DESPERATION.
Alone in the oak-parlour at Moat Grange, playing soft bits of melody
in the summer twilight, sat Selina Dalrymple, her very pretty face
slightly flushed, her bright hair pushed from her face. Ordinarily of
a calm and equable temperament, Selina was yet rather given to work
herself up to restlessness on occasion. She was expecting Oscar
Dalrymple; and though the excitement did not arise for himself, it did
for the news he might bring.
"There he is!" she cried, as a step was heard on the gravel. "He has
walked up from the station."
Oscar Dalrymple came in, very quiet as usual, not a speck of dust or
other sign of travel upon him, looking spick and span, as though he
had but come out of the next room. Oscar Dalrymple's place, a small
patrimony called Knutford, lay some three or four miles off; he would
probably walk on there by-and-by, if he did not sleep at the Grange.
"I thought you would come!" exclaimed Selina, gladly springing towards
him.
"I told Mrs. Dalrymple I should return before Saturday," was his
answer, as he took her hand, and kept it in his. "Where is she?"
"Gone with Alice to dine at Court Netherleigh," replied Selina. "I
sent an excuse: I was impatient to see you."
"Thank you, Selina!" he whispered in low, warm tones. "That is a great
admission from you."
"Not to see _you_; but for what you might have to tell," she hastened
to say. "Oscar, how vain you are!"
She sat down in the bow-window, in what remaining light there was, and
he took a chair opposite to her. Then she asked him his news.
"Do you know exactly why I went up?" he inquired with some hesitation,
in doubt how far he ought to speak.
"I know all," she answered pointedly. "I saw Reuben's letter to mamma;
and her fears are my fears. We keep it from poor Alice."
In a hushed voice, befitting the subject and the twilight hour, Oscar
related to her what he had gathered in London. The very worst
impression lay on his own mind: namely, that Robert was going rapidly
to the dogs, money and honour and peace, and all; nay; had already
gone; but he did not make the worst of it to Selina. He said that
Robert seemed to be on a downward course, and would not listen to any
sort of reason.
Selina sat in dismay; her soft dark eyes fixed on the evening sky, her
hands clasped on the dress of blue silk she wore. The evening star
shone in the heavens.
"What will be the end of it, Oscar?"
Oscar did not immediately answer. The end of it, as he fully believed,
would be ruin. Utter ruin for Robert; and that would involve ruin for
his mother and sisters.
"Does Robert really _play?_" pursued Selina.
"I fear he does. Yes."
"Could--could he play away our home--Moat Grange?"
"For his own life. That is, mortgage its revenues."
"But you don't, surely, _fear_ it will come to this?" she cried in
agitation.
"Selina, I hardly know what I fear. Robert is not my brother, and I
could not--I had no right--to question too closely. Neither, if I had
questioned, and--and heard the worst--do I see what I could have done.
Matters have gone too far for any aid, any suggestion, that I could
have given."
"What would become of us? Poor mamma! Poor Alice! Oh, what a trouble!"
"You, at least, can escape the trouble, Selina; you can let me take
you out of it. My home is not the luxurious home you have been
accustomed to here; but it will afford you every comfort--if you will
only come to it. Oh, my love, why do you let me plead to you so long
in vain!"
Selina Dalrymple pouted her pretty red lips. Oscar loved her to folly.
She did not discourage him; did not absolutely encourage him. She
liked him very well, and she liked his homage, for she was one of the
vainest girls living; but, as to marrying him?--that was another
thing. Had he possessed the rent-roll of a duke, she would have had
him tomorrow; his income was a small one, and she loved pomp and
show.
"Now, Oscar!" she remonstrated, putting him off as usual. "Is it a
time to bring in that nonsense, when we are talking and thinking of
poor Robert? And here come mamma and Alice, for that's Miss Upton's
carriage bringing them. They said they should be home early."
And now we have to go back some few hours. It is very inconvenient, as
the world knows, to tell two portions of a story at one and the same
time.
Turning out of one of the handsomest houses in Grosvenor Square, in
the bright sunshine of this same Friday afternoon in June, went Robert
Dalrymple, his step spiritless, a look of perplexity and pain on his
young and attractive face. He had been saying farewell to Mary Lynn,
and he felt, in his despairing heart, that it must be for life. Just a
hint he whispered to her of the worst--that he had been heedless and
reckless, and was ruined; but, woman-like, fond and confiding, she had
told him she never would believe it, and if it was so, there existed
all the more reason for her clinging to him.
Ah, if it only might be! If the prospect just suggested to him by that
good man, Francis Grubb, might only be realized! If he could pull up at
any cost, and enter upon a peaceful life! _If!_ None knew better than
himself that there was no chance of it. All he had was gone--and, had
not Mr. Grubb left it to his honour?
Robert Dalrymple was ruined. Bitterly was the fact impressing itself
upon him, as he walked there under the summer sunlight. Not only were
all his available funds spent, but he had entered into liabilities
thick and threefold, far beyond what the rent-roll at the Grange would
be sufficient to meet. He had told Oscar Dalrymple this very morning
that he did not play much the previous night. Oscar did not believe
it, but it was true. Why did he not play much? Because he had nothing
left to play with, and had sat, gloomy and morose, looking on at the
other players. Introduced to the evil fascinations of play by Colonel
Haughton, he was drawn on until the unhappy mania took hold upon
himself. To remain away from the gambling table for one night would
have been intolerable, for the feverish disease was raging within him.
Poor infatuated man!--poor infatuated men, all of them, who thus lose
themselves!--he was positively still indulging a vision of success and
hope. Every time that he approached the pernicious table, it was rife
within him, buoying him up, and urging him on--that luck might turn in
his favour, and he might win the Grange back--or, rather, the money
he had lost upon it. Thus it is with all gamblers who are
comparatively fresh to the vice; only the vile old sinners such as
Colonel Haughton and his confederate, Piggott, know what such is
worth. The ignis-fatuus, delusive hope, beckoning ever onwards, lures
them to their destruction. Pandora's box, you know, contained every
imaginable evil, but Hope lay at the bottom. Even now, as Robert is
walking to South Audley Street, a feverish gleam of hope is positively
rising up within him. If he had only money to go to the tables that
night, who knew but luck might turn, and he could extricate himself
from his most pressing debts, and so be able to tell the whole truth
to Mr. Grubb?--and how carefully he would avoid all evil in future,
when Mary should be his wife! But--where was the use of conjuring up
these fantastic visions, he asked himself, as he flung himself into a
chair in his sitting-room, when he had no money to stake?
Everything was gone, every available thing; he had nothing left but
the watch he had about him, and the ring he wore--and a few loose
shillings in his pocket. Nothing whatever, in the house, or out of it.
Yes, he had, but it was not his. Farmer Lee, wishing to invest a few
hundred pounds in the funds, had prayed his young landlord to transact
the business for him, and save him a journey to London. Robert
good-naturedly acquiesced. Had any man told him he could touch that
money for his own purposes, he would have knocked the offender down in
his indignation. The cheque, for the money to be transferred, had come
from Mr. Lee that morning. There it lay now, on the table at his
elbow, and there sat Robert, striving to turn his covetous eyes from
it, yet unable, for it was beginning to bear for him the fascination
of the basilisk. He wished it was in the midst of some blazing fire,
rather than lying there to tempt him. For the notion had seized upon
his mind that it was with this money, if he might dare to stake it, he
might win back a portion of what he had lost. With a shudder he shook
off the idea, and looked at his watch. Was it too late to take the
cheque to its destination? Yes, it was; the afternoon was waning, and
business places would be closed. Robert felt half inclined to hand it
to Reuben, and tell him to keep it in safety.
While in this frame of mind, that choice friend of his, Mr. Piggott,
honoured him with a call. Whether that worthy gentleman scented the
presence of the cheque, or heard of it casually from Robert, who was
candid to a fault, certain it was that he did not leave Robert
afterwards, but sat with him until the dinner-hour, and then took him
out to dine. Robert locked up the cheque in his desk before he went.
About eleven o'clock he came home again, heated with wine. Opening his
desk, he snatched out the cheque and hid it away in his breast-pocket,
as if it were something he had a horror of looking at. Piggott and
Colonel Haughton had plied him with something besides wine; alluring
hopes. Turning to leave the room, buttoning his coat over what it
contained, he saw Reuben standing there.
"Mr. Robert!--do not go out again tonight."
Robert stared at the man.
"Sir, I carried you in my arms when you were a child; your father, the
very day he died, told me to give you a word of warning, if I saw you
going wrong; let that be my excuse for speaking to you as you may
think I have no right to do," pleaded Reuben, the tears standing in
his faithful old eyes. "Do not go out again, sir; for this night, at
any rate, stay away from the set; they are nothing but blacklegs.
There's that Piggott waiting for you outside the door."
"Reuben, don't be a fool. How dare you say my friends are blacklegs?"
"They are so, sir. And you are losing your substance to them; and it
won't be their fault if they don't get it all."
Robert, eager to go out to his ruin, hot with wine, would not waste
more words. He moved to the door, but Reuben moved more quickly than
he, and stood with his back against it.
"What farce is this?" cried Robert, in his temper. "Stand away from
the door, or I shall be tempted to fling you from it."
"Oh, sir, hear reason!" And the man's manner was so painfully urgent,
that a half-doubt crossed his master's mind whether he could know what
it was he was about to stake. "Three or four and twenty years ago, Mr.
Robert--I'm not sure as to a year--I stood, in like manner, praying
your uncle Claude not to go out to his ruin. He had come to London,
sir, as fine and generous a young man as you, and the gamblers got
hold of him, and drew him into their ways, and stuck to him like a
leech, till all he had was gone. Moat Grange was played away,
mortgaged, or bartered, or whatever it might be, for the term of his
life; there's a clause in its deeds, as I take it you know, sir, that
prevents its owner from encumbering it for longer--and, perhaps,
that's usual with other estates----"
"You are an idiot, Reuben," interrupted Robert, his tone less fierce.
"A night came when Mr. Claude was half mad," continued Reuben,
unheeding the interruption. "I saw he was; and I stood before him, and
prayed him not to go out with them, as I am now praying you. It was of
no use, and he went. If I tell you what that night brought forth, sir,
will you regard it as a warning?"
"What did it bring forth?" demanded Robert, arrested to interest.
"I will tell you, sir, if you will take warning by it, and break with
those gamblers this night, and never go amongst them more. Will you
promise, Mr. Robert?"
"Out of the way, Reuben!" was the impatient rejoinder. "You are
getting into your dotage. If you have nothing to tell me, let me go."
"Listen, then," cried Reuben, bending his head forward, in his
excitement. "At three o'clock that same morning, Mr. Dalrymple
returned. He had been half-mad, I say, when he went, he was wholly mad
when he came back; mad with despair and despondency. He came in, his
head down, his steps lagging, and went into his bedroom. I went to
mine, and was undressing, when he called me back. He had got his
portmanteau from against the wall, opened it, and was standing over
it, looking in, his coat and cravat off, and the collar of his shirt
unbuttoned. 'Reuben,' said he, 'I have made up my mind to leave
London, and take a journey.'
"'Down to the Grange, sir?' I asked, my heart leaping within me at the
good news.
"'No, not to the Grange this time; it's farther than that. But as I
have not informed any one of my intention I must leave a word with
you, in case I am inquired after.'
"'Am I not to attend you, sir?' I interrupted.
"'No, I shan't want you particularly,' he answered; 'you'll do more
good here. Tell all who may inquire for me, and especially my brother'
(your father, sir, you know), 'that although they may think I did
wrong to start alone on a road where I have never been, I am obliged
to do so. I cannot help myself. Tell them I deliberated upon it before
making up my mind, and that I undertake it in the possession of all my
faculties and senses.' Those were the words."
"Well," cried Robert, impatient for the end of the tale.
"I found these words somewhat strange," continued Reuben, "but his
true meaning never struck me--Oh," wailed the old man, clasping his
hands, "it never struck me. My thoughts only turned to Scotland; for
my master had been talking of going there to see a Scotch laird, a
friend of his, and I believed he had now taken a sudden resolution to
pay the visit; I thought he had pulled out his trunk to put in some
things before I packed it. I asked him when he intended to start, and
he replied that I should know all in the morning; and I went back to
my bed."
Robert sat down on the nearest chair: his eyes were strained on
Reuben. Had he a foreshadowing of what was to come?
"In the morning one of the women-servants came and woke me. Her
face startled me the moment I opened my eyes; it was white and
terror-stricken, and she asked me what that stream of red meant that
had trickled from under the door of the master's chamber. I went there
when I had put a thing or two on. Master Robert," he added, dropping
his voice to a dread whisper, his thoughts wholly back in the past,
"he had indeed gone on his long journey."
"Was he dead?"
"He had been dead for hours. The razor was lying beside him near the
door. I have never quite got over that dreadful sight: and the thought
has always haunted me that, had I understood his meaning properly, it
might have been prevented."
"His trunk--what did he get that out for?" asked Robert, after a
pause.
"To blind me, sir--as I have believed since--while he gave the
message."
"Why did he commit the deed?" gloomily continued Robert, whom the
account seemed to have partially sobered.
"He had fallen into the clutches of the same sort of people that you
have, sir, and they had fleeced him down to beggary and shame, and he
had not the resolution to leave them, and face the poverty; that was
why he did it. His worst enemy was Captain Haughton. He is Colonel
Haughton now."
"What do you mean?" cried Robert Dalrymple, after a pause of
astonishment.
"Yes, sir, the same man. He is your evil genius, and he was your
uncle's before you. The last time I saw him, in the old days, was when
we both stood together over my master's dead body; he came in, along
with others. 'He must have been stark mad,' was his exclamation.
'Perhaps so, Captain Haughton,' I answered, 'but the guilt lies on
those who drove him so.' He took my meaning, and he slunk away out of
the room. Mr. Robert," added the old man, the tears streaming down his
cheeks, "do you know what I like to fancy--and to hope?"
Robert lifted his eyes.
"Why, that the _punishment_ will lie with these wretched tempters, as
well as the guilt. The good God is just and merciful."
Robert did not speak. Reuben resumed.
"The first time that Haughton called here upon you, sir, I knew him,
and he knew me; and I don't think he liked it. He has never come here
himself since; I don't know whether you've noticed it, sir, he has
sent that Piggott--the man that's waiting for you outside now. Mr.
Robert, you had better have fallen into the meshes of the Fiend
himself than into that man Haughton's."
"My uncle must have been insane when he did that," broke from Robert
Dalrymple.
"The jury said otherwise," sadly answered Reuben. "They brought
it in felo-de-se; and he was buried by torchlight, without the
burial-service."
The news had told upon Robert. His mind just then was a chaos. Nothing
tangible showing out of it, save that his plight was as bad as his
uncle Claude's had been, and that he was looking, in his infatuation,
for that night to redeem it. Could he go on with his work--with that
example before him? For a while he sat thinking, his head bent, his
eyes closed; then he rose up, and signed to Reuben to let him pass.
The latter's spirit sank within him.
"Is what I have told you of no avail, Mr. Robert? Are you still bent
on going forth to those wicked men? It will be your ruin."
"It is that already, Reuben. As it was with my uncle, so it is with
me: I am ruined, and worse than ruined, and after tonight I will know
Colonel Haughton no more. But I have resolved to make one desperate
effort this night to redeem myself; something whispers to me that I
shall have luck; and--and you don't know how much lies upon it."
He was thinking of his union with Mary Lynn, poor infatuated man.
Could he redeem himself in a degree this night, he would disclose his
position to Mr. Grubb, entreat his condonation of the past, and
forswear play for ever. A tempting prospect. Nevertheless the tale had
staggered him.
"Don't go, don't go, Mr. Robert. I ask you on my bended knees."
"Get up, Reuben! don't be foolish. Perhaps I will not go. But I must
tell Piggott: I cannot keep him waiting there all night."
Reuben could do no more. He stood aside, and his young master went
forth, _hesitating_.
What strange infatuation could it have been, that it should so cling
to him? Any one who has never been drawn into the fiery vortex of
gambling would have a difficulty in understanding it. Robert Dalrymple
was a desperate man, and yet a hopeful one, for this night might lift
him out of despair. Moreover, the feverish yearning for play, in
itself, was strong upon him: as it always was now at that night hour.
As yet, the penalty he had incurred was but embarrassment and poverty:
he was now about to stake what was not his, and risk guilt. And yet,
_he went forth_: for the dreadful vice had got fast hold of him; and
he knew that the hesitation in his mind was but worthless hesitation;
a species of sophistry.
Mr. Piggott had been cooling his heels and his patience outside, not
blessing his young friend for the unnecessary and unexpected delay,
and not doing the opposite. He was of too equable a nature to curse
and swear: he left that to his peppery partner, Haughton.
"I thought you were gone to bed," he said, when Robert appeared: "in
another minute I should have come in to see after you."
And it was a wonder he did not go in. But Colonel Haughton had
whispered a word of caution as to Reuben, and neither of them cared to
pursue the master too persistently in the man's sight. Robert
Dalrymple spoke of his hesitation, saying he was not sure he should
play that night. He did want to keep the farce of prudence up, even to
himself.
"You have that cheque in your pocket, I suppose?" sharply questioned
Piggott.
"Yes. But----"
"Come on, then; we'll talk of it as we go along." And Robert linked
his arm within Mr. Piggott's and walked on in the direction of Jermyn
Street.
They entered the "hell." It is not a pleasant word for polite pens and
ears, but it is an exceedingly appropriate one. It was blazing with
light, and as hot as its name; and fiery countenances of impassioned
triumph, and agonized countenances of vacillating suspense, and sullen
countenances of despair were crowding there. Colonel Haughton was in a
private room: it was mostly kept for himself and his friends, a choice
knot of whom stood around. Poor Robert's infatuation, under Mr.
Piggott's able tuition, had returned upon him. Down he sat at the
green cloth, wild and eager.
"It is of no use to make fools of us," whispered Colonel Haughton.
"You know you do not possess another stiver; why take up a place?"
"Now, Haughton, you are too stringent," benevolently interposed Mr.
Piggott, laying hold of the colonel's arm, and giving it a peculiar
pinch. "Here is Dalrymple, with an impression that luck will be upon
him tonight, a conviction of it, indeed, and you are afraid of giving
him his revenge. It is his turn to win now. As to stakes, he says he
has something with him that will do."
Robert drew the cheque from his pocket, and dashed it before Colonel
Haughton. "I am prepared to stake this," he said. "Nothing risk,
nothing win. Luck must favour me tonight; even Piggott says so, and
he knows how bad it has been."
Colonel Haughton ran his spectacles over the cheque. "I see," he said:
"it will do. The risking it is your business, not ours."
"Of course it is mine," answered Robert.
"Then put your signature to it. Here by the side of the other."
It was done, and they sat down to play. "Nothing risk, nothing win,"
Robert had said; he had better have said, "Nothing risk, nothing
lose;" and have acted upon it. A little past midnight, he went
staggering out of that house, a doomed man. All was over, all lost.
Farmer Lee's money, or the cheque representing it, had passed out of
his possession, and he was a criminal. A criminal in the sight of
himself, soon to be a criminal in the sight of the world; liable to be
arrested and tried at the bar of Justice, a common felon.
He had tasted nothing since he entered, yet he reeled about the
pavement as one who is the worse for drink. What was to become of him?
Involuntarily the fate his unfortunate uncle Claude had resorted to
came across his mind: nay, it had not been away from it. Even in the
mad turmoil of that last hour, when the suspense was awful to bear,
and hope and dread had fought with each other as a meeting whirlwind,
the facts of that dark history had been thrusting themselves forward.
His face was burning without, and his brain was burning within. It was
a remarkably windy night, and he took off his hat and suffered the
breeze to blow on his miserable brow. And so he paced the streets,
going from home, not to it. Where could he go? he with the brand of
crime and shame upon him? He got to Charing Cross, and there he
halted, and listened to the different clocks striking one. Should he
turn back to South Audley Street? And encounter Reuben, who had tried
to save him, and had failed? And go to bed, and wait, with what
calmness he might, till the law claimed him? Hardly. Anywhere but
home. The breeze was stronger now: it blew from the direction of the
water. Robert Dalrymple replaced his hat, pulled it firmly on his head
to hide his eyes from the night, and dragged his steps towards
Westminster Bridge.
Of all places in the world!--the bridge and the tempting stream!--what
evil power impelled him thither?