ALL DOWN-HILL.
The hot rays of the June sun lay on the west-end streets one Thursday
at midday, and on three men of fashion who were strolling through
them arm-in-arm. He who walked in the middle was a young man turned
six-and-twenty, but not looking it; a good-natured, easy-going,
attractive young fellow, who won his way with every one. It was Robert
Dalrymple. From two to three years had elapsed since his father's
death; and, alas, they had not been made years of wisdom to him.
Impulsive, generous, hasty, improvident, and very fond of London life,
Robert Dalrymple had been an easy prey to Satan's myrmidons in the
shape of designing men.
These two gentlemen, with him today, were not precisely genii of
good. One of them, Colonel Haughton, was a stout, elderly man, with a
burly manner, and a mass of iron-grey hair adorning his large head;
his black eyes stood out, bold and hard, through his gold-rimmed
glasses. Mr. Piggott, much younger, was little and thin, with a stoop
in the shoulders, and one of the craftiest countenances ever seen, to
those who could read it. Suddenly Robert stood still, withdrew his arm
from Mr. Piggott's, and gazed across the street.
"What now, Dalrymple?"
"There's my cousin Oscar! If ever I saw him in my life, that is he.
What brings him to town? I will wish you good-day and be after him."
"To meet tonight," quickly cried Colonel Haughton.
"To meet tonight, of course. No fear of my not coming for my revenge.
Adieu to both of you until then."
It is a sad story that you have to hear of Robert Dalrymple. How shall
I tell it? And yet, while running into this pitfall, and tumbling into
that, the young man's intentions were so good and himself so sanguine
that one's heart ached for him.
In his chivalrous care for his mother, the first thing Robert did, on
coming home from his father's funeral, was to break off the engagement
with Mary Lynn. Or, rather, to postpone it--if you can understand such
a thing. "We shall not be able to marry for many a year, Mary," he
said, the tears that had fallen during the burial-service still
glistening in his eyes, "and so you had better take back your troth.
Moat Grange is no longer mine, for I cannot and will not turn my
mother and sisters out of it; I promised _him_ I would not: and
so--and so--there's nothing to be done but part."
In the grey gloaming that same evening they went out under the canopy
of heaven and talked the matter over calmly. Neither of them wanted
to part with the other: but they saw no way at present of escaping
from it. Robert had property of his own that brought him two hundred
a-year; Mary had the five thousand pounds left her by Mr. Francis
Grubb. Mary would have risked marrying, though she did not say so;
Robert never glanced at the possibility. Super-exalted ideas blind us
to the ordinary view of everyday life, and Robert could only look at
housekeeping in the style of that at Moat Grange. It occurred to Mary
that perhaps his mother and her mother might spare them something
yearly, but again she did not like it to be herself to suggest it. So
the open agreement come to between them was, to cancel the engagement;
the tacit one was to _wait_--and that they were just as much plighted
to each other as ever.
But the reader must fully understand Robert Dalrymple's position. He
had come into Moat Grange as surely and practically as though he had
had no mother in existence. Its revenues were his; his to do what he
pleased with. It is true that the keeping up of Moat Grange, as his
father had kept it up, would take nearly all those revenues: and
Robert had to learn that yet, in something beyond theory. Mrs.
Dalrymple instituted various curtailments, but her son in his
generosity thought they were unnecessary.
Close upon his father's death, Robert came to London, attended by
Reuben, and entered upon some rather luxurious chambers in South
Audley Street. The rooms and the expenses of fashionable living made
havoc of his purse, and speedily plunged him into embarrassment. It
might not have been serious embarrassment, this alone, for he of
course took to himself a certain portion of his rents; but
unfortunately some of the acquaintances he made introduced him to that
most dangerous vice, gambling; and they did not rest until they had
imbued him with a love of it. It is of no use to pursue the course of
his downfall. He had been gradually getting lower and lower since then
in regard to finances, and deeper into embarrassments: and in this,
the third season, Robert Dalrymple had hardly a guinea he could call
his own; and Moat Grange was mortgaged. He was open-hearted, generous
as of old. Ah, if he could only have been as free from care!
Dodging in and out among the vehicles that crowded Regent Street,
Robert got over at last, and tore after his cousin. "Oscar, Oscar! is
it you?" he called out. "When did you get here?"
"Ah, Robert, how are you? I was on my way to South Audley Street to
find you."
"Come for a long stay?" demanded Robert, as he linked his arm within
Oscar's.
"I came today and I return tomorrow," replied Oscar.
"You don't mean that, man. Visit London in the height of the season,
and stay only a day! Such a calamity was never heard of."
"I cannot afford London in the season; my purse is not long enough."
"You shall stay with me. But what did you come for?"
"A small matter of business brought me," replied Oscar, "and I have to
go down tomorrow--thank you all the same."
He did not say what the business was; he did not choose to say. Mrs.
Dalrymple, still living at the Grange, had been tormented by doubts,
touching her son, for some time past. Recently she had heard rumours
that rendered her doubly uneasy, and she had begged of Oscar to come
up and find out whether there was any, or how much, ground for them.
If things were as bad as Mrs. Dalrymple feared, Oscar concluded that
from Robert he should hear nothing. He meant to put a question or two
to him, to make his observations silently, and, if necessary, to
question Reuben. They were of totally opposite natures, these two
young men; Oscar was all cool calculation, and the senior by
half-a-dozen years; Robert all thoughtless impulse.
Oscar put the question to Robert in the course of the afternoon; but
Robert simply waived the subject, laughing in Oscar's face the while.
And from the observations Oscar made in South Audley Street, nothing
could be gathered; the rooms were quiet.
They dined there in the evening, Reuben waiting on them. Robert urged
various outdoor attractions on Oscar afterwards, but he urged them in
vain: Oscar preferred to remain at home. So they sipped their wine,
and talked. At eleven o'clock Oscar rose to leave.
"It is time for sober people to be in bed, Robert. I hope I have not
kept you up."
Robert Dalrymple fairly exploded with laughter. Kept him up at only
eleven o'clock! "My evening is not begun yet," said he.
"No!" returned Oscar, looking surprised, whether he felt so or not.
"What do you mean?"
"I am engaged for the evening to Colonel Haughton."
"It sounds a curious time to us quiet country people to begin an
evening. What are you going to do at Colonel Haughton's?"
"Can't tell till I get there."
"Can I accompany you?"
Robert's face turned grave. "No," said he, "it is a liberty I may not
take. Colonel Haughton is a peculiar-tempered man."
"Good-night."
"Good-night, Oscar. Come to breakfast with me at ten."
Oscar Dalrymple departed. But he did not proceed to the hotel where he
had engaged a bed. On the contrary, he took up his station in a shady
nook, whence he could see the door he had just come out of; and there
he waited patiently. Presently he saw Robert Dalrymple emerge from it,
and betake himself away.
A little while yet waited Oscar, and then he retraced his steps to the
house, and rang the bell. Reuben answered it. A faithful servant,
getting in years now. Robert was the third of the family he had
served.
"Reuben, I may have left my note-case in the dining-room," said Oscar.
"Can I look for it?"
The note-case was looked for without success: and Oscar discovered
that it was safe in his pocket. Perhaps he knew that all the while.
"I am sorry to have troubled you for nothing, Reuben. Did I call you
out of your bed?"
"No, no," answered the man, shaking his head. "There's rarely much bed
for me before daylight, Mr. Oscar."
"How's that?"
"I suppose young men must be young men, sir. I should not mind that;
but Mr. Robert is getting into just the habits of his uncle."
Oscar looked up quickly, "His uncle--Claude Dalrymple?" he asked in a
low tone.
"Ay, he is, sir: and my heart is almost mad at times with fear. If my
dear late master was alive, I should just go down to the Grange and
tell him everything."
An idea floated into the mind of Oscar as he listened. Mrs. Dalrymple
had not mentioned whence she had heard the rumours of Robert's doings:
he now thought it might have been from no other than Reuben. This
enabled him to speak out.
"Reuben," he said, "I came up today at Mrs. Dalrymple's request. She
is terribly uneasy about her son. Tell me all, for I have to report it
at the Grange. If what we fear be true, something must be done to save
him."
"It is all true, sir, and I wrote to warn my mistress," cried Reuben.
"Should things ever come to a crisis with him, as they did with his
uncle, I knew Mrs. Dalrymple would blame me bitterly for not having
spoken. And I should blame myself."
Oscar Dalrymple gazed at Reuben, for the man's words had struck
ominously on his ear. "Do you fancy--do you fear--things may come to a
crisis with him, as they did with his uncle?" he breathed in a low
tone.
"Not in the same way, sir; not as to _himself_," returned the man, in
agitation. "Mr. Oscar, how could you think it?"
"Nay, Reuben, I think it! Your words alone led to the thought."
"I meant as to his money, sir. He has fallen into a bad, gambling set,
just as Mr. Claude fell. One of them is the very same man: Colonel
Haughton. He ruined Mr. Claude, and he is ruining Mr. Robert. He was
Captain Haughton then; he is colonel now; but he has sold out of the
army long ago. He lives by gambling. I have told Mr. Robert so; but he
does not believe me."
"That's where he is gone tonight."
"Where he goes every night, Mr. Oscar. Haughton and those men have
lured him into their toils, and he can't escape them. He has not the
moral courage; and he has the mania for play upon him. He comes home
towards morning, flushed and haggard; sometimes in drink--yes, sir,
drinking and gaming mostly go together. He appeared laughing and
careless before you, but it was all put on."
"Have you warned him--or tried to stop him?"
"Yes, sir, once or twice; but it does no good. I don't like to say too
much: he might not take it from me. Those harpies won't let him rest;
they come hunting after him, just as they hunted his uncle a score, or
more, years ago. Nobody ever had a better heart than Mr. Robert; but
he is pliable, and gets led away."
Oscar frowned. He thought Robert had no business to be "led away," and
he felt little tolerance for him. Reuben had told all he knew, and
Oscar wished him good-night and departed, full of painful thought
touching Robert.
The night passed. In the morning Oscar went to South Audley Street to
breakfast. Robert was looking ill and anxious.
"Been making a night of it?" said Oscar, lightly. "You look as though
you had."
"Yes, I was late. Pour out the coffee, will you, Oscar?"
His own hands were shaking. Oscar saw it as Robert opened his letters.
One of them bore the Netherleigh postmark, and was from Farmer Lee.
Oscar hardly knew how to open the ball, or what to say for the best.
"I'm sure something is disturbing you, Robert. You have had no sleep;
that's easy to be seen. What pursuit can you have that it should keep
you up all night!"
"One is never at a loss to kill time in London."
"I suppose not, if it has to be killed. But I did not know it was
necessary to kill that which ought to be spent in sleep. One would
think you passed your nights at the gaming-table, Robert."
The words startled him, and a flush rose to his pallid features. Oscar
was gazing at him steadily.
"Robert, you look conscious. Have you learnt to gamble?"
"Oh, it's nothing," said Robert, confusedly. "I may play a little now
and then."
"Do not shirk the question. _Have you taken to play?_"
"A little, I tell you. Never mind. It's my own affair."
"You were playing last night?"
"Well--yes, I was. Very little."
"Lose or win?" asked Oscar, carelessly.
"Oh, I lost," answered Robert. "The luck was against me."
"Now, my good fellow, do you know what you had best do? Go home to
Moat Grange, and get out of this set; I know what gamesters are; they
never let a pigeon off till he is stripped of his last feather. Leave
with me for the Grange today, and cheat them; and stop there until
the mania for play shall have left you, though it should be years to
come."
Ah, how heartily Robert Dalrymple wished in his heart that he could do
it!--that he could break through the net in which he was involved, in
more ways than one! "I cannot go to Moat Grange," he answered.
"Your reasons."
"Because I must stay where I am. I wish I had never come--never set up
these chambers; I do wish that. But, as I did so, here I am fixed."
"I cannot think why you did come--flying from your home as soon as
your father was under ground. Had you succeeded to twenty thousand
a-year, you could but have made hot haste to launch out in the
metropolis."
"I did not come to launch out," returned Robert, angrily. "I came to
get rid of myself. It was so wretched down there."
Oscar stared. "What made it so?"
"The remembrance of my father. Every face I met, every stick and stone
about the place seemed to reproach me with his death. And justly. But
for my carelessness he would not have died."
"Well, that is all past and gone, Robert. You shall come back to the
Grange with me. You will be safe there."
"No. It is too late."
"It is not too late. What do you mean? If----"
"I tell you it is too late," burst out Robert, in a sharp tone: and
Oscar thought it was full of anguish.
He tried persuasion, he tried anger; and no impression whatever could
he make on Robert Dalrymple. _He_ thought Robert was wilfully,
wickedly obstinate; the secret truth being that Robert was ruined.
Oscar told him he "washed his hands" of him, and departed.
It chanced that same afternoon that Robert was passing through
Grosvenor Square and met Mr. Grubb close to his house. Looking at him
casually, reader, he has not changed; he has the same noble presence,
the same gracious manner; nevertheless, the fifteen or sixteen months
that have elapsed since his marriage, have brought a look of care to
his refined and thoughtful face, a line of pain to his brow. They
shook hands.
"Will you come in, Robert?"
"I don't mind if I do," was the answer--for in good truth Robert
Dalrymple was too wretched not to seize on anything that might serve
to divert him from his own thoughts. But Mr. Grubb paused in sudden
remembrance.
"Mary is here today. Have you any objection to meet her?"
"Objection! I shall like it," answered Robert, with a flush of
emotion, for Mary Lynn was still inexpressibly dear to him. "I wish
with my whole heart that she was my wife--that we had never parted! It
was all my foolish doing."
"I thought at the time you were rather chivalrous: I must say that,"
observed Mr. Grubb, regarding him attentively. "I suppose, in point of
fact, you are both waiting for one another now."
"Why do you say that?" asked the young man, in evident agitation.
"Step in here, Robert," said Mr. Grubb, drawing him through the hall
to his own room, the library. "Mary persistently refuses to accept
good offers: she has had two during the past year; therefore, I
conclude that she and you have some private understanding upon the
point. I told her so one day, and all the answer I received consisted
of a laugh and a blush."
It could have been nothing to the blush that rose to Robert's face
now; brow, ears, neck, all were dyed blood-red. The terrible
consciousness of how untrue this was, how untrue it was obliged to be,
was smiting him with reproachful sting. Mr. Grubb mistook the signs.
"I think," he said, "that former parting was a mistake. It was
perfectly right and just that Mrs. Dalrymple should have been well
provided for, but----"
"You think I should have taken Moat Grange myself, and procured
another home for my mother," interrupted Robert. "Most people do think
so. But, if you knew how I hated the sight of the Grange!--never a
single room of it but my poor dead father's face seemed to rise up to
confront me."
"It might have been best that you should remain in your own home; we
will not discuss it now. What I want to say is this--that if you and
Mary have been really living upon hope, I don't see why you need live
upon it any longer. A portion of your own revenues you may surely
claim, a few hundreds yearly; and Mary shall bring as much grist to
the mill on her side."
"You are very kind, very thoughtful," murmured Robert.
"But there must be a proviso to that," continued Mr. Grubb. "Reports
have reached me that Robert Dalrymple is going headlong to the
bad--pardon me if I speak out the whispers freely--that he is becoming
reckless, a gamester, I know not what all. I do not believe this,
Robert; I do not wish to believe it. I have seen nothing to confirm
it, myself; you are in one set of London men, I am in another. In a
young man situated as you are, alone, without home-ties, some latitude
of conduct may be pardoned if he be a good man and true, he will soon
pull himself straight again. If you can assure me on your honour it is
nothing more than this, well and good. If it be more--if the worst of
the whispers but indicate the truth, you cannot of course think of
Mary. Robert, I say I leave this to your honour."
"I should like to pull myself up beyond any earthly thing," spoke the
young man, in a flash of what looked far more like despair than hope.
"If I _could_ do it--and if Mary were my wife--I--I should have no
fear. Let us talk of this another day. Let me see her!"
Mary was just then alone in what they called the grey drawing-room. A
lovely room; as indeed all the rooms were in Mr. Grubb's house, made
so by him in his love for his wife. He went in search of his wife,
giving Robert the opportunity of seeing Mary alone.
Let no woman go to the altar cherishing dislike or contempt of him who
is to be her husband. Marriages of indifference are made in plenty,
and in time they may become unions of affection. But the other!--it is
the most fatal mistake that can be made. Lady Adela treated her
husband with scorn, _did so systematically_; she did not attempt to
conceal her dislike; she threw his love back upon him. On the very day
of their marriage, when she, in what appeared to be a fit of
petulance, drew down all the blinds of the chariot as they drove away
from Lord Acorn's door, and he, taking advantage of the privacy, laid
his hand on hers, and bent to whisper a word of love, perhaps to take
a kiss from her cheek, she effectually repressed him. "Pray do not
attempt these--endearments," she said in a scornful tone, "they are
not agreeable." Francis Grubb drew back to his corner of the carriage,
and a bitter blight fell upon his spirit.
For some months past now, Lady Adela had been pale and thin, sick and
ill. She resented the indisposition strongly, for it prevented her
joining in the gaiety she loved, and went about wishing fretfully that
her baby was born.
"Oh, Robert! _Robert!_"
Mary Lynn had started up with a cry, so surprised was she to see him
enter. She stood blushing even to tears. And Robert? Conscious how
unworthy he was of her, how impossible it was that he should dare to
claim her, while the love within him was beating on his heart with
lively pain, he sat down with a groan and covered his face with his
hands. She thought he was ill. She went to him and knelt down, and
looked up at him in appealing fear.
"Robert, what is it--what is amiss?"
And for answer, Robert Dalrymple, utterly overcome by the vivid sense
of the remorseful past, of despair for the future, let his face fall
upon her shoulder, and burst into a fit of heart-rending sobs so
terrible for a man to yield himself to.