Wenderholme Part 15

"Why should a man desire in any way To vary from the kindly race of men, Or pa.s.s beyond the goal of ordinance, Where all should pause, as is most meet for all?"

The "goal of ordinance," at Shayton, being death from _delirium tremens_.

Mr. Smethurst would have been much surprised if anybody had told him that he was inducing Ogden to drink more than was good for him. It seemed so natural to drink a bottle of brandy! And Jerry, too, in his way, was a temperate man--a man capable of self-control--a man who had made a resolution and kept it for many years. Jerry's resolution had been never to drink more than one bottle of spirits in an evening; and, as he said sometimes, it was "all howin' to that as he enjy'd sich gud 'ealth." Therefore, when Mr. Simpson had placed the bottle between them, Mr. Smethurst made a little mental calculation. He was strong in mental arithmetic. "I've 'ad three gla.s.ses afore Hogden coom, so when I've powered him out three gla.s.ses, the remainder 'll be my 'lowance."

Therefore, when Isaac had mixed his third tumbler, Jerry Smethurst rang the bell.

"Another bottle o' brandy."

Mr. Simpson stood aghast at this demand, and his eyes naturally reverted to the bottle upon the table. "You've not finished that yet, gentlemen,"

he ventured to observe.

"What's left in it is my 'lowance," said Mr. Smethurst. "Mr. Hogden shalln't 'ave none on 't."

"Well, that _is_ a whimmy gent," said Mr. Simpson to himself--but he fetched another bottle.

They made a regular Red Lion evening of it, those two. A little before midnight Mr. Smethurst rose and said Good night. He had finished his bottle, and his law of temperance, always so faithfully observed, forbade him one drop more. The reader probably expects that Mr.

Smethurst was intoxicated; but his genial nature was only yet more genial. He lighted his bed-candle with perfect steadiness, shook Ogden's hand affectionately, and mounted the stair step by step. When he got into his bedroom he undressed himself in a methodical manner, laid his clothes neatly on a chair, wound his watch up, and when he had a.s.sumed his white cotton night-cap, looked at himself in the gla.s.s. He put his tongue out, and held the candle close to it. The result of the examination was satisfactory, and he proceeded to pull down the corners of his eyes. This he did every night. The bugbear of his life was dread of a coming fit, and he fancied he might thus detect the premonitory symptoms.

Meanwhile Mr. Ogden, left by himself, took up the "Sootythorn Gazette,"

and when Mr. Simpson entered he found him reading, apparently. "Beg pardon, sir," said Mr. Simpson, "but it's the rule to turn the gas out at twelve, and it's a few minutes past. I'll light you your bed-candle, sir, and you can sit up a bit later if you like. You'll find your way to your room."

Ogden was too far gone to have any power of controlling himself now. The type danced before his eyes, the sentences ran into one another, and the sense of the phrases was a mystery to him. He kept drinking mechanically; and when at length he attempted to reach the door, the candlestick slipped from his hand, and the light was instantly extinguished.

A man who is quite drunk cannot find the door of a dark room--he cannot even walk in the dark; his only chance of walking in broad daylight is to fix his eye steadily on some object, and when it loses its hold of that, to fasten it upon some other, and so on. Ogden stumbled against the furniture and fell. The deep insensibility of advanced drunkenness supervened, and he lay all night upon the floor. The servant-girl found him there the next morning when she came to clean the room.

He could not go to Sootythorn that day, and the true reason for his absence soon became known to Dr. Bardly, who asked leave to drive over to Shayton to see a patient of his own. He drove directly to Milend.

"Well, Mrs. Ogden," said the Doctor, "I've come wi' bad news for you this time. Your Isaac's made a beast of himself once more. He lay all night last night dead drunk upo' th' parlor-floor o' th' Blue Bell Inn i' Whittlecup."

"Why--you don't say so, Dr. Bardly! Now, really, this _is_ provokin', and 'im as was quite reformed, as one may say. I could like to whip him--I could."

"Well, I wish you'd just go to Whittlecup and take care of him while he stops there. If he'd n.o.bbut stopped at Sootythorn I could have minded him a bit mysen, but there's nout like his mother for managin' him."

Little Jacob was staying at Milend during his father's military career, and so Mrs. Ogden objected--"But what's to become o' th' childt?"

"Take him with ye--take him with ye. It'll do him a power o' good, and it'll amuse him rarely. He'll see the chaps with their red jackets, and his father with a sword, and a fine scarlet coat on Sundays, and he'll be as fain as fain."

So it was immediately decided that Mrs. Ogden and little Jacob should leave for Whittlecup as soon as they possibly could. A fly was sent for, and Mrs. Ogden hastily filled two large wooden boxes, which were her portmanteaus. Little Jacob was at the parsonage with the youthful Prigleys, and had to be sent for. Mrs. Ogden took the decanters from the corner cupboard, and drank two gla.s.ses of port to sustain her in the hurry of the occasion. "Well, who would have thought," she said to herself, as she ate a piece of cake--"who would have thought that I should go and stop at Whittlecup? I wonder how soon Mary Ridge will have finished my new black satin."

CHAPTER XVIII.

ISAAC'S MOTHER COMES.

Mrs. Ogden and her grandson reached Sootythorn rather late that evening--namely, about eight o'clock; and as it happened that she knew an old maid there--one Miss Mellor--whose feelings would have been wounded if Mrs. Ogden had pa.s.sed through Sootythorn without calling upon her, she took the opportunity of doing so whilst the horse was baited at the inn. The driver took the fly straight to the Thorn; and when Mr.

Garley saw a lady and a little boy emerge therefrom he concluded that they intended to stay at his house, and came with his apologies for want of room. "But we can let you 'ave a nice parlor, mum, to take your tea, and I can find you good bedrooms in the town."

Mrs. Ogden declined these obliging propositions, in the hope that Miss Mellor would offer her a night's lodging. It was not that she loved Miss Mellor so much as to desire to stay longer under her roof than was necessary to keep her in a good temper, but she had made sundry reflections on the road. "If I stop at th' Thorn they'll charge me 'appen 'alf-a-crown for my bedroom, and Jane Mellor 'ad a nice spare bedroom formerly. It really is no use throwin' money away on inn-keepers. And then there's our tea; they'll make me pay eighteenpence or two shillin' for't at Garley's, and very likely charge full as much for little Jacob. It's quite enough to 'ave to pay seven shillin' for th' horse and fly." And in any case there would be time to get on to Whittlecup after the horse had had his feed.

But Miss Mellor, who had not been to Shayton or heard direct news of Shayton for several years, was so delighted to see Mrs. Ogden that she would not hear of her going forward that night. "It's lucky I 'appened to be at 'ome," said Miss Mellor, "for I'm often out of an evening." It was lucky, certainly, for little Jacob, who got a much better tea than he would have done at the Thorn Inn, with quant.i.ties of sweet things greatly to his taste. Little Jacob was convinced that there was n.o.body in the world so kind and generous as his grandmother, yet he conceived an affection for Miss Mellor also before the close of the evening.

"The devil take the people," said Isaac Ogden, when he got back from Sootythorn to the Blue Bell, and had gone as usual to his bedroom there--"the devil take the people, they've hidden all my things!"

Just then came a gentle knock at the door, and the servant-maid entered.

"Please, sir, your mother's come, and she says you aren't to sleep here any more, sir; and she's fetched your things to lodgings that she's took over Mr. Wood's, the shoemaker's."

It is at all times vexatious and humiliating to the independent spirit of a man to be disposed of by female authority, but it is most especially so when the authority is one's mamma. A grown-up man will submit to his mother on most points if he is worth any thing, but the best of sons does not quite like to see his submission absolutely taken for granted. In this case there was an aggravation in the look of the servant-girl. Notwithstanding the respectful modesty of her tone, there was just a twinkle of satire in her eye. It was plain that she was inwardly laughing at the Lieutenant. "d.a.m.n it!" he said, "this house is good enough for me; I don't want to leave it." Yet he _did_ leave, nevertheless.

The next day was Sunday, and it was a satisfaction to Mrs. Ogden to think that Isaac would be professionally compelled to attend public worship. Little Jacob was one of the crowd of spectators who gathered round the company when it was mustered for church-parade. He was proud of his resplendent papa--a papa all scarlet and silver; and it was a matter of peculiar anxiety with him that they should sit in the same pew. Mr. Ogden gratified him in this respect, and the child felt himself the most important young personage in Whittlecup. A steady attention to the service is not commonly characteristic of little boys; and on this occasion little Jacob's eye was so continually caught by the glitter of his father's gold sword-knot and the silver embroidery on his sleeve, that he followed the clergyman much less regularly than usual.

The neighborhood of Whittlecup was not aristocratic, but there were one or two manufacturing families of rather a superior description. One of these families, the Anisons, were at church not far from the pew which the Ogdens occupied. They lived at a house near Whittlecup called Arkwright Lodge, in a comfortable manner, with most of those refinements of civilization which are to be met with in the houses of rich professional men in London. Mr. Anison, indeed, was a manufacturer of the new school, whilst Jacob Ogden belonged to the old one. Men of the Anison cla.s.s sometimes make large fortunes, but they more frequently content themselves with a moderate independence and a sufficient provision for their families. Money does not seem to them an end in itself, but they value the comforts and refinements which it procures and which cannot be had without it. Jacob Ogden, on the other hand, did not care a fig for comforts and refinements, and had no domestic objects: his only purpose was the inward satisfaction and the outward glory of being rich. Mr. Anison worked in moderation, spent a good deal, saved something, and kept a very hospitable house, where everybody who had the slightest imaginable claim upon his kindness was always heartily welcome.

After Philip Stanburne's accident he had been immediately moved to Arkwright Lodge, in compliance with the surgeon's advice and Mr.

Anison's urgent request. Here he had rapidly pa.s.sed into a state of agreeable convalescence, and found the house so pleasant that the prospect of a perfect recovery, and consequent departure, was not very attractive to him now.

When the service in Whittlecup church was over, Joseph Anison went straight to Mr. Ogden's pew and reminded him that he had promised to dine that day at Arkwright Lodge. When they got out of the church, Isaac presented his mother to Mr. Anison, and to Mrs. Anison also, who joined them in the midst of that ceremony. This was followed by a polite little speech from Mrs. Anison (she was an adept in polite little speeches), to the effect that, as Mr. Ogden had kindly promised to eat a dinner and pay his first call at the Lodge at the same time, his duties in the militia having prevented him from calling during the week, perhaps they might hope that Mrs. Ogden would allow them to call upon her at once at her lodgings, and then would she come with her son to the Lodge to spend the afternoon? So when the militia-men were disbanded, the Anisons accompanied the Ogdens to the lodging over Mr. Wood's, the shoemaker.

It was a very fine May morning, and they had all come on foot. There are families in Sootythorn (perhaps also there may be families out of Sootythorn) who, though living within a very short distance of their parish church, go thither always in their carriages--on the same principle which causes the Prince of Wales to go from Marlborough House to St James's Palace in a state-coach--namely, for the maintenance of their dignity. But though the Anisons' carriage was an inst.i.tution sufficiently recent to have still some of the charms of novelty, they dispensed with it as much as possible on Sundays.

The young ladies had gone slowly forwards towards the Lodge with the clergyman, who had a standing invitation to dine there whenever he came to Whittlecup. Mrs. Ogden's great regret in going to dine at the Lodge was for the dinner she left behind her, and she did not hesitate to express it. "It seems quite a pity," she said, "to leave them ducks and green peas--they were such fine ducks, and we're all of us very fond o'

ducks, 'specially when we've green peas to 'em." After this little speech, she paused regretfully, as if meditating on the delightfulness of the ducks, and then she added, more cheerfully, "But what--ducks are very good cold, and they'll do very well for supper to-morrow night, when our Isaac comes back from Sootythorn."

The dinner at the Lodge was good enough to compensate even for the one left untasted at the shoemaker's, and n.o.body did better justice to it than the Rev. Abel Blunting. A man may well be hungry who has preached vehemently for seventy minutes, and eaten nothing since seven in the morning, which was Mr. Blunting's habitual breakfast-hour. He was a very agreeable guest, and worth his salt. He had a vein of rich humor approaching to joviality, yet he drank only water. On this matter of teetotalism he was by no means fanatical, but he said simply that in his office of minister it was useful to his work amongst the poor. Mrs.

Ogden sat next to him at table, and was perfectly delighted with him.

The Rev. Abel perceived at once what manner of woman she was, and talked to her accordingly. When he found out that she came from Shayton, he said that he had a great respect for Shayton, it was such a sound Protestant community--there was not a single Papist in the place--Popery had no hold _there_. Unfortunately, when Mr. Blunting made this observation, there happened to be a lull in the talk, and it was audible to everybody, including Philip Stanburne, who was well enough to sit at table. Poor Mrs. Anison began to feel very uncomfortable, but as Mr.

Blunting sat next to her, she whispered to him that they had a Roman Catholic at table. This communication not having been loud enough to be heard by Mrs. Ogden, who, never having sat down with a Roman Catholic in her life, was incapable of imagining such a contingency, that lady replied,--

"Shayton folk believe i' th' Bible."

"And may I ask," said Philip, very loudly and resolutely from the other end of the table, "what Catholics believe in?"

"Why, they believe i' th' Koran."

The hearers--and everybody present had heard Mrs. Ogden distinctly--could not credit their ears. Each thought that he must be mistaken--that by some wholly unaccountable magic he had heard the word "Koran" when it had been p.r.o.nounced by no mortal lips. n.o.body laughed--n.o.body even smiled. There is a degree of astonishment which stuns the sense of humor. Every one held his breath when Mr. Blunting spoke.

"No, ma'am," he said, respectfully, "you are somewhat mistaken. You appear to have confounded the Papal and the Mohammedan religions."

What Mrs. Ogden's answer may have been does not matter very much, for Mr. and Mrs. Anison both saw the necessity for an immediate diversion, and talked about something else in the most determined manner. On reflection, Philip Stanburne thought his Church quite sufficiently avenged already. "As I believe in the Koran," he said to Miss Anison, "I may marry four wives. What an advantage that will be!"

"You horrible man!"

"Why am I a horrible man? Why are you so ungracious to me? The Sultan and the Viceroy of Egypt are like me--they believe in the Koran--and they act upon their belief as I intend to do. Yet a Christian queen has been gracious to them. She did not tell them they were horrible men. Why should you not be gracious to me in the same way? When I have married my four wives, you will come and visit me, won't you, in my palace on the Bosphorus? Black slaves shall bring you coffee in a little jewelled cup, and your lips shall touch the amber mouth-piece of a diamonded chibouque."

"But then your four wives will all be Orientals, and I shall not be able to talk to them."

The Misses Anison were not the only young ladies at the table. Philip Stanburne had a neighbor on his left hand who interested him even more than the brilliant girl on his right. This was Miss Alice Stedman, whom he had seen in the bookseller's shop at Sootythorn.