With Zola in England Part 3

On entering the smoking-room we had found it deserted, but whilst Wareham was speaking a couple of gentlemen had come in. One, I remember, was an elderly, florid man, with mutton-chop whiskers and a buff waistcoat, who took his stand beside the fireplace at the further end of the room and puffed away at a big cigar. He looked inoffensive enough, and paid no attention to us. But the other, a middle-aged individual, tall and slim, with military moustaches, eyed us very keenly, changed his position two or three times, and finally installed himself in a chair, whence, while trifling with a cigarette, he commanded a good view of M. Zola's face.

Desmoulin, I think, was the first to notice this, and to call the novelist's attention to it. Zola then s.h.i.+fted his position, and the military looking gentleman soon did the same. At last, doubtless having satisfied his curiosity, he left the room, not, however, without a sharp, comprehensive survey of our party as he pa.s.sed us on his way out.

I do not now exactly remember how it happened that Wareham was not received in the 'dungeon,' instead of the smoking-room. The choice of the latter apartment was unfortunate. I have no doubt that, if some of the newspapers were, a day or two afterwards, able to state that M. Zola was staying at the Grosvenor Hotel, it was through certain remarks made by the inquisitive military looking gentleman to whom I have referred.

On the other hand his curiosity exercised decisive influence over M.

Zola's subsequent movements. He had hitherto been rather chary of accepting Wareham's hospitality, for fear lest he should inconvenience him. But the offer now being renewed was promptly accepted, and it was agreed that I should take both Messrs. Zola and Desmoulin to Wimbledon that evening.

As it was to be expected that several letters from Paris would arrive at the hotel, addressed to M. Pascal, I arranged to call or send for them.

The same course was adopted with regard to a few articles which M. Zola had given to be washed and which had not yet been returned to him. Some of these things were significantly marked with the letter 'Z,' and for this reason it was desirable that they should be recovered. Here I may mention that during the next few days my wife repeatedly called at the Grosvenor for M. Zola's correspondence, a circ.u.mstance which doubtless gave rise to the rumour that Mme. Zola had joined her husband in London.

The exodus from the hotel was not particularly imposing. M. Desmoulin had originally intended to stay but one day in London, and thus merely had a dressing-case with him. As for M. Zola, his few belongings (inclusive of a small bottle of ink, which he would not part with) were stuffed into his pockets, or went towards the making of a peculiarly shaped newspaper parcel, tied round with odd bits of string. Dressing-case and parcel were duly brought down into the grand vestibule, where the hotel servants smiled on them benignly. There was, indeed, some little humour in the situation.

The novelist, with his gold pince-nez and gold watch-chair, his red rosette, and a large and remarkably fine diamond sparking on one of his little fingers, looked so eminently respectable that it was difficult to a.s.sociate him with the wretched misshapen newspaper parcel--his only luggage!--which he eyed so jealously. However, as the attendants were all liberally fee'd, they remained strictly polite even if they felt amused.

I ordered a hansom to be called, and we just contrived to squeeze ourselves and the precious newspaper parcel inside it. The dressing-case was hoisted aloft. Then the hotel porter asked me, 'Where to, sir?'

'Charing Cross Station,' I replied, and the next moment we were bowling along Buckingham Palace Road.

Perhaps a minute elapsed before I tapped the cab-roof with my walking stick. On cabby looking down at me, I said, 'Did I tell you Charing Cross just now, driver? Ah! well, I made a mistake. I meant Waterloo.'

'Right, sir,' rejoined cabby; and on we went.

It was a paltry device, perhaps, this trick of giving one direction in the hearing of the hotel servants, and then another when the hotel was out of sight. But, as the reader must know, this kind of thing is always done in novels--particularly in detective stories.

And recollections had come to me of some of Gaboriau's tales which long ago I had helped to place before the English public. It might be that the renowned Monsieur Lecoq or his successor, or perchance some English _confrere_ like Mr. Sherlock Holmes, would presently be after us, and so it was just as well to play the game according to the orthodox rules of romance. After all, was it not in something akin to a romance that I was living?

IV

A CHANGE OF QUARTERS

It should be mentioned that the departure of Messrs. Zola and Desmoulin from the Grosvenor Hotel took place almost immediately after Wareham had returned to his office. We were not to meet our friend the solicitor again until the evening at Wimbledon, but the hotel being apparently a dangerous spot, it was thought best to quit it forthwith.

When we reached Waterloo the dressing-case and the newspaper parcel were deposited at one of the cloak-rooms; and after making the round of the station, we descended into the Waterloo Road. At first we sauntered towards the New Cut, and of course M. Zola could not help noticing the contrast between the dingy surroundings amidst which he now found himself and the stylish shops and roads he had seen in the Buckingham Palace Road. The vista was not cheering, so I proposed that we should retrace our steps and go as far as Waterloo Bridge.

There seemed to be little risk in doing so, for, as usual hereabouts in the middle of the afternoon, there were few people to be seen. The great successive rush of homeward-bound employers, clerks, and workpeople had not yet set in. And, moreover, there was plenty of time; for Wareham, having important business in town that day, could not possibly be at Wimbledon till half-past six at the earliest.

We reached the bridge--'that monument,' as a famous Frenchman once put in, 'worthy of Sesostris and the Caesars'--and went about half-way across. It was splendid weather, and the Thames was aglow with the countless reflections of the sunbeams that fell from the hot, whitening sky. London was before us, 'with her palaces down to the water'; and M.

Zola stopped short, gazing intently at the scene.

'Up-stream the view was spoilt,' said he, 'by the hideous Hungerford Bridge, unworthy alike of the city and the river'--an erection such as no Paris munic.i.p.ality would have tolerated for four and twenty hours. It was the more obtrusive and aggravating, since beyond it one discerned but little of the towers of Westminster. 'Admitting,' added the novelist, 'that a bridge is needed at that point for railway traffic, surely there is no reason why it should be so surprisingly ugly. However, from all I see, it seems more and more evident that you English people are very much in the habit of sacrificing beauty to utility, forgetting that with a little artistic sense it is easy to combine the two.'

Then, however, he turned slightly, and looked down-stream where the Victoria Embankment spreads past the Temple to Blackfriars. The colonnades of Somerset House showed boldly and with a certain majesty in the foreground, whilst in the distance, high over every roof, arose the leaden dome of St. Paul's. This vista was rather to M. Zola's liking.

Close beside us, on the bridge, was one of the semi-circular embrasures garnished with stone seats. A pitiful-looking vagrant was lolling there; but this made no difference to M. Zola. He installed himself on the seat with Desmoulin on one hand and myself on the other, and there we remained for some little time looking about us and chatting.

'This was the only thing wanted,' said Desmoulin, who generally had some humorous remark in readiness for every situation. 'Yesterday at the Grosvenor we were in the _fosse de Vincennes_, and now, as they say in the melodrama of "The Knights of the Fog" ("Les Chevaliers du Brouillard"*), we are "homeless wanderers stranded on the bridges of London."'

* The French dramatic adaptation of Ainsworth's 'Jack Sheppard.'

The allusion to the fog roused M. Zola from his contemplation.

'But where is the Savoy Hotel, where I stayed in '93?' he inquired. 'It must be very near here.'

I pointed it out to him, and he was astonished. 'Why, no--that cannot be!

It is so large a place, and now it looks so small. What is that huge building beside it?'

'The Hotel Cecil,' I replied.

Then again he shook his head in disapproval. From an artistic standpoint he strongly objected to the huge caravansary on which builder Hobbs and pious Jabez Balfour spent so much of other people's money. Soaring ma.s.sively and pretentiously into the sky it dwarfed everything around; and thus, in his opinion, utterly spoilt that part of the Embankment.

'To think, too,' said he, 'that you had such a site, here, along the river, and allowed it to be used for hotels and clubs, and so forth.

There was room for a Louvre here, and you want one badly; for your National Gallery, which I well remember visiting in '93, is a most wretched affair architecturally.'

'But I want to see rather more of the south side of the river,' he added, after a pause. 'I should like to ascertain if my lion is still there. I recollect that there was some fog about on the morning after my arrival at the Savoy in '93; and when I went to the window of my room I noticed the mist parting--one ma.s.s of vapour ascending skyward, while the other still hovered over the river. And, in the rent between, I espied a lion, poised in mid air. It amused me vastly; and I called my wife, saying to her, "Come and see. Here's the British lion waiting to bid us good-day."'

We went to the end of the bridge and thence espied the lion which surmounts the brewery of that name. M. Zola recognised it immediately.

Desmoulin would then have led us Strandward; but the Strand, said I, was about the most dangerous thoroughfare in all London for those who wished to escape recognition; so we went back over the bridge and again down the Waterloo road.

'I should like very much to send a line to Paris to-day to stop letters from going to the Grosvenor,' said M. Zola. 'Is there any place hereabouts where I could write a note?'

This question perplexed me, for the numerous facilities for letter-writing which are supplied by the cafes of Paris are conspicuously absent in London; and this I explained to M. Zola. A postage stamp may often be procured at a public-house, but only now and again can one there obtain ink and paper. However, I thought we might as well try the saloon bar of the York Hotel, which abuts on the famous 'Poverty Corner,' so much frequented by ladies and gentlemen of the 'halls,' when, sorely against their inclinations, they are 'resting.'

It was Thursday afternoon; still there were several disconsolate-looking individuals lounging about the corner; and in the saloon bar we found some fourteen or fifteen loudly dressed men and women typical of the spot. I forget what I ordered for Desmoulin and myself, but M. Zola, I know imbibed, mainly for the good of the house, 'a small lemon plain.'

Then we ascertained that the young lady at the bar had neither stamps, nor paper, nor envelopes, and so we were again in a quandary. Fortunately I recollected a little stationer's shop in the York Road, and leaving the others in the saloon bar, I went in search of the requisite materials.

When I returned I found the master an object of general attention. His extremely prosperous appearance, his white billyc.o.c.k, his jewellery, and so forth, coupled with the circ.u.mstance that he conversed in French with Desmoulin, had led some of those present to imagine that he was a Continental music-hall director on the look out for English 'artists.'

Again and again I noticed, as it were, a 'hungry' glance in his direction; and when, after procuring an inkstand from over the bar, I had ensconced him in a corner, where he was able after a fas.h.i.+on to pen his correspondence, a vivacious and, it seemed to me, somewhat bibulous gentleman in a check suit sidled up to where I stood and introduced himself in that easy way which repeated 'drops' of 'Mountain Dew' are apt to engender.

'Ah!' said he, after a few pointless remarks, 'your friend is over here on business, eh? Right thing, splendid thing. It's only by looking round that one can get real tip-top novelties. Oh! I know Paree and the bouleywards well enough. I was on at the Follee Bergey only a few years ago myself. A good place that--pays well, eh? I shouldn't at all mind taking a trip across the water again. There's nothing like a change, you know. Sets a man up, eh?'

Then mysteriously--lifting his forefinger and lowering his voice, 'Now your friend wants "talent," eh? Real, genuine "talent"! I could put him in the way----'

But I interposed: 'You've applied to the wrong shop,' I said by way of a joke; 'my friend has all the talent he requires. He's quite full up.'

A sorrowful look came over the angular features of the gentleman in the check suit. 'It's like my luck,' said he; 'there was a fellow over from Amsterdam the other day, but he'd only take girls. I think the Continental line's pretty nigh played out.'

He heaved a sigh and glanced in the direction of his empty gla.s.s. Then, seeing that the novelist and Desmoulin were rising to join me, he whispered hurriedly, _'I say, guv'nor, you haven't got a tanner you could spare, have you?'_

I had foreseen the request; nevertheless I pressed a few coppers into his hand and then hurried out after my wards.

Though it was still early we decided to start at once for Wimbledon. The master, I thought, might like to see a little of the place pending Wareham's arrival.

The journey through Lambeth, Vauxhall, and Queen's Road is not calculated to give the intelligent foreigner a particularly favourable impression of London. Still M. Zola did not at first find the surroundings very much worse than those one observes on leaving Paris by the Northern or Eastern lines. But as the train went on and on and much the same scene appeared on either hand he began to wonder when it would all end.

On approaching Clapham Junction a sea of roofs is to be seen on the right stretching away through Battersea to the Thames; while on the left a huge wave of houses ascends the acclivity known, I believe, as Lavender Hill.

And at the sight of all the mean, dusty streets, lined with little houses of uniform pattern, each close pressed to the other--at the frequently recurring glimpses of squalor and shabby gentility--M. Zola exploded.

'It is awful!' he said.