Wylder's Hand Part 20

'How quiet you are here,' said the captain. 'I have been awfully dissipated since I saw you.'

'In an innocent way, my dear Captain Lake, you mean, of course--in an innocent way.'

'Oh! no; billiards, I a.s.sure you. Do you play?'

'Oh! dear no--not that I see any essential harm in the game _as_ a game, for those, I mean, who don't object to that sort of thing; but for a resident here, putting aside other feelings--a resident holding a position--it would not do, I a.s.sure you. There are people there whom one could not a.s.sociate with comfortably. I don't care, I hope, how poor a man may be, but do let him be a gentleman. I own to that prejudice. A man, my dear Captain Lake, whose father before him has been a gentleman (old Larkin, while in the flesh, was an organist, and kept a small day school at Dwiddleston, and his grandfather he did not care to enquire after), and who has had the education of one, does not feel himself at home, you know--I'm sure you have felt the same sort of thing yourself.'

'Oh! of course; and I had such a nice walk on the common first, and then a turn up and down before the 'Brandon Arms,' where at last I read a paper, and could not resist a gla.s.s of brandy and water, and, growing lazy, came home in a 'fly,' so I think I have had a very gay evening.

Larkin smiled benignantly, and would have said something no doubt worth hearing, but at that moment the door opened, and his old cook and elderly parlour-maid--no breath of scandal ever troubled the serene fair fame of his household, and everyone allowed that, in the prudential virtues, at least, he was nearly perfect--and Sleddon the groom, walked in, with those sad faces which, I suppose, were first learned in the belief that they were acceptable to their master.

'Oh!' said Mr. Larkin, in a low, reverential tone, and the smile vanished; 'prayers!'

'Well, then, if you permit me, being a little tired, I'll go to my bed-room.'

With a grave and affectionate interest, Mr. Larkin looked in his face, and sighed a little and said:--

'Might I, perhaps, venture to beg, just this one night----'

That chastened and entreating look it was hard to resist. But somehow the whole thing seemed to Lake to say, 'Do allow me this once to prescribe; do give your poor soul this one chance,' and Lake answered him superciliously and irreverently.

'No, thank you, no--any prayers I require I can manage for myself, thank you. Good-night.'

And he lighted a bed-room candle and left the room.

'What a beast that fellow is. I don't know why the d-- I stay in his house.'

One reason was, perhaps, that it saved him nearly a guinea a day, and he may have had some other little reasons just then.

'Family prayers indeed! and such a pair of women--witches, by Jove!--and that rascally groom, and a hypocritical attorney! And the vulgar brute will be as rich as Croesus, I dare say.'

Here soliloquised Stanley Lake in that gentleman's ordinary vein. His momentary disgust had restored him for a few seconds to his normal self.

But certain anxieties of a rather ghastly kind, and speculations as to what might be going on in London just then, were round him again, like armed giants, in another moment, and the riches or hypocrisy of his host were no more to him than those of Overreach or Tartuffe.

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 do not reckon those who are under compulsion to affect purity of manners and a holy integrity of heart--and there are such--but those who volunteer an extraordinary profession of holiness, being all the while conscious villains. The Pharisees, even while devouring widows' houses, believed honestly in their own supreme righteousness.

I am afraid our friend Jos. Larkin wore a mask. I am sure he often wore it when he was quite alone. I don't know indeed, that he ever took it off. He was, perhaps, content to see it, even when he looked in the gla.s.s, and had not a very distinct idea what the underlying features might be. It answers with the world; it almost answers with himself. Pity it won't do everywhere! 'When Moses went to speak with G.o.d,' says the admirable Hall, 'he pulled off his veil. It was good reason he should present to G.o.d that face which he had made. There had been more need of his veil to hide the glorious face of G.o.d from him than to hide his from G.o.d. Hypocrites are contrary to Moses. He showed his worst to men, his best to G.o.d; they show their best to men, their worst to G.o.d; but G.o.d sees both their veil and their face, and I know not whether He more hates their veil of dissimulation or their face of wickedness.'

Captain Lake wanted rest--sleep--quiet thoughts at all events. When he was alone he was at once in a state of fever and gloom, and seemed always watching for something. His strange eyes glanced now this way, now that, with a fierce restlessness--now to the window--now to the door--and you would have said he was listening intently to some indistinct and too distant conversation affecting him vitally, there was such a look of fear and conjecture always in his face.

He bolted his door and unlocked his dressing case, and from a little silver box in that glittering repository he took, one after the other, two or three little wafers of a dark hue, and placed them successively on his tongue, and suffered them to melt, and so swallowed them. They were not liquorice. I am afraid Captain Lake dabbled a little in opium. He was not a great adept--yet, at least--like those gentlemen who can swallow five hundred drops of laudanum at a sitting. But he knew the virtues of the drug, and cultivated its acquaintance, and was oftener under its influence than perhaps any mortal, except himself, suspected.

The greater part of mankind are, upon the whole, happier and more cheerful than they are always willing to allow. Nature subserves the majority. She smiled very brightly next morning. There was a twittering of small birds among the brown leaves and ivy, and a thousand other pleasant sounds and sights stirring in the sharp, sunny air. This sort of inflexible merry-making in nature seems marvellously selfish in the eyes of anxious Captain Lake. Fear hath torment--and fear is the worst ingredient in mental pain. This is the reason why suspense is so intolerable, and the retrospect even of the worst less terrible.

Stanley Lake would have given more than he could well afford that it were that day week, and he no worse off. Why did time limp so tediously away with him, prolonging his anguish gratuitously? He felt truculently, and would have murdered that week, if he could, in the midst of its loitering suns.h.i.+ne and gaiety.

There was a strange pain at his heart, and the pain of intense and fruitless calculation in his brain; and, as the Mahometan prays towards Mecca, and the Jew towards Jerusalem, so Captain Lake's morning orisons, whatsoever they were, were offered at the window of his bed-room toward London, from whence he looked for his salvation, or it might be the other thing--with a dreadful yearning.

He hated the fresh glitter of that morning scene. Why should the world be cheerful? It was a repast spread of which he could not partake, and it spited him. Yes; it was selfish--and hating selfishness--he would have struck the sun out of the sky that morning with his walking-cane, if he could, and draped the world in black.

He saw from his window the good vicar walk smiling by, in white choker and seedy black, his little boy holding by his fingers, and capering and wheeling in front, and smiling up in his face. They were very busy talking.

Little 'Fairy' used to walk, when parochial visits were not very distant, with his 'Wapsie;' how that name came about no one remembered, but the vicar answered to it more cheerily than to any other. The little man was solitary, and these rambles were a delight. A beautiful smiling little fellow, very exacting of attention--troublesome, perhaps; he was so sociable, and needed sympathy and companions.h.i.+p, and repaid it with a boundless, sensitive _love_. The vicar told him the stories of David and Goliath, and Joseph and his brethren, and of the wondrous birth in Bethlehem of Judea, the star that led the Wise Men, and the celestial song heard by the shepherds keeping their flocks by night, and s.n.a.t.c.hes of 'Pilgrim's Progress'; and sometimes, when they made a feast and eat their pennyworth of cherries, sitting on the style, he treated him, I am afraid, to the profane histories of Jack the Giant-killer and the Yellow Dwarf; the vicar had theories about imagination, and fancied it was an important faculty, and that the Creator had not given children their unextinguishable love of stories to no purpose.

I don't envy the man who is superior to the society of children. What can he 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 of geese, and silvery braying of tiny a.s.ses? Well, say I, out of my large acquaintance, there are not many men to whom I would go for wisdom; learning is better found in books, and, as for wit, is it always pleasant? The most companionable men are not always the greatest intellects. They laugh, and though they don't converse, they make a cheerful noise, and show a cheerful countenance.

There was not a great deal in Will Honeycomb, for instance; but our dear Mr. Spectator tells us somewhere that 'he laughed easily,' which I think quite accounts for his acceptance with the club. He was kindly and enjoying. What is it that makes your dog so charming a companion in your walks? Simply that he thoroughly likes you and enjoys himself. He appeals imperceptibly to your affections, which cannot be stirred--such is G.o.d's will--ever so lightly, without some little thrillings of happiness; and through the subtle absorbents of your sympathy he infuses into you something of his own hilarious and exulting spirit.

When Stanley Lake saw the vicar, the lines of his pale face contracted strangely, and his wild gaze followed him, and I don't think he breathed once until the thin smiling man in black, with the little gambolling bright boy holding by his hand, had pa.s.sed by. He was thinking, you may be sure, of his Brother Mark.

When Lake had ended his toilet and stared in the gla.s.s, he still looked so haggard, that on greeting Mr. Larkin in the parlour, he thought it necessary to mention that he had taken cold in that confounded billiard-room last night, which spoiled his sleep, and made him awfully seedy that morning. Of course, his host was properly afflicted and sympathetic.

'By-the-bye, I had a letter this morning from that party--our common friend, Mr. W., you know,' said Larkin, gracefully.

'Well, what is he doing, and when does he come back? You mean Wylder, of course?'

'Yes; my good client, Mr. Mark Wylder. Permit me to a.s.sist you to some honey, you'll find it remarkably good, I venture to say; it comes from the gardens of Queen's Audley. The late marquis, you know, prided himself on his honey--and my friend, Thornbury, cousin to Sir Frederick Thornbury--I suppose you know him--an East Indian judge, you know--very kindly 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 I see 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 letter ran thus:--

'DEAR LARKIN,--I write in haste to save post, to say I shall be detained in town a few days longer than I thought. Don't wait for me about the parchments; I am satisfied. If anything crosses your mind, a word with Mr. De C. at the Hall, will clear all up. Have all ready to sign and seal when I come back--certainly, within a week.

'Yours sincerely,

'M. WYLDER,

'London.'

It was evidently written in great haste, with the broad-nibbed pen he liked; but notwithstanding the sort of swagger with which the writing marched across the page, Lake might have seen here and there a little quaver--indicative of something different from haste--the vibrations of another sort of flurry.

'"Certainly within a week," he writes. Does he mean he'll be here in a week 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! Do you know his club, Captain Lake?'