george dallas had eaten but sparingly of the food which mrs. brookes had placed before him. he was weary and excited, and he bore the delay and the solitude of the housekeeper's room with feverish impatience. he strode up and down the room, stooping occasionally before the fire to kick at the crumbling logs, and glance at the clock, which marked how rapidly the night was waning. half an hour, which seemed three times as much to him, had elapsed since mis brookes had left him. faintly and indistinctly the sounds of the music reached him, adding to his irritation and weariness. a savage frown darkened his face, and he muttered to himself in the same tone as that of his spasmodic soliloquy in the avenue:
"i wonder if she's thinking that i ought to be there too; or if i ought not, neither ought she. after all, i'm her son, and she might make a stand-up fight for me, if she would. he's fond of her, the old woman says, and proud of her, and well he may be. what's the use of it all, if she can't manage him? what fools women are! if they only could calculate at first, and take their own line from the beginning, they could manage any men. but she's afraid of him, and she lets him find it out. well, well, it must be wretched enough for her, too. but why does she not come?"
he had to wait a little longer yet, for another quarter of an hour had elapsed before mrs. brookes returned.
"is she coming?" he asked eagerly, when at length the pale-faced little woman gently entered the room.
"yes, she is coming. she has to wait until the first lot are gone in to supper. then master will not miss her."
the old woman came up to him, and took his right hand in hers, looking fondly, but keenly, into his face, and laying the other hand upon his shoulder. "george," she said, "george, my darling boy, i hope you have not brought her very bad news."
he tried to laugh as he loosed his hand, not unkindly, from the old woman's grasp.
"do you suppose good news would have brought me here where i am forbidden--smuggled goods?"
she shook her head sorrowfully.
"at all events, you are alive and well to tell your ill news yourself, and that is everything to her," said mrs. brookes.
the next moment the door opened, and mrs. carruthers came in with a hurried step. george dallas started forward, and caught her in his arms.
"mother! mother!" "my boy, my darling boy!" were the only words spoken between them, until they were quite alone.
mrs. brookes left the room, and the young man was free to explain his untimely visit.
"i dread to ask what brings you here, george," said his mother, as she seated herself upon the heavy sofa, and drew him to her side. "i cannot but rejoice to see you, but i am afraid to ask you why you come."
a mingling of pleasure and apprehension shook her voice, and heightened her colour.
"you may well dread to ask me, mother," replied the young man gloomily. "you may well dread to ask what brings me, outcast as i am, to your fine home, to the place where your husband is master, and where my presence is forbidden."
"george, george!" said his mother, in a tone of grief and remonstrance.
"well, i know it's no fault of yours, but it's hard to bear for all that, and i'm not quite such a monster as i am made out to be, to suit mr. carruthers's purposes. i'm not so very much worse than the young men, mother, whose stepfathers, or whose own fathers either, don't find it necessary to forbid them the house. but you're afraid of him, mother, and--"
"george," said mrs. carruthers quietly, but sternly, "you did not come here to see me for the first time in nine months, at the risk of being turned out of mr. carruthers's house, simply to vent your anger upon him, and to accuse me wrongfully, and taunt me with what i am powerless to prevent. tell me what has brought you here, i can stay with you only a little while; at any moment i may be missed. tell me what has brought you against my husband's commands, contrary to my own entreaties, though it is such a delight to me to see you even so." and the mother put her arms around the neck of her prodigal son, and kissed him fondly. her tears were falling on his rough brown curls.
"don't cry over me, mother; i'm not worth it; i never was; and you mustn't go back to your company with pale cheeks and red eyes. there, there, it's not so bad as it might be, you know; for as nurse says, i'm alive and well to tell it. the fact is--" he rose, and walked up and down the room in front of the sofa on which his mother was sitting, while he spoke. "the fact is, i must have money. don't start, don't be frightened. i have not done anything very dreadful, only the consequences are nearly as fatal as if i had. i have not stolen, or forged, or embezzled property. i am not rich or respectable enough to get the chance. but i have lost a large sum at the gaming-table--a sum i don't possess, and have no other means than this of getting."
"go on," said his mother. she was deadly pale now, and her hands were tightly clasped together, as they lay on her lap, white and slender, against the rich purple of her velvet dress.
he glanced at her, quickened his step, and continued in a hard reckless tone, but with some difficulty of utterance. "i should have been utterly ruined but for a friend of mine, who lent me the money. play debts must be paid, mother; and routh, though he's not much richer than i am, would not let me be completely lost for want of a helping hand. but he had to borrow the money. he could get it lent to him. there's no one but him to lend me a shilling, and he did get it, and i had it and paid it away. but in a short time now he must pay it back and the interest upon it. luck has been against us both."
"against you both, george," said mrs. carruthers. "is your friend also a gambler, then?"
"yes, he is," said dallas, roughly; "he is a gambler. all my friends are gamblers and drunkards, and everything that's bad. what would you have? where am i to get pious, virtuous, respectable friends? i haven't a shilling; i haven't a character. your husband has taken care i shall have no credit. every one knows i am disowned by mr. carruthers, and forbidden to show my face at poynings; and i'm not showing it; i'm only in the servants' quarters, you see." again he laughed, and again his mother shrank from the sound. "but though my friend is a gambler, like myself, he helps me when i want help, and inconveniences himself to do it. perhaps that's more than respectable friends--if i had them--would do for me. it's more than i have ever known respectable friends to do for any one."
mrs. carruthers rose, and turned her colourless face upon her son. there was an angry light in her large hazel eyes, whose dewy brightness time had not yet greatly harmed. as they confronted each other, a strong likeness between the mother and son asserted itself. "george," she said, "you are putting me to needless pain. you have said enough to show me that you are unchanged. you have come here, endangering my peace, and compromising yourself, for the purpose, i suppose, of asking me for money to repay this person who relieved you from a gambling debt. is this your business here?"
"yes," he said shortly, and with a lowering brow.
"then listen to me. i cannot give you any money." he started, and came close up to her. "no, george. i have no money at my disposal, and you ought to know that, as well as i know it. every shilling i have ever had of my own i have given you. you know i never grudged it. you know you had at all; but that leaves me without resources. mr. carruthers will not help you." she grew paler still, and her lips trembled. "i have asked him many times to alter his determination, a determination which you cannot say is undeserved, george, but it is in vain. i might, perhaps, wonder that you would stoop to take assistance from a man who has such an opinion of you, and who has forbidden you his house, but that the sad knowledge i have gained of such lives as yours has taught me that they utterly destroy self-respect--that a profligate is the meanest of creatures. calm yourself. there is no use in giving loose to your temper towards me, george. you have the power to afflict me still, but you can deceive me no more."
she sat down again, wearily, leaning her arm on the back of the sofa, and her head on her hand. there was silence for a few moments. then she said:
"how much money do you owe this man, george, and when must it be paid?"
"i owe him a hundred and forty pounds, mother, and it must be paid this day month."
"a hundred and forty pounds?" repeated mrs. carruthers, in a terrified tone.
"yes; precisely that sum, and i have not a pound in the world to exist on in the mean time. i am cleaned out, that's the fact," he went on, with a dismal attempt at speaking lightly; "and i can't carry on any longer." but he spoke to inattentive ears. his mother was lost in thought.
"i cannot give you money," she said at length. "i have not the command of any."
"this doesn't look like want of it," said her son bitterly, as he caught a handful of her velvet dress in his grasp, and then dropped it scornfully.
"my personal expenses are all dictated by mr. carruthers, george, and all known to him. don't suppose i am free to purchase dress or not, as i choose. i tell you the exact truth, as i have always told you." she spoke coldly and seriously, like one whose mind is made up to a great trial, who hopes neither to alter its character nor to lessen its weight.
"i only know i must have it," he said; "or i don't see any resource for me except to cut my throat."
"no, no," returned his mother, "do not say such dreadful things. give me time. i will try to find some way of helping you by the time you must have the money. o my boy, my boy!" she covered her face with her hands and sobbed.
george dallas looked at her irresolutely, then came quickly towards her, and leaned over her, as she sat. "mother," he said, in low hurried tones, "mother, trust me once more, little as i deserve it. try to help me in this matter; it is life or death to me; and i will try and do better. i am sick of it all; sick of my own weakness above and more than all. but i am irretrievably ruined if i don't get this money. i am quite in routh's power--and--and--i want to get out of it."
she looked up curiously at him. something in the way he said those words at once alarmed and reassured her.
"in this man's power, george? how? to what extent?"
"i cannot tell you, mother; you would not understand. don't frighten yourself about it. it is nothing that money cannot settle. i have had a lesson now. you shake your head--well, i know i have had many before, but i will learn from this one."
"i have not the money, george," his mother repeated, "and i cannot possibly procure it for a little time. you must not stay here."
"i know, i know," he retorted. "you need not re-echo mr. carruthers's interdict. i am going; but surely you can give me a little now; the price of one of these things would go a long way with me." as he spoke, he touched, with no rough hand, her earrings and the bracelets on her right arm.
"they are family jewels, or you should have them, george," mrs. carruthers said in a sad voice. "give me time, and i will make up the money for you. i have a little i can give you." she stood up and looked fixedly at him, her hands resting on his shoulder. the tall and powerful young man, with his haggard anxious face, his hardened look, his shabby careless dress, offered a strange contrast to the woman, whose beauty time had dealt with so lightly, and fortune so generously. mrs. carruthers had been a mere girl when her son was born, and probably had not been nearly so beautiful as now, when the calm dignity of position and the power of wealth lent all their attractions to her perfect face and form.
the habitual seriousness of her expression was but a charm the more, and in moments of excited feeling like the present she regained the lustrous brilliancy of the past. searchingly, fondly, she gazed into her son's face, as though reading it for traces of the truth of his promises, seeing in it but too surely indications of the weary, unsatisfying life he had led, the life which had brought disappointment to all her dearest maternal hopes. steadily and tenderly he looked at her, a world of regret in his eyes. while they stood thus in brief silence, mrs. brookes came in hurriedly.
"you are wanted," he said. "master is asking for you; he has sent miss clare to your room to see if you are ill."
"i must go, my boy," said mrs. carruthers, as she hastily kissed him; "and you must not stay. come with me, ellen, for a moment. wait here, george, for what i promised you, and don't travel back to town without an overcoat." then she left the room at once, the housekeeper with her. george stood where she had left him, looking towards the door.
"my dear practical mother," he said to himself, "she is as kind and as sensible as ever. wretched about me, but remembering to desire me to buy a coat! i know she will get me the money somehow, and this shall be the last scrape i will get into. it's no use being melodramatic, especially when one is all alone, but i here make a solemn promise to myself that i will keep my promise to her."
he sat down by the fire, and remained still and thoughtful. in a few minutes mrs. brookes returned. "here's the money, master george," she said. "i was to give it to you with my mistress's love, and she will write to you to london."
he took the folded paper from her hand. it was a ten-pound note.
"thank you, nurse," he said; "and now i will go. i would like to stay and have a talk with you; but i had better get away, lest any annoyance should come to my mother through my staying. i'll see you when you come up to town to the fine house in mesopotamia. eh?"
"lord, master george, how you do go on! why, mr. carruthers's new house is the far side of the park."
"i know, nurse. it's all the same thing. no. no more wine, thank you, and nothing to eat. good-bye.--how am i to get out, though? not through the window, and up the area wall, am i?"
"i'll show you, master george. this way."
george dallas buttoned his coat tightly across his breast, carefully put on his gloves, and took up his hat. as he followed mrs. brookes through the long stone passages of the basement story, he looked curiously about him, noting the details of comfort and convenience. "how much better off than i are my mother's servants!" he thought, idly rather than bitterly. when they reached a door which opened upon the court-yard, mrs. brookes bade him farewell, not without emotion.
"the great gates are open," she said. "all the servants are either in the hall or the servants' hall. none of the carriages have been called yet. you can slip past without being seen; or if any one sees you, they'll think you belong to the place."
"a serious mistake, dear old woman," said george, with a half-smile, as he once more shook her hand, and stepped out into the cold and darkness. a bitter sense of desolation came over him as the door closed behind him. the court-yard was empty, except of carriages, and he crossed it quickly, and went through the great gates into the avenue, which swept round the terrace. following it, he found himself brought again by a different route in front of the lighted ball-room; but he did not delay to glance at the scene.
"so i am going away," he said to himself, "richer by ten pounds and my mother's promise. stop, though! there's the sprig of myrtle. i must not forget or lose the unconscious gift of the great heiress. i wish i had asked nurse what sort of girl she is. i might have taken time to do that. it's not so cold as it was." he had been warmed and fed, and his spirits had risen. it did not take much to raise george dallas's spirits, even now when the excesses of his wasted life were beginning to tell upon him. "i feel quite strong again. the night is lighter; the village must be a wretched place. i have a great mind to push on to amherst. it's only seven miles, and carruthers can't hear that i have been there; but he might hear of me at the village, and bother my mother about it."
he took his way down the avenue and reached the gate, which lay open. one feeble light twinkled from the upper window of the gate lodge. bulger and family had retired to rest, the excitement of the arrivals being over, and bulger would leave the gate to take care of itself until morning. unquestioned, unseen, george dallas left poynings, and, turning to the right under the park wall, set forth at a steady pace towards amherst.
the town of amherst is very much like the other towns in that part of the country. close by the railway station lies the railway tavern, snug and comfortable, with a "quick draught" of homebrewed ale and bitter beer, thanks to the powers of suction of porters, guards, and admiring friends of both, who vent their admiration in "standing glasses round." not a little of its custom does the railway tavern own to that small plot of waste ground in front of it, where, even on this desolate night, you might trace the magic circle left by the "ring" of signor quagliasco's mammoth circus on its visit last autumn, and the holes for the pole and tent-pegs, and the most recent ruts on which were left by the wheels of the cart of the travelling photographer who "took" the entire town at christmas, and, in addition to the photograph, presented each sitter with a blue card embossed with a scarlet robin bearing in its mouth the legend, "a happy new year to you." then villas; mr. cobb's, the corn-chandler and coal-merchant, with a speckled imitation-granite porch, white and black, as if it had been daubed with a mixture of its owner's flour and coal-dust; mr. lawson's, the attorney, with a big brass plate on its outer gate, and two stone pine-apples flanking the entrance; mr. charlton biggs's, the hop-merchant, in all the gentility of a little chaise-house leaning against the street door, approached by a little carriage-drive so narrow that the pony had never yet walked up it properly, but had always been ignominiously "backed" into its tiny home. then the outskirts of the town; the independent chapel, very square, very red-faced, and very compact, not to say sat upon; the literary institute, with more green damp on its stuccoed walls than had been originally intended by its architect, and with fragmentary bills of "mr. lens's starry carpet, or the heavens at a glance," fluttering in the night wind from its portico. merton house comes next, formerly the stronghold of the merton-mertons, the great kentish family, now mr. bompas's classical and commercial academy, with a full view of the white dimity bedsteads through the open window, and with "old bompas's blaggards" inscribed--by the boys of the national school, with whom the grand bompasians waged constant warfare--on the doorpost. the commencement of the town, a mouldy old bay-windowed shop, known to mr. bompas's boys as "mother jennings's," and as the repository of "tuck," said tuck consisting of stale buns, hardbake, "all sorts," toffee, treacle, new rolls, sugar mutton-chops elegantly painted and gilt, sugar rum and gin bottles, whipcord, pegtops, and marbles; then bullenger's, apparently a small ironmonger's, but in reality another lure for the money of bompas's boys, for in a parlour behind his back shop bullenger vended fireworks and half-crown detonating pistols, catapults, and cross-bows, and all sorts of such-like instruments dear to predatory boys. then the ordinary lot of butchers, bakers, tailors, hosiers, grocers, chemists (mr. hotten, member of the pharmaceutical society of great britain, also strongly reliant on bompas's custom for cigars and hair-oil for the big boys, and bath-pipe and liquorice for the little ones), and then the police-station; the old gray church, with its square ivy-covered tower, its billowy graves and its half-obliterated sun-dial over the porch, and then the fresh green fields again.
all these particulars george dallas noted in the morning, when, having early left the bed he had procured at the inn, he called in at the station and learned from the friendly porter, who was again engaged in mending his shoes with tin and tacks, when the next train would start for london, and where he could find a tailor's shop, walked briskly through the little town, with feelings very different from those which had possessed him on his first arrival at the amherst station. now, his step was free and light, he carried his head erect, and though he occasionally shivered as the cold wind came sweeping over the downs and gave him a sharp unfriendly nip as it hurried by him in its progress to the sea, he bore the insult with tolerable fortitude, and seemed to derive immediate comfort from plunging his hand into his trousers pocket, where lay the ten-pound note he had received from his mother. it was there, stiff and crisp to his touch. he had taken it out and looked at it twice or thrice on the road, but he could not do that now in the town; he must content himself with touching it, and the crinkling sound was music in his ear; he had been so long without money, that he derived the keenest pleasure from the possession of this actual tangible sum, and felt so little inclined to part with it, that, though he had passed, and noticed in passing, the tailor's shop to which he had been recommended by the porter, he still walked on. it was not until he had made a circuit of the old churchyard at the end of the town, where even on summer days the wind is generally at play, and where on winter nights it ramps and rages in a manner terrible to hear and feel, that george dallas began to comprehend the necessity of at once procuring some warmer clothing, and, turning back, made straight for the tailor's shop.
a neat, clean-looking shop, with "evans, tailor," painted over the window, the effect being slightly spoiled by the knob of the roller blind, which formed a kind of full-stop in the middle of the word "tail, or," and divided it into two unequal portions; with "evans, tailor," blazing from its brass door-plate; with "evans, tailor," inscribed with many twisted flourishes on its wire blind, where it emerged coyly from. "liveries" preceding it, and took hasty refuge in "uniforms" at its conclusion. evans himself behind the counter, a fat, chubby, rosy little man, with clustering iron-gray hair round his temples, and a bit of round scalp wig fitting, like the lid of a teapot, into a bald place on his crown. apparently he had been all his life tailoring to such an extent for other people as to have had no time to attend to himself, for he stood behind the counter this winter's day in his shirt sleeves, and without his coat.
the old man bowed as george dallas entered the shop, and asked him what they could do for him. dallas replied that he wanted a warm thick overcoat, "if they'd got such a thing."
"such a thing! well, there may be such a thing, perhaps, but i'm not certain, not being an article kept in stock," replied mr. evans, "which is mostly tarpaulin for the railway guards and stokers, likewise canal boatmen, which is often customers. a warm thick overcoat," repeated the old man, "is a article generally made to order, though i've a sort of a recollection of a something of the kind returned on our hands in consequence of the party which was staying at the lion having left unexpected. let me see!" he continued, opening two or three 'drawers. "i ain't so young as i was, sir, and i'm touched in the wind; and this nasty gas which we've only had this winter don't do for me, making me bust out in sudden presperation. he! i thought so! here's a warm thick overcoat, blue witney, lined with plaid; that's a article i can recommend; our own make; we ain't ashamed of it, you see!" and he pointed to a label stitched inside just below the collar, where the inevitable "evans, tailor," in gilt letters, was supplemented by the address, "amherst."
george dallas took the coat and slipped it on. it fitted tolerably, and was thick and warm. "what is the price?" he asked.
"we can do that for you at fifty-three and six," said the old man. "it was a three-pounder, that coat was, when made for the party at the lion, but we'll make a reduction now. fifty-three and six, and our own make. you couldn't do better."
"i dare say not," said dallas absently. "please to change this for me."
at the sight of the bank note mr. evans's pleasant face became a little clouded. he did not relish the notion of changing notes for persons with whom he had no previous acquaintance. but after he had taken the note in his hand and held it between his eyes and the light, and flattened it out on the counter, his cheerful expression returned, and he said, "all right, sir. i'll change it and welcome! i know where you got this note, sir! ah, you may start, but i do! you got it from our post-office, lower down the street; here's the post-office stamp on it which they're compelled to put on every note passing through their hands. look, 'amherst, b. 1, jan. 30.' thank you, sir; six and six's, three and seven is ten; thank you, sir!" and the old man, having counted the change from a cash-box in a desk at the back of the shop, hurried round to open the door and bow his customer out.
within half an hour george dallas was in the train on his return to london.
