It was a relief for ten minutes, as every catastrophe is; the terrible
suspense is cut short--the worst at least is known. But after those ten
minutes are over, when the reality suddenly seizes upon the
sufferer--when all the vague speechless terrors which he had pushed off
from him, with the hope that they might never come, arrive in a flood,
and place themselves in one frightful circle round him, like furies,
only not merciful enough to have a Medusa among them to freeze him into
stone; when every shadowy, gloomy prevision of evil which ever flashed
across his mind, to be put away with a shudder, returns with the right
of fact, to remain; when not only that thing has happened which has been
his dread by day and the horror of his dreams, but a host of other
things, circumstances which penetrate to every detail of his life, and
affect every creature and every thing he loves, have followed in its
train--when all this rushes upon a man after the first tranquillising
stupor of despair, who or what is there that can console him? Poor
Drummond was helpless in the midst of this great crash of ruin; he was
so helpless that the thunder-stricken shareholders and excited clerks
who had fallen upon him at first as the only authority to be found, let
him slip from among them, hopeless of any help from him. They had driven
him wild with questions and appeals--him, a poor fellow who could
explain nothing, who had never been of much use except to denude himself
of everything he possessed, and pledge his humble name, and be swept
into ruin; but they soon saw the uselessness of the appeal. As soon as
he could disengage himself he stole away, drawing his hat over his eyes,
feeling as if he were a criminal, with the sensation as of a hot fire
burning in his heart, and buzzing and crackling in his ears. Was he a
criminal? was it his doing? He was stunned by this terrible calamity;
and yet, now that it had come, he felt that he had known it was coming,
and everything about it, all his life. His whole existence had tended to
this point since he was a boy; he knew it, he felt it, he even seemed
to remember premonitions of it, which had come to him in his dreams
from his earliest days. He went out into the streets in that dumb
quiescent state which is so often the first consequence of a great
calamity. He offered no remonstrance against his fate. He did not even
say to himself that it was hard. He said nothing to himself, indeed,
except to croon over, like a chorus, one endless refrain, 'I knew this
was how it would be!'
He wandered along, not knowing where he went, till he came to the river,
and paused there, looking over the bridge. He did not even know what
made him pause, until all at once the fancy jumped into his brain that
it would be best to stop there, and cut in one moment the knotted,
tangled thread which it was certain no effort of his could ever unravel.
He stopped, and the suggestion flashed across him (whether out of his
own mind, whether thrown at him by some mocking demon, who could tell?),
and then shook his head sadly. No; it was broad day, and there would be
a commotion, and he would be rescued--or if not, he, at least his body,
would be rescued and carried to Helen, giving her a last association
with him which it was insupportable to think of. No, no, he said to
himself with a shudder, not now. Just then a hand was laid upon his
shoulder; he turned round with the start of a man who feels that
nothing is impossible, that everything that is terrible has become
likely. Had it been a policeman to arrest him for having murdered
somebody he would scarcely have been surprised. But it was not a
policeman: it was Mr Burton, fresh and clean and nicely dressed, newly
come up from the country, in his light summer clothes, the image of
prosperity, and comfort, and cleanliness, and self-satisfaction. A
certain golden atmosphere surrounded the man of wealth, like the
background on which early painters set a saint; but there was nothing
saintly about that apparition. Poor Drummond fell back more than he
would have done had it been an arrest for murder. He gave an involuntary
glance at himself, feeling in contrast with Mr Burton, as if he must
look to the external eye the beggar he was, as if he must be dirty,
tattered, miserable, with holes in his shoes and rags at his elbows.
Perhaps his woebegone, excited face startled the smooth Philistine at
his side as much as if those outward signs of wretchedness had been
there.
'Good God, what have you been doing with yourself?' he cried.
'Nothing,' said Drummond vaguely, and then by degrees his senses
returned to him. 'If you had been in town yesterday you might have
helped us; but it does not matter. Shenken in Liverpool stopped payment
yesterday,' he went on, repeating drearily the dreary legend which he
had heard at the bank. 'And Rivers's--has stopped payment too.'
'Good God!' said Mr Burton again. It was a shock to him, as every event
is when it comes. But he was not surprised. As for Robert, it did not
occur to him to consider whether the other was surprised or not, or to
be curious how it affected him. He turned his head away and looked at
the river again. What attraction there remained for him in this world
seemed to lie there.
'Drummond,' said the merchant, looking at him with a certain alarm, 'are
you sure you know what you are saying? My God! Rivers's stopped payment!
if you had said there had been an earthquake in London it would scarcely
be as bad as that.'
Robert did not make any reply. He nodded his head without looking round.
What interested him was something black which kept appearing and
disappearing in the middle of the turbid muddy stream. It was like a
man's head, he thought, and almost felt that he might have taken the
plunge without knowing it, and that it might be himself.
'I have felt this was coming,' said Burton. 'I warned Golden you were
going on in the wildest way. What could be expected when you fellows who
know nothing about money would interfere? Good heavens! to think what a
business that was; and all ruined in three years! Drummond! are you mad?
Can't you turn round and speak to me? I am one of the shareholders, and
I have a right to be answered how it was.'
'Shall you lose much?' said Drummond dreamily, and he turned round
without meaning anything and looked in his companion's face. His action
was simply fantastical, one of those motiveless movements which the sick
soul so often makes; but it was quite unexpected by the other, who fell
a step back, and grew red all over, and faltered in his reply.
'Much? I--I--don't know--what you call much. Good heavens, Drummond! are
you mad? have you been drinking? Where is Golden?--he at least must know
what he is about!'
'Yes,' said the painter fiercely, 'Golden knows what he is about--he has
gone off, out of reach of questions--and you--oh--hound!' He gave a
sudden cry and made a step forward. A sudden light seemed to burst upon
him. He gazed with his dilated bloodshot eyes at the flushed countenance
which could not face him. The attitude of the two men was such that the
bystanders took note of it; two or three lingered and looked round
holding themselves in readiness to interfere. The slight figure of the
painter, his ghastly pale face and trembling hand, made him no
antagonist for the burly well-to-do merchant; but English sentiment is
always on the side of the portly and respectable, and Mr Burton had an
unmistakable air of fright upon his face. 'Now, Drummond!--now,
Drummond!' he said, with a certain pleading tone. The painter stood
still, feeling as if a horrible illumination had suddenly flashed upon
the man before him, and the history of their intercourse. He did in that
moment of his despair what he could not have done with his ordinary
intelligence. He made a rapid summary of the whole and saw how it was.
Had he been happy, he would have been too friendly, too charitable, too
kind in his thoughts to have drawn such a conclusion. But at this moment
he had no time for anything but the terrible truth.
'I see it all,' he said. 'I see it all! It was ruined when you gave it
over to us. I see it in every line of your face. Oh, hound! hounds all
of you! skulking, dastardly demons, that kill a crowd of honest men to
save yourselves--your miserable selves. I see it all!'
'Drummond! I tell you you are mad!'
'Hound!' said Robert again between his clenched teeth. He stood looking
at him for a moment with his hands clenched too, and a sombre fire in
his eyes. Whether he might have been led into violence had he stood
there a moment longer it would be impossible to say. But all the habits
of his life were against it, and his very despair restrained him. When
he had stood there for a second, he turned round suddenly on his heel
without any warning, and almost knocking down a man who was keeping
warily behind him ready for any emergency, went away in the opposite
direction without saying a word. Burton stood still gazing after him
with a mixture of consternation and concern, and something very like
hatred. But his face changed when the spectators drew round him to
wonder and question. 'Something wrong with that poor gentleman, I fear,
sir,' said one. Mr Burton put on a look of regret, sighed deeply, put
his hand to his forehead, shook his head, murmured--'Poor fellow!'
and--walked away. What could he do? He was not his brother's keeper,
much less was he responsible for his cousin's husband--the paltry
painter-fellow she had preferred to _him_. What would Helen think of her
bargain now? Mad or drunk, it did not matter which--a pleasant companion
for a woman. He preferred to think of this for the moment, rather than
of the other question, which was in reality so much more important.
Rivers's! Thank heaven he was no money loser, no more than was
respectable. He had seen what was coming. Even to himself, this was all
that Mr Burton said. He hurried on, however, to learn what people were
saying of it, with more anxiety in his mind than seemed necessary. He
went to the bank itself with the air of a man going to a funeral. 'The
place I have known so long!' he said to another mournful victim who had
appeared on the field of the lost battle, but who was not mad like
Robert. 'And to think that Golden should have betrayed your confidence!
A man I have known since he was _that_ height--a man I could have
answered for with my life!'
Meanwhile Drummond strayed on he knew not where. He went back into the
City, into the depths of those lanes and narrow streets which he had
left so lately, losing himself in a bewildering maze of warehouse walls
and echoing traffic. Great waggons jammed him up against the side, loads
dangled over his head that would have crushed him in a moment, open
cellars yawned for his unsteady feet; but he walked as safe through all
those perils as if he had borne a charmed life, though he neither looked
nor cared where he was going. His meeting with Burton was forced out of
his mind in a few minutes as if it had not been. For the moment it had
startled him into mad excitement; but so strong was the stupor of his
despair, that in five minutes it was as if it had never been. For hours
he kept wandering round and round the scene of his ruin, coming and
going in a circle, as if his feet were fast and he could not escape. It
had been morning when he left his house. It was late afternoon when he
got back. Oh why was it summer and the days so long? if only that
scorching sun would have set and darkness fallen over the place. He
stole in under cover of the lilac trees, which had grown so big and
leafy, and managed to glide down the side-way to the garden and get to
the studio door, which he could open with his key. He had been doing
nothing but think--think--all the time; but 'now, at least, I shall
have time to think,' he said to himself, as he threw himself down on a
chair close to the door--the nearest seat--it no longer mattered where
he placed himself or how. He sat huddled up against the wall as
sometimes a poor model did, waiting wistfully to know if he was
wanted,--some poor wretch to whom a shilling was salvation. This fancy,
with a thousand others equally inappropriate, flashed across his mind as
he sat there, still with his hat pulled down on his brows in the sunny
luxurious warmth of the afternoon. The mere atmosphere, air, and sky,
and sunshine would have been paradise to the artist in the poorest time
he had ever known before, but they did not affect him now. He sat there
in his stupor for perhaps an hour, not even able to rouse himself so far
as to shut the door of communication into the conservatory, through
which he heard now and then the softened stir of the household. He might
have been restored to the sense of life and its necessities, might have
been brought back out of the delirium of his ruin at that moment, had
any one in the house known he was there. Helen was in the drawing-room,
separated from him only by that flowery passage which he had made for
her, to tempt her to visit him at his work. She was writing notes,
inviting some half-dozen people to dinner, as had been arranged between
them, but with a heavy and anxious heart, full of misgiving. She had
risen from her writing table three or four times to go to the window and
look out for her husband, wondering why he should be so long of
coming--while he sat so near her. Mrs Drummond's heart was very heavy.
She did not understand what he said to her in the morning--could not
imagine how it could be. It must be a temporary cloud, a failure of some
speculation, something unconnected with the ordinary course of life, she
said to herself. Money!--he was not a business man--it could not be
money. If it was only money, why that was nothing. Such was the course
of her thoughts. And she paused over her invitations, wondering was it
right to give them if Robert had been losing money. But they were old
friends whom she was inviting--only half a dozen people--and it was for
his birthday. She had just finished the last note, when Norah came
dancing into the room, claiming her mother's promise to go out with her;
and after another long gaze from her window, Helen made up her mind to
go. It was her voice speaking to the maid which roused Robert. 'If Mr
Drummond comes in before I return,' he heard her say, 'tell him I shall
not be long. I am going with Miss Norah to the gardens for an hour, and
then to ask for Mr Haldane; but I shall be back by half-past six.' He
heard the message--he for whom it was intended--and rose up softly and
went to his studio window, and peeped stealthily out to watch them as
they went away. Norah came first, with a skip and gambol, and then
Helen. His wife gave a wistful look back at the house as she opened the
little gate under the leafy dusty lilacs. Was it with some premonition
of what she should find when she came back? He hid himself so that he
could not be seen, and gazed at the two, feeling as if that moment was
all that life had yet to give him. It was his farewell look. His wife
and child disappeared, and he could hear their footsteps outside on the
pavement going farther and farther away on their harmless, unimportant
walk, while he----He woke up as if it had been out of sleep or out of a
trance. She would return by half-past six, and it was now approaching
five. For all he had to do there was so little, so very little time.
So he said to himself, and yet when he said it he had no clear idea what
he was going to do. He had not only to do it, whatever it was, but to
make up his mind, all in an hour and a half; and for the first five
minutes of that little interval he was like a man dreaming, stretching
out his hands to catch any straw, trying to believe he might yet be
saved. Could he leave them--those two who had just left the door--to
struggle through the rest of life by themselves? Helen was just over
thirty, and her daughter nearly twelve. It was a mature age for a woman;
but yet for a woman who has been protected and taken care of all her
life, how bitter a moment to be left alone!--the moment when life is at
its fullest, demands most, feels most warmly, and has as yet given up
nothing. Helen had had no training to teach her that happiness was not
her right. She had felt it to be her right, and her whole soul rose up
in rebellion against any infringement of that great necessity of being.
How was she to live when all was taken from her, even the support of her
husband's arm? Robert had never known so much of his wife's character
before, but in this awful moment it became clear to him as by an
inspiration. How was she to bear it? Credit, honour, money, living--and
her husband, too, who could still work for her, shield her. He went to
his easel and uncovered the half-finished picture on it, and gazed at it
with something that was in reality a dumb appeal to the dumb canvas to
help him. But it did not help him. On the contrary, it brought suddenly
up before him his work of the past, his imperfect successes, and Helen's
kind, veiled, hidden, but unconcealable dissatisfaction. The look of
suppressed pain in her face, the subdued tone, the soft languid praise
of some detail or accessory, the very look of her figure when she turned
away from it, came all before him. Her habit was, when she turned away,
to talk to him of other things. How clearly that oft-repeated scene came
before him in his despair! She was dutiful, giving him her attention
conscientiously as long as was needful; but when he fell back into the
fond babble of the maker, and tried to interest her in some bit of
drapery, or effect of light, or peculiarity of grouping, she would
listen to him sweetly, and--change the subject as soon as possible. It
all returned to him--he remembered even the trivial little words she had
spoken, the languid air of half fatigue which would come over her.
That--along with the meagrest poverty, the hardest homely struggles for
daily bread. Could she bear to go back to it? She would lose everything,
the house and all that was in it, everything that could be called hers
or supposed hers. The only thing that could not be taken from her would
be her £100 a year, her little fortune which was settled on her. 'They
could live on that,' poor Drummond went on in his dreary miserable
thoughts. 'They could exist, it is possible, better without me than with
me. Would they be happier to have me in prison, disgraced, and
dishonoured, a drag hanging about their neck--or to hear the worst at
once, to know that everything was over, that at least their pittance
would be theirs, and their peace respected? Everything would be over.
Nobody could have any pretext for annoying her about it. They would be
sorry for her--even they would be sorry for me. My policies would go to
make up something--to clear my name a little. And they would let her
alone. She could go to the country. She is so simple in her real tastes.
They could live on what she has, if they were only rid of me.' A sigh
that was almost a sob interrupted him in his musing. He was so worn out;
and was it the grave-chill that was invading him already and making him
shiver? He took the canvas on the easel and held it up to the light.
'The drawing is good enough,' he said to himself, 'it is not the
drawing. She always owns that. It is--something else. And how can I tell
after this that I could even draw? I could not now, if I were to try.
My hand shakes like an old man's. I might fall ill like poor Haldane!
Ah, my God!' The canvas fell out of his hands upon the floor--a sudden
spasm contracted his heart. Haldane! It was the first time that day that
he had thought of him. His ruin would be the ruin of his friend too--his
friend who was helpless, sick, and yet the support of others. 'Oh, my
God, my God!' he wailed with a cry of despair.
And there was no one near to hear him, no one to defend him from himself
and from the devil, to lay hands upon him, to bid him live and hope and
work, and help them to exist whom he had helped to ruin. He was left all
alone in that moment of his agony. God, to whom he had appealed, was
beyond the clouds, beyond that which is more unfathomable than any
cloud, the serene, immeasurable, impenetrable blue, and held out no
hand, sent no voice of comfort. The man fell down where his work had
fallen, prone upon the ground, realising in a moment all the misery of
the years that were to come. And it was his doing, his doing!--though
consciously he would have given himself to be cut to pieces, would have
toiled his life out, to make it up now to his friend,--how much more to
his wife! What passed in his mind in that awful interval is not to be
told. It was the supreme struggle between life and despair, and it was
despair that won. When he rose up his face was like the face of an old
man, haggard and furrowed with deep lines. He stood still for a moment,
looking round him vaguely, and then made a little pilgrimage round the
room, looking at everything, with a motive, without a motive, who can
tell? his whole faculties absorbed in the exaltation, and bewildering,
sombre excitement of such a crisis as can come but once to any man. Then
he sat down at his writing-table, and sought out some letter-paper
(there were so many scraps of drawing-paper that came first to hand),
and slowly wrote a few lines. He had to search for a long time before he
could find an envelope to enclose this, and his time was getting short.
At last he put it up, and, after another pause, stole through the
conservatory, walking stealthily like a thief, and placed the white
envelope on a little crimson table, where it shone conspicuous to
everybody who should enter. He did more than that; he went and bent over
the chair which Helen had pushed away when she rose from it--the chair
she always sat on--and kissed it. There was a little bright-coloured
handkerchief lying on the sofa, which was Norah's. He took that up and
kissed it too, and thrust it into his breast. Did he mean to carry it
with him into the dark and silent country where he was going? God knows
what was the thought in his mind. The pretty clock on the mantelpiece
softly chimed the quarter as he did this, and he started like a thief.
Then he took an old great-coat from the wall, an old travelling hat,
which hung beside it, and went back to the studio. There was no more
time for thought. He went out, leaving the door unlocked, brushing
stealthily through the lilacs. The broad daylight played all around him,
revealing him to every one, showing to the world how he stole away out
of his own house. He had put up the collar of his coat and drawn his hat
down over his brows to disguise himself in case he met any one he knew.
Any one he knew! It was in case he met his wife, to whom he had just
said farewell for ever, and his child, whose little kerchief he was
going to take with him into this dismal ruin, into the undiscovered
world.
All this might have been changed had he met them; and they were crossing
the next street coming home, Helen growing more and more anxious as they
approached the door. Had he been going out about some simple everyday
business, of course they would have met; but not now, when it might
have saved one life from destruction and another from despair. He had
watched for a moment to make sure they were not in sight before he went
out; and the servants had caught a glimpse of a man whom they did not
recognise hiding among the bushes, and were frightened; so, it turned
out afterwards, had various other passers-by. But Drummond saw no
one--no one. The multitudes in the noisier streets upon which he emerged
after a while, were nothing to him. They pushed against him, but he did
not see them; the only two figures he could have seen were henceforward
to be invisible to him for ever.
For ever! for ever! Was it for ever? Would this crime he was about to
commit, this last act of supreme rebellion against the will of that God
to whom he seemed to have appealed in vain, would it sever him from them
not only in this world, but in the world to come? Should he have to gaze
upward, like poor Dives, and see, in the far serene above him, these two
walking in glory and splendour, who were no longer his? perhaps
surrounded by angels, stately figures of the blessed, without a thought
to spare in the midst of that glory for the poor soul who perished for
love of them. Could that be true? Was it damnation as well as death he
was going to face? Was it farewell for ever, and ever, and ever?
So the awful strain ran on, buzzing in his ears, drowning for him the
voices of the crowd--for ever, for ever, for ever. Dives forlorn and far
away--and up, up high in the heavens, blazing above him, like a star--
Like that star in the soft sky of the evening which came out first and
shone down direct upon him in his wretchedness. How it shone! How she
shone!--was it she?--as it grew darker drawing a silver line for him
upon the face of the darkening water. Was that to be the spot? But it
took years to get dark that night. He lived and grew old while he was
waiting thus to die. At last there was gloom enough. He got a boat, and
rowed it out to that white glistening line, the line that looked like a
silver arrow, shining where the spot was--
The boat drifted ashore that night as the tide fell. In that last act,
at least, Nature helped him to be honest, poor soul!