Norton, Andre - Novel 39 (3 page)

 
          
 
‘You, young person,' Lady Ames continued, ‘I
wish to speak with you now. Hazel, you are dismissed—for the present.' Then she
turned as forceful a look of judgment upon Hazel, but one of a slightly
different kind.

 
          
 
‘The little girl had already raised one real
protest as Riggs propelled her toward the door. I trusted that my own gaze was
as threatening to the maid as the one her mistress had directed toward me.

 
          
 
‘Hazel, my dear.'
I
hastened to soothe the rising fears of my late charge. ‘I shall come to you
soon.'

 
          
 
‘Hazel—what an odd name!
What is your second name?' Lady Ames's voice had fallen into its usual screech.

 
          
 
Hazel jerked free of Riggs's hold on her
shoulder. She made a graceful little curtsy she must have learned in her
mother's drawing room and answered with the singsong voice of one uttering a
well-drilled ritual.

 
          
 
‘I am Hazel Renee Ames.'

 
          
 
‘Renee?' For the second time a wrinkle of
distaste added to Lady Ames's collection of skin folds. 'That name is
altogether unsuitable, child. Thus we must call you Hazel after all. Very well,
go with Riggs now and she will serve you tea.'

 
          
 
‘I forced a nod and a smile, so Hazel went off
reluctantly with the stone-faced Riggs. Lady Ames was already addressing
questions to me."

 
          
 
‘You call yourself
Hester Lane
—'

 
          
 
‘I do not call myself anything, Your Ladyship.
Hester
Lane
is the name I have carried from my birth.'

 
          
 
Her pudgy hands, aglitter with rings, pawed
through the general mess on the table as she leaned forward among her nest of
pillows, her lace-fronted morning gown actually threatening to split in some
important places. Now she came up with a letter, the bold handwriting on the
envelope easy enough to see. It had come from Major Ames.

 
          
 
"'My son says'—she smoothed out the
crinkled paper— 'that your father was a scholar and a distinguished historian
writing a book about those cruel Indians. Also, you have been his amanuensis
and acquitted yourself well in that situation.'

 
          
 
"She paused to sweep me from head to foot
with a bold stare that I was sure she would never use with one she considered
her social equal. 'He also has written that you are a lady of family.'

 
          
 
"'I was my father's researcher and
assistant for six years— from the time I completed my formal education.' I kept
my voice carefully neutral.

 
          
 
"Now she dropped the letter into her lap
. '
Latin—pauhg!
Philosophy, history—all
too heady and severe for any weak female mind to comprehend.
You do
speak French?' she asked sharply in that language but with an accent so twisted
that I could barely understand her.

 
          
 
"I replied in the same language that I
could. Also, that I could teach German if that would be required of me.

 
          
 
"Her pop eyes were slitted as she said
then, not in a fumbly foreign tongue, but in English, 'Can you teach tabor
work, netting? Do you know perfectly the rules of society and all concerning
those families that are classed so? Can you dance, play the piano, draw, teach
watercolor?'

 
          
 
"To this list of talents I was forced to
answer no, and she gave a sigh that was one of relief as she settled back again
among her cushions
. '
You are hardly an acceptable
governess,
Miss Lane
.'

 
          
 
"If Lady Ames had expected some plea from
me (in spite of that touch of fear), she was disappointed.

 
          
 
"'You may stay the week,'" I had
jotted in my ledger— her words were not the kind that were easily forgotten.

 
          
 
"The Brougher girls are to be sent to a
school in
Switzerland
. Luckily I foresaw something of this
present situation and have approached Miss Cantry, their present governess. But,
of course, I shall provide for you."'

 
          
 
Hester scowled, and flipped the next three
pages over together.

 
          
 
"The Miss Cantry of Lady Ames's choice
did not appear within the week as looked for. Thus I was given respite for
another week, during which I strove to prepare Hazel, as best I could, for her
place in life. She was sent for several times, to accompany Lady Ames on her
daily ride in the park, returning each time with either a scowl on her face or
reddened eyes that were the result of an outburst of tears.

 
          
 
"She did not confide in me, and I did not
ask any questions. Though once she inquired if it were true that 'ladies' were
wrong in throwing a penny to the boy who swept the crossing outside.

 
          
 
"Knowing her grandmother would strongly
disapprove, but not wishing to pass judgment upon her selfish snobbery, I
thought it best to keep silent.

 
          
 
"'You cannot tell me!' Hazel crossed the
room and gave a vigorous tug to the bell ribbon. Then she took her small net
purse to the table and turned it upside down, allowing its contents, including
several shilling pieces, to spin across the table's crimson velvet cover.
Swiftly she separated them.

 
          
 
"The door opened for the young kitchen
maid, Kitty, with my tea, unappetizing hunks of bread spread with dubious butter,
and a pot already half chilled because of the long walk the bearer had had, up
from the kitchen. But Kitty winked at me as she set down the tray and whisked
off the cover. The chunks of bread were enriched by a delectable-looking pair
of muffins. She grinned.

 
          
 
'Them's prime, miss. Cook put aside a basket
of them for her friend the constable. It's Old Riggs with her smarmy orders as
gits you such rotten stuff! She's—'

 
          
 
'Miller, what are you doing here?' Miss
Riggs's voice came from the hall outside so often I had reason to believe she
listened whenever Hazel and I were together. But it was Hazel who answered her
now.

 
          
 
'Kitty is going to run an errand for me,
Riggs!' The beginning of hauteur touched her—a legacy from her grandmother. It
made the woman stare at her somewhat bemused. She had certainly never seen that
aspect of my charge before.

 
          
 
"'One of the footmen,' said Riggs, who
might have been rocked for an instant but was now steady once more, 'would be
suitable for messages, Miss Hazel, and my lady would want to know all about
it.'

 
          
 
Hazel snatched up the unwholesome-looking
plate of bread chunks and thrust it at Kitty.
'
Give
this to the little boy—the one at the street corner. I think he must be very
hungry.'

 
          
 
Kitty bobbed a curtsy.
'
Yes,
miss.'

 
          
 
She fled the room while Riggs walked quickly
to the window. But the gathering darkness did not yet have the street lamp to
cut it.

 
          
 
'Miss Hazel, 'tis my bonded duty to tell Her
Ladyship of this—' She drew such a deep breath that I was sure it reached clear
to the shoes hidden beneath her skirts.

 
          
 
'Yes, Riggs.'
Hazel
nodded. 'The vicar spoke Sunday about how treasure came from feeding the poor
and hungry people with bread and fishes. Only I did not have any fish.'

 
          
 
Riggs was indeed shaken and only muttered
something inaudible as she went out the door. Hazel turned to me, and there was
a faint flush in her cheeks and her eyes were wide and sparkling. 'Hester, you
will do it for me, won't you?' She shoved her shilling piece in my direction.

 
          
 
I was already reaching for my waterproof cape
and the bonnet that was supposed to possess the same properties. It was in this
manner I met Freddy, a very dirty urchin in a patched coat that Hazel had
described to me. He was chewing on one of the hunks of bread as if he feared it
would be snatched away from him, and a lump just above the length of rope that
held his coat together made me surmise that he was saving more than half the
bounty. He looked at me with red-rimmed eyes that held the impression of sly
wariness.

 
          
 
'Whot yuh
wants,
missie?' He jerked his head to indicate the envelope into which I had inserted
and sealed Hazel's charity.
'Message run?
Fred's yur
boy, he is.'

 
          
 
He held out his hand, having crushed all the
rest of the bread into his mouth, which gave him a very stuffed look. I
released the envelope to the pull he gave as soon as he got his filthy fingers
on it.

 
          
 
'No message, Fred—just a
gift from a little girl who wishes you well.'

 
          
 
He clutched the envelope tightly and looked as
if he had no belief that anything good might really happen to him. Then he
turned and ran out into the fog, lost from sight in seconds.

 
          
 
Again Miss Cantry did not appear and I was
given respite for another seven days.

 
          
 
My time was up yesterday—

 
          
 
And now here she was, on her own.

 
          
 
Hester leaned back a little. Those fingers of
fog that she had earlier imagined reaching for her from the corners of the room
were growing longer and more menacing. It was one thing to be prepared to earn
one's living and then always being assured in some fashion of the future, and
another to possess four shillings and sixpence in an otherwise empty purse.
What did those noble, familyless heroines do in books? Did they have jewels to
pawn or something of that sort? Her rent was paid until a week from tomorrow
and bread and tea could fill a stomach. What had Freddy done with all that
wealth Hazel showered upon him? He'd never come back to that corner as a sweeper
again.

 
          
 
Hester drew her shawl more tightly about her.
Dragged along with its fringe across the bed were her two letters. This
afternoon—yes, this very afternoon—she could send both of her answers out into
the world.

 
          
 
But would the world reply?

 
          
 
It was a case of hate at first sight.

 
          
 
That, at least, was what Inspector Newcomen
told himself as he perched uneasily on the edge of his chair, in Mr. Utterson's
outer office.

 
          
 
First sight, but not first
meeting.
His previous dealings with Utterson had produced a somewhat
disagreeable impression of the lean, unsmiling, elderly solicitor, but at the
time he had seen him as an ally in a common cause.

 
          
 
Utterson was the friend as well as the legal
counselor for Henry Jekyll, M.D., and Inspector Newcomen, the officer assigned
to investigate certain events surrounding Dr. Jekyll's mysterious
disappearance.

 
          
 
It was last March that Utterson had come
forward with the story of how he and Dr. Jekyll's butler,
Poole
, found the body in Dr. Jekyll's cabinet—the
office maintained at his home. As a matter of fact, Newcomen himself was
involved from the very start. He examined the office, questioned the servants,
and viewed the corpse discovered there. It was Utterson himself who
corroborated statements from Jekyll's household staff and personal friends,
attesting that the deceased was one Edward Hyde.

 
          
 
There was no doubt whatsoever that Hyde had
met death by his own hands, through the ingestion of prussic acid, though the
reasons for his apparent suicide were never clarified—at least not by the
enigmatic Mr. Utterson, who said he had little personal contact with Dr.
Jekyll's unfortunate friend. But last October, when Sir Danvers Carew was
clubbed to death by a man identified as Edward Hyde, it was Utterson who
conducted the inspector to Hyde's vacated lodgings, though he claimed no
knowledge of the man himself. Nor did anyone else appear to know much about the
dwarfed and almost apishly deformed man who had seemingly been an intimate of
Dr. Jekyll's for several years.

 
          
 
It was then that Inspector Newcomen's
reservations about the solicitor took form. Surely he must have known more
about the relationship than he was willing to volunteer. After his suicide was
officially established Hyde was interred in a pauper's grave. No ceremony was
performed and no mourners were in attendance. It appeared that the late Edward
Hyde had neither family nor friends. Except, of course, for Dr. Jekyll, who
remained absent on that occasion.

 
          
 
Inspector Newcomen scowled and stirred
impatiently in his chair. Confound Utterson for keeping him waiting like this!
Months had passed since the death of Hyde and the disappearance of Jekyll, and
during all that time Utterson had played a waiting game. When questioned about
some of the strange apparatus and peculiar chemicals discovered in Jekyll's
laboratory, Utterson protested he knew nothing of them. When confronted with
the fact that Edward Hyde possessed his own key to Dr. Jekyll's private
quarters and apparently came and went as he chose at all hours of the day or
night, Utterson kept mum.

           
 
It was indeed a waiting game, and no mistake.
But then through his years in the service of the law, Inspector New-comen had
come to despise all men of the law; barristers, solicitors, attorneys,
magistrates, and judges; the whole kit and caboodle infesting Temple Bar,
cluttering the courts as they pranced about in their absurd getups. Silly wigs
and stupid gowns belonged at masked balls rather than in a court of law. As for
the pomp and ceremony—from "Hear ye," to "All
rise
,"
to "If it please Your Honor"—Newcomen regarded it as sheer poppycock.
All of it was game-playing, not to serve justice but to obstruct it.

 
          
 
That Utterson was obstructing justice he had
no doubt; not after a passage of long months since Henry Jekyll's
disappearance. And it was high time to put paid to the matter once and for all.

 
          
 
"Mr. Utterson will see you now."

 
          
 
The glorious tidings issued from the lips of
the solicitor's chief clerk, one Robert Guest, who emerged from the inner
sanctum to address the police officer.

 
          
 
Newcomen lost no time in acceding to the
invitation. As he entered the private office Mr. Utterson elevated himself from
behind his desk, greeting his visitor in a manner more curtly than courtly.
If, indeed, "Inspector?" could be construed as a
greeting.
His tone carried with it the unspoken but unmistakable
implication that Newcomen's very presence was a sore trial to his patience.

 
          
 
And trial it very well may be, the Inspector
told himself. Complete with judge, jury, and sentence, unless you come up with
some proper testimony.

 
          
 
"Please be seated." With a diffident
gesture Utterson indicated the vacant chair placed near the corner of his desk.
As Newcomen moved to occupy it the solicitor uttered a dry cough. "To what
might I owe the pleasure of this visit?" he inquired.

 
          
 
"A matter of business," Newcomen
replied. "There are questions that require immediate answers."

 
          
 
The solicitor seated himself behind his desk.
"Please be assured that I shall do my best to provide them," he said.
"Granted, of course, that such answers are known to me." Inspector
Newcomen nodded. "Then I propose we come to the point," the lawyer
said.

 
          
 
"What further news might you have of your
client Dr. Jekyll?"

 
          
 
Utterson
shrugged,
his expression unchanging.
"None whatsoever.
I
assure you, had I obtained the slightest word, you and your superiors at
Scotland Yard would have immediately been informed."

 
          
 
Newcomen's nod brushed the reply aside.
"What have you done to locate him?"

 
          
 
Again Utterson shrugged. "I should think
that question should be best addressed to you. As an officer of the law the
apprehension of missing persons falls under your jurisdiction rather than mine.
You have powers and facilities not available to a private citizen such as
myself
. And if you cannot find him—"

 
          
 
"Hard words, Mr.
Utterson.
I grant we haven't located Dr. Jekyll as yet, but that we
shall, given the proper information.
Which leads me to
another question.
"

 
          
 
"Yes?"

 
          
 
"Why did you sack Dr. Jekyll’s household
staff?"

 
          
 
"I should think the reason would be
obvious," the solicitor said. "As Dr. Jekyll’s counselor I see no
point in maintaining unnecessary expense and have therefore closed the house
pending his return."

 
          
 
"Why didn't you inform Scotland Yard of
this decision?"

 
          
 
"Because I felt it to
be none of their concern."
Now there was the slightest hint of
defiance in Utterson's voice. "Not to put too fine a point on it, it is
the concern of Scotland Yard to find Dr. Jekyll and you have failed."

 
          
 
"Perhaps that could have been avoided if
there'd been a chance to question those servants at greater length. I'm particularly
interested in Jekyll's butler and the footman. If you'd supply me with their
present addresses—"

 
          
 
"I'm afraid that is impossible,"
Utterson said. "At the time of their employment, all of Dr. Jekyll's
household staff resided on the premises, and I did not regard it as a matter of
concern as to where they might have removed themselves following their
dismissal."

 
          
 
"I see." Newcomen nodded. "But
I suggest to you that there's another explanation. If it was to someone's
interest, the servants could have been paid off to disappear and avoid questions."

 
          
 
Utterson half rose from his
chair, right hand curling to form a fist.
"Are you accusing me of
obstructing justice?"

 
          
 
"Only an observation, if you take my
meaning, sir."

 
          
 
"Then be so good as to consider
this." Utterson sank back into his seat but there was open anger in his
voice now. "Both my friendship and my professional relationship with Dr.
Jekyll extend to a period of over twenty years. No one is more desirous of
ascertaining his present whereabouts and receiving assurance of his well-being."

 
          
 
"In that case, sir, you may be able to
help us."

 
          
 
"In what way?"

 
          
 
"I'd be greatly obliged to see a copy of
Dr. Jekyll's will."

 
          
 
Utterson stiffened. "But that's
impossible!"

 
          
 
"Is it?" Newcomen spoke quietly,
choosing his words with care. "I've made inquiries and have been told
there are two ways to go about it. Either you permit me to glance over the
document here or I get a warrant for that purpose, in which case the contents
will become public knowledge."

 
          
 
"You leave me no choice."

 
          
 
Utterson rose, and went to the door; drawing
it open, he summoned Guest. After heeding instructions issued in a voice
scarcely above the level of a whisper, the clerk departed, presently to return
with the desired instrument.

 
          
 
Thereupon he withdrew, and Utterson, making no
attempt to disguise his reluctance, extended the document to Inspector
Newcomen.

 
          
 
"You hold in your hands," he said,
"the last will and testament of Henry Jekyll, M.D., D.C.L., L.L.D.,
F.R.S., et cetera. Note that it is in holograph form; a comparison with other
examples of Dr. JekylFs handwriting will attest to its authenticity. Its
brevity is self-apparent. As to its contents . . ."

 
          
 
He did not complete his sentence, for the
inspector was already reading, brow furrowed in concentration. Utterson
retreated behind his desk and resumed his place there,
awaiting
the moment when Newcomen concluded his perusal.

 
          
 
When the inspector glanced up again his eyes
and voice conveyed open accusation. "He wrote this will without consulting
you?" he said.

 
          
 
"Quite so," Utterson replied.

 
          
 
Newcomen glanced down, scanning as he spoke.
"I gather that in case of his decease or disappearance or absence lasting
more than three months, all of Dr. Jekyll's possessions were to pass to the
hands of—what's the way he puts it?—his friend and benefactor Edward
Hyde."

 
          
 
"That is correct."

 
          
 
"I notice from the date that this was
drawn up over a year ago.

 
          
 
"That too is correct. Have you any reason
to question the date of its execution?"

 
          
 
Newcomen shook his head. "When it was
made out is a minor matter." He leaned forward, tapping the page as he
spoke. "What I would like to know is when Dr. Jekyll crossed out the name
of Edward Hyde as a beneficiary and substituted a new heir—John Gabriel Utterson."