My Young Alcides: A Faded Photograph Part 18

So we came to the former "Dragon's Head," where Harold had fitted up a sort of office for himself. Mr. Yolland bade me go up alone, and persuade him to come home with me. I was in the greater fright, because of the selfishness which had mingled with the morning's indignation, but I had just presence of mind enough for an inarticulate prayer through the throbbings of my heart ere knocking, and at once entering the room where, under a jet of gas, Harold sat at a desk, loaded with papers and ledgers, on which he had laid down his head. I went up to him, and laid my hand as near his brow as his position would let me. Oh, how it burnt!

He looked up with a face half haggard, half sullen with misery, and hoa.r.s.ely said, "Lucy, how came you here?"

"I came in to get you to walk home with me."

"I'll get a fly for you."

(This would be going to the "Boar," the very place to meet these men.)

"Oh no! please don't. I should like the walk with you."

"I can't go home yet. I have something to do. I must make up these books."

"But why? There can't be any haste."

"Yes. I shall put them into Yolland's hands and go by the next mail."

"Harold! You promised to stay till Eustace was in good hands."

He laughed harshly. "You have learnt what my promise is worth!"

"Oh Harold! don't. You were cheated and betrayed. They took a wicked advantage of you."

"I knew what I was about," he said, with the same grim laugh at my folly. "What is a man worth who has lost his self-command?"

"He may regain it," I gasped out, for his look and manner frightened me dreadfully.

He made an inarticulate sound of scorn, but, seeing perhaps the distress in my face, he added more gently, "No, Lucy, this is really best; I am not fit to be with you. I have broken my word of honour, and lost all that these months had gained. I should only drag Eustace down if I stayed."

"Why? Oh, why? It was through their deceit. Oh, Harry! there is not such harm done that you cannot retrieve."

"No," he said, emphatically. "Understand what you are asking. My safeguard of an unbroken word is gone! The longing for that stuff--accursed though I know it--is awakened. Nothing but shame at giving way before these poor fellows that I have preached temperance to withholds me at this very moment."

"But it does withhold you! Oh, Harold! You know you can be strong.

You know G.o.d gives strength, if you would only try."

"I know you say so."

"Because I know it. Oh, Harold! try my way. Do ask G.o.d to give you what you want to stand up against this."

"If I did, it would not undo the past."

"Something else can do that."

He did not answer, but reached his hat, saying something again about time, and the fly. I must make another effort. "Oh, Harold! give up this! Do not be so cruel to Dora and to me. Have you made us love you better than anybody, only to go away from us in this dreadful way, knowing it is to give yourself up to destruction? Do you want to break our hearts?"

"Me!" he said, in a dreamy way. "You don't really care for me?"

"I? Oh, Harry, when you have grown to be my brother, when you are all that I have in this world to lean on and help me, will you take yourself away?"

"It might be better for you," he said.

"But it _will_ not," I said; "you will stay and go on, and G.o.d will make your strength perfect to conquer this dreadful thing too."

"You shall try it then," he said, and he began to sweep those accounts into a drawer as if he had done with them for the night, and as he brought his head within my reach, I could not but kiss his forehead as I said, "Thank you, my Harry."

He screwed his lips together, with a strange half-smile very near tears, emptied the rest of a bottle of soda-water into a tumbler, gulped it down, opened the door, turned down the gas, and came down with me. Mr. Yolland was watching, I well knew, but he discreetly kept out of sight, and we came out into a very cold raw street, with the stars twinkling overhead, smiling at us with joy I thought, and the bells were ringing for evening service.

But our dangers were not over. We had just emerged into the main street when a dog-cart came das.h.i.+ng up, the two cigars in it looming red. It was pulled up. Harold's outline could be recognised in any light, but I was entirely hidden in his great shadow, and a voice called out:

"Halloo, Alison, how do? A chop and claret at the 'Boar'--eh? Come along."

"Thank you," said Harold, "but I am walking home with Miss Alison--"

The two gentlemen bowed, and I bowed, and oh! how I gripped Harold's arm as I heard the reply; not openly derisive to a lady, but with a sneer in the voice, "Oh! ah! yes! But you'll come when you've seen her home. We'll send on the dog-cart for you."

"No, thank you," said Harold. His voice sounded firm, but I felt the thrill all through the arm I clung to. "Good night."

He attempted no excuse, but strode on--I had to run to keep up with him--and they drove on by our side, and Nessy Horsman said, "A prior engagement, eh? And Miss Alison will not release you? Ladies' claims are sacred, we all know."

What possessed me I don't know, nor how I did it, but it was in the dark and I was wrought up, and I answered, "And yours can scarcely be so! So we will go on, Harold."

"A fair hit, Nessy," and there was a laugh and flourish of the whip. I was trembling, and a dark cloud had drifted up with a bitter blast, and the first hailstones were falling. The door of the church was opened for a moment, showing bright light from within; the bells had ceased.

"My dear Lucy," said Harold, "you had better go in here for shelter."

"Not if you leave me! You must come with me," I said, still dreading that he would leave me in church, send a fly, and fall a victim at the "Boar;" and, indeed, I was shaking so, that he would not withdraw his arm, and said, soothingly, "I'm coming."

Oh! that blessed hailstorm that drove us in! I drew Harold into a seat by the door, keeping between him and that, that he might not escape.

But I need not have feared.

Ben Yolland's voice was just beginning the Confession. It had so rarely been heard by Harold that repet.i.tion had not blunted his ears to the sound, and presently I heard a short, low, sobbing gasp, and looked round. Harold was on his knees, his hands over his face, and his breath coming short and thick as those old words spoke out that very dumb inarticulate shame, grief, and agony, that had been swelling and bursting in his heart without utterance or form--"We have erred and strayed--there is no health in us--"

We were far behind everyone else--almost in the dark. I don't think anyone knew we were there, and Harold did not stand up throughout the whole service, but kept his hands locked over his brow, and knelt on.

Perhaps he heard little more, from the ringing of those words in his ears, for he moved no more, nor looked up, through prayers or psalms, or anything else, until the brief ceremony was entirely over, and I touched him; and then he looked up, and his eyes were swimming and streaming with tears.

We came to the door as if he was in a dream, and there a bitterly cold blast met us, though the rain had ceased. I was not clad for a night walk. Harold again proposed fetching a carriage from the "Boar," but I cried out against that--"I would much, much rather walk with him. It was fine now."

So we went the length of the street, and just then down came the blast on us; oh! such a hurricane, bringing another hailstorm on its wings, and sweeping along, so that I could hardly have stood but for Harold's arm; and after a minute or two of labouring on, he lifted me up in his arms, and bore me along as if I had been a baby. Oh! I remember nothing so comfortable as that sensation after the breathless encounter with the storm. It always comes back to me when I hear the words, "A man shall be as a hiding-place from the tempest, a covert from the wind."

He did not set me down till we were at the front door. We were both wet through, cold, and spent, and it was past nine, so long as it had taken him to labour on in the tempest. Eustace came out grumbling in his petulant way at our absence from dinner. I don't think either of us could bear it just then: Harold went up to his room without a word; I stayed to tell that he had seen me home from church, and say a little about the fearful weather, and then ran up myself, to give orders, as Mr. Yolland had advised me, that some strong hot coffee should be taken at once to Harold's room.

I thought it would be besetting him to go and see after him myself, but I let Dora knock at his door, and heard he had gone to bed. To me it was a long night of tossing and half-sleep, hearing the wild stormy wind, and dreaming of strange things, praying all the time that the n.o.ble soul might be won for G.o.d at last, and almost feeling, like the Icelander during the conversion of his country, the struggle between the dark spirits and the white.

I had caught a heavy cold, and should have stayed in bed had I not been far too anxious; and I am glad I did not, for I had not been many minutes in my sitting-room before there was a knock at the door, and Harold came in, and what he said was, "Lucy, how does one pray?"

Poor boys! Their mothers, in the revulsion from all that had seemed like a system of bondage, had held lightly by their faith, and in the cares and troubles of their life had heeded little of their children's devotions, so that the practical heathenism of their home at Boola Boola had been unrelieved save by Eustace the elder, when his piety was reckoned as part of his weak, gentlemanly refinement. The dull hopeless wretchedness was no longer in Harold's face, but there was a wistful, gentle weariness, and yet rest in it, which was very touching, as he came to me with his strange sad question, "How does one pray?"

I don't know exactly how I answered it. I hardly could speak for crying, as I told him the very same things one tells the little children, and tried to find him some book to help; but my books no more suited him than my clothes would have done, till he said, "I want what they said in church yesterday."