Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (168 page)

“Hurt?” inquired Mat, pulling him up by the collar, and dragging him into the room.

“Not a bit of it,” answered Zack. “I’ve woke Blyth, though (worse luck!) and spoilt our shot with the oyster, havn’t I? Oh, Lord! how he stares!”

Valentine certainly did stare. He was standing up, leaning against the wall, and looking about him in a woefully dazed condition. Either his nap, or the alarming manner in which he had been awakened from it, had produced a decided change for the worst in him. As he slowly recovered what little sense he had left to make use of, all his talkativeness and cordiality seemed to desert him. He shook his head mournfully; refused to eat or drink anything; declared with sullen solemnity, that his digestion was “a perfect wreck in consequence of his keeping drunken society;” and insisted on going home directly, in spite of everything that Zack could say to him. The landlord, who had been brought from his shop below by the noise, and who thought it very desirable to take the first opportunity that offered of breaking up the party before any more grog was consumed, officiously ran down stairs, and called a cab — the result of this maneuver proving in the sequel to be what the tobacconist desired. The moment the sound of wheels was heard at the door, Mr. Blyth clamored peremptorily for his hat and coat; and, after some little demur, was at last helped into the cab in the most friendly and attentive manner by Mat himself.

“Just see the lights out upstairs, and the young ‘un in bed, will ye?” said Mat to his landlord, as they stood together on the door-step. “I’m going to blow some of the smoke out of me by taking a turn in the fresh air.”

He walked away briskly, as he said the last words; but when he got to the end of the street, instead of proceeding northwards towards the country, and the cool night-breeze that was blowing from it, he perversely turned southwards towards the filthiest little lanes and courts in the whole neighbourhood.

Stepping along at a rapid pace, he directed his course towards that particular row of small and vile houses which he had already visited early in the day; and stopped, as before, at the second-hand iron shop. It was shut up for the night; but a dim light, as of one farthing candle, glimmered through the circular holes in the tops of the shutters; and when Mat knocked at the door with his knuckles; it was opened immediately by the same hump-backed shopman with whom he had conferred in the morning.

“Got it?” asked the hunch-back in a cracked querulous voice the moment the door was ajar.

“All right,” answered Mat in his gruffest bass tones, handing to the little man the tin tobacco-box.

“We said to-morrow evening, didn’t we?” continued the squalid shopman.

“Not later than six,” added Mat.

“Not later than six,” repeated the other, shutting the door softly as his customer walked away — northward this time — to seek the fresh air in good earnest.

CHAPTER XI. THE GARDEN DOOR.

“Hit or miss, I’ll chance it to-night” Those words were the first that issued from Mat’s lips on the morning after Mr. Blyth’s visit, as he stood alone amid the festive relics of the past evening, in the front room at Kirk Street. “To-night,” he repeated to himself, as he pulled off his coat and prepared to make his toilette for the day in a pail of cold water, with the assistance of a short bar of wholesome yellow soap.

Though it was still early, his mind had been employed for some hours past in considering how the second and only difficulty, which now stood between him and the possession of the Hair Bracelet, might best be overcome. Having already procured the first requisite for executing his design, how was he next to profit by what he had gained? Knowing that the false key would be placed in his hands that evening, how was he to open Mr. Blyth’s bureau without risking discovery by the owner, or by some other person in the house?

To this important question he had as yet found no better answer than was involved in the words he had just whispered to himself, while preparing for his morning ablutions. As for any definite plan, by which to guide himself; he was desperately resigned to trust for the discovery of it to the first lucky chance which might be brought about by the events of the day. “I should like though to have one good look by daylight round that place they call the Painting Room,” thought Mat, plunging his face into two handsful of hissing soap-suds.

He was still vigorously engaged over the pail of cold water, when a loud yawn, which died away gradually into a dreary howl, sounded from the next room, and announced that Zack was awake. In another minute the young gentleman appeared gloomily, in his night gown, at the folding doors by which the two rooms communicated. His eyes looked red-rimmed and blinking, his cheeks mottled and sodden, his hair tangled and dirty. He had one hand to his forehead, and groaning with the corners of his mouth lamentably drawn down, exhibited a shocking and salutary picture of the consequences of excessive conviviality.

“Oh Lord, Mat!” he moaned, “my head’s coming in two.”

“Souse it in a pail of cold water, and walk off what you can’t get rid of; after that, along with me,” suggested his friend.

Zack wisely took this advice. As they left Kirk Street for their walk, Mat managed that they should shape their course so as to pass Valentine’s house on their way to the fields. As he had anticipated, young Thorpe proposed to call in for a minute, to see how Mr. Blyth was after the festivities of the past night, and to ascertain if he still remained in the same mind about making the drawing of Mat’s arms that evening.

“I suspect you didn’t brew the Squaw’s Mixture half as weak as you told us you did,” said Zack slily, when they rang at the bell. “It wasn’t a bad joke for once in a way. But really, Blyth is such a good kind-hearted fellow, it seems too bad — in short, don’t let’s do it next time, that’s all!”

Mat gruffly repudiated the slightest intention of deceiving their guest as to the strength of the liquor he had drunk. They went into the Painting Room, and found Mr. Blyth there, pale and penitent, but manfully preparing to varnish The Golden Age, with a very trembling hand, and a very headachy contraction of the eyebrows.

“Ah, Zack, Zack! I ought to lecture you about last night,” said Valentine; “but I have no right to say a word, for I was much the worst of the two. I’m wretchedly ill this morning, which is just what I deserve; and heartily ashamed of myself, which is only what I ought to be. Look at my hand! It’s all in a tremble like an old man’s. Not a thimbleful of spirits shall ever pass my lips again: I’ll stick to lemonade and tea for the rest of my life. No more Squaw’s Mixture for me! Not, my dear sir,” continued Valentine, addressing Mat, who had been quietly stealing a glance at the bureau, while the painter was speaking to young Thorpe. “Not, my dear sir, that I think of blaming you, or doubt for a moment that the drink you kindly mixed for me would have been considered quite weak and harmless by people with stronger heads than mine. It was all my own fault, my own want of proper thoughtfulness and caution. If I misconducted myself last night, as I am afraid I did, pray make allowances — ”

“Nonsense!” cried Zack, seeing that Mat was beginning to fidget away from Valentine, instead of returning an answer. “Nonsense! you were glorious company. We were three choice spirits, and you were number One of the social Trio. Away with Melancholy! Do you still keep in the same mind about drawing Mat’s arms? He will be delighted to come, and so shall I; and we’ll all get virtuously uproarious this time, on toast-and-water and tea.”

“Of course I keep in the same mind,” returned Mr. Blyth. “I had my senses about me, at any rate, when I invited you and your friend here to-night. Not that I shall be able to do much, I am afraid, in the way of drawing — for a letter has come this morning to hurry me into the country. Another portrait-job has turned up, and I shall have to start to-morrow. However, I can get in the outline of your friend’s arms to-night, and leave the rest to be done when I come back — Shall I take that sketch down for you, my dear sir, to look at close?” continued Valentine, suddenly raising his voice, and addressing himself to Mat. “I venture to think it one of my most contentious studies from actual nature.”

While Mr. Blyth and Zack had been whispering together, Mat had walked away from them quietly towards one end of the room, and was now standing close to a door, lined inside with sheet iron, having bolts at top and bottom, and leading down a flight of steps from the studio into the back garden. Above this door hung a large chalk sketch of an old five-barred gate, being the identical study from nature, which, as Valentine imagined, was at that moment the special object of interest to Mat.

“No, no! don’t trouble to get the sketch now,” said Zack, once more answering for his friend. “We are going out to get freshened up by a long walk, and can’t stop. Now then, Mat; what on earth are you staring at? The garden door, or the sketch of the five-barred gate?”

“The picter, in course,” answered Mat, with unusual quickness and irritability.

“It shall be taken down for you to look at close to-night,” said Mr. Blyth, delighted by the impression which the five-barred gate seemed to have produced on the new visitor.

On leaving Mr. Blyth’s, young Thorpe and his companion turned down a lane partially built over, which led past Valentine’s back garden wall. This was their nearest way to the fields and to the high road into the country beyond. Before they had taken six steps down the lane, Mat, who had been incomprehensibly stolid and taciturn inside the house, became just as incomprehensibly curious and talkative all on a sudden outside it.

In the first place, he insisted on mounting some planks lying under Valentine’s wall (to be used for the new houses that were being built in the lane), and peeping over to see what sort of garden the painter had. Zack summarily pulled him down from his elevation by the coat-tails, but not before his quick eye had traveled over the garden; had ascended the steps leading from it to the studio; and had risen above them as high as the brass handle of the door by which they were approached from the painting-room.

In the second place, when he had been prevailed on to start fairly for the walk, Mat began to ask questions with the same pertinacious inquisitiveness which he had already displayed on the day of the picture-show. He set out with wanting to know whether there were to be any strange visitors at Mr. Blyth’s that evening; and then, on being reminded that Valentine had expressly said at parting, “Nobody but ourselves,” asked if they were likely to see the painter’s wife downstairs. After the inquiry had of necessity been answered in the negative, he went on to a third question, and desired to know whether “the young woman” (as he persisted in calling Madonna) might be expected to stay upstairs with Mrs. Blyth, or to show herself occasionally in the painting-room. Zack answered this inquiry also in the negative — with a running accompaniment of bad jokes, as usual. Madonna, except under extraordinary circumstances, never came down into the studio in the evening, when Mr. Blyth had company there.

Satisfied on these points, Mat now wanted to know at what time Mr. Blyth and his family were accustomed to go to bed; and explained, when Zack expressed astonishment at the inquiry, that he had only asked this question in order to find out the hour at which it would be proper to take leave of their host that night. On hearing this, young Thorpe answered as readily and carelessly as usual, that the painter’s family were early people, who went to bed before eleven o’clock; adding, that it was, of course, particularly necessary to leave the studio in good time on the occasion referred to, because Valentine would most probably start for the country next day, by one of the morning trains.

Mat’s next question was preceded by a silence of a few minutes. Possibly he was thinking in what terms he might best put it. If this were the case, he certainly decided on using the briefest possible form of expression, for when he spoke again, he asked in so many words, what sort of a woman the painter’s wife was.

Zack characteristically answered the inquiry by a torrent of his most superlative eulogies on Mrs. Blyth; and then, passing from the lady herself to the chamber that she inhabited, wound up with a magnificent and exaggerated description of the splendor of her room.

Mat listened to him attentively; then said he supposed Mrs. Blyth must be fond of curiosities, and all sorts of “knick-knack things from foreign parts.” Young Thorpe not only answered the question in the affirmative, but added, as a private expression of his own opinion, that he believed these said curiosities and “knick-knacks” had helped, in their way, to keep her alive by keeping her amused. From this, he digressed to a long narrative of poor Mrs. Blyth’s first illness; and having exhausted that sad subject at last, ended by calling on his friend to change the conversation to some less mournful topic.