The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope (best fiction novels of all time .TXT) 📕

been an impostor. I know that. I had no business to know a person like you at all. Oh, if the next six months could be over! Poor papa;⁠—poor papa!” And then for the first time she burst into tears.

“I wish I knew what might comfort you,” he said.

“How can there be any comfort? There never can be comfort again! As for comfort, when were we ever comfortable? It has been one trouble after another⁠—one fear after another! And now we are friendless and homeless. I suppose they will take everything that we have.”

“Your papa had a lawyer, I suppose?”

“I think he had ever so many⁠—but I do not know who they were. His own clerk, who had lived with him for over twenty years, left him yesterday. I suppose they will know something in Abchurch Lane; but now that Herr Croll has gone I am not acquainted even with the name of one of them. Mr. Miles Grendall used to be with him.”

“I do not think that he could be of much service.”

“Nor Lord Alfred? Lord Alfred was always with him till very lately.” Nidderdale shook his head. “I suppose not. They only came because papa had a big house.” The young lord could not but feel that he was included in the same rebuke. “Oh, what a life it has been! And now⁠—now it’s over.” As she said this it seemed that for the moment her strength failed her, for she fell backwards on the corner of the sofa. He tried to raise her, but she shook him away, burying her face in her hands. He was standing close to her, still holding her arm, when he heard a knock at the front door, which was immediately opened, as the servants were hanging about in the hall. “Who are they?” said Marie, whose sharp ears caught the sound of various steps. Lord Nidderdale went out on to the head of the stairs, and immediately heard the voice of Dolly Longestaffe.

Dolly Longestaffe had on that morning put himself early into the care of Mr. Squercum, and it had happened that he with his lawyer had met his father with Mr. Bideawhile at the corner of the square. They were all coming according to appointment to receive the money which Mr. Melmotte had promised to pay them at this very hour. Of course they had none of them as yet heard of the way in which the Financier had made his last grand payment, and as they walked together to the door had been intent only in reference to their own money. Squercum, who had heard a good deal on the previous day, was very certain that the money would not be forthcoming, whereas Bideawhile was sanguine of success. “Don’t we wish we may get it?” Dolly had said, and by saying so had very much offended his father, who had resented the want of reverence implied in the use of that word “we.” They had all been admitted together, and Dolly had at once loudly claimed an old acquaintance with some of the articles around him. “I knew I’d got a coat just like that,” said Dolly, “and I never could make out what my fellow had done with it.” This was the speech which Nidderdale had heard, standing on the top of the stairs.

The two lawyers had at once seen, from the face of the man who had opened the door and from the presence of three or four servants in the hall, that things were not going on in their usual course. Before Dolly had completed his buffoonery the butler had whispered to Mr. Bideawhile that Mr. Melmotte⁠—“was no more.”

“Dead!” exclaimed Mr. Bideawhile. Squercum put his hands into his trousers pockets and opened his mouth wide. “Dead!” muttered Mr. Longestaffe senior. “Dead!” said Dolly. “Who’s dead?” The butler shook his head. Then Squercum whispered a word into the butler’s ear, and the butler thereupon nodded his head. “It’s about what I expected,” said Squercum. Then the butler whispered the word to Mr. Longestaffe, and whispered it also to Mr. Bideawhile, and they all knew that the millionaire had swallowed poison during the night.

It was known to the servants that Mr. Longestaffe was the owner of the house, and he was therefore, as having authority there, shown into the room where the body of Melmotte was lying on a sofa. The two lawyers and Dolly of course followed, as did also Lord Nidderdale, who had now joined them from the lobby above. There was a policeman in the room who seemed to be simply watching the body, and who rose from his seat when the gentlemen entered. Two or three of the servants followed them, so that there was almost a crowd round the dead man’s bier. There was no further tale to be told. That Melmotte had been in the House on the previous night, and had there disgraced himself by intoxication, they had known already. That he had been found dead that morning had been already announced. They could only stand round and gaze on the square, sullen, livid features of the big-framed man, and each lament that he had ever heard the name of Melmotte.

“Are you in the house here?” said Dolly to Lord Nidderdale in a whisper.

“She sent for me. We live quite close, you know. She wanted somebody to tell her something. I must go up to her again now.”

“Had you seen him before?”

“No indeed. I only came down when I heard your voices. I fear it will be rather bad for you;⁠—won’t it?”

“He was regularly smashed, I suppose?” asked Dolly.

“I know nothing myself. He talked to me about his affairs once, but he was such a liar that not a word that he said was worth anything. I believed him then. How it will go, I can’t say.”

“That other thing is all over of course,” suggested Dolly.

Nidderdale intimated by a gesture of his head that the other thing was all over, and then returned to Marie. There was nothing further that the four