The breakfasts in Great Walpole-street, looked upon as meals, were neither satisfactory nor satisfying. Of all social gatherings a breakfast is perhaps the one most difficult to make agreeable to yourself and your guests. There are men, at other periods of the day bright, sociable, and chatty, who insist upon breakfasting by themselves, who glower over their tea and toast, and growl audibly if their solitude is broken in upon; there are women capable of everything in the way of self-sacrifice and devotion except getting up to breakfast. A breakfast after the Scotch fashion, with enormous quantities of Finnan-haddy, chops, steaks, eggs and ham, jam and marmalade, tea and coffee, is a good thing; so is a French breakfast with two delicate cutlets, or a succulent filet, a savoury omelette, a pint bottle of Nuits, a chasse, and a cigarette. But the morning meals in Great Walpole-street were not after either of these fashions. After the servants had risen from their knees, and shuffled out of the room in Indian file at the conclusion of morning prayers, the butler re-entered bearing a hissing silver urn, behind which Mrs. Calverley took up her position, and proceeded to brew a tepid amber-coloured fluid, which she afterwards dispensed to her guests. The footman had followed the butler, bearing, in his turn, a dish containing four thin greasy strips of bacon, laid out side by side in meek resignation, with a portion of kidney keeping guard over them at either end. There was a rack filled with dry toast, which looked and tasted like the cover of an old Latin dictionary; there was a huge bread-platter, with a scriptural text round its margin, and a huge bread-knife with a scriptural text on its blade; and on the sideboard, far away in the distance, was the shadowy outline of what had once been a ham, and a mountain and a promontory of flesh, with the connecting link between them almost cut away, representing what had once been a tongue. On two or three occasions, shortly after Madame Du Tertre had first joined the household, she mentioned to Mrs. Calverley that she was subject to headaches, which were only to be gotten rid of by taking a sharp half-hour's walk in the air immediately after breakfast; the fact being that Pauline was simply starved, and that if she had been followed she would have been found in the small room of Monsieur Verrey's café in Regent-street engaged with a cutlet, a pint of Beaune, and the Siècle newspaper. To John Calverley, also, these gruesome repasts were most detestable, but he made up for his enforced starvation by a substantial and early luncheon in the City.
On the morning after Humphrey Statham's departure for Cornwall, the breakfast-party was assembled in Great Walpole-street. But the host was not among them. He had gone away to his ironworks in the North, as he told his guest: "on his own vagaries," as his wife had phrased it, with a defiant snort: and Mrs. Calverley, Madame Du Tertre, and Martin Gurwood were gathered round the festive board. The two ladies were sipping the doubtful tea, and nibbling the leathery toast, while Mr. Garwood, who was an early riser, and who, before taking his morning constitutional in Guelph Park, had solaced himself with a bowl of bread-and-milk, had pushed aside his plate, and was reading out from the Times such scraps of intelligence as he thought might prove interesting. On a sudden he stopped, the aspect of his face growing rather grave, as he said:
"Here is some news, mother, which I am sure will prove distressing to Mr. Calverley, even if his interests do not suffer from the event which it records."
"I can guess what it is," said Mrs. Calverley, in her thin acid voice; "I have an intuitive idea of what has occurred. I always predicted it, and I took care to let Mr. Calverley know my opinion--the Swartmoor Iron works have failed?"
"No, not so bad as that," said Mr. Gurwood, "nor, indeed, is it any question of the Swartmoor Ironworks. I will tell you what is said, and you will be able to judge for yourself how far Mr. Calverley may be interested." And in the calm, measured tone habitual to him from constant pulpit practice, Martin Gurwood read out the paragraph which had so startled Humphrey Statham on the previous evening.
When Martin Gurwood finished reading, Madame Du Tertre, who had listened attentively, wheeled round in her chair and looked hard at Mrs. Calverley. That lady's placidity was, however, perfectly undisturbed. With her thin bony hand she still continued her employment of arranging into fantastic shapes the crumbs on the table-cloth, nor did she seem inclined to speak until Pauline said:
"To me this seems a sad and terrible calamity. If I, knowing nothing of this unfortunate gentleman, am grieved at what I hear, surely you, madame, to whom he was doubtless well known, must feel the shock acutely."
"I am glad to say," said Mrs. Calverley coldly, "that I am not called upon to exhibit any emotion in the present instance. So little does Mr. Calverley think fit to acquaint me with the details of his business, that I was not aware that it was in contemplation to establish an agency at Ceylon, nor did I ever hear of the name of the person who, doubtless by his own imprudence, seems to have lost his life."
"You never saw Mr.--Mr.--how is he called, Monsieur Gurwood?"
"Durham is the name given here," said Martin, referring to the newspaper.
"Ah, you never saw Mr. Durham, madame?"
"I never saw him; I never even heard Mr. Calverley mention his name."
"Poor man, poor man!" murmured Madame Du Tertre with downcast eyes; "lost so suddenly, as your Shakespeare says--'sent to his account with all his imperfections on his head.' It is terrible to think of; is it not Monsieur Martin?"
"To be cut off with our sins yet inexpiated," said Martin Gurwood, not meeting the searching glance riveted upon him, "is, as you say, Madame Du Tertre, a terrible thing. Let us trust this unfortunate man was not wholly unprepared."
"If he were a friend of Mr. Calverley's," hissed the lady at the end of the table, "and he must have been to have been placed in a position of trust, it is, I should say, most improbable that he was fitted for the sudden change."
That morning Madame Du Tertre, although her breakfast had been of the scantiest, did not find it necessary to repair to Verrey's. When the party broke up she retired to her room, took the precaution of locking the door, and having something to think out, at once adopted her old resource of walking up and down.
She said to herself: "The news has arrived, and just at the time that I expected it. He has been bold, and everything has turned out exactly as he could have wished. People will speak kindly of him and mourn over his fate, while he is far away and living happily, and laughing in his sleeve at the fools whose compassion he evokes. What would I give to be there with him on the same terms as those of the old days! I hate this dull British life, this ghastly house, these people, precise, exact, and terrible. I loathe the state of formality in which I live, the restraint and reticence I am obliged to observe! What is it to me to ride in a carriage by the side of that puppet downstairs, to sit in the huge dull rooms, to be waited upon by the silent solemn servants?" And her eyes blazed with fire as she sang in a soft low voice:
"Les gueux, les gueux Sont les gens heureux; Ils s'aiment entre eux. Vivent les gueux!"
As she ceased singing she stopped suddenly in her walk, and said, "What a fool I am to think of such things, to dream of what might have been, when all my hope and desire is to destroy what is, to discover the scene of Tom Durham's retreat, and to drive him from the enchanted land where he and she are now residing! And this can only be done by steady continuance in my present life, by passive endurance, by never-flagging energy and perpetual observation. Tiens! Have I not done some good this morning, even in listening to the bêtise talk of that silly woman and her sombre son? She had never seen Tom Durham," she said, "had never heard of him, he has never been brought to the house: this, then, gives colour to all that I have suspected. It is, as I imagined, through the influence of the old man Claxton that Tom was nominated as agent of the house of Calverley. Mr. Calverley himself probably knows nothing of him, or he would most assuredly have mentioned the name to his wife, have asked him to dinner, after the English fashion, before sending him out to such a position. But no, his very name is unknown to her, and it is evident that he is the sole protégé of Monsieur Claxton--Claxton, from whom the pale-faced woman who is his wife, his mistress--what do I know or care--obtained the money with which Tom Durham thought to buy my silence and his freedom. Not yet, my dear friend, not yet! The game between us promises to be long, and to play it properly with a chance of success will require all my brains and all my patience. But the cards are already beginning to get shuffled into their places, and the luck has already declared on my side."
A few mornings afterwards Mrs. Calverley, on coming down to breakfast, held an open paper in her hand; laying it on the table and pointing at it with her bony finger, when the servants had left the room, she said, "I have an intimation here that Mr. Calverley will return this evening. He has not thought fit to write to me, but a telegram has been received from him at the office; and the head-clerk, who, I am thankful to say, still preserves some notion of what is due to me, has forwarded the information."
"Is not this return somewhat unexpected?" asked Pauline, looking inquisitively at her hostess.
"Mr. Calverley's return is never either unexpected or expected by me," said the lady; "he is immersed in business, which I trust may prove as profitable as he expects, though in my father's time--"
"Perhaps," interrupted Martin Gurwood, cutting in to prevent the repetition of that wail over the decadence of the ancient firm which he had heard a thousand times, "perhaps Mr. Calverley's return has on this occasion been hastened by the news of the loss of his agent, which I read out to you the other day. There is more about it in the paper this morning."
"More! What more?" cried Pauline, eagerly.
"Nothing satisfactory, I am sorry to say. The body has not been found, nor is there any credible account of how the accident happened; the farther news is contained in a letter from one of the passengers. It seems that this unfortunate gentleman, Mr. Durham, had, even during the short time which he was on board the ship, succeeded in making himself very popular with the passengers. He had talked to some of them of the importance of the position which he was going out to fill, of his devotion to business and to his employer; and it is agreed on all sides that the well-known firm of which he was the agent will find it difficult to replace him, so zealous and so interested in their behalf did he show himself. He was one of the last who retired to rest; and when in the morning he did not put in an appearance, nothing was thought of it, as it was imagined--not that he had succumbed to sea-sickness, as he had described himself as an old sailor, who had made many voyages--but that he was fatigued by the exertions of the previous day. Late in the evening, as nothing had been heard of him, the captain resolved to send the steward to his cabin; and the man returned with the report that the door was unlocked, the berth unoccupied, and Mr. Durham not to be found. An inquiry was at once set on foot, and a search made throughout the ship; but without any result. The only idea that could be arrived at was, that, finding the heat oppressive, or being unable to sleep, he made his way to the deck, and, in the darkness of the night, had missed his footing and fallen overboard. Against this supposition was the fact that Mr. Durham was not in the least the worse for liquor when last seen, and that neither the officers nor the men on duty throughout the night had heard any splash in the water or any cry for help. The one thing certain was, that the man was gone; and all that could now be done was to transship his baggage at Gibraltar, that it might be returned to England, and to make public the circumstances for the information of his friends."
"It seems to me," said Martin Gurwood, as he finished reading, "that unless the drowning of this poor man had actually been witnessed, nothing could be much clearer. He is seen to retire to rest in the night; he is never heard of again; there is no reason why he should attempt self-destruction; on the contrary, he is represented as glorying in the position to which he had been appointed, and full of life, health, and spirits."
"There is one point," said Mrs. Calverley, "to which I think exception may be taken, and that is, that he was sober. These sort of persons have, I am given to understand, a great tendency to drink and vice of every description, and the fact that he was probably a boon companion of Mr. Calverley's, and on that account appointed to this agency, makes me think it more than likely that he had a private store of liquor, and was drowned when in a state of intoxication."
"There is nothing in the evidence which has been made public," said Martin Gurwood, in a hard caustic tone, "to warrant any supposition of that kind. In any case, it is not for us to judge the dead and--"
"Perhaps," said Pauline, interposing, to avert the storm which she saw gathering in Mrs. Calverley's knitted brows, "perhaps when Mr. Calverley returns to-night, he will be able to give us some information on the subject. A man so trusted, and appointed to such a position, must naturally be well known to his employer."
The lamps were lit in the drawing-room, and the solemn servants were handing round the tea, when a cab rattled up to the door, and immediately afterwards John Calverley, enveloped in his travelling-coat and many wrappers, burst into the apartment. He made his way to his wife, who was seated at the Berlin-wool frame, on which the Jael and Sisera had been supplanted by a new and equally interesting subject, and bending down offered her a salute, which she received on the tip of her ear; he shook hands heartily with Martin Garwood, politely with Pauline, and then discarding his outer garments, planted himself in the middle of the room, smiling pleasantly, and inquired, "Well, what's the news?"
"There is no news here," said Mrs. Calverley, looking across the top of the Berlin-wool frame with stony glance; "those who have been careering about the country are most likely to gather light and frivolous gossip. Do you desire any refreshment, Mr. Calverley?............