Works of Ellen Wood, page 22
“And his wife also,” added Isabel.
Arthur looked up amused. “His wife! Charlotte used to say that she loved her wine, and could not live without her porter. She was unappeasably offended with me once, for telling her that it was the drinking porter made her so fat.”
“She did love her porter,” resumed Isabel, “but she says she loves her children better, and therefore makes the sacrifice: and a real sacrifice I can readily imagine it to be to Charlotte.”
“Ah!” interposed Love Temple, “if people were only brought up to drink water, as you two were, it is a sacrifice the word would know little of”
CHAPTER XVII.
A NICE YOUNG MAN.
Arthur took leave of Lord and Lady Temple at the church door, as they were going in for evening service, and proceeded toward the Golden Eagle. The shops were closed, every shop he passed; but the gin-shops were open and lighted up, outside and in. Ought this to be? he said to himself: ought this marked distinction to be permitted? The shops closely shut, in accordance with our professed religion, and with God’s commandment that the Sabbath shall not be desecrated, while these flaunting liquor palaces, with their evil attractions, are staring badly open! He recalled to mind what had been said by his brother-in-law that day: that the legislature might do more to crush — Arthur would have said, not encourage — the vice, than they were doing. It was self-evident.
He reached the Golden Eagle. One of the first objects his eye encountered, on entering, was his brother Robert, in a state of semi-stupidity. He had been sitting, with other tipplers, for the last two or three hours, in the Golden Eagle’s public parlour, and was now reeling out of it into the bar, on his way to quit the house, having drunk away his money. Arthur went up to him, and laid his hand upon his shoulder; and partially intoxicated as Robert was, he was startled at the capture, and cowered visibly. He was dressed as Arthur had never yet seen him dressed: in a common gray suit of clothes; not at all like a gentleman’s clothes, and not at all like Sunday ones.
Arthur tucked his arm within his own and led him out. The landlord followed; he had caught a word of the recognition.
“Oh, sir,” he said to Arthur Danesbury, “is he your brother?”
“He is.’’
“I couldn’t have believed it. Why, sir, you and he are as opposite as light and dark.”
“Ay,” returned Arthur, “he has made a friend of wine; I, of water. Good-evening, my friend. I thank you for your courtesy.”
“Sir, good-evening to you,” replied the landlord, and a how of greater respect he had never made to any one.
“Where are you lodging?” inquired Arthur of his brother.
“It’s — it’s — not for,” hiccupped Robert. “I — can’t take you there.”
“Why not?”
“It’s — it’s a shabby place.”
“Oh, never mind that. I have come on purpose to see it. Is this the way? Come, Robert.”
His tone was decisive, his manner commanding, and the poor half-witted man yielded to it like a child. He led the way to a dirty house in the vicinity of Tottenham-Court Road, the door of which stood open. Robert began stumbling up the dark staircase.
“Can I get a light from any where?” inquired Arthur, totally unable to see, and hesitating to follow him.
“I — I’ve not got a light, Arthur. I’ve not had a light for four nights. Once inside the room, the street lamp shines in.”
Just then the door of an apartment close to them was opened, and a woman burst out of it, holding a candle. She looked up the stairs contemptuously at Robert.
“So! you be in for it again, be you? You swore last night as yon had no money to pay me; you have got some, it seems, to lay out in drink.”
“Will you oblige me by letting me have the use of a light?” cried Arthur to her in his courteous way.
The woman had not seen him — he had been in the shade cast by the open street door — and she turned round and stared at him. Her manner changed, and she dropped an involuntary courtesy.
“Did you please to want any thing, sir?”
“I am with this gentleman.” But Arthur Danesbury positively hesitated at the last word, so entirely unlike a gentleman was Robert then. “We will borrow your light, if you please.”
“You are welcome, sir. ‘Tain’t as I’ve objected to lend him lights, but I can’t be always a supplying of him, and not get paid. Candles he have had; and three loaves, and a quarter of butter he have had; and a go of brandy, as I sent for him, for he was a praying and crying for it as if he’d die; and two quarterns and a half of gin; and a piece of soap; and a tumbler and a plate he broke — he can’t deny as he have had ‘em, and owes me for ‘em.”
“How much is it in all?” inquired Arthur, putting his hand into his pocket.
“Well, sir, I know it’s as much as four shillings, but I can’t reckon it up in my head all in a moment. Oh, and there was the washing of his sheets; I forgot that. And there’s the rent besides.”
“How much?”
“Two weeks, sir, come to-morrow, at four-and-sixpence, making nine shillings. And if I says five for what he owes me, instead of four, I sha’n’t be a gainer. A precious trouble my husband have had of him in his drunken bouts! That’ll be fourteen shillings, sir, altogether.”
Arthur placed a sovereign in her hand. “Is any notice requisite? because he will quit your house to-night.”
“No, sir,” answered the woman, who appeared to be a sufficiently honest one, whatever may have been her faults of manner. “He gave me notice a week ago, and though he was drunk when he said it, of course it was a notice. Six shillings: I’m afeared as I’ve not enough change, sir, but I can run to the nearest public and get it.”
“No, do not run there. You may keep the six shillings, in recompense for any trouble he may have been to you.”
“Well, sir, there ain’t many like you!” exclaimed the gratified woman, after a pause of astonishment, “but you carries the gentleman in your face. Can I do any thing else, sir? shall I run up and light a bit of fire in his grate: his room’s chilly.”
“Oh no. I shall want a cab brought presently, if you have any one to send.”
“Plenty, sir, if you wanted a dozen.”
He took the candle from her hand and followed Robert, who had disappeared up stains. An open door guided him to the chamber. A cold-looking room it was, as the woman had said, and wretched enough. Robert had thrown himself on the bed, hat on, and was already slumbering. Arthur knew him of old: that he had, naturally, a sullen temper.
Perfectly sober, they might try in vain to extract from him particulars of his condition and doings present and past; the only plan was to take him now. When semi-intoxicated, Robert was voluble, and would answer what was demanded of him. Arthur roused him up, and he sat on the side of the bed.
“Now, Robert, I have a good deal to ask you, and you must answer me. You had brought sufficient trouble and sorrow upon us, without this last act, which I believe will be the means of shortening your father’s life. I speak of the forgery,” he distinctly added. “Your forging our name, and getting a thousand pounds, and squandering it”
Robert burst into tears; a frequent habit of his when in this state, and howled and sobbed piteously.
“There, that will do. How did you so cleverly imitate your father’s signature?”
“I was at my wits’ end for money,” sobbed Robert; “I was desperate. My father refused me more money, and I did not know what to do. If I could not have got money to meet some bills just then I must have shot myself.”
Arthur made no remonstrance to this. It would have been useless, in his present maudlin humour. “Are there any more false bills out purporting to be ours?”
“Not one. I swear it. Those three were all. I never intended to rob my father,” he went on, sobbing like a child. “I meant only to use the money in my exigency, and to take up the bills when they were due. I sold out to enable me to take them up. I did, Arthur.”
“Then why did you not take them up?”
“Oh,” howled Robert, “don’t ask me.”
“But I do ask you, and I must have an answer. Do you hear, Robert?”
Robert sobbed away. “I went to — a — a place where they play, and I had it in my pocket, and I staked and lost it. I was drunk.”
“As you are now,” Arthur could not help saying, with contempt in his tone.
“And since then I have been in hiding, afraid of your finding me, and afraid of some others finding me.”
“How did you so cleverly contrive to imitate our signature, I asked?” repeated Arthur.
“Oh, I practiced it. I wish I could pay you back, but
I never shall. I have not a shilling, Arthur; I have not a shilling or a shilling’s worth left in the world; and I am next to starving.”
Arthur looked round the room. It was devoid of luggage. “Where are your regimentals?” he inquired.
“Sold.”
“And your boxes?”
“Sold.”
“And your ordinary clothes?”
“Pawned”
“Your linen, then?”
“Pawned”
“Your watch. Is that gone?”
“Pawned.”
“This is a pretty state of things,” thought Arthur. “I wonder he did not pawn himself.” Robert sniffed and sobbed, and wiped his face with the sheet.
“Have you nothing but what you stand upright in? Am I to understand that?”
“That’s all.”
“You had a desk — you had many valuables, besides trifling articles: are they all parted with?”
“Pawned.”
“Where are the pawn tickets?”
“Sold.”
“Sold!”
“Every one,” sniffed Robert, in danger of choking. “I parted with the last to a fellow to-day for half a crown. Oh, I hope you’ll forgive me! I did mean to place the money in Roberts’s to meet the bills. I hope you’ll ask my father to forgive me! He will do any thing you ask him, Arthur.”
“You are without money, without food, without clothes. Had I not come here what would have become of your what should you have done to-morrow ?”
“Drowned myself.”
Arthur paused. He was deliberating.
“She’s a horrid woman, that one down stairs,” said Robert, beginning to ramble on some domestic grievance. “Her name’s Huff. She wouldn’t make my bed yesterday.”
Arthur went to the top of the stairs, and, calling to the woman, requested her to get a cab. When it came, he turned to his brother.
“Now, Robert, come down. You are sure you have nothing to remove from here but yourself?”
“No. Where are you going to take me to?”
“Home.”
Robert started up. “Home! I won’t go home. I won’t, Arthur. How can you be so cruel? I will not face my father.”
“You would rather do that than face the inside of Newgate,” sternly returned Arthur. “It must be one or the other, by your father’s orders.”
“That woman won’t let me go away. She’s down stairs.”
“Yes, she will, and be glad to get rid of you,” replied Arthur. He put Robert’s hat on his head, and conveyed him down to the cab, Robert resisting as much as he dared. Mrs. Huff officiously lighted them. There was some probability that the public-house had been visited and the sovereign changed, for her face was flushed now, and she smelled of gin. “Had those ‘palaces’ been closed to-night, as other shops are,” thought Arthur to himself, “she could not have procured it.”
“Where to, sir?” asked the cabman, touching his hat.
“Holburn,” he said to the man. “I will direct you further then.”
His present destination was the Queen’s Hotel. Arrived there, he was somewhat puzzled: for he did not dare to leave Robert alone in the cab, lest he might attempt to escape. He caused a waiter to be called to him.
“I can not alight,” he said to the man. “Go into my room, put my shaving-tackle and other things in the portmanteau, and bring it down. And my bill with it. We are in a hurry.”
The waiter did as he was told. Arthur settled the bill, and ordered the driver to proceed to the railway station; and, by the first train that started, he and the disgraced Robert were being whirled to Eastborough.
So Robert and Lionel Danesbury had returned to their father’s home. Robert’s disgraceful crime was not allowed to transpire beyond the family; he was supplied with suitable clothes, and it was supposed by the neighbourhood that he had only come home for a temporary sojourn. But that supposition was gradually dispelled.
What was to become of Robert? Who was to support him? Was he to live like a gentleman at home upon the labors of others; or was he to go out into the world, and starve? Of course there was but the first alternative. He was unfit for every thing; but, to keep him from idleness, or something worse, Mr. Danesbury assigned him some light employment in the Works. Robert did not, for shame, object openly: he was conscious of his crime, and of the leniency which had been shown him: but when with his choice companions — and he was not long in finding such — he complained in a high and lofty strain, of the being forced to meddle with “trade;” of the degradation it was to him, Robert Danesbury, ex-lieutenant, an officer, and a gentleman!
CHAPTER XVIII.
EVIL COURSES.
The months and the years went on, land the names of the young Danesburys became a by-word in Eastborough. What was it that was blanching Mrs. Danesbury’s cheeks and rending their father’s heart? “The boys have become confirmed drunkards!” they whispered to each other. It was so. Not occasional ones, as was the case when Robert first went home, but habitual. Night by night, sometimes early, sometimes not till morning, they would reel home partially intoxicated, or be brought in helpless.
One day, a farmer, residing in the neighbourhood, met Thomas Harding, and stopped him. “What’s going to become of those two young Danesburys?” abruptly inquired he. “They are carrying on their game.”
Thomas Harding, a hale old man now, shook his head. “It is a sad thing. Mr. Robert never comes to the factory, and his father can not get him to it.”
“I would not keep him at home in idleness,” cried the farmer, indignantly.
“Mr. Danesbury has no other resource. He can not turn them out to beg or starve.”
“Wouldn’t I, though! He would look out for himself; if he were forced to it; and he won’t have his father always here. I should send him back to London, and let him shift for himself.”
Thomas Harding was silent. He knew what few others did.
“How much longer does Doctor Pratt intend to keep on the other — Mr. Lionel?”
“Keep him on!” echoed Thomas Harding. “He is a partner.”
“Well, it is Pratt’s own look-out,” returned the farmer, “but if he retains Lionel Danesbury he won’t retain patients. The wife of our carter, Ann Jones, was taken ill yesterday afternoon. Dr. Pratt had notice to attend her, and was asked to come himself, for she was afraid of young Danesbury, after what she saw of him when he came, half seas over, to that boy who was caught in the threshing-machine.”
“I heard of that,” interrupted Thomas Harding.
“So did all Eastborough, I should think: but let me go on. Pratt was sent for yesterday, but he was out, and young Danesbury came. He was all right, they say, except being a little shaky, and talked and cheered up Ann Jones so pleasantly, that she was pleased he had come instead of the old gentleman.”
“I am glad he was all right!” again interrupted Thomas Harding.
“You have not heard the end,” said the farmer, significantly. “My wife had been in to see Ann Jones, and made her a present of a bottle of brandy, knowing it’s sometimes wanted, and had drawn the cork, for the Jones’s don’t possess a corkscrew, aid had put it loosely in, and left the bottle on their kitchen mantle-shelf. Ann Jones wasn’t over quick, and Mr. Lionel was sometimes in her room and sometimes waiting in the kitchen. He spied out this brandy, and said to one of the women that he would take a spoonful of it, for he was thirsty; and she brought him a glass and some cold water, and left him. An hour or so passed: they wondered he did not come back to the patient, who was getting very bad, and one of them went to call him. There he was, lolling on the bench, as drunk as a lord, and the brandy bottle three parts empty.”
“Too far gone to be of use?” uttered Thomas Harding.
“Too far gone for any thing. And who would trust to a drunken man? My wife happened to go there just as they found him, and she ran home again and sent a messenger tearing off for Mr. Pratt. The old doctor was at home then, and made haste, and was not a minute too soon. But, suppose he had not been found; the woman might have lost her life.”
“It is very distressing,’’ exclaimed Thomas Harding.
“It is what we can not put up with,” returned the farmer. “Much as we all respect Mr. Danesbury, we can not be expected to lose our lives at the pleasure of his son. So, in future, if old Doctor Pratt can’t attend himself when any body’s ill, we ‘shall call in the opposition doctor. I would not trust a cut finger to Lionel Danesbury.”
The farmer’s prophecy proved to be correct. Mr. Pratt was compelled to put away Lionel Danesbury. He dissolved the partnership, and took another gentleman in his place; so that Lionel, like Robert, was an idle vagabond on the face of the earth. Their evenings were almost without exception consumed in drinking, and their mornings were wasted in sleeping off the effects of the liquor. Their mother scolded, and implored, and wept; and their father reasoned, and persuaded, and threatened by turns. As for them, they would promise amendment in the light of the mid-day sun, when their heads were racked with pain, and their hearts softened by contrition. Mr. Danesbury repeated to them the question of others — what would they be fit for — what would become of them — if they continued these courses? look at their already clouded intellects and shaking frames! He would ask how it was that the dreadful habit was suffered to come upon them; — to grow to such a height. They would reply, and with truth — that they could not tell; they never thought they were falling into habitual intemperance.
