MRS. BRIGHTMAN.
"Sur this coms hoppin youle excuse blundurs bein no skollerd sur
missis is worse and if youle com ive got som things to tell you I
darnt keep um any longer your unbil servint emma hatch but doant say
to peri as i sent."
This remarkable missive was delivered to me by the late afternoon
post. The schoolmaster must have been abroad when Hatch received her
education.
I had intended to spend the evening with Blanche. It was the day
subsequent to her arrival from France with Lord Level, and I had not
yet seen her. But this appeared to be something like an imperative
summons, and I resolved to attend to it.
"The more haste, the less speed." The proverb exemplifies itself very
frequently in real life. Ordering my dinner to be served half an hour
earlier than usual, I had no sooner eaten it than a gentleman called
and detained me. It was close upon eight o'clock when I reached
Clapham.
Perry, the butler, received me as usual. "Oh, sir, such a house of
sickness as it is!" he exclaimed, leading the way to the drawing-room.
"My mistress is in bed with brain-fever. They were afraid of it
yesterday, but it has quite shown itself to-day. And Miss Annabel is
still at Hastings. I say she ought to be sent for; Hatch says not, and
tells me to mind my own business: but----"
Hatch herself interrupted the sentence. She came into the room and
ordered Perry out of it. The servants, even Perry, had grown into the
habit of obeying her. Closing the door, she advanced to me as I stood
warming my hands at the fire, for it was a sharp night.
"Mr. Strange, sir," she began in a low tone, "did you get that epistle
from me?"
I nodded.
"You've not been down here much lately, sir. Last night I thought you
might come, the night afore I thought it. The last time you did come
you never stepped inside the door."
"Where is the use of coming, Hatch, when I am always told that Mrs.
Brightman cannot see me--and that Miss Annabel remains at Hastings?"
"And a good thing that she do remain there," returned Hatch. "Perry,
the gaby, says, 'Send for Miss Annabel: why don't you write for Miss
Annabel?' But that his brains is no bigger than one o' them
she-gooses' on Newland Common, he'd have found out why afore now.
Sir," continued Hatch, changing her tone, "I want to know what I be to
do. I'm not a person of edication or book-learning, but my wits is
alive, and they serves me instead. For this two or three days past,
sir, I've been thinking that I ought to tell out to somebody
responsible what it is that's the matter with my missis, and I know of
nobody nearer the family than you, sir. There's her brother, in
course, at the Hall, Captain Chantrey, but my missis has held herself
aloof from him and Lady Grace, and I know she'd be in a fine way if I
spoke to him. Three or four days ago I said to myself, 'The first time
I see Mr. Strange, I'll tell him the truth.' Last night she was worse
than she has been at all, quite raving. I got frightened, which is a
complaint I'm not given to, and resolved not to let another day pass,
and then, whether she lived or died, the responsibility would not lie
upon my back."
Straightening myself, I stood gazing at Hatch. She had spoken rapidly.
If I had caught all the words, I did not catch their meaning.
"Yes?" I said mechanically.
"And so, with morning light, sir, I wrote you that epistle."
"Yes, yes; never mind all that. What about Mrs. Brightman?"
Hatch dropped her voice to a lower and more mysterious whisper. "Sir,
my missis gives way, she do."
"Gives way," I repeated, gazing at Hatch, and still unable to see any
meaning in the words. "What do you say she does?"
Hatch took a step forward, which brought her on the hearthrug, close
to me. "Yes, sir; missis gives way."
"Gives way to what?" I reiterated. "To her superstitious fancies?"
"No, sir, to stimilinks."
"To----" The meaning, in spite of Hatch's obscure English, dawned upon
me now. A cold shiver ran through me. Annabel's mother! and honoured
Henry Brightman's wife!
"She takes stimulants!" I gasped.
"Yes, sir; stimilinks," proceeded Hatch. "A'most any sort that comes
anigh her. She likes wine and brandy best; but failing them, she'll
drink others."
Question upon question rose to my mind. Had it been known to Mr.
Brightman? Had it been a prolonged habit? Was it deeply indulged in?
But Annabel was her child, and my lips refused to utter them.
"It has been the very plague of my life and my master's to keep it
private these many months past," continued Hatch. "'Hatch does this in
the house, and Hatch does the other,' the servants cry. Yes; but my
master knew why I set up my authority; and missis knew it too. It was
to screen her."
"How could she have fallen into the habit?"
"It has grown upon her by degrees, sir. A little at first, and a
little, and then a little more. As long as master was here, she was
kept tolerably in check, but since his death there has been nobody to
restrain her, except me. Whole days she has been in her room, shutting
out Miss Annabel, under the excuse of headaches or lowness, drinking
all the time; and me there to keep the door. I'm sure the black
stories I have gone and invented, to pacify Miss Annabel and put her
off the right scent, would drive a parson to his prayers."
"Then Miss Annabel does not know it?"
"She do now," returned Hatch. "The first night there was that
disturbance in the house about missis seeing the ghost, her room was
thrown open in the fright, and all the house got in. I turned the
servants out: I dared not turn out Miss Annabel, and she couldn't fail
to see that her mother was the worse for drink. So then I told her
some, and Mr. Close told her more next morning."
Annabel's strange grief, so mysterious to me, was accounted for now.
Hatch continued:
"You see now, sir, why Miss Annabel has been kept so much at Hastings.
Master would never have her at home for long together, afeared her
mother might betray herself. He wanted to keep the child in ignorance
of it, as long as it was possible. Miss Brightman knew it. She found
it out the last time she was visiting here; and she begged my missis
on her bended knees to be true to herself and leave it off. Missis
promised--and such a bout of crying they two had together afore Miss
Lucy went away! For a time she did get better; but it all came back
again. And then came master's death--and the shock and grief of that
has made her give way more than she ever did. And there it is, sir.
The secret's got too weighty for me; I couldn't keep it to myself any
longer."
"Perry says Mrs. Brightman is now lying ill with brain-fever."
"We call it brain-fever to the servants, me and Mr. Close; it's near
enough for them," was Hatch's cool reply. "The curious thing is that
Perry don't seem to suspect; he sees more of his missis than the rest
do, and many a time must have noticed her shaking. Last night her fit
of shaking was dreadful--and her fever too, for the matter of that.
She is as close as she well can be upon that disorder that comes of
drink. If it goes on to a climax, nothing can save the disgrace from
coming out downstairs."
Nothing could or would save it, in my opinion, downstairs or up,
indoors or out. What a calamity!
"But she is a trifle better to-night," continued Hatch. "The medicines
have taken effect at last, and put her into a deep sleep, or else I
couldn't be talking here."
"Did you invent the episode of Mr. Brightman's ghost, Hatch, by way of
accounting for Mrs. Brightman's state to the servants?" I inquired.
"_I_ invent it!" returned Hatch. "I didn't invent it. My missis did
see it. Not, I take it, that there was any ghost to see, in one sense;
but when these poor creatures is in the shakes, they fancy they see
all kinds of things--monkeys and demons, and such-like. I can't
believe it was master. I don't see why he should come back, being a
good man; and good men that die in peace be pretty sure to rest in
their graves. Still, I'd not be too sure. It may be that he comes
back, as my missis fancies, to silently reproach her. It's odd that
she always sees him in the same place, and in his shroud. Several
times she has seen him now, and her description of how he looks never
varies. Nothing will ever persuade her, sick or well, that it is
fancy."
"You have seen him also, I hear?"
"Not I," said Hatch. "I have upheld what my missis says. For which was
best, Mr. Strange, sir--to let the servants think she is shaking and
raving from fear of a ghost, or to let 'em get to suspect her the
worse for drink?"
Hatch's policy had no doubt been wise in this. I told her so.
"I have seen the shakes before to-day; was used to 'em when a child,
as may be said," resumed Hatch. "I had a step-uncle, sir, mother's
half-brother, who lived next door to us; he was give to drink, and he
had 'em now and then. Beer were his chief weakness; wine is missis's.
If that step-uncle of mine had been put to stand head downwards in a
beer barrel, Mr. Charles, he'd not have thought he had enough. He'd be
always seeing things, he would; blue and red and green imps that
crawled up his bed-posts, and horrid little black devils. He used to
start out of doors and run away for fear of 'em. Once he ran out stark
naked, all but his shoes; he tore past the cottages all down the
village, and flung himself into the pond opposite the stocks. All the
women watching him from their doors and windows followed after him.
The men thought it were at least a mad dog broke loose, seeing the
women in pursuit like that; whereas it were nothing but my step-uncle
in one of his bouts--stripped. Mrs. Brightman would never do such a
thing as that, being a lady; but they be all pretty much alike for
sense when the fit is on 'em."
"And Mr. Brightman knew of this, you say? Knew that she was given
to--to like stimulants?"
"He couldn't be off knowing of it, sir, habiting, as he did, the same
rooms: and it has just bittered his life out. She has never had a
downright bad attack, like this one, therefore we could hide it from
the servants and from Miss Annabel, but it couldn't be hided from him.
He first spoke to me about it six or seven months ago, when he was
having an iron bedstead put up in the little room close to hers; until
then he had made believe to me not to see it. Sometimes I know he
talked to her, all lovingly and persuasively, and I would see her with
red eyes afterwards. I once heard her say, 'I will try, Henry; indeed
I will;' and I do believe she did. But she got worse, and then master
spoke to Mr. Close."
"Has it been long growing upon her?" I asked, in a low voice.
"Sir," returned Hatch, looking at me with her powerful eyes, "it has
been growing for years and years. I think it came on, first, from
idleness----"
"From idleness!"
"I mean what I say, sir. She married master for a home, as it were,
and she didn't care for him. She cared for somebody else--but things
wouldn't work convenient, and they had to part. Miss Emma Chantrey was
high-born and beautiful, but she had no money, and the gentleman had
no money either, so it would not do. It was all over and done with
long before she knew Mr. Brightman. Well, sir, she married and come
home here. But she never liked the place; commercial, she said, these
neighbourhoods was, round London, and the people were beneath her. So
she wouldn't visit, and she wouldn't sew nor read; she'd just sit all
day long with her hands afore her, a-doing of nothing. I saw that as
soon as I took service here. 'Wait,' said I to myself, 'till the baby
comes.' Well, it came, sweet little Miss Annabel, but it didn't make a
pin's difference: missis got a maid for it, and then a governess, and
turned her over to them. No more babies followed; pity but what a
score of 'em had; they might have roused her from her apathy."
"But surely she did not give way, as you call it, then?"
"No, not then. She was just ate up with weariness; she found no
pleasure in life, and she did no work in it; when morning broke she'd
wish the day was over; and when night came she'd wish it was morning;
and so the years went by. Then she got to say--it come on quite
imperceptible--'Hatch, get me a glass of wine; I'm so low and
exhausted.' And I used to get her one, thinking nothing. She took it
then, just because she wanted something to rouse her, and didn't know
what. That was the beginning of it, Mr. Charles."
"A very unfortunate beginning."
"But," continued Hatch, "after a while, she got to like the wine, and
in course o' time she couldn't do without it; a glass now and a glass
then between her meals, besides what she took with them, and it was a
great deal; pretty nigh a bottle a-day I fancy, altogether. Master
couldn't make out how it was his wine went, and he spoke sharp to
Perry; and when missis found that, she took to have some in on her own
account, unbeknowing to him. Then it grew to brandy. Upon the
slightest excuse, just a stitch in her side, or her finger aching, she
would say, 'Hatch, I must have half a glass of hot brandy-and-water.'
Folks don't stop at the first liquor, sir, when it gets to that pitch;
my step-uncle would have swallowed vitriol sooner than have kept to
beer."
"Hatch, this is a painful tale."
"And I've not finished of it," was Hatch's response. "Missis had an
illness a year or eighteen months back; I dare say you remember it,
sir. Weak enough she was when she began to get about; some people
thought she wouldn't live. 'She must take stimilinks to strengthen
her,' says Close. 'She don't want stimilinks,' says I; 'she'll get
better without 'em;' for she was a taking of 'em then in secret,
though he didn't know it. 'Mrs. Brightman must take stimilinks,' says
he to master. 'Whatever you thinks necessary,' returns master--though
if he hadn't begun to suspect then, it's odd to me. And my missis was
not backward to take Close's stimilinks, and she took her own as well;
and that I look upon as the true foundation of it all; it might never
have grown into a habit but for that; and since then matters have been
going from bad to worse. It's a dangerous plan for doctors to order
stimilinks to weak people," added Hatch reflectively; "evil comes of
it sometimes."
I had heard that opinion before; more than once. I had heard Mr.
Brightman express it to a client, who was recovering from an illness.
Was he thinking of his wife?
"And for the last six months or so my missis has been getting almost
beyond control," resumed Hatch; "one could hardly keep her within
bounds. Me and master tried everything. We got Miss Annabel out of
the way, not letting her come home but for two or three days at a
time, and them days--my patience! if I hadn't to watch missis like a
cat! She didn't wish to exceed in the daytime when Miss Annabel was
here, though she would at night; but you know, sir, these poor
creatures can't keep their resolves; and if she once got a glass
early, then all her prudence went to the winds. I did my best; master
did his best; and she'd listen, and be reasonable, and say she'd touch
nothing. But upon the least temptation she'd give way. My belief is,
she couldn't help it; when it comes to this stage it's just a disease.
A disease, Mr. Charles, like the measles or the yellow jaundice, and
they can't put it from 'em if they would."
True.
"On the Thursday night, it was the Thursday before the master died,
there was a quarrel," Hatch went on. "Mrs. Brightman was not fit to
appear at the dinner-table, and her dinner was sent up to her room,
and master came upstairs afterwards, and they had words. Master said
he should send Miss Annabel to Hastings in the morning and keep her
there, for it would be impossible to hide matters from her longer if
she stayed at home. Mrs. Brightman, who was not very bad, resented
that, and called him harsh names: generally speaking, she was as
humble as could be, knowing herself in the wrong and feeling ashamed
of it. They parted in anger. Master was as good as his word; he sent
Miss Annabel with Sarah down to Hastings on the Friday morning to Miss
Brightman. In the evening, when he came home to dinner, missis was
again the worse for drink. But on the Saturday morning she was up
betimes, afore the household even, and had ordered the carriage, and
went whirling off with me to the station to take the first train for
Hastings. 'I shall return on Monday and bring back Annabel,' she said
to master, when she was stepping into the carriage at the door, and he
ran out to ask where she was going, for he had not seen nor heard
nothing about it. 'Very well,' said he in a whisper; 'only come back
as you ought to come.' Mr. Charles, I think those were the only words
that passed between them after the quarrel."
"You mean the quarrel on the Thursday night?"
"Yes, sir; there was no other quarrel. We went to the Queen's Hotel.
And on the Sunday, if you remember, you came down to tell us of the
master's sudden death. Mrs. Brightman was ill that morning, really
ill, I mean, with one of her dreadful headaches--which she did have at
times, and when she didn't they was uncommon convenient things for me
to fall back upon if I needed an excuse for her. She had meant to go
to church, but was not able. She had had too much on the Saturday
night, though she was always more prudent out than at home, and was
worried in mind besides. But, to be sure, how she did take on about
master's death when alone with me. They had parted bad friends:
leastways had not made it up after the quarrel; she knew how
aggravating she had been to him in it, and a notion got hold of her
that he might have poisoned himself. When she learnt the rights of it,
that he had died peaceful and natural, she didn't get much happier.
She was perpetually saying to me, as the days went on, that her
conduct had made him miserable. She drank then to drown care; she
fancied she saw all sorts of things, and when it came to master's
ghost----"
"She could not have been sober when she fancied that."
"Nor was she," returned Hatch. "Half-and-half like; had enough to
betray herself to Miss Annabel. 'Now don't you go and contradict about
the ghost,' I says to her, poor child; 'better let the kitchen think
it's a ghost than brandy-and-water.' Frightful vexed and ashamed
missis was, when she grew sober, to find that Miss Annabel knew the
truth. She told her she must go to her aunt at Hastings for a time:
Mr. Close, he said the same. Miss Annabel would not go; she said it
was not right that she should leave her mother, and there was a scene;
miss sobbing and crying, mistress angry and commanding; but it ended
in her going. 'I don't want no spies upon me,' says missis to me, 'and
she shall stop at Hastings for good.' Since then she has been giving
way unbearable, and the end of it is, she has got the shakes."
What a life! What a life it had been for Mr. Brightman! Lennard had
thought of late that he appeared as a man who bore about him some
hidden grief! Once, when he had seemed low-spirited, I asked whether
anything was amiss. "We all have our trials, Charles; some more, some
less," was the answer, in tones that rather shut me up.
Hatch would fain have talked until now: if wine was her mistress's
weakness, talking was hers; but she was interrupted by the arrival of
Mr. Close, and had to attend him upstairs. On his return he came into
the drawing-room.
"This is a disagreeable business, Mr. Strange. Hatch tells me she has
informed you of the true nature of the case."
A disagreeable business! The light words, the matter-of-fact tone
seemed as a mockery. The business nearly overwhelmed _me_.
"When you met me the other night, at the gate, and spoke of Mrs.
Brightman's illness, I was uncertain how to answer you," continued Mr.
Close. "I thought it probable you might be behind the curtain,
connected as you are with the family, but I was not sure."
"I never had the faintest suspicion of such a thing, until Hatch's
communication to me to-night. She says her young mistress, even, did
not know of it."
"No; they have contrived to keep it from Annabel."
"Will Mrs. Brightman recover?"
"From this illness? oh dear yes! She is already in a fair way for it,
having dropped into the needed sleep; which is all we want. If you
mean will she recover from the habit--why, I cannot answer you. It
has obtained a safe hold upon her."
"What is to be done?"
"What can be done?" returned the surgeon. "Mrs. Brightman is her own
mistress, subject to no control, and has a good income at command. She
may go on drinking to the end."
Go on drinking to the end! What a fearful thought! what a fearful
life! Could _nothing_ be done to prevent it; to recall her to herself;
to her responsibility for this world and the next?
"I have seen much of these cases," continued Mr. Close; "few medical
men more. Before I came into this practice I was assistant-surgeon to
one of the debtors' prisons up in town: no school equal to that in all
Europe for initiating a man into the mysteries of the disorder."
"Ay, so I believe. But can Mrs. Brightman's case be like those cases?"
"Why should it differ from them? The same habits have induced it. Of
course, she is not yet as bad as some of them are, but unless she
pulls up she will become so. Her great chance, her one chance, I may
say, would be to place herself under some proper control. But this
would require firm resolution and self-denial. To begin with, she
would have to leave her home."
"This cannot be a desirable home for Annabel."
"No. Were she my child, she should not return to it."
"What is to be done when she recovers from this attack?"
"In what way?"
In what way, truly! My brain was at work over the difficulties of the
future. Was Mrs. Brightman to live on in this, her home, amidst her
household of curious servants, amidst the prying neighbours, all of
whom would revel in a tale of scandal?
"When she is sufficiently well she should have change of air,"
proceeded the doctor, "and get her nerves braced up. Otherwise she may
be seeing that ghost for six months to come. A strange fancy that,
for her to take up--and yet, perhaps, not so very strange, taking all
things into consideration. She is full of remorse, thinking she might
have done her duty better by her husband, made him less unhappy, and
all that. Mrs. Brightman is a gentlewoman of proud, elevated
instincts: she would be only too thankful to leave off this
demoralizing habit; in a way, I believe she strives to do it, but it
is stronger than she is."
"It has become worse, Hatch says, since Mr. Brightman died."
"Undoubtedly," concluded Mr. Close. "She had taken it to drown care."