CHAPTER XLI.
CHARLES'S SECOND EXPEDITION TO ST. JOHN'S WOOD.
What a happy place a man's bed is--probably the best place in which heever finds himself. Very few people will like to deny that, I think;that is to say, as a general rule. After a long day's shooting in coldweather, for instance; or half a night on deck among the ice, when thefog has lifted, and the ghastly cold walls are safe in sight; or after afifty mile ride in the bush, under a pouring rain; or after a pleasantball, when you have to pull down the blind, that the impudent sun maynot roast you awake in two hours; for in all these cases, and a hundredmore, bed is very pleasant; but you know as well as I do, that thereare times when you would sooner be on a frozen deck, or in the wildestbush in the worst weather, or waltzing in the hall of Eblis withVathek's mama, or almost in your very grave, than in bed and awake.
Oh, the weary watches! when the soul, which in sleep would leave thetortured body to rest and ramble off in dreams, holds on by a merethread, yet a thread strong enough to keep every nerve in tense agony.When one's waking dreams of the past are as vivid as those of sleep, andthere is always present, through all, the dreadful lurking thought thatone is awake, and that it is all real. When, looking back, every kindlyimpulsive action, every heartily spoken word, makes you fancy that youhave only earned contempt where you merit kindness. When the past lookslike a hell of missed opportunities, and the future like another blackhopeless hell of uncertainty and imminent misfortune of all kinds! Oh,weary watches! Let us be at such times on the bleakest hill-side, in thecoldest night that ever blew, rather than in the warmest bed that moneywill buy.
When you are going to have a night of this kind, you seldom know itbeforehand, for certain. Sometimes, if you have had much experience inthe sort of thing--if you have lost money, or gone in debt, or if yoursweetheart has cut you very often--you may at least guess, before youget your boots off, that you are going to have a night of it; in whichcase, read yourself to sleep _in bed_. Never mind burning the house down(that would be rather desirable as a distraction from thought); butdon't read till you are sleepy with your clothes on, and then undress,because, if you do, you will find, by the time you have undressedyourself, that you are terribly wide awake, and, when the candle isblown out, you will be all ready for a regular Walpurgis night.
Charles, poor lad, had not as yet had much experience of Walpurgisnights. Before his catastrophe he had never had one. He had been used totumble tired into his bed, and sleep a heavy dreamless sleep till anhour before waking. Then, indeed, he might begin to dream of his horses,and his dogs, and so on, and then gradually wake into a state more sweetthan the sweetest dream--that state in which sense is awake to alloutward objects, but in which the soul is taking its few last airyflutters round its home, before coming to rest for the day. But, evensince then, he had not had experience enough to make him dread thenight. The night he came home from St. John's Wood, he thought he wouldgo to bed and sleep it off. Poor fellow!
A fellow-servant slept in the same room with him--the younger and bettertempered of the two (though Charles had no complaint against either ofthem). The lad was asleep; and, before Charles put out the light, helooked at him. His cheek was laid on his arm, and he seemed so calm andhappy that Charles knew that he was not there, but far away. He wasright. As he looked the lad smiled, and babbled out something in hisdream. Strange! the soul had still sufficient connection with the bodyto make it smile.
"I wonder if Miss Martineau or Mr. Atkinson ever watched the face of onewho slept and dreamt," said Charles, rambling on as soon as he had gotinto bed. "Pish! why that fellow's body is the mere tool of his soul.His soul is out a-walking, and his body is only a log. Hey, that won'tdo; that's as bad as Miss Martineau. I should have said that his body isonly a fine piece of clockwork. But clockwork don't smile of itself. Mydear Madam, and Mr. Atkinson, I am going to leave my body behind, and beoff to Ravenshoe in five minutes. That is to say, I am going to sleep."
He was, was he? Why no, not just at present. If he had meant to do so,he had, perhaps, better not have bothered himself about "Letters on thelaws of man's nature"; for, when he had done his profound cogitationsabout them, as above, he thought he had got a----well, say a pulex inhis bed. There was no more a pulex than there was a scorpion; but he hadan exciting chase after an imaginary one, like our old friend Mr. Spongeafter an imaginary fox at Laverick Wells. After this, he had anirritation where he couldn't reach, that is to say, in the middle of hisback: then he had the same complaint where he could reach, and used acertain remedy (which is a pretty way of saying that he scratchedhimself); then he had the cramp in his right leg; then he had the crampin his left leg; then he grew hot all over, and threw the clothes off;then he grew cold all over, and pulled them on again; then he had thecramp in his left leg again; then he had another flea hunt, cramp,irritation in back, heat, cold, and so on, all over; and then, afterhalf an hour, finding himself in a state of feverish despondency, hefell into a cheerful train of thought, and was quite inclined to look athis already pleasant prospects from a hopeful point of view.
Poor dear fellow! You may say that it is heartless to make fun of himjust now, when everything is going so terribly wrong. But really mystory is so very sad, that we must try to make a little feeble fun wherewe can, or it would be unreadable.
He tried to face the future, manfully. But lo! there was no future toface--it was all such a dead, hopeless blank. Ellen must come away fromthat house, and he must support her; but how? It would be dishonourablefor him to come upon the Ravenshoes for a farthing; and it would bedishonourable for her to marry that foolish Hornby. And these twocourses, being dishonourable, were impossible. And there he was broughtup short.
But would either course be dishonourable? Yes, yes, was the answer eachweary time he put the question to himself; and there the matter ended.Was there one soul in the wide world he could consult? Not one. Allalone in the weary world, he and she. Not one friend for either of them.They had made their beds, and must lie on them. When would the end of itall come? What would the end be?
There was a noise in the street. A noise of a woman scolding, whosevoice got louder and louder, till it rose into a scream. A noise of aman cursing and abusing her; then a louder scream, and a sound of blows.One, two, then a heavy fall, and silence. A drunken, homeless couple hadfallen out in the street, and the man had knocked the woman down. Thatwas all. It was very common. Probably the woman was not much hurt. Thatsort of woman got used to it. The police would come and take them to thestation. There they were. The man and woman were being taken off by twoconstables, scolding and swearing. Well, well!
Was it to come to that? There were bridges in London, and under themruns the river. Charles had come over one once, after midnight. Hewished he had never seen the cursed place. He remembered a flutteringfigure which had come and begged a halfpenny of him to pay the toll andget home. He had given her money, and then, by a sudden impulse,followed her till she was safe off the bridge. Ugly thoughts, Charles!ugly thoughts! Will the dawn never come? Why, the night is not half overyet.
God in His mercy sets a limit to human misery in many ways. I do notbelieve that the condemned man, waiting through the weary night for thegallows, thinks all night through of his fate. We read generally inthose accounts of the terrible last night (which are so rightlypublished in the newspapers--they are the most terrifying part of thepunishment), that they conversed cheerfully, or slept, or did something,showing that they half forgot for a time what was coming. And so, beforethe little window grew to a lighter grey, poor Charles had found somerelief from his misery. He was between sleep and waking, and he hadfulfilled his challenge to Miss Martineau, though later than heintended. He had gone to Ravenshoe.
There it was, all before him. The dawn behind the eastern headland hadflooded the amphitheatre of hills, till the crags behind the house hadturned from grey to gold, and the vane upon the priest's tower shonelike a star. The sea had changed from black to purple, and thefishing-boats were stealing
lazily homewards, over the gentle rollingground-swell. The surf was whispering to the sand of their coming. Aswindow after window blazed out before the sun, and as woodland andhill-side, stream and park, village and lonely farm in the distantvalley, waked before the coming day, Charles watched, in his mind's eye,the dark old porch, till there came out a figure in black, and stoodsolitary in the terrace gazing seawards. And as he said, "Cuthbert," hefell into a dreamless, happy sleep.
He determined that he would not go to see Ellen till the afternoon.Hornby was on duty in the morning, and never saw Charles all day; heavoided him as though on purpose. Charles, on his part, did not want tomeet him till he had made some definite arrangement, and so was glad ofit. But, towards two o'clock, it came across his mind that he wouldsaunter round to St. Peter's Church, and see the comical little imp of aboy who was generally to be found there, and beguile a quarter of anhour by listening to his prattle.
He had given up reading. He had hardly opened a book since hismisfortune. This may seem an odd thing to have to record about agentleman, and to a certain extent a scholar; but so it was. He wantedto lower himself, and he was beginning to succeed. There was anessential honesty in him, which made him hate to appear what he was not;and this feeling, carried to an absurd extent, prevented his takingrefuge in the most obvious remedy for all troubles except hunger--books.He did not know, as I do, that determined reading--reading of anything,even the advertisements in a newspaper--will stop all cravings exceptthose of the stomach, and will even soften them; but he guessed it,nevertheless. "Why should I read?" said he. "I must learn to do as therest of them." And so he did as the rest of them, and "rather loafedaway his time than otherwise."
And he was more inclined to "loaf" than usual this day, because he verymuch dreaded what was to come. And so he dawdled round to St. Peter'sChurch, and came upon his young friend, playing at fives with the ballhe had given him, as energetically as he had before played with thebrass button. Shoeblacks are compelled to a great deal of unavoidable"loafing;" but certainly this one loafed rather energetically, for hewas hot and frantic in his play.
He was very glad to see Charles. He parted his matted hair from hisface, and looked at him admiringly with a pleasant smile; then hesuddenly said--
"You was drunk last night, worn't you?"
Charles said, No--that he never got drunk.
"Worn't you really, though?" said the boy; "you look as tho' you had abeen. You looks wild about the eyes;" and then he hazarded anothertheory to account for Charles's appearance, which Charles also negativedemphatically.
"I gave a halpenny for this one," said the boy, showing him the ball,"and I spent the other halpenny." Here he paused, expecting a rebuke,apparently; but Charles nodded kindly at him, and he was encouraged togo on, and to communicate a piece of intelligence with the air of onewho assumes that his hearer is _au fait_ with all the movements of thegreat world, and will be interested.
"Old Biddy Flanigan's dead."
"No! is she?" said Charles, who, of course, had not the wildest idea whoshe was, but guessed her to be an aged, and probably a dissipatedIrishwoman.
"Ah! I believe you," said the boy. "And they was a-waking on her lastnight, down in our court (he said, "daone in aour cawt").They waked me sharp enough; but, as for she! she's fast."
"What did she die of?" asked Charles.
"Well, she died mostly along of Mr. Malone's bumble foot, I fancy. Himand old Biddy was both drunk a-fighting on the stairs, and she was astep below he; and he being drunk, and bumble-footed too, lost hisbalance, and down they come together, and the back of her head comeagainst the door scraper, and there she was. Wake she!" he added withscorn, "not if all the Irish and Rooshans in France was to put stones intheir stockings, and howl a week on end, they wouldn't wake her."
"Did they put stones in their stockings?" asked Charles, thinking thatit was some papist form of penance.
"Miss Ophelia Flanigan, she put half a brick in her stocking end, so shedid, and come at Mr. Malone for to break his head with it, and therewere a hole in the stocking, and the brick flew out, and hit old DennyMoriarty in the jaw, and broke it. And he worn't a doing nothink, heworn't; but was sitting in a corner decent and quiet, blind drunk, asinging to his self; and they took he to Guy's orspital. And the pleececome in, and got gallus well kicked about the head, and then they tookthey to Guy's orspital; and then Miss Flanigan fell out of winder intothe airy, and then they took she to Guy's orspital; and there they is,the whole bilin of 'em in bed together, with their heads broke, a-eatingof jelly and a-drinking of sherry wind; and then in comes a mob fromRosemary Lane, and then they all begins to get a bit noisy and want tofight, and so I hooked it."
"Then there are a good many Irish in your court?" said Charles.
"Irish! ah! I believe you. They're all Irish there except we and BillyJones's lot. The Emperor of Rooshar is a nigger; but his lot is mostlyIrish, but another bilin of Irish from Mr. Malone's lot. And one on 'emplays the bagpipes, with a bellus, against the water-butt of a Sundayevening, when they're off the lay. And Mr. Malone's lot heaves crockeryand broken vegetables at him out of winder, by reason of their beingcostermongers, and having such things handy; so there's mostly a shineof a Sunday evening."
"But who are Mr. Malone, and Billy Jones, and the Emperor of Russia?"
"They keeps lodging houses," said the boy. "Miss Ophelia Flanigan ismarried on Mr. Malone, but she keeps her own name, because her family'sa better one nor his'n, and she's ashamed of him. They gets on very wellwhen they're sober, but since they've been a making money they mostlygets drunk in bed of a morning, so they ain't so happy together as theywas."
"Does she often attack him with a brick in the foot of a stocking?"asked Charles.
"No," said the boy, "she said her papa had taught her that little game.She used to fist hold of the poker, but he got up to that, and spoutedit. So now they pokes the fire with a mop-stick, which ain't so handy tohit with, and softer."
Charles walked away northward, and thought what a charming sort ofperson Miss Ophelia Flanigan must be, and how he would rather like toknow her for curiosity's sake. The picture he drew of her in his mindwas not exactly like the original, as we shall see.
It was very pleasant summer weather--weather in which an idle man wouldbe inclined to dawdle, under any circumstances; and Charles was the moreinclined to dawdle, because he very much disliked the errand on which hewent. He could loiter at street corners now with the best of them, andtalk to any one who happened to be loitering there too. He was gettingon.
So he loitered at street corners and talked. And he found out somethingto-day for the first time. He had been so absorbed in his own troublesthat all rumours had been to him like the buzzing of bees; but to-day hebegan to appreciate that this rumour of war was no longer a mere rumour,but likely to grow into an awful reality.
If he were only free, he said to himself. If he could only provide forpoor Ellen. "Gad, if they could get up a regiment of fellows in the samestate of mind as I am!"
He went into a public-house, and drank a glass of ale. They were talkingof it there. "Sir Charles Napier is to have the fleet," said one man,"and if he don't bring Cronstadt about their ears in two hours, I am aDutchman. As for Odessa----"
A man in seedy black, who (let us hope) had seen better days, suggestedSebastopol.
The first man had not heard of Sebastopol. It could not be a place ofmuch importance, or he must have heard of it. Talk to him aboutPetersburg and Moscow, and he would listen to you.
This sort of talk, heard everywhere on his slow walk, excited Charles;and thinking over it, he came to the door of Lord Welter's house, andrang.
The door was barely opened, when he saw Lord Welter himself in the hall,who called to him by his Christian name, and bade him come in. Charlesfollowed Lord Welter into a room, and, when the latter turned round,Charles saw that he was disturbed and anxious.
"Charles," he said, "Ellen is gone!"
Charles said "Where?" for he har
dly understood him.
"Where? God knows! She must have left the house soon after you saw herlast night. She left this note for me. Take it and read it. You see I amfree from blame in this matter."
Charles took it and read it.
"MY LORD,
"I should have consented to accept the shelter of your roof for a longer period, were it not that, by doing so, I should be continually tempted to the commission of a dishonourable action--an action which would bring speedy punishment on myself, by ruining too surely the man whom, of all others in the world, I love and respect.
"Lieutenant Hornby has proposed marriage to me. Your lordship's fine sense of honour will show you at once how impossible it is for me to consent to ruin his prospects by a union with such a one as myself. Distrusting my own resolution, I have fled, and henceforth I am dead to him and to you.
"Ah! Welter, Welter! you yourself might have been loved as he is, once; but that time is gone by for ever. I should have made you a better wife than Adelaide. I might have loved you myself once, but I fell more through anger and vanity than through love.
"My brother, he whom we call Charles Ravenshoe, is in this weary world somewhere. I have an idea that you will meet him. You used to love one another. Don't let him quarrel with you for such a worthless straw as I am. Tell him I always loved him as a brother. It is better that we should not meet yet. Tell him that he must make his own place in the world before we meet, and then I have something to say to him.
"Mary, the Mother of God, and the blessed saints before the throne, bless you and him, here and hereafter!"
Charles had nothing to say to Lord Welter, not one word. He saw that theletter was genuine. He understood that Welter had had no time to tellher of his coming, and that she was gone; neither Welter nor he knewwhere, or were likely to know; that was all. He only bid him good-bye,and walked home again.
When you know the whole story, you will think that Charles's run of illluck at this time is almost incredible; but I shall call you to witnessthat it is not so. This was the first stroke of real ill luck that hehad had. All his other misfortunes came from his mad determination ofalienating himself from all his friends. If he had even left Lord Welterfree to have mentioned that he had been seen, all might have gone well,but he made him promise secrecy; and now, after having, so to speak,made ill luck for himself, and lamented over it, here was a real strokeof it with a vengeance, and he did not know it. He was not anxious aboutEllen's future; he felt sure at once that she was going into some RomanCatholic refuge, where she would be quiet and happy. In fact, with a newfancy he had in his head, he was almost content to have missed her. AndEllen, meanwhile, never dreamt either of his position or state of mind,or she would have searched him out at the end of the world. She thoughthe was just as he always had been, or, perhaps, turning his attention tosome useful career with Cuthbert's assistance; and she thought she wouldwait, and wait she did; and they went apart, not to meet till the valleyof the shadow of death had been passed, and life was not so well worthhaving as it had been.
But as for our old friend Father Mackworth. As I said once before, "It'sno use wondering, but I do wonder," whether Father Mackworth, had heknown how near Ellen and Charles had been to meeting the night before,would not have whistled "Lillibulero," as Uncle Toby did in times ofdismay; that is, if he had known the tune.