Books: My Young Alcides

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

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Ben Yolland read the service over the grave, and therewith there was
the low voice of many, many weepers, as they closed it in, and left
him there among his forefathers, under his lion's skin; and even at
that moment a great, golden, glorious sun broke out above the
horizon, and bathed them all over with light, while going forth as a
giant to run his course, conquering the night mists.

Then they turned back to the town, and Dermot came by the next train
to town to tell me. But of all this I at first gathered but little,
for his words were broken and his voice faint and choked, not only
with grief, but with utter exhaustion; and I was so slow to realise
all, that I hardly knew more than the absolute fact, before a message
came hurriedly down that Dora was worse, and I must come instantly.
Dermot, who had talked himself into a kind of dull composure, stood
up and said he would come again on the morrow, when he was a little
rested, for, indeed, he had not lain down since Saturday, and was
quite worn out.

I went up, with heart quailing at the thought of letting that
passionately loving creature guess what had befallen her, and yet how
could I command myself with her? But that perplexity was spared me.
The tidings had, through the Horsman family, reached the house, and,
in my absence, that same foolish housemaid had actually told Dora of
them point-blank. She said nothing, but presently the girl found her
with her teeth locked and eyes fixed in what looked like a
convulsion, but was in reality such suppressed hysteria as she had
had before.

She soon came out of that attack, but was exceedingly ill all that
night and the next day, her recovery being altogether thrown back by
feverishness and loss of appetite; but, strange child that she was,
she never named Harold, nor let me speak of him. I think she
instinctively shrank from her own emotion, and had a kind of dread
and jealous horror of seeing anyone else grieve for him.

Dermot did not come the next day, but a note was brought me, left,
the servant said, by the gentleman in a cab. It told me that he felt
so ill that he thought it wisest to go at once to the smallpox
hospital, and find out whether it were the disease, or only
vaccination and fatigue. It was a brave unselfish resolve, full of
the spirit he had imbibed, and it was wise, for the illness was upon
him already, the more severe from his exhausted state and the shock
he had undergone. Mr. Randall Horsman, who was very kind, managed
that I should hear of him, and I knew he was going on fairly well,
and not in any special danger.

But oh! that time seems to me the most wretched that ever I passed,
up in those great London attic nurseries, where Dora and I were
prisoners--all winter fogginess, with the gas from below sending up
its light on the ceiling, and Dora never letting me sit still to
grieve. She could not bear the association or memory, I believe, and
with the imperious power of recovery used to keep me reading Mayne
Reid's storybooks to her incessantly, or else playing at backgammon.
I hate the sound of dice to this hour, and when I heard that unhappy
French criminals, the night before their execution, are apt to send
for Fenimore Cooper's novels, it seemed to reveal Dora's state of
mind.

After two or three days, George Yolland came up to see me. He had
been to see Dermot, and gave me comfort as to his condition and the
care taken of him; but the chief cause of the visit was that they
wanted my authority for the needful destruction of whatever had been
in that room, and could not be passed through fire. Mr. Yolland had
brought me my Harold's big, well-worn pocket-book, which he said must
undergo the same doom, for though I was contagion proof, yet harm
might be laid up for others, and only what was absolutely necessary
must be saved.

First of all, indeed, lay in their crumpled paper poor Dora's fatal
gifts, treasured, no doubt, as probably her last; and there, in a
deep leathern pocket, was another little parcel with Viola's crystal
cross, which her mother had made her return. She might have that
now, it would bear disinfecting; but the Irish heath-bells that told
of autumn days at Killey Marey must go, and that brief note to me
that had been treasured up--yes, and the quaint old housewife, with
D. L. (his aunt's maiden initials), whence his needles and thread
used to come for his mending work. An old, worn pencil-case kept for
his mother's sake--for Alice was on the seal--was the only thing I
could rescue; but next there came an envelope with "My will" scrawled
on it. Mr. Yolland thought I ought to open it, to see who had
authority to act, and it proved that we alone had, for he was made
executor, with L1,000. A favourite rifle was bequeathed to Eustace,
an annuity of L50 to Smith, and all the rest of the property was to
be shared between Dora and me. It was in the fewest words, not at
all in form, but all right, and fully witnessed. It was in the dear
handwriting, and was dated on the sad lonely Saturday when he felt
himself sickening. The other things were accounts and all my
letters, most of which could follow the fate of all that he had
touched in those last days. However, the visit was a comfort to me.
George Yolland answered my questions, and told me much more than poor
Dermot could do in his stupefaction from grief, fatigue, and illness,
even if I then could have understood.

He told me of the grief shown by all Mycening and Arghouse, and of
the sobbing and weeping of mothers and children, who went in a broken
pilgrimage on Sunday afternoon to the grave at Arghouse, of the
throngs at the church and the hush, like a sob held back, when the
text was given out: "Thanks be to Him who giveth us the victory
through Jesus Christ our Lord."

Yet on the Saturday evening there was something more noted still.
The men stood about when they had come up for their wages to the
office, where, but a week before, Harold had paid them, with a sore
struggle to see and to count aright, as some even then had observed;
and at last their spokesman had explained their great desire to do
something themselves in memory of "the best friend they ever had," as
they truly called him. Some of them had seen memorial-windows, and
they wanted Mr. Yolland to take from each a small weekly subscription
throughout the winter, to adorn the new chapel with windows. "With
the history of Samson a killin' of the lion," called out a gruff
voice. It was the voice of the father of the boy whom Harold had
rescued on Neme Heath.

"So," said George Yolland, as he told me, "the poor fellows' hearty
way was almost more than one could bear, but I knew Alison would have
me try to turn it to some sort of good to themselves; so I stood up
and said I'd take it on one condition only. They knew very well what
vexed Mr. Alison most in themselves, and the example he had set--how
he had striven to make them give up making beasts of themselves.
Wouldn't they think with me it was insulting him to let a drunkard
have a hand in doing a thing to his memory? So I would manage their
collection on condition they agreed that whoever took more than his
decent pint a day--or whatever else sober men among them chose to fix
it at--should have his money returned on the spot. Poor fellows,
they cheered and said I was in the right, but whether they will keep
to it is another thing."

They did keep to it. All that winter, while the chapel was building,
there were only five cases in which the money had to be returned, and
two of those took the pledge, pleaded hard, and were restored.
Indeed, I believe it was only the habitually sober who ventured on
the tolerated pint. Of course there were some who never came into
the thing at all, and continued in their usual course; but these were
the dregs, sure to be found everywhere, and the main body of the
Hydriot potters kept their word so staunchly, that the demon of
intoxication among them was slain by those Samson windows, as Harold
had never slain it during his life.

Beautiful bright windows they are, glowing with Samson in his typical
might, slaying his lion, out of the strong finding sweetness,
drinking water after the fight, bearing away the gates, and slaying
his foes in his death. But Samson is not there alone. As the more
thoughtful remarked, Samson was scarce a worthy likeness for one who
had had grace to triumph. No, Samson, whose life always seems like a
great type in shattered fragments, must be set in juxtaposition with
the great Antitype. His conflict with Satan, His Last Supper, His
pointing out the Water of Life, His Death and His victory over death,
shine forth, giving their own lesson of Who hath won the victory.

We ventured to add two little windows with St. George and St.
Christopher, to show how Christ's soldiers may follow in the
conquest, treading down the dragon, and bending to the yoke of the
Little Child who leads them out of many waters.

That winter of temperance proved the fulcrum that had been wanting to
the lever of improvement. Schools of art, concerts, lectures, choir
preparation, recreation, occupation, and interests of all sorts were
vigorously devised by the two Yollands; and, moreover, the "New
Dragon's Head" and the "Genuine Dragon's Head," with sundry of their
congeners, died a natural death by inanition; so that when the winter
was over, habits had been formed, and a standard of respectability
set up, which has never entirely fallen, and a spirit which has
withstood the temptation of strikes. Of course, the world has much
to do with the tone of many. What amount of true and real religion
there may be, can only be tested by trial, and there are many who do
not show any signs of being influenced by anything more than public
opinion, some who fall below that; but, as everyone knows, the
Hydriot works have come to be not only noted for the beauty and
excellence of their execution, and the orderliness, intelligence, and
sobriety of their artisans, but for their large congregations, ample
offertories, and numerous communicants.

Of course all this would never have kept up but for the Yollands.
The Hydriots are wife, children, everything to him who is now called
Vicar of St. Christopher's, Mycening. He has refused better
preferment, for he has grown noted now, since the work that Harold
had begun is still the task he feels his charge.

And whatever is good is led by the manager of the works, whose
influence over the workmen's minds has never failed. Even when he
talked to me on that day, I thought there was a change in his tone.
He had never sneered (at least in my hearing) nor questioned other
men's faith, but when he told me of Harold his manner had something
of awe, as well as of sorrow and admiration, and I could not but
think that a sense had dawned out that the spiritual was a reality,
and an absolute power over the material.

The great simple nature that had gradually and truly undergone that
influence had been watched and studied by him, and had had its
effect. The supernatural had made itself felt, and thenceforth he
made it his study, in a quiet, unobtrusive manner, scarcely known
even to his brother, but gradually resulting in heart-whole
acceptance of faith, and therewith in full devotion of heart and
soul.

Did Harold rejoice in that victory, which to him would have been one
of the dearest of all?

CHAPTER XVI. CONCLUSION.

I must finish my story, though it seems hardly worth telling, since
my nephew, my tower of strength and trust, had suddenly sunk away
from me in the prime of his manhood.

The light seemed gone out of the whole world, and my heart felt dull
and dead, as if I could never heed or care for anything again. Even
Dermot's illness did not seem capable of stirring me to active
anxiety in this crushed, stupid state, with no one to speak to of
what lay heavy on my heart, no one even to write to; for who would
venture to read my letters? nay, I had not energy even to write to
poor Miss Woolmer. We got into a way of going on day after day with
Dora's little meals, the backgammon, and the Mayne Reid, till
sometimes it felt as if it had always been thus with us from all
time, and always would be; and at others it would seem as if it were
a dream, and that if I could but wake, I should be making tea for
Harold in our cheerful little drawing-room at Mount Eaton. At last I
had almost a morbid dread of breaking up this monotonous life, and
having to think what to do or where to go. The Randall Horsmans must
long for our departure, and my own house was in a state of
purification, and uninhabitable.

The doctor said that Dora must be moved as soon as it could be
managed, for in that London attic she could have no impulse towards
recovery; and while it still seemed a fearful risk, he sent us off to
St. Clement's, a little village on the south coast, where he knew of
rooms in a great old manor-house which had sunk to farmer's use, and
had a master and mistress proof against infection.

When I brought my tired, worn-out, fretting charge in through the
great draughty porch, and was led up the old shallow oak stairs to a
big panelled room, clean and scantily furnished, where the rats ran
about behind the wainscot, and a rain-laden branch of monthly rose
went tap, tap against the window, and a dog howled all night long,
I thought we had come to a miserable place at the end of the earth.
I thought so still the next morning, when the mist lay in white rolls
and curls round the house; and the sea, when we had a peep of it, was
as lead-coloured as the sky, while the kind pity of the good wife for
Dora's weak limbs and disfigured face irritated me so that I could
hardly be civil.

Dora mended from that day, devoted herself to the hideous little
lambs that were brought in to be nursed by the fire; ate and drank
like a little cormorant, and soon began to rush about after Mr. and
Mrs. Long, whether in house or farm-yard, like a thing in its native
element, while they were enchanted with her colonial farm experience,
and could not make enough of "Little Missy."

I had a respite from Mayne Reid, and could wander as far as I pleased
alone on the shingle, or sit and think as I had so often longed to
do; but the thoughts only resulted in a sense of dreariness and of
almost indifference as to my fate, since the one person in all the
world who had needed me was gone, and I had heard nothing whatever of
Dermot Tracy. He might be gone out to his mother and sister, or back
to Ireland. Our paths would never come together again, for he
thought I did not care for him. Nay, was I even sure of his
recovery? His constitution had been much tried! He was in a strange
place, among mere professional nurses! Who could tell how it had
been with him?

Everything went from me that had loved me. Even Dora was to leave me
as soon as people ceased to be afraid of her.

Letters had found out the married pair on their return from the
cataracts of the Nile. Eustace had immediately been vaccinated
fourteen times, but he was shocked and appalled, and the spirit of
his letter was--

O while my brother with me stayed,
Would I had loved him more,

and I forgave him much.

Hippolyta likewise wrote with feeling, but it rather stung me to be
thanked for my care of "her poor little sister," as if Dora were not
my child before she was hers. As soon as it was considered safe,
Dora was to be returned to Horsman keeping, and as the Randall party
declined to receive her again, Philippa would convey her to a school
at Baden-Baden.

And Dora declared she was glad! There was none of the angry
resistance with which she had left me in the spring; when I had done
nothing for her compared with what I had gone through for her now;
but I believe I was dull company, and showed myself displeased at her
hardness and wild outbreaks of spirits, and that the poor child
longed to escape from all that reminded her of the unbearable sorrow
at the bottom of her heart. But it was a grievance to a grievance-
making temper, such as I feel mine was.

The most wholesome thing I received was a letter from Prometesky, to
whom I had written the tidings that Harold would never need his
comfort more. The old man was where the personal loss was not felt,
and he knew more deeply than anyone the pain which that strong
fervent heart suffered in its self-conquests, so that he did not
grieve for Harold himself; but he gave me that sympathy of entire
appreciation of my loss which is far better than compassion. For
himself, he said his last link with the world was gone, he found the
peace, and the expression of penitence, his soul required, in the
course he was about to embrace, and I might look on this as a voice
from the grave. I should never hear of him more, but I should know
that, as long as life was left him, it would be spent in prayers for
those whose souls he had wrecked in his overboiling youth. He ended
with thanks to all of us, who he said had sent him to his retreat
with more kindly and charitable recollections than he should
otherwise have carried thither. I never did hear of him again;
Dermot went to the convent some years later, and tried to ascertain
if he lived, but the monks do not know each others' names, and it
failed.

The village of St. Clement's, a small fishing-place, was half-a-mile
off, through lanes a foot deep in mud, and with a good old sleepy
rector of the old school, not remarkable for his performances in
Church. I was entering the little shop serving as the post-office,
where I went every day in the unreasonable expectation of letters,
when I heard a voice that made me start, "Did you say turn to the
right?"

And there, among the piles of cheeses, stood a figure I knew full
well, though it had grown very thin, and had a very red and mottled
face at the top.

We held out our hands to one another in silence, and walked at once
out of hearing. Dermot said he was well, and had been as kindly
looked after as possible, and now he had been let out as safe
company, but his family and friends would hardly believe it, so he
had come down to see whether he could share our quarantine.

Happily a few cottages of the better sort had accommodation for
lodgers, and one of them--for a consideration--accepted "the
gentleman's" bill of health. He walked on by my side, both of us
feeling the blessing of having someone to speak to. He, poor fellow,
had seen no being who had ever heard of Harold, except George
Yolland, who came when he was too ill to talk, and we went on with
the conversation that had been broken off weeks before, with such
comfort as it could give us in such a loss as ours.

He walked all the way back with me, and I was frightened to see how
tired he looked. I took him to Mrs. Long for the refreshment she
loved to give, and begged for the pony for him to ride home on, and a
boy to fetch it back.

It was wonderful how much more blue there was in the sea the next
day, how the evergreens glistened, and how beautiful and picturesque
the old house grew; and when I went out in the morning sunshine, for
once, inclined to admit some beauty in the staggering black-legged
and visaged lambs, and meditating a walk to the village, I saw Dermot
coming across the yard, so wearily and breathlessly, that I could
only say, "How could you?"

He looked up piteously. "You don't forbid me?" he said.

I almost cried as I told him it was only his fatigue that I objected
to; and indeed he was glad enough to take Dora's now vacated place on
the great sofa, while we talked of Viola. Writing to her had been,
of course, impossible for him, and he had only had two short notes
from her, so meaningless that I thought she wrote them fearing to
disturb him while he was ill; but he muttered an ominous line from
Locksley Hall, vituperated Piggy, and confessed that his ground for
doing so was that his mother reported Viola as pleased with foreign
life, and happy with her cousins. I said it was his mother's way,
and he replied, "Exactly so; and a girl may be worried into
anything." A slight dispute on that score cheered him a little, for
he showed himself greatly depressed. He was going--as soon as he had
gathered a little strength--back to the duties he had promised to
fulfil on his own property, but he hated the thought, was down-
hearted as to the chances of success, and distrustful of himself
among discouragements, and the old associations he had made for
himself. "It is a different thing without Alison to look to and
keep one up," he said.

"There are higher motives," was my stupid speech.

"It is precious hard on a poor fellow to be left alone with his
higher motives, as you call them, before he has well begun to act on
his lower."

And then, I don't know how, he began talking drearily, almost as if I
was not there, of his having once begun to fancy he could do
something creditable enough to make me some day look on him as I used
to do in the good old times. My heart gave a great bound, and
remembering how Harold said I discouraged him, out came, "How do you
know that I don't?"

How he sprang up! And--no, I can't tell what we said, only we found
it was no new beginning, only taking up an old, old precious thread--
something brought it all out. He had talked it all over with Harold
when he came back from Florence, and had taken home a little hope
which he said had helped him through the solitary hours of his
recovery. So it was Harold who, after all, gave us to one another.

Outspoken Dora informed us, before the day was much older, that the
Longs had asked whether that was her brother, or my young man. So we
took them into our confidence, and even borrowed "the trap" for one
of the roughest and the sweetest drives that ever we had, through
those splashing lanes, dropping Dermot at his lodgings to write his
letters, while the harvest moon made a path over the sea, no longer
leaden, but full of silvery glittering light. There had something
come back into the air which made us feel that life was worth living,
after all!

Next morning the good people, who were much excited about our
affairs, sent the pony for him, and he came in full force with that
flattering Irish tongue of his, bent on persuading me that, old
lovers as we were, with no more to find out about one another, there
was nothing to wait for. 'How could he go back by himself (what a
brogue he put on! yet the tears were in his eyes) to his great
desolate castle, with not a living man in it at all at all, barring
the Banshee and a ghost or two; and as I had nothing to do, and
nowhere to go, why not be married then and there without more ado?
If I refused, he should think it was all my pride, and that I
couldn't take that "ornary object," as he had overheard himself
described that day. (As if I did not love him the better for that
marred complexion!) His mother? His uncle? They had long ago
repented of having come between us ten years ago, and were ready to
go down on their knees to any dacent young woman who would take him,
let alone a bit of an heiress, who, though not to compete with the
sixty-thousand pounder, could provide something better than praties
and buttermilk for herself at Killy Marey.'

I could not help thinking dear Harold might have remembered Killy
Marey's needs when he gave me that half of his means. And as to
going back to Mount Eaton, ghosts of past times would meet me there,
whose pain was then too recent to have turned into the treasure these
recollections are to me.

There would be just time, Dermot declared, if he put up our banns the
very next Sunday, to go through with it before the time Pippa had
appointed for receiving Dora, and it would save all the trouble of
hunting up a surrogate and startling him with his lovely face.

However, he did startle the poor old parish clergyman effectually by
calling on him to publish the banns of marriage between Dermot Edward
St. Glear Tracy and Lucy Percy Alison, both residing in this parish.
He evidently thought we were in hiding from someone who knew of some
just cause or impediment; but whereas we certainly did full justice
to our ages twenty-eight and twenty-six, he could only try to examine
us individually very politely, but betraying how uncomfortable he
was.

It was most amusing to see how his face cleared up when, two days
later, he met us on the beach with a dignified old white-haired
gentleman, though Dermot declared that the imposing title mentioned
on the introduction made him suspect us of having hired a benignant
stage father for the occasion.

The dear old uncle Ery had actually come down to chaperone us, and
really act as much as possible as a father to me; and as I had
likewise sent for Colman and a white silk dress, the St. Clement's
minds were free to be pleasantly excited about us. Lord Erymanth had
intended to have carried us off to be married from his castle, but we
begged off, and when he saw Dermot, he allowed that it was not the
time to make a public spectacle of what (Dermot was pleased to say)
would have the pleasing pre-eminence of being "the ugliest of
weddings," both as to bridegroom and bridesmaid. For he and Dora
used to make daily fun of their respective beauties, which were much
on a par, since, though she had three weeks' start of him, the
complaint having been unmitigated in her, had left much more
permanent-looking traces. Those two chose to keep each other up to
the most mirthful nonsense-pitch, and yet I am sure none of us felt
so light of spirit as we must have appeared, though, perhaps, the
being on the edge of such a great shadow made the sunshine seem
brighter.

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