WHAT CHARLES DID WITH HIS LAST EIGHTEEN SHILLINGS.
Charles's luck seemed certainly to have deserted him at last. And that
is rather a serious matter, you see; for, as he had never trusted to
anything but luck, it now follows that he had nothing left to trust to,
except eighteen shillings and ninepence and his little friend the
cornet, who had come home invalided and was living with his mother in
Hyde Park Gardens. Let us hope, reader, that you and I may never be
reduced to the patronage of a cornet of Hussars, and eighteen shillings
in cash.
It was a fine frosty night, and the streets were gay and merry. It was a
sad Christmas for many thousands; but the general crowd seemed
determined not to think too deeply of these sad accounts which were
coming from the Crimea just now. They seemed inclined to make Christmas
Christmas, in spite of everything; and perhaps they were right. It is
good for a busy nation like the English to have two great festivals, and
two only, the object of which every man who is a Christian can
understand, and on these occasions to put in practice, to the best of
one's power, the lesson of goodwill towards men which our Lord taught
us. We English cannot stand too many saints' days. We decline to stop
business for St. Blaise or St. Swithin; but we can understand Christmas
and Easter. The foreign Catholics fiddle away so much time on saints'
days that they are obliged to work like the Israelites in bondage on
Sunday to get on at all. I have as good a right to prophesy as any other
freeborn Englishman who pays rates and taxes; and I prophesy that, in
this wonderful resurrection of Ireland, the attendance of the male
population at Church on week-days will get small by degrees and
beautifully less.
One man, Charles Ravenshoe, has got to spend his Christmas with eighteen
shillings and a crippled left arm. There is half a million of money or
so, and a sweet little wife, waiting for him if he would only behave
like a rational being; but he will not, and must take the consequences.
He went westward, through a kind of instinct, and he came to Belgrave
Square, 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 glad
of this; not that he had any business to transact with the duke, but a
letter to deliver to the duke's coachman.
This simple circumstance saved him from being much nearer actual
destitution than I should have liked to see him. The coachman's son had
been wounded at Balaclava, and was still at Scutari, and Charles brought
a letter from him. He got an English welcome, I promise you. And, next
morning, going to Hyde Park Gardens, he found that his friend the cornet
was out of town, and would not be back for a week. At this time the
coachman became very useful. He offered him money, house-room,
employment, everything he could possibly get for him; and Charles
heartily 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 was
come back. He had to sit in the kitchen while his message was taken
upstairs. He merely sent up his name, said he was discharged, and asked
for an interview.
The servants found out that he had been at the war, in their young
master's regiment, and they crowded round him, full of sympathy and
kindness. He was telling them how he had last seen the cornet in the
thick of it on the terrible 25th, when they parted right and left, and
in dashed the cornet himself, who caught him by both hands.
"By gad, I'm so glad to see you. How you are altered without your
moustache! Look you here, you fellows and girls, this is the man that
charged up to my assistance when I was dismounted among the guns, and
kept 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 is
the talk of Europe, you know. You remember old Devna, and the galloping
lizard, 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 I
saw 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, who
had 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 with
me. There."
"I will do so with the deepest gratitude," said Charles. "But I cannot
ride, 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 so
loud."
Charles smiled for an instant; he did remember that circumstance about
the cornet's respected and gallant father. He followed the cornet
upstairs, and was shown into the drawing-room, where sat a very handsome
lady, about fifty years of age, knitting.
She was not only stone deaf, but had a trick of talking aloud, like the
old lady in "Pickwick," under the impression that she was only thinking,
which was a very disconcerting habit indeed. When Charles and the cornet
entered the room, she said aloud, with amazing distinctness, looking
hard at Charles, "God bless me! Who has he got now? What a fine
gentlemanly-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 the
charge 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 to
Charles. "That time will come, trooper Simpson, when you will know the
value of a mother's gratitude. And when that time comes think of me. But
for you, trooper Simpson, I might have been tearing my grey hair this
day. What are we to do for him, James? He looks ill and worn. Words are
not worth much. What shall we do?"
The cornet put his mouth to his mother's trumpet, and in an apologetic
bellow, such as one gets from the skipper of a fruit brig, in the Bay of
Biscay, O! when he bears up to know if you will be so kind as to oblige
him 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 for
him than that." And then she continued, in a tone slightly lowered, but
perfectly audible, evidently under the impression that she was thinking
to herself: "He is ugly, but he has a sweet face. I feel certain he is a
gentleman who has had a difference with his family. I wish I could hear
his voice. God bless him! he looks like a valiant soldier. I hope he
won't get drunk, or make love to the maids."
Charles had heard every word of this before he had time to bow himself
out.
And so he accepted his new position with dull carelessness. Life was
getting very worthless.
He walked across the park to see his friend the coachman. The frost had
given, and there was a dull dripping thaw. He leant against the railings
at the end of the Serpentine. There was still a great crowd all round
the water; but up the whole expanse there were only four skaters, for
the ice was very dangerous and rotten, and the people had been warned
off. One of the skaters came sweeping down to within a hundred yards of
where he was--a reckless, headlong skater, one who would chance drowning
to have his will. The ice cracked every moment and warned him, but he
would not heed, till it broke, and down he went; clutching wildly at the
pitiless, uptilted slabs which clanked about his head, to save himself;
and then with a wild cry disappeared. The icemen were on the spot in a
minute; and, when five were past, they had him out, and bore him off to
the receiving-house. A gentleman, a doctor apparently, who stood by
Charles, said to him, "Well, there is a reckless fool gone to his
account, 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 to
calculate on such a thing, either? Why, most likely there will be half a
dozen houses in mourning for that man to-morrow. He is evidently a man
of some mark. I can pity his relations in their bereavement, sir, but I
have precious little pity for a reckless fool."
And so Charles began to serve his friend the cornet, in a way--a very
poor 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 could
not recover the shock of his fever and delirium in the Crimea. He grew
very low-spirited and despondent by day, and worst of all, he began to
have sleepless nights--terrible nights. In the rough calculation he had
made of being able to live through his degradation, and get used to it,
he had calculated, unwittingly, on perfect health. He had thought that
in a few years he should forget the old life, and become just like one
of the grooms he had made his companions. This had now become
impossible, for his health and his nerve were gone.
He began to get afraid of his horses; that was the first symptom. He
tried to fight against the conviction, but it forced itself upon him.
When he was on horseback, he found that he was frightened when anything
went wrong; his knees gave way on emergency, and his hand was
irresolute. And, what is more, be sure of this, that, before he
confessed the fact to himself, the horses had found it out, and "taken
action on it," or else may I ride a donkey, with my face towards the
tail, for the rest of my life.
And he began to see another thing. Now, when he was nervous, in ill
health, and whimsical, the company of men among whom he was thrown as
fellow-servants became nearly unbearable. Little trifling acts of
coarseness, unnoticed when he was in good health and strong, at the time
he was with poor Hornby, now disgusted him. Most kind-hearted young
fellows, brought up as he had been, are apt to be familiar with, and
probably pet and spoil, the man whose duty it is to minister to their
favourite pleasures, be he gamekeeper, or groom, or cricketer, or
waterman. Nothing can be more natural, or, in proper bounds, harmless.
Charles had thought that, being used to these men, he could live with
them, and do as they did. For a month or two, while in rude coarse
health, he found it was possible; for had not Lord Welter and he done
the same thing for amusement? But now, with shattered nerves, he found
it intolerable. I have had great opportunities of seeing gentlemen
trying to do this sort of thing--I mean in Australia--and, as far as my
experience goes, it ends in one of two ways. Either they give it up as a
bad job, and assume the position that superior education gives them, or
else they take to drink, and go, not to mince matters, to the devil.
What Charles did, we shall see. Nobody could be more kind and
affectionate than the cornet and his deaf mother. They guessed that he
was "somebody," and that things were wrong with him; though, if he had
been a chimney-sweep's son, it would have made no difference to them,
for they were "good people." The cornet once or twice invited his
confidence; but he was too young, and Charles had not the energy to tell
him anything. His mother, too, asked him to tell her if anything was
wrong in his affairs, and whether she could help him; and possibly he
might have been more inclined to confide in her, than in her son. But
who could bellow such a sad tale of misery through an ear-trumpet? He
held his peace.
He kept Ellen's picture, which he had taken from Hornby. He determined
he would not go and seek her. She was safe somewhere, in some Catholic
asylum. Why should he re-open her grief?
But life was getting very, very weary business. By day, his old
favourite pleasure of riding had become a terror, and at night he got no
rest. Death forty good years away, by all calculation. A weary time.
He thought himself humbled, but he was not. He said to himself that he
was prevented from going back, because he had found out that Mary was in
love with him, and also because he was disgraced through his sister; and
both of these reasons were, truly, most powerful with him. But, in
addition 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 or
two. 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 home
invalided, and stayed with his father; and Charles, with the hearty
approval of the cornet, used to walk across the park every night to see
him, 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 room
had glass windows to it. And I have noticed that anybody who looks
through a glass window (under favourable circumstances) can see who is
on the other side. I have done it myself more than once.