Complete Works of Emile Zola (1860 page)

This again might lead to unpleasantness, and I could see that the master was gradually growing anxious. By this time, however, we had reached St. James’s Park, and there, as we seated ourselves on some chairs beside the ornamental water, I led the conversation into another channel by producing an evening newspaper, and reading therefrom successive narratives of how M. Zola had sailed for Norway, how he had taken train at the Eastern Terminus in Paris, and how he had been bicycling through the Oberland on his way to some mysterious Helvetian retreat. Then we laughed — ah! those journalists! — and fears were at an end.

The ducks paddled past us, the drooping foliage of the island trees stirred in the warm breeze. On a bench near at hand a couple of vagrants sat dozing, with their toes protruding through their wretched footgear. Then a soldier, smart and pert, strolled up, a flower between his lips and a good-looking girl beside him. Away in front of us were the top windows and the roofs of St. Anne’s Mansions. Farther, on the left, the clock tower of Westminster glinted in the sun-rays.

‘Fine ducks!’ said M. Zola.

‘A pretty corner,’ added Desmoulin, waving his hand towards some branches that drooped to the water’s edge. And suddenly I remembered and told them of another French exile, the epicurean St. Evremond, whose needs were relieved by Charles II. appointing him governor of yonder Duck Island at a salary of three hundred pounds a year.

‘Well, I have little money in my pocket,’ quoth Zola, ‘but I don’t think I shall come to that. I hope that my pen alone will always yield me the little I require.’

But Big Ben struck the hour. It was six o’clock. So we separated, Messrs. Zola and Desmoulin to retire to the dungeon at the Grosvenor, and I to go in search of my friend the solicitor at his private house at Wimbledon.

III

DANGER SIGNALS

That evening, I called upon my friend — Mr. F. W. Wareham, of Wimbledon, and Ethelburge House, Bishopsgate Street — and laid before him the legal points. I afterwards arranged to see him on the following morning in town, when I hoped to fix a meeting between him and M. Zola. My first call on Thursday, July 21, was made to the Grosvenor Hotel, where I found both the master and M. Desmoulin in a state of anxiety. M. Zola, for his part, felt altogether out of his element. After the excitement of his trial and his journey to England, and the novelty of finding himself stranded in a strange city, a kind of reaction had set in and he was extremely depressed.

M. Desmoulin on his side, having procured several morning newspapers, had explored their columns to ascertain whether the ladies by whom the master had been recognised in the street on the previous day, had by any chance noised the circumstance abroad. However, the Press was still on the Norway and Holland scents, and as yet not a paper so much as suggested M. Zola’s presence in England.

‘There has hardly been time,’ said Desmoulin to me, ‘but there will probably be something fresh this afternoon. Those actresses are certain to tell people, and we shall have to make ourselves scarce.’

I tried to cheer and tranquillise both him and M. Zola, and then arranged that Wareham should come to the hotel at 2 P.M. Meantime, said I, whatever M. Desmoulin might do, it would be as well for M. Zola to remain indoors. Several commissions were entrusted to me, and I went off, promising to return about noon.

I betook myself first to Messrs. Chatto and Windus’s in St. Martin’s Lane, where I arrived a few minutes before ten o’clock. Neither Mr. Chatto nor his partner, Mr. Percy Spalding, had as yet arrived, and I therefore had to wait a few minutes. When Mr. Spalding made his appearance he greeted me with a smile, and while leading the way to his private room exclaimed, ‘So our friend Zola is in London!’

To describe my amazement is beyond my powers. I could only gasp, ‘How do you know that?’

‘Why, my wife saw him yesterday in Buckingham Palace Road.’

I was confounded. For my part I had scarcely glanced at the ladies whom Desmoulin had conjectured to be French actresses — simply because they were young, prepossessing, and spoke French! — and certainly I should not readily have recognised Mrs. Spalding, whom I had only met once some years previously. It now seemed to me rather fortunate that she should be the person who had recognised M. Zola, since she would naturally be discreet as soon as the situation should be made clear to her.

After I had explained the position, I ascertained that the only person besides herself who knew anything so far were her husband and the lady friend who had accompanied her on the previous day.

‘I will telegraph to my wife at once,’ said Mr. Spalding, ‘and you may be sure that the matter will go no further. We certainly had a hearty laugh at breakfast this morning when we read in the “Telegraph” of Zola bicycling over the Swiss frontier; but, of course, as from what you tell me, the matter is serious, neither my wife nor myself will speak of it.’

‘And her friend?’ I exclaimed, ‘she knows nothing of the necessity for secrecy, and may perhaps gossip about it.’

‘She is going to Hastings to-day.’

‘Hastings!’ said I, ‘why M. Desmoulin, Zola’s companion, does nothing but talk of going to Hastings! I am glad I know this. Hastings is barred for good, so far as Zola is concerned.’

‘Well, I will arrange for my wife to see her friend this morning before she starts,’ Mr. Spalding rejoined, ‘and in this way we may be sure that her friend will say nothing.’

This excellent suggestion was acted upon immediately. Mr. Spalding telegraphed full instructions to his wife, and later in the day I learnt that everything had been satisfactorily arranged. But for this timely action, following upon my lucky call at Messrs. Chatto and Windus’s establishment, it is virtually certain that the meeting in the Buckingham Palace Road would have been talked about and the game of ‘Where is Zola?’ brought to an abrupt conclusion. As it happened, both ladies, being duly warned, preserved absolute secrecy.

After going to Bishopsgate Street to see Wareham, and executing several minor commissions, I returned to the Grosvenor, where Zola and Desmoulin were much amused when I told them of the outcome of the previous day’s fright.

‘It was a remarkable coincidence certainly,’ said M. Zola. ‘At a low calculation I daresay a thousand women passed me in the streets yesterday; just one of them recognised me, and she, you say, was Mrs. Spalding. Shortsighted as I am, not having seen her, too, since I was in England, a few years ago, I had no notion she was the person who turned as she passed along, and said, “There’s Monsieur Zola.”

‘But the curious part of it is that you should have had to go to Chatto’s, and should have learnt the lady’s name so promptly from her husband! Mathematically there were untold chances that this lady who recognised me might be some stranger’s wife, and that we might never more hear anything of her! Yet you discover her identity at once. This is the kind of thing which occasionally occurs in novels, but which critics say never happens in real life. Well, now we know the contrary.’

And he added gaily, ‘You see it is another instance of my good luck, which still attends me in spite of all the striving of those who bear me grudges.’

So far as the ladies were concerned things were, indeed, very satisfactory. But the same could hardly be said of the position at the Grosvenor. Neither M. Zola nor M. Desmoulin could leave the hotel or return to it without being scrutinised. They had also noticed many a glance in their direction at meal-time in the dining-room; and they had come to the conclusion that departure was imperative. I did not gainsay them, for I shared their views, and, in fact, I had already discussed the matter with Wareham. I explained, however, that one must have a few hours to devise suitable plans.

Seaside places were dangerous at that time of the year, and the best course would probably be to take a furnished house in the country. Meantime, said I, Wareham had kindly offered to accommodate M. Zola at his residence at Wimbledon, while M. Desmoulin might sleep close by at the house of Mr. Everson (Wareham’s managing clerk), who also disposed of a spare bedroom. Further discussion of these matters was postponed, however, until Wareham’s arrive at the Grosvenor in the afternoon.

As Zola and Desmoulin both distrusted the inquisitive glances of the visitors and the attendants at the hotel, we lunched, I remember, at a restaurant in or near Victoria Street — a deep, narrow place, crowded with little tables. And here again M. Zola, in his light garments, with the rosette of the Legion of Honour showing brightly in his buttonhole, became the observed of all observers.

He was, indeed, so conspicuous, so characteristic a figure that, looking backward and remembering how repeatedly the illustrated papers had portrayed him and how many photographs of him were to be seen in shop windows, I often wonder how it happened that he was not recognised a hundred times during those few days spent in London. It may be that many did recognise him, but held their tongues. As yet, certainly, there was not a word in the newspapers to set his adversaries upon his track.

It was in a corner of the smoking-room at the Grosvenor, a hot gloomy apartment overlooking Victoria Station, that I introduced Wareham to the novelist. The former had already formed some opinion, but a few points remained for consideration. The chief of these, as Wareham explained, was how far the French Republic might claim jurisdiction over Frenchmen.

In matters of process some countries asserted a measure of authority over their subjects wherever they might be; and the question was, what might be the law of France in that respect? Of course M. Zola could not be extradited. The offence for which he had been sentenced did not come within the purview of the Extradition Act. Again (in reply to a query from M. Zola), there was no diplomatic channel through which a French criminal libel judgment could be signified in England. But suppose that French detectives should discover M. Zola’s whereabouts, and suppose a French process-server should quietly come to England with a couple of witnesses, and by some craft or good luck should succeed in placing a copy of the Versailles judgment in M. Zola’s hands?

Unless a breach of the Queen’s peace were committed, it might be difficult for the English authorities to interfere. There appeared to be no case or precedent in England applying to such a matter. In Germany a foreign process-server would be liable to penal servitude. But, of course, that was not to the point. Again, although the service by a foreigner might not hold good in English law, that had nothing to do with it. The process-server and his witnesses would immediately return to France; they would there prove to the satisfaction of their employers that they had served the judgment on M. Zola personally, and they would be able to snap their fingers at English lawyers should the latter complain that the thrusting of a document into a man’s hand under such circumstances was a technical assault. They would have gained their point. Judgment would have been served, and in accordance with French law M. Zola would be called upon to enter an appearance against it at Versailles.

‘Things must largely depend,’ concluded Wareham, ‘on whether French law allows process to be served on a subject out of the jurisdiction. And that is a point rather for French legal advisers than for me. Still I shall look into the matter further; and if at the same time Maitre Labori can be communicated with and can supply his opinion on the question, so much the better. I now raise the point because it seems the crux of the whole matter, and if it goes against us it is certain that M. Zola ought to remain in close retirement. For the present it is as well that he should run as little risk as possible.’

M. Zola acquiesced in the suggestion of writing to his French counsel on the point which had been raised; and the conversation then went on in the same low tone that had been preserved from the outset.

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 shifted 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 passed 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 circumstance which doubtless gave rise to the rumour that Mme. Zola had joined her husband in London.