RELAPSE
"How shall I trace the change, how bear to tell
How he broke faith----"
The Hotel Champlain is a hostelry not on the list which promises the
highest class of entertainment for the tourist; one has not to go there
unless one is French or in some way connected with or interested in
French life and character, yet the _cuisine_ is excellent and the rooms
clean and neat. The occasional presence of pompous Senators from the
provinces on their way to the legislative halls of the capital ensures
a certain average of cooking and attendance; at other times prevail the
naturally comfortable instincts of the host and hostess, M. and Mme.
Alphonse Prefontaine, a couple bearing the same initials as the
Poussettes, the wife a Natalie too, but extremely different in ideals
and character. Thus, monsieur, the host, had voyaged, been to "Paris,
France," emphasized in case you should think he meant that village,
Paris, Ontario; had written a brochure on his travels and was a great
patron of such arts as at that time the French population of Montreal
were privileged to offer. Madame, the wife, with well-frizzed black
hair, strong features and kindly dark eyes, was handsome enough for a
Lady Mayoress, had excellent if a little showy taste in dress and had
reared a large and healthy family.
To their comfortable roof Crabbe repaired rather than to any English
one, because he was not yet completely reinstated in his own
self-respect, and to patronize places suited to him in a prosperous
future might now invite too much criticism. The Prefontaines knew Miss
Clairville well and had heard from her of the rich Englishman to whom
she was about to be married, and Crabbe was therefore received with
more than Gallic fervour, assigned one of the best rooms, and after
seeing a clergyman and attending to other matters touching the
approaching ceremony, shut himself up with certain manuscripts that he
wished to look over before mailing them to England. He had arrived at
noon on the day of Henry Clairville's death and the next morning
accordingly brought him the news in print. He grew thoughtful for a
while, meant to dispatch a telegram of condolence to Pauline, then
forgot it as he became interested in his work. Two poems in particular
came in for much revision: "The Lay of an Exiled Englishman," and
"Friends on the Astrachan Ranch," pleased him with their lines here and
there, yet the general and final effect seemed disappointing to his
fine critical side; like many another he saw and felt better than he
could perform.
"A Tennysonian ring, I fear. Yet what man alive and writing now can
resist it? It slides into the veins, it creeps along the nerves, it
informs us as we speak and move and have our being. I'll read
aloud--ghastly perhaps, but the only way to judge effect."
He began, and the long lines rose and fell with precision and academic
monotony; he was no elocutionist, but read as authors read their own
works, as Schubert played his own music, and as he read the snow fell
in thick swirling masses outside his window and the cold grew more and
more penetrating and intense. A knock at the door roused him. It was
a servant of the house who spoke English. The host had sent to know
whether the guest was warm.
"Well, come to think of it," said Crabbe, "I'm not too warm, by any
means. You can tell them to fire up downstairs, certainly. What time
is luncheon here?"
"Do you mean dinner, sir?"
"Oh, yes, dinner, of course. One o'clock? Very well."
"No order, sir? For the bar, I mean?"
Crabbe stared at the speaker then straightened himself and looked out
of the window. Was it snowing at St. Ignace, and on Henry Clairville's
grave? Would Pauline go into mourning?
"No, I think not. A bottle of Bass at my dinner--that's all."
The interruption over, he went back to his poetry, and this time read
on until he had finished. Then he was silent, staring at the table
with his legs straight out in front of him, and his hands in his
pockets.
"What rot your own poetry can sound!" he finally observed with a frown.
"Verse certainly needs an audience, and there's a turn, a lilt that
reminds me of Carleton occasionally--that won't do. Must go at it
again. Must go at it again. Better have a smoke."
He found and lit his pipe, read over the stanzas, this time in his
head, and the room grew steadily colder, until he could hardly stand
it. He rang the bell.
"Look here! Tell Mr. Prefontaine his guests are freezing in this
house. Get him to fire up, there's a good fellow--and--look here? How
soon will dinner be ready?"
"Not for some time, sir. Perhaps, if you're cold, a hot Scotch----"
But Crabbe was again buried in his work. At one he dined, very much
admired by Mme. Prefontaine and her three daughters; he had his
innocent tipple and then went back to his room. By three o'clock it
was growing dark and he rose to pull down the blind, when a step
outside in the hall arrested him. The step seemed familiar, yet
incongruous and uncongenial; it was followed by a knock, and, going
forward, Crabbe opened the door to Ringfield.
Astonishment showed in the Englishman's face, but he spoke amiably
enough and invited the young man inside. Ringfield's countenance wore
its perennial grave aspect, but it could also be seen that at that
moment he was suffering from the cold. He wore no muffler, and his
hands were encased in mere woollen gloves; he had also the appearance
of being a martyr to influenza, and Crabbe regarded him with his usual
contemptuous familiarity.
"What's brought you to town this infernally cold day?" he said.
"You're not going to be married, you know."
The pleasantry did not apparently disconcert the other, but he looked
carefully around as if searching for something before he answered.
"To be candid, I followed you here to have a talk with you."
"The deuce you did--white choker and all! You have a cheek, haven't
you? Then you must be pretty flush, after all, even if you have not
any expectations, like me, Ringfield. You've never congratulated me,
but let that pass. As you are here, what do you want to talk about?"
The two stood facing each other, with the paper-strewn table between
them.
"I should almost think you could guess," murmured Ringfield with an
effort to be easy. "But before I, at least, can do any talking I must
get warm. I'm chilled--chilled to the bone." And indeed he looked it.
His hollow eyes, his bluish lips, his red hands and white fingers
indicated his condition, and he had also a short, spasmodic cough,
which Crabbe had never noticed at St. Ignace. Suddenly in the guide
there awoke the host, the patron, and he drew the blind, placed chairs
and grumbled at the stove-pipe.
"Oh for an open fire!" he cried. "Eh, Ringfield? One of your little
Canadian open stoves would do, a grate--anything to sit before! Why,
man, I'm afraid you have got a touch of the ague, or something worse,
perhaps pneumonia."
"Not as bad as that, surely," returned the other with his wry smile.
"I walked from the station to save a cab, and I'm only a little
chilled."
"A warm drink!" cried Crabbe, from the depths of his new and hospitable
instincts. "Say the word, and I'll order it. By heaven,
Ringfield,--you look poorly, and I've wanted one myself all day." His
hand was on the bell.
"No, no! Don't make a fuss over me. I shall be all right after a
while. Besides I never take anything of the kind you mean, I fancy.
Some camphor--if you had that, or a cup of boiling hot tea. I'll go
downstairs and ask for that. Or coffee."
"Tea! Good Lord! Tea, to a man sickening with pneumonia!"
"But I'm not--really I'm not. I'm feeling warmer already."
"I know better. 'A hot Scotch,'" he said. "Oh for some of the
Clairville brandy now, eh? By the way, her brother's dead."
Ringfield shivered, but not this time on account of the cold. Some
strange sensation always attacked him when Crabbe spoke of Pauline.
"Yes. I did not hear of it until she returned."
"She went to see him, then?"
"Yes."
"That must have been after I left. Poor girl! Well, was she very
knocked up? Have you seen her?"
Ringfield shook his head and the guide attributed the action more to
cold than to sympathy. His mind was made up; Ringfield must take
something, must be warmed up and made fit, and whisky was the only
means known to the Englishman, who did not own a "Manual of
Homoeopathy". Whisky it must be. Again his hand went to the bell, and
again Ringfield remonstrated, but his _gauche_ utterances were of no
avail in face of Crabbe's decision of character and natural lording of
it. The boy appeared, the order was dispatched, and as Ringfield
noticed the growing exaltation in the guide's manner, a sort of
sickness stole upon him. Here, thrust into his hand, was the greatest
opportunity yet given to him to preserve a human soul and to save the
woman he loved, but he looked on, dazed, uncomfortable, half guilty.
"If this works you harm," he said, "it will be through me, through me.
I'd rather not, Crabbe; I'd rather not."
But the word of the guide prevailed, and in three minutes a couple of
hot strong glasses were on the table. Crabbe for his part was really
curious. Could it be that this man, his visitor, had never tasted
spirituous liquor? Wine, of course, he must have taken, being a
clergyman. This thought immediately attracted him, and with a sense of
its literary value he sought to question Ringfield as to the effect of
the Communion wine upon a teetotal community. By this time there was
no doubt the minister had suffered a severe chill and the temptation
became very strong to try the hot glass that stood in front of him.
Crabbe jeered.
"What do you suppose will happen to you if you taste it, even if you
drain it? What can one glass do? Nonsense. I've taken a whole bottle
of Glenlivet in an evening--then you might talk!"
His hand played with the glasses, and watching him, Ringfield felt all
the awful responsibility of his office. Once before he had shattered a
hateful bottle, once he had lifted up his voice in self-righteous
denunciation of the sin of drink and the black fruit thereof, but now
he appeared helpless, paralyzed.
At what moment the evil finally entered into him and conquered him does
not signify; horrible visions of Pauline and this man going away
together, laughing and chatting, embracing and caressing, swam before
his jaundiced eyes. To delay, to prevent the marriage had been his
dream for weeks, and now he saw one way to accomplish this wished-for
hindrance to their union. Should Crabbe be made drunk, should he yield
again after so long abstinence from liquor, who could say what the
consequences might prove? A shred only of common compunction animated
him as he said: "I tell you frankly I'm afraid of the stuff. And I'm
afraid for you."
Yet all this time he was watching the guide's expression.
Already the steaming fumes were working upon him; the familiar,
comforting, stimulating odour was there, his hand was clasping the
glass, in another moment he would drain it, then what would happen!
"Afraid! Afraid? Of one glass! Ringfield--you're a fool, a prig, and
a baby. Besides, the spirit is all burnt out by this time, evaporated,
flown thence. Come--I'll set you the example. Drink first and preach
afterwards."
And with the peculiar gloating eye, the expressively working, watering
mouth that the drunkard sometimes shows, the Englishman led off. It
was a long, hot drink, but he threw his head back and never paused till
he had drained the last drop, and once again tipped the glass towards
his throat. Ringfield, alarmed, fascinated, deeply brooding, watched
the proceeding in silence, his nature so changed that there was no
impulse to seize the offending glass, dash it on the ground or pour the
contents on the floor, watched ardently, hungrily, for the sequel.
Would Crabbe remain as he had been after the enlivening draught, or
would he by rapid and violent stages decline to the low being of former
days? While Ringfield thus watched the guide the latter stared back,
broadly smiling.
"Still shaking!" he cried; "still 'chilled to the bone' and shivering?
You are such an impossible fellow--you will not give my remedy a
chance. Perhaps whisky doesn't suit you. I know--it was gin you
wanted. 'The gin within the juniper began to make him merry.' Lots of
people don't know that's Tennyson. Eh, Ringfield? Afraid? Afraid of
imperilling your immortal soul? Nuisance--a soul. Great nuisance.
Great mistake. Well--are you or are you not going to drink this other
glass? I can't see good stuff wasted. I'm astonished at you.
I'm--'stonished."
He leant forward and bent his elbows on the table; the papers fluttered
in all directions, but he had forgotten about them. His gaze--wide,
blue and choleric--was alternately bent on Ringfield and on the tumbler.
The minister went pale, his heart beat spasmodically and his fingers
curled and tingled. No power, no wish to pray was left in him, no
sense of responsibility; he was too far gone in jealous vindictiveness
to be his own judge or critic, and he stared at the guide, saying: "If
you get drunk it is your own fault. You'll be doing it yourself. I
have nothing to do with it, nothing. I will not touch the stuff, you
shall not make me."
Yet he did not attempt to remove the glass and Crabbe sniffed at the
tempting fumes. His right hand embraced them, his hair fell over his
forehead, his eyes and mouth worked strangely, and in a twinkling what
the other had foreseen happened. With an unsteady, leering flourish
Crabbe raised the coveted tumbler to his lips and drank it off.
Appalled and conscience-stricken, Ringfield fell back against the door,
the room being small and contracted, and covered his face with his
hands. In ten minutes the guide was coarsely drunk, but sensible
enough to ring the bell and demand more whisky. Committed to his wrong
course, the minister interfered no longer, and suffered a servant to
deliver the stuff into his hands at the door, on the plea that the
gentleman inside was not very well. Thus things went from bad to
worse, Crabbe noisily reciting passages from English poets and the
Greek anthology, and insisting on reading his lines to Ringfield after
a third "go" of spirits.
"How does this strike you?" he cried, whipping a narrow piece of
writing-paper out of his pocket; "I've written many an epitaph, but
none that I liked better than this:--
"Chaste I was not, neither honourable, only kind;
And lo--the streets with mourners at my death were lined!"
And he added gravely that it was in the best Greek style. "I've got
another, 'On a Woman Who Talked too Much,' but I can't remember it.
Don't you write poetry? You don't? Oh! I remember now. You're the
parson. Want to convert me, want to reform me, eh, Ringfield? You
write something better than poetry--sermons. Look here--Ringfield--did
you know I was intended for the Church myself at one time? I was.
Honour bright--before I came out to this blasted country--excuse
freedom of speech--before I knew you, and before I met Henry Clairville
and Pauline."
The name seemed to convey some understanding of his condition with it,
and he stopped a minute in his talk. The other man was still leaning
by the door; it might be expedient to keep people of the house from
seeing Crabbe's condition.
"Now--don't you say this isn't your fault," continued the guide,
shaking his head wisely. "You ordered the whisky, you know you did.
You were 'chilled to the bone' and you ordered it. And you're a parson
all the same, can't get over that, can't help yourself, can you,
Ringfield? Remember meetin' you many years ago somewhere, there was
whisky too on that occasion, and you c'ngratulated me, you know, on
going to be married. But you were--premature, that's what you were,
Ringfield--premature. Wonder where I met you before! Must have been
in the Old Country; must have been at Oxford together."
He now raised his head, and drinking off the fourth and last strong
tumblerful of spirit, smiled vacantly in the other's face, and
collapsed upon the table.
Ringfield, ashamed and bitter, stood and watched this sad scene with
folded arms and tightly drawn mouth. Was it true? Was this his work?
This dishevelled, staring-eyed, sodden, incoherent creature, shrewdly
wise in his cups, had taken the place of the elegant and easy English
gentleman, the educated Oxford man, dabbler in high-class verse and
prospective happy bridegroom, and what woman would care to have his arm
around her now? With the thought came a wave of self-righteous
indignation; he had partially effected what he had hoped to bring about
in some other way, the gradual but sure alienation of Crabbe from
Pauline, and with a half-guilty satisfaction driving out remorse he
descended and found M. Prefontaine, having first locked the door and
put the key in his pocket. Explanations of his friend's seizure were
made, apparently in good faith, and much solicitude expressed.
"However, I think you had better leave him entirely alone this evening,
and I can look in later," concluded Ringfield, whose serious mien and
clerical garb commended him; "I am familiar with his attacks and I will
also see him in the morning before I leave, in case he requires
anything, although by that time he will very probably have quite
recovered."
This sounding perfectly frank and natural, M. Prefontaine took no more
thought of the guest in No. 9, and gave Ringfield the room opposite,
No. 8, from which he could listen for his friend's "attacks" and render
assistance if required.
At half-past ten, therefore, he unlocked Crabbe's door, and found the
guide almost as he had left him, his head on the table and his legs
stretched out underneath, but Ringfield, scanning the room with a
careful eye as he had done earlier in the day, on his arrival, at
length perceived what he had expected and desired to see--a
travelling-flask of wicker and silver-plate half hidden on the dressing
table behind a tall collar-box. Turning the gas low, but not
completely out, he went away quietly, again locking the door behind
him. What Poussette had told him then was true, and it was this, that
before his departure for Montreal the guide had purchased enough spirit
to fill a large flask, and whether shallow subterfuge or not, Crabbe
certainly had a standing temptation at his elbow which he must have
forgotten when Ringfield entered, cold and shivering and plainly in
need of a stimulant. Poussette's theory--that the Englishman had
absented himself in order to enjoy a deliberate "spree" as it is
called, was incorrect. Crabbe had simply brought the stuff with him
from force of habit, the conventional notion of preparing for a
journey, particularly in such a climate. Therefore the burden of his
recent fall certainly must be laid to Ringfield, who had lifted neither
voice nor hand to hinder; for while pursuing an evil course the latter
seemed powerless to cast out the emotions of blinding hate and jealousy
that tore at his vitals and rendered him a changed and miserable
creature. The next morning he visited Crabbe again and found him, as
he had hoped, absolutely sodden and useless; his elasticity and nerve,
his good looks, his air of authority, having all disappeared, and a
wretched physical sickness begun. He knew his plight, but did not
recognize his tempter, did not mention Pauline's name and seemed to
wish to be left alone. Ringfield candidly and sorrowfully made further
explanations to M. Prefontaine, who promised to say nothing of the
matter and to look after Crabbe as soon as he was able.
"Mlle. Clairville has written to us of the gentleman, and we regret
this should have happened. You will carry her our best regards and
good wishes for her wedding. These Englishmen are sometimes great
drinkers, but they recover quickly."
Ringfield paid his bill and walked out as he had walked in, with the
same constrained, unhappy expression, and the same cold hand grasping a
florid carpet-bag. He had told M. Prefontaine that he was returning to
St. Ignace, but he had no such intention; he went along Jacques Cartier
Square a few yards, and then disappearing around a corner, found a
quiet back street, where, over antiquated shop-fronts, he saw several
cards of _appartements à louer_ and one with a similar legend in
English. Here he entered and secured a front room, so situated that
its view commanded that side of the square on which stood the Hotel
Champlain. He had made up his mind to remain there until he saw Crabbe
emerge, when, if possible, he would again detain, hinder, or, in some
unthought-out way, keep him from St. Ignace and Miss Clairville. Thus
he passed the hours, patiently waiting at his narrow window in the Rue
St. Dominique for a sight of his unfortunate rival.
Now M. Alphonse Prefontaine had a friend named Lalonde, a very clever
man and a member of that useful profession which lives upon the lives
and secrets and follies and crimes of others--in fine, a detective, and
having quite recently lost his wife (a cousin of Mme. Prefontaine) he
had given up his house and come to live at the Hotel Champlain. He had
been present when Ringfield first appeared in the rotunda with his
countrified carpet-bag, had heard him ask for his friend, had seen him
again later in the afternoon, and also in the morning, and having
naturally a highly-developed trait of curiosity, had sauntered out when
Ringfield did, and discovered that, instead of returning to the
country, the young man with the clergyman's tie and troubled face was
lodging in the next street. To anyone else, even to the Prefontaines,
this would have signified nothing, but Lalonde was good at his
business, and the discovery at least interested him; he could say
nothing more. He, too, knew Miss Clairville well, and was expecting to
see her on her wedding-day, so that it was quite natural he should
express a desire to meet Crabbe, even if the latter were scarcely in a
condition to receive callers. M. Prefontaine accordingly took him up,
but all they saw was an exceedingly stupid, fuddled, untidy wretch who
was not yet conscious of the great mistake he had made in giving way to
his deplorable appetite, and who did not realize the import of what was
said to him. Lalonde was sufficiently curious to examine the flask and
Crabbe's valise, but he retired satisfied that the guide had not been
tampered with. Drunkenness and that alone had caused the present sad
state of affairs.