Before he was thirty Signor Grumani was one of the most celebrated men of his age, as well as one of the most respectable. At forty he had made a comfortable fortune, lived in his own house at Pentonville, had a fine collection of fancy pigeons, and cultivated an acre of garden.
The good old father and mother were both gone. They had lived to share their elder son’s prosperity, and to exult in his fame; but the inexorable doom had overtaken them, and, though blessed with a loving little wife and troops of friends, looking back at the past, on this fortieth birthday, John Groman felt himself a lonely man.
The knell of our youth is sounded when we have lost those we loved while we were young.
And the blue-eyed, bright-haired brother. What of him?
That is the saddest memory in John Groman’s past. He always thinks of his brother Ted on his birthday. Never had brothers loved each other more truly than those two. There had been a sympathy between them almost as subtle as that which sometimes exists between twins, an affection rare among men. And now John looked back and thought of his brother as of the dead. He had so little hope of ever seeing him again upon earth.
Edward was full of talent, and had begun brilliantly as shopman at a West-end jeweller’s. His good looks and gentlemanlike manners had made him at once popular and valuable. He had a persuasive tongue, and was speedily known as a first-rate salesman. With women he was supposed to be irresistible; from the duchess, before whose languid eyes he displayed a riviére of diamonds, to the milliner’s apprentice, who wanted a cheap breast-pin for her lover.
For the first five years of his commercial life he did well, and his father and mother were prouder of the West-end shopman than of the circus-clown; but, just as Jack was leaving the circus for the theatre, and beginning to make himself famous, Ted took a turn for the bad.
Nothing was distinctly known. Those who knew him best said there was a woman at the bottom of it, and even named the woman. John knew something of her, but very little. One black Monday Edward Groman was missing, and a diamond bracelet, worth three hundred pounds, was missing at the same time. The evening’s post brought a heartbroken farewell to the miserable mother, but no word of explanation.
‘If ever you see me again, mother, I shall be an honest man. I mean to pay back what I have taken, if God lets me live long enough. Try not to think of me as a thief, but as a man driven by hard necessity, and the bitter need of one he loves better than himself.’
‘Dear Edward!’ sobbed the fond mother;’he always wrote such sweet letters.’
And it seemed to this loving soul that a young man who could write so well could hardly do wrong. But the father was of sterner stuff, and his son’s dishonesty crushed him. He was never quite the same man after that bitter Monday.
John Groman paid Messrs. Cabochon the price of that diamond bracelet out of his second season at Drury Lane. Three years later he received a polite note from the firm, informing him that a letter had reached them that day from New York, containing bank-bills to the amount due to them, with interest to date. They had much pleasure in handing the principal and interest to Mr. Groman.
And in all these years not a word had come to Signor Grumani from that scapegrace brother of his. It was more than ten years since Messrs. Cabochon had received the bank-bills. Jack had made up his mind that his brother Ted had ended his wanderings long ago.
‘He was too fond of me to have kept silence all this time if he was not silent for ever,’ thought Jack, as he bent shivering over the dull coke fire. That bleak March wind sent ice-cold arrows against his back.
He had thought the same thing many a time, and nothing had ever come of the thought. Every birthday for the last fifteen years, and on many days that were not birthdays, his mind had dwelt upon the dear companion of his youth, and nothing had ever come of it. No messenger from the other world had come to tell him that his brother was verily lost to him; no ray of hope had ever pierced the darkness that veiled the wanderer’s fate.
Jack repeated the words dreamily, like an old song.
‘He was too fond of me to keep silence, unless he was silent for ever.’
Suddenly came a sound that thrilled him. The voice of a spirit could not have moved him more. Some one whistled an old, old, familiar, fireside tune just outside his door — a tune he had never heard sung or whistled since he lost his brother — the tune which Edward Groman used to whistle softly to himself when he bent over any task that needed special thoughtfulness and care.
‘My God!’ cried Grumani, starting up from his chair. ‘That’s my brother Edward!’
The door was dashed open, and a man came in, tall, bearded, bright-eyed, clad in rough warm clothes, smelling of the sea — a man who threw his arms wide open, and cried:
‘My blessed old Jack, I made up my mind to come home on your birthday!’
And then the two men hugged each other and clung to each other in a way that was possibly un-English, but which was distinctly human.
‘My dearest Ted!’
‘My brave old Jack!’
‘Where have you been all these years?’
‘Everywhere: all over the world, from pillar to post.’
‘Oh, Ted, why didn’t you write to me?’ asked John, with tender reproachfulness. “How many a heartache you might have saved me if you had only written!’
‘I was a fool and a brute,’ said Edward, looking very much ashamed of himself for the space of a second, and then brightening suddenly, just in his old happy-go-lucky way. ‘But, you see, I always meant to come home, and I felt somehow that I couldn’t say what I wanted to say in a letter. Sometimes things looked black, and I didn’t care to tell you how low I had got in the world; then, when the tide turned and good luck came, I wanted to come home unawares, as I have to-night, dear old boy, and surprise you. But I sent the money for that — infernal bracelet.’
‘Yes, Ted, I was glad of that. Oh, Ted, my own true-hearted brother, how could you — —’
‘How could I turn thief? It wasn’t like my father and mother’s son, was it? I’ll tell you how it was, Jack. I saw the woman I loved in bitter need — bailiffs in the house, ready to take the bed she slept on — she ill and helpless — the husband who should have cared for her leaving her to her fate, and I — I — that had never had so much as a kiss from her dear lips since she was a wife — the only friend she had to look to in her misery. And I had that cursed bracelet in my waistcoat-pocket to take to a fine lady in May Fair. I took it to Attenborough’s instead, Jack, and I gave that poor girl the money. And then, feeling that I was a ruined, blighted wretch, and had brought shame upon my honest father, I went straight down to the docks and engaged myself on board an East Indiaman as an able-bodied seaman.’
There was a loud knock at the door, and a shrill boyish voice called, ‘Signor Grumani: Transformation scene.’
‘I must be on the stage in three minutes, and I sha’n’t be off it above five minutes at a time till the end of the pantomime. Will you sit here and wait for me, Ted, or will you go round to the front?’
‘Neither. I’ll come back when it’s all over, and if you like to take me home with you — —’
‘Like to take you, Ted! My home shall be your home as long as I have a roof to shelter me.’
‘I won’t impose on your generosity, Jack. The tide turned five years ago, and things have gone smoothly with me ever since. I have come home to you a rich man. Look at these.’
He took a couple of little canvas bags from his pocket and showed them to his brother.
‘Do you recognize those, Jack?’
The clown shook his head.
‘Diamonds, Jack, diamonds! I came home by Amsterdam, and put all my money into the raw material.The dear old dad used to say that a man could never lose money in diamonds if he knew anything about them; and I flatter myself I’m a pretty good judge. There’s a small fortune in those two bags, Jack. I mean to get fifty per cent, upon my capital out of the West-end jewellers. I wasn’t three
years with old Cabochon for nothing.’
All this was spoken hurriedly. Jack Groman longed to hear more, and yet must needs tear himself away. Another minute and the stage would be waiting for him.
‘When did you get to London, Ted?’ he asked, breathlessly.
‘Last night. I’ve been looking up old haunts all day, and,’ with a stifled sob, ‘I’ve been to see — their grave. I had made up my mind to come upon you unawares to-night.’
‘And you are not afraid of going about with all that property in your pocket?’
‘I shouldn’t be afraid of carrying the crown jewels. Nobody knows that I’ve got anything worth stealing, and I don’t carry them where they could be taken easily.’
‘You’ll be sure to come back for me, Ted?’
‘Without fail.’
‘And we’ll go home together. Rose Cottage, Pentonville. That’s my place, Ted, and I’ve the nicest wife in England.’
‘You deserve her. I shall be back in an hour.’
And so, with a hearty hand-clasp, they parted; and Signor Grumani rushed down a breakneck-staircase, burst into a blaze of gas, and tumbled on the stage just in the nick of time. He had never disappointed the British public in his life, and he would have been sorry to begin, even to-night, albeit his heart was thumping against his ribs with the strongest emotion he had ever felt since the day he was told his brother was a thief.
He went through all the old familiar tricks and buffooneries, the antics, the deliciously comic grimaces, and the people laughed at him as heartily as ever; but the lights and faces, the gilding and colour of the theatre were spinning before his eyes all the time — the music had a far-off sound — the well-known faces in the orchestra looked strange.
‘Upon my soul,’ said Signor Grumani, ‘I believe everybody’s drunk, and I’m the drunkest of all.’
CHAPTER II. MISSING.
THE Clown’s last caper was performed; his last broad grin had illuminated the house, like the jolly red-faced sun laughing at the world before he drops behind the broad green hills; and John Groman was his own master again. For three months he had been the nightly slave of the public. Now he was free to go where he liked and do what he pleased, till he took upon himself other bondage.
‘What a jolly time Ted and I will have,’ he said to himself, as he ran up the steep stairs and along the narrow passages to his dressing-room.
The sulky coke fire had gone out altogether, and the room was empty. Jack Groman looked round disconsolately. He had expected to find his brother waiting for him.
‘He said he’ be back in an hour,’ he thought; ‘and it’s full an hour and a half since he left me. Just your old way, Master Ted. Never punctual!’
He began to undress quickly, so that he might be ready to go home with that scapegrace brother of his. He washed the bismuth and vermillion off his honest face, he put on the sober garments of every-day life, and Signor Grumani was transformed into plain John Groman, a well-built man of middle-height, lithe, active-looking, with homely features, an intelligent countenance, dark hair cut short, closely shaved cheek and chin, good broadcloth, and a general appearance of extreme respectability. You might have taken him for a prosperous lawyer, or a doctor with a good practice — for anything or everything except a clown.
It took him a quarter of an hour to dress. The lights in front of the house had been out ever so long — the theatre was as quiet as an empty church.
‘I can’t wait for him here,’ said John Groman. ‘They’ll be locking up the stage-door and shutting me in.’
He went down to the stage-door, hoping to find his brother waiting for him in the dismal lobby, where aspirants for dramatic renown sometimes waited for engagements — and did not get them — where the imps and fairies of pantomime congregated on Saturday afternoons, unkempt and dirty, and smelling of old clothes.
No, Edward was not in the hall. The door-keeper had seen a strange gentleman go out ‘nigh two hours ago,’ and had not seen him come back, and the door-keeper was positive that nobody could pass him ‘unbeknown.’
There was nothing to do but to go out and wait in the street for the truant. The door-keeper wanted to lock up the theatre and to retire to his den. So John Groman buttoned-up his comfortable overcoat, pulled his muffler over his chin — clowns are as careful of their lungs as tenors — and went out into the windy night.
There was a colonnade outside the stage-door, and there was a public-house on the other side of the street. The lights within had a comfortable look.
‘I wonder if the fellow has gone into the Anchor?’ thought John.
He ran across, and looked into the bar, and even peered into the parlour. No Edward. John was out in the street again in a minute. He began to feel feverishly anxious lest he should miss his brother.
‘I told him my address,’ he said to himself. ‘Can he have taken a hackney-coach, and gone home without me?’
That seemed an unlikely proceeding, so John determined to stick to his post, under the colonnade. It was only a question of waiting for half an hour or so. It was nearly one o’clock. The most unpunctual of men could not delay his return much longer.
One o’clock struck, and the quarter after, from the church clocks of the neighbourhood, and still John Groman waited. A chill uncomfortable feeling had crept over him since the striking of the hour. It seemed mere foolishness now to wait for his brother. It was not likely Ted would come back to the theatre that night.
‘He talked about looking up old haunts,’ mused Jack; ‘perhaps he has gone to see some of father’s old friends. The Tomkinsons, for instance. Their place isn’t very far from here.’
John Groman went off at once to see if this notion about the Tomkinsons were not a happy idea. He was flurried and eager, and had a kind of desperate feeling that he must find his brother before those sonorous church clocks struck two.
There was something queer and uncanny in this disappearance of Ted’s. It began to appal him.
‘It isn’t kind of him to play me such a trick,’ he thought. ‘He must know how anxious I am to talk to him.’
Tomkinson’s place was a rather dingy-looking house, over a tobacconist’s shop, in a narrow street between the Strand and the river. The Tomkinsons and the Gromans had enjoyed that comfortable kind of friendship which finds outward expression in tea and muffins, hot suppers after the play, and homely Christmas or New Year festivities beside the domestic hearth, rum punch, oysters, bottled stout, and conviviality.
Mr. Tomkinson’s windows were dark. There was no sign of conviviality to-night. John Groman rang the door-bell loudly in his agitation, and presently a second-floor window was opened, a head thrust out, and a sharp voice asked, crossly,
‘What’s the matter now?’
‘It’s only I, Susan. Mr. Groman, you know. Is there anybody with your master?’
‘Master and missus have been abed these three hours,’ answered the girl. ‘I beg your pardon for speaking so cross, Mr. Groman, but this is the second time I’ve been scared by that blessed bell. There was a gentleman here an hour ago, who wanted master, but he wouldn’t have him waked, and said he’d call to-morrow.
‘What kind of a gentleman?’
‘Tall — bigger than you — with a beard. He looked like a foreigner, but he spoke like an Englishman.’
‘Which way did he go?’
‘That way,’ answered the girl, pointing towards the Strand.
‘Are you sure it was an hour ago?’
‘I can’t be sure to a minute. It might have been an hour and a half.’
‘Or two hours,’ suggested John Groman.
‘I can’t say. Shall I call master, sir?’
‘No, no, on no account. I’ll look in to-morrow.’
The girl shut down the window, and John Groman turned his face to the Strand.
‘There can be no doubt about it,’ he thought. ‘Ted must have gone straight to Rose Cottage, after leaving the Tomkinsons.’
It was just l
ike his brother to steal a march upon him, and go bursting into the quiet little cottage, looking as rough and fresh as the March wind.
‘What a surprise for my little woman!’ the Clown said to himself.
Yet, though he told himself this might be, there was a leaden weight at John Groman’s heart as he plodded manfully northwards, piercing his way across a labyrinth of streets towards the Gray’s Inn Road, cutting off corners, going almost as straight as the crow flies
The clocks struck two as he skirted the Foundling — two sonorous strokes that seemed to beat upon John Groman’s heart.
‘I thought I should have found him before two o’clock,’ he said to himself;’ but I’ll be bound he’s in my parlour, making friends with the Little woman.’
A belated hackney coach passed just at this moment. John Groman hailed it, and had himself driven home.
At Rose Cottage he found a bright fire, a cosy round table neatly laid for supper, a cheery copper kettle spitting and hissing on the hob, with a view to Jack’s nightly glass of whisky-toddy, and a tearful little woman almost ready to go into hysterics on her husband’s shoulder.
‘Oh, Jack, what a fright you have given me!’ she cried, smiling at him through her tears. ‘I thought something had happened.’
Something has happened,’ he answered, looking anxiously round. ‘Where’s my brother?’
‘Your brother?’
‘Yes, Fan. Come, no larks. You’re hiding him, I know.’
Mrs. Groman stared at her husband in sudden terror. Could he, the soberest of men, have been drinking? That was hardly possible. Yet, what but drunkenness or sudden lunacy could account for his wild demeanour?
‘Fanny, for God’s sake, tell the truth. My brother Ted is here, isn’t he?’
Oh, Jack, do you think I’d deceive you? There’s not a mortal been here this night. What has put your poor brother into your head? I daresay he’s dead and gone, poor fellow, years ago. You’d have heard of him if he were still alive.’
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 1122
