It is a popular fiction that the Prince Louis Napoleon was in the habit of dining daily at every French restaurant in London during the years of his exile; a fiction which gives a romantic flavour to the dishes, and an aroma of poetry to the wines. George Gilbert looked about him as he seated himself at a little table chosen by his friend, and he wondered whether Napoleon the Third had ever sat at that particular table, and whether the table-cloth had been as dirty in his time. The waiters at Boujeot"s were very civil and accommodating, though they were nearly hara.s.sed off their legs by the claims of desultory gentlemen in the public apartments, and old customers dining by pre-arrangement in the private rooms up-stairs. Sigismund pounced upon a great sheet of paper, which looked something like a chronological table, and on the blank margins of which the pencil records of dinners lately consumed and paid for had been hurriedly jotted down by the hara.s.sed waiters. Mr. Smith was a long time absorbed in the study of this mysterious doc.u.ment; so George Gilbert amused himself by staring at some coffee-coloured marine views upon the walls, which were supposed to represent the Bay of Biscay and the Cape of Good Hope, with brown waves rolling tempestuously under a brown sky. George stared at these, and at a gentleman who was engaged in the soul-absorbing occupation of paying his bill; and then the surgeon"s thoughts went vagabondizing away from the little coffee-room at Boujeot"s to Mr. Sleaford"s garden, and Isabel"s pale face and yellow-black eyes, glimmering mysteriously in the summer twilight. He thought of Miss Sleaford because she was so unlike any other woman he had ever seen, and he wondered how his father would like her. Not much, George feared; for Mr. Gilbert senior expected a young woman to be very neat about her back-hair, which Isabel was not, and handy with her needle, and clever in the management of a house and the government of a maid-of-all-work; and Isabel could scarcely be that, since her favourite employment was to loll in a wicker-work garden-chair and read novels.
The dinner came in at last, with little pewter covers over the dishes, which the waiter drew one by one out of a mysterious kind of wooden oven, from which there came a voice, and nothing more. The two young men dined; and George thought that, except for the fried potatoes, which flew about his plate when he tried to stick his fork into them, and a flavour of garlic, that pervaded everything savoury, and faintly hovered over the sweets, a French dinner was not so very unlike an English one.
But Sigismund served out the little messes with an air of swelling pride, and George was fain to smack his lips with the manner of a connoisseur when his friend asked him what he thought of the _filets de sole a la maitre d"hotel_, or the _rognons a la_ South African sherry.
Somehow or other, George was glad when the dinner was eaten and paid for, and it was time to go home to Camberwell. It was only seven o"clock as yet, and the sun was shining on the fountains as the young men went across Trafalgar Square. They took an omnibus at Charing Cross, and rode to the turnpike at Walworth, in the hope of being in time to get a cup of tea before Mrs. Sleaford let the fire out; for that lady had an aggravating trick of letting out the kitchen-fire at half-past seven or eight o"clock on summer evenings, after which hour hot water was an impossibility; unless Mr. Sleaford wanted grog, in which case a kettle was set upon a bundle of blazing firewood.
George Gilbert did not particularly care whether or not there was any tea to be procured at Camberwell, but he looked forward with a faint thrill of pleasure to the thought of a stroll with Isabel in the twilit garden. He thought so much of this, that he was quite pleased when the big, ill-looking house and the dead wall that surrounded it became visible across the barren waste of ground that was called a common. He was quite pleased, not with any fierce or pa.s.sionate emotion, but with a tranquil sense of pleasure. When they came to the wooden door in the garden-wall, Sigismund Smith stooped down and gave his usual whistle at the keyhole; but he looked up suddenly, and cried:
"Well, I"m blest!"
"What"s the matter?"
"The door"s open."
Mr. Smith pushed it as he spoke, and the two young men went into the front garden.
"In all the time I"ve lived with the Sleafords, that never happened before," said Sigismund. "Mr. Sleaford"s awfully particular about the gate being kept locked. He says that the neighbourhood"s a queer one, and you never know what thieves are hanging about the place; though, _inter nos_, I don"t see that there"s much to steal hereabouts," Mr.
Smith added, in a confidential whisper.
The door of the house, as well as that of the garden, was open.
Sigismund went into the hall, followed closely by George. The parlour door was open too, and the room was empty--the room was empty, and it had an abnormal appearance of tidiness, as if all the litter and rubbish had been suddenly scrambled together and carried away. There was a sc.r.a.p of old frayed rope upon the table, lying side by side with some tin-tacks, a hammer, and a couple of blank luggage-labels.
George did not stop to look at these; he went straight to the open window and looked out into the garden. He had so fully expected to see Isabel sitting under the pear-tree with a novel in her lap, that he started and drew back with an exclamation of surprise at finding the garden empty; the place seemed so strangely blank without the girlish figure lolling in the basket-chair. It was as if George Gilbert had been familiar with that garden for the last ten years, and had never seen it without seeing Isabel in her accustomed place.
"I suppose Miss Sleaford--I suppose they"re all out," the surgeon said, rather dolefully.
"I suppose they _are_ out," Sigismund answered, looking about him with a puzzled air; "and yet, that"s strange. They don"t often go out; at least, not all at once. They seldom go out at all, in fact, except on errands. I"ll call the girl."
He opened the door and looked into the front parlour before going to carry out this design, and he started back upon the threshold as if he had seen a ghost.
"What is it?" cried George.
"My luggage and your portmanteau, all packed and corded; look!"
Mr. Smith pointed as he spoke to a couple of trunks, a hatbox, a carpet-bag, and a portmanteau, piled in a heap in the centre of the room. He spoke loudly in his surprise; and the maid-of-all-work came in with her cap hanging by a single hair-pin to a k.n.o.b of tumbled hair.
"Oh, sir!" she said, "they"re all gone; they went at six o"clock this evenin"; and they"re going to America, missus says; and she packed all your things, and she thinks you"d better have "em took round to the greengrocer"s immediant, for fear of being seized for the rent, which is three-quarters doo; but you was to sleep in the house to-night, if you pleased, and your friend likewise; and I was to get you your breakfastes in the morning, before I take the key round to the Albany Road, and tell the landlord as they"ve gone away, which he don"t know it yet."
"GONE AWAY!" said Sigismund; "GONE AWAY!"
"Yes, sir, every one of "em; and the boys was so pleased that they would go shoutin" "ooray, "ooray, all over the garding, though Mr. Sleaford swore at "em awful, and did hurry and tear so, I thought he was a-goin"
mad. But Miss Isabel, she cried about goin" so sudden and seemed all pale and frightened like. And there"s a letter on the chimbley-piece, please, which she put it there."
Sigismund pounced upon the letter, and tore it open. George read it over his friend"s shoulder. It was only two lines.
"DEAR MR. SMITH,--Don"t think hardly of us for going away so suddenly.
Papa says it must be so.
"Yours ever faithfully,
"ISABEL."
"I should like to keep that letter," George said, blushing up to the roots of his hair. "Miss Sleaford writes a pretty hand."
CHAPTER IV.
THE END OF GEORGE GILBERT"S HOLIDAY.
The two young men acted very promptly upon that friendly warning conveyed in Mrs. Sleaford"s farewell message. The maid-of-all-work went to the greengrocer"s, and returned in company with a dirty-looking boy--who was "Mrs. Judkin"s son, please, sir"--and a truck. Mrs.
Judkin"s son piled the trunks, portmanteau, and carpet-bag on the truck, and departed with his load, which was to be kept in the custody of the Judkin family until the next morning, when Sigismund was to take the luggage away in a cab. When this business had been arranged, Mr. Smith and his friend went out into the garden and talked of the surprise that had fallen upon them.
"I always knew they were thinking of leaving," Sigismund said, "but I never thought they"d go away like this. I feel quite cut up about it, George. I"d got to like them, you know, old boy, and to feel as if I was one of the family; and I shall never be able to partial-board with any body else."
George seemed to take the matter quite as seriously as his friend, though his acquaintance with the Sleafords was little more than four-and-twenty hours old.
"They must have known before to-day that they were going," he said.
"People don"t go to America at a few hours" notice."
Sigismund summoned the dirty maid-of-all-work, and the two young men subjected her to a very rigorous cross-examination; but she could tell them very little more than she had told them all in one breath in the first instance.
"Mr. Sleaford "ad "is breakfast at nigh upon one o"clock, leastways she put on the pertaturs for the boys" dinner before she biled "is egg; and then he went out, and he come tarin" "ome agen in one of these "ansom cabs at three o"clock in the afternoon; and he told missus to pack up, and he told the "ansom cabman to send a four-wheeler from the first stand he pa.s.sed at six o"clock precise; and the best part of the luggage was sent round to the greengrocer"s on a truck, and the rest was took on the roof of the cab, and Master "Orace rode alongside the cabman, and would smoke one of them nasty penny pickwicks, which they always made "im bilious; and Mr. Sleaford he didn"t go in the cab, but walked off as cool as possible, swinging his stick, and "olding his "ead as "igh as hever."
Sigismund asked the girl if she had heard the address given to the cabman who took the family away.
"No," the girl said. Mr. Sleaford had given no address. He directed the cabman to drive over Waterloo Bridge, and that was all the girl heard.
Mr. Smith"s astonishment knew no bounds. He walked about the deserted house, and up and down the weedy pathways between the espaliers, until long after the summer moon was bright upon the lawn, and every trailing branch and tender leaflet threw its sharp separate, shadow on the shining ground.
"I never heard of such a thing in all my life," the young author cried; "it"s like penny numbers. With the exception of their going away in a four-wheeler cab instead of through a sliding panel and subterranean pa.s.sage, it"s for all the world like penny numbers."
"But you"ll be able to find out where they"ve gone, and why they went away so suddenly," suggested George Gilbert; "some of their friends will be able to tell you."
"Friends!" exclaimed Sigismund; "they never had any friends--at least not friends that they visited, or anything of that kind. Mr. Sleaford used to bring home some of his friends now and then of an evening, after dark generally, or on a Sunday afternoon. But we never saw much of them, for he used to take them up to his own room; and except for his wanting French brandy and cigars fetched, and chops and steaks cooked, and swearing at the girl over the bal.u.s.ters if the plates weren"t hot enough, we shouldn"t have known that there was company in the house. I suppose his chums were in the law, like himself," Mr. Smith added, musingly; "but they didn"t look much like barristers, for they had straggling moustachios, and a kind of would-be military way; and if they hadn"t been Sleaford"s friends, I should have thought them raffish-looking."
Neither of the young men could think of anything or talk of anything that night except the Sleafords and their abrupt departure. They roamed about the garden, staring at the long gra.s.s and the neglected flower-beds; at the osier arbour, dark under the shadow of a trailing vine, that was half-smothered by the vulgar luxuriance of wild hops,--the osier arbour in which the spiders made their home, and where, upon the rotten bench, romantic Izzie had sat through the hot hours of drowsy summer days, reading her favourite novels, and dreaming of a life that was to be like the plot of a novel.
They went into the house, and called for candles, and wandered from room to room, looking blankly at the chairs and tables, the open drawers, the disordered furniture, as if from those inanimate objects they might obtain some clue to the little domestic mystery that bewildered them.
The house was pervaded by torn sc.r.a.ps of paper, fragments of rag and string, morsels of crumpled lace and muslin, bald hair-brushes lying in the corners of the bedrooms, wisps of hay and straw, tin-tacks, and old kid-gloves. Everywhere there were traces of disorder and hurry, except in Mr. Sleaford"s room. That sanctuary was wide open now, and Mr. Smith and his friend went into it and examined it. To Sigismund a newly-excavated chamber in a long-buried city could scarcely have been more interesting. Here there was no evidence of reckless haste. There was not a single fragment of waste paper in any one of the half-dozen open drawers on either side of the desk. There was not so much as an old envelope upon the floor. A great heap of grey ashes upon the cold hearthstone revealed the fact that Mr. Sleaford had employed himself in destroying papers before his hasty departure. The candlestick that Isabel had given him upon the previous night stood upon his desk, with the candle burnt down to the socket. George remembered having heard his host"s heavy footsteps pacing up and down the room; and the occasional opening and shutting of drawers, and slamming of the lids of boxes, which had mixed with his dreams all through that brief summer"s night.
It was all explained now. Mr Sleaford had of course been making his preparations for leaving Camberwell--for leaving England; if it was really true that the family were going to America.
Early the next morning there came a very irate gentleman from the Albany Road. This was the proprietor of the neglected mansion, who had just heard of the Sleaford hegira, and who was in a towering pa.s.sion because of those three quarter"s rent which he was never likely to behold. He walked about the house with his hands in his pockets, kicking the doors open, and denouncing his late tenants in very unpleasant language. He stalked into the back parlour, where George and Sigismumd were taking spongy French rolls and doubtful French eggs, and glared ferociously at them, and muttered something to the effect that it was like their impudence to be making themselves so "jolly comfortable" in his house when he"d been swindled by that disreputable gang of theirs. He used other adjectives besides that word "disreputable" when he spoke of the Sleafords; but Sigismund got up from before the dirty table-cloth, and protested, with his mouth full, that he believed in the honesty of the Sleafords; and that, although temporarily under a cloud, Mr. Sleaford would no doubt make a point of looking up the three quarter"s rent, and would forward post-office orders for the amount at the earliest opportunity. To this the landlord merely replied, that he hoped his--Sigismund"s--head would not ache till Mr. Sleaford _did_ send the rent; which friendly aspiration was about the only civil thing the proprietor of the mansion said to either of the young men. He prowled about the rooms, poking the furniture with his stick, and punching his fist into the beds to see if any of the feathers had been extracted therefrom. He groaned over the rents in the carpets, the notches and scratches upon the mahogany, the entire absence of handles and k.n.o.bs wherever it was possible for handles or k.n.o.bs to be wanting; and every time he found out any new dilapidation in the room where the two young men were taking their breakfast, he made as if he would have come down upon them for the cost of the damage.
"Is that the best teapot you"re a-having your teas out of? Where"s the Britannia metal as I gave thirteen-and-six for seven year ago? Where did that twopenny-halfpenny blown-gla.s.s sugar-basin come from? It ain"t mine; mine was di"mond-cut. Why, they"ve done me two hundred pound mischief. I could afford to forgive "em the rent. The rent"s the least part of the damage they"ve done me."