CHAPTER XLII.
_YET A LOWER DEEP._
But while thus Richard suffered, scarce knew, and cared nothing, how the
days went and came, he did his best to conceal his suffering from his
father and mother, and succeeded wonderfully. As if in reward for this
unselfishness, it flashed into his mind what a selfish fellow he was: his
trouble had made him forget Alice and Arthur! he must find them!
He knew the street where the firm employing Arthur used to have its
offices; but it had removed to other quarters. He went to the old
address, and learned the new one. The next day he told his father he
would like to have a holiday. His father making no objection, he walked
into the city. There he found the place, but not Arthur. He had not been
there for a week, they said. No one seemed to know where he lived; but
Richard, regardless of rebuffs, went on inquiring, until at length he
found a carman who lived in the same street. He set out for it at once.
After a long walk he came to it, a wretched street enough, in
Pentonville, with its numbers here obliterated, there repeated, and
altogether so confused, that for some time he could not discover the
house. Coming at length to one of the dingiest, whose number was
illegible, but whose door stood open, he walked in, and up to the second
floor, where he knocked at the first door on the landing. The feeble
sound of what was hardly a voice answered. He went in. There sat Arthur,
muffled in an old rug, before a wretched fire, in the dirtiest, rustiest
grate he had ever seen. He held out a pallid hand, and greeted him with a
sunless smile, but did not speak.
"My poor, dear fellow!" said Richard; "what is the matter with you? Why
didn't you let me know?"
The tears came in Arthur's eyes, and he struggled to answer him, but his
voice was gone. To Richard he seemed horribly ill--probably dying. He
took a piece of paper from his pocket, and a pencil-conversation
followed.
"What is the matter with you?"
"Only a bad cold."
"Where is Alice?"
"At the shop. She will be back at eight o'clock."
"Where is your mother?"
"I do not know; she is out."
"Tell me anything I can do for you."
"What does it matter! I do not know anything. It will soon be over."
"And this," reflected Richard, "is the fate of one who believes in a
God!" But the thought followed close, "I wish I were going too!" And then
came the suggestion, "What if some one cares for him, and is taking him
away because he cares for him! What if there be a good time waiting him!
What if death be the way to something better! What if God be going to
surprise us with something splendid! What if there come a glorious
evening after the sad morning and fog-sodden night! What if Arthur's
dying be in reality a waking up to a better sunshine than ours! We see
only one side of the thing: he may see the other! What if God could not
manage to ripen our life without suffering! If only there were a God that
tried to do his best for us, finding great difficulties, but encountering
them for the sake of his children!"--"How dearly I should love such a
God!" thought Richard. He would hold by him to the last! He would do his
best to help him! He would fight for him! He would die for him!
His hour was not yet come to know that there is indeed such a God, doing
his best for us in great difficulties, with enemies almost too much for
him--the falsehood, namely, the unfilialness of his children, so many of
whom will not be true, priding themselves on the good he has created in
them, while they refuse to make it their own by obeying it when they are
disinclined.
If even he might but hope that with his last sigh Arthur would
awake to a consciousness justifying his existence, let him be the
creation of a living power or the helpless product of a senseless,
formless Ens-non-ens, he would be content! For then they might one day
meet again--somewhere--somewhen, somehow; together encounter afresh the
troubles and dissatisfactions of life, and perhaps work out for themselves
a world more endurable!
But with that came the thought of Barbara.
"No!" he said to himself, "let us all die--die utterly! Why should we
grumble at our poor life when it means nothing, is so short, and gives
such a sure and certain hope of nothing more! Who would prolong it in
such a world, with which every soul confesses itself disappointed, of
which every heart cries that it cannot have been made for us! When they
grow old, men always say they have found life a delusion, and would not
live it again. From the first, things have been moving toward the worse;
life has been growing more dreary; men are more miserable now than when
they were savage: how can we tell that the world was not started at its
best, to go down hill for ever and ever, with a God to urge its evil
pace, for surely there is none to stop it! What if the world be the
hate-contrivance of a being whose delight it is to watch its shuddering
descent into the gulf of extinction, its agonized slide into the red foam
of the lake of fire!"
But he must do something for the friend by whose side he had sat
speechless for minutes!
"I will come and see you again soon, Arthur," he said; "I must go now.
Would you mind the loan of a few shillings? It is all I happen to have
about me!"
Arthur shook his head, and wrote,
"Money is of no use--not the least."
"Don't you fancy anything that might do you good?"
"I can't get out to get anything."
"Your mother would get it for you!"
He shook his head.
"But there's Alice!"
Arthur gave a great sigh, and said nothing. Richard laid the shillings on
the chimneypiece, and proceeded to make up the fire before he went. He
could see no sort of coal-scuttle, no fuel of any kind. With a heavy
heart he left him, and went down into the street, wondering what he could
do.
As he drew near the public-house that chiefly poisoned the neighbourhood,
it opened its hell-jaws, and cast out a woman in frowzy black, wiping her
mouth under her veil with a dirty pocket-handkerchief. She had a swollen
red face, betokening the presence of much drink, walked erect, and went
perfectly straight, but looked as if, were she to relax the least of her
state, she would stagger. As she passed Richard, he recognized her. It
was Mrs. Manson. Without a thought he stopped to speak to her. The same
moment he saw that, although not dead drunk, she could by no tropical
contortion be said to be sober.
She started, and gave a snort of indignation.
"You here!" she cried. "What the big devil do you want--coming here to
insult your betters! You the son of the bookbinder! You're no more John
Tuke's son than I am. You're the son of that precious rascal, my husband!
Go to sir Wilton; don't come to me! You're a base-born wretch,--Oh yes,
run to your mother! Tell her what I say! Tell her she was lucky to get
hold of her tradesman."
She had told her son and daughter that Richard was the missing heir; and
in what she now said she may have meant only to reflect on the humble
birth of his mother and abuse his aunt, but it does not matter much what
a drunkard means. At the same time the poison of asps may come from the
lips of a drunkard as from those of a sober liar. As the woman staggered
away, Richard gave a stagger too, and seemed to himself to go reeling
along the street. He sat down on a doorstep to recover himself, but for a
long way after resuming his walk went like one half stunned. His brain,
nevertheless, seemed to go on working of itself. The wretched woman's
statement glowed in him with a lurid light. It seemed to explain so much!
He had often felt that his father, though always just, did not greatly
care for him. Then there was his mother's strangeness--the hardness of
her religion, the gloom that at times took possession of her whole being,
her bursts of tenderness, and her occasional irritability! His mother!
That his mother should--should have made him an outcast! The thought was
sickening! It was horrible! Perhaps the woman lied! But no; something
questionable in the background of his life had been unrecognizably
showing from the first of his memory! All was clear now! His mother's
cruel breach with Alice, and her determination that there should be no
intercourse between the families, was explained: had Alice and he fallen
in love with each other, she would have had to tell the truth to part
them! He _must_ know the truth! He would ask his mother straight out, the
moment he got home! But how _could_ he ask her! How could any son go to
his mother with such a question! Whatever the answer to it, he dared not!
There was but one alternative left him--either to kill himself, or to
smother his suffering, and let the miserable world go on! Why should he
add to its misery by making his own mother more miserable? Such a
question from her son would go through her heart like the claws of a
lynx! How could she answer it! How could he look upon her shame! Had she
not had trouble enough already, poor mother! It would be hard if her God
assailed her on all sides--beset her behind and before! Poor mother
indeed, if her son was no better than her God! He must be a better son to
her than he had been! The child of her hurt must heal her! Must he as
well as his father be cruel to her! But alas, what help was in him! What
comfort could a heart of pain yield! what soothing stream flow from a
well of sorrow! Truly his mother needed a new God!
But even this horror held its germ of comfort: he had his brother Arthur,
his sister Alice, to care and provide for! They should not die! He had
now the right to compel them to accept his aid!
He thought and thought, and saw that, in order to help them, to do his
duty by them, he must make a change in his business relations with Mr.
Tuke: he must have the command of his earnings! He could do nothing for
his brother and sister as things were! To ask for money would wake
inquiry, and he dared not let his mother know that he went to see them!
If he did, she would be compelled to speak out, and that was a torture he
would rather see her die than suffer. He must have money concerning which
no questions would be asked!
Poor, poor creatures! Oh, that terrible mother! It was good to know that
his mother was not like _her_!
The first thing then was, to ask his father to take him as a journeyman,
and give him journeyman's wages. His work, he knew, was worth much more,
but that would be enough; his father was welcome to the rest. Out of his
wages he would pay his share of the housekeeping, and do as he pleased
with what was left. Buying no more books, he would have a nice little
weekly sum free for Alice and Arthur. To see his brother and sister half
starved was unendurable! he would himself starve first! But how was his
money to reach them in the shape of food? That greedy, drunken mother of
them swallowed everything! Like old Saturn she devoured her children; she
ate and drank them to death! Sport of a low consuming passion, thought
Richard, what matter whether she came of God or devil or nothing at all!
Redemption, salvation from an evil self, had as yet no greater part in
Richard's theories than in Mrs. Manson's thoughts. The sole good, the
sole satisfaction in life the woman knew, was to eat and drink, if not
what she pleased, at least what she liked. If there were an eternity in
front, thought Richard, and she had her way in it, she would go on for
ever eating and drinking, craving and filling, to all the ages
unsatisfied: he would _not_ have his hard-earned money go to fill her
insatiable maw! It was not his part in life to make her drunk and
comfortable! Wherever he came from, he could not be in the world for
that! So what was he to do?
He seemed now to understand why Barbara had not written. She had known
him as the son of honest tradespeople, and had no pride to make her
despise him; but learning from Alice that he was base-born, she might
well wish to drop him! It might not be altogether fair of Barbara--for
how was he to blame? Almost as little was she to blame, brought up to
count such as he disgraced from their birth! Doubtless her religion
should have raised her above the cruel and false prejudice, for she said
it taught her to be fair, insisted that she should be just! But with all
the world against him, how could one girl stand up for him! True he
needed fair play just so much the more; but that was the way things went
in this best of possible worlds! No two things in it, meant to go
together, fitted! He fought hard for Barbara, strained his strength with
himself to be content beforehand with whatever she might do, or think, or
say. One thing only he could not bear--to think less of Barbara! That
would kill him, paralyze his very soul!--of a man make him a machine, a
beast outright at best! In all the world, Barbara was likest the God she
believed in: if she--the idea of her, that was, were taken from him, he
must despair! He could stand losing herself, he said, but not the thought
of her! Let him keep that! Let him keep that! He would revel in that, and
defy all the evil gods in the great universe!
With his heart like a stone in his bosom, he reached the house, a home to
him no more! and by effort supreme--in which, to be honest, for Richard
was not yet a hero, he was aided by the consciousness of doing a thing of
praise--managed to demean himself rather better than of late. The surges
of the sea of troubles rose to overwhelm him; his courage rose to brave
them: let them do their worst! he would be a man still! True, his courage
had a cry at the heart of it; but there was not a little of the stoic in
Richard, and if it was not the stoicism of Epictetus or of Marcus
Aurelius, there was yet some timely, transient help in it. He was doing
the best he could without God; and sure the Father was pleased to see the
effort of his child! To suffer in patience was a step toward himself. No
doubt self was potent in the patience, and not the best self, for that
forgets itself--yet the better self, the self that chooses what good it
knows.
The same night he laid his request for fixed wages before his father, who
agreed to it at once. He believed it no small matter in education that a
youth should have money at his disposal; and his wife agreed, with a
pang, to what he counted a reasonable sum for Richard's board. But she
would not hear of his paying for his lodging; that was more than the
mother heart could bear: it would be like yielding that he was not her
very own child!
The trouble remained, that a long week must elapse before he could touch
any wages, and he dared not borrow for fear of questions: there was no
help!
At night, the moment his head was on the pillow, the strain of his
stoicism gave way. Then first he felt alone, utterly alone; and the
loneliness went into his soul, and settled there, a fearful entity. The
strong stoic, the righteous unbeliever burst into a passion of tears.
Sure they were the gift of the God he did not know!--say rather, of the
God he knew a little, without knowing that he knew him--and they somewhat
cooled his burning heart. But the fog of a fresh despair streamed up from
the rain, and its clouds closed down upon him. What was left him to live
for! what to keep his heart beating! what to make life a living thing!
Sunned and showered too much, it was faded and colourless! Why must he
live on, as in a poor dream, without even the interest of danger!--for
where life is worth nothing, danger is gone, and danger is the last
interest of life! All was gray! Nothing was, but the damp and chill of
the grave! No cloak of insanest belief, of dullest mistake, would
henceforth hide any more the dreary nakedness of the skeleton, life! The
world lay in clearest, barest, coldest light, its hopeless deceit and its
misery all revealed! It was well that a grumous fog pervaded the air,
each atom a spike in a vesicle of darkness! it was well that no summer
noon was blazing about the world! At least there was no mockery now! the
world was not pretending to be happy! was not helping the demon of
laughter to jeer at the misery of men! Oh, the hellish thing, life! Oh
this devilish thing, existence!--a mask with no face behind it! a look
with no soul that looked!--a bubble blown out of lies with the breath of
a liar! Words! words! words! Lies! lies! lies!
All of a sudden he was crying, as if with a loud voice from the bottom of
his heart, though never a sound rose through his throat, "Oh thou who
didst make me, if thou art anywhere, if there be such a one as I cry to,
unmake me again; undo that which thou hast done; tear asunder and scatter
that which thou hast put together! Be merciful for once, and kill me. Let
me cease to exist--rather, let me cease to die. Will not plenty of my
kind remain to satisfy thy soul with torment!"
Up towered a surge of shame at his poltroonery; he prayed for his own
solitary release, and abandoned his fellows to the maker of their misery!
"No!" he cried aloud, "I will not! I will not pray for that! I will not
fare better than my fellows!--Oh God, pity--if thou hast any pity, or if
pity can be born of any prayer--pity thy creatures! If thou art anywhere,
speak to me, and let me hear thee. If thou art God, if thou livest, and
carest that I suffer, and wouldst help me if thou couldst, then I will
live, and bear, and wait; only let me know that thou art, and art good,
and not cruel. If I had but a friend that would stand by me, and talk to
me a little, and help me! I have no one, no one, God, to speak to! and if
thou wilt not hear, then there is nothing! Oh, be! be! God, I pray thee,
exist! Thou knowest my desolation--for surely thou art desolate, with no
honest heart to love thee!"
He thought of Barbara, and ceased: _she_ loved God!
A silence came down upon his soul. Ere it passed he was asleep, and knew
no more till the morning waked him--to sorrow indeed, but from a dream of
hope.
On a few-keyed finger-board, yet with multitudinous change, life struck
every interval betwixt keen sorrow, lethargic gloom, and grayest hope,
and the days passed and passed.
