Nearly Lost but Dearly Won Part 9

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

MR. TANKARDEW'S STORY BEGUN.

"You must know, dear friends," began the old man sadly, "that I'm a wiser man now than I was once. Not that there's much wisdom to boast of now; only I have learnt by experience, and he is a sharp schoolmaster.

"I was born to trust others; it was misery to me to live in distrust and suspicion; I couldn't do it. People told me I was a fool; it was true, I knew it, but I went on trusting. David said in his haste, 'all men are liars.' I said in my haste, or rather my folly, 'all men are true.'

They might lie to others, but I thought they couldn't, or wouldn't, or didn't lie to me. At any rate I'd trust them; it was so sad to think that a being made in G.o.d's image could go about wilfully deceiving others. I'd take a brighter view of my fellow-men and women. I never could abide your shrewd, knowing people, who seemed to be always living with a wink in their eyes, and a grin on their lips, as if they believed in n.o.body and nothing but their own sharpness. I loathed them, and I loathe them still. But I wasn't wise. I had to smart for it. I had plenty of money when I came of age, and I had plenty of friends, or rather acquaintances, who knew it. But I was shy, and not over fond of many companions; my weakness wasn't in that direction. I had sense enough to see through your common gold-hunters. I was never over fond of sugar-candy; coa.r.s.e flattery made me sick, and I had no taste for patching up the holes in the purses of profligates and spendthrifts. I never was a worshipper of money, but I knew its value, and wasn't disposed to make ducks and drakes of it, nor partridges and pheasants either. So the summer flies, after buzzing about me a little, flew off to sunnier spots; all except one. He puzzled me a bit at first, but I blamed myself for having a shadow of suspicion of him. All seemed so open about him, open hands, open eyes, open brow; he wound himself round my heart before I knew where I was. Mine was a fair estate (it will be yours one day, Mary, my child, I trust; John's and yours together). I'd lived away from home many years before I came into it, for both my parents died while I was young, and when I came of age, my nearest relations were only distant. I never had brother nor sister. When I came to reside on my property the neighbours called, and I returned their calls, and it didn't go much beyond that. They thought me cold and unfeeling, but they were mistaken. But I must go back and take up my dropped thread. I said there was one man who got hold of my heart.

I had a good stout fence of prejudices, and an inner paling of reserve about that heart of mine, but he contrived to climb over both, and get inside. I could have done anything for him, but he did not seem to want anything but my affection; so I thought. He had a sister: well, what shall I say? I'm a poor, weak, old fool; it is all past and gone now.

I must go straight on; but it is like ploughing up my heart into a thousand deep furrows with my own hand. But; well, he had a sister; I'll not tell you her name, nor his either: at least not now. He brought her with him to call on me one day. She had never been in the neighbourhood before, for her brother was only a recent settler in the place. I was charmed with her; the more so because she was so like her brother, so bright and so open; so thoroughly transparent. She beamed upon me like a flood of sunshine, and gilded my cloudy reserve with her own radiance, so that I shone out myself in her company; so they told me, and I believed it. I was young then, you'll remember. I wasn't the wrinkled old pilgrim that I am now. We got attached to one another, it would seem, at once; others may _fall_ in love; _we leapt_ into it; I never thought to ask myself whether she loved G.o.d. I was content to know that she loved _me_. I was aware that I had a heart, but at that time I hadn't learnt that I had a soul. Well, my friend (shall I drop the 'r,' and call him 'fiend'? 'Twould be truer); he did all he could to hasten on our marriage. He did it very quietly, so openly, too. He was so radiant with joy at the thoughts of my coming happiness. 'She was such a sister,' he said, 'she would be such a wife to me.' I never had any misgivings but once, and then the shadow was but as the pa.s.sing of a white cloud before summer's noonday sunshine. I was going from home for a week, but unexpected business detained me for another day. I walked over to my future brother-in-law's in the afternoon. It was summer time. I went in, as was my habit, by the garden door, and was crossing the lawn, when I heard sounds of wild laughter proceeding from a little summer-house; they were sounds of boisterous and almost idiotic mirth. There was a duet of merriment, in which a male and female each took a part. I hardly knew what I was doing, or whether to go back or advance. As I hesitated, all was hushed. I saw a female figure dart like lightning into the house, and then my friend (I must call him so for want of a better t.i.tle) came forward, and holding out both his hands to me, said 'Welcome, welcome, this is an unexpected pleasure. I thought you were far away on your journey before now; my sister and I have been almost dying with laughter over a book lent to us by a friend.

I do think I never read anything so irresistibly ludicrous in all my life.' I hardly knew what to say in reply, I was so completely taken aback. I was turning, however, towards the summer-house in which I just caught a glance of a table with a bottle and gla.s.ses on it, when my companion, catching my arm in his, hurried me away to another part of the garden, where, he said, he was going to make some improvements, about which he must have my judgment and suggestions. As we afterwards went into the house, we again pa.s.sed the summer-house, but the gla.s.ses and bottle were gone. We entered into one of the sitting-rooms, and the servant came to tell us that her mistress had just been sent for to see a poor sick cottager, who wanted her immediately. This led her brother to break out into raptures about his sister's benevolence, self-denial, and charity! Indeed, I never heard him so eloquent on any subject before. I left, however, in a little while, for he seemed unnaturally restless and excited during my stay, and a cloud lowered upon me all the way home, but it had melted away by the next morning. But I must hasten on. We were married soon after this, and I settled a handsome allowance on my wife for her own private use. She had no parents living, but had kept house for another brother before she came to reside in our neighbourhood. I wished to suppose myself happy as a married man, but, somehow or other, I was not. My wife made large professions of affection, but, spite of myself, I mistrusted them. Her brother, too, seldom came now to see me, unless he had some private business with his sister; and they were often closeted together alone for an hour or more.

Then she would come out to me, radiant with smiles, and full of excitement; and her brother would rattle on, hurrying from one topic to another, so as to leave me no power to collect my thoughts, or shape any questions which I was anxious to ask him. I am given to trust, as I have told you, and ever shall be, if I live to be a dozen centuries old.

Still, I couldn't help having my doubts, my grievous doubts. Well, one morning, my brother-in-law called; he seemed agitated, and in much distress, saying that he must give up his house and join his brother, with whom he was in partnership; as he found his presence was required for the investigation, and, he feared it might be, the winding-up of their affairs. I pitied him, and offered him help. He refused it almost with indignation, but I pressed it, and he accepted a loan, merely as a loan, he said, of a thousand pounds, for which I gave him a cheque on the spot. With tears in his eyes, and a warm pressure of the hand, he was gone. I never saw him again. A _few_ mornings after this; it was about six months after we were married; my wife and I were sitting at breakfast when she threw a paper to me across the table, saying, 'I suppose you'll see to that.' It was a bill for a considerable amount, contracted by herself before our marriage, and for articles which were certainly no part of a lady's toilet or wardrobe, nor could be of any possible use to one of her s.e.x. I was astonished; but she treated the matter very coolly, or appeared to do so. When I asked for an explanation, she avoided my eye, and turned the matter off; and when I pressed her on the subject, she said, 'Well, it is no use my entering into explanations now; you'll find it all right.' I was greatly disturbed, for there was something in her manner that showed me she was ill at ease, though she endeavoured to wear a nonchalant air.

There was a wild light, too, in her eyes, which distressed and almost alarmed me, and a suspicion came over me which almost made me faint.

She left the breakfast table abruptly, and I saw no more of her till luncheon time; but when I went to my library, I found a packet on my table which I had not noticed there before. I opened it; it was full of unpaid bills, all made out to my wife in her maiden name, and most, indeed nearly all of them, for articles unsuited for female use. A horrible suspicion flashed across my mind. Could it possibly be that these were her brother's debts: that he had got these articles in her name, and had had the bills sent in to her? And could it be that brother and sister had been in league together, and that he with all his a.s.sumption of openness and candour and large-heartedness, had entrapped me into this marriage that I might liquidate the debts of an abandoned and reckless profligate? And could it be, farther, (madden ing thought!) that the _whole_ extravagance was not his, and that numerous unpaid accounts for wine and spirits were, partly, for what she had taken as well as her brother? Then I thought of the scene in the garden, of the wild laughter, of her sudden disappearance, of the signs of drinking in the summer-house. Oh! My heart turned sick; was I tricked, deceived, ruined in my peace for ever? I paced up and down my library, more like a lunatic than a sane man. Luncheon time came: we met: she threw herself into my arms, and wept and laughed and implored; but I felt that a drunkard was embracing me, and I flung her from me, and rushed out of the house. O misery! Whither should I go, what should I do? It was all too true: her brother was the basest of men: she did love _him_, I believe, it was the only unselfish thing about her. Well, I had to go back home; _home_! Vilest of names to me then!

'home, _bitter_ home!' And yet I loved that poor guilty, fallen creature. There was a terrible light in her eyes as we sat opposite one another at dinner. We had to play a part before the footman. Oh! What a dreadful meal that was! I seemed to be feeding on ashes, and drinking wormwood. I felt as if every morsel would choke me. We spoke to one another in measured terms. Would the miserable farce of a dinner never be over? It came to an end at last. And then she came to me trembling and penitent, and, laying her head on my shoulder, wept till tears would fall no longer. She was sober then; she had taken nothing but water at dinner. She unburdened her heart to me (so I thought), and confessed all. She told me how she and her brother had been brought up, as children, in habits of self-indulgence, especially in having free access to the wine and spirits. She told me that she and her unworthy brother had been all in all to one another, that gambling and drink had brought him into difficulties, and that she had allowed him to run up accounts in her name. She declared that he really loved and valued me, and that the thought of hurrying on our marriage for any selfish object, was quite a recent idea, suggested by distress under pecuniary embarra.s.sment. She a.s.serted pa.s.sionately that she truly loved me; she implored me to overlook the past, and promised, with solemn appeal to Heaven, that she would renounce the drink from that hour, and give me no more uneasiness. Ay, she promised; a drunkard's promise! Lighter than the lightest gossamer; brittle as the ice of an April morning. I believed her: did she believe herself? I fear not. But the worst was to come, the shadows were deepening, the storm was gathering. A year had pa.s.sed over our wedded life, when a little girl was given to us.

Every cord of my heart that had been untwined or slackened of late wound itself fast round that blessed little one."

CHAPTER TWELVE.

MR. TANKARDEW'S STORY FINISHED.

"All was joy for a time. We called our little one Mary; it was a name I loved. I had not lived as a total abstainer; though, as I told you once, my mother, whom I can only recollect as a widow, had banished all intoxicants from our table. But I was young when she died, and I became, and continued for many years a moderate drinker. But now when our little girl was born, I had swept the house clear of all alcoholic drinks; we hadn't a drop in the place from cellar to attics, so I thought. And my wife agreed with me that our little one should never know the taste of the strong drink. We had not many friends, for I was shy and reserved still, and my home was my world and society; at least I wished it to be so. Sometimes I thought my wife strangely excited, it looked very like the old misery, but she solemnly declared that she never tasted anything intoxicating. I hoped she spoke the truth, even against the evidence of my senses. After a while she persuaded me that I wanted change, that I was rusting out in my loneliness. She would have me accept an invitation to a friend's house now and then: it would do me good. _She_ was happy in her home, she said, only she should be happier still if she could see me gaining spirits by occasional intercourse with like-minded friends. Not that she wished me to leave her; it was for my own good she said it, and she should be delighting in the thoughts of the good it would do me, and should find abundance to cheer her in my absence, in the care of our darling child. She said all this so openly, so artlessly, that I believed her. I thought she might be right; so I went now and then from home for a few days, and, by degrees, more and more frequently. And my wife encouraged it. She said it did me so much good, and the benefit I reaped in improved health, spirits, and intelligence quite reconciled her to the separation. We went on so till our Mary was five years old; I could not say that my wife was ever manifestly intemperate, but painful suspicions hung like a black cloud over me. At last one summer's day, one miserable day: I can never forget it: I set out to pay a week's visit to a friend, who lived some ten miles distant from my home. I drove myself in a light, open carriage; my horse was young and rather shy. I was just going round a bend in the road, when a boy jumped suddenly over a hedge, right in front of us. Away went my horse at the top of his speed, and soon landed me in a ditch, and broke away, leaving the carriage with a fractured shaft behind him. I was not hurt myself, so I got a.s.sistance from the nearest cottage; and, having caught my horse, and found someone to whom I could trust the repairing of my vehicle, I walked home. It was afternoon when I arrived. I walked straight in through the back of the premises, and entered the dining-room; there was no one there. I was going to ring for one of the servants, when the door opened, and little Mary toddled (I ought rather to say tottered) up to me. Her mother was close behind her, but, at the sight of me, she uttered a wild cry, shut the door violently, and rushed upstairs. I had seen enough in her face: too much, too much! And the little child, our darling little Mary, what was amiss with her? Could it be? Had that cruel woman dared to do such a thing? Yes: it was so indeed: the little child was under the influence of strong drink; I drew the horrible truth from her by degrees. The mother had taught that little babe to like the exciting cup; she had sweetened and made it specially palatable. She had done this to make the child a willing partaker in her sin, to bribe her to secrecy, and to use her as a tool for the gratifying of her own vile appet.i.te. Thus was she deliberately poisoning the body and soul of her child, and training her in deceit, that she might league that little one, as she grew up, with herself in procuring the forbidden stimulant, and in deceiving her own father. O accursed drink, which can thus turn a mother into the tempter and destroyer of her own guileless and unsuspecting child! I rushed out of the room, and was about to hurry upstairs, but I shrank back shivering and heart-sick. Then I went up slowly and heavily: my bedroom door was bolted; so was the door of my wife's dressing-room; I came downstairs again, and, taking Mary by the hand, went into my library. There the storm of trouble did its work, for it drove me down upon my knees. I poured out my heart in strong crying to G.o.d; I owned that I had lived without Him, and that I had not loved nor sought Him. I prayed for pardon and a new heart, and that He would have mercy on my poor wife and child. As I knelt in my agony of supplication I felt two little hands placed on my own, then mine were gently pulled from me, and my precious little child, looking up in my face with streaming eyes, said, 'Papa, don't cry; dear papa, don't cry.

I _will_ be a good girl.' I pressed her to my heart, and blessed G.o.d that it was not yet too late. Before nightfall I had driven away with that dear child, and had placed her with a valued friend whom I could trust, one of the few who had ever visited at our house, a total abstainer, and, better still, a devoted Christian. My child had always loved her, and I felt that I could leave her in such hands with the utmost confidence. But I had a home still, in name at least, for all the sunshine had gone out of the word 'home' for me. I returned the next day to our childless house: where was the mother? She lay on the floor of her dressing-room, crushed in spirit to the dust. I raised her up; she would not look at me, but hid her face in her hands; her eyes were dry, she had wept away all her tears. I could not bear her grief, and I tried to comfort her; all might yet be well. Again she confessed all, her deceit, her heartlessness; but she laid it to the drink. True, she was in this a self-deceiver, but how terrible must be the power for evil in a stimulant which can so utterly degrade the soul, cloud the intellect, and benumb the conscience! Well, she poured forth a torrent of vows, promises, and resolutions for the future. I bade her turn them into prayers, but she did not understand me. However, there was peace for awhile: our Mary came home again, and I watched her with an unwearying carefulness. Another year brought us a son: he sits among us now: John Randolph we call him. There was a sort of truce till John was ten years old. I knew that my poor unhappy wife still continued to obtain strong drink, but she did not take it to excess to my knowledge, and it was never placed upon our table. I was myself, at this time, practically a total abstainer, but I had signed no pledge. I didn't see the use of it then, so I had not got my children to sign. My poor wife _professed_ to take no alcoholic stimulants, yet I could not but know that she was deceiving herself. She was, alas! Too self-confident.

She seemed to think that all danger of _excess_ was now over, and that a white lie about taking none was no real harm, so long as it satisfied _me_; but it neither deceived nor satisfied me. At last, one winter's day, she proposed that John should drive her in her pony-carriage to the neighbouring village, where there was an old servant of ours who was ill, whom she wanted to see. The pony was a quiet one, and was used to John's driving, so I did not object, as I was very busy at the time, and could not therefore drive myself. It was very late before she came back; she had kept the poor boy at the cottage door nearly two hours, and when she returned to the carriage was so excited that he was in fear and trembling all the way home. That night his miserable mother lay hopelessly intoxicated on a sofa when I retired to my resting-_place_, for to rest I certainly did not retire. From that day she utterly broke down, and became lost to all shame; one appet.i.te, one pa.s.sion alone, possessed her; a mad thirst for the drink. We separated by mutual consent, and I made her an allowance sufficient to supply all her lawful wants. Alas! Alas! The sad end hurries on. She wrote to me for a larger allowance; I knew what she wanted it for, and I refused. She wrote again and I did not reply. Then she wrote to Mary with the same object. Of course, I need hardly tell you that the children remained with me. Poor dear Mary loved her mother dearly, and sent her all her own pocket money. I found it out, and forbade it for the future. Two more years pa.s.sed by. From time to time I heard of my miserable wife; she was sinking lower and lower. At last, in the twilight of an autumn evening, as Mary was returning home alone, a wild-looking, ragged woman crept towards her with a strange, undecided step: it was her mother.

She flung herself at her child's feet, imploring her, if she still had any love for her, to find her the means of gratifying her insatiable thirst. She must die, she said, if she refused her. Poor Mary, poor Mary! Terror-stricken, heart-broken, she spoke words of love, of entreaty, to that miserable creature; she urged her to break off her sin; she pointed her to Jesus for strength; she told her that she dared not supply her regularly with money, as she had promised me that she would not, and it would do her no good. The wretched woman slunk away without another word. Next day her body was found floating on the river; she had destroyed herself. Poor, dear Mary never looked up after that. She connected her mother's awful end with her own refusal to give her money for the drink, though there could be no blame to her: and so she faded away, my lovely child, and left me, ere another spring came round, for the land of eternal summers. I was heart-sick, hopeless; life seemed objectless; I gave way to despondency, and forgot my duty as a man and a Christian. I felt that I was no proper guide nor companion for poor John; so I sent him first to France, where he gained his skill as an artist and musician; and since then he has, by his own desire, been a traveller in distant lands. I let my house, and came over to Hopeworth, to be out of the way of everything and everybody that could remind me of the past. Yet, I could not forget. You noticed the vacant s.p.a.ce in my sitting-room, where a picture should have been; that empty s.p.a.ce reminded me of what might have been, had my wife, whose portrait should have been there, been a different wife to me. But light came at last. When I saw _you_, Mary my child, for the first time, I scarce knew what to say or think. You were, and are, the very image of my own loved and lost one, my Mary my beloved child; the portrait behind the panel is hers. I longed to have you for my own. I determined, however, to see what you were; I went to the juvenile party merely for that end.

And then, when John came home unexpectedly, I resolved in my heart that, if I could bring it about, you _should_ be my own dear child. So John and I talked it over; and John, who is a true branch from the old tree, a little crotchety or so, was resolved to win you in his own fashion; and, having learnt a little colonial independence, he wished to look at you a bit behind the scenes; so he would come before you, not as the heir of an eccentric old gentleman, with a good estate and plenty of money to speak for him, but as the travelled artist and music-master.

And now, I think I've pretty well unravelled the greater part of the tangle; the rest you can easily smooth out for yourselves.

"So you see it has been 'nearly lost, but dearly won.' My child, Mary, you nearly lost old Esau's heart, when you seemed bent on throwing your own away; but you've won it, and won it dearly, like a dear good child.

You nearly lost your peace to one who would soon have drowned it out of home, but you won it dearly and bravely, I know, at no little sacrifice.

And John, my son, I once thought you'd nearly lost the n.o.blest and best of wives; but you've won her, and dearly, too, but she's worth the price of a little stooping, ay, and of a great deal too. And old Esau Tankardew nearly lost his peace and his self-respect, in selfish unsanctified sorrow, but he has won something better than respect, though it cost him a hard struggle; he has won a daughter who hates that drink which blotted out light and joy from the old man's home and heart; and he has won, through grace, a peace that pa.s.seth understanding, and can say, 'Thanks be to G.o.d, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.'"

THE END.