“Yes, but that doesn’t go with the drawing-room floor. I’ve let it to Mr. Gerard for a room to put his books in. He’s such a man for books. They overrun the place.”
“Who is Mr. Gerard? Oh, by-the-way, that is the surgeon downstairs. How long has he been lodging with you?”
“It was about a month after poor Madame Chicot’s death when he come. ‘I’m going to set up in business for myself, Mrs. Evitt,’ he says. ‘I ain’t rich enough to buy a practice,’ says he, ‘so I must try and make one for myself, somehow,’ he says. ‘Now yours is a crowded neighbourhood, and I think I might do pretty well here, if you let me your ground-floor cheap. It would be for a permanency,’ says he, ‘so that ought to make a difference.’ ‘I’ll do my best to meet you,’ says I, ‘but my rent is high, and I never was a hour behind with it yet, and I never will be.’ Well, sir, I let him have the rooms very low, considering their value, for I was that depressed in my sperrits it wasn’t in me to ’aggle. That ungrateful viper, Mrs. Rawber—a woman I’d waited on hand and foot, and fried onions for her until I’ve many a time turned faint over the frying-pan—and she’s gone and turned her back upon me in my trouble, and took a first-floor over a bootmaker’s, where the smell of the leather must be enough to poison a respectable female!”
“Has Mr. Gerard succeeded in getting a practice?” asked Edward.
“Well, he do have patients,” answered the landlady, dubiously; “gratis ones a many, between the hours of eight and nine every morning. He’s very steady and quiet in his ’abits, and that moderate that he could live where another would starve. He’s a wonderful clever young man, too; it was him—much more than the grand doctor—that pulled Madame Chicot through, after her accident.”
“Indeed!” said Edward, becoming suddenly interested; “then Mr. Gerard knew the Chicots?”
“Knew ’em! I should think he did, indeed, poor young man! He attended Madame Chicot night and day for months, and if it hadn’t been for him I believe she’d have died. There never was a doctor so devoted, and all for love. He didn’t take a penny for his attendance.”
“A most extraordinary young man,” said Edward.
They went up to the second-floor, and Mr. Clare was introduced to the apartments upon which Desrolles had turned his back forever. The furniture was of the shabbiest, but the rooms looked tolerably clean, much cleaner than they had appeared during the occupation of Mr. Desrolles. Edward flung down his travelling-bag, and expressed himself contented with the accommodation.
“Don’t put me into damp sheets,” he said, whereupon Mrs. Evitt threw up her hands in horror, and almost wept as she protested against so heartless an imputation.
“There isn’t a carefuller woman than me about airing linen in all London,” she exclaimed. “I’m over-particular. I’ve scorched many a good pillercase in my carefulness; but I’m the only loser by that, and I don’t mind.”
“I must go and get some dinner,” said Edward. “And then I think I’ll drop in at a theatre. I suppose you can give me a latchkey.”
“You can have the very key that Mr. Desrolles had,” replied Mrs. Evitt, graciously, as if according a peculiar privilege.
“I don’t care whose key it is as long as it will open the door,” answered the unappreciative poet; and then he put the key in his pocket, and went out to regale himself cheaply at a French restaurant, and then to the pit of a popular theatre. He had come to London on a particular errand, but he meant to get as much pleasure out of his visit as he could.
From the moment that Edward Clare heard of George Gerard’s attendance upon Madame Chicot he became desirous of making Mr. Gerard’s acquaintance. Here was a man who could help him in the business he had to carry through. Here was a man who must know the dancer’s husband intimately—a man who could identify Jack Chicot in the present Squire of Hazlehurst. This was the man of men whom it was valuable for Edward Clare to know. Having once made up his mind upon this point, Mr. Clare did not lose any time in making use of his opportunities. He called upon Mr. Gerard on the morning after his arrival in town. It was only half-past eight when he presented himself at the surgeon’s door, so anxious was he to secure an interview before Mr. Gerard left home.
He found George Gerard sitting at his modest breakfast of bread and butter and coffee, an open book beside him as he ate. Edward’s eyes marked the neatness of the surgeon’s attire, marked also that his coat had been worn to the last stage of shabbiness at all compatible with respectability. A month’s wear more and the wearer would be out at elbows. He observed also the thick slices of bread and butter—the doubtful-looking coffee, with an odour suggestive of horse-beans. Here, evidently, was a man for whom the struggle of life was hard. Such a man would naturally be easy to deal with.
George Gerard rose to receive his guest with a pleasant smile.
“Mrs. Evitt told me that you wanted to see me,” he said, waving his hand to a chair beside his somewhat pinched fire.
A scientific arrangement of fire brick had been adapted to the roomy old grate since Mrs. Rawber’s tenancy, and it now held a minimum of fuel.
“Yes, Mr. Gerard, I very much want half an hour’s talk with you.”
“I can give you just half an hour before I start for my day’s work,” answered Gerard, with a businesslike air and a glance at the neat little clock on the chimney piece.
The room was curiously changed since Mrs. Rawber’s occupation. It had then appeared the model of the vulgar lodging-house parlour. It now
