CHAPTER II.

THE STORY GROWS CLEARER.

The Britannique was a handsome hotel on the quay, bright of aspect and many-balconied. The house had a busy look, and early as it was—not long after noon—a long table in the gaily-decorated dining-room was already laid for the table d’hôte. Thereupon Lucius beheld showy pyramids of those woolly peaches and flavourless grapes and wooden pears which seem peculiar to the soil of France—the Deadsea apples of a table d’hôte dessert. Already napkins, spread fan-shape, adorned the glasses, ranged in double line along the vast perspective of tablecloth. Waiters were hurrying to and fro across the hall, chamber-maids bawled to each other—as only French chamber-maids can bawl—on the steep winding staircase. An insupportable odour of dinner—strongly flavoured with garlic—pervaded the atmosphere. Tourists were hurriedly consulting time-tables, as if on the point of departure; other tourists, just arrived and burdened with luggage, were gazing disconsolately around, as if doubtful of finding accommodation. Habitués of the hotel were calmly smoking their midday cigarettes, and waiting for the dainty little breakfast which the harassed cook was so slow to produce through yonder hatch in the wall, to which hungry eyes glanced impatiently.

In a scene so busy it hardly seemed likely that Lucius would find any one willing to lend an ear, or to sit calmly down and thoughtfully review the past, in order to discover the identity of those English guests who had taken Félicie Dumarques away from her joyless home. He made the attempt notwithstanding, and walked into a neat little parlour to the left, where two disconsolate females—strangers to each other and regardless of each other’s woes—were poring over the mysteries of a couple of railway-guides; and where a calm-looking middle-aged female, with shining black hair and neat little white-lace cap, sat at a desk making out accounts.

To this tranquil personage Mr. Davoren addressed himself.

‘Could I see the proprietor of the hotel?’

The lady shrugged her shoulders dubiously. As a rule, she told Lucius, the proprietor did not permit himself to be seen. He had his servants, who arranged everything.

‘Cannot I afford you any information you may require, monsieur?’ she asked, with an agreeable smile.

‘That, madame, will depend upon circumstances. May I ask how long you have been in your present position?’

‘From the age of eighteen. Monsieur Dolfe—the proprietor—is my uncle.’

‘That may be at most ten years,’ said Lucius, with gallantry.

‘It is more than twenty, monsieur.’

Lucius expressed his amazement.

‘Yes, monsieur, I have kept these books more than twenty years.’

‘You must be very tired of them, I should think,’ said Lucius, who saw that the lady was good-natured, and inclined to oblige him.

‘I am accustomed to them, monsieur, and custom endears even the driest duty. I took a week’s holiday at Dieppe last summer, for the benefit of my health, but believe me I missed my books. There was a void. Pleasure is all very well for people who are used to it, but for a woman of business—that fatigues!’

‘The inquiry which I wish to make relates to some English people who were staying for a short time in this house—about four-and-twenty years ago, and whose names I am anxious to discover.’

Mademoiselle Dolfe elevated her black eyebrows to an almost hazardous extent.

‘But, monsieur, four-and-twenty years ago! You imagine that I can recall visitors of four-and-twenty years ago? English visitors—and this hotel is three-parts filled with English visitors every year from May to October. Thirty English visitors will sit down to-day at our table d’hôte, that is to say, English and American, all the same.’

‘It might be impossible to remember them unassisted; yet there are circumstances connected with these people which might recall them to you. But you have books in which visitors write their names?’

‘Yes, if it pleases them. They are even asked to write; but there is no law to compel them; there is no law to prevent them writing a false name. It is a mere formula. And if I can find the names, supposing you to know the exact date, how are we to identify them with the people you want? There are several names signed in the visitors’-book every day in our busy season. People come and go so quickly. It is an impossibility which you ask, monsieur.’

‘I think if I had time for a quiet chat with you I might bring back the circumstances to your recollection. It is a very important matter—a matter which may seriously affect the happiness of a person very dear to me, or I would not trouble you.’

‘A person very dear to you! Your betrothed perhaps, monsieur?’ inquired Mademoiselle Dolfe, with evident sympathy.

Lucius felt that his cause was half won.

‘Yes, madame,’ he said, ‘my betrothed, whose mother was a native of your city.’

This clenched the matter. Mademoiselle Dolfe was soft-hearted and sentimental. Even the books, and the perpetual adding-up of dinners and breakfasts, service, appartements, bougies, siphons, bouteilles, demi-bouteilles, and those fatal sundries which so fearfully swell an hotel bill—even this hard exercise of an exact science had not extinguished that vital spark of heavenly flame which Mademoiselle Dolfe called her soul. She had been betrothed herself, once upon a time, to the proprietor of a rival establishment, who had blighted her affections by proving inconstant to his affianced, and only too constant to the brandy-bottle. She had not forgotten that springtime of the heart, those halcyon summer evenings when she and her Gustave had walked hand-in-hand in the shadowy avenues across yonder bridge. She sighed, and looked at Lucius with the glance of compassion.

‘Would it be possible for you to give me half-an-hour’s quiet conversation at any time?’ asked Lucius pleadingly.

‘There is the evening,’ said Mademoiselle Dolfe. ‘My uncle is a severe sufferer from gout, and rarely leaves his room; but I do not think he would object to receive you in the evening for half an hour. He has all the old books of the hotel in his room—they are indeed his only library. When in want of a distraction he compares the receipts of past years with our present returns, or examines our former tariffs, with a view to any modification, the reduction or increase of our present charges. If you will call this evening at nine o’clock, monsieur, I will induce my uncle to receive you. His memory is extraordinary; and he may be able to recall events of which I, in my frivolous girlhood, took little notice.’

‘I shall be eternally obliged to him, and to you, madame,’ said Lucius. ‘In the mean time, if you will kindly send a porter for my bag, which I left at the station, I will take up my abode here. I shall then be on the spot whenever Monsieur Dolfe may be pleased to receive me.’

‘You will stay here to-night, monsieur?’

‘Yes, I will stay to-night. Unhappily I must go on to Paris to-morrow morning.’

Mademoiselle Dolfe surveyed a table of numbers, and rang for a chambermaid.

‘Show this gentleman to number eleven,’ she said; and then, turning to Lucius, she added graciously, ‘It is an airy chamber, giving upon the river, monsieur, and has but been this instant vacated. I shall have a dozen applications when the next train from Dieppe comes in.’

Lucius thanked Mademoiselle Dolfe for this mark of favour, and went up to number eleven to refresh himself after his journey, with the assistance of as much cold water as can be obtained by hook or by crook in a foreign hotel. His toilet made, he descended to the coffee-room, where he endeavoured to derive entertainment from a flabby Rouen journal while his tardy breakfast was being prepared. This meal dispatched, he went out into the streets of the city, looked for the picturesque old bits he remembered on his last visit, mooned away a pleasant hour in the cathedral, looked in at St. Ouen, and finished his afternoon in the Museum of Arts, contemplating the familiar old pictures, and turning the vellum leaves of a noble missal in the library.

He dined at the table d’hôte, and after dinner returned to the Rue Jeanne d’Arques.

The little watchmaker had a triumphant air, and at once handed him a slip of flimsy paper with an address written on it in a niggling fly-leggish caligraphy.

‘I had a good deal of trouble with my neighbour,’ he said. ‘He is a disagreeable person, and we have embroiled ourselves a little on the subject of our several dustbins. He objects to vegetable matter; I object more strongly to the shells of stale fish, of which he and his lodgers appear to devour an inordinate quantity, judging from the contents of his dustbin. When first I put the question about Mademoiselle Dumarques I found him utterly impracticable. He knew his landlady’s address, certainly, but it was not his business to communicate her address to other people; she might object to have her address made known; it might be a breach of confidence on his part. I was not a little startled when, with a sudden burst of rage, he brought his clenched fist down upon the table. “Sacrebleu!” he cried; “I divine your intention. Traitor! You are going to write to Mademoiselle Dumarques about my dustbin.” I assured him, as soon as I recovered my scattered senses, that nothing was farther from my thoughts than his dustbin. Nay, I suggested that we should henceforward regulate our dustbins upon a system more in accord with the spirit of the _contrat social_ than had hitherto prevailed between us. In a word, by some judicious quotations from the inimitable Jean Jacques, I finally brought him to a more amiable frame of mind, and induced him to give me the address, and to tell me all he knows about Mademoiselle Dumarques.’

‘For which devotion to my cause I owe you a thousand thanks,’ said Lucius.

‘Nay, monsieur, I would do much more to serve a fellow creature. The address you have there in your hand. It appears that Mademoiselle Dumarques set up in business for herself some years ago at that address, where she resides alone, or with some pupil to whom she confides the secrets of her art.’

Lucius repeated his acknowledgments, and took his leave of the loquacious watchmaker. But he did not quit the Rue Jeanne d’Arques without pausing once more to contemplate the quiet old house in which Lucille’s fair young mother had drooped and died, divided from her only child, and in a measure deserted by her husband. A shadowed life, with but a brief glimpse of happiness at best.

He reëntered the hotel a few minutes before nine. The little office on the left side of the hall, where Mademoiselle Dolfe had been visible all day, and always employed, was abandoned. Mademoiselle had doubtless retired into private life, and was ministering to her gouty uncle. Lucius gave his card to a waiter, requesting that it might be taken to Mademoiselle Dolfe without delay. The waiter returned sooner than he could have hoped, and informed him that Monsieur and Mademoiselle would be happy to receive him.

He followed the waiter to a narrow staircase at the back of the house, by which they ascended to the entresol. Here, in a small sitting-room, with a ceiling which a moderate-sized man could easily touch with his hand, Lucius beheld Monsieur Dolfe reposing in a ponderous velvet-cushioned chair, with his leg on a rest; a stout man, with very little hair on his head, but, by way of succedaneum, a gold-embroidered smoking-cap. The small low room looked upon a courtyard like a well, and was altogether a stifling apartment. But it was somewhat luxuriously furnished, Lucius perceived by the subdued light of two pair of wax candles—the unfinished bougies of the establishment were evidently consumed here—and Monsieur Dolfe and his niece appeared eminently satisfied with it, and entirely unaware that it was wanting in airiness and space.

The books of the hotel, bulky business-like volumes, were ranged on a shelf in one corner of the room. Lucius’s eye took that direction immediately; but Monsieur Dolfe was slow and pompous, and sipped his coffee as if in no hurry to satisfy the stranger’s curiosity.

‘I have told my uncle what you wish, Monsieur Davoren,’ said Mademoiselle graciously, and with a pleading glance at the old gentleman in the skull-cap.

‘May I ask your motive in wishing to trace visitors of this hotel—visitors of twenty-four years back?’ asked Monsieur Dolfe, with an important air. ‘Is it a will case, some disputed testament, and are you in the law?’

‘I am a surgeon, as my card will show you,’ said Lucius, ‘and the case in which I am interested has nothing to do with a will. I wish to discover the secret of a young lady’s parentage—a lady who at present bears a name which I believe is not her own.’

‘Humph,’ said Monsieur Dolfe doubtfully; ‘and there is no reward attaching to your inquiries—you gain nothing if successful?’

‘I may gain a father, or at least a father’s name, for the girl I love,’ answered Lucius frankly.

Monsieur Dolfe appeared disappointed, but Mademoiselle was enthusiastic.

‘Ah, see you,’ she cried to her uncle, ‘is it not interesting?’

Lucius stated his case plainly. At the name of Dumarques Monsieur Dolfe pricked up his ears. Something akin to emotion agitated his bloated face. A quiver of mental pain convulsed his triple chin.

‘You are familiar with the name of Dumarques?’ said Lucius, wondering.

‘Am I familiar with it? Alas, I know it too well!’

‘You knew Félicie Dumarques?’

‘I knew Félicie Dumarques’ mother before she married that old skinflint who murdered her.’

‘But, my uncle!’ screamed Mademoiselle.

‘_Tais-toi_, child! I know it was slow murder. It came not within the law. It was an assassination that lasted months and years. How often have I seen that poor child’s pale face! No smile ever brightened it, after her marriage with that vile miser. She did not weep; she did not complain. The angels in heaven are not more spotless than she was as wife and mother. She only ceased to smile, and she died by inches. No matter that she lived twenty years after her marriage—it was gradual death all the same.’

Monsieur Dolfe was profoundly moved. He pushed back his skull-cap, exposing his bald head, which he rubbed despondently with his fat white hand.

‘Did I know her? We were neighbours as children. My parents and hers lived side by side. Her father was a notary—above my father in station; but she and I played together as children—went to the same school together as little ones—for the notary was poor, and Lucille—’

‘Lucille!’ repeated Lucius.

‘Yes, Madame Dumarques’ name was Lucille.’

‘I understand. Go on, pray, monsieur.’

‘Monsieur Valneau, Lucille’s father, was poor, I repeat, and the children—there were several—were brought up anyhow. Thus we saw more of each other than we might have done otherwise. Lucille and my sister were fast friends. She spent many an evening in our house, which was in many ways more comfortable than the wretched _troisième_ occupied by the Valneau family. This continued till I was sixteen, and Lucille about fourteen. No word of love had passed between us, as you may imagine, at that early age; but I had shown my devotion to her as well as a boy can, and I think she must have known that I adored her. Whether she ever cared, even in the smallest degree, for me, is a secret I shall never know. At sixteen years of age my father sent me to Paris to learn my uncle’s trade—my uncle preceded me, you must know, monsieur, in this house—and I remained there till I was twenty-three. When I came back Lucille had been two years married to André Dumarques. My sister had not had the heart to write me the news. She suffered it to stun me on my return. Valneau’s difficulties had increased. Dumarques had offered to marry Lucille and to help her family; so the poor child was sacrificed.’

‘A sad story,’ said Lucius.

‘And a common one,’ resumed Monsieur Dolfe.

‘The young lady in whom I am interested—in a word, my promised wife—is the granddaughter of this very Lucille Dumarques,’ said Lucius, to the profound astonishment of Monsieur Dolfe.

He produced the miniature, which served in some manner for his credentials.

‘I remember both faces,’ said Monsieur Dolfe. ‘Félicie Dumarques, and the Englishman who stayed in this house for a week, and was seen driving about the town with Félicie. Unhappily that set people talking; but the poor child died only a month later, and carried her secret to the grave.’

‘There was no shameful secret,’ said Lucius. ‘That man was Félicie’s husband.’

‘Are you sure of that?’

‘I have it from the best authority. And now, monsieur, you will do me a service if you can recall the name of that Englishman.’

‘But it is difficult,’ exclaimed Monsieur Dolfe. ‘I was never good at remembering names, even of my own nation, and to remember an English name after twenty years—it is impossible.’

‘Not twenty years. It cannot be more than eighteen since that Englishman was in Rouen. But do not trouble yourself, Monsieur Dolfe. Even if you remembered, it might be but wasted labour. This gentleman was especially anxious to keep his marriage a secret. He would therefore most likely come here in an assumed name.’

‘If he troubled himself to give us any name at all,’ said Monsieur Dolfe. ‘Many of our guests are nameless—we know them only as Number 10 or Number 20, as the case may be.’

‘But there is a name which I should be very glad if you could recall, and that is the name of the lady and gentleman—brother and sister—elderly people—who took Félicie Dumarques away with them, as attendant to the lady, when she left Rouen. As you were interested in the Dumarques’ family, that is a circumstance which you may possibly remember.’

‘I recall it perfectly,’ cried Monsieur Dolfe, ‘that is to say, the circumstance, but as for the name, it is gone out of my poor head. But in this case I think the books will show. Tell me the year—four-and-twenty years ago, you say. It was in the autumn, I remember. They had been here before, and were excellent customers. The lady an invalid, small, pale, fragile. The gentleman also small and pale, but apparently in fair health. He had a valet with him. But the lady’s-maid had fallen ill on the road. They had sent her back to her people. But I remember perfectly. It was my idea to recommend Félicie Dumarques. Her father, with whom I kept on civil terms—in my heart of hearts I detested him, but an hotel-keeper must have no opinions—had told me his youngest girl was unhappy at home since her mother’s death, and wanted a situation as useful companion—or even maid—to a lady. The little pale old lady looked as if she would be kind—the little pale old gentleman was evidently rich. There could not be much work to do, and there would doubtless be liberal pay. In a word, the situation seemed made for Félicie. I sent for her—the old lady was delighted, and engaged her on the spot. She was to have twenty-five pounds a year, and to be treated like a lady. There is the whole story, monsieur.’

‘A thousand thanks for it. But the name.’

‘Ah, how you are impatient! We will come to that presently. Think, Florine,’ to Mademoiselle Dolfe, who rejoiced in this euphonious name, ‘you were a girl at the time, but you must have some recollection of the circumstances.’

Florine Dolfe shook her head with a sentimental air; indeed, sentiment seemed to run in the Dolfe family.

‘Alas, I remember but too well,’ she said. ‘It was in the year when—when I believed that there was perfect happiness upon the earth;’ namely, before she had been jilted by the faithless Gustave. ‘It was early in September.’

‘Bring me volume six of the daybook and volume one of the visitors’-book,’ said Monsieur Dolfe, pointing to the shelves.

His niece brought two bulky volumes, and laid them on the table before the proprietor. He turned the leaves with a solemn air, as if he had just completed the purchase of the last of the Sibylline volumes.

‘September ’41,’ said Monsieur Dolfe, running his puny forefinger along the list of names. ‘2d, Binks, Jones, Dulau, Yokes, Stokes, Delphin.’ Lucius listened intently for some good English name with the initial G. ‘3d, Purdon, Green, Vancing, Thomas, Binoteau, Gaspard, Smith.’ Lucius shook his head despondently. ‘4th, Lomax, Trevor, Dupuis, Glenlyne.’

Lucius laid his hand on the puffy forefinger.

‘Halt there,’ he said, ‘that sounds like a good name.’

‘Good name or bad name,’ exclaimed the proprietor, ‘those are the people—Mr. Reginald Glenlyne, Miss Glenlyne, and servant, from Switzerland, _en route_ for London. Those are the people. Yes, I remember perfectly. Now look at the daybook.’

He opened the other Sibylline volume, found the date, and pointed triumphantly to the page headed ‘Numbers 5, 6, and 7,’ beneath which heading appeared formidable entries of _recherché_ dinners, choice wines, _bougies_, innumerable teas, coffees, soda-waters, baths, _voitures_, &c. &c.

‘They occupied our principal suite of apartments,’ said Monsieur Dolfe grandly; ‘the apartment we give to ambassadors and foreign potentates. There is no doubt about it—these are the people.’

Monsieur Dolfe might have added, that in this age of economic and universal travelling he did not often get such good customers. Such thought was in his mind, but Monsieur Dolfe respected the dignity of his proprietorial position, and did not give the thought utterance.

This was a grand discovery. Lucius considered that to have found out the name of these people was a strong point. If the man who signed himself H. G. was this lady’s nephew, his name was in all probability Glenlyne also. The initial being the same, it was hardly too much to conclude that he was a brother’s son, and bore the family name of his maiden aunt. Lucius felt that he could now approach Mademoiselle Dumarques in a strong position. He knew so much already that she would scarcely refuse him any farther information that it was in her power to give.

He had nothing to offer Monsieur and Mademoiselle Dolfe except the expression of his gratitude, and that was tendered heartily.

‘If ever I am happy enough to marry the young lady I have told you about, I will bring my wife here on our wedding tour,’ he said; a declaration at which Mademoiselle Dolfe melted almost to tears.

‘I should be very glad to see Lucille Valneau’s granddaughter,’ said Monsieur Dolfe. He too remembered the halcyon days of youth, when he had loved and dreamed his dream of happiness.

Lucius slept more soundly than he had slept for many nights on the luxurious spring mattresses of number eleven, lulled by the faint ripple of the river, the occasional voices of belated pedestrians softened by distance, the hollow tramp of footsteps on the pavement. He rose early, breakfasted, and set out for the cemetery on the hill, where, after patient search, he found the Dumarques’ grave. All the family, save Julie, slumbered there. Lucille Dumarques, the faithful and beloved wife of André Dumarques—_Priez pour elle_—and then André Dumarques, and then Félicie, aged twenty-four; here there was no surname—only ‘Félicie, daughter of the above-named André Dumarques;’ and then Hortense, at the riper age of forty-one. The grave was gaily decked with a little blue-and-gold railing, enclosing a tiny flower-garden, where chrysanthemums and mignonette were blooming in decent order. The sister in Paris doubtless paid to have this family resting-place kept neatly.

Here Lucius lingered a little while, in meditative mood, looking down at the noble curve of the widening river—the green Champagne country on the opposite shore—and thinking of the life that had ended in such deep sadness. Then he gathered a sprig of mignonette for Lucille, put it carefully in his pocket-book, and departed in time to catch the midday train for Paris.