CHAPTER XXI.
IN WHICH CAPTAIN LAKE VISITS HIS SISTER'S SICK BED.
I suspect there are very few mere hypocrites on earth. Of course, I donot reckon those who are under compulsion to affect purity of manners anda holy integrity of heart--and there are such--but those who volunteer anextraordinary profession of holiness, being all the while consciousvillains. The Pharisees, even while devouring widows' houses, believedhonestly in their own supreme righteousness.
I am afraid our friend Jos. Larkin wore a mask. I am sure he often woreit when he was quite alone. I don't know indeed, that he ever took itoff. He was, perhaps, content to see it, even when he looked in theglass, and had not a very distinct idea what the underlying featuresmight be. It answers with the world; it almost answers with himself. Pityit won't do everywhere! 'When Moses went to speak with God,' says theadmirable Hall, 'he pulled off his veil. It was good reason he shouldpresent to God that face which he had made. There had been more need ofhis veil to hide the glorious face of God from him than to hide his fromGod. Hypocrites are contrary to Moses. He showed his worst to men, hisbest to God; they show their best to men, their worst to God; but Godsees both their veil and their face, and I know not whether He more hatestheir veil of dissimulation or their face of wickedness.'
Captain Lake wanted rest--sleep--quiet thoughts at all events. When hewas alone he was at once in a state of fever and gloom, and seemed alwayswatching for something. His strange eyes glanced now this way, now that,with a fierce restlessness--now to the window--now to the door--and youwould have said he was listening intently to some indistinct and toodistant conversation affecting him vitally, there was such a look of fearand conjecture always in his face.
He bolted his door and unlocked his dressing case, and from a littlesilver box in that glittering repository he took, one after the other,two or three little wafers of a dark hue, and placed them successively onhis tongue, and suffered them to melt, and so swallowed them. They werenot liquorice. I am afraid Captain Lake dabbled a little in opium. He wasnot a great adept--yet, at least--like those gentlemen who can swallowfive hundred drops of laudanum at a sitting. But he knew the virtues ofthe drug, and cultivated its acquaintance, and was oftener under itsinfluence than perhaps any mortal, except himself, suspected.
The greater part of mankind are, upon the whole, happier and morecheerful than they are always willing to allow. Nature subserves themajority. She smiled very brightly next morning. There was a twitteringof small birds among the brown leaves and ivy, and a thousand otherpleasant sounds and sights stirring in the sharp, sunny air. This sort ofinflexible merry-making in nature seems marvellously selfish in the eyesof anxious Captain Lake. Fear hath torment--and fear is the worstingredient in mental pain. This is the reason why suspense is sointolerable, and the retrospect even of the worst less terrible.
Stanley Lake would have given more than he could well afford that it werethat day week, and he no worse off. Why did time limp so tediously awaywith him, prolonging his anguish gratuitously? He felt truculently, andwould have murdered that week, if he could, in the midst of its loiteringsunshine and gaiety.
There was a strange pain at his heart, and the pain of intense andfruitless calculation in his brain; and, as the Mahometan prays towardsMecca, and the Jew towards Jerusalem, so Captain Lake's morning orisons,whatsoever they were, were offered at the window of his bed-room towardLondon, from whence he looked for his salvation, or it might be the otherthing--with a dreadful yearning.
He hated the fresh glitter of that morning scene. Why should the world becheerful? It was a repast spread of which he could not partake, and itspited him. Yes; it was selfish--and hating selfishness--he would havestruck the sun out of the sky that morning with his walking-cane, if hecould, and draped the world in black.
He saw from his window the good vicar walk smiling by, in white chokerand seedy black, his little boy holding by his fingers, and capering andwheeling in front, and smiling up in his face. They were very busytalking.
Little 'Fairy' used to walk, when parochial visits were not very distant,with his 'Wapsie;' how that name came about no one remembered, but thevicar answered to it more cheerily than to any other. The little man wassolitary, and these rambles were a delight. A beautiful smiling littlefellow, very exacting of attention--troublesome, perhaps; he was sosociable, and needed sympathy and companionship, and repaid it with aboundless, sensitive _love_. The vicar told him the stories of David andGoliath, and Joseph and his brethren, and of the wondrous birth inBethlehem of Judea, the star that led the Wise Men, and the celestialsong heard by the shepherds keeping their flocks by night, and snatchesof 'Pilgrim's Progress'; and sometimes, when they made a feast and eattheir pennyworth of cherries, sitting on the style, he treated him, I amafraid, to the profane histories of Jack the Giant-killer and the YellowDwarf; the vicar had theories about imagination, and fancied it was animportant faculty, and that the Creator had not given children theirunextinguishable love of stories to no purpose.
I don't envy the man who is superior to the society of children. What canhe gain from children's talk? Is it witty, or wise, or learned? Be frank.Is it not, honestly, a mere noise and interruption--a musical cackling ofgeese, and silvery braying of tiny asses? Well, say I, out of my largeacquaintance, there are not many men to whom I would go for wisdom;learning is better found in books, and, as for wit, is it alwayspleasant? The most companionable men are not always the greatestintellects. They laugh, and though they don't converse, they make acheerful noise, and show a cheerful countenance.
There was not a great deal in Will Honeycomb, for instance; but our dearMr. Spectator tells us somewhere that 'he laughed easily,' which I thinkquite accounts for his acceptance with the club. He was kindly andenjoying. What is it that makes your dog so charming a companion in yourwalks? Simply that he thoroughly likes you and enjoys himself. He appealsimperceptibly to your affections, which cannot be stirred--such is God'swill--ever so lightly, without some little thrillings of happiness; andthrough the subtle absorbents of your sympathy he infuses into yousomething of his own hilarious and exulting spirit.
When Stanley Lake saw the vicar, the lines of his pale face contractedstrangely, and his wild gaze followed him, and I don't think he breathedonce until the thin smiling man in black, with the little gambollingbright boy holding by his hand, had passed by. He was thinking, you maybe sure, of his Brother Mark.
When Lake had ended his toilet and stared in the glass, he still lookedso haggard, that on greeting Mr. Larkin in the parlour, he thought itnecessary to mention that he had taken cold in that confoundedbilliard-room last night, which spoiled his sleep, and made him awfullyseedy that morning. Of course, his host was properly afflicted andsympathetic.
'By-the-bye, I had a letter this morning from that party--our commonfriend, Mr. W., you know,' said Larkin, gracefully.
'Well, what is he doing, and when does he come back? You mean Wylder, ofcourse?'
'Yes; my good client, Mr. Mark Wylder. Permit me to assist you to somehoney, you'll find it remarkably good, I venture to say; it comes fromthe gardens of Queen's Audley. The late marquis, you know, prided himselfon his honey--and my friend, Thornbury, cousin to Sir FrederickThornbury--I suppose you know him--an East Indian judge, you know--verykindly left it at Dollington for me, on his way to the Earl of Epsom's.'
'Thank you--delicious, I'm sure, it has been in such good company. May Isee Wylder's note--that is, if there's no private business?'
'Oh, certainly.'
And, with Wylder's great red seal on the back of the envelope, the letterran thus:--
'DEAR LARKIN,--I write in haste to save post, to say I shall be detainedin town a few days longer than I thought. Don't wait for me about theparchments; I am satisfied. If anything crosses your mind, a word withMr. De C. at the Hall, will clear all up. Have all ready to sign and sealwhen I come back--certainly, within a week.
'Yours sincerely,
'M. WYLDER,
'London.'
/> It was evidently written in great haste, with the broad-nibbed pen heliked; but notwithstanding the sort of swagger with which the writingmarched across the page, Lake might have seen here and there a littlequaver--indicative of something different from haste--the vibrations ofanother sort of flurry.
'"Certainly within a week," he writes. Does he mean he'll be here in aweek or only to have the papers ready in a week?' asked Lake.
'The question, certainly, does arise. It struck me on the first perusal,'answered the attorney. 'His address is rather a wide one, too--London! Doyou know his club, Captain Lake?'
'The _Wanderers_. He has left the _United Service_. Nothing for me,by-the-way?'
'No letter. No.'
'_Tant mieux_, I hate them,' said the captain. 'I wonder how my sister isthis morning.'
'Would you like a messenger? I'll send down with pleasure to enquire.'
'Thank you, no; I'll walk down and see her.'
And Lake yawned at the window, and then took his hat and stick andsauntered toward Gylingden. At the post-office window he tapped with thesilver tip of his cane, and told Miss Driver with a sleepy smile--
'I'm going down to Redman's Farm, and any letters for my sister, MissLake, I may as well take with me.'
Everybody 'in business' in the town of Gylingden, by this time, knewCaptain Lake and his belongings--a most respectable party--a high man;and, of course, there was no difficulty. There was only one letter--theaddress was written--'Miss Lake, Redman's Farm, near Brandon Park,Gylingden,' in a stiff hand, rather slanting backwards.
Captain Lake put it in his paletot pocket, looked in her face gently, andsmiled, and thanked her in his graceful way--and, in fact, left anenduring impression upon that impressible nature.
Turning up the dark road at Redman's Dell, the gallant captain passed theold mill, and, all being quiet up and down the road, he halted under thelordly shadow of a clump of chestnuts, and opened and read the letter hehad just taken charge of. It contained only these words:--
'Wednesday.
'On Friday night, next, at half-past twelve.'
This he read twice or thrice, pausing between whiles. The envelope borethe London postmark. Then he took out his cigar case, selected apromising weed, and wrapping the laconic note prettily round one of hisscented matches, lighted it, and the note flamed pale in the daylight,and dropped still blazing, at the root of the old tree he stood by, andsent up a little curl of blue smoke--an incense to the demon of thewood--and turned in a minute more into a black film, overrun by a hundredcreeping sparkles; and having completed his mysterious incremation, he,with his yellow eyes, made a stolen glance around, and lighting hiscigar, glided gracefully up the steep road, under the solemn canopy ofold timber, to the sound of the moaning stream below, and the rustle ofwithered leaves about him, toward Redman's Farm.
As he entered the flower-garden, the jaundiced face of old Tamar, withits thousand small wrinkles and its ominous gleam of suspicion, waslooking out from the darkened porch. The white cap, kerchief, anddrapery, courtesied to him as he drew near, and the dismal face changednot.
'Well, Tamar, how do you do?--how are all? Where is that girl Margery?'
'In the kitchen, Master Stanley,' said she, courtesying again.
'Are you sure?' said Captain Lake, peeping toward that apartment over theold woman's shoulder.
'Certain sure, Master Stanley.'
'Well, come up stairs to your mistress's room,' said Lake, mounting thestairs, with his hat in his hand, and on tip-toe, like a man approachinga sick chamber.
There was something I think grim and spectral in this ceremonious ascentto the empty chamber. Children had once occupied that silent floor forthere was a little balustraded gate across the top of the staircase.
'I keep this closed,' said old Tamar, 'and forbid her to cross it, lestshe should disturb the mistress. Heaven forgive me!'
'Very good,' he whispered, and he peeped over the banister, and thenentered Rachel's silent room, darkened with closed shutters, the whitecurtains and white coverlet so like 'the dark chamber of white death.'
He had intended speaking to Tamar there, but changed his mind, or rathercould not make up his mind; and he loitered silently, and stood with thecurtain in his gloved hand, looking upon the cold coverlet, as if Rachellay dead there.
'That will do,' he said, awaking from his wandering thought. 'We'll godown now, Tamar.'
And in the same stealthy way, walking lightly and slowly, down the stairsthey went, and Stanley entered the kitchen.
'How do you do, Margery? You'll be glad to hear your mistress is better.You must run down to the town, though, and buy some jelly, and you are tobring her back change of this.'
And he placed half-a-crown in her hand.
'Put on your bonnet and my old shawl, child; and take the basket, andcome back by the side door,' croaked old Tamar.
So the girl dried her hands--she was washing the teacups--and in atwinkling was equipped and on her way to Gylingden.
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