The door was opened by an old man-servant in plain clothes. Laura grew hopeful at the sight of him. He looked like a man who had lived fifty years in one service — the kind of man who begins as a knife-boy, and either .stultifies a spotless career by going to America with the plate, or ends as a pious annuitant, in the odour of sanctity
‘Does Mrs. Malcolm still live here?’ asked Laura
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Is she at home?
‘I will inquire, ma’am, it’ you will be kind enough to give me your card,’ replied the man, as much as to say that his mistress was a lady whose leisure was not to be irreverently disturbed was to be at home, as it pleased her sovereign will, and according to the quality and claims of her visitor.
Laura wrote upon one of her cards, ‘Stephen Malcolm’s daughter, Laura,’ while the ancient butler produced a solid old George the Second salver whereon to convey the card with due reverence to his mistress.
The address upon the card looked respectable, and so did Laura, and upon the strength of these appearances the butler ventured to show the stranger into the dining room, where the furniture was of the good old brobdignagian stamp, and there was nothing portable except the fire-irons. Here Laura waited in a charnel-house atmosphere, while Mrs. Malcolm called up the dim shadows of the past, and finally came to the determination that she would hold parley with this young person who claimed to be of her kindred.
The butler came back after a chilly interval, and ushered Mrs. Treverton up the broad, ghastly-looking staircase, where drab walls looked down upon a stone-coloured carpet, to the big, bare drawing-room, which had ever been one of the coldest memories of her childhood.
It was a long and lofty room, furnished with monumental rosewood. The cheffoniers were like tombs — the sofa suggested an altar — the centre table looked as massive as one of those Druidic menhirs which crop up here and there among the wilds of Dartmoor, or the sandy plains of Brittany. A pale-faced clock ticked solemnly on the white marble chimney piece, three tall windows let in narrow streaks of pallid daylight, between voluminous drab curtains.
In this mausoleum-like chamber, beside a dull and miserly-looking fire, sat an old lady in black satin — the very same figure, the very same gown, Laura remembered years ago: or a g like that it appeared the same.
‘Aunt,’ said Laura, approaching timidly feeling as if she were a little child again and doomed to solitary imprisonment in that awful room, ‘have you forgotten me?’
The old lady in black satin held out her hand, a withered white hand clad in a black mitten, and adorned with old-fashioned rings.
‘No, my dear,’ she replied, without indication of surprise, ‘I never forget any one or anything. My memory is good, and my sight and hearing are good. Providence has been very kind to me. Your card puzzled me at first, but when I came to think it over I soon understood who you were. Sit down, my dear. Jonam shall bring you a glass of sherry.’
The old lady rose and rang the bell.
‘Please don’t, aunt,’ said Laura. ‘I never take sherry. I don’t want anything except to talk with you a little about my poor father.’
‘Poor Stephen,’ replied Mrs. Malcolm. ‘Sadly imprudent, poor fellow. Nobody’s enemy but his own. And so you are married, my dear? Never mind, Jonam, my niece will not take anything.’ This to the butler. ‘You were adopted by an old friend of your father’s, I remember. I went to Chiswick the day after poor Stephen’s death, and found that you had been taken away. I was very glad to know you were provided for; though, of course, I should have done what I could for you in the way of trying to get you into an institution, or something of that kind. I could never have had a child in this house. Children upset everything. I hope your father’s friend has carried out his undertaking handsomely?’
‘He was all goodness,’ answered Laura. He was more than a father to me. But I lost him two years ago.’
‘I hope he left you independent
‘He made me independent by a deed of trust, when I first went to him. He settled six thousand pounds for my benefit.’
‘Very handsome indeed. And pray whom have you married?’
‘My benefactor’s nephew, and the inheritor of his estate.’
‘You have been a very lucky girl, and you ought to be thankful to God.’
‘I hope I am thankful.’
‘I have often noticed that the children of improvident fathers do better in life than these whose parents toil to make them independent. They are like the ravens-Providence take care of them. Well, my dear, I congratulate you.’
‘God has been very good to me, dear aunt but I have had many troubles. I want you to tell me about my father. Did you see much of him in the last years of his life?’
‘Not very much. He used to call upon me occasionally, and he used sometimes to bring your mother to spend the day with me. She was a sweet woman — you are like her in face and figure — and she and I used to get on very nicely together. She was not above taking advice.’
‘Had my father many friends and acquaintances at that time?’ asked Laura.
‘Many friends! My dear, he was poor.’
‘Do you know if he had any one particular friend? He could not have been quite alone in the world. I recollect there was a gentleman who used to come very often to the cottage at Chiswick. I cannot remember what he was like. I was seldom in the room when he was there. I remember only that my father and he were often together. I have a very strong reason for wishing to know all about that man.’
“I think I know whom you mean. I have heard your poor mother talk of him many a time. She used to tell me all her troubles, and I used to give her good advice. You say you want particularly to know about this person.’
‘Most particularly, dear aunt,’ said Laura eagerly.
‘Then, my dear, my diary can tell you much better than I can. I am a woman of methodical habits, and ever since my husband’s death, three and twenty years ago last August, I have made a point of keeping a record of the course of everyday in my life. I dare say the book would seem very stupid to strangers. I hope nobody will publish it after I am dead. But it has been great pleasure to me to look through the pages from time to time, and call up old days. It is almost like living over again. Kindly take my keys, Laura, and open the right-hand door of cheffonier.’
Laura obeyed. The interior of the cheffonier was divided into shelves, and on the uppermost of these shelves were neatly arranged three and twenty small volumes, bound in morocco, and lettered Diary, with the date of each year. The parliamentary records at Strawberry Hill are not more carefully kept than the history of Mrs. Malcolm’s life.
‘Let me see,’ she said. ‘Your father died in the winter of ‘56; your poor mother a few months earlier. Bring me the volume for,’56.’
Laura handed the book to the old lady, who gave a gentle little sigh as she opened it.
‘Dear me, how neatly I wrote in ‘56,’ she exclaimed. ‘My handwriting has sadly degenerated since then. We get old, my dear; we grow old without knowing it.’
Laura thought that in that monumental drawing room age might well creep on unawares. Life there must be a long hybernation.
‘Let me see. I must find some of my conversations with your mother.” June 2. Read prayers. Breakfast. My rasher was cut too thick, and the frying was not up to cook’s usual mark. Mem.: must speak to cook about the bacon. Read a leading article on indirect taxation in Times, and felt my store of knowledge increased. Saw cook. Decided on a lamb cutlet for lunch, and a slice of salmon and roast chicken for dinner. Sent for cook five minutes afterwards, and ordered sole instead of salmon. I had salmon the day before yesterday.” Dear me, I don’t see your poor mother’s name in the first week of June,’ said the old lady, turning over the leaves. ‘Here it comes, a little later, on the fifteenth. Now you shall hear your mother’s own words, faithfully recorded on the day she spoke them. And yet there are people who would ridicule a lonely old woman for keeping a diary,’ added
Mrs. Malcom, with mild self-approval.
‘I feel very grateful to you for having kept one,’ said Laura.
‘June 15. Stephen brought his wife to lunch with me, by appointment. I ordered a nice little luncheon: filleted sole, cutlets, a duckling, peas new potatoes, cherry tart, and a custard. The poor woman does not often enjoy a good dinner, and no doubt my luncheon would be her dinner. But my thoughtfulness was ‘thrown away. The poor thing was looking pale and worn when she came, and she hardly ate a morsel. Even the duckling did not tempt her, though she owned it was the first she had seen this year. After luncheon Stephen went to the City, to keep an appointment as he told us, and his wife and I spent a quiet hour in my drawing-room. We had a long talk, which turned, as usual, on her domestic troubles. She calls this Captain Desmond her husband’s evil genius, and says he is a blight upon her life. He is not an old friend of Stephen’s, so there is no excuse for that foolish fellow’s infatuation. They met him first at Boulogne, last year; and from that time to this he and Stephen have been inseparable. Poor Laura declares that this Desmond belongs to a horrid, gambling, drinking set, and that he is the cause of Stephen’s ruin.” We were poor when we first went to Boulogne,” she said, with tears in her eyes, poor child,” but we could just manage to live respectably, and for the first year we were very happy. But from the day my husband made the acquaintance of Captain Desmond things began to go badly. Stephen resumed his old habits of billiard playing, cards, and late hours. He had grown fond of his home, and reconciled to a quiet, domestic life. Darling Laura’s pretty ways, and sweet little talk amused and interested him. But after Captain Desmond came upon the scene Stephen seldom spent an evening at home. I know that it is wicked to hate people,” the poor thing said, in her simple way,” but I cannot, help hating this bad man.”’
‘Poor mother!’ sighed Laura, touched to the heart by this picture of domestic misery.
‘I asked her if she knew who and what Captain Desmond was. She could only tell me that when Stephen made his acquaintance he was living at a boarding-house at Boulogne, and had been living there for some months. He had spent a considerable part of his life abroad. He had nobody belonging to him, and he seemed to belong to nobody; though he often boasted vaguely of grand connections. To poor Laura’s mind he was nothing more or less than an adventurer. “He flatter my husband,” she said, “and he tries to flatter me. He is very often at Chiswick, and whenever he comes he takes my husband back to London with him, and then I see no more of Stephen till the next day, or perhaps not for two or three days after. He has what his friend calls a shake-down at Captain Desmond’s lodgings in May’s Buildings, St. Martin’s Lane.”’
‘Aunt,’ exclaimed Laura eagerly,’ will you let me copy that address. It might be of use to me, if I should have to trace the past life of this man.’
She wrote the address in a little memorandum book contained in her purse.
‘My dear, why should you trouble yourself about Captain Desmond,’ said the old lady. ‘Whatever harm he did your poor father is past and done with. Nothing can alter or mend it now.’
‘No, aunt, but as long as this man lives he will go on doing harm. He will go from small crimes to great ones. It is his nature. Please go on with the diary, dear aunt. You can have no idea how valuable this information is to me.’
‘I have always felt I was doing a useful act in keeping a diary, my dear. I am not surprised to find this humble record of inestimable value,’ said the old lady, who was bursting with gratified vanity. ‘Where would history be if people in easy circumstances, and with plenty of leisure, did not keep diaries? I do not think there is any more about Captain Desmond. No; your mother tells me about her own health. She is feeling very low and ill. She fears she will not live many years, and then what is to become of poor little Laura?’
‘Did you ever go to Chiswick, aunt?’
‘Never, till after your poor father’s death. I attended his funeral.’
‘Was Captain Desmond present?’
‘No; but he was with your father up to the last hour of his life. I heard that from the landlady. He helped to nurse him.’
‘I thank you. aunt, with all my heart, for what you have told me. I will come and see you again in a few days, if I may.’
‘Do, my dear, and bring your husband Laura shivered.’ I should like to make his acquaintance. If you will mention the day A little beforehand, I should be pleased for you to take your luncheon with me. I have the cook who roasted that duckling for your poor mother still with me.’
‘I shall be pleased to come, aunt. We are in London upon very serious business, but I hope it will soon be ended, and when it is over I will tell you all about it.’
‘Do, my dear. I am very glad to see you again. I dare-say you remember spending a week with me when your mother died. I think you enjoyed yourself. This house must have been such a change for you after that poor little place at Chiswick, and there is a good deal to amuse a child in this room,’ said Mrs. Malcolm, glancing admiringly from the monumental clock on the mantelpiece to the group of feather flowers and stuffed birds on the sepulchral cheffonier.
Laura smiled faintly, remembering those interminable days in that cheerless chamber, compared with which a dirty lane where she could have made mud pies would have been Elysium.
‘I’ve no doubt you were extremely kind to me, aunt,’ she said gently, ‘but I was very small and very shy.’
‘And you did not like going to bed in the dark; which shows that you had been foolishly brought up. Your mother was a sweet woman, but wanting in strength of mind,’
CHAPTER XIV. THREE WITNESSES.
IN the forenoon of the following Tuesday John Treverton again appeared before the magistrate, at the Police-court in Bow Street.
The same witnesses were present who had been examined on the previous occasion. Two medical men gave their evidence as to the dagger, which had been sent to them fur examination. One declared that the blade bore unmistakable traces of blood stains, and gave it as his opinion that steel once so sullied never lost the stain. The. other stated that a steel blade wiped quickly while the blood upon it was wet would carry no such ineffaceable mark, and that the tarnished appearance of the dagger was referable only to time and atmosphere.
The inquiry dragged itself haltingly towards a futile close, when just as it seemed about to conclude, an elderly woman, wrapped in a thick gray shawl, and a cat-skin sable victorine, and further muffled with a Shetland veil tied over a close black bonnet, came forward, escorted by George Gerard, and volunteered her evidence. This was Mrs. Evitt, who was just well enough to crawl from a cab to the witness-box, leaning on the surgeon’s arm.
‘Oh,’ said the magistrate, when Jane Sophia Evitt had been duly sworn, ‘you are the landlady, are you? Why were you not here last Tuesday? You were subpoenaed, I believe.’
‘Yes, your worship, though I was not in a state of health to bear it.’
‘Oh, you were too ill to appear, were you? Well, what have you to say about the prisoner?’
‘Please, your worship, he oughtn’t to be a prisoner. I ought to have up and spoke the truth sooner — it has preyed upon me awful that I didn’t do it — a sweet young wife, too.’
‘What is the meaning of this rambling?’ asked the magistrate, indignantly. ‘Is the poor creature delirious?’
‘No, sir, I ain’t more delirious than your worship. My body has been all of a shiver — hot fits and cold fits — but thank God my mind has kep’ clear.’
‘You really must not tell us about your ailments. What do you know of the prisoner?’
‘Only that he’s as innocent as that lamb, yonder,’ said Mrs. Evitt, pointing to a baby in the arms of a forlorn looking drab, from the adjacent rookeries of St. Giles’s, which had just set up a shrill squall, and was in process of being evicted by a policeman. ‘He had no more to do with it than that blessed infant that’s just been carried out of court.’
And then, continually beginning to wand
er, and being continually pulled up sharp by the magistrate, Mrs. Evitt told her ghastly story of the handful of iron-gray hair, and the blood-stained dressing-gown, hidden in the closet behind the bed in her two-pair back.
‘Which is there to this day, as the police may find for themselves if they like to go and look,’ concluded Mrs. Evitt.
‘They will take care to do that,’ said the magistrate. ‘‘Where is this Desrolles?’
‘He is being looked for, sir,’ replied Mr. Leopold, ‘If your worship will permit, there are two gentlemen in court who are in possession of facts that have a material bearing on this case.’
‘Let them be sworn.’
The first of these two voluntary witnesses was Mr. Joseph Lemuel, the well-known stockbroker and millionaire, on whose appearance in the witness-box there was a sudden hush in the court, and profound attention from every one, as “at the presence of greatness.
Even that tag-rag and bob-tail from adjacent St. Giles’s had heard of Joseph Lemuel. His name had been in the penny newspapers. He was a man who was supposed to make a million of money every time there was war in Europe, and to lose a million whenever there was a financial crisis.
‘Do you know anything of this affair, Mr. Lemuel?’ the magistrate asked, with an off-hand friendliness, when the witness had been sworn, as much as to say, ‘ It is really uncommonly good of you to trouble yourself about a fellow-creature’s fate; and I want to make the thing as light and as pleasant as I can, for your sake.’
‘I think I may be able to afford a clue to the motive of the murderer,’ said Mr. Lemuel, who seemed more moved than the occasion warranted. ‘I presented the unhappy lady with a necklace about a week before her death; and I have reason to fear that this gift may have been the cause of her terrible death!’
‘Was the necklace of such value as to tempt a murderer?’
‘It was not. But, to an uneducated eye, it appeared of great value. It was a gift which I offered to a lady whose talents I — as one of the outside public — enthusiastically admired.’
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 628
