Books: My Young Alcides

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

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Harold was gone only ten days, and came back late on a Friday
evening. He tried to tell me about what he had done and seen, but
broke off and said, "Well, I am very stupid; I went to all the places
they told me to see at Rouen and everywhere else, but I can't
recollect anything about them."

So I let him gaze into the fire in peace, and all Saturday he was at
the potteries or at the office, very busy about all his plans and
also taking in hand the charge for George Yolland, for both brothers
were going on Monday to take a fortnight's holiday among their
relations. He only came in to dinner, and after it told me very
kindly that he must leave me alone again, for he wanted to see Ben
Yolland. A good person for him to wish to see, "but was all this
restlessness?" thought this foolish Lucy.

When he came in, only just at bed-time, there was something more of
rest, and less of weary sadness about his eyes than I had seen since
the troubles began, and as we wished one another good night he said,
"Lucy, God forgives while He punishes. He is better to us than man.
Yolland says I may be with you at church early to-morrow."

Then my cheeks flushed hot with joy, and I said how thankful I was
that all this had not distracted his thoughts from the subject.
"When I wanted help more than ever?" he said.

So in some ways that was to me at least a gladsome Sunday, though not
half so much at the time as it has become in remembrance, and I could
not guess how much of conscious peace or joy Harold felt, as, for the
first and only time, he and I knelt together on the chancel step.

He said nothing, but he had quite recovered his usual countenance and
manner, only looking more kind and majestic than ever, as I, his fond
aunt, thought, when we went among the children after the school
service, to give them the little dainties they had missed in his
absence; and he smiled when they came round him with their odd little
bits of chatter.

We sat over the fire in the evening, and talked a little of surface
things, but that died away, and after a quarter of an hour or so, he
looked up at me and said, "And what next?"

"What are we to do, do you mean?" I said, for I had been thinking how
all his schemes of life had given way. We spoke of it together.
"Old Eu did not want him," as he said, and though there was much for
him to do at the Hydriot works and the Mission Chapel, the Reading
Room, the Association for Savings, and all the rest which needed his
eye, yet for Viola's peace he thought he ought not to stay, and the
same cause hindered the schemes he had once shared with Dermot; he
had cut himself loose from Australia, and there seemed nothing before
him. "There were the City Missions," he said, wearily, for he did
not love the City, and yet he felt more than ever the force of his
dying father's commission to carry out his longings for the true good
of the people.

I said we could make a London home and see Dora sometimes, trying to
make him understand that he might reckon on me as his sister friend,
but the answer was, "I don't count on that."

"You don't want to cast me off?"

"No, indeed, but there is another to be thought of."

Then he told me how, over my letters to him in New South Wales, there
had come out Dermot's account of the early liking that everyone
nipped, till my good-girlish submission wounded and affronted him,
and he forgot or disliked me for years; how old feelings had revived,
when we came in contact once more; but how he was withheld from their
manifestation, by the miserable state of his affairs, as well as by
my own coldness and indifference.

I made some sound which made Harold say, "You told me to keep him
away."

"I knew I ought," I remember saying faintly.

"Oh--h--!" a prolonged sound, that began a little triumphantly, but
ended in a sigh, and then he earnestly said, "You do not think you
ought to discourage him now? Your mother did not forbid it for
ever."

"Oh no, no; it never came to that."

"And you know what he is now?"

"I know he is changed," was all I could say.

"And you will help him forward a little when he comes back. You and
he will be happy."

There might be a great surging wave of joy in my heart, but it would
not let me say anything but, "And leave you alone, Harold?"

"I must learn to be alone," he said. "I can stay here this winter,
and see to the things in hand, and then I suppose something will turn
up."

"As a call?" I said.

"Yes," he answered. "I told God to-day that I had nothing to do but
His service, and I suppose He will find it for me."

There was something in the steadfast, yet wistful look of his eyes,
that made me take down the legend of St. Christopher and read it
aloud. Reading generally sent him into a doze, but even that would
be a respite to the heartache he so patiently bore, and I took the
chance, but he sat with his chin on his hand and his eyes fixed
attentively on mine all the time, then held out his hand for the
book, and pondered, as was his thorough way in such matters. At last
he said, "Well, I'll wait by the stream. Some day He will send me
some one to carry over."

We little thought what stream was very near!

CHAPTER XV. THE FATAL TOKEN.

Tuesday morning brought a strange little untidy packet, tied with
blue ribbon, understamped, and directed to Harold Alison, Esquire, in
the worst form of poor Dora's always bad handwriting. Within was a
single knitted muffatee, and a long lock of the stiffly curling
yellow hair peculiar to Dora's head. In blotted, sloping roundhand
was written:--

"My Dear Harry,--

"Good-bye, I do fele so very ill, I can't do any more. Don't forget
I allwaies was your wiffe.

"I am your affex., D. A."

We looked at each other in wonder and dismay, sure that the child
must be very ill, and indignant that we had not been told. Harold
talked of going up to town to find out; I was rather for going, or
sending, to Therford for tidings, and all the time, alas! alas! he
was smoothing and caressing the yellow tress between his fingers,
pitying the child and fancying she was being moped to death in the
school-room.

We determined on riding to Therford, and Harold had hastened to the
office to despatch some business first, when Mr. Horsman himself came
in--on his way to the Petty Sessions--to explain matters.

Mrs. Randall Horsman had arrived with her children at Therford the
day before, flying from the infection of smallpox, for which the
doctor had declared Dora to be sickening. The whole family had been
spending the autumn months at the seaside. Nessy Horsman had been
with them and had taken Dora about with him much more than had been
approved. In one of these expeditions he had taken her into the shop
of a village ratcatcher, where, it had since been ascertained, two
children were ill of smallpox. She had been ailing ever since the
party had returned to London; the doctor had been called in on
Monday, and had not only pronounced the dreadful name of the disease,
but, seeking in vain for the marks of vaccination on her arms, he
greatly apprehended that she would have it in full and unmitigated
virulence.

Mrs. Randall Horsman had herself and her children vaccinated without
loss of time and fled to the country. Her husband would spend all
day in his chambers, and only sleep at home on the ground-floor with
every precaution, and Dora had been left in the charge of a young
under-house-maid, whose marked face proved her safety, until the
doctor could send in a regular nurse. It was this wretched little
stupid maid who was ignorant enough to assist the poor child in
sending off her unhappy packet, all unknowing of the seeds of
destruction it conveyed.

I had had a slight attack of undoubted smallpox when a young child,
and I immediately resolved on going to nurse my poor Dora, secure
that she would now be left to me, and unable to bear the thought of
her being among strangers. I went at once to the office to tell
Harry, and Baby Jack walked with me as far as our roads lay together,
asking me on the way if it were true that Harold Alison was engaged
to Miss Tracy, and on my denial, saying that Mrs. Randall had come
down full of the report; that Nessy had heard of it, and, on Sunday
afternoon, had teased Dora about it to such a degree that she had
leaped up from the sofa and actually boxed his ears, after which she
had gone into such a paroxysm of tears and sobs that she had been
sent to bed, and in the morning the family mind began to perceive she
was really ill. The poor child's passionate jealousy had no doubt
prompted her letter, as well as her desire to take leave of the
object of her love; and knowing her strange character as I did, I was
sure the idea was adding tenfold to the misery of the dreadful
illness that was coming on her.

I had to pursue Harold to the potteries, where one of the workmen
directed me to him, as he was helping to put in order some machine
for hoisting that was out of gear. "Bless you, ma'am," said the man,
"he is as strong as any four of we."

When I found him, his consternation was great, and he quite agreed
with me that I had better go up that very afternoon and take charge
of Dora, since Baby Jack answered for it that Randall Horsman would
be most grateful and thankful.

Harold found out the hours for the trains, and did everything to
expedite me. He made it certain that poor little Dora had not been
vaccinated. When she was born, no doctor lived within sixty miles of
Boola Boola, and nobody had ever thought of such a thing.

"And you, Harry?" I asked, with a sudden thrill of alarm.

"Do you expect me to remember?" he asked with a smile.

I begged him to look for the moons upon his arm, and at any rate to
undergo the operation again, since, even if it had been done in his
infancy, the effect might have worn out, and it was only too probable
that in the case of a child born on board a sailing vessel, without a
doctor, it had been forgotten. He gave in to my solicitude so far as
to say that he would see about it, but reminded me that it was not he
who was going into the infection. Yes, I said, but there was that
lock of hair and the worsted cuff. Such things did carry contagion,
and he ought to burn them at once.

"Poor Dora!" he said, rather indignantly.

Oh that I had seen them burnt! Oh that I had taken him to Dr.
Kingston's for vaccination before I went away, instead of contenting
myself with the unmeaning, half-incredulous promise to "see about
it!" by which, of course, he meant to mention it when George Yolland
came home. Yet it might have made no difference, for he had been
fondling and smoothing that fatal curl all the time we were talking
over the letter.

He came to the station with me, gave me the kindest messages for
Dora, arranged for my telegraphing reports of her every day--took
care of me as men will do when they seem to think their womankind
incapable without them, making all the more of me because I did not
venture to take Colman, whom I sent to visit her home. He insisted
on Mr. Ben Yolland, who had been detained a day behind his brother,
going in a first-class carriage with me. I leant out at the window
for the parting kiss, and the last sight I had of my dear Harold, as
the train steamed out of the station, was bearing on his shoulder a
fat child--a potter's--who had just arrived by the train, and had
been screaming to his mother to carry him, regardless of the younger
baby and baskets in her arms. It might well make my last sight of
him remind me of St. Christopher.

That journey with the curate was comfortable in itself, and a great
comfort to me afterwards. We could not but rejoice together over
that Sunday, and Ben Yolland showed himself deeply struck with the
simplicity and depth that had been revealed to him, the reality of
whatever Harold said, and his manner of taking his dire
disappointment as the just and natural outcome of his former life.
Many men would have been soured and driven back to evil by such a
rejection. Harold had made it the occasion of his most difficult
victory and sharpest struggle; yet all the time he was unconscious
how great a victory it was. And so thorough was the penitence, so
great the need of refreshment after the keen struggle for self-
mastery, and so needful the pledge of pardon, that though he had
never been confirmed, there was no doubt as to making him welcome at
once to the Heavenly Feast. Well that it was so!

The "What next" concerned Mr. Yolland as much as it did me. He could
not bear to think of relinquishing one who--all unknown to himself--
did more to guide and win the hearts of those Hydriots than teaching
or sermons could ever do, and yet no one could advise Harold to
remain after this winter. In the reprieve, however, we both
rejoiced, and Ben then added, "For my brother's sake, especially."

"Do you think the example tells on him?" I ventured on asking.

"I can hardly say it does," was the answer. "George used to point to
Harold Alison as a specimen of a vigorous physical development so
perfectly balanced as to be in a manner self-adjusting, without need
of what he called imaginative influences. I always thought he was a
little staggered that evening that he had to summon you, Miss Alison,
to his help; but he had some theory of sentiment to account for it,
and managed, as people do, to put it aside. Lately, however, he has
been looking on, he says, with curiosity--I believe with something
more. You see he reveres Alison for what he is, not for what he
knows."

"Of course not; your brother must know far more than Harold."

"But the strength of character and will impresses him. The bending
of such a nature to faith, the acceptance of things spiritual, by one
_real_, unimaginative and unsophisticated, and, above all, the _self_
conquest, just where a great Greek hero would have failed, have
certainly told on George, so that I see more hope than I have ever
done before."

So careful of me was Mr. Yolland, that he only parted with me at
Randall Horsman's door, where I was gladly welcomed by the master of
the house, and found my poor little niece a grievous spectacle, and
so miserable with the horrible illness, that she only showed her
pleasure in my coming by fretting whenever anyone else touched her.

She had it badly in the natural form, but never was in immediate
danger, and began in due time to recover. I had ceased my daily
telegrams, and had not been alarmed by some days' intermission of
Harold's letters, for I knew that Dermot was at Arked alone, and that
by this time the Yollands would be returned and my nephew would have
less time to spend on me.

One dismal wintry afternoon, however, when I was sitting in the dark,
telling Dora stories, a card was brought up to me by the little
housemaid. The gentleman begged to see me. "Mr. Tracy" was on the
card, and the very sight startled me with the certainty that
something was amiss.

I left the girl in charge and hurried down to the room, where Dermot
was leaning over the mantel-shelf, with his head against his arms, in
a sorrowful attitude, as if he could not bear to turn round and face
me, I flew up to him, crying out that I knew he was come to fetch me
to Harold; Dora was so much better that I could leave her.

He turned up to me a white haggard face, and eyes with dismay, pity,
and grief in them, such as even now it wrings my heart to recall, and
hoarsely said in a sunken voice, "No, Lucy, I am not come to fetch
you!" and he took my hand and grasped it convulsively.

"But he has caught it?" Dermot bent his head. "I must go to him,
even if he bids me not. I know he wants me."

"No!" again said Dermot, as if his tongue refused to move. "Oh,
Lucy, Lucy, I cannot tell you!"

And he burst into a flood of tears, shaking, choking, even rending
him.

I stood, feeling as if turned to stone, and presently the words came
out in a sob, "Oh, Lucy, he is dead!" and, sinking on the nearest
seat, his tempest of grief was for the moment more frightful than the
tidings, which I could not take in, so impossible did the sudden
quenching of that glorious vitality seem. I began in some foolish
way to try to console him, as if it were a mere fancy. I brought him
a glass of water from the sideboard, and implored him to compose
himself, and tell me what made him say such terrible things, but he
wrung my hand and leant his head against me, as he groaned, "I tell
you, it is true. We buried him this morning. The noblest, dearest
friend that ever--"

"And you never told me! You never fetched me; I might have saved
him," was my cry; then, "Oh! why did you not?"

Then he told me that there had been no time, and how useless my
presence would have been. We sat on the sofa, and he gasped out
something of the sad story, though not by any means all that I
afterwards learnt from himself and from the Yollands, but enough to
make me feel the reality of the terrible loss. And I will tell the
whole here.

Left to himself, the dear fellow had no doubt forgotten all about
vaccination, or any peril to himself, for he never mentioned it to
Dermot, who only thought him anxious about Dora. On the Saturday
they were to have had a day's shooting, and then to have dined at
Erymanth, but Harold sent over in the morning to say he had a
headache and could not come, so Dermot went alone. When the Yollands
came home at nine at night a message was given that Mr. Alison would
like to see Mr. George as soon as he came in; but as the train had
been an hour late, and the message had not been delivered immediately
on their coming in, George thought it could not concern that night,
so he waited till morning; but he was awaked in the winter twilight
by Harold at his door, saying, "Doctor, I'm not quite right. I wish
you would come up presently and see after me."

He was gone again, while he was being called to wait; and, dressing
as fast as possible, George Yolland went out after him into the dark,
cold, frosty, foggy morning, and overtook him, leaning on the gate of
a field, shivering, panting, and so dizzy, that it was with
difficulty he was helped to the house. He made known that he had
felt very unwell all the day before, and had had a miserable night,
in which all the warnings about infection had returned on him. The
desire to keep clear of all whom he might endanger, as well as a
fevered--perhaps already half-delirious--longing for cool air, had
sent him forth himself to summon George Yolland. And already strong
shivering fits and increased distress showed what fatal mischief that
cold walk had done. All he cared now to say was that he trusted to
his doctor to keep everybody out of the house; that I was not to be
called away from Dora, and that it was all his own fault.

One person could not be kept away, and that was Dermot Tracy. He
came over to spend the Sunday with his friend, and finding the door
closed, and Richardson giving warning of smallpox, only made him the
more eagerly run upstairs. George could by that time ill dispense
with a strong man's help, and after vaccinating him, admitted him to
the room, where the checking of the eruption had already produced
terrible fever and violent raving.

It was a very remarkable delirium, as the three faithful watchers
described it. The mind and senses seemed astray, only not the will.
It was as if all the vices of his past life came in turn to assail
him, and he was writhing and struggling under their attacks, yet not
surrendering himself. When--the Sunday duties over--Ben Yolland came
in, he found him apparently acting over some of the wild scenes of
his early youth, with shreds of the dreadful mirth, and evil words of
profane revelry; and yet, as if they struck his ears, he would catch
himself up and strike his fist on his mouth, and when Ben entered, he
stretched out his arms and said, "Don't let me." Prayer soothed him
for a short interval, but just as they hoped that sleep might come,
the fierce struggle with oppression brought back the old habits of
violent language, and then the distressed endeavour to check himself,
and the clutch at the clergyman's aid. Ben Yolland saw, standing in
the room, a great rough wooden cross which Harold had made for some
decorating plan of mine. He held it over him, put it into his hand,
and bade him repeat after him, "Christ has conquered. By Thy Cross
and Passion; by Thy precious Death and Burial, good Lord deliver us."

So it went on hour after hour, evening closing into night, the long,
long night brightening at last into day, and still the fever raged,
and the fits of delirious agony came on, as though every fiend that
had ever tempted him were assailing him now. Yet still he had the
power to grasp the Cross when it was held to him, and speak the
words, "Christ has conquered," and his ears were open to the prayer,
"By Thy Cross and Passion, by Thine Agony and Bloody Sweat, good Lord
deliver us!"--the prayer that Ben prayed like Moses at Rephidim.
Time came and went, the Northchester physician came and said he might
be saved, if the eruption could only be brought out, but he feared
that it had been thrown inwards, so that nothing would avail; but of
all this Harold knew nothing, he was only in that seething brain,
whose former injury now added to the danger, living over again all
his former life, as those who knew it could trace in the choked and
broken words. Yet, as the doctors averred, that the conscience and
the will should not be mastered by the delirium was most unusual, and
proved the extraordinary force of his character and resolution, even
though the conflict was evidently a great addition to his sufferings.

Worst of all was the deadly strife, when with darkness came the old
horror of being pursued by hell hounds, driven on by Meg and the
rival he had killed--nay, once it was even by his little children.
Then he turned even from the Cross in agony. "I cannot! See there!
They will not let me!" and he would have thrown himself from his bed,
taking the hands that held him for the dogs' fangs. And yet even
then a command rather than a prayer from the priest reached his ears.
He wrestled, with choking, stifling breath, as though with a weight
on his chest, grappling with his hands as if the dog were at his
throat; but at last he uttered those words once more, "Christ has
conquered;" then with a gasp, as from a freed breast, for his
strength was going fast, fell back in a kind of swoon. Yes, he was
delivered from the power of the dog, for after that, when he woke, it
was in a different mood. He knew Ben, but he thought he had little
Ambrose sitting on his pillow; held his arm as if his baby were in
it, and talked to them smiling and tenderly, as if glad they had come
to him, and he were enjoying their caresses, their brightness, and
beauty. Nor did the peace pass away. He was so quiet that all hoped
except George Yolland, who knew the mischief had become irreparable;
and though he never was actually sensible, the borderland was haunted
no more with images of evil or of terror, but with the fair visions
fit for "him that overcometh." Once they thought he fancied he was
showing his children to Viola or to me. Once, when Dermot's face
came before him, he recurred to some of the words used in the
struggle about Viola.

"I don't deserve her. Good things are not for me. All will be made
pure there."

They thought then that he was himself, and knew he was dying, but the
next moment some words, evidently addressed to his child, showed them
he was not in our world; and after that all the murmurs were about
what had last taken up his mind--the Bread of Heaven, the Fruit of
Everlasting Life.

"To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the Fruit of the Tree
of Life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God." That was
what Mr. Yolland ventured now to say over him, and it woke the last
respondent glance of his eyes. He had tasted of that Feast of Life
on the Sunday he was alone, and Ben Yolland would even then have
given it to him, but before it could be arranged, he could no longer
swallow, and the affection of the brain was fast blocking up the
senses, so that blindness and deafness came on, and passed into that
insensibility in which the last struggles of life are, as they tell
us, rather agonising to the beholder than to the sufferer. It was at
sundown at last that the mightiest and gentlest spirit I ever knew
was set free.

Those three durst not wait to mourn. Their first duty was to hasten
the burial, so as to prevent the spread of contagion, and they went
at once their different ways to make the preparations. No form of
conventional respect could be used, but it was the three who so
deeply loved him who laid him in the rough-made coffin, hastily put
together the same evening, with the cross that had served him in his
conflict on his breast, and three camellia buds from Viola's tree.
Dermot had thought of her and ridden over to fetch them. There had
been no disfigurement. If there had been he might have lived, but
still it was a comfort to know that the dear face was last seen in
more than its own calm majesty, as of one who lay asleep after a
mighty conquest. Over the coffin they placed the lion's skin. It
had been left in the room during his illness, and must have been
condemned, and it made his fit pall when they took it to be buried
with him. It was before daybreak that, with good old Richardson's
help, they carried him down to a large cart belonging to the
potteries, drawn by the two big horses he used to pet, and driven by
George Yolland himself. They took him to our own family burial-place
in Arghouse churchyard, where the grave had been dug at night. They
meant no one to be there, but behold! there was a multitude of heads
gathered round, two or three hundred at least, and when the faithful
four seemed to need aid in carrying that great weight the few steps
from the gate, there was a rush forward, in spite of the peril, and
disappointment when no help was accepted.

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