The ground floor of one of the houses was devoted to commerce. The floor, as far in as one could see, was littered with all kinds of odds and ends of metal machines and utensils and implements. On a washed-out blue fascia-board, in washed-out white letters, over the door, were the words "John Timmons," in large letters, and beneath in small letters, once black and now a streaky grey, "marine store dealer." Into the misty twilight of this house of bankrupt and forgeless Vulcan Leigh disappeared. Any one passing down Tunbridge Street a quarter of a minute after he stepped across the threshold would not have been able to detect any living being in the business establishment of Mr. John Timmons, marine-store dealer.
But if a listener had been at the back of the store, behind the boiler of a donkey-engine, or leant over the head of the dark cellar in the left corner, he would have heard the following dialogue carried on by careful whispers in the darkness below:
"Yes. I have come back sooner than I expected. I went to Birmingham yesterday morning to consult a very clever mechanist there about the new movement for the figures of time in my clock-Hah!"
"You told me you were going away, but I thought it was to Edinburgh."
"Hah!" said the former speaker, "I changed my mind about Edinburgh and went to Birmingham instead. I thought when I was speaking to you last that Edinburgh would be best, but I got the name of the best man in Birmingham and went to him instead. My friend in Birmingham not only put me right about the new movement, but when I told him I thought I was on the point of perfecting my discovery of the combination in metals he told me he would be able to find a market for me if I was sure the new compound was equal to representation. Of course, I told him the supply would be limited until I could arrange for a proper laboratory and for help. I explained that no patent could protect all the processes of manufacture and that for the present the method must be a profound secret. I also told him I proposed calling my invention Miracle Gold."
"No doubt about no patent being sufficient to protect. You were right enough there. Ho-ho-ho-ho."
"It was best to say that. Anyway, he is ready to take any quantity, if the thing is equal to representation."
"There's no doubt it will be. Ho-ho-ho-ho."
"I told him my great difficulty at present, was the colour-that it was very white-too like Australian gold-too much silver."
"Ho-ho-ho-ho, that was clever, very clever. You are the cleverest man I ever met, Mr. – ."
"Hah-stop. Isn't it best not to mention names here?"
"Well, it's always best to be on the safe side and even walls can't tell what they don't hear, can they?"
"I told him also that for the present the quantity would be small of the miracle gold, but that I hoped soon to increase the supply as soon as I got fully to work."
"That's true."
"He says he will take all I can make, no matter how much, if it is equal to representation-"
"Ho-ho-ho-ho! Equal to representation! That's splendid. I can't help laughing at that."
"No. It was clever of me. But the affair is hardly a laughing matter. May I beg of you not to laugh in that way again? I dare say the most uncomfortable place after a prison into which anyone goes is a grave, and this place looks and smells like a grave. Besides, there is fearful danger in this affair, fearful danger. Pray don't laugh."
"But you will go on with the thing now?"
"Yes, I will go on with it. But, observe, I cannot increase my risk by a grain weight. I am already risking too much. I deal, mind you, with nothing but the alloy."
"I don't want you to deal with anything else. You know nothing of the matter beyond the alloy. What did the Birmingham gentleman say the stuff would be worth?"
"In the pure metal state?"
"Of course. After you are done with it?"
"Hah! He will not say until he has a specimen. When can you have some ready?"
"Now. This minute. Will you take it away with you?"
"No, not now. What are you doing tonight?"
"Nothing particular."
"Can you come to my place between twelve and half past?"
"Certainly."
"Without fail?"
"I'll be there to the minute you say."
"Very well. Let it be twelve exactly. I have a most excellent reason of my own for punctuality. Bring some of the alloy with you. Knock at the door once, one knock, the door in Chetwynd Street, mind. I'll open the door for you myself. Mind, not a word to a soul, and above all don't go into the Hanover hard by. I have reasons for this-most important reasons."
"Do not fear. I shall be there punctually at twelve. I never go into public houses. I can't afford it. They are places for only talking and drinking and I can't afford either. Are you going?"
"Yes. I must run away now. The National Gallery folk are in a fog about a Zuccaro. They are not certain whether it is genuine or not. There is a break in the pedigree and they will do nothing until I have seen the picture and pronounced upon it. Good-bye. Twelve sharp."
"Good-bye. I'll not keep you waiting for me to-night."
Oscar Leigh came quickly out into Tunbridge Street and thence into London Road, and got on the top of an omnibus going north. He changed to the top of one going west when he reached Ludgate Circus.
If you have sharp eyes, and want to see with them that you are not followed, the top of an omnibus is an excellent way of getting about through London.
Leigh alighted from the second omnibus at Charing Cross, and walked from that straight to the Hanover in Chetwynd Street. The nation was not that day made richer by his opinion of the genuineness of the alleged Zuccaro, nor had he up to this moment conceived the advisability of inventing the mummified Egyptian prince, much less of buying his highness, with a view to painting the dial of his clock with the asphalatum from the coffin.
He had spent the time between his arrival at Victoria and his brandy and soda with Williams at the Hanover in going to and coming back from Tunbridge Street, and in his visit to John Timmons, marine-store dealer.
CHAPTER XI
STRANGER THAN MIRACLE GOLD
Grimsby Street, where Mrs. Grace, Edith's grandmother, had lodgings, to which Edith Grace had been driven that morning from Victoria, is one of the humble, dull, dingy, thoroughfares formed of small private houses in Chelsea. The ground here is very low and very flat. The houses have all half-sunken basements, bow windows on the first floor and two floors above. They are all painted of the same light, washed-out drab. They all have light drab Venetian blinds. All have tiny areas paved with light drab flags; all three steps rising six or eight inches each from the front gate to the front door. All have six steps descending from the flagged passage to the dark drab, blistered low house-door under the steps. The aspect of dull, respectable mediocrity of the whole monotonous street is heart-breaking. The sun, even of this cloudless June day, did not brighten it. The sun cannot make washed-out drab look pleasant. From end to end is not a tree or shrub or creeper, not even a single red brick to break the depressing uniformity; the chimney-pots are painted drab too. The area-railings are all black. All the doors are the colour of unpolished oak. The knockers flat and shapeless and bulged with blistered paint.
Mrs. Grace lived at Number 28, half-way down the street. She rented the first floor unfurnished. She had lost some money in the disaster which swallowed up her granddaughter's little all. The utmost economy now became necessary for the old woman, and she had resolved to give up the tiny room until now Edith's.
Mrs. Grace was a tall, well-made woman, of seventy years, very upright and youthful in manner for one of her years. She was of quick nature, and looked upon all matters from an extremely optimist or pessimist point of view. This disposition had little or no effect upon her spirits. It afforded her as much satisfaction to consider the direst, as the pleasantest, results. She was uniformly good-natured, and always saw the hand of beneficent Providence in calamity.
That Thursday morning when Edith alighted from the cab, Mrs. Grace was sitting in her front room window looking out at the placid, drab street. With an exclamation of surprise and dismay she ran down stairs, let the girl in, embraced and kissed her vehemently, crying, "My darling! my darling child! What has happened? Is there no such place at all as Eltham House, or has it been burned down?"
Edith burst into tears. She was not given to weeping, but the relief at finding herself at home, after the anxiety and adventures through which she had gone, broke her down, and, with her arm round the old woman's waist, she led Mrs. Grace upstairs to the sitting-room.
"Sit down, dear. Sit down and have your cry out. Take off your hat and rest yourself. Have you had your breakfast? Did you find Mrs. Leigh dead? or has there been a railway accident? Have your cry out. I am sorry I ever let you away from my sight. You are not hurt, are you? Where is your luggage? I declare that cabman has driven off with it. I must get someone to run after him. Did you take his number?"
"No, mother." Edith called her grandmother simply mother. It was shorter than grandmother, and more respectful than granny. "I have no luggage with me. I left it at Eltham House. No accident has happened. Simply I did not like the place. I could not stop there. I felt strange and lonely and afraid, and I came back. I ran away."
"And quite right too, dear. I am very, very sorry I ever let you go away from me. I am sure I do not know how I have got on since you left me. I thought of telegraphing you to come back. But it's all right now that you are here again, and I shall take good care you do not go off from me any more until some fairy prince comes for my child. We shall be able to live some way together, dear. With a little economy we need not be separated. Your room is just as you left it; nothing stirred. I hadn't the courage to go into it. Go into your own room, pet, and take off your things." She took Edith by the hand and led her to the little room which had been hers so long, and which seemed so secure after that large chamber in which she had spent so many minutes of anxiety and fear at Eltham House.
Then, in few words, she told all to the old woman, omitting the visit of Leigh to the room when he believed her to be gone. She explained her flight by saying this Mr. Leigh had wearied her with attentions. She said nothing about his having asked her to let him kiss her patriarchally. She wound up by declaring she could not endure him and his objectionable devotion, and that she had come away by the first train, having left a note to say the place did not suit her, and that her luggage was to be sent after her. Then she told of the loss of her ticket and Mr. Leigh's opportune appearance, and last of all, of his promise or threat of calling.
The story, as it met the ears of Mrs. Grace, did not show Leigh in a very offensive light. No doubt he had been at Eltham House when Edith arrived, and that gave the girl an unpleasant shock, for which she was not prepared, and which coloured all her subsequent thoughts of him. She had been a little put out, or offended, or frightened. She had gone to her room, locked the door and slipped away back to London next morning. That was all, and the old woman made much of getting the girl home again, and dwelt little on the reason of her flight. She put down the cause of flight to an over-sensitive young girl confronted for the first time with vulgar admiration and the cold world beyond home.
Edith confessed to have eaten no breakfast, and slept nothing during the night, so Mrs. Grace insisted upon her taking food, and lying down awhile in her room. Then she came away, shutting the door softly behind her, and sat in the window-place of the sitting-room to think over the affair.
Thought with Mrs. Grace was never logical or consequential, and at the present moment the delight of regaining Edith coloured her ideas with pleasant hues. It had been sorely against her grain she allowed the girl to go from her at all. Nothing but her granddaughter's emphatic wish would have brought her to consent to it. Before they lost their money they had had enough for modest luxury in these cheap lodgings. All Edith's money had been engulfed, and some of her own. There was still enough for the existence of two. Edith was not fit for the world, and this experience afforded convincing evidence that no other experiment of the kind should be tried.
When the little man, Leigh had come to arrange about Edith, she looked on him with scant favour. He was about to take the child from her. He had told Edith he would call later to-day to ask how she had got on. She should receive him with pleasure. No doubt he had persecuted Edith a little, and the girl had been put out and frightened. But was not this very persecution the means of driving Edith back to her home? And were not his attentions not only a proof, if proofs were needed, of the girl's beauty, but also of the unadvisability of letting her stray from her side? That argument would be conclusive with Edith when they talked the matter over quietly. If a man of this man's appearance had, under the potent spell of her beauty, so far forgotten himself as to offer her marked attentions, how much more persistent and emphatic would be the homage drawn towards her from other men. Her good looks had turned the head of this Leigh until he forgot his deformities. Could she expect other men, men of fair proportions, would be more insensible or less persistent?
Mrs. Grace did not believe Edith had any insuperable objection to marriage, or the notion of a suitor. But she knew the girl's pride of family would prevent her ever attorning to the attentions of an admirer who was not a gentleman. The Graces of Gracedieu, in Derbyshire, had come over with the Norman William, and although her own husband had been only the poor cadet of that house, and her son, Edith's father, a lawyer, who died young, leaving little for his widow and orphan, Edith was as proud of her lineage as though through her veins ran "all the blood of all the Howards." Indeed Edith had somewhat strained and fantastic theories of family and breeding and blood. She had always impressed upon Edith that she was a lady by birth and breeding. Edith was disposed to assume that she was a duchess by descent. There was no haughtiness or arrogance in her grand-daughter; the girl was extremely simple, and gentle, and good-natured; but she kept aloof from the people round her, not out of disdain, but because of the feeling that she was not of them, that they would not understand her or she them, and that they by her presence would only be made unhappy in reflecting on their own humble origin.
When Edith first declared her resolution of earning her own bread, and going out as a governess or companion, Mrs. Grace had made sure this pride of family or birth would successfully bar the way to any bargain, and when the bargain was struck with Mr. Leigh, she felt confident the arrangement would not last long. The end had come sooner than she had dared to hope, and she was delighted. She was thankful to Leigh for being the cause of Edith's failure to rest from home.
Another aspect of the affair was that Edith had come away from Eltham House suddenly, without leave, and without notice. This Mr. Leigh was to call. If he chose to be disagreeable he might urge that breach of contract and something unpleasant might arise from Edith's hasty act. The best thing to do was to see the man when he came, and be polite to him. If he had been a little impudent, over attentive, that was not a very great fault, and all chance of repetition was past. He had been most useful to Edith that morning when she found she had no ticket. Of course, she should pay him the money back-that is, if she had it in the house, which she doubted-and, of course, she should thank him for his goodness to her darling daughter. No duties could be plainer than these. Edith too must apologise for her flight, and thank Mr. Leigh for his kindness to her this morning. That was obviously necessary, and then all the unpleasantness would be as though it had never taken place.
Off and on Mrs. Grace sat at the window until afternoon. At one o'clock she ate a light luncheon; having by a visit to Edith's room found that the girl slept, she let her sleep on. In health, after fatigue and excitement, no one should be waked for food. When the old woman had finished her meal, and the table was cleared by the landlady's daughter who attended upon the lodgers, Mrs. Grace took her work and resumed her place by the window.
Time slipped away, and she began to think that after all Mr. Leigh might not come, when, lifting her eyes from her work, she saw two men cross the road and approach the house. One of these was the dwarf, the other a complete stranger to her, a tall, powerful-looking young man in a frock-coat and low crowned hat. The two seemed in earnest discourse. Neither looked up. The younger man leant over the elder as if listening intently. They disappeared from view and Mrs. Grace heard them ascend the steps and knock. She hastened to Edith, whom she found just awake and told her Mr. Leigh had arrived. Then she went back to the sitting-room and, when word came up that Mr. Leigh and a friend wished to see her, sent down an invitation for the gentlemen to come up. The two were shown in.
"I do myself, Mrs. Grace, the great pleasure and honour of calling upon you to inquire after Miss Grace, and I have taken the liberty of asking my friend to keep me company," said the little man, bowing profoundly and sweeping the ground with his hat. His tones were most respectful, his manner intensely ceremonious.
Mrs. Grace, waving her hand to a couple of chairs, said: "I am glad to see you and your friend, Mr. Leigh. Will you, please, be seated."
"Mrs. Leigh, my friend, Mr. John Hanbury, whose fame as a public speaker is as wide as the ground covered by the English language."
"Very happy, indeed, to make Mr. Hanbury's acquaintance, and very much honoured by Mr. Hanbury's call," said the old lady bowing again, and then sitting down with another gesture towards the chairs.
The two men sat down. Hanbury felt uncomfortable at Leigh's bombastic introduction, but at the moment he was completely powerless. He felt indignant at this man calling him a friend, but Leigh had it in his power to make him seem ridiculous over a good part of London; there was nothing for this but to grin and bear it.
"Mr. Hanbury and I happening to have business this way, and I remembering my promise to call and enquire how Miss Grace is after her journey this morning, I thought I'd presume on your kindness and bring him with me."
Mrs. Grace said no apology was necessary, that she was glad Mr. Leigh had brought his friend.
Hanbury winced again. What had this man brought him here for? What was the meaning of his hocus-pocus talk about miracle gold. Was this poor fellow as misshapen in mind as in body? Who was this old woman? Could she be the woman he had spoken of? Nonsense. She was a lady, no doubt, not the kind of woman you would expect to find in such a street of Chelsea, but what then? What of her?
"I hope Miss Grace has taken no harm of her fright?"
"No, thank you, Mr. Leigh? I am sure I don't know what she would have done only for your opportune appearance on the scene. Here she is, to thank you in person."
The two men rose.
The door opened and Edith Grace, pale and impassive, entered the room.
Hanbury made a step forward, and cried, "Dora!"
The little man laid his hand on the young man's arm and held him back.
Hanbury looked down at the dwarf in anger and glanced quickly at the girl.
"My grand-daughter, Miss Grace-Mr. John Hanbury, whose speeches I have often asked you to read for me, Edith."
Hanbury fell back a pace and bowed mechanically like one in a dream. He looked from the dwarf to the girl and from the girl to the dwarf, but could find no word to say, had no desire to say a word. He was completely overcome by amazement. The presence of five thousand people, with eyes fixed in expectation upon him, would have acted as a powerful stimulant to composed exaltation, but the presence of this one girl half stunned him.
He was dimly conscious of sitting down and hearing a long explanation about trains and disinclination to leave home and regrets and cabs, but nothing of it conveyed a clear idea to his mind. He gathered vaguely that this girl, who was one of the Graces of Gracedieu in Derbyshire, had arrived in London that morning without ticket or money, and the dwarf happened providentially to be in the same train and paid the fare for her.
What he heard left little or no impression upon him except when she spoke. All his attention was fixed in wondering regard upon her face and form.
It was not until Leigh and he were in the street once more that he recovered from the shock and surprise.
"That is the most marvellous thing I ever saw in all my life," said he, as the two walked away.
"Yes," said Leigh, "the most marvellous."
"I can scarcely believe it even yet," said Hanbury in a tone of reverie.
"When you fainted in Welbeck Place," began the dwarf with great emphasis and deliberation.
"Ay," said Hanbury with a start and in a voice of sharp and painful wakefulness. For a while he had forgotten why he had so uncouth a companion.
"When you fainted in Welbeck Place," repeated Leigh coldly, steadily, "I went over to where you were lying, took off my hat to your young lady-"
"Eh?" interrupted Hanbury, with a grimace. "Great Heavens," he thought, "is Dora Ashton, grand-daughter of Lord Byngfield, to be called 'my young lady' by this creature? Why doesn't he call her my young woman, at once? Ugh!"
"I was saying when you interrupted me," said Leigh sternly (it was plain to Hanbury this man was not going to overlook any point of advantage in his position) "that when you were lying in a dead faint in Welbeck Place, and I went to offer help, I took off my hat to your young lady and said, 'Miss Grace, can I be of any use?' or words to that effect."
"I do not wonder." He forgot for a moment his annoyance and disgust. "It is the most astonishing likeness I ever saw in all my life. It may be possible to detect a difference between the two when they are side by side, but I could not tell one from the other when apart."
"Hah! You could not tell one from the other. I could not when I first saw your young lady-"
"May I ask you to say Miss Ashton, or if you would still further oblige me, not to speak of the lady at all."
"Oh-ho! That's the sort of thing it is, is it? Hah! Sly dog! Knowing shaver! Hot 'un!"
Hanbury's face blazed, and for a moment he seemed about to forget himself, turn on the dwarf and rend him. Making a powerful effort he controlled his rage. "You are disastrously wrong, and you give me great pain."
"Very good. I'll do you a favour and take your word for it. Hah!"
This insolence was intolerable, and yet-and yet-and-yet it must be borne with for a while.
"I was saying, when you interrupted me a second time, that I could not tell the difference between the two, when I saw Miss Ashton this afternoon. Now I could."
"Indeed?" said Hanbury, with frigid politeness. At first this wretched creature had been all silky fur and purring sounds; now he seemed all claws and hisses.
"Yes. Miss Ashton has more go more vitality, more vigour, more verve, more enterprise, more enthusiasm, more divinity."
Hanbury turned round and gazed at the hunchback with astonishment. There was the hurry of eloquence in his words, and the flash of enthusiasm in his eyes. This man was not an ordinary man, physically or intellectually. Hanbury instantly altered his mental attitude towards the dwarf. He no longer assumed the pose of a superior, the method of a master. He recognised an equal. As Leigh had named the qualities of Dora, one by one, Hanbury had felt that thrill which always goes through a man of eloquent emotions when listening to felicitous description. In the judicious and intelligent use of a term there is freemasonry among intellectual men. It is by the phrase, and not the thought, that an intellectual man recognises a fellow. Thought is common, amorphous; with words the intellectual man models it into forms of beauty.
"I do not understand you," said Hanbury. "How do you connect vigour and divinity? The great gods did nothing."
"Ay, the great gods of the Greeks did nothing. But here in the North our gods are hard-working. You, I know, are a Tory."
"Well, it is somewhat doubtful what I am."
"I am for the people."
"So am I."
"But we differ in toto as to the means by which the people may be helped."
"Yes, in toto."
"Now then, here is the position: You are a Tory and I am a Radical."
"I do not call myself a Tory. Indeed, I came into this neighbourhood to-day in the democratic interest, if I may put it in that way. But shall we get anything out of a political discussion?"
"I daresay not."
"Then shall we say good-bye to one another here? I may rely on your keeping this whole affair quiet?"
"But you have not heard my request yet. I told you I could show you something more wonderful than mystery gold. I told you I could show you a more wonderful thing than even miracle gold. I have shown that to you. Now I want my hush money."
"What is it?"
"An introduction to Miss Ashton."
"An introduction to Miss Ashton!"
"Yes. Ah, look! That is the first poster of an evening paper I have seen to-day. How dull the evening papers are, to be sure."
"When do you wish to meet Miss Ashton?"
"Now. There never was any time past or future as good as the present."
"Come with me."