“That’s all I care about, sir,” said Mrs. Dugget, piously, with her keen old eye upon the notes, “and being sure of that, I don’t mind owning that I did take the trouble to follow up the address upon the envelope. Now, when a gentleman like Mr. Dalbrook—a gentleman as always pays his way regular, and stands high in his profession—when such a gentleman as that changes his name, you may be sure there’s a lady in the case. If you take up a paper, sir, and happen to glance at a divorce case, promiscuous, as I do sometimes when my son-in-law leaves his Telegraph or his Echo lying about—you’ll find that the gentleman who runs away with the lady always changes his name first thing—whether he and the lady go to an hotel, or takes lodgings, or go on the Continent—he always takes another name. I don’t think the change does him much good, for wherever he goes people seem to know all about him, and come out with their knowledge in court directly it’s wanted—but it seems as if he must always act so, and act so he does.”
Theodore submitted to this disquisition in silence, but he touched the notes lightly with his fingers and made them crackle, by way of stimulus to Mrs. Dugget’s intellect.
“I felt sure if Mr. Dalbrook had been living at Myrtle Cottage under the name of Danvers there was a lady mixed up in it, and, being in the Long Vacation, when I knew he generally went abroad, I thought I would try and satisfy myself about him. I thought I should feel more comfortable in waiting upon him when I knew the worst. And then Camberwell Grove was such a little way off. It would be just a nice outing for me of a summer evening; so what did I do one lovely warm afternoon but take my tea a little earlier than usual, and trot off to the corner of Lancaster Place, where I wait for a Waterloo ’bus coming sauntering along the Strand as if time was made for slaves, and there was no such things as loop-lines or trains to be caught. I hadn’t no train to catch, so I didn’t mind the sauntering and the dawdling and the taking up and setting down. I had all the summer evening before me when I got out at the Green and made my way to the Grove. It’s a beautiful romantic place, Camberwell Grove, sir. I don’t know whether you know it, but if you do I’m sure you’ll own that there ain’t a prettier neighbourhood near London. Twenty years ago they used still to show you the garden where George Barnwell murdered his uncle, but I dare say that’s been done away with by now. It took me a good time to find Myrtle Cottage, for it was one of the smallest houses in the Grove, and it stood back in a pretty little garden, and there was nothing on the gate to tell if it was Myrtle or otherwise. But I did find it at last, thanks to a young housemaid who was standing at the gate, talking to a grocer’s lad. The grocer’s lad made off when he saw me, and for the first few minutes the girl was inclined to be disagreeable; but she came round very quickly, and I dare say she was glad to have some one to talk to on that solitary summer evening. ‘Cook’s out for her holiday,’ she says, ‘and I can’t stop in the house alone.’ And then we got talking, and after we’d talked a bit standing at the gate, she asked me into the garden, where there was a long narrow grass plot, screened off from the high road by two horse-chestnut trees and some laburnums, and there was some garden chairs and a table on the grass, and the young woman asked me to sit down. She’d got her work-basket out there, and she’d been making herself an apron. ‘I can’t bear the house of a summer evening,’ she says, ‘it gives me the horrors.’ Well, we talked of her master and mistress, as was natural. She’d lived with them over a twelvemonth, and it was a pretty good place, but very dull, and the missus had a temper, and was dreadfully particular, and expected things as nice as if she had ten servants instead of two, and was very mean into the bargain, and seemed afraid of spending money. ‘I shouldn’t be so particular, if I was her,’ the girl said, and then she told me that she knew things wasn’t all right, though they seemed a very respectable couple, and the lady went to church regularly.”
“What made her suspect that things were wrong?” asked Theodore, Mrs. Dugget having paused at this point of her narrative.
“Oh, sir, servants always know! They can’t live six months in a house without finding out how the land lies. They’ve got so little to think of, you see, except their masters and mistresses. You can’t wonder if they’re always on the watch and the listen, meaning no harm, poor things. If you was shut up in a stuffy little kitchen all day, never seeing no one but the lads from the tradespeople for two or three minutes at a time, you’d watch and you’d listen. It’s human nature. People don’t like reading servants, and they don’t like gadding servants; so they must put up with servants that think a good deal of what’s going on round them. The housemaid told me she was sure from the solitary way Mr. and Mrs. Danvers lived that there was a screw loose somewhere. ‘No one never comes near them,’ she said, ‘and she never goes nowhere except for a walk with him. No visitors, no friends. I can’t think how she bears her life. She hasn’t a party-gown, even. If anybody asked her to a party she couldn’t go. When he took her abroad last month she was all in a fluster and excitement, just like a child, or like a prisoner that’s going to be let out of prison. She shook hands with cook and me when she said good-bye, and that isn’t like her. “I feel so happy, Jane,” she says, “I don’t know what I’m doing.” No more I think she did. She looked quite wild with pleasure, and quite young too in her new bonnet, although in a general way she looks older than him.’ And then the girl told me how fond she was of him, although she showed her temper now and then, even to him. Not often, the girl said, and any quarrel with him threw her into a dreadful way afterwards, and she would lie awake and sob all night long. The girl had heard her, for it was a trumpery little house, though it was pretty to look at, and the walls were very thin. I could see with my own eyes that it wasn’t much of a house, a sort of dressed-up cottage, smothered with creepers up to the roof. It looked pretty and countrified after the Temple, and I could understand that Mr. Dalbrook liked living in such a lovely place as Camberwell Grove.”
“Did you find out what the lady was like?” asked Theodore.
“You may be sure I tried to do that, sir. How could I help being interested in a lady that had such an influence over one of my gentlemen? The girl told me that Mrs. Danvers was one of the ‘has beens.’ She had been handsome, perhaps, once upon a time; and she might have had a fine figure once upon a time; but she had neither face nor figure now. She was pale and careworn, and she was very thin. She didn’t do anything to set herself off either, like other ladies of five and thirty. She wore the same merino gown month after month, and she had only one silk gown in her wardrobe. She was always neat and nice, like a lady; but she didn’t seem to care much how she looked. She told the girl once that she and Mr. Danvers would be better off by and by, and then all things would be different with them. ‘I am only waiting for those happier days,’ she says; but the girl fancied she would be an old woman before those days came.”
“Were there any children?”
“I could not find out for certain. The girl fancied from chance words she had overheard that there had been a baby, but that it had been sent away, and that this was a grievance between them, and came up when they quarrelled, which was not often, as I said before. Altogether I left Camberwell Grove feeling very sorry for the lady who was called Mrs. Danvers, and I thought it was a great pity if Mr. Dalbrook wanted to make a home for himself he couldn’t have managed it better. I made great friends with Jane, the housemaid, before I left that garden, and I asked her when she had an evening out to come and take a cup of tea with me; and if she could get leave to go to the theatre, my youngest son, who was living at home then, could take her, along with my daughter, who was then unmarried and in service in New Bridge Street. The young woman came once, about Christmas time, and she told me things were just the same as they had been at Myrtle Cottage. She talked very freely about Mr. and Mrs. Danvers over her tea, but she had no idea that he was beknown to me, or that he was a barrister with chambers in the Temple. She thought he was something in the City. I asked her if it was Mr. Danvers who was mean and kept his lady short of money; but she thought not. She thought it was Mrs. Danvers that had a kind of mania for saving, for she was quite put out if Mr. Danvers brought her home a present that cost a few pounds. It seemed as if they were saving up for some purpose—for they used to talk to each other of the money he was putting by, and it was plain they were looking forward to a better house and a happier kind of life. Jane thought that either she had a husband hidden away somewhere—in a lunatic asylum, perhaps—or he had another wife.”
Mrs. Dugget stopped to replenish the thrifty little fire with a very small scoopful of coals, during which operation the sleek black cat leaped upon her back and balanced himself upon her shoulders while she bent over the grate.