This sort of fanfaronade was often interrupted by transports of genuine feeling. The boy’s love for Mary had roots in his soul, and at times he was beside himself at the thought of losing her.
About three in the morning, as he was leaning out of the window, a train passed many miles off under the range of hills. Just before the sound of its passage died out of earshot, the long shrill scream of the whistle ascended towards the stars. I wonder whether people who were young in the days of stage-coaches and guards’-horns, know what a trouble is brought into the minds of wakeful youth by the sound of a railway whistle. A lad is shown all the kingdoms of the earth in a vision; and, although he is eminently happy where he is, with loving friends and a half-written poem in his desk, he positively despises himself because he is not going somewhere else. You may imagine what it was to John. Thank God! he had the world before him; he would begin anew, and carve out something noble for a career.
He dozed a little in a chair, and was wakened by horrible dreams. His ears were filled with Babel; he was thrust hither and thither in a crowd of vile spectres, and heard the Colonel calling upon him from an incalculable distance. When he awoke, the light of the candle dazzled and distressed him, and he was afraid of the shadows.
Some time before sunrise he suddenly burst out bleeding at the nose, and had hard ado to get it staunched. He soaked his clothes by holding a wet sponge to the nape of his neck, and the coolness gratified so much that he took a bath. This seemed to clear his head and steady his nerves; the more acute symptoms of fever passed away; and he slipped out into the garden in the dawn, with something like composure in his heart.
He walked for a while in the approach, and made some very impassioned verses to Mary, to Malcolm, to his own heart, to God for strength, to the sunrise; all of which he forgot as soon as he had made them, although that was no great matter. He went and sat on the parapet where he had been last night with Mary. The stones were wet with dew; mists were scattered on the plain; there was a great lowing of cattle and bleating of sheep; women with pails and whistling plough-lads began to go by underneath him on the public road. Here he prayed very heartily, wept a good deal, and, for two moments, was near giving up his intention. But the bell for prayers cut in upon this mood, played havoc with his disordered nerves, and called back the dark perversity upon his soul. The harm that is done by ugly bells ill-rung is not to be computed.
Chapter V
At breakfast John ate nothing, and drank a great deal of strong tea, which was very bad for him. There never was much talk at this meal, except on Sundays; during the week the Colonel had the papers to read, and a considerable correspondence besides, and the cousins usually brought a book to table. But on this particular morning the Colonel went twice out of his way to address an agreeable remark to John, and looked at him covertly from time to time with much affection; for he had been thinking his nephew over, and was vastly pleased with him. John answered roughly and sourly. The idea of speaking pleasantly over a breakfast-table to a hero and a martyr!
The cover was removed, and John was pretending to read the newspaper over the fire, when his uncle returned with a letter in his hand. He had a very kind look in his eyes as he spoke.
‘Take this letter to Hutton, please’ (Hutton was Mr Rolland’s place), ‘and wait an answer.’
It was now the moment for action. John drew himself together with a great effort; he did not raise his head from the paper.
‘Thank you,’ he answered, quietly, ‘I prefer staying where I am.’
If a thunderbolt had fallen upon Grangehead, it would have discomposed the Colonel less. John could see him over the edge of the paper. He stood quite still, but the immovable eyebrows went up, and his whole face underwent a swift and rather ghastly change. He seemed about to speak, but he thought better of it, went to the window, and looked out for perhaps a minute and a half. Then he turned to John and addressed him once more.
‘I am not sure whether you heard me. I desired you to take this letter to Hutton. I am not in the habit of repeating my commands.’ Thus far he spoke firmly, and in his usual loud voice; but there he seemed to take fright, and added hurriedly, and in an unsteady tone, ‘You can take a horse, if you like, John.’
Even John, full as he was of heroic and Satanic humours, was shocked at his uncle’s condescension; his heart yearned to him, and he longed to throw himself on his knees and avow all. It is so hard to insult a person you have respected all your life! But the devil was uppermost.
‘I think I said I should prefer to remain where I am,’ he answered.
‘Oh, very well,’ said the Colonel; and he left the room.
John had expected a blow. He was frightened and elated at the turn affairs had taken, and prayed fervently.
In the meantime Malcolm had repented of last night’s scene, in which he felt he had played a childish and perhaps a questionably honest part; and he desired heartily to make it up to John in kindness. He came into the dining-room with a penitent but cheerful spirit, and took a seat on the opposite side of the hearth.
‘About Mary — ,’ he began.
‘Hold your tongue!’ returned John. It was a discharge of nervous force, purely involuntary, and directed at no one in particular. The moment it had taken place he felt relieved, and sought to remove the effect. ‘I beg your pardon, I did not hear what you were saying; I’m a little out of sorts this morning,’ he explained.
Malcolm stared.
‘It was only about Mary and what we said last night,’ he continued.
‘I shall see that you are happy,’ replied the other, grandly. ‘Make yourself easy. You have appealed to me, and it is now my business.’
‘You needn’t take it quite so high,’ said Malcolm. ‘I’m very much obliged to you, of course; but it’s my business too, and I mean to explain—’
‘I’m not in the humour for explanations,’ interrupted John.
‘I’ll say my say if I choose.’
‘You’ll say it to yourself then.’ And John rose.
‘John,’ said Malcolm, ‘I beg your pardon if I spoke rudely. Indeed, I didn’t mean. And I really do wish a word with you.’
‘You may leave me my own company,’ answered John, mimicking his cousin’s voice.
‘Oh, well, you may go and be blanked, for me!’ flashed Malcolm. ‘You’re a blanked civil fellow, indeed! I wish you were dead!’
‘I wouldn’t swear if I were you, young man,’ observed John.
Malcolm flung out of the room in a fine temper, and John heard him slamming doors all about the house, until a stentorian summons and a rumble of reprimand from the Colonel’s study re-established peace. John felt very strangely. Thank God, he had quarrelled with everybody now! He was on the high seas of martyrdom. Malcolm was to be happy, thanks to him; and no one would suspect his heroism. I think he positively hated Malcolm; he would almost as soon have sought him out and strangled him, as gone on with the sacrifice that was to make him happy. His brain was in a whirl. He took a road on chance, and walked furiously. The trees danced on either side; the world reeled. Sometimes he was so dazzled he could see nothing; again, a corner of the road stood out before him in a sort of sickly distinctness; it seemed to mean something; it had something to do with his trouble, and he stared at it and hated it. The poor lad was in a fever.
In the course of this aimless walk he hit upon the county town, and, being consumed with thirst, he entered the hotel. The commercial room was occupied by a single personage — a pallid, red-haired, fat young bagman, seated by the fire, with a long tumbler of some beverage at his elbow. John sat as far away from him as he could, picked up a railway time-table, and turned over the pages without seeing a word. When the waiter came for his order, he pointed silently to the bagman’s glass.
‘Same as that gentleman, Sir? Yes, Sir,’ said the waiter.
Now it happened for John’s sins that the drink he had thus innocently commanded is one of the most insinuating mixtures in the world. Gin and g
ingerbeer, neither of them remarkable by themselves, become when mixed not only very agreeable, but exceptionally intoxicating. John was mightily pleased; his throat tingled, his brain cleared; the names of stations in the time-table became suddenly legible, and he gave himself over to a confused sort of luxury, picturing what sort of places these should be, and how the penniless martyr, John Falconer, should visit them one after another, and meet with singular adventures by the way. I think, as he got on with the second glass, there were even beautiful faces taking part in these adventures. For not only his love for Malcolm, but his love for Mary also, had suffered from the rivalry of Black Happiness and the violent dislocation of his hopes and prospects.
He did not reach Grangehead until the bell was ringing for dinner. He was aware of a distressing heat in his face, a noise in his ears, and a blur before his eyes. He had eaten nothing all day, had drunk more than was good for him, and still suffered from an unquenchable thirst. He took his place at table, dusty and disordered as he was; and his first action was to fill his glass with sherry and drink it off. The taste offended him, and he felt his head ache dully as he swallowed it; but he was too inexperienced to understand that he was getting drunk; he only knew that he was very ill, which was quite as it ought to be, and would bring on the reconciliation scene beside the pallet all the sooner.
The Colonel never addressed him. Malcolm, who felt that John was in disgrace, but attributed it merely to his unparalleled conduct in not coming home to luncheon, was also a little shy of speaking to him. As for their tiff in the morning, Malcolm had long ago forgiven that.
Towards the end of dinner the sherry began to operate, and John took the lead in the conversation.
‘This is a hateful place — Grangehead,’ he volunteered, cheerfully.
The Colonel looked at him sharply.
‘There’s no life,’ he continued; ‘no v’riety. Young men should see th’ world.’
Malcolm was alarmed, and telegraphed to him to be silent; but he could not understand the hint, or, if he did, resented it. The Colonel listened with growing attention: the wind was rising in that quarter.
‘It’s not good, whatever you may think,’ John proceeded, ‘for young men of tal’nt to be shut up with ‘n old man, whoever he is.’
He poured sherry into his tumbler and drank it off. He then looked at the empty tumbler with a maudlin laugh.
“T occurs to me,’ he began, ‘— ‘t occurs to me — And he stopped and smiled.
‘It occurs to me, Sir,’ bawled the Colonel, ‘that you’re the worse of drink.’
John contemplated his uncle in a vacillating way.
‘Tha”s a lie,’ he remarked; and then, repeating it with a giggle, as if he had said rather a good thing, ‘Tha”s a lie,’ said he, ‘tha”s a lie.’
Malcolm and the Colonel rose at the same moment, the former with some idea of interference. The Colonel whipped John out of his chair, and swept him irresistibly to the front door. Three stone steps, with a bit of iron railing on either hand, joined the level of the gravel plot to the level of the entrance hall. Standing on the top of these, the Colonel gave his nephew so smart an impulsion that he descended the stairs at one step, alighted on his left foot, fell thence on his right knee, and finally sprawled at full length upon the gravel.
‘Let me see no more of you,’ shouted the Colonel. ‘I bar my door against you for ever. I am done with you for time and eternity. God forgive you as I do;’ and all unconscious of the irony of his last prayer, he re-entered the house, and shut the door.
John lay as he had fallen in a stupor. Meantime, the sun began to turn the west into a lake of gold, and the blackbird sang among the lilacs as before.
Chapter VI Malcolm was left alone in the dining-room in a pitiful situation. He could understand from such sounds as reached him that John had been turned bodily out of doors, and that the Colonel had retired to brood in his private room. Grangehead and Mary were both his own, and yet I assure you he gave neither of them one thought. His mind was full of his cousin, and what could be done to bring about a reconciliation. He finished his wine mechanically. An hour went over his head, and he was still drawing patterns on the plate before him, when an alarmed servant peeped in, and asked if she might take away the things. This shook him into a resolution, and he went straight to his uncle. You must remember that Malcolm had never been the favourite nephew, and even when all went well, would have thought twice before he ventured on a similar intrusion.
The Colonel had neglected to turn up his reading-lamp on entering, so that the room was in twilight and filled with large shadows. He sat at the table, with his head on his hand and his face wholly shaded; even when Malcolm entered and addressed him, he gave no sign of life.
‘Sir,’ said Malcolm, ‘I trust there is nothing serious between you and John.’
‘My dear boy,’ returned the Colonel, with his hand still over his brow, ‘I have been expecting you; you may spare me the rest of your expostulations, which I can very well imagine for myself. You have mentioned the name of a person whom I once loved, but between him and me, there is an end of everything. I am a sinful man, perhaps a hard one; at least I did my best to be kind to him. But now he has provoked me beyond the power of God to make me forgive him, and I blot him out of my memory for ever. You see how it is,’ he resumed, after a moment’s pause. ‘Out of consideration for yourself and out of respect for me, you will have to avoid this subject in the future. And remember, you must try and humour me now, for you are all I have left.’
He motioned him away, and Malcolm durst not hesitate. As he closed the door he thought he overheard the sound of a groan; and this impressed and terrified him more than ever. He sat on the stairs with his head in his hands, and tried to think. But he could make nothing of it; the pillars of the earth were moved, natural laws were all suspended. The human mind cannot change its base of operations fast enough for certain sweeping catastrophes.
He rose at last and cautiously opened the front door. It was getting very dark; but he could see something darker on the gravel. It lay so still that his heart began to misgive him dreadfully, and he stole down the steps and nearer to the body. He could hear stertorous breathing, now and then rising into a snore, and breaking off again; and as his alarm was quieted, its place was taken by contempt and some disgust.
As he returned to the house, Grangehead and Mary had become at least agreeable features in the background. He was getting reconciled to the new order of things, and sought rather to improve than to alter it. Out of his own savings and those of John (for they kept their money together) he made a purse of about thirty pounds. This he put into one pocket of a large, warm driving-coat, balancing it in the other with John’s Bible. And thus equipped he returned to the figure on the gravel.
‘John!’ he said; ‘John!’
John answered with a snort. Every fibre of Malcolm’s Puritanical body shuddered in revolt; and throwing the coat over his cousin, he fled back into the house.
There never was a night like that at Grangehead. There was no tea and no family worship. Mr John slept on the gravel; Mr Malcolm slept by the dining-room fire; and the Colonel sat up in his own room in meditation and religious exercise.
Chapter VII The Colonel hung his head from that day forward. He turned suddenly and surprisingly bald; his face seemed to have shrunken and fallen in; and there were broken tones in his voice. Malcolm never uttered John’s name in his uncle’s presence; but he thought of him often enough as he looked upon these changes. The old man had been stabbed to the heart — slower or faster, he was dying.
There could be no doubt that he kept himself acquainted with John’s life, and would have grasped at any excuse to make up the difference and get his favourite nephew home again. But John’s conduct was of a nature to pain the Colonel deeply; every bulletin must have been another cowardly blow on his white head; and though he assisted his nephew underhand, neither his pride nor his principle would allow him to kill the fatted calf
for such an unregenerate prodigal.
The end came, when the two lads were in their twenty-first year — John writing leader notes in a London newspaper, and Malcolm agreeably conscious of his approaching marriage with Mary Rolland. The Colonel took to bed rather suddenly. It was wild, windy weather, and the sky was full of flying vapours. He had been looking out of the window all the afternoon, and towards dusk he called Malcolm and pointed to the labouring trees and the dead leaves whirling in the open.
‘I’m too old and tired for this sort of thing,’ he said; ‘I think I’ll go to bed.’ He looked at Malcolm queerly. ‘I don’t mean to get up again,’ he added; and he kept his word. All the time of his illness he complained grievously of the sound of the wind; for the weather continued broken, and he would speak much of the perils of sailors, and be overheard praying for lawful travellers by sea and land.
At last one afternoon he bade Malcolm light the candles, prop him up with pillows, and bring him his despatch-box.
‘I put it off, and put it off, God help me!’ he said; ‘and I’m just afraid I put it off too long.’
Malcolm set the box on his lap.
Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson Page 388