The next morning Helen was very ill,--so ill that, shortly after rising,
she was forced to creep back to bed. Her frame shivered, her eyes were
heavy, her hand burned like fire. Fever had set in. Perhaps she might
have caught cold on the bridge, perhaps her emotions had proved too much
for her frame. Leonard, in great alarm, called in the nearest
apothecary. The apothecary looked grave, and said there was danger.
And danger soon declared itself,--Helen became delirious. For several
days she lay in this state, be tween life and death. Leonard then felt
that all the sorrows of earth are light, compared with the fear of losing
what we love. How valueless the envied laurel seemed beside the dying
rose!
Thanks, perhaps, more to his heed and tending than to medical skill, she
recovered sense at last. Immediate peril was over; but she was very weak
and reduced, her ultimate recovery doubtful, convalescence, at best,
likely to be very slow.
But when she learned how long she had been thus ill, she looked anxiously
at Leonard's face as he bent over her, and faltered forth, "Give me my
work; I am strong enough for that now,--it would amuse me."
Leonard burst into tears.
Alas! he had no work himself; all their joint money had melted away.
The apothecary was not like good Dr. Morgan; the medicines were to be
paid for, and the rent. Two days before, Leonard had pawned Riccabocca's
watch; and when the last shilling thus raised was gone, how should he
support Helen? Nevertheless he conquered his tears, and assured her that
he had employment; and that so earnestly that she believed him, and sank
into soft sleep. He listened to her breathing, kissed her forehead, and
left the room. He turned into his own neighbouring garret, and leaning
his face on his hands, collected all his thoughts.
He must be a beggar at last. He must write to Mr. Dale for money,--Mr.
Dale, too, who knew the secret of his birth. He would rather have begged
of a stranger; it seemed to add a new dishonour to his mother's memory
for the child to beg of one who was acquainted. with her shame. Had he
himself been the only one to want and to starve, he would have sunk inch
by inch into the grave of famine, before he would have so subdued his
pride. But Helen, there on that bed,--Helen needing, for weeks perhaps,
all support, and illness making luxuries themselves like necessaries!
Beg he must. And when he so resolved, had you but seen the proud, bitter
soul he conquered, you would have said, "This, which he thinks is
degradation,--this is heroism." Oh, strange human heart! no epic ever
written achieves the Sublime and the Beautiful which are graven, unread
by human eye, in thy secret leaves.
Of whom else should he beg? His mother had nothing, Riccabocca was poor,
and the stately Violante, who had exclaimed, "Would that I were a man!
"--he could not endure the thought that she should pity him and despise.
The Avenels! No,--thrice No. He drew towards him hastily ink and paper,
and wrote rapid lines that were wrung from him as from the bleeding
strings of life.
But the hour for the post had passed, the letter must wait till the next
day; and three days at least would elapse before he could receive an
answer. He left the letter on the table, and, stifling as for air, went
forth. He crossed the bridge, he passed on mechanically, and was borne
along by a crowd pressing towards the doors of parliament. A debate that
excited popular interest was fixed for that evening, and many bystanders
collected in the street to see the members pass to and fro, or hear what
speakers had yet risen to take part in the debate, or try to get orders
for the gallery.
He halted amidst these loiterers, with no interest, indeed, in common
with them, but looking over their heads abstractedly towards the tall
Funeral Abbey,--imperial Golgotha of Poets and Chiefs and Kings.
Suddenly his attention was diverted to those around by the sound of a
name, displeasingly known to him. "How are you, Randal Leslie? coming
to hear the debate?" said a member, who was passing through the street.
"Yes; Mr. Egerton promised to get me under the gallery. He is to speak
himself to-night, and I have never heard him. As you are going into the
House, will you remind him of his promise to me?"
"I can't now, for he is speaking already,--and well too. I hurried from
the Athenaeum, where I was dining, on purpose to be in time, as I heard
that his speech was making a great effect."
"This is very unlucky," said Randal. "I had no idea he would speak so
early."
"C----- brought him up by a direct personal attack. But follow me;
perhaps I can get you into the House; and a, man like you, Leslie, from
whom we expect great things some day, I can tell you, should not miss any
such opportunity of knowing what this House of ours is on a field-night.
Come on!"
The member hurried towards the door; and as Randal followed him,
a bystander cried, "That is the young man who wrote the famous pamphlet,
--Egerton's relation."
"Oh, indeed!" said another. "Clever man, Egerton,--I am waiting for
him."
"So am I"
"Why, you are not a constituent, as I am."
"No; but he has been very kind to my nephew, and I must thank him. You
are a constituent--he is an honour to your town."
"So he is: enlightened man!"
"And so generous!"
"Brings forward really good measures," quoth the politician.
"And clever young men," said the uncle.
Therewith one or two others joined in the praise of Audley Egerton, and
many anecdotes of his liberality were told. Leonard listened at first
listlessly, at last with thoughtful attention. He had heard Burley, too,
speak highly of this generous statesman, who, without pretending to
genius himself, appreciated it in others. He suddenly remembered, too,
that Egerton was half-brother to the squire. Vague notions of some
appeal to this eminent person, not for charity, but employment to his
mind, gleamed across him,--inexperienced boy that he yet was! And while
thus meditating, the door of the House opened and out came Audley Egerton
himself. A partial cheering, followed by a general murmur, apprised
Leonard of the presence of the popular statesman. Egerton was caught
hold of by some five or six persons in succession; a shake of the hand, a
nod, a brief whispered word or two, sufficed the practised member for
graceful escape; and soon, free from the crowd, his tall, erect figure
passed on, and turned towards the bridge. He paused at the angle and
took out his watch, looking at it by the lamp-light.
"Harley will be here soon," he muttered,--"he is always punctual; and now
that I have spoken, I can give him an hour or so. That is well."
As he replaced his watch in his pocket and re-buttoned his coat over his
firm, broad chest, he lifted his eyes, and saw a young man standing
before him.
"Do you want me?" asked the statesman, with the direct brevity of his
practical character.
"Mr. Egerton," said the young man, with a voice that slightly trembled
and yet was manly amidst emotion, "you have a great name, and great
power; I stand here in these streets of London without a friend, and
without employment. I believe that I have it in me to do some nobler
work than that of bodily labour, had I but one friend,--one opening for
my thoughts. And now I have said this, I scarcely know how, or why, but
from despair, and the sudden impulse which that despair took from the
praise that follows your success, I have nothing more to add."
Audley Egerton was silent for a moment, struck by the tone and address of
the stranger; but the consummate and wary man of the world, accustomed to
all manner of strange applications and all varieties of imposture,
quickly recovered from a passing and slight effect.
"Are you a native of?" (naming the town which the statesman represented).
"No, sir."
"Well, young man, I am very sorry for you; but the good sense you must
possess (for I judge of that by the education you have evidently
received) must tell you that a public man, whatever be his patronage, has
it too fully absorbed by claimants who have a right to demand it, to be
able to listen to strangers."
He paused a moment, and as Leonard stood silent, added with more kindness
than most public men so accosted would have shown,
"You say you are friendless,--poor fellow! In early life that happens to
many of us, who find friends enough before the close. Be honest, and
well-conducted: lean on yourself, not on strangers; work with the body if
you can't with the mind; and, believe me, that advice is all I can give
you, unless this trifle"--and the minister held out a crown-piece.
Leonard bowed, shook his head sadly, and walked away. Egerton looked
after him with a slight pang.
"Pooh!" said he to himself, "there must be thousands in the same state in
these streets of London. I cannot redress the necessities of
civilization. Well educated! It is not from ignorance henceforth that
society will suffer,--it is from over-educating the hungry thousands who,
thus unfitted for manual toil, and with no career for mental, will some
day or other stand like that boy in our streets, and puzzle wiser
ministers than I am."
As Egerton thus mused, and passed on to the bridge, a bugle-horn rang
merrily from the box of a gay four-in-hand. A drag-coach with superb
blood-horses rattled over the causeway, and in the driver Egerton
recognized his nephew, Frank Hazeldean.
The young Guardsman was returning with a lively party of men from dining
at Greenwich, and the careless laughter of these children of pleasure
floated far over the still river; it vexed the ear of the careworn
statesman,--sad, perhaps, with all his greatness, lonely amidst all his
crowd of friends. It reminded him, perhaps, of his own youth, when such
parties and companionships were familiar to him, though through them all
he had borne an ambitious, aspiring soul. "Le jeu vaut-il la chandelle?"
said he, shrugging his shoulders.
The coach rolled rapidly past Leonard, as he stood leaning against the
corner of the bridge, and the mire of the kennel splashed over him from
the hoofs of the fiery horses. The laughter smote on his ear more
discordantly than on the minister's, but it begot no envy.
"Life is a dark riddle," said he, smiting his breast.
And he walked slowly on, gained the recess where he had stood several
nights before with Helen, and, dizzy with want of food, and worn out for
want of sleep, he sank down into the dark corner; while the river that
rolled under the arch of stone muttered dirge-like in his ear,--as under
the social key-stone wails and rolls on forever the mystery of Human
Discontent. Take comfort, O Thinker by the stream! 'T is the river that
founded and gave pomp to the city; and, without the discontent, where
were progress, what were Man? Take comfort, O THINKER! wherever the
stream over which thou bendest, or beside which thou sinkest, weary and
desolate, frets the arch that supports thee, never dream that, by
destroying the bridge, thou canst silence the moan of the wave!