JACK'S TRIBULATIONS.--THEY RISE UP IN THE VERY FACE OF THE MOST
ASTONISHING GOOD FORTUNES.--FOR, WHAT IS LIKE A LEGACY?--AND THIS COMES
TO JACK!--SEVEN THOUSAND POUNDS STERLING PER ANNUM!--BUT WHAT'S THE USE
OF IT ALL?--JACK COMES TO GRIEF!--WOE! SORROW! DESPAIR! ALL THE WIDOW!
--INFATUATION.--A MAD PROPOSAL.--A MADMAN, A LUNATIC, AN IDIOT, A MARCH
HARE, AND A HATTER, ALL ROLLED INTO ONE, AND THAT ONE THE LUCKY YET
UNFORTUNATE JACK.
Jack had been falling off more and more. I was taken up with the
O'Hallorans; he, with those two points between which he oscillated like
a pendulum; and our intercourse diminished, until at length days would
intervene without a meeting between us.
It was in the middle of June.
I had not seen Jack for more than a week.
Suddenly, I was reminded of him by a startling rumor that reached my
ears after every soul in the garrison and in the city had heard it. It
referred to Jack. It was nothing about the widow, nothing about Louie,
nothing about Marion, nothing about Miss Phillips.
It did not refer to duns.
He had not been nabbed by the sheriff.
He had not put an end to himself.
In short, the news was, that an uncle of his had died, and left him a
fortune of unknown proportions. _Omne iguotum pro mirifico_, of course;
and so up went Jack's fortune to twenty thousand a year. Jack had told
me about that uncle, and I had reason to know that it was at least six
or seven thousand; and, let me tell you, six or seven thousand pounds
per annum isn't to be laughed at.
So here was Jack--raised up in a moment--far above the dull level of
debt, and duns, and despair; raised to an upper and, I trust, a better
world, where swarms of duns can never arise, and bailiffs never come;
raised, my boy, to a region of serene delight, where, like the gods of
Epicurus, he might survey from his cloudless calm the darkness and the
gloom of the lower world. A fortune, by Jove! Seven thousand pounds
sterling a year! Hard cash! Why, the thing fairly took my breath away.
I sat down to grapple with the stupendous thought. Aha! where would the
duns be now? What would those miserable devils say now, that had been
badgering him with lawyers' letters? Wouldn't they all haul off?
Methought they would. Methought! why, meknew they would--mefancied how
they would fawn, and cringe, and apologize, and explain, and lick the
dust, and offer to polish his noble boots, and present themselves for
the honor of being kicked by him. Nothing is more degrading to our
common humanity than the attitude of a creditor toward a poor debtor
--except the attitude of that same creditor, when he learns that his
debtor has suddenly become rich.
Having finally succeeded in mastering this great idea, I hurried off to
Jack to congratulate him.
I found him in his room. He was lying down, looking very blue, very
dismal, and utterly used up. At first, I did not notice this, but burst
forth in a torrent of congratulations, shaking his hand most violently.
He raised himself slightly from the sofa on which he was reclining, and
his languid hand did not return my warm grasp, nor did his face exhibit
the slightest interest in what I said. Seeing this, I stopped short
suddenly.
"Hallo, old boy!" I cried. "What's the matter? Any thing happened?
Isn't it true, then?"
"Oh, yes," said Jack, dolefully, leaning forward, with his elbows on
his knees, and looking at the floor.
"Well, you don't seem very jubilant about it. Any thing the matter?
Why, man, if you were dying, I would think you'd rise up at the idea
of seven thousand a year."
Jack said nothing.
At such a check as this to my enthusiastic sympathy, I sat in silence
for a time, and looked at him. His elbows were on his knees, his face
was pale, his hair in disorder, and his eyes were fixed on the wall
opposite with a vacant and abstracted stare. There was a haggard look
about his handsome face, and a careworn expression on his broad brow,
which excited within me the deepest sympathy and sadness. Something had
happened--something of no common kind. This was a something which was
far, very far, more serious than those old troubles which had oppressed
him. This was something far different from those old perplexities--the
entanglements with three engagements. Amid all those he was nothing but
a big, blundering baby; but now he seemed like a sorrow-stricken man.
Where was the light of his eyes, the glory of his brow, the music of
his voice? Where was that glow that once used to pervade his fresh,
open, sunny face? Where! It was Jack--but not the Jack of old. It was
Jack--but
"Alas! how changed from him
That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim!"
Or, as another poet has it--
'"Twas Jack--but living Jack no more!"
"Jack," said I, after a long and solemn silence, in which I had tried
in vain to conjecture what might possibly be the cause of this--"Jack,
dear boy, you and I have had confidences together, a little out of the
ordinary line. I came here to congratulate you about your fortune; but
I find you utterly cut up about something. Will you let me ask you what
it is? I don't ask out of idle curiosity, but out of sympathy. At the
same time, if it's any thing of a private nature, I beg pardon for
asking you to tell it."
Jack looked up, and a faint flicker of a smile passed over his face.
"Oh, all right, old boy!" he said. "I'm hit hard--all up--and that sort
of thing--hit hard--yes, damned hard--serves me right, too, you know,
for being such an infernal fool."
He frowned, and drew a long breath.
"Wait a minute, old chap," said he, rising from the sofa; "I'll get
something to sustain nature, and then I'll answer your question. I'm
glad you've come. I don't know but that it'll do me good to tell it all
to somebody. It's hard to stay here in my den, fretting my heart out
--damned hard!--but wait a minute, and I'll explain."
Saying this, he walked over to the sideboard.
"Will you take any thing?"
"Thanks, no," said I; "a pipe is all I want." And I proceeded to fill
and light one.
Thereupon Jack poured out a tumbler of raw brandy, which he swallowed.
Then he came back to the sofa. A flush came to his face, and his eyes
looked brighter; but he had still the same haggard aspect.
"I'm in for it, Macrorie," said he at last, gloomily.
"In for it?"
"Yes--an infernal scrape."
"What?"
"The widow--damn her!" and he struck his clinched fist against the head
of the sofa.
"In for it? The widow?" I repeated. "What do you mean?"
Jack drew a long breath, and regarded me with a fixed stare. "I mean," said
Jack, fixing his eyes upon me with an awful look, "I mean this
--that I have to marry that woman."
"Marry her?"
"Yes," he exclaimed, dashing his fist upon the table savagely, "marry
her! There you have it. I'm in for it. No escape. Escape--ha! ha!
Nabbed, sir. All up! Married and done for--yes, eternally done for!"
He jerked these words out in a fierce, feverish way; and then, flinging
himself back, he clasped his knees with his hands, and sat regarding me
with stern eyes and frowning brow.
This mood of Jack's was a singular one. He was evidently undergoing
great distress of mind. Under such circumstances as these, no levity
could be thought of. Had he not been so desperate, I might have
ventured upon a jest about the widow driving the others from the field
and coming forth victorious; but, as it was, there was no room for
jest. So I simply sat in silence, and returned his gaze.
"Well?" said he at last, impatiently.
"Well?" said I.
"Haven't you got any thing to say about that?"
"I don't know what to say. Your manner of telling this takes me more by
surprise than the thing itself. After all, you must have looked forward
to this."
"Looked forward? I'll be hanged if I did, except in a very general way.
Damn it, man! I thought she'd have a little pity on a fellow, and allow
me some liberty. I didn't look forward to being shut up at once."
"At once? You speak as though the event were near."
"Near? I should think it was. What do you say to next week? Is that
near or not? Near? I should rather think so."
"Next week? Good Lord! Jack, do you really mean it? Nonsense!"
"Next week--yes--and worse--on Tuesday--not the end, but the beginning,
of the week--Tuesday, the 20th of June."
"Tuesday, the 20th of June!" I repeated, in amazement.
"Yes, Tuesday, the 20th of June," said Jack.
"Heavens, man! what have you been up to? How did it happen? Why did you
do it? Couldn't you have postponed it? It takes two to make an
agreement. What do you mean by lamenting over it now? Why didn't you
get up excuses? Haven't you to go home to see about your estates? Why,
in Heaven's name, did you let it be all arranged in this way, if you
didn't want it to be?"
Jack looked at me for a few moments very earnestly. "Why didn't I?"
said he, at length; "simply because I happen to be an unmitigated,
uncontrollable, incorrigible, illimitable, and inconceivable ASS!
That's the reason why, if you must know."
Jack's very forcible way of putting this statement afforded me no
chance whatever of denying it or combating it. His determination to be
an ass was so vehement, that remonstrance was out of the question. I
therefore accepted it as a probable truth.
For some time I remained silent, looking at Jack, and puffing solemnly
at my pipe. In a situation of this kind, or in fact in any situation
where one is expected to say something, but doesn't happen to have any
thing in particular to say, there's nothing in the world like a pipe.
For the human face, when it is graced by a pipe, and when the pipe is
being puffed, assumes, somehow, a rare and wonderful expression of
profound and solemn thought. Besides, the presence of the pipe in the
mouth is a check to any overhasty remark. Vain and empty words are thus
repressed, and thought, divine thought, reigns supreme. And so as I sat
in silence before Jack, if I didn't have any profound thoughts in my
mind, I at least had the appearance of it, which after all served my
purpose quite as well.
"I don't mind telling you all about it, old chap," said Jack, at last,
who had by this time passed into a better frame of mind, and looked
more like his old self. "You've known all about the row, all along, and
you'll have to be in at the death, so I'll tell you now. You'll have to
help me through--you'll be my best man, and all that sort of thing, you
know--and this is the best tune for making a clean breast of it, you
know: so here goes."
Upon this Jack drew a long breath, and then began:
"I've told you already," he said, "how abominably kind she was. You
know when I called on her after the row with Miss Phillips, how sweet
she was, and all that, and how I settled down on the old terms. I
hadn't the heart to get up a row with her, and hadn't even the idea of
such a thing. When a lady is civil, and kind, and all that, what can a
fellow do? So you see I went there as regular as clock-work, and dined,
and then left. Sometimes I went at six, and stayed till eight;
sometimes at five, and stayed till nine. But that was very seldom.
Sometimes, you know, she'd get me talking, and somehow the time would
fly, and it would be ever so late before I could get away. I'm always
an ass, and so I felt tickled, no end, at her unfailing kindness to me,
and took it all as so much incense, and all that--I was her deity, you
know--snuffing up incense--receiving her devotion--feeling half sorry
that I couldn't quite reciprocate, and making an infernal fool of
myself generally.
"Now you know I'm such a confounded ass that her very reticence about
my other affairs, and her quiet way of taking them, rather piqued me;
and several times I threw out hints about them, to see what she would
say. At such times she would smile in a knowing way, but say nothing.
At last there was one evening--it was a little over a week ago--I went
there, and found her more cordial than ever, more amusing, more
fascinating--kinder, you know, and all that. There was no end to her
little attentions. Of course all that sort of thing had on me the
effect which it always has, and I rapidly began to make an ass of
myself. I began to hint about those other affairs--and at last I told
her I didn't believe she'd forgiven me."
Here Jack made an awful pause, and looked at me in deep solemnity.
I said nothing, but puffed away in my usual thoughtful manner.
"The moment that I said that," continued Jack, "she turned and gave me
the strangest look. 'Forgiven you,' said she; 'after all that has
passed, can _you_ say that?'
"'Well,' I said, 'you don't seem altogether what you used to be--'
"'I!' she exclaimed. 'I not what I used to be?--and _you_ can look _me_
in the face and say that.'
"And now, Macrorie, listen to what an ass can do.
"You see, her language, her tone, and her look, all piqued me. But at
the same time I didn't know what to say. I didn't love her--confound
her!--and I knew that I didn't--but I wanted to assert myself, or some
ether damned thing or other--so what did I do but take her hand."
I puffed on.
"She leaned back in her chair. 'Ah, Jack,' she sighed, 'I don't
believe you care any thing for poor me.'"
Jack paused for a while, and sat looking at the floor.
"Which was quite true," he continued, at last. "Only under the
circumstances, being thus challenged, you know, by a very pretty widow,
and being an ass, and being conceited, and being dazzled by the
surroundings, what did I do but begin to swear that I loved her better
than ever?
"'And me alone!' she sighed.
"'Yes, you alone!' I cried, and then went on in the usual strain in
which impassioned lovers go under such circumstances, but with this
very material difference, that I didn't happen to be an impassioned
lover, or any other kind of a lover of hers at all, and I knew it all
the time, and all the time felt a secret horror at what I was saying.
"But the fact of the business is, Macrorie, that woman is--oh--she is
awfully clever, and she managed to lead me on, I don't know how. She
pretended not to believe me--she hinted at my indifference, she spoke
about my joy at getting away from her so as to go elsewhere, and said a
thousand other things, all of which had the effect of making me more of
an ass than ever, and so I rushed headlong to destruction."
Here Jack paused, and looked at me despairingly.
"Well?" said I.
"Well?" said he.
"Go on," said I. "Make an end of it. Out with it! What next?"
Jack gave a groan.
"Well--you see--somehow--I went on and before I knew it there I was
offering to marry her on the spot--and--heavens and earth! Macrorie
--wasn't it a sort of judgment on me--don't you think?--I'd got used to
that sort of thing, you know offering to marry people off hand, you
know, and all that--and so it came natural on this occasion; and I
suppose that was how it happened, that before I knew what I was doing I
had pumped out a violent and vehement entreaty for her to be mine at
once.--Yes, at once--any time--that evening--the next day--the day
after--no matter when. I'll be hanged if I can say now whether at that
moment I was really sincere or not. I'm such a perfect and finished
ass, that I really believe I meant what I said, and at that time I
really wanted her to marry me. If that confounded chaplain that goes
humbugging about there all the time had happened to be in the room, I'd
have asked him to tie the knot on the spot. Yes, I'll be hanged if I
wouldn't! His not being there is the only reason, I believe, why the
knot wasn't tied. In that case I'd now be Mr. Finnimore--no, by Jove
--what rot!--I mean I'd now be her husband, and she'd be Mrs. Randolph
--confound her!"
Jack again relapsed into silence. His confession was a difficult task
for him, and it came hard. It was given piecemeal, like the confession
of a murderer on the day before his execution, when his desire to
confess struggles with his unwillingness to recall the particulars of
an abhorrent deed, and when after giving one fact he delays and
falters, and lapses into long silence before he is willing or able to
give another.
"Well, after that," he resumed, at last, "I was fairly in for it--no
hope, no going back--no escapes--trapped, my boy--nabbed--gone in
forever--head over heels, and all the rest of it. The widow was
affected by my vehemence, as a matter of course--she stammered--she
hesitated, and of course, being an ass, I was only made more vehement
by all that sort of thing, you know. So I urged her, and pressed her,
and then, before I knew what I was about, I found her coyly granting my
insane request to name the day."
"Oh, Jack! Jack! Jack!" I exclaimed.
"Go on," said he. "Haven't you something more to say? Pitch in. Give
it to me hot and heavy. You don't seem to be altogether equal to the
occasion, Macrorie. Why don't you hit hard?"
"Can't do it," said I. "I'm knocked down myself. Wait, and I'll come to
time. But don't be too hard on a fellow. Be reasonable. I want to take
breath."
"Name the day! name the day! name the day!" continued Jack, ringing the
changes on the words; "name the day! By Jove! See here, Macrorie--can't
you get a doctor's certificate for me and have me quietly put in the
lunatic asylum before that day comes?"
"That's not a bad idea," said I. "It might be managed. It's worth
thinking about, at any rate."
"Wild!" said Jack, "mad as a March hare, or a hatter, or any other
thing of that sort--ungovernable--unmanageable, devoid of all sense and
reason--what more do you want? If I am not a lunatic, who is? That's
what I want to know."
"There's a great deal of reason in that," said I, gravely.
"No there isn't," said Jack, pettishly. "It's all nonsense. I tell you
I'm a madman, a lunatic, an idiot, any thing else. I don't quite need a
strait-jacket as yet, but I tell you I do need the seclusion of a
comfortable lunatic asylum. I only stipulate for an occasional drop of
beer, and a whiff or two at odd times. Don't you think I can manage
it?"
"It might be worth trying," said I. "But trot on, old fellow."
Jack, thus recalled to himself, gave another very heavy sigh.
"Where was I?" said he. "Oh, about naming the day. Well, I'll be
hanged if she didn't do it. She did name the day. And what day do you
think it was that she named? What day! Good Heavens, Macrorie! Only
think of it. What do you happen to have to say, now, for instance, to
the 20th of June? Hey? What do you say to next Tuesday? Tuesday, the
20th of June! Next Tuesday! Only think of it. Mad! I should rather
think so."
I had nothing to say, and so I said nothing.
At this stage of the proceedings Jack filled a pipe, and began smoking
savagely, throwing out the puffs of smoke fast and furious. Both of us
sat in silence, involved in deep and anxious thought--I for him, he for
himself.
At last he spoke.
"That's all very well," said he, putting down the pipe, "but I haven't
yet told you the worst."
"The worst?"
"Yes; there's something more to be told--something which has brought me
to this. I'm not the fellow I was. It isn't the widow; it's something
else. It's--