THE FINAL BLOW.
Betty found that to question Bryda as to the cause of her wrath against
Mr Bayfield was useless.
To Betty's simple soul a kiss under the mistletoe bough was of no
further significance. She had been kissed by Jack, and even her Aunt
Dorothy had received a kiss from a neighbouring farmer who had visited
them on Christmas day.
Betty pleaded that if the Squire was disposed to be kind and friendly to
the old grandfather it was a risk to anger him. If they could keep the
farm during his life times might improve, and there might be saving
instead of loss, and the debt paid back.
Both girls felt that the debt itself had a peculiar interest for them.
It had been originally incurred to save their father from death, for
death by hanging was then the punishment awarded to forgery. Bryda,
however, preserved silence as to the Squire, and when she had returned
to Bristol Betty found the necklace and the silver comb hidden away in a
deep drawer in a bureau.
Betty was suddenly struck with an idea.
'Perhaps the Squire is really in love with her, and if he is, why should
she be so angry? It would be a fine thing for Bryda, who sets such store
by pretty things, and is so much more of the lady than I am. Dear Bryda,
I should love to see her happy--but oh, poor Jack! what would he say?'
And as she recalled his fierce looks as he sprang upon Mr Bayfield she
added, 'And what might he not _do_?'
It is always difficult to realise how swiftly a certain period which we
fix for any great decision in our lives, or any event which is to
seriously affect us, will come. We look forward, especially in youth, to
six or nine months and think there is time yet, we need not determine
_yet_ on any particular course of action, or make any definite plan yet.
And then, even while we are thinking that there is yet delay, the days
and weeks and months, perhaps years, have passed, and we find ourselves
changing 'not yet' changed into the inexorable _now_.
It was thus with Bryda when she had pleaded for delay from Mr Bayfield.
The hour for decision looked far away, and she had tried to put off
thinking about it, and, trust with the hopefulness of youth, that all
would be well.
Her life at Mrs Lambert's was not uncongenial to her, and she rose daily
in the old lady's favour. Her hunger for books was in a measure
satisfied, and she found good pasturage in the standard works of those
times, with which Mr Lambert's library was well furnished.
Though the lace mending and lace cleaning for Mrs Lambert's caps and
whimples and neckerchiefs and aprons went on, and though the preparation
of dainty dishes to please the lawyer's appetite when he came home after
hours spent in his office gave more and more satisfaction, Bryda found,
and made time for her favourite pursuit. She was now allowed to take the
books from the shelves and study them at leisure, and an old edition of
Shakespeare's plays filled her with a strange thrill of delight. They
were to Bryda, as to many another novice, like an introduction into a
new world.
For all her aspirations and longings, and for all her secret misgivings
and fears for the future, for all her dreams of beauty and love of the
good and true, she found the right expression and the right word.
'How wonderful,' she thought, 'that he should know everything I feel.'
The master's hand was recognised, and the recognition quickened her
sympathy for poor Chatterton, who at this time--this Eastertide of
1770--was so greatly in need of it.
The storm that had long been in the air now broke over the head of Mr
Lambert's apprentice.
Bryda heard angry voices in Mr Lambert's study before he went to his
office one morning, and presently Madam Lambert came out bridling with
rage, and declaring she would not sleep another night under the same
roof with 'the young rascal.'
'No, no, I will not run the risk. What are you standing there for, Miss
Palmer?' she said as, trembling with suppressed indignation, she put out
her hand to Bryda to support her into her own parlour.
'Take care of my mother, Miss Palmer,' the lawyer said. 'Give her a
glass of wine. She is too old to work herself into a frenzy like this.'
Bryda, frightened at the old lady's pale face and trembling lips,
hastened to get something to revive her, and placing her in her chair in
the parlour, held a glass of port wine to her mouth, and fanned her with
a large green fan lying on her little table.
'What has he done? What has Mr Chatterton done?'
'Tried to kill himself. Why, we might have had the house streaming with
blood, and the crowner's inquest held here.'
'He threatened to kill himself, in a letter which Mr Barrett put into my
hands,' Mr Lambert said, as he stood at the parlour door looking
anxiously at his mother. 'Come, come, mother, no harm is done. The boy
is mad, and a lot of people here have turned his head by flattering him
till he is puffed up, and, like the frog in the fable, is all but
bursting with conceit. I'll soon settle matters. He must take away what
belongs to him; there's not much, I'll warrant, except his manuscripts
in their outlandish trashy language. Now, keep her quiet, Miss Palmer,
and don't let her fume and fret.'
Madam Lambert took her son's advice, and Bryda, seeing her inclined to
take a nap, quietly left the room, and went downstairs to pursue her
usual domestic duties. Mrs Symes was gone to market, and the footboy had
been sent with her to carry the basket of purchases, so that Bryda was
alone in the kitchen regions.
Presently a quick step was heard coming down the stairs, and Chatterton
appeared.
'I am free,' he said, 'Miss Palmer, I am free, and Bristol chains will
hold me no longer. Do they think I am sorry? Not I! And yet'--the boy
paused--'there is my mother. Poor soul, it will vex her sorely--and poor
sister also. Well, I shall be off to London, and then--why, Miss Palmer,
_then_ you may live to hear of me as famous.'
Bryda raised her eyes to the boy's glowing face as he repeated the word
_famous_, and said gently,--
'You would not, sure, think of taking your own life? Oh, it is very
dreadful--it is a sin!'
'A sin!' he repeated. 'Well, I have not done it yet. I feel vastly full
of life to-day. Old Lambert's rating at me put some spirit into me, and
I shall not die yet.'
'Death is so solemn,' Bryda said, 'even when God calls us to die--the
leaving of the sun and all the beauty of the world for the dark grave. I
always shudder to see even a little bird dead, to think its songs are
silent for ever, and its happy flights into the blue sky, and its sleep
in its warm nest--'
'Ah!' Chatterton said, 'you have a breath of poetry in you. You can
understand!'
'But what will you do in London? It is such a big place. And how will
you live?'
'I shall _try_ to live, and if I can't--well, I will do what I meant to
do to-morrow--_die_. But,' he went on, throwing back his head with the
proud gesture peculiar to him, 'I can turn a penny to more purpose in
London than here. I have been paid for my contributions to the _Town
and Country Magazine_, and the _Middlesex Journal_ will take what I
write and be glad. Then I have all my "AElla"--"_AElla_,"' he repeated, 'I
set great store by "AElla"--money will be sure to come for that and "The
Tournament." But come and see my mother, Miss Palmer, next week, and we
will have a parting visit together to the grand old church, and I will
tell you more. Oh, I am not crushed yet--not I! I have heaps of literary
stuff which may turn into gold, and I can say,--
Hope, holy sister, sweeping through the sky,
In crown of gold and robe of lily white,
Which far abroad in gentle air doth fly,
Meeting from distance the enjoyous sight,
Albeit oft thou takest thy high flight
Shrouded in mist and with thy blinded eyne.
'Yes, holy sister,' he repeated, 'I clasp thee to my heart, and away and
away to London.'
'These are beautiful words,' Bryda said; 'are they yours?'
'Mine? yes, they are mine. Despair came to me in black guise when I went
to old Burgum, and he vowed he had not sixpence to give me. And as to
lend money--who would lend to a beggar? Not Burgum; he is a thrifty soul
though he comes of the grand race of De Bergheim, of which he is mighty
proud, poor fool!' And Chatterton indulged in a fit of laughter,
probably remembering how easily the honest pewterer had been gulled by
the story of his noble ancestry, for which he had given him a crown
piece.
The laugh was strange, and not a melodious sound, and almost at the same
moment Mrs Symes and the footboy came into the kitchen.
'Laughing, are you?' she said. 'You will have to laugh on the wrong side
of your mouth, young man. Why, the folks are all talking of you and your
wickedness. Come, I hear you have notice to quit--be off. And as to you,
Miss Palmer, I would take care what you have to do with this _limb_, for
he is a limb and no mistake--a real limb of the Evil One.'
Chatterton did not seem much affected by Mrs Symes' tirade. He made a
graceful bow as he left the kitchen for the last time, and with 'We
shall meet again, Miss Palmer, so whispers the holy maid we spoke of
just now,' he was gone.
But although Chatterton could be indifferent to the gibes of Mrs Symes
he was by no means indifferent to the censure of his best friend Mr
Barrett. The good surgeon sent for him to his house, and then said that,
after a consultation with all his friends, there seemed no alternative
but to agree to Mr Lambert's giving up the indentures, and getting rid
of him.
Mr Barrett had ever a kindly feeling for the wild, undisciplined boy,
whose genius he recognised although he had not measured the extent of
his powers. Perhaps he knew how to awake in the boy poet his best and
higher nature, for instead of receiving his reproofs and advice in a
defiant manner he melted into tears, confessed that pride, his
unconquerable pride, was his worst enemy, and that he would try to learn
humility. The mention of his mother's distress affected him more than
anything, and Mr Barrett, saw him depart with a sad heart.
Of all his other friends, perhaps the kindly good-natured George Catcott
was the most sorely troubled. But this Easter week in Bristol was one of
great excitement, and the worthy citizens were all much occupied with
their views of the great event of the time.
On Tuesday, the 17th of April, Mr Wilkes was released from prison, and
all the advanced Liberals of the ancient city were to make themselves
merry at the Crown Inn in honour of their hero's triumphant release.
Bristol has always been foremost in hero-worship, though too often the
Dagon at whose feet it has lain has, like Mr Wilkes, been a poor
creature after all, and has fallen from his pedestal and broken himself
to pieces.
As Chatterton was pacing the familiar streets, and with alternate fits
of hope and the most cruel despair thinking out his future, he passed
the Crown Inn, in the passage from Bond Street to Gower Lane.
Sounds of revelry and merry voices struck his ear, and he paused to
listen.
There were several other hangers-on in the precincts of the inn, and
they were discussing Wilkes and liberty, and the freedom of the subject,
with all the keen zest of those within.
A woman jostled against Chatterton, and raised herself on tiptoe, hoping
to see something through the crack in the red curtain which hung over
the window of the large room where the revellers were gathered. She was
poor and ragged, and the goodly smell of the viands made her exclaim,--
'What a dinner they be having, while hundreds are starving. Ah! starving
is hard work!'
Chatterton heard the words and said,--
'Aye, my good woman, you are right,' and then he put his hand in his
pocket and pulled out one of the very few copper coins which were left
there and gave it to the woman.
'Lord bless you, my dear,' she said, 'you've a kind heart, and you look
as thin as a rod yourself. I hear,' she said confidentially, 'they've
got forty-five pounds of meat in there, and puddin' and punch and baccy.
Ah! it's a queer world, that it is!' and then she passed on, the smell
of the viands becoming more tantalising every minute.
There is something very pathetic in the position of the Bristol poet on
that spring evening--alone, and as he thought deserted, and driven to
despair by what he believed to be the ill-treatment of the people of
Bristol.
After the lapse of a hundred and twenty years the memory of that boyish
figure still haunts the streets of Bristol, and there comes a vain and
helpless longing that at that critical moment of Chatterton's life some
hand of blessed charity had been stretched out to him, some word of
loving counsel and sympathy offered him.
It was the young eagle chafing against the bars of his cage, wounding
his wings in every vain attempt to soar above his prison house; it was
the prisoner held captive by chains, of his own forging, it may be, but
not the less galling. The gift bestowed by the hand of God was soiled by
its contact with earthly desires, and the Giver altogether unrecognised,
and His divinity unfelt.
Chatterton, on this evening, was drifting on a sea of doubt and
perplexity, nursing within angry passions of hate and revenge, and yet
through all was to be seen the better self trying to assist itself, as
when he gave his poor mite to the starving woman, and going to his home
made his mother's heart sing for joy as he cast off his gloom, praised
the frugal supper she set before him, and told her the day was soon
coming when she should feast with him in London, whither he was bent on
going as soon as possible. The very next day this scheme was rendered
comparatively easy of accomplishment.
Mr Barrett, probably when discussing Chatterton's story over the punch
bowl at the Crown, got up a little subscription for him, and sent for
him to communicate the intelligence on the next morning.
And now indeed Hope, holy sister, swept through the poet's sky in crown
of gold and robe of lily white. Dire despondency was changed into
raptures of joy, and his mother, though with a pain at her heart, busied
herself to enter into all the little preparations for her son's start to
London--London, which meant for him a new bright world, the world of
Goldsmith and Garrick, of Johnson and Burke, and who could tell if, when
with the laurel crown of success on his brow, he might not meet Horace
Walpole as an equal and repay his coldness with disdain. Who could tell?
Alas that this exultant happiness in promised good should be doomed to
end in the wail of sadness which was to know no note of triumph
henceforth.