"Yes, you may laugh, Johnny Ludlow--showing your thoughtlessness!
There'll soon be no modesty left in the world," he continued; "there'll
soon be no hard, plodding work. Formerly, men were content to labour
on patiently for years, to attain success, whether in fame, fortune,
or for a moderate competency. Now they must take a leap into it.
Tradespeople retire before middle-age, merchants make colossal fortunes
in a decade, and (to leave other anomalies alone) you random young
hospital students spring into practice full-fledged M.D.'s."
"The world is changing, Uncle John."
"It is," assented Mr. Brandon. "I'm not sure that we shall know it
by-and-by."
From Brighton terminus we had a drive of two or three miles across
country to get to Prior's Glebe--as Lady Bevere's house was named. It
was old-fashioned and commodious, and stood in a large square garden
that was encircled by a thick belt of towering shrubs. Nothing was to be
seen around it but a huge stretch of waste land; half a-mile-off, rose a
little church and a few scattered cottages. "The girls must find this
lively!" exclaimed Roger, taking a comprehensive look about him as we
drove up in the twilight.
Lady Bevere, kind, gentle, simple-mannered as ever, received us
lovingly. Mr. Brandon kissed her, and she kissed me and Roger. It was
the first Christmas Roger had spent at home since rushing into that mad
act of his; he had always invented some excuse for declining. The eldest
son, Edmund, was in the navy; the second, George, was in the Church;
Roger was the third; and the youngest, John, had a post in a merchant's
house in Calcutta. Of the four girls, only the eldest, Mary, and the
youngest were at home. The little one was named Susan, but they called
her Tottams. The other two were on a visit to their aunt, the late Sir
Edmund Bevere's sister.
Dinner was waiting when we got in, and I could not snatch half a word
with Roger while making ready for it. He and I had two little rooms
opening to each other. But when we went upstairs for the night we could
talk at will; and I put my candle down on his chest of drawers.
"How are things going with you, Roger?"
"Don't talk of it," he cried, with quite a burst of emotion. "Things
cannot be worse than they are."
"I fancy you have not pulled up much, as Pitt used to call it, have you,
old friend? Your hands and your face tell tales."
"How can I pull up?" he retorted.
"You promised that you would."
"Ay. Promised! When all the world's against a fellow, he may not be
able to keep his promises. Perhaps may not care to."
"How is Lizzie?" I said then, dropping my voice.
"Don't talk of her," repeated Bevere, in a tone of despair; despair if
I ever heard it. It shut me up.
"Johnny, I'm nearly done over; sick of it all," he went on. "You don't
know what I have to bear."
"Still--as regards yourself, you might pull up," I persisted, for to
give in to him, and his mood and his ways, would never do. "You might
if you chose, Bevere."
"I suppose I might, if I had any hope. But there's none; none. People
tell us that as we make our bed so we must lie upon it. I made mine in
an awful fashion years ago, and I must pay the penalty."
"I gather from this--forgive me, Bevere--that you and your wife don't
get along together."
"Get along! Things with her are worse than you may think for.
She--she--well, _she_ has not done her best to turn out well. Heaven
knows I'd have tried _my_ best; the thing was done, and nothing else was
left for us: but she has not let me. We are something like cat-and-dog
now, and I am not living with her."
"No!"
"That is, I inhabit other lodgings. She is at the old place. I am with a
medical man in Bloomsbury, you know. It was necessary for me to be near
him, and six months ago I went. Lizzie acquiesced in that; the matter
was obvious. I sometimes go to see her; staying, perhaps, from Saturday
to Monday, and come away cursing myself."
"Don't. _Don't_, Bevere."
"She has taken to drink," he whispered, biting his agitated lips. "For
pretty near two years now she has not been a day sober. As Heaven hears
me, I believe _not one day_. You may judge what I've had to bear."
"Could nothing be done?"
"I tried to do it, Johnny. I coaxed, persuaded, threatened her by turns,
but she would not leave it off. For four months in the autumn of last
year, I did not let a drop of anything come into the house; drinking
water myself all the while--for her sake. It was of no use: she'd go out
and get it: every public-house in the place knows her. I'd come home
from the hospital in the evening and find her raving and rushing about
the rooms like a mad woman, or else lying incapable on the bed. Believe
me, I tried all I could to keep her straight; and Mrs. Dyke, a good,
motherly woman, you remember, did her best to help me; but she was too
much for both of us, the demon of drink had laid too fast hold of her."
"Does she come bothering you at your new lodgings?"
"She doesn't know where to come," replied Bevere; "I should not dare to
tell her. She thinks I am in the doctor's house, and she does not know
where that is. I have told her, and her Aunt Dyke has told her, that if
ever she attempts to come after me there, I shall stop her allowance.
Scott--you remember Richard Scott!"
"Of course."
"Well, Scott lives now near the Bell-and-Clapper: he is with a surgeon
there. Scott goes to see her for me once a-week, or so, and brings me
news of her. I declare to you, Johnny Ludlow, that when I first catch
sight of his face I turn to a cold shiver, dreading what he may have to
say. And you talk about pulling up! With such a wife as that, one is
thankful to drown care once in a way."
"I--I suppose, Roger, nothing about her has ever come out _here_?"
He started up, his face on fire. "Johnny, lad, if it came out here--to
my mother--to all of them--I should die. Say no more. The case is
hopeless, and I am hopeless with it."
Any way, it seemed hopeless to talk further then, and I took up my
candle. "Just one more word, Roger: Does Lizzie know you have come down
here? She might follow you."
His face took a look of terror. The bare idea scared him. "I say, don't
you invent impossible horrors," gasped he. "She _couldn't_ come; she
has never heard of the place in connection with me. She has never heard
anything about my people, or where they live, or don't live, or whether
I have any. Good-night."
"Good-night, Roger."