddess, a medallion in a frame of velvet and gold. La Chicot well remembered wondering, to see so little beauty in that celebrated face — a small oval face, grey eyes, a nondescript nose, a wide mouth. Intelligence and a winning smile were the only charms of that renowned beauty. Cosmetiques and Wörth had done all the rest. But then the dead and gone courtesan bad been one of the cleverest women in France. La Chicot made no allowance for that.

  I am ten times handsomer,’ she told herself’, and yet I shall never keep my own carriage.’

  She had often brooded over the difference between her fate and that of the woman whose house, and horses, and carriages, and lap dogs and jewels she had seen, the sale of which had made a nine days’ wonder in Paris. She thought of that dead woman to-night as she sat with the mirror in her hand admiring the diamonds and her beauty, while Jack Chicot was doing his best to forget her in his Bohemian club hear the Strand. She remembered all the stories she had heard of that extinguished luminary — her arrogance, her extravagance, the abject slavery of her adorers, her triumphal progress through life, scornful and admired.

  It was not the virtuous who despised her, but she who despised the virtuous. Honest women wore the chosen mark for her ridicule. People in Paris knew all the details of her brazen, in famous life. Very few knew the history of her deathbed. But the priest who shrived her and the nursing sister who watched her last hours could have told a story to make even Frivolity’s, hair stand on end.

  ‘It was a short life, but a merry one,’ thought La Chicot. ‘How
well I remember her the winter the lake in the Bois was frozen, and there was skating by torchlight! She used to drive a sledge covered all over with silver bells, and she used to skate dressed in dark red velvet and sable. The crowd stood on one side to let her pass, as if she had been an empress.’

  Then her thoughts took another turn.

  ‘If I left him, he would divorce me and marry that other woman,’ she said to herself. ‘Who is she, I wonder? Where did he see her? Not at the theatre. He cares for no one there. I have watched him too closely to be deceived in that.’

  Then she half filled a tumbler with brandy, and flavoured it with water, in order to delude herself with the idea that she was drinking brandy and water; and then, lapsing into a state of semi-intoxication — a dreamy, half-consciousness, in which life, seen hazily, took a brighter hue — she flung aside her mirror, and threw herself half-dressed upon the bed.

  Jack Chicot, who had taken to coming home, long after midnight, slept on a sofa in the little third room, where lie worked. There was not much chance of his seeing the jewels. He and his wife were as nearly parted as two people could be, living in the same house.

  La Chicot contemplated the diamonds, and abandoned herself to much the same train of thought, for several nights; and now came the last night of the week which Mr. Lemuel had allowed for reflection. To-morrow she was to give him his answer.

  He was waiting for her at the stage-door when she came out. Desrolles, her usual escort, was not in attendance.

  ‘Zaïre, I have been thinking, of you every hour since last we spoke together,’ Joseph Lemuel began, delighted at finding her alone. ‘You are as difficult to approach as a princess of the blood royal.’

  ‘Why should I hold myself cheaper than a princess?’ she asked, insolently. ‘I am an honest woman.’

  You are handsomer than any princess in Europe,’ he said. ‘But you ought to compassionate an adorer who has waited so long and so patiently. When am I to have your answer? Is it to be yes? You cannot be so cruel as to say no. My lawyer has drawn up the deed of settlement. I only wait your word to execute it.’