CHAPTER XLII.
THE UNDERTAKER’S EVIDENCE.
‘My father,’ cried Laura, when Mr. Leopold had taken his departure, and she and her husband were left alone, ‘my father guilty of this cruel murder! A crime of the vilest kind, without a shadow of excuse. And to think that this man’s bloodflows in my veins, that your wife is the daughter of a murderer. Oh, John, it is too terrible! You must hate me. You must shrink from me with loathing.’
‘Dear love, if you had descended from a long line of criminals, you would still be to me what you have been from the first hour I knew you, the purest, the dearest, the loveliest, the best of women. But as to this scoundrel Desrolles, who imposed on your youth and inexperience—who stole into your benefactor’s gardens like a thief, seeking only gain—who extorted from your generous young heart a pity he did not deserve, and robbed you of your money,—I no more believe that he is your father than that he is mine. While his claim upon you meant no more than an annuity which it cost us no sacrifice to give, I was too careless to trouble myself about his credentials. But now that he stands revealed as the murderer of that unfortunate woman, it is our business to explode his specious tale. Will you help to do this, Laura? I can do nothing but advise, while I am tied hand and foot in this wretched place.’
‘I will do anything, dearest, anything to prove that this hateful man is not the father I lived with when I was a little child. Only tell me what I ought to do.’
‘The first thing to be done is to go down to Chiswick, and make inquiries there. Do you think you could find the house in which you lived, supposing that it is still standing?’
‘I think I could. It was in a very dull, out-of-the-way place. I can just remember that. It was called Ivy Cottage, and it was in a lane where there was never anything to be seen from the windows.’
‘Very well, darling, what you have to do is to go down to Chiswick with Sampson—we can afford to trust him with all our secrets, for he’s as true as steel—see if you can find the particular Ivy Cottage we want,—I dare say there are half-a-dozen Ivy Cottages in Chiswick, all looking out upon nothing particular,—and then discover all you can about your father’s residence in that house, and how and when he quitted it.’
‘I will go to-day, John. Why should Mr. Sampson go with me? I am not afraid of going alone.’
‘No, dear, I could not bear that. You must have our good Sampson to take care of you. He is as sharp as a needle, and, in a country where he is not tongue-tied, will be very useful. He will be here in a few minutes, and then you and he can start for Chiswick as soon as you like.’
Half-an-hour later, Laura and Mr. Sampson were seated in a railway carriage on their way to Chiswick; and in less than an hour from the time she left Clerkenwell, Laura was looking wonderingly at the lanes with which her infancy had been familiar.
There had been great changes, and she wandered about for along time, unable to recognise a single feature in the scene, except always the river, which looked at her through the gray mistiness of a winter afternoon, like an old friend. Terraces had been built; villas of startling newness stared her in the face in every direction. Where erst had been a rustic lane there was all the teeming life of a factory.
‘Surely this cannot be Chiswick!’ exclaimed Laura.
Yes, there was the good old church, looking sober, gray, and rustic as of old; and here was the village, but little changed. Laura and her companion rambled on till they left the new terraces and stuccoed villas behind them, and came at last to a bit of the ancient world, quiet, dull, lonely, as if it had been left forgotten on the bank of the swift-rolling river of Time.
‘It must have been hereabouts we lived,’ said Laura.
It was a very dreary lane. There were half-a-dozen scattered houses, some of which had a blind look, presenting a blank wall, pierced by an odd window and a door, to the passer-by. These were the more aristocratic habitations, and had garden fronts looking the other way. A little further on the explorers came to a square, uncompromising-looking cottage, with a green door, a bright brass knocker, and five prim windows looking into the lane. It was a cottage that must have looked exactly the same a hundred and twenty years ago, when Hogarth was living and working hard by.
‘That is the house we lived in!’ cried Laura. ‘Yes, I am sure of it. I remember those hard-looking windows, staring straight into the lane. I used to envy the children in the house further on, because they had a garden—only a little bit of garden—but just enough for flowers to grow in. There was only a stone yard, with a pump in it, at the back of our house, and not a single flower.’
‘Had you the whole house, do you think?’ asked Sampson.
‘I am sure we had not, because we were so afraid to take liberties in it. I remember my poor mother often telling me to be very quiet, because Miss Somebody—I haven’t the faintest recollection of her name—was very particular. I was dreadfully afraid of Miss Somebody. She was tall, and straight, and old, and she always wore a black gown and a black cap. I would not for the world have done anything to offend her. She kept the house very clean—too clean, I’ve heard my father say, for she was always about the stairs and passages, on her knees, with a pail beside her. I have often narrowly escaped tumbling into that pail.’
‘I wonder if she’s alive still,’ said Sampson; ‘the house looks as if it was in the occupation of a maiden lady. I dare say my sister’s house will look like that, when she has set up housekeeping on her own account.’
He lifted the brass knocker and gave a loudish knock. The door was opened almost immediately by a puffy widow, who had a chubby boy of three or four years old clinging to her skirts. The widow was very civil, and willing to answer any questions that might be asked her, but she could not give them the information they wanted. She begged them to come into her parlour, and she was profuse in her offer of chairs; but she was not the Miss Somebody whom Laura remembered.
That stern damsel, whose name was Fry, after occupying Ivy Cottage with honour to herself and credit to the parish for eight-and-thirty years, had been called to her forefathers just one little year ago, and was taking her rest, after an industrious career, in the quiet old churchyard where the great English painter and satirist lies. She had left no record of a long line of lodgers, and the amiable widow who had taken Ivy Cottage immediately after Miss Fry’s death was not even furnished with any traditions about the people who had lived and died in the rooms now hers. She could only reiterate that Miss Fry had been a most respectable lady, that she had paid her way, and left the cottage in good repair, and she hoped that she, Mrs. Pew, would continue to deserve those favours which the public had lavishly bestowed upon her predecessor. If the lady and gentleman should hear of any party wanting quiet lodgings in a rural neighbourhood, within a quarter of an hour’s walk of the station, Mrs. Pew would consider it a great kindness if they would name her to the party in question. She would have a parlour, with bedroom over, vacant on the following Saturday.
Sampson promised to carry the fact in his mind. Laura thanked the widow for her civility, and gave the chubby boy half-a-crown, a gift which was much appreciated by the mother, who impounded it directly the door was shut.
‘Johnny shall have twopence to go and buy brandy snaps, he shall,’ cried the matron, when her boy set up a howl at this blatant theft; and the prospect of that immediate and sensual gratification pacified the child.
‘Failure number one,’ said Sampson, when they were out in the lane. ‘What are we to do next?’
Laura had not the least idea. She felt how helpless she would have been without the kindly little solicitor; and how wise it had been of her husband to insist upon Mr. Sampson’s companionship.
‘We are not going to be flummoxed—excuse the vulgarity of the expression—quite so easily,’ said Sampson. ‘Everybody can’t be dead within the last seventeen years. Why, seventeen years is nothing to a middle-aged man. He scarcely feels himself any older for the lapse of seventeen years; there are a few gray hairs in his whiskers, perhaps, and his waistcoats are atrifle bigger round the waist, and that’s all. There must be somebody in this place who can remember your father. Let me think it out a bit. We want to know if a certain gentleman who was supposed by old Mr. Treverton to have died here, did really die, or whether he recovered and left the place, as a certain party asserts. All the probabilities are in favour of the one fact; and we have only the word of a very doubtful character for the other. Let me see, now, Mrs. Treverton, where shall we make our next inquiry? At the doctor’s? Well, you see, there are a dozen doctors in such a place as this, I dare say. At the undertaker’s? Yes, that’s it. Undertakers are long-lived men. We’ll look in upon the oldest established undertaker in the village. If your father died in this place, somebody must have buried him, and the record of his funeral will be in the undertaker’s books. But before I begin this business, which may be rather tedious, I should like to put you into a train, and send you back to London, Mrs. Treverton. A cab will take you from the station to your lodgings. You are looking pale and tired.’
‘No, no,’ said Laura eagerly, ‘I am not tired. I had much rather stay. Don’t think of me. I have no sense of fatigue.’
Sampson shook his head dubiously, but gave way. They went to the village, and after making sundry inquiries at the post-office, Mr. Sampson and his companion repaired to a quiet, old-fashioned looking shop, in whose dingy window appeared the symbols of the gloomy trade conducted within.
Here they found an old man, who emerged from a workshop in the rear, bringing with him the aromatic odour of elm shavings.
‘Come,’ said Sampson cheerily, ‘you’re old enough to remember seventeen years ago. You look like an old inhabitant.’
‘I can remember sixty years ago as well as I can remember yesterday,’ answered the man, ‘and I shall have lived in this house sixty-nine years come July.’
‘You’re the man for us,’ said Sampson. ‘I want you to look up your books for the year 1856, and tell me if you buried Mr. Malcolm, of Ivy Cottage, Markham Lane. You buried Mrs. Malcolm first, you know, and the husband soon followed her. It was a very quiet funeral.’
The undertaker scratched his head thoughtfully, and seemed to retire into the shadow-land of departed years. He ruminated for some minutes.
‘I can find out all about it in my ledger,’ he said, ‘but I’ve a pretty good memory. I don’t like to feel dependent upon books. Ivy Cottage? That was Miss Fry’s house. I buried her a year ago. A very pretty funeral, everything suitable,and in harmony with the old lady’s character. Some of our oldest tradespeople followed. It was quite a creditable thing.’
Sampson waited hopefully while the old man pondered upon past triumphs in the undertaking line.
‘Let me see, now,’ he said musingly. ‘Ivy Cottage. I’ve done a good bit of business for Ivy Cottage within the last thirty years. I’ve buried—there—I should say a round dozen of Miss Fry’s tenants. They was mostly elderly folks, with small annuities, who came to Chiswick to finish up their lives; as a quiet old-fashioned place, you see, where they was in nobody’s way. First and last I should say I’ve turned out a round dozen from Ivy Cottage. It was a satisfaction to do things nicely for Miss Fry herself, at the wind up. She’d been a good friend to me, and she wasn’t like the doctors, you know. I couldn’t offer her a commission. Malcolm! Malcolm, husband and wife, I ought to remember that! Yes, I’ve got it! a sweet young lady, seven-and-twenty at the most, and the husband drooped and died soon afterwards. I remember. She had a very plain funeral, poor dear, for there didn’t seem to be much money, and the husband was the only mourner. We buried him in rather superior style, I recollect; for an old friend had turned up at the last, and there was enough money to pay all the little debts and do things very nicely, in a quiet way, for the poor gentleman. There were only two mourners in his case, the doctor and an elderly lady from London, who followed in her own carriage. I remember the lady, because she called upon me directly after the funeral, and asked me if I was paid, or sure of being paid, as the deceased was her nephew, and she would be willing to perform this last act of kindness for him. I thought it a very graceful thing for the lady to do.’
‘Did she give you her address?’ asked Sampson.
‘I’ve a notion that she left her card, and that I copied the address into my book. It would be a likely thing for me to do, for I’m very methodical in my ways; and with a party of that age there’s always an interest. She might come to want me herself soon, and might bear it in mind on her death-bed. Well, now I’ve called upon my memory, I’ll look at my ledger.’
He went to a cupboard in a corner of the shop, and took down a volume from a row of tall, narrow books, a series which comprised ‘the story of his life from year to year.’
‘Yes,’ he said, after turning over a good many leaves, ‘here it is. Mrs. Malcolm, pine, covered black cloth, black nails,——’
‘That’ll do,’ interrupted Sampson, seeing Laura’s distressed look at these details; ‘now we want Mr. Malcolm.’
‘Here he is, three months later. Stephen Malcolm, Esq., polished oak, brass handles,—a very superior article, I remember.’
‘There can be no mistake, I suppose, in an entry of that kind,’ asked Sampson.
‘Mistake!’ cried the undertaker, with an offended air. ‘If you can find a false entry in my books, I’ll forfeit five per cent. upon ten years’ profits.’
‘There can be no doubt, then, that Mr. Stephen Malcolm died at Ivy Cottage, and that you conducted his funeral?’
‘Not the least doubt.’
‘Very well. If you will get me a certified copy of the entry of his death in the parish register, I shall be happy to recompense you for your trouble. The document is required for a little bit of law business. Is the doctor who attended Mr. Malcolm still living?’
‘No. It was old Dr. Dewsnipp. He’s dead. But young Dewsnipp is alive, and in practice here. He can give you any information you want, I dare say.’
‘Thanks. I think if you get me the copy of the register, that will be sufficient. Oh, by the way, you may as well find the old lady’s address.’
‘Ah, to be sure. As you are interested in the family, you may like to have it; though I dare say the old lady has gone to her long home before now. Some London firm had the job, no doubt. London firms are so pushing, and they contrive to stand so well with the medical profession.’
The address was found—Mrs. Malcolm, 97, Russell Square—and copied by Mr. Sampson, who thanked the old man for his courtesy, and gave him his card, with the Midland Hotel address added in pencil. The short winter day was now closing in, and Sampson felt anxious to get Mrs. Treverton home.
‘I might have gone to the parish register in the first instance,’ he said, when they had left the undertaker’s, ‘but I thought we should get more information out of an old inhabitant, and so we have, for we’ve heard of this old lady in Russell Square.’
‘Yes, I remember spending a week at her house,’ said Laura. ‘How long ago it all seems! Like the memory of another life.’
‘Lor’, yes,’ said Sampson; ‘I remember when I was a little chap, at Dr. Prossford’s grammar school, playing chuck-farthing. I’ve often looked back and wondered to think that little chap, in a tight jacket and shorttrousers, was an early edition of me.’
‘You think the later editions have been improvements on that,’ said Laura, smiling.
She was able to smile now. A heavy load had been suddenly lifted from her mind. What infinite relief it was to know that her father had never been the pitiful trickster—the crawling pensioner upon a woman’s bounty—that she had been taught to think him. Her heart was full of gratitude to heaven for this discovery—so easily made, and yet of such immeasurable value.
‘Who can that man be?’ she asked herself. ‘He must have been a friend of my father’s, in close companionship with him, or he would hardly have become possessed of my mother’s miniature, and of those letters and papers.’
She determined to go without delay to the house in Russell Square, in the hope—at best but a faint hope—of finding the old lady in black satin still among the living, and not represented by an entry in the ledger of some West-end undertaking firm, or by a number in the dismal catalogue of a suburban cemetery.