Hard Cash Part 114

Alfred offered his certificates.

Now Dr. Alder had been asking himself in what phrases he should decline this young genius, who was sane now, but of course had been mad, only had forgotten the circ.u.mstance. But the temptation to get an Ireland scholar into his Hall suddenly overpowered him. The probability that he might get a first-cla.s.s in a lucid interval was too enticing; nothing venture, nothing have. He determined to venture a good deal.

"Mr. Hardie," said he, "this house shall always be open to good morals and good scholarship while I preside over it, and it shall be open to them all the more when they come to me dignified, and made sacred, by 'unmerited calamity.'"

Now this fine speech, like Minerva herself, came from the head. Alfred was overcome by it to tears. At that the doctor's heart was touched, and even began to fancy it had originated that n.o.ble speech.

It was no use doing things by halves; so Dr. Alder gave Alfred a delightful set of rooms; and made the Hall pleasant to him. He was rewarded by a growing conviction that he had made an excellent acquisition. This opinion, however, was anything but universal: and Alfred finding the men of his own college suspected his sanity, and pa.s.sed jokes behind his back, cut them all dead, and confined himself to his little Hall. There they petted him, and crowed about him, and betted on him for the schools as freely as if he was a colt the Hall was going to enter for the Derby.

He read hard, and judiciously, but without his old confidence: he became anxious and doubtful; he had seen so many first-rate men just miss a first-cla.s.s. The brilliant creature a.n.a.lysed all his Aristotelian treatises, and wrote the synopses clear with marginal references on great pasteboard cards three feet by two, and so kept the whole subject before his eye, till he obtained a singular mastery. Same system with the historians: nor did he disdain the use of coloured inks. Then the brilliant creature drew lists of all the hard words he encountered in his reading, especially in the common books, and read these lists till mastered. The stake was singularly heavy in his case, so he guarded every crevice.

And at this period he was not so unhappy as he expected. The laborious days went swiftly, and twice a week at least came a letter from Julia.

Oh, how his grave academic room with oaken panels did brighten, when her letter lay on the table. It was opened, and seemed written with sunbeams. No quarrels on paper! Absence made the heart grow fonder. And Edward came to see him, and over their wine let out a feminine trait in Julia. "When Hurd calls, she walks out of the room, just as my poor mother does when you come. That is spite: since you are sent away, n.o.body else is to profit by it. Where is her Christianity, eh? and echo answers--Got a cigar, old fellow?" And, after puffing in silence awhile, he said resignedly, "I am an unnatural monster."

"Oh, are you?" said the other serenely; for he was also under the benign influence.

"Yes," said Edward, "I am your ally, and a mere spy in the camp of those two ladies. I watch all their moves for your sake."

Alfred forgave him. And thus his whole life was changed, and for nearly twelve months (for Dr. Alder let him reside in the Hall through the vacation) he pursued the quiet tenor of a student's life, interrupted at times by law; but that is another topic.

WIFE AND NO WIFE.

Mrs. Dodd was visibly shaken by that calamity which made her shrink with horror from the sight of Alfred Hardie. In the winter she was so unwell that she gave up her duties with Messrs. Cross and Co. Her connection with them had been creditable to both parties. I believe I forgot to say why they trusted her so; well, I must tell it elsewhere. David off her hands, she was independent, and had lost the motive and the heart for severe work. She told the partners she could no longer do them justice, and left them, to their regret. They then advised her to set up as a milliner, and offered her credit for goods at cash prices up to two thousand pounds. She thanked them like a sorrowful queen, and went her way.

In the spring she recovered some spirit and health; but at midsummer a great and subtle misfortune befell her. Her mind was bent on David night and day, and used to struggle to evade the laws of s.p.a.ce that bind its grosser companion, and find her lost husband on the sea. She often dreamt of him, but vaguely. But one fatal night she had a dream as clear as daylight, and sharp as white pebbles in the sun. She was on a large ship with guns; she saw men bring a dead sailor up the side; she saw all their faces, and the dead man's too. It was David. His face was white.

A clear voice said he was to be buried in the deep next morning. She saw the deck at her feet, the breeches of the guns, so clear, so defined, that, when she awoke, and found herself in the dark, she thought reality was the illusion. She told the dream to Julia and Edward. They tried to encourage her, in vain. "I saw him," she said, "I saw him; it was a vision, not a dream; my David is dead. Well, then, I shall not be long behind him."

Dr. Sampson ridiculed her dream to her face. But to her children he told another story. "I am anxious about her," he said, "most anxious. There is no mortal ill the distempered brain may not cause. Is it not devilish we can hear nothing of him? She will fret herself into the grave, as sure as fate, if something does not turn up."

Her children could not console her; they tried, but something hung round their own hearts, and chilled every effort. In a word, they shared her fears. How came she to see him on board a ship with guns? In her waking hours she always said he was on a merchant ship. Was it not one of those visions, which come to mortals and give them sometimes a peep into s.p.a.ce, and, far more rarely, a glance into Time?

One day in the autumn, Alfred, being in town on law business, met what seemed the ghost of Mrs. Dodd in the streets. She saw him not; her eye was on that ghastly face she had seen in her dreams. It flashed through his mind that she would not live long to part him and Julia. But he discouraged the ungenerous thought; almost forgave her repugnance to himself, and felt it would be worse than useless to ask Julia to leave her mother, who was leaving her visibly.

But her horror of him was anything but softened; and she used to tell Dr. Sampson she thought the sight of that man would kill her now. Edward himself began to hope Alfred would turn his affections elsewhere. The house in Pembroke Street was truly the house of mourning now; all their calamities were light compared with this.

THE DISTRICT VISITOR.

While Julia was writing letters to keep up Alfred's heart, she was very sad herself Moreover, he had left her for Oxford but a very few days, when she received an anonymous letter; her first. It was written in a female hand, and couched in friendly and sympathetic terms. The writer thought it only fair to warn her that Mr. Alfred Hardie was pa.s.sionately fond of a lady in the asylum, and had offered her marriage. If Miss Dodd wished to be deceived, let her burn this letter and think no more of it; if not, let her insert this advertis.e.m.e.nt in the Times: "The whole Truth.--L. D.," and her correspondent would communicate particulars by word or writing.

What a barbed and poisoned arrow is to the body, was this letter to Julia's mind. She sat cold as a stone with this poison in her hand. Then came an impetuous impulse to send it down to Alfred, and request him to transfer the other half of his heart to his lady of the asylum. Then she paused; and remembered how much unjust suspicion had been levelled at him already. What right had she to insult him? She would try and keep the letter to herself. As to acting upon it, her good sense speedily suggested it came from the rival in question, real or supposed. "She wants to make use of me," said Julia; "it is plain Alfred does not care much for her; or why does she come to me?" She put the letter in her desk, and it rankled in her heart. _h.o.e.ret lateri lethalis arundo._ She trembled at herself; she felt a savage pa.s.sion had been touched in her.

She prayed day and night against jealousy.

But I must now, to justify my heading, skip some months, and relate a remarkable incident that befell her in the said character. On the first of August in this year, a good Christian woman, one of her patients, asked her to call on Mr. Barkington, that lodged above. "He is a decent body, miss, and between you and me, I think his complaint is, he don't get quite enough to eat."

"Barkington!" said Julia, and put her hand to her bosom. She went and tapped at his door.

"Come in," said a shrillish voice.

She entered, and found a weazened old man seated, mending his own coat.

He rose, and she told him she was a district visitor. He said he had heard of her; they called her the beautiful lady in that court. This was news to her, and made her blush. She asked leave to read a chapter to him; he listened as to some gentle memory of childhood. She prescribed him a gla.s.s of port wine, and dispensed it on the instant. Thus physicked, her patient became communicative, and chattered on about his native place--but did not name it--and talked about the people there.

Now our district visitor was, if the truth must be told, a compounder.

She would permit her pupils to talk about earthly affairs, on condition they would listen to heavenly ones before she went. So she let this old man run on, and he told her he had been a banker's clerk all his life, and saved a thousand pounds, and come up to London to make his fortune on the Stock Exchange; and there he was sometimes a bull, and sometimes a bear, and whichever he was, certain foxes called brokers and jobbers got the profit and he the loss. "It's all the same as a gambling-table,"

said he. "The jobbers and brokers have got the same odds the bank has at Rouge et Noir, and the little capitalist like me is doomed beforehand."

Then he told her that there was a crossing-sweeper near the Exchange who came from his native place, and had started as a speculator, and come down to that. Only he called it rising, and used to speak with a shudder of when he dabbled in the funds, and often told him to look sharp, and get a crossing. And lo! one day when he was cleaned out, and desperate, and hovering with the other ghosts of little capitalists about the tomb of their money, he saw his countryman fall flat, and the broom fly out of his hand. Instantly he made a rush, and so did a wooden-legged sailor; but he got first to the broom, and began to sweep while others picked up his countryman, who proved dead as a herring; and he succeeded to his broom, and it made money by the Exchange, though he never could.

Still, one day he picked up a pocket-book in that neighbourhood, with a lump of money, which he straightway advertised in--no newspapers.

And now, Julia thought it time to interpose the eighth commandment, the golden rule, and such branches of learning.

He became a favourite of hers: he had so much to say: she even thought she had seen his face before: but she could not tell where. She gave him good books and tracts; and read to him, and ploughed his heart with her sweet voice, and sowed the good seed in the furrows--seed which, like wheat or other grain, often seems to fall flat and die, but comes out green after many days.

One Sat.u.r.day she invited him to dine with the servants next day. He came during church time, and went away in the afternoon while she was with her mother. But she asked Sarah, who proved eager to talk about him. "He was a rum customer; kept asking questions all dinner time. 'Well,' says I, 'you're good company you are; be you a lawyer; for you examines us; but you don't tell us nothing.' Ye see, Miss, Jane she is that simple, she was telling him everything, and about Mr. Alfred's lawsuit with his father and all."

Julia said that was indiscreet; but after all what did it matter?

"Who knows, Miss?" Sarah replied: "least said is soonest mended. If you please, Miss, who is he? Where does he bide? Where does he come from?

Does he know Hardies?"

"I should think not. Why?"

"Because I'm much mistaken if he doesn't." Then putting on a stolid look, she asked, "Does he know your papa?"

"Oh no, Sarah. How should he?"

"There now," said Sarah; "Miss, you are all in the dark about this old man: I'll tell you something; I took him out of the way of Jane's temper when she began a dishing up, and I had him into the parlour for a minute; and in course there he sees the picture of your poor papa hung up. Miss, if you'll believe me, the moment he claps eyes on that there picture, he halloes out, and out goes his two hands like this here.

'It's him!' says he; 'it's him!' and stares at the picture like a stuck pig. Forgot I was close behind him, I do believe. 'She's _his_ daughter,' says he, in a whisper, a curious whisper; seemed to come out of his stomack. 'What's the matter now?' says I, just so. He gave a great start, as if my speaking had wakened him from a dream, and says he, 'nothing,' as quiet as a lamb. 'Nothing isn't much,' says I, just so. 'It usedn't to be anything at all when I was your age,' says he, sneering. But I paid him a good coin: says I, 'Old man, where you comes from do the folks use to start and hallo out and cry "It's him! she's his daughter!" and fling their two arms abroad like a wiumdmill in March, and all for--nothing?' So at that he changed as white as my smock, and fell all of a tremble. However, at dinner he perks up, and drew that poor simple Jane out a good one. But he didn't look towards me much, which I set opposite to watch my lord."

"Sarah," said Julia, "this is really curious, mysterious; you are a good, watchful, faithful girl; and, to tell the truth, I sometimes fancy I have seen Mr. Barkington's face. However, I will solve this little mystery to-morrow; for I will ask him: thank you, Sarah."

On Monday she called on Mr. Barkington to solve the mystery. But, instead of solving, her visit thickened it: for Mr. Barkington was gone bag and baggage. When Edward was told of this business, he thought it remarkable, and regretted he had not seen the old man.

So do I; for it is my belief Edward would have recognised him.

DAVID DODD.

The history of a man is the history of his mind. And that is why you have heard so little of late about the simplest, n.o.blest, and most unfortunate of all my personages. Insanity is as various as eccentricity. I have spared the kind-hearted reader some of David's vagaries. However, when we parted with him, he had settled into that strange phase of lunacy, in which the distant past seems nearly obliterated, and memory exists, but revolves in a narrow round of things present: this was accompanied with a positive illusion, to wit, a fixed idea that he was an able seaman: and, as usual, what mental power he retained came out strongest in support of this idea. All this was marked by a bodily agility somewhat more than natural in a man of his age.

Owing to the wind astern, he was enabled to run into Portsmouth before the steam-tug came up with him: and he did run into port, not because he feared pursuit, but because he was desperately hungry; and he had no suicidal tendencies whatever.

He made for a public-house, and called for some bread and cheese and beer; they were supplied, and then lo! he had no money to pay for them.

"I'll owe you till I come back from sea, my bo," said he coolly. On this the landlord collared him, and David shook him off into the road, much as a terrier throws a rat from him; then there was a row, and a naval officer, who was cruising about for hands, came up and heard it. There was nothing at all unseamanlike in David's conduct, and the gentleman took a favourable view of it, and paid the small demand; but not with unleavened motives. He was the second lieutenant of H. M. frigate _Vulture;_ she had a bad name, thanks to her last captain, and was short of hands: he took David aside and asked him would he like to ship on board the _Vulture._

David said yes, and suggested the foretop. "Oh yes," growled the lieutenant, "you all want to be there." He then gauged this Jacky Tar's intellects; asked him _inter alia_ how to send a frigate's foretop gallant yard down upon deck: and to show how seamanship sticks in the brain when once it gets there, David actually told him. "You are rather old," said the lieutenant, "but you are a seaman:" and so took him on board the _Vulture_ at Spithead, before Green began to search the town in earnest. n.o.body acts his part better than some demented persons do: and David made a very tolerable sailor notwithstanding his forty-five years: and the sea did him good within certain limits. Between him and the past lay some intellectual or cerebral barrier as impenetrable as the great wall of China; but on the hither side of that wall his faculties improved. Of course, the crew soon found out the gap in his poor brain, and called him Soft Billy, and played on him at first. But by degrees he won their affection; he was so wonderfully sweet-tempered: and besides his mind being in an abnormal state, he loathed grog, and gave his allowance to his messmates. One day he showed an unexpected trait; they were lying becalmed in southern lat.i.tudes, and, time hanging heavily, each wiled it how he might: one fiddled, another wrote to his Polly, another fished for sharks, another whistled for a wind, scores fell into the form of meditation without the reality, and one got a piece of yarn and amused himself killing flies on the bulwark. Now this shocked poor Billy: he put out his long arm and intercepted a stroke.

"What is the row?" said the operator.

"You mustn't," said Billy solemnly, looking into his face with great dreamy eyes.

"You be----," said the other, and lent him a tap on the cheek with the yarn. Billy did not seem to mind this; his skin had little sensibility, owing to his disorder.

Jack recommenced on his flies, and the bystanders laughed. They always laughed now at everything Billy said, as Society used to laugh when the late Theodore Hook asked for the mustard at dinner; and would have laughed if he had said, "You see me sad, I have just lost my poor father."