The Way We Live Now (115 page)

Nidderdale had hardly put his hat down on the table before Marie was with him. He walked up to her, took her by both hands, and looked into her face. There was no trace of a tear, but her whole countenance seemed to him to be altered. She was the first to speak.

‘I thought you would come when I sent for you.'

‘Of course I came.'

‘I knew you would be a friend, and I knew no one else who would. You won't be afraid, Lord Nidderdale, that I shall ever think any more of all those things which he was planning?' She paused a moment, but he was not ready enough to have a word to say in answer to this. ‘You know what has happened?'

‘Your servant told us.'

‘What are we to do! Oh, Lord Nidderdale, it is so dreadful! Poor papa! Poor papa! When I think of all that he must have suffered I wish that I could be dead too.'

‘Has your mother been told?'

‘Oh yes. She knows. No one tried to conceal anything for a moment. It was better that it should be so – better at last. But we have no friends who would be considerate enough to try to save us from sorrow. But I think it was better. Mamma is very bad. She is always nervous and timid. Of course this has nearly killed her. What ought we to do? It is Mr Longestaffe's house, and we were to have left it to-morrow.'

‘He will not mind that now.'

‘Where must we go? We can't go back to that big place in Grosvenor Square. Who will manage for us? Who will see the doctor and the policemen?'

‘I will do that.'

‘But there will be things that I cannot ask you to do. Why should I ask you to do anything?'

‘Because we are friends.'

‘No,' she said, ‘no. You cannot really regard me as a friend. I have
been an impostor. I know that. I had no business to know a person like you at all. Oh, if the next six months could be over! Poor papa — poor papa!' And then for the first time she burst into tears.

‘I wish I knew what might comfort you,' he said.

‘How can there be any comfort? There never can be comfort again! As for comfort, when were we ever comfortable? It has been one trouble after another — one fear after another! And now we are friendless and homeless. I suppose they will take everything that we have.'

‘Your papa had a lawyer, I suppose?'

‘I think he had ever so many — but I do not know who they were. His own clerk, who had lived with him for over twenty years, left him yesterday. I suppose they will know something in Abchurch Lane; but now that Herr Croll has gone I am not acquainted even with the name of one of them. Mr Miles Grendall used to be with him.'

‘I do not think that he could be of much service.'

‘Nor Lord Alfred? Lord Alfred was always with him till very lately.' Nidderdale shook his head. ‘I suppose not. They only came because papa had a big house.' The young lord could not but feel that he was included in the same rebuke. ‘Oh, what a life it has been! And now – now it's over.' As she said this it seemed that for the moment her strength failed her, for she fell backwards on the corner of the sofa. He tried to raise her, but she shook him away, burying her face in her hands. He was standing close to her, still holding her arm, when he heard a knock at the front door, which was immediately opened, as the servants were hanging about in the hall. ‘Who are they?' said Marie, whose sharp ears caught the sound of various steps. Lord Nidderdale went out on to the head of the stairs, and immediately heard the voice of Dolly Longestaffe.

Dolly Longestaffe had on that morning put himself early into the care of Mr Squercum, and it had happened that he with his lawyer had met his father with Mr Bideawhile at the corner of the square. They were all coming according to appointment to receive the money which Mr Melmotte had promised to pay them at this very hour. Of course they had none of them as yet heard of the way in which the financier had made his last grand payment, and as they walked together to the door had been intent only in reference to their own money. Squercum, who had heard a good deal on the previous day, was very certain that the money would not be forthcoming, whereas Bideawhile was sanguine of success. ‘Don't we wish we may get it?' Dolly had said, and by saying so had very much offended his father, who had resented the want of
reverence implied in the use of that word ‘we'. They had all been admitted together, and Dolly had at once loudly claimed an old acquaintance with some of the articles around him. ‘I knew I'd got a coat just like that,' said Dolly, ‘and I never could make out what my fellow had done with it.' This was the speech which Nidderdale had heard, standing on the top of the stairs.

The two lawyers had at once seen, from the face of the man who had opened the door and from the presence of three or four servants in the hall, that things were not going on in their usual course. Before Dolly had completed his buffoonery the butler had whispered to Mr Bideawhile that Mr Melmotte — ‘was no more'.

‘Dead!' exclaimed Mr Bideawhile. Squercum put his hands into his trousers pockets and opened his mouth wide. ‘Dead!' muttered Mr Longestaffe senior. ‘Dead!' said Dolly. ‘Who's dead?' The butler shook his head. Then Squercum whispered a word into the butler's ear, and the butler thereupon nodded his head. ‘It's about what I expected,' said Squercum. Then the butler whispered the word to Mr Longestaffe, and whispered it also to Mr Bideawhile, and they all knew that the millionaire had swallowed poison during the night.

It was known to the servants that Mr Longestaffe was the owner of the house, and he was therefore, as having authority there, shown into the room where the body of Melmotte was lying on a sofa. The two lawyers and Dolly of course followed, as did also Lord Nidderdale, who had now joined them from the lobby above. There was a policeman in the room who seemed to be simply watching the body, and who rose from his seat when the gentlemen entered. Two or three of the servants followed them, so that there was almost a crowd round the dead man's bier. There was no further tale to be told. That Melmotte had been in the House on the previous night, and had there disgraced himself by intoxication, they had known already. That he had been found dead that morning had been already announced. They could only stand round and gaze on the square, sullen, livid features of the big-framed man, and each lament that he had ever heard the name of Melmotte.

‘Are you in the house here?' said Dolly to Lord Nidderdale in a whisper.

‘She sent for me. We live quite close, you know. She wanted somebody to tell her something. I must go up to her again now.'

‘Had you seen him before?'

‘No indeed. I only came down when I heard your voices. I fear it will be rather bad for you — won't it?'

‘He was regularly smashed, I suppose?' asked Dolly.

‘I know nothing myself. He talked to me about his affairs once, but he was such a liar that not a word that he said was worth anything. I believed him then. How it will go, I can't say.'

‘That other thing is all over, of course,' suggested Dolly.

Nidderdale intimated by a gesture of his head that the other thing was all over, and then returned to Marie. There was nothing further that the four gentlemen could do, and they soon departed from the house – not, however, till Mr Bideawhile had given certain short injunctions to the butler concerning the property contained in Mr Longestaffe's town residence.

‘They had come to see him,' said Lord Nidderdale in a whisper. ‘There was some appointment. He had told them to be all here at this hour.'

‘They didn't know, then?' asked Marie.

‘Nothing – till the man told them.'

‘And did you go in?'

‘Yes; we all went into the room.' Marie shuddered, and again hid her face. ‘I think the best thing I can do,' said Nidderdale, ‘is to go to Abchurch Lane, and find out from Smith who is the lawyer whom he chiefly trusted. I know Smith had to do with his own affairs, because he has told me so at the board; and if necessary I will find out Croll. No doubt I can trace him. Then we had better employ the lawyer to arrange everything for you.'

‘And where had we better go to?'

‘Where would Madame Melmotte wish to go?'

‘Anywhere, so that we could hide ourselves. Perhaps Francfort would be the best But shouldn't we stay till something has been done here? And couldn't we have lodgings, so as to get away from Mr Longestaffe's house?' Nidderdale promised that he himself would look for lodgings, as soon as he had seen the lawyer. ‘And now, my lord, I suppose that I never shall see you again,' said Marie.

‘I don't know why you should say that.'

‘Because it will be best. Why should you? All this will be trouble enough to you when people begin to say what we are. But I don't think it has been my fault'.

‘Nothing has ever been your fault.'

‘Good-bye, my lord. I shall always think of you as one of the kindest people I ever knew. I thought it best to send to you for different reasons, but I do not want you to come back.'

‘Good-bye, Marie. I shall always remember you.' And so they parted.

After that he did go into the City, and succeeded in finding both Mr Smith and Herr Croll. When he reached Abchurch Lane, the news of Melmotte's death had already been spread abroad; and more was known, or said to be known, of his circumstances than Nidderdale had as yet heard. The crushing blow to him, so said Herr Croll, had been the desertion of Cohenlupe – that and the sudden fall in the value of the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway shares, consequent on the rumours spread about the City respecting the Pickering property. It was asserted in Abchurch Lane that had he not at that moment touched the Pickering property, or entertained the emperor, or stood for Westminster, he must, by the end of the autumn, have been able to do any or all of those things without danger, simply as the result of the money which would then have been realized by the railway. But he had allowed himself to become hampered by the want of comparatively small sums of ready money, and in seeking relief had rushed from one danger to another, till at last the waters around him had become too deep even for him, and had overwhelmed him. As to his immediate death, Herr Croll expressed not the slightest astonishment. It was just the thing, Herr Croll said, that he had been sure that Melmotte would do, should his difficulties ever become too great for him. ‘And dere vas a leetle ting he lay himself open by de oder day,' said Croll, ‘dat vas nasty – very nasty.' Nidderdale shook his head, but asked no questions. Croll had alluded to the use of his own name, but did not on this occasion make any further revelation. Then Croll made a further statement to Lord Nidderdale, which I think he must have done in pure good-nature. ‘My lor,' he said, whispering very gravely, ‘de money of de yong lady is all her own.' Then he nodded his head three times. ‘Nobody can toch it, not if he vas in debt millions.' Again he nodded his head.

‘I am very glad to hear it for her sake,' said Nidderdale as he took his leave.

When Roger Carbury returned to Suffolk, after seeing his cousins in Welbeck Street, he was by no means contented with himself. That he should be discontented generally with the circumstances of his life was a
matter of course. He knew that he was further removed than ever from the object on which his whole mind was set. Had Hetta Carbury learnt all the circumstances of Paul's engagement with Mrs Hurtle before she had confessed her love to Paul – so that her heart might have been turned against the man before she had made her confession – then, he thought, she might at last have listened to him. Even though she had loved the other man, she might have at last done so, as her love would have been buried in her own bosom. But the tale had been told after the fashion which was most antagonistic to his own interests. Hetta had never heard Mrs Hurtle's name till she had given herself away, and had declared to all her friends that she had given herself away to this man, who was so unworthy of her. The more Roger thought of this, the more angry he was with Paul Montague, and the more convinced that that man had done him an injury which he could never forgive.

But his grief extended even beyond that. Though he was never tired of swearing to himself that he would not forgive Paul Montague, yet there was present to him a feeling that an injury was being done to the man, and that he was in some sort responsible for that injury. He had declined to tell Hetta any part of the story about Mrs Hurtle – actuated by a feeling that he ought not to betray the trust put in him by a man who was at the time his friend; and he had told nothing. But no one knew so well as he did the fact that all the attention latterly given by Paul to the American woman had by no means been the effect of love, but had come from a feeling on Paul's part that he could not desert the woman he had once loved, when she asked him for his kindness. If Hetta could know everything exactly – if she could look back and read the state of Paul's mind as he, Roger, could read it – then she would probably forgive the man, or perhaps tell herself that there was nothing for her to forgive. Roger was anxious that Hetta's anger should burn hot – because of the injury done to himself. He thought that there were ample reasons why Paul Montague should be punished – why Paul should be utterly expelled from among them, and allowed to go his own course. But it was not right that the man should be punished on false grounds. It seemed to Roger now that he was doing an injustice to his enemy by refraining from telling all that he knew.

As to the girl's misery in losing her lover, much as he loved her, true as it was that he was willing to devote himself and all that he had to her happiness, I do not think that at the present moment he was disturbed in that direction. It is hardly natural, perhaps, that a man should love a woman with such devotion as to wish to make her happy by giving her
to another man. Roger told himself that Paul would be an unsafe husband, a fickle husband – one who might be carried hither and thither both in his circumstances and his feelings – and that it would be better for Hetta that she should not marry him; but at the same time he was unhappy as he reflected that he himself was a party to a certain amount of deceit.