“Oh, Jack, how I should like to have a picture of what you were years ago,” exclaimed Laura. “What has become of all the photographs?”
“Heaven knows,” answered John, carelessly; “given to Tom, Dick and Harry—scattered to the four winds. I have not kept one of them.”
“Nadar,” repeated Edward, musingly; “you are talking of the man in Paris, I suppose?”
“Yes.”
“You know Paris well?”
“Every Englishman who has spent a fortnight there would say as much as that,” answered John Treverton, carelessly. “I know my way from the Louvre to the Palais Royal, and I know two or three famous restaurants, where a man may get an excellent dinner, if he likes to pay for it with its weight in gold.”
Nothing more was said upon the subject of photographs. Edward Clare left Hazlehurst next day for London. He was not going to be long away, he told his father and mother, but he wanted to see a manager who had made overtures to him for a legitimate historical drama, in blank verse.
“He was struck by a dramatic fragment I wrote for one of the magazines,” said Edward, “and he has taken it into his head that I could write as good a play as the Hunchback or the Lady of Lyons.”
“Oh, do go and see him, Ted,” cried Celia, with enthusiasm. “It would be awfully jolly if you were to write a play. We should all have to go up to town to see the first performance.”
“Should we?” interrupted the Vicar, without looking up from his John Bull, “and pray who would find the money for our railway fare, and our hotel bill?’
“Why you, of course,” cried Celia. “That would be a mere bagatelle. If Edward were to burst upon the world as a successful dramatic author he would be on the high road to fortune, and we could all afford a little extravagance. But who is your manager, Ted, and who are the actors who are to act in your play?” inquired Celia, anxious for details.
“I shall say nothing about that till my play is written and accepted,” answered Edward. “The whole affair is in the clouds at present.”
Celia gave a short impatient sigh. So many of her brother’s literary schemes had begun and ended in the clouds.
“I suppose I am to take care of your den while you are away,” she said, presently, “and dust your books and papers?”
“I shall be glad if you will preserve them from the profane hand of my mother’s last domestic treasure in the shape of a new housemaid,” answered Edward.
Before anyone could ask him any more questions the bus from the George, was at the Vicarage gate, waiting to take him to the station at Beechampton; in company with two obese farmers, and a rosy-cheeked girl going out to service, and carrying a nosegay of winter flowers, a bandbox, and an umbrella.
How sweet and fresh the air was in the clear December morning, almost the last of the year! How picturesque the winding lane, the wide sweep of cultivated valley, and distant belt of hill and moor.
Edward Clare’s eyes roamed across the familiar scene, and saw nothing of its tranquil beauty. His mind was absorbed in the business that lay before him. His heart was full of rancour. He was tormented by that worst of all foes to a man’s peace—an envious mind. The image of John Treverton’s good fortune haunted him like a wicked conscience. He could not go his own way, and forget that his neighbour was luckier than himself. Had Fate smiled upon his poetic efforts, had some sudden and startling success whisked him up into the seventh heaven of literary fame, at the same time filling his pockets, he might possibly have forgiven John Treverton; but with the sense of failure goading him, his angry feelings were perpetually intensifying.
He was in the London streets just as dusk was falling, after a cold, uncomfortable journey. He took his travelling bag in his hand, and set out on foot to find a lodging, for his funds were scanty, as he had not ventured to ask his father for money since his return to the Vicarage. It was an understood thing that he was to have the run of his teeth at Hazlehurst, and that his muse was to supply all other wants.
He did not go to the street where he had lodged before—a narrow, dismal street, between Holborn and the British Museum. He went to the more crowded quarter, bounded on one side by Leicester Square, on the other by St. Martin’s Lane, and betook himself straight to Cibber Street. He had made up his mind to get a room in that uninviting spot, if any decent shelter were available there.
Before seeking for this accommodation elsewhere, he went to look at the house to which La Chicot’s murder had given such an awful notoriety. He found it more reputable of aspect than when he had last seen it, a few days after the murder. A new wire blind shaded the lower part of the parlour window; new red curtains drooped gracefully over the upper panes. The window itself looked cleaner and brighter than it had ever looked during the stately Mrs. Rawber’s occupation of the ground floor. A new brass plate on the door bore the inscription, “Mr. Gerard, surgeon.”
Edward Clare contemplated this shining brass-plate with the blank gaze of disappointment. He concluded, not unnaturally, that the whole house had passed into the possession of Mr. Gerard, surgeon, and that Mrs. Evitt had gone forth into the wilderness of London, where she would be more difficult to find than poor Hagar and her son in the sandy wastes of the great desert. While he stood ruminating upon this apparent change in the aspect of affairs, his eye wandered to a window looking upon the area beneath the parlour, from which there came a comfortable
