Hugo by Arnold Bennett (all ebook reader txt) 📖

piano.

'I will explain how some other time,' Hugo replied, going also to the piano and facing his guest. 'You did magnificently that night, doctor. Don't imagine for a moment that my feelings towards you in regard to that disastrous evening are anything but those of admiration. And now tell me about her--about _her_. She is well?'

Hugo put a hand on the man's shoulder, and persuaded him back to his chair.

'She is well--I hope and believe,' answered Darcy.

'You don't see her often?'

'On the contrary, I see her every day, nearly.'

'But if she lives at Bruges and you are in Paris--'

'Bruges?'

'Yes; Place Saint-Etienne.'

Darcy thought for a second.

'So it's _you_ who have been on the track,' he murmured.

Hugo, too, became meditative in his turn.

'I wish you would tell me all that happened since--since that night,' he said at length.

'I ask nothing better,' said Darcy. 'Since Ravengar is dead and all danger passed, there is no reason why you should not know everything that is to be known. Well, Mr. Hugo, I have had an infinity of trouble with that girl.'

Hugo's expression gave pause to the doctor.

'I mean with Mrs. Tudor,' he added correctively. 'I'll begin at the beginning. After the disappearance--the typhoid disappearance, you know--she went to Algiers. Tudor had taken a villa at Mustapha Superieure, the healthiest suburb of the town. After Tudor's sudden death I telegraphed to her to come back to me in Paris. I couldn't bring myself to wire that Tudor was dead. I only said he was ill. And at first she wouldn't come. She thought it was a ruse of Ravengar's. She thought Ravengar had discovered her hiding-place, and all sorts of things. However, in the end she came. I met her at Marseilles. You wouldn't believe, Mr. Hugo, how shocked she was by the news of her husband's death. Possibly I didn't break it to her too neatly. She didn't pretend to love him--never had done--but she was shocked all the same. I had a terrible scene with her at the Hotel Terminus at Marseilles. Her whole attitude towards the marriage changed completely. She insisted that it was plain to her then that she had simply sold herself for money. She said she hated herself. And she swore she would never touch a cent of Tudor's fortune--not even if the fortune went to the Crown in default of legal representatives.'

'Poor creature!' Hugo breathed.

'However,' Darcy proceeded, 'something had to be done. She was supposed to be dead, and if her life was to be saved from Ravengar's vengeance, she just had to continue to be dead--at any rate, as regards England. So she couldn't go back to England. Now I must explain that my friend Tudor hadn't left her with much money.'

'That was careless.'

'It was,' Darcy admitted. 'Still, he naturally relied on me in case of necessity. And quite rightly. I was prepared to let Mrs. Tudor have all the money she wanted, she repaying me as soon as events allowed her to handle Tudor's estate. But as she had decided never to handle Tudor's estate, she had no prospect of being able to repay me. Hence she would accept nothing. Hence she began to starve. Awkward, wasn't it?'

'I see clearly that she could not come to England to earn her living,' said Hugo, 'but could she not have earned it in Paris?'

'No,' Darcy replied; 'she couldn't earn it regularly. And the reason was that she was too beautiful. Situation after situation was made impossible for her. She might easily have married in Paris, but earn her living there--no! In the end she was obliged to accept money from me, but only in very small sums, such as she could repay without much difficulty when Ravengar's death should permit her to return to England. She was always sure of Ravengar's death, but she would never tell me why. And now he's dead.'

'And there is no further obstacle to her coming to England?'

'None whatever. That is to say--except one.'

'What do you mean?' Hugo demanded.

Darcy had flushed.

'I'm in a very delicate position,' said Darcy. 'I've got to explain to you something that a man can't explain without looking an ass. The fact is--of course, you see, Mr. Hugo, I did all I could for her all the time. Not out of any special regard for her, but for Tudor's sake, you understand. She's awfully beautiful, and all that. I've nothing against her. But I believe I told you last year that I had been in love once. That "once" was enough. I've done with women, Mr. Hugo.'

'But how does this affect--' Hugo began to inquire, rather inimically.

'Can't you see? She doesn't _want_ to leave Paris. I did all I could for her all the time. I've been her friend in adversity, and so on, and so on, and she's--she's--'

'What on earth are you driving at, man?'

'She's fallen in love with me. That's what I'm driving at. And now you know.'

'My dear sir,' said Hugo earnestly, 'if she is in love with you, you must marry her and make her happy.'

He did not desire to say this, but some instinct within him compelled him to utter the words.

'You told me that you loved her,' Darcy retorted.

'I told you the truth. I do.'

A silence ensued. All Hugo's previous discouragements, sadnesses, preoccupations, despairs, were as nothing in comparison with the black mood which came upon him when he learnt this simple fact--that Camilla had fallen in love with Darcy.

'She is still in Paris?' he asked, to end the silence.

'I--I don't know. I called at her lodgings at noon, and she had gone and left no address.'

Hugo jumped up.

'She can't have disappeared again?'

'Oh no; rest assured. Doubtless a mere change of rooms. When I return I shall certainly find a letter awaiting me.'

'Why did you come to me?'

'Well,' Darcy said, 'you told me you loved her, and I thought--I thought perhaps you'd come over to Paris, and see--see what could be done. That's why I came. The thing's on my mind, you know.'

'Just so,' Hugo answered, 'and I will come.'


CHAPTER XXIII


FIRST TRIUMPH OF SIMON

A week later, Simon and Albert stood talking together in Simon's room adjoining the dome. Simon had that air of absolute spruceness and freshness which in persons who have stayed at home is so extremely offensive to persons who have just arrived exhausted and unclean from a tiresome journey. It was Albert who, with Hugo, had arrived from the journey.

'Had a good time, Alb?' Simon asked.

'So-so,' said Albert cautiously.

'By the way, what did you go to Paris _for_?'

'Didn't you know?'

'How should I know, my son?'

'The governor wanted to find that girl of his.'

'What girl?' Simon asked innocently.

'Oh, chuck it, Si!' Albert remonstrated against these affectations of ignorance in a relative from whom he had no secrets.

'You mean Mrs. Tudor?'

'Yes.'

'She's disappeared again, has she? And you couldn't find her?'

Albert concurred.

'It seems to me, Alb,' said Simon, 'that you aren't shining very brilliantly just now as a detective. And I'm rather surprised, because I've been doing a bit of detective work myself, and it's nothing but just using your eyes.'

'What have you been up to?' Albert inquired.

'Oh, nothing. Never you mind. It's purely unofficial. You see, I'm not a detective. I'm only a servant that gets left at home. I've only been amusing myself. Still, I've found out a thing or two that you'd give your eyes to know, my son.'

'What?'

Albert pursued his quest of knowledge.

'You get along home to your little wife,' Simon enjoined him. 'You're a professional detective, you are. No doubt when you've recovered from Paris, and got into your stride, you'll find out all that I know and a bit over in about two seconds. Off you go!'

Simon's eyes glinted.

And later, when he was giving Hugo the last ministrations for the night, Simon looked at his lord as a cat looks at the mouse it is playing with--humorously, viciously, sarcastically.

'I'll give him a night to lie awake in,' said Simon's eyes.

But he only allowed his eyes to make this speech while Hugo's back was turned.

The next morning Hugo's mood was desolating. To speak to him was to play with fire. Obviously, Hugo had heard the clock strike all the hours. Nevertheless, Simon permitted himself to be blithe, even offensively blithe. And when Hugo had finished with him he ventured to linger.

'You needn't wait,' said Hugo, in a voice of sulphuric acid.

'So you didn't find Mrs. Francis Tudor, sir?' responded Simon, with calm and beautiful insolence.

It was insolence because, though few of Hugo's secrets were hid from Simon, the intercourse between master and servant was conducted on the basis of a convention that Simon's ignorance of Hugo's affairs was complete. And if the convention was ignored, as it sometimes was, Hugo alone had the right to begin the ignoring of it.

'What's that you said?' Hugo demanded.

'You didn't find Mrs. Francis Tudor, sir?' Simon blandly repeated.

'Mind your own business, my friend,' he said.

'Certainly, sir,' said Simon. 'But I had intended to add that possibly you had not been searching for Mrs. Tudor in the right city.'

Hugo stared at Simon, who retreated to the door.

'What in thunder do you mean?' Hugo asked coldly and deliberately.

At last Simon felt a tremor.

'I mean, sir, that I think I know where she is. At least, I know where she will be in a couple of hours' time.'

'Where?'

'In Department 42--her old department, sir.'

By a terrific effort Hugo kept calm.

'Simon,' he said, 'don't play any tricks on me. If you do, I'll thrash you first, and then dismiss you on the spot.'

'It's through the new manager of the drapery, sir, in place of Mr. Bentley--I forget his name. Mr. Bentley's room being all upset with police and accountants and things, the new manager has been using your office. And I was in there to-day, and he was engaging a young lady for the millinery, sir. He didn't recognise her, not having been here long enough, but I did. It was Miss Payne.'

'Impossible!'

'Yes, sir; Miss Payne--that is to say, Mrs. Tudor. I heard him say, "Very well, you can start to-morrow morning."'

'That's _this_ morning?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Why didn't you tell me this last night?' Hugo roared.

'It slipped my memory, sir,' said Simon, surpassing all previous feats of insolence.

Hugo, speechless, waved him out of the room.


CHAPTER XXIV


THE LODGING-HOUSE

The thought of soon seeing her intoxicated him. His head swam, his heart leapt, his limbs did what they liked, being forgotten. And then, as he sobered himself, he tried seriously to find an answer to this question: Why had she returned, as it were surreptitiously, to the very building from which her funeral was supposed to have taken place? Could she imagine that oblivion had covered her adventure, and that the three thousand five hundred would ignore the fact that she was understood to be dead? He found no answer--at least, no satisfactory answer--except that women