Book: My Novel, Volume 7.

E >> Edward Bulwer Lytton >> My Novel, Volume 7.




Leonard frowned, and passed by.




CHAPTER XI.

Meanwhile, on leaving Helen, Burley strode on; and, as if by some better
instinct, for he was unconscious of his own steps, he took his way
towards the still green haunts of his youth. When he paused at length,
he was already before the door of a rural cottage, standing alone in the
midst of fields, with a little farmyard at the back; and far through the
trees in front was caught a glimpse of the winding Brent.

With this cottage Burley was familiar; it was inhabited by a good old
couple who had known him from a boy. There he habitually left his rods
and fishing-tackle; there, for intervals in his turbid, riotous life, he
had sojourned for two or three days together, fancying the first day that
the country was a heaven, and convinced before the third that it was a
purgatory.

An old woman, of neat and tidy exterior, came forth to greet him.

"Ah, Master John," said she, clasping his nerveless hand, "well, the
fields be pleasant now; I hope you are come to stay a bit? Do; it will
freshen you; you lose all the fine colour you had once, in Lunnon town."

"I will stay with you, my kind friend," said Burley, with unusual
meekness; "I can have the old room, then?"

"Oh, yes, come and look at it. I never let it now to any one but you,
--never have let it since the dear beautiful lady with the angel's face
went away. Poor thing, what could have become of her?"

Thus speaking, while Burley listened not, the old woman drew him within
the cottage, and led him up the stairs into a room that might have well
become a, better house, for it was furnished with taste, and even
elegance. A small cabinet pianoforte stood opposite the fireplace, and
the window looked upon pleasant meads and tangled hedgerows, and the
narrow windings of the blue rivulet. Burley sank down exhausted, and
gazed wistfully from the casement.

"You have not breakfasted?" said the hostess, anxiously.

"No."

"Well, the eggs are fresh laid, and you would like a rasher of bacon,
Master John? And if you will have brandy in your tea, I have some that
you left long ago in your own bottle."

Burley shook his head. "No brandy, Mrs. Goodyer; only fresh milk. I
will see whether I can yet coax Nature."

Mrs. Goodyer did not know what was meant by coaxing Nature, but she
said," Pray do, Master John," and vanished. That day Burley went out
with his rod, and he fished hard for the one-eyed perch; but in vain.
Then he roved along the stream with his hands in his pockets, whistling.
He returned to the cottage at sunset, partook of the fare provided for
him, abstained from the brandy, and felt dreadfully low.

He called for pen, ink, and paper, and sought to write, but could not
achieve two lines. He summoned Mrs. Goodyer. "Tell your husband to come
and sit and talk."

Up came old Jacob Goodyer, and the great wit bade him tell him all the
news of the village. Jacob obeyed willingly, and Burley at last fell
asleep. The next day it was much the same, only at dinner he had up the
brandy-bottle, and finished it; and he did not have up Jacob, but he
contrived to write.

The third day it rained incessantly. "Have you no books, Mrs. Goodyer?"
asked poor John Burley.

"Oh, yes, some that the dear lady left behind her; and perhaps you would
like to look at some papers in her own writing?"

"No, not the papers,--all women scribble, and all scribble the same
things. Get me the books."

The books were brought up,--poetry and essays--John knew them by heart.
He looked out on the rain, and at evening the rain had ceased. He rushed
to his hat and fled.

"Nature, Nature!" he exclaimed, when he was out in the air and hurrying
by the dripping hedgerows, "you are not to be coaxed by me! I have
jilted you shamefully, I own it; you are a female, and unforgiving. I
don't complain. You may be very pretty, but you are the stupidest and
most tire some companion that ever I met with. Thank Heaven, I am not
married to you!"

Thus John Burley made his way into town, and paused at the first public-
house. Out of that house he came with a jovial air, and on he strode
towards the heart of London. Now he is in Leicester Square, and he gazes
on the foreigners who stalk that region, and hums a tune; and now from
yonder alley two forms emerge, and dog his careless footsteps; now
through the maze of passages towards St. Martin's he threads his path,
and, anticipating an orgy as be nears his favourite haunts, jingles the
silver in his pockets; and now the two forms are at his heels.

"Hail to thee, O Freedom!" muttered John Burley, "thy dwelling is in
cities, and thy palace is the tavern."

"In the king's name," quoth a gruff voice; and John Burley feels the
horrid and familiar tap on the shoulder.

The two bailiffs who dogged have seized their prey. "At whose suit?"
asked John Burley, falteringly. "Mr. Cox, the wine-merchant."

"Cox! A man to whom I gave a check on my bankers not three months ago!"

"But it war n't cashed."

"What does that signify?--the intention was the same. A good heart takes
the will for the deed. Cox is a monster of ingratitude, and I withdraw
my custom."

"Sarve him right. Would your honour like a jarvey?"

"I would rather spend the money on something else," said John Burley.
"Give me your arm, I am not proud. After all, thank Heaven, I shall not
sleep in the country."

And John Burley made a night of it in the Fleet.




CHAPTER XII.

Miss Starke was one of those ladies who pass their lives in the direst of
all civil strife,--war with their servants. She looked upon the members
of that class as the unrelenting and sleepless enemies of the unfortunate
householders condemned to employ them. She thought they ate and drank to
their villanous utmost, in order to ruin their benefactors; that they
lived in one constant conspiracy with one another and the tradesmen, the
object of which was to cheat and pilfer. Miss Starke was a miserable
woman. As she had no relations or friends who cared enough for her to
share her solitary struggle against her domestic foes; and her income,
though easy, was an annuity that died with herself, thereby reducing
various nephews, nieces, or cousins to the strict bounds of a natural
affection,--that did not exist; and as she felt the want of some friendly
face amidst this world of distrust and hate,--so she had tried the
resource of venal companions. But the venal companions had never stayed
long, either they disliked Miss Starke, or Miss Starke disliked them.
Therefore the poor woman had resolved upon bringing up some little girl,
whose heart, as she said to herself, would be fresh and uncorrupted, and
from whom she might expect gratitude. She had been contented, on the
whole, with Helen, and had meant to keep that child in her house as long
as she (Miss Starke) remained upon the earth,--perhaps some thirty years
longer; and then, having carefully secluded her from marriage and other
friendship, to leave her nothing but the regret of having lost so kind a
benefactress. Conformably with this notion, and in order to secure the
affections of the child, Miss Starke had relaxed the frigid austerity
natural to her manner and mode of thought, and been kind to Helen in an
iron way. She had neither slapped nor pinched her, neither had she
starved. She had allowed her to see Leonard, according to the agreement
made with Dr. Morgan, and had laid out tenpence on cakes, besides
contributing fruit from her garden for the first interview,--a
hospitality she did not think it fit to renew on subsequent occasions.
In return for this, she conceived she had purchased the right to Helen
bodily and spiritually, and nothing could exceed her indignation when she
rose one morning and found the child had gone. As it never had occurred
to her to ask Leonard's address, though she suspected Helen had gone to
him, she was at a loss what to do, and remained for twenty-four hours in
a state of inane depression. But then she began to miss the child so
much that her energies woke, and she persuaded herself that she was
actuated by the purest benevolence in trying to reclaim this poor
creature from the world into which Helen had thus rashly plunged.

Accordingly she put an advertisement into the "Times," to the following
effect, liberally imitated from one by which in former years she had
recovered a favourite Blenheim:--

TWO GUINEAS' REWARD.

STRAYED, from Ivy Cottage, Highgate, a Little Girl,--answers to the
name of Helen; with blue eyes and brown hair; white muslin frock,
and straw hat with blue ribbons. Whoever will bring the same to Ivy
Cottage, shall receive the above Reward.

N. B.---Nothing more will be offered.


Now it so happened that Mrs. Smedley had put an advertisement in the
"Times" on her own account, relative to a niece of hers who was coming
from the country, and for whom she desired to find a situation. So,
contrary to her usual habit, she sent for the newspaper, and close by her
own advertisement, she saw Miss Starke's.

It was impossible that she could mistake the description of Helen; and as
this advertisement caught her eye the very day after the whole house had
been disturbed and scandalized by Burley's noisy visit, and on which she
had resolved to get rid of a lodger who received such visitors, the good-
hearted woman was delighted to think that she could restore Helen to some
safe home. While thus thinking, Helen herself entered the kitchen where
Mrs. Smedley sat, and the landlady had the imprudence to point out the
advertisement, and talk, as she called it, "seriously," to the little
girl.

Helen in vain and with tears entreated her to take no step in reply to
the advertisement. Mrs. Smedley felt that it was an affair of duty, and
was obdurate, and shortly afterwards put on her bonnet and left the
house. Helen conjectured that she was on her way to Miss Starke's, and
her whole soul was bent on flight. Leonard had gone to the office of the
"Beehive" with his manuscripts; but she packed up all their joint
effects, and just as she had done so, he returned. She communicated the
news of the advertisement, and said she should be so miserable if
compelled to go back to Miss Starke's, and implored him so pathetically
to save her from such sorrow, that he at once assented to her proposal of
flight. Luckily, little was owing to the landlady,--that little was left
with the maid-servant; and, profiting by Mrs. Smedley's absence, they
escaped without scene or conflict. Their effects were taken by Leonard
to a stand of hackney vehicles, and then left at a coach-office while
they went in search of lodgings. It was wise to choose an entirely new
and remote district; and before night they were settled in an attic in
Lambeth.




CHAPTER XIII.

As the reader will expect, no trace of Burley could Leonard find: the
humourist had ceased to communicate with the "Beehive." But Leonard
grieved for Burley's sake; and, indeed, he missed the intercourse of the
large, wrong mind. But he settled down by degrees to the simple, loving
society of his child companion, and in that presence grew more tranquil.
The hours in the daytime that he did not pass at work, he spent as
before, picking up knowledge at book-stalls; and at dusk he and Helen
would stroll out,--sometimes striving to escape from the long suburb into
fresh rural air; more often wandering to and fro the bridge that led to
glorious Westminster--London's classic land--and watching the vague lamps
reflected on the river. This haunt suited the musing, melancholy boy.
He would stand long and with wistful silence by the balustrade, seating
Helen thereon, that she too might look along the dark mournful waters,
which, dark though they be, still have their charm of mysterious repose.

As the river flowed between the world of roofs, and the roar of human
passions on either side, so in those two hearts flowed Thought--and all
they knew of London was its shadow.




CHAPTER XIV.

There appeared in the "Beehive" certain very truculent political papers,
--papers very like the tracts in the tinker's bag. Leonard did not heed
them much, but they made far more sensation in the public that read the
"Beehive" than Leonard's papers, full of rare promise though the last
were. They greatly increased the sale of the periodical in the
manufacturing towns, and began to awake the drowsy vigilance of the Home
Office. Suddenly a descent was made upon the "Beehive" and all its
papers and plant. The editor saw himself threatened with a criminal
prosecution, and the certainty of two years' imprisonment: he did not
like the prospect, and disappeared. One evening, when Leonard,
unconscious of these mischances, arrived at the door of the office, he
found it closed. An agitated mob was before it, and a voice that was not
new to his ear was haranguing the bystanders, with many imprecations
against "tyrants." He looked, and, to his amaze, recognized in the
orator Mr. Sprott the Tinker.

The police came in numbers to disperse the crowd, and Mr. Sprott
prudently vanished. Leonard learned, then, what had befallen, and again
saw himself without employment and the means of bread.

Slowly he walked back. "O knowledge, knowledge!---powerless, indeed!" he
murmured.

As he thus spoke, a handbill in large capitals met his eyes on a dead
wall, "Wanted, a few smart young men for India."

A crimp accosted him. "You would make a fine soldier, my man. You have
stout limbs of your own." Leonard moved on.

"It has come back then to this,--brute physical force after all! O Mind,
despair! O Peasant, be a machine again!" He entered his attic
noiselessly, and gazed upon Helen as she sat at work, straining her eyes
by the open window--with tender and deep compassion. She had not heard
him enter, nor was she aware of his presence. Patient and still she sat,
and the small fingers plied busily. He gazed, and saw that her cheek was
pale and hollow, and the hands looked so thin! His heart was deeply
touched, and at that moment he had not one memory of the baffled Poet,
one thought that proclaimed the Egotist.

He approached her gently, laid his hand on her shoulder, "Helen, put on
your shawl and bonnet, and walk out,--I have much to say."

In a few moments she was ready, and they took their way to their
favourite haunt upon the bridge. Pausing in one of the recesses, or
nooks, Leonard then began, "Helen, we must part!"

"Part?--Oh, brother!"

"Listen. All work that depends on mind is over for me, nothing remains
but the labour of thews and sinews. I cannot go back to my village and
say to all, 'My hopes were self-conceit, and my intellect a delusion!' I
cannot. Neither in this sordid city can I turn menial or porter. I
might be born to that drudgery, but my mind has, it may be unhappily,
raised me above my birth. What, then, shall I do? I know not yet,--
serve as a soldier, or push my way to some wilderness afar, as an
emigrant, perhaps. But whatever my choice, I must henceforth be alone;
I have a home no more. But there is a home for you, Helen, a very humble
one (for you too, so well born), but very safe,--the roof of--of--my
peasant mother. She will love you for my sake, and--and--"

Helen clung to him trembling, and sobbed out, "Anything, anything you
will. But I can work; I can make money, Leonard. I do, indeed, make
money,--you do not know how much, but enough for us both till better
times come to you. Do not let us part."

"And I--a man, and born to labour--to be maintained by the work of an
infant! No, Helen, do not so degrade me."

She drew back as she looked on his flushed brow, bowed her head
submissively, and murmured, "Pardon."

"Ah," said Helen, after a, pause, "if now we could but find my poor
father's friend! I never so much cared for it before."

"Yes, he would surely provide for you."

"For me!" repeated Helen, in a tone of soft, deep reproach, and she
turned away her head to conceal her tears.

"You are sure you would remember him, if we met him by chance?"

"Oh, yes. He was so different from all we see in this terrible city, and
his eyes were like yonder stars, so clear and so bright; yet the light
seemed to come from afar off, as the light does in yours, when your
thoughts are away from all things round you. And then, too, his dog,
whom he called Nero--I could not forget that."

"But his dog may not be always with him."

"But the bright clear eyes are! Ah, now you look up to heaven, and yours
seem to dream like his."

Leonard did not answer, for his thoughts were indeed less on earth than
struggling to pierce into that remote and mysterious heaven.

Both were silent long; the crowd passed them by unheedingly. Night
deepened over the river, but the reflection of the lamp-lights on its
waves was more visible than that of the stars. The beams showed the
darkness of the strong current; and the craft that lay eastward on the
tide, with sail-less spectral masts and black dismal hulks, looked death-
like in their stillness.

Leonard looked down, and the thought of Chatterton's grim suicide came
back to his soul; and a pale, scornful face, with luminous haunting eyes,
seemed to look up from the stream, and murmur from livid lips, "Struggle
no more against the tides on the surface,--all is calm and rest within
the deep."

Starting in terror from the gloom of his revery, the boy began to talk
fast to Helen, and tried to soothe her with descriptions of the lowly
home which he had offered.

He spoke of the light cares which she would participate with his mother
(for by that name he still called the widow), and dwelt, with an
eloquence that the contrast round him made sincere and strong, on the
happy rural life, the shadowy woodlands, the rippling cornfields, the
solemn, lone churchspire soaring from the tranquil landscape.

Flatteringly he painted the flowery terraces of the Italian exile, and
the playful fountain that, even as he spoke, was flinging up its spray to
the stars, through serene air untroubled by the smoke of cities, and
untainted by the sinful sighs of men. He promised her the love and
protection of natures akin to the happy scene: the simple, affectionate
mother, the gentle pastor, the exile wise and kind, Violante, with dark
eyes full of the mystic thoughts that solitude calls from childhood,--
Violante should be her companion.

"And, oh!" cried Helen, "if life be thus happy there, return with me,
return! return!"

"Alas!" murmured the boy, "if the hammer once strike the spark from the
anvil, the spark must fly upward; it cannot fall back to earth until
light has left it. Upward still, Helen,--let me go upward still!"




CHAPTER XV.

The next morning Helen was very ill,--so ill that, shortly after rising,
she was forced to creep back to bed. Her frame shivered, her eyes were
heavy, her hand burned like fire. Fever had set in. Perhaps she might
have caught cold on the bridge, perhaps her emotions had proved too much
for her frame. Leonard, in great alarm, called in the nearest
apothecary. The apothecary looked grave, and said there was danger.
And danger soon declared itself,--Helen became delirious. For several
days she lay in this state, be tween life and death. Leonard then felt
that all the sorrows of earth are light, compared with the fear of losing
what we love. How valueless the envied laurel seemed beside the dying
rose!

Thanks, perhaps, more to his heed and tending than to medical skill, she
recovered sense at last. Immediate peril was over; but she was very weak
and reduced, her ultimate recovery doubtful, convalescence, at best,
likely to be very slow.

But when she learned how long she had been thus ill, she looked anxiously
at Leonard's face as he bent over her, and faltered forth, "Give me my
work; I am strong enough for that now,--it would amuse me."

Leonard burst into tears.

Alas! he had no work himself; all their joint money had melted away.
The apothecary was not like good Dr. Morgan; the medicines were to be
paid for, and the rent. Two days before, Leonard had pawned Riccabocca's
watch; and when the last shilling thus raised was gone, how should he
support Helen? Nevertheless he conquered his tears, and assured her that
he had employment; and that so earnestly that she believed him, and sank
into soft sleep. He listened to her breathing, kissed her forehead, and
left the room. He turned into his own neighbouring garret, and leaning
his face on his hands, collected all his thoughts.

He must be a beggar at last. He must write to Mr. Dale for money,--Mr.
Dale, too, who knew the secret of his birth. He would rather have begged
of a stranger; it seemed to add a new dishonour to his mother's memory
for the child to beg of one who was acquainted. with her shame. Had he
himself been the only one to want and to starve, he would have sunk inch
by inch into the grave of famine, before he would have so subdued his
pride. But Helen, there on that bed,--Helen needing, for weeks perhaps,
all support, and illness making luxuries themselves like necessaries!
Beg he must. And when he so resolved, had you but seen the proud, bitter
soul he conquered, you would have said, "This, which he thinks is
degradation,--this is heroism." Oh, strange human heart! no epic ever
written achieves the Sublime and the Beautiful which are graven, unread
by human eye, in thy secret leaves.

Of whom else should he beg? His mother had nothing, Riccabocca was poor,
and the stately Violante, who had exclaimed, "Would that I were a man!
"--he could not endure the thought that she should pity him and despise.
The Avenels! No,--thrice No. He drew towards him hastily ink and paper,
and wrote rapid lines that were wrung from him as from the bleeding
strings of life.

But the hour for the post had passed, the letter must wait till the next
day; and three days at least would elapse before he could receive an
answer. He left the letter on the table, and, stifling as for air, went
forth. He crossed the bridge, he passed on mechanically, and was borne
along by a crowd pressing towards the doors of parliament. A debate that
excited popular interest was fixed for that evening, and many bystanders
collected in the street to see the members pass to and fro, or hear what
speakers had yet risen to take part in the debate, or try to get orders
for the gallery.

He halted amidst these loiterers, with no interest, indeed, in common
with them, but looking over their heads abstractedly towards the tall
Funeral Abbey,--imperial Golgotha of Poets and Chiefs and Kings.

Suddenly his attention was diverted to those around by the sound of a
name, displeasingly known to him. "How are you, Randal Leslie? coming
to hear the debate?" said a member, who was passing through the street.

"Yes; Mr. Egerton promised to get me under the gallery. He is to speak
himself to-night, and I have never heard him. As you are going into the
House, will you remind him of his promise to me?"

"I can't now, for he is speaking already,--and well too. I hurried from
the Athenaeum, where I was dining, on purpose to be in time, as I heard
that his speech was making a great effect."

"This is very unlucky," said Randal. "I had no idea he would speak so
early."

"C----- brought him up by a direct personal attack. But follow me;
perhaps I can get you into the House; and a, man like you, Leslie, from
whom we expect great things some day, I can tell you, should not miss any
such opportunity of knowing what this House of ours is on a field-night.
Come on!"

The member hurried towards the door; and as Randal followed him,
a bystander cried, "That is the young man who wrote the famous pamphlet,
--Egerton's relation."

"Oh, indeed!" said another. "Clever man, Egerton,--I am waiting for
him."

"So am I"

"Why, you are not a constituent, as I am."

"No; but he has been very kind to my nephew, and I must thank him. You
are a constituent--he is an honour to your town."

"So he is: enlightened man!"

"And so generous!"

"Brings forward really good measures," quoth the politician.

"And clever young men," said the uncle.

Therewith one or two others joined in the praise of Audley Egerton, and
many anecdotes of his liberality were told. Leonard listened at first
listlessly, at last with thoughtful attention. He had heard Burley, too,
speak highly of this generous statesman, who, without pretending to
genius himself, appreciated it in others. He suddenly remembered, too,
that Egerton was half-brother to the squire. Vague notions of some
appeal to this eminent person, not for charity, but employment to his
mind, gleamed across him,--inexperienced boy that he yet was! And while
thus meditating, the door of the House opened and out came Audley Egerton
himself. A partial cheering, followed by a general murmur, apprised
Leonard of the presence of the popular statesman. Egerton was caught
hold of by some five or six persons in succession; a shake of the hand, a
nod, a brief whispered word or two, sufficed the practised member for
graceful escape; and soon, free from the crowd, his tall, erect figure
passed on, and turned towards the bridge. He paused at the angle and
took out his watch, looking at it by the lamp-light.

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