CHAPTER LVII.
WHAT CHARLES DID WITH HIS LAST EIGHTEEN SHILLINGS.
Charles's luck seemed certainly to have deserted him at last. And thatis rather a serious matter, you see; for, as he had never trusted toanything but luck, it now follows that he had nothing left to trust to,except eighteen shillings and ninepence and his little friend thecornet, who had come home invalided and was living with his mother inHyde Park Gardens. Let us hope, reader, that you and I may never bereduced to the patronage of a cornet of Hussars, and eighteen shillingsin cash.
It was a fine frosty night, and the streets were gay and merry. It was asad Christmas for many thousands; but the general crowd seemeddetermined not to think too deeply of these sad accounts which werecoming from the Crimea just now. They seemed inclined to make ChristmasChristmas, in spite of everything; and perhaps they were right. It isgood for a busy nation like the English to have two great festivals, andtwo only, the object of which every man who is a Christian canunderstand, and on these occasions to put in practice, to the best ofone's power, the lesson of goodwill towards men which our Lord taughtus. We English cannot stand too many saints' days. We decline to stopbusiness for St. Blaise or St. Swithin; but we can understand Christmasand Easter. The foreign Catholics fiddle away so much time on saints'days that they are obliged to work like the Israelites in bondage onSunday to get on at all. I have as good a right to prophesy as any otherfreeborn Englishman who pays rates and taxes; and I prophesy that, inthis wonderful resurrection of Ireland, the attendance of the malepopulation at Church on week-days will get small by degrees andbeautifully less.
One man, Charles Ravenshoe, has got to spend his Christmas with eighteenshillings and a crippled left arm. There is half a million of money orso, and a sweet little wife, waiting for him if he would only behavelike a rational being; but he will not, and must take the consequences.
He went westward, through a kind of instinct, and he came to BelgraveSquare, where a certain duke lived. There were lights in the windows.The duke was in office, and had been called up to town. Charles was gladof this; not that he had any business to transact with the duke, but aletter to deliver to the duke's coachman.
This simple circumstance saved him from being much nearer actualdestitution than I should have liked to see him. The coachman's son hadbeen wounded at Balaclava, and was still at Scutari, and Charles broughta letter from him. He got an English welcome, I promise you. And, nextmorning, going to Hyde Park Gardens, he found that his friend the cornetwas out of town, and would not be back for a week. At this time thecoachman became very useful. He offered him money, house-room,employment, everything he could possibly get for him; and Charlesheartily and thankfully accepted house-room and board for a week.
At the end of a week he went back to Hyde Park Gardens. The cornet wascome back. He had to sit in the kitchen while his message was takenupstairs. He merely sent up his name, said he was discharged, and askedfor an interview.
The servants found out that he had been at the war, in their youngmaster's regiment, and they crowded round him, full of sympathy andkindness. He was telling them how he had last seen the cornet in thethick of it on the terrible 25th, when they parted right and left, andin dashed the cornet himself, who caught him by both hands.
"By gad, I'm so glad to see you. How you are altered without yourmoustache! Look you here, you fellows and girls, this is the man thatcharged up to my assistance when I was dismounted among the guns, andkept by me, while I caught another horse. What a cropper I went down,didn't I? What a terrible brush it was, eh? And poor Hornby, too! It isthe talk of Europe, you know. You remember old Devna, and the gallopinglizard, eh?"
And so on, till they got upstairs; and then he turned on him, and said,"Now, what are you going to do?"
"I have got eighteen shillings."
"Will your family do nothing for you?"
"Did Hornby tell you anything about me, my dear sir?" said Charles,eagerly.
"Not a word. I never knew that Hornby and you were acquainted, till Isaw you together when he was dying."
"Did you hear what we said to one another?"
"Not a word. The reason I spoke about your family is, that no one, whohad seen so much of you as I, could doubt that you were a gentleman.That is all. I am very much afraid I shall offend you----"
"That would not be easy, sir."
"Well, then, here goes. If you are utterly hard up, take service withme. There."
"I will do so with the deepest gratitude," said Charles. "But I cannotride, I fear. My left arm is gone."
"Pish! ride with your right. It's a bargain. Come up and see my mother.I must show you to her, you know, because you will have to live here.She is deaf. Now you know the reason why the major used to talk soloud."
Charles smiled for an instant; he did remember that circumstance aboutthe cornet's respected and gallant father. He followed the cornetupstairs, and was shown into the drawing-room, where sat a very handsomelady, about fifty years of age, knitting.
She was not only stone deaf, but had a trick of talking aloud, like theold lady in "Pickwick," under the impression that she was only thinking,which was a very disconcerting habit indeed. When Charles and the cornetentered the room, she said aloud, with amazing distinctness, lookinghard at Charles, "God bless me! Who has he got now? What a finegentlemanly-looking fellow. I wonder why he is dressed so shabbily."After which she arranged her trumpet, and prepared to go into action.
"This, mother," bawled the cornet, "is the man who saved me in thecharge of Balaclava."
"Do you mean that that is trooper Simpson?" said she.
"Yes, mother."
"Then may the blessing of God Almighty rest upon your head!" she said toCharles. "That time will come, trooper Simpson, when you will know thevalue of a mother's gratitude. And when that time comes think of me. Butfor you, trooper Simpson, I might have been tearing my grey hair thisday. What are we to do for him, James? He looks ill and worn. Words arenot worth much. What shall we do?"
The cornet put his mouth to his mother's trumpet, and in an apologeticbellow, such as one gets from the skipper of a fruit brig, in the Bay ofBiscay, O! when he bears up to know if you will be so kind as to obligehim with the longitude; roared out:
"He wants to take service with me. Have you any objection?"
"Of course not, you foolish boy," said she. "I wish we could do more forhim than that." And then she continued, in a tone slightly lowered, butperfectly audible, evidently under the impression that she was thinkingto herself: "He is ugly, but he has a sweet face. I feel certain he is agentleman who has had a difference with his family. I wish I could hearhis voice. God bless him! he looks like a valiant soldier. I hope hewon't get drunk, or make love to the maids."
Charles had heard every word of this before he had time to bow himselfout.
And so he accepted his new position with dull carelessness. Life wasgetting very worthless.
He walked across the park to see his friend the coachman. The frost hadgiven, and there was a dull dripping thaw. He leant against the railingsat the end of the Serpentine. There was still a great crowd all roundthe water; but up the whole expanse there were only four skaters, forthe ice was very dangerous and rotten, and the people had been warnedoff. One of the skaters came sweeping down to within a hundred yards ofwhere he was--a reckless, headlong skater, one who would chance drowningto have his will. The ice cracked every moment and warned him, but hewould not heed, till it broke, and down he went; clutching wildly at thepitiless, uptilted slabs which clanked about his head, to save himself;and then with a wild cry disappeared. The icemen were on the spot in aminute; and, when five were past, they had him out, and bore him off tothe receiving-house. A gentleman, a doctor apparently, who stood byCharles, said to him, "Well, there is a reckless fool gone to hisaccount, God forgive him!"
"They will bring him round, won't they?" said Charles.
"Ten to one against it," said the doctor. "What right has he tocalculate on such a thing,
either? Why, most likely there will be half adozen houses in mourning for that man to-morrow. He is evidently a manof some mark. I can pity his relations in their bereavement, sir, but Ihave precious little pity for a reckless fool."
And so Charles began to serve his friend the cornet, in a way--a verypoor way, I fear, for he was very weak and ill, and could do but little.The deaf lady treated him like a son, God bless her! but Charles couldnot recover the shock of his fever and delirium in the Crimea. He grewvery low-spirited and despondent by day, and worst of all, he began tohave sleepless nights--terrible nights. In the rough calculation he hadmade of being able to live through his degradation, and get used to it,he had calculated, unwittingly, on perfect health. He had thought thatin a few years he should forget the old life, and become just like oneof the grooms he had made his companions. This had now becomeimpossible, for his health and his nerve were gone.
He began to get afraid of his horses; that was the first symptom. Hetried to fight against the conviction, but it forced itself upon him.When he was on horseback, he found that he was frightened when anythingwent wrong; his knees gave way on emergency, and his hand wasirresolute. And, what is more, be sure of this, that, before heconfessed the fact to himself, the horses had found it out, and "takenaction on it," or else may I ride a donkey, with my face towards thetail, for the rest of my life.
And he began to see another thing. Now, when he was nervous, in illhealth, and whimsical, the company of men among whom he was thrown asfellow-servants became nearly unbearable. Little trifling acts ofcoarseness, unnoticed when he was in good health and strong, at the timehe was with poor Hornby, now disgusted him. Most kind-hearted youngfellows, brought up as he had been, are apt to be familiar with, andprobably pet and spoil, the man whose duty it is to minister to theirfavourite pleasures, be he gamekeeper, or groom, or cricketer, orwaterman. Nothing can be more natural, or, in proper bounds, harmless.Charles had thought that, being used to these men, he could live withthem, and do as they did. For a month or two, while in rude coarsehealth, he found it was possible; for had not Lord Welter and he donethe same thing for amusement? But now, with shattered nerves, he foundit intolerable. I have had great opportunities of seeing gentlementrying to do this sort of thing--I mean in Australia--and, as far as myexperience goes, it ends in one of two ways. Either they give it up as abad job, and assume the position that superior education gives them, orelse they take to drink, and go, not to mince matters, to the devil.
What Charles did, we shall see. Nobody could be more kind andaffectionate than the cornet and his deaf mother. They guessed that hewas "somebody," and that things were wrong with him; though, if he hadbeen a chimney-sweep's son, it would have made no difference to them,for they were "good people." The cornet once or twice invited hisconfidence; but he was too young, and Charles had not the energy to tellhim anything. His mother, too, asked him to tell her if anything waswrong in his affairs, and whether she could help him; and possibly hemight have been more inclined to confide in her, than in her son. Butwho could bellow such a sad tale of misery through an ear-trumpet? Heheld his peace.
He kept Ellen's picture, which he had taken from Hornby. He determinedhe would not go and seek her. She was safe somewhere, in some Catholicasylum. Why should he re-open her grief?
But life was getting very, very weary business. By day, his oldfavourite pleasure of riding had become a terror, and at night he got norest. Death forty good years away, by all calculation. A weary time.
He thought himself humbled, but he was not. He said to himself that hewas prevented from going back, because he had found out that Mary was inlove with him, and also because he was disgraced through his sister; andboth of these reasons were, truly, most powerful with him. But, inaddition to this, I fear there was a great deal of obstinate pride,which thing is harder to beat out of a man than most things.
And, now, after all this half-moralising narrative, an important fact ortwo. The duke was very busy, and stayed in town, and, as a consequence,the duke's coachman. Moreover, the duke's coachman's son came homeinvalided, and stayed with his father; and Charles, with the heartyapproval of the cornet, used to walk across the park every night to seehim, and talk over the campaign, and then look in at the Servants' Club,of which he was still a member. And the door of the Servants' Club roomhad glass windows to it. And I have noticed that anybody who looksthrough a glass window (under favourable circumstances) can see who ison the other side. I have done it myself more than once.