CHARLES'S SECOND EXPEDITION TO ST. JOHN'S WOOD.
What a happy place a man's bed is--probably the best place in which he
ever 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 cold
weather, for instance; or half a night on deck among the ice, when the
fog has lifted, and the ghastly cold walls are safe in sight; or after a
fifty mile ride in the bush, under a pouring rain; or after a pleasant
ball, when you have to pull down the blind, that the impudent sun may
not roast you awake in two hours; for in all these cases, and a hundred
more, bed is very pleasant; but you know as well as I do, that there
are times when you would sooner be on a frozen deck, or in the wildest
bush in the worst weather, or waltzing in the hall of Eblis with
Vathek'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 the
tortured body to rest and ramble off in dreams, holds on by a mere
thread, 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, and
there is always present, through all, the dreadful lurking thought that
one is awake, and that it is all real. When, looking back, every kindly
impulsive action, every heartily spoken word, makes you fancy that you
have only earned contempt where you merit kindness. When the past looks
like a hell of missed opportunities, and the future like another black
hopeless hell of uncertainty and imminent misfortune of all kinds! Oh,
weary watches! Let us be at such times on the bleakest hill-side, in the
coldest night that ever blew, rather than in the warmest bed that money
will buy.
When you are going to have a night of this kind, you seldom know it
beforehand, for certain. Sometimes, if you have had much experience in
the sort of thing--if you have lost money, or gone in debt, or if your
sweetheart has cut you very often--you may at least guess, before you
get your boots off, that you are going to have a night of it; in which
case, read yourself to sleep _in bed_. Never mind burning the house down
(that would be rather desirable as a distraction from thought); but
don'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 undressed
yourself, that you are terribly wide awake, and, when the candle is
blown out, you will be all ready for a regular Walpurgis night.
Charles, poor lad, had not as yet had much experience of Walpurgis
nights. Before his catastrophe he had never had one. He had been used to
tumble tired into his bed, and sleep a heavy dreamless sleep till an
hour 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 sweet
than the sweetest dream--that state in which sense is awake to all
outward objects, but in which the soul is taking its few last airy
flutters round its home, before coming to rest for the day. But, even
since then, he had not had experience enough to make him dread the
night. The night he came home from St. John's Wood, he thought he would
go to bed and sleep it off. Poor fellow!
A fellow-servant slept in the same room with him--the younger and better
tempered of the two (though Charles had no complaint against either of
them). The lad was asleep; and, before Charles put out the light, he
looked at him. His cheek was laid on his arm, and he seemed so calm and
happy that Charles knew that he was not there, but far away. He was
right. As he looked the lad smiled, and babbled out something in his
dream. Strange! the soul had still sufficient connection with the body
to make it smile.
"I wonder if Miss Martineau or Mr. Atkinson ever watched the face of one
who slept and dreamt," said Charles, rambling on as soon as he had got
into 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't
do; that's as bad as Miss Martineau. I should have said that his body is
only a fine piece of clockwork. But clockwork don't smile of itself. My
dear Madam, and Mr. Atkinson, I am going to leave my body behind, and be
off 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 the
laws of man's nature"; for, when he had done his profound cogitations
about them, as above, he thought he had got a----well, say a pulex in
his bed. There was no more a pulex than there was a scorpion; but he had
an exciting chase after an imaginary one, like our old friend Mr. Sponge
after an imaginary fox at Laverick Wells. After this, he had an
irritation where he couldn't reach, that is to say, in the middle of his
back: then he had the same complaint where he could reach, and used a
certain remedy (which is a pretty way of saying that he scratched
himself); then he had the cramp in his right leg; then he had the cramp
in 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 the
cramp in his left leg again; then he had another flea hunt, cramp,
irritation in back, heat, cold, and so on, all over; and then, after
half an hour, finding himself in a state of feverish despondency, he
fell into a cheerful train of thought, and was quite inclined to look at
his already pleasant prospects from a hopeful point of view.
Poor dear fellow! You may say that it is heartless to make fun of him
just now, when everything is going so terribly wrong. But really my
story is so very sad, that we must try to make a little feeble fun where
we can, or it would be unreadable.
He tried to face the future, manfully. But lo! there was no future to
face--it was all such a dead, hopeless blank. Ellen must come away from
that house, and he must support her; but how? It would be dishonourable
for him to come upon the Ravenshoes for a farthing; and it would be
dishonourable for her to marry that foolish Hornby. And these two
courses, being dishonourable, were impossible. And there he was brought
up short.
But would either course be dishonourable? Yes, yes, was the answer each
weary 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. All
alone 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 it
all come? What would the end be?
There was a noise in the street. A noise of a woman scolding, whose
voice got louder and louder, till it rose into a scream. A noise of a
man 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 had
fallen out in the street, and the man had knocked the woman down. That
was all. It was very common. Probably the woman was not much hurt. That
sort of woman got used to it. The police would come and take them to the
station. There they were. The man and woman were being taken off by two
constables, scolding and swearing. Well, well!
Was it to come to that? There were bridges in London, and under them
runs the river. Charles had come over one once, after midnight. He
wished he had never seen the cursed place. He remembered a fluttering
figure which had come and begged a halfpenny of him to pay the toll and
get 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 over
yet.
God in His mercy sets a limit to human misery in many ways. I do not
believe that the condemned man, waiting through the weary night for the
gallows, thinks all night through of his fate. We read generally in
those accounts of the terrible last night (which are so rightly
published in the newspapers--they are the most terrifying part of the
punishment), that they conversed cheerfully, or slept, or did something,
showing that they half forgot for a time what was coming. And so, before
the little window grew to a lighter grey, poor Charles had found some
relief from his misery. He was between sleep and waking, and he had
fulfilled his challenge to Miss Martineau, though later than he
intended. He had gone to Ravenshoe.
There it was, all before him. The dawn behind the eastern headland had
flooded the amphitheatre of hills, till the crags behind the house had
turned from grey to gold, and the vane upon the priest's tower shone
like a star. The sea had changed from black to purple, and the
fishing-boats were stealing lazily homewards, over the gentle rolling
ground-swell. The surf was whispering to the sand of their coming. As
window after window blazed out before the sun, and as woodland and
hill-side, stream and park, village and lonely farm in the distant
valley, 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 stood
solitary in the terrace gazing seawards. And as he said, "Cuthbert," he
fell 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; he
avoided him as though on purpose. Charles, on his part, did not want to
meet him till he had made some definite arrangement, and so was glad of
it. But, towards two o'clock, it came across his mind that he would
saunter round to St. Peter's Church, and see the comical little imp of a
boy who was generally to be found there, and beguile a quarter of an
hour by listening to his prattle.
He had given up reading. He had hardly opened a book since his
misfortune. This may seem an odd thing to have to record about a
gentleman, and to a certain extent a scholar; but so it was. He wanted
to lower himself, and he was beginning to succeed. There was an
essential honesty in him, which made him hate to appear what he was not;
and this feeling, carried to an absurd extent, prevented his taking
refuge 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 except
those 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 the
rest of them." And so he did as the rest of them, and "rather loafed
away his time than otherwise."
And he was more inclined to "loaf" than usual this day, because he very
much dreaded what was to come. And so he dawdled round to St. Peter's
Church, and came upon his young friend, playing at fives with the ball
he had given him, as energetically as he had before played with the
brass button. Shoeblacks are compelled to a great deal of unavoidable
"loafing;" but certainly this one loafed rather energetically, for he
was hot and frantic in his play.
He was very glad to see Charles. He parted his matted hair from his
face, and looked at him admiringly with a pleasant smile; then he
suddenly 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 a
been. You looks wild about the eyes;" and then he hazarded another
theory to account for Charles's appearance, which Charles also negatived
emphatically.
"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 to
go on, and to communicate a piece of intelligence with the air of one
who assumes that his hearer is _au fait_ with all the movements of the
great world, and will be interested.
"Old Biddy Flanigan's dead."
"No! is she?" said Charles, who, of course, had not the wildest idea who
she was, but guessed her to be an aged, and probably a dissipated
Irishwoman.
"Ah! I believe you," said the boy. "And they was a-waking on her last
night, 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. Him
and old Biddy was both drunk a-fighting on the stairs, and she was a
step below he; and he being drunk, and bumble-footed too, lost his
balance, and down they come together, and the back of her head come
against the door scraper, and there she was. Wake she!" he added with
scorn, "not if all the Irish and Rooshans in France was to put stones in
their stockings, and howl a week on end, they wouldn't wake her."
"Did they put stones in their stockings?" asked Charles, thinking that
it was some papist form of penance.
"Miss Ophelia Flanigan, she put half a brick in her stocking end, so she
did, and come at Mr. Malone for to break his head with it, and there
were a hole in the stocking, and the brick flew out, and hit old Denny
Moriarty in the jaw, and broke it. And he worn't a doing nothink, he
worn't; but was sitting in a corner decent and quiet, blind drunk, a
singing to his self; and they took he to Guy's orspital. And the pleece
come in, and got gallus well kicked about the head, and then they took
they to Guy's orspital; and then Miss Flanigan fell out of winder into
the 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-eating
of jelly and a-drinking of sherry wind; and then in comes a mob from
Rosemary Lane, and then they all begins to get a bit noisy and want to
fight, 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 Billy
Jones's lot. The Emperor of Rooshar is a nigger; but his lot is mostly
Irish, but another bilin of Irish from Mr. Malone's lot. And one on 'em
plays the bagpipes, with a bellus, against the water-butt of a Sunday
evening, when they're off the lay. And Mr. Malone's lot heaves crockery
and broken vegetables at him out of winder, by reason of their being
costermongers, and having such things handy; so there's mostly a shine
of 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 is
married on Mr. Malone, but she keeps her own name, because her family's
a better one nor his'n, and she's ashamed of him. They gets on very well
when they're sober, but since they've been a making money they mostly
gets drunk in bed of a morning, so they ain't so happy together as they
was."
"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 spouted
it. So now they pokes the fire with a mop-stick, which ain't so handy to
hit with, and softer."
Charles walked away northward, and thought what a charming sort of
person Miss Ophelia Flanigan must be, and how he would rather like to
know her for curiosity's sake. The picture he drew of her in his mind
was not exactly like the original, as we shall see.
It was very pleasant summer weather--weather in which an idle man would
be inclined to dawdle, under any circumstances; and Charles was the more
inclined to dawdle, because he very much disliked the errand on which he
went. He could loiter at street corners now with the best of them, and
talk to any one who happened to be loitering there too. He was getting
on.
So he loitered at street corners and talked. And he found out something
to-day for the first time. He had been so absorbed in his own troubles
that all rumours had been to him like the buzzing of bees; but to-day he
began 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 for
poor Ellen. "Gad, if they could get up a regiment of fellows in the same
state of mind as I am!"
He went into a public-house, and drank a glass of ale. They were talking
of 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 a
Dutchman. As for Odessa----"
A man in seedy black, who (let us hope) had seen better days, suggested
Sebastopol.
The first man had not heard of Sebastopol. It could not be a place of
much importance, or he must have heard of it. Talk to him about
Petersburg 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, and
rang.
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. Charles
followed 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 hardly understood him.
"Where? God knows! She must have left the house soon after you saw her
last night. She left this note for me. Take it and read it. You see I am
free 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 the
letter was genuine. He understood that Welter had had no time to tell
her of his coming, and that she was gone; neither Welter nor he knew
where, 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 ill
luck at this time is almost incredible; but I shall call you to witness
that it is not so. This was the first stroke of real ill luck that he
had had. All his other misfortunes came from his mad determination of
alienating himself from all his friends. If he had even left Lord Welter
free 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 stroke
of it with a vengeance, and he did not know it. He was not anxious about
Ellen's future; he felt sure at once that she was going into some Roman
Catholic refuge, where she would be quiet and happy. In fact, with a new
fancy he had in his head, he was almost content to have missed her. And
Ellen, 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 thought
he was just as he always had been, or, perhaps, turning his attention to
some useful career with Cuthbert's assistance; and she thought she would
wait, and wait she did; and they went apart, not to meet till the valley
of the shadow of death had been passed, and life was not so well worth
having as it had been.
But as for our old friend Father Mackworth. As I said once before, "It's
no use wondering, but I do wonder," whether Father Mackworth, had he
known how near Ellen and Charles had been to meeting the night before,
would not have whistled "Lillibulero," as Uncle Toby did in times of
dismay; that is, if he had known the tune.