Books: My Young Alcides

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> My Young Alcides

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Bullock, in great wrath and indignation, sent in his accounts that
night with a heavy balance due to him from Eustace, which Harold saw
strong cause to dispute. But that battle, in which, of course,
Crabbe was Bullock's adviser, and did all he could to annoy us, was a
matter of many months, and did not affect our life very closely.
Harold was in effect Eustace's agent, and being a very good
accountant, as well as having the confidence of the tenants, all was
put in good train in that quarter, and Mr. Alison was in the way to
be respected as an excellent landlord and improver. People were
calling on us, and we were evidently being taken into our proper
place. Lady Diana no longer withheld her countenance, and though she
only called on me in state she allowed Viola to write plenty of notes
to me.

But I must go on to that day when Harold and Eustace were to have a
hunting day with the Foling hounds, and dine afterwards with some of
the members of the hunt at the Fox Hotel at Foling, a favourite meet.
They were to sleep at Biston, and I saw nothing of them the next day
till Eustace came home alone, only just in time for a late dinner,
and growled out rather crossly that Harold had chosen to walk home,
and not to be waited for. Eustace himself was out of sorts and
tired, eating little and hardly vouchsafing a word, except to grumble
at us and the food, and though we heard Harold come in about nine
o'clock, he did not come in, but went up to his room.

Eustace was himself again the next morning, but Harold was gone out.
However, as, since he had been agent, he had often been out and busy
long before breakfast, this would not have been remarkable, but that
Eustace was ill at ease, and at last said, "The fact is, Lucy, he has
been 'screwed' again, and has not got over it."

I was so innocent that only Dora's passion with her brother revealed
to me his meaning, and then I was inexpressibly horrified and angry,
for I did not think Harold could have broken his own word or the
faith on which I had taken up my abode with them, and the
disappointment in him, embittered, I fear, by the sense of personal
injury, was almost unbearable.

Eustace muttered something in excuse which I could not understand,
and I thought was only laxity on his part. I told him that, if such
things were to happen, his house was no home for me. And he began,
"Come now, Lucy, I say, that's hard, when 'twas Harold, and not me,
and all those fellows--"

"What fellows?"

"Oh, Malvoisin and Nessy Horsman, you know."

I knew they were the evil geniuses of Dermot's life. Lord Malvoisin
had been his first tempter as boys at their tutor's, and again in the
Guards; and Ernest, or Nessy, Horsman was the mauvais sujet of the
family, who never was heard of without some disgraceful story. And
Dermot had led my boys among these. All that had brightened life so
much to me had suddenly vanished.

It was Ash Wednesday, and I am afraid I went through my Lenten
services in the spirit of the elder son, nursing my virtuous
indignation, and dwelling chiefly on what would become of me if
Arghouse were to be made uninhabitable, as I foresaw.

I was ashamed to consult Miss Woolmer, and spent the afternoon in
restless attempts to settle to something, but feeling as if nothing
were worth while, not even attending to Dora, since my faith in
Harold had given way, and he had broken his word and returned to his
vice.

Should I go to church again, and spare myself the meeting him at
dinner? I was just considering, when Mr. George Yolland came limping
up the drive, and the sight was the first shock to the selfish side
of my grief. "Is anything the matter?" I asked, trying to speak
sternly, but my heart thumping terribly.

"No--yes--not exactly," he said hastily; "but can you come, Miss
Alison? I believe you are the only person who can be of use."

"Then is he ill?" I asked, still coldly, not being quite sure whether
I ought to forgive.

"Not bodily, but his despair over what has taken place is beyond us
all. He sits silent over the accounts in his room at the office;
will talk to none of us. Mr. Alison has tried--I have--Ben and all
of us. He never looks up but to call for soda-water. If he yields
again, it will soon be acute dipsomania, and then--" he shrugged his
shoulders.

"But what do you mean? What can I do?" said I, walking on by his
side all the time.

"Take him home. Give him hope and motive. Get him away, at any
rate, before those fellows come. Mr. Tracy was over at Mycening this
morning, and said they talked of coming to sleep at the 'Boar,' for
the meet to-morrow, and looking him up."

"Lord Malvoisin?" I asked.

And as I walked on, Mr. Yolland told me what I had not understood
from Eustace, that there had been an outcry among the more reckless
of the Foling Hunt that so good a fellow should be a teetotaller.
Dermot Tracy had been defied into betting upon the resolute
abstinence of his hero--nay, perhaps the truth was that these men had
felt that their victim was being attracted from their grasp, and a
Satanic instinct made them strive to degrade his idol in his eyes.

So advantage was taken of the Australian's ignorance of the names of
liqueurs. Perhaps the wine in the soup had already caused some
excitement in the head--unaccustomed to any stimulant ever since the
accident and illness which had rendered it inflammable to a degree no
one suspected. When once the first glass was swallowed, the dreadful
work was easy, resolution and judgment were obscured, and the old
habits and cravings of the days when poor Harold had been a hard
drinker had been revived in full force. Uproarious mirth and wild
feats of strength seemed to have been the consequence, ending by
provoking the interference of the police, who had locked up till the
morning such of the party as could not escape. Happily, the
stupefied stage had so far set in that Harold had made it no worse by
offering resistance, and Dermot had managed to get the matter hushed
up by the authorities at Foling. This was what he had come to say,
but Harold had been very brief and harsh with him; though he was
thoroughly angered and disgusted at the conduct of his friends, and
repeated, hotly, that he had been treated with treachery such as he
could never forgive.

So we came to the former "Dragon's Head," where Harold had fitted up
a sort of office for himself. Mr. Yolland bade me go up alone, and
persuade him to come home with me. I was in the greater fright,
because of the selfishness which had mingled with the morning's
indignation, but I had just presence of mind enough for an
inarticulate prayer through the throbbings of my heart ere knocking,
and at once entering the room where, under a jet of gas, Harold sat
at a desk, loaded with papers and ledgers, on which he had laid down
his head. I went up to him, and laid my hand as near his brow as his
position would let me. Oh, how it burnt!

He looked up with a face half haggard, half sullen with misery, and
hoarsely said, "Lucy, how came you here?"

"I came in to get you to walk home with me."

"I'll get a fly for you."

(This would be going to the "Boar," the very place to meet these
men.)

"Oh no! please don't. I should like the walk with you."

"I can't go home yet. I have something to do. I must make up these
books."

"But why? There can't be any haste."

"Yes. I shall put them into Yolland's hands and go by the next
mail."

"Harold! You promised to stay till Eustace was in good hands."

He laughed harshly. "You have learnt what my promise is worth!"

"Oh Harold! don't. You were cheated and betrayed. They took a
wicked advantage of you."

"I knew what I was about," he said, with the same grim laugh at my
folly. "What is a man worth who has lost his self-command?"

"He may regain it," I gasped out, for his look and manner frightened
me dreadfully.

He made an inarticulate sound of scorn, but, seeing perhaps the
distress in my face, he added more gently, "No, Lucy, this is really
best; I am not fit to be with you. I have broken my word of honour,
and lost all that these months had gained. I should only drag
Eustace down if I stayed."

"Why? Oh, why? It was through their deceit. Oh, Harry! there is
not such harm done that you cannot retrieve."

"No," he said, emphatically. "Understand what you are asking. My
safeguard of an unbroken word is gone! The longing for that stuff--
accursed though I know it--is awakened. Nothing but shame at giving
way before these poor fellows that I have preached temperance to
withholds me at this very moment."

"But it does withhold you! Oh, Harold! You know you can be strong.
You know God gives strength, if you would only try."

"I know you say so."

"Because I know it. Oh, Harold! try my way. Do ask God to give you
what you want to stand up against this."

"If I did, it would not undo the past."

"Something else can do that."

He did not answer, but reached his hat, saying something again about
time, and the fly. I must make another effort. "Oh, Harold! give up
this! Do not be so cruel to Dora and to me. Have you made us love
you better than anybody, only to go away from us in this dreadful
way, knowing it is to give yourself up to destruction? Do you want
to break our hearts?"

"Me!" he said, in a dreamy way. "You don't really care for me?"

"I? Oh, Harry, when you have grown to be my brother, when you are
all that I have in this world to lean on and help me, will you take
yourself away?"

"It might be better for you," he said.

"But it _will_ not," I said; "you will stay and go on, and God will
make your strength perfect to conquer this dreadful thing too."

"You shall try it then," he said, and he began to sweep those
accounts into a drawer as if he had done with them for the night, and
as he brought his head within my reach, I could not but kiss his
forehead as I said, "Thank you, my Harry."

He screwed his lips together, with a strange half-smile very near
tears, emptied the rest of a bottle of soda-water into a tumbler,
gulped it down, opened the door, turned down the gas, and came down
with me. Mr. Yolland was watching, I well knew, but he discreetly
kept out of sight, and we came out into a very cold raw street, with
the stars twinkling overhead, smiling at us with joy I thought, and
the bells were ringing for evening service.

But our dangers were not over. We had just emerged into the main
street when a dog-cart came dashing up, the two cigars in it looming
red. It was pulled up. Harold's outline could be recognised in any
light, but I was entirely hidden in his great shadow, and a voice
called out:

"Halloo, Alison, how do? A chop and claret at the 'Boar'--eh? Come
along."

"Thank you," said Harold, "but I am walking home with Miss Alison--"

The two gentlemen bowed, and I bowed, and oh! how I gripped Harold's
arm as I heard the reply; not openly derisive to a lady, but with a
sneer in the voice, "Oh! ah! yes! But you'll come when you've seen
her home. We'll send on the dog-cart for you."

"No, thank you," said Harold. His voice sounded firm, but I felt the
thrill all through the arm I clung to. "Good night."

He attempted no excuse, but strode on--I had to run to keep up with
him--and they drove on by our side, and Nessy Horsman said, "A prior
engagement, eh? And Miss Alison will not release you? Ladies'
claims are sacred, we all know."

What possessed me I don't know, nor how I did it, but it was in the
dark and I was wrought up, and I answered, "And yours can scarcely be
so! So we will go on, Harold."

"A fair hit, Nessy," and there was a laugh and flourish of the whip.
I was trembling, and a dark cloud had drifted up with a bitter blast,
and the first hailstones were falling. The door of the church was
opened for a moment, showing bright light from within; the bells had
ceased.

"My dear Lucy," said Harold, "you had better go in here for shelter."

"Not if you leave me! You must come with me," I said, still dreading
that he would leave me in church, send a fly, and fall a victim at
the "Boar;" and, indeed, I was shaking so, that he would not withdraw
his arm, and said, soothingly, "I'm coming."

Oh! that blessed hailstorm that drove us in! I drew Harold into a
seat by the door, keeping between him and that, that he might not
escape. But I need not have feared.

Ben Yolland's voice was just beginning the Confession. It had so
rarely been heard by Harold that repetition had not blunted his ears
to the sound, and presently I heard a short, low, sobbing gasp, and
looked round. Harold was on his knees, his hands over his face, and
his breath coming short and thick as those old words spoke out that
very dumb inarticulate shame, grief, and agony, that had been
swelling and bursting in his heart without utterance or form--"We
have erred and strayed--there is no health in us--"

We were far behind everyone else--almost in the dark. I don't think
anyone knew we were there, and Harold did not stand up throughout the
whole service, but kept his hands locked over his brow, and knelt on.
Perhaps he heard little more, from the ringing of those words in his
ears, for he moved no more, nor looked up, through prayers or psalms,
or anything else, until the brief ceremony was entirely over, and I
touched him; and then he looked up, and his eyes were swimming and
streaming with tears.

We came to the door as if he was in a dream, and there a bitterly
cold blast met us, though the rain had ceased. I was not clad for a
night walk. Harold again proposed fetching a carriage from the
"Boar," but I cried out against that--"I would much, much rather walk
with him. It was fine now."

So we went the length of the street, and just then down came the
blast on us; oh! such a hurricane, bringing another hailstorm on its
wings, and sweeping along, so that I could hardly have stood but for
Harold's arm; and after a minute or two of labouring on, he lifted me
up in his arms, and bore me along as if I had been a baby. Oh! I
remember nothing so comfortable as that sensation after the
breathless encounter with the storm. It always comes back to me when
I hear the words, "A man shall be as a hiding-place from the tempest,
a covert from the wind."

He did not set me down till we were at the front door. We were both
wet through, cold, and spent, and it was past nine, so long as it had
taken him to labour on in the tempest. Eustace came out grumbling in
his petulant way at our absence from dinner. I don't think either of
us could bear it just then: Harold went up to his room without a
word; I stayed to tell that he had seen me home from church, and say
a little about the fearful weather, and then ran up myself, to give
orders, as Mr. Yolland had advised me, that some strong hot coffee
should be taken at once to Harold's room.

I thought it would be besetting him to go and see after him myself,
but I let Dora knock at his door, and heard he had gone to bed. To
me it was a long night of tossing and half-sleep, hearing the wild
stormy wind, and dreaming of strange things, praying all the time
that the noble soul might be won for God at last, and almost feeling,
like the Icelander during the conversion of his country, the struggle
between the dark spirits and the white.

I had caught a heavy cold, and should have stayed in bed had I not
been far too anxious; and I am glad I did not, for I had not been
many minutes in my sitting-room before there was a knock at the door,
and Harold came in, and what he said was, "Lucy, how does one pray ?"

Poor boys! Their mothers, in the revulsion from all that had seemed
like a system of bondage, had held lightly by their faith, and in the
cares and troubles of their life had heeded little of their
children's devotions, so that the practical heathenism of their home
at Boola Boola had been unrelieved save by Eustace the elder, when
his piety was reckoned as part of his weak, gentlemanly refinement.
The dull hopeless wretchedness was no longer in Harold's face, but
there was a wistful, gentle weariness, and yet rest in it, which was
very touching, as he came to me with his strange sad question, "How
does one pray?"

I don't know exactly how I answered it. I hardly could speak for
crying, as I told him the very same things one tells the little
children, and tried to find him some book to help; but my books no
more suited him than my clothes would have done, till he said, "I
want what they said in church yesterday."

And as we knelt together, and I said it, the 51st Psalm came to my
mind, and I went through it, oh! how differently from when I had said
it the day before. "Ah!" he said at the end, "thank you."

And then he stood and looked at the picture which was as his child's
to him, turned and said, "Well for him that he is out of all this!"

Presently, when I had marked a Prayer Book for him, he said, "And may
I ask that the--the craving I told you of may not come on so
intolerably?"

"'Ask, and it shall be given,'" I said. "It may not go at once, dear
Harold. Temptation does come, but only to be conquered; and you will
conquer now."

We went down to breakfast, where Eustace appeared in full hunting
trim, but Harold in the rough coat and long gaiters that meant
farming work; and to Eustace's invitations to the run, he replied by
saying he heard that Phil Ogden had been to ask him about some
difficulty in the trenching work, and he was going to see to it. So
he spent the daylight hours in one of those digging and toiling tasks
of his "that three day-labourers could not end." I saw him coming
home at six o'clock, clay up to the eyes, and having achieved
wholesome hunger and wholesome sleepiness.

Eustace had come in cross. He had been chaffed about Harold's
shirking, and being a dutiful nephew, and he did not like it at all.
He thought Harold ought to have come out for his sake, and to show
they did not care. "I do care," said Harold. And when Eustace, with
his usual taste, mentioned that they had laughed at the poor fellow
led meekly home by his aunt, Harold laid a kind hand on mine, which
spoke more than words. I had reason to think that his struggle
lasted some time longer, and that the enemy he had reawakened was
slow of being laid to rest, so that he was for weeks undergoing the
dire conflict; but he gave as little sign as possible, and he
certainly conquered.

And from that time there certainly was a change. He was not a man
without God any longer. He had learnt that he could not keep himself
straight, and had enough of the childlike nature to believe there was
One who could. I don't mean that he came at once to be all I could
have wished or figured to myself as a religious man. He went to
church on Sunday morning now, chiefly, I do believe, for love of the
Confession, which was the one voice for his needs; and partly, too,
because I had pressed for that outward token, thinking that it would
lead him on to more; but it generally seemed more weariness than
profit, and he never could sit still five minutes without falling
asleep, so that he missed even those sermons of Mr. Ben Yolland's
that I thought must do him good.

I tried once, when, feeling how small my powers were beside his, to
get him to talk to this same Mr. Yolland, whose work among the
pottery people he tried to second, but he recoiled with a tone half
scorn, half reserve, which showed that he would bear no pressure in
that direction. Only he came to my sitting-room every morning, as if
kneeling with me a few moments, and reading a few short verses, were
to be his safeguard for the day, and sometimes he would ask me a
question. Much did I long for counsel in dealing with him, but I
durst seek none, except once, when something Mr. Ben Yolland said
about his having expressed strong affection for me, made me say, "If
only I were fitter to deal with him," the answer was, "Go on as you
are doing; that is better for him as yet than anything else."

CHAPTER IX. THE CHAMPION'S BELT.

After all, the fates sent us a chaperon. A letter came addressed to
my mother, and proved to be from the clergyman of a village in the
remotest corner of Devonshire, where a cousin of my father had once
been vicar. His widow, the daughter of his predecessor, had lived on
there, but, owing to the misdoings of her son and the failure of a
bank, she was in much distress. All intercourse with the family had
dropped since my father's death, but the present vicar, casting about
for means of helping her, had elicited that the Arghouse family were
the only relations she knew of, and had written to ask assistance for
her.

"I will go and see about her," said Harold. So he shouldered his
bag, walked into Mycening, and started in the tender, the only place
where he could endure railway travelling. Four days later came this
note:

"Thursday.

"My Dear Lucy,--Send the carriage to meet Mrs. Alison at 4.40 on
Saturday. Your affectionate
"H. A."

I handed the note to Eustace in amazement, but I perceived that he,
like his cousin, thought it quite simple that the home of the head of
the family should be a refuge for all its waifs and strays, and as I
was one myself, I felt rebuked.

I went to Mycening in the carriage, and beheld Harold emerge from a
first-class, extracting therefrom one basket after another, two bird-
cages, a bundle, an umbrella, a parcel, a cloak, and, finally, a
little panting apple-cheeked old lady. "Here's Lucy! that's right."
And as both his hands were full, he honoured me with a hasty kiss on
the forehead. "She'll take care of you, while I get the rest of it."

"But, oh!--my dear man--my pussy--and--and your wadded cloak--and,
oh--my sable muff--your poor papa's present, I would not lose it for
a thousand pounds!"

I found the muff, which could not easily be overlooked, for it was as
big as a portmanteau, and stuffed full of sundries. "Oh dear yes, my
dear, thank you, so it is; but the cat--my poor pussy. No, my dear,
that's the bantams--very choice. My poor little Henry had them given
to him when he was six years old--the old ones I mean--and I've never
parted with them. 'Take them all,' he said--so good; but, oh dear.
Tit! Tit! Tittie! He was playing with her just now. Has anyone
seen a tabby cat? Bless me, there it goes! So dreadful! It takes
one's breath away, and all my things. Oh! where is he?"

"All right," said Harold. "There are your boxes, and here's your
cat," showing a striped head under his coat. "Now say what you want
to-night, and I'll send for the rest."

She looked wildly about, uttering an incoherent inventory, which
Harold cut short by handing over articles to the porter according to
his own judgment, and sweeping her into the carriage, returning as I
was picking up the odds and ends that had been shed on the way. "You
have had a considerable charge," said I, between amusement and
dismay.

"Poor old thing, comfort her! She never saw a train before, and is
regularly overset."

He put me into the carriage, emptied his pockets of the cat and other
trifles, and vanished in the twilight, the old lady gaspingly calling
after him, and I soothing her by explaining that he always liked
walking home to stretch his legs, while she hoped I was sure, and
that it was not want of room. Truly a man of his size could not well
have been squeezed in with her paraphernalia, but I did my best to
console the old lady for the absence of her protector, and I began at
last to learn, as best I could from her bewildered and entangled
speech, how he had arrived, taken the whole management of her
affairs, and insisted on carrying her off; but her gratitude was
strangely confused with her new railway experiences and her anxieties
about her parcels. I felt as if I had drifted a little bit farther
from old times, when we held our heads rather fastidiously high above
"odd people."

But old Mrs. Samuel Alison _was_ a lady, as even Lady Diana allowed;
but of a kind nearly extinct. She had only visited London and Bath
once, on her wedding tour, in the days of stage-coaches; there was
provincialism in her speech, and the little she had ever been taught
she had forgotten, and she was the most puzzle-headed woman I ever
encountered. I do not think she ever realised that it was at
Harold's own expense that her rent and other little accounts had been
paid up, nor that Eustace was maintaining her. She thought herself
only on a long visit, and trusted the assurances that Harold was
settling everything for ever. The L30 income which remained to her
out of one of L200 served for her pocket-money, and all else was
provided for her, without her precisely understanding how; nor did
she seem equal to the complications of her new home. She knew our
history in a certain sort of way, but she spoke of one of us to the
other as "your brother," or "your sister," and the late Mr. Sam
always figured as "your poor papa." We tried at first to correct
her, but never got her farther than "your poor uncle," and at last we
all acquiesced except Eustace, who tried explanations with greater
perseverance than effect. Her excuse always was that Harold was so
exactly like her poor dear little Henry, except for his beard, that
she could almost think she was speaking to him! She was somewhat
deaf, and did not like to avow it, which accounted for some of her
blunders. One thing she could never understand, namely, why Harold
and Eustace had never met her "poor little Henry" in Australia, which
she always seemed to think about as big as the Isle of Wight. He had
been last heard of at Melbourne; and we might tell her a hundred
times that she might as well wonder we had not met a man at
Edinburgh; she always recurred to "I do so wish you had seen my poor
dear little Henry!" till Harold arrived at a promise to seek out the
said Henry, who, by all appearances, was an unmitigated scamp,
whenever he should return to Australia.

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