With Zola in England | Page 8

under the door during his sleep, and its presence greatly astonished him, for he expected neither letter nor telegram. For a moment, as he has told me, he imagined this to be some trap; wondered if he had been watched and followed to London, and almost made up his mind to leave the hotel that night. But when, after a little hesitation, he had opened the envelope and read my telegram, he realised how groundless had been his alarm.
On the morrow, when I reached the Grosvenor and inquired at the office there for M. Pascal, I was asked my name, on giving which I received a note from M. Zola saying that he unexpectedly found himself obliged to go out, but would return at 2.30 P.M. As I stood reading this note, I espied a couple of individuals scrutinising me in what I deemed a most suspicious manner. Both were Frenchmen evidently; they wore billycock hats and carried stout sticks; and one of them, swarthy and almost brigandish of aspect, had the ribbon of the Legion of Honour in his buttonhole. It was easy to take these individuals for French detectives, and I hastily jumped to the conclusion that they were on 'M. Pascal's' track.
To make matters even more suspicious, when, after placing Zola's note in my pocket, I began to cross the vestibule, the others deliberately followed me, and in all likelihood I should have fled never to return if a well-known figure in a white billycock and grey suit had not suddenly advanced towards us from the direction of the staircase. In another moment I had exchanged greetings with M. Zola, and my suspicious scrutinisers had been introduced to me as friends. One of them was none other than M. Fernand Desmoulin. They had arrived from Paris that morning, and were about to sally forth with M. Zola in search of Mr. Fletcher Moulton, Q.C., to whom they had brought a letter of introduction from Maitre Labori.
Hence the note which M. Zola had already deposited for me at the hotel office. Had I been a moment later I should have found them gone.
My arrival led to a change in the programme. It was resolved to begin matters with lunch at the hotel itself, to postpone the quest for Mr. Fletcher Moulton until the afternoon. I made, at the time, a note of our menu. The 'bitter bread of exile' consisted on this occasion of an omelet, fried soles, fillet of beef, and potatoes. To wash down this anchoretic fare M. Desmoulin and myself ordered Sauterne and Apollinaris; but the contents of the water bottle sufficed for M. Zola and the other gentleman.
With waiters moving to and fro, nearly always within hearing, there was little conversation at table, but we afterwards chatted in all freedom in M. Zola's room just under the roof. Ah! that room. I have already referred to the dingy aspect which it presented. Around Grosvenor Hotel, encompassing its roof, runs a huge ornamental cornice, behind which are the windows of rooms assigned, I suppose, to luggageless visitors. From the rooms themselves there is nothing to be seen unless you throw back your head, when a tiny patch of sky above the top line of the cornice becomes visible. You are, as it were, in a gloomy well. The back of the cornice, with its plaster stained and cracked, confronts your eyes; and with a little imagination you can easily fancy yourself in a dungeon looking into some castle moat.
'_Le fosse de Vincennes_,' so M. Zola suggested, and that summed up everything. Yet it seemed to him very appropriate to his circumstances, and he absolutely refused to exchange rooms with M. Desmoulin, who was somewhat more comfortably lodged.
The appointments of M. Zola's chamber were, I remember, of a summary description. There were few chairs, and so one of us sat on the bed. We succeeded in procuring some black coffee, though the chambermaid regarded this as a most unusual 'bedroom order' at that hour of the day; and when M. Desmoulin had lighted a cigar, his friend a pipe, and myself a cigarette, a regular Council of War was held. [N.B.--M. Zola gave up tobacco in his young days, when it was a question of his spending twopence per diem on himself, or of allowing his mother the wherewithal to buy an extra pound of bread.]
The council dealt mainly with two points--first, what was M. Zola to do in England? Should he go into the country, or to the seaside, or settle down in the London suburbs? Since he wished to avoid recognition, it would be foolish for him to remain in London, particularly at an hotel like the Grosvenor. Then, for my benefit, the legal position was set forth, as well as the object of