Chapter IV: Struggling on

Men are led by strange ways. One should have tolerance for a man, hope of him; leave him to try yet what he will do. _On Heroes and Hero-worship._

May we not again say, that in the huge mass of evil, as it rolls and swells, there is ever some good working imprisoned; working towards deliverance and triumph? _French Revolution._ CARLYLE.

He had known for a long time that he was out of health, and at times the dread of being ill had haunted him painfully, as it will at times haunt those who are practically homeless. For it is indeed very terrible to face the thought of illness with no mother at hand to nurse you, no sister to whom the duties of tending will be a pleasure rather than a tiresome duty, no house in which you have a right to be ill, where you need not feel burdened with the sense of the trouble you are causing. To Donovan, with his utter want of belief in human nature, or in the very existence of anything above human nature, the sense of helplessness came with double power; only, fortunately for him, things were not really as he believed. Close beside him, though unknown, the love of the All-Father watched and shielded from evil the son who, by such wretched wanderings, was being led on. And the pity which springs up very readily in most of our hearts, when we are brought face to face with pain, brought human help and comfort to his sick-bed. The landlady, careworn and harassed with many children and a good-for-nothing husband, yet found time to do the few absolutely necessary things in the sick-room; she could not help being sorry for her apparently friendless lodger. Once or twice she pained him terribly by asking,

"Haven't you no mother who could come and see to you?"

And Donovan would sign a negative, and, when she had left him to himself, would feel the loneliness and suffering with double keenness.

Noir Frewin would come in two or three times a day and ask how he was; the old captain would hang about the room with anxiety written on his kind old face, but he missed his companion's vigilance and example, the drinking mania seized him strongly, and he was seldom quite sober. There was one other amateur nurse, the poor little over-driven servant. She used to shuffle into the room every now and then, and with infinite care and clumsiness would drag the pillow from under his head, shake it up violently and turn it, or hold a glass to his burning lips and spill half its contents down his night-shirt, but he learnt to be grateful even for such rough attentions, for there is nothing like weakness and suffering for teaching patience. The loneliness was so terrible, too, that he would detain anyone who came to him as long as possible. Old Rouge, with his unsteady gait and half incoherent talk, was better than no one, and even the little slipshod servant, with her rough head and dirty hands, was worth the exertion of talking, just for the sake of having a human creature within reach.

"I allays liked you, sir," she said to him once. "You ain't allays a-calling for your boots, like Mr. Frewin, or in drink, like the captain, and you never shouted out 'slavey' down the stairs for me, as though I was one of the poor blacks. I allays liked you, Mr. Donovan."

Donovan was amused, and in spite of his burning head and aching misery, threw out some question or response to detain her.

"And I've done things for you as I've not done for no other lodger," the girl continued. "I've blacked your boots a sight better than any of the others, and though you did want such a terrible lot of bath water hevery day, I allays brought it up reg'lar. If the lodgers h'is civil and kind-spoken, I do my best for 'em, but most of rem--why, they treat us poor girls like dogs, that they do. And talkin' of dogs, I've done that un of yours many a good turn; times and times I've stolen bits o' meat and things for 'im."

"Oh! but you shouldn't do that," said Donovan, quickly. "Don't do it again. It's wrong to steal, you know."

But then he paused. What was he saying? How trivial were this poor ignorant girl's dishonesties compared with his own!

Bitter were the regrets which thronged up in his mind as he lay wearily on his bed of pain. He could not escape from his secret foes now; he could not banish thought by violent bodily exercise, or by wild excitement. All his anguish of last year returned with terrible force, all the agony of self-loathing weighed upon him with cruel ceaselessness. This, combined with the want of good nursing, aggravated his illness. The doctor began to look grave, and one day Anne, the little servant, fairly burst into tears when she came up to tidy his room.

"What's the matter?" asked Donovan, feebly. "Have they been scolding you?"

"No, no, it ain't that," said the girl, holding her apron to her eyes. "But missus she says you'll die, sure as a gun; she did say so, I heared her, sir, not a minute since."

Donovan did not speak for some time. He lay thinking silently over the girl's words, "You'll die, sure as a gun." He smiled a little, thinking that few had been told of their danger in a more open and undisguised way, but it ought to have been good news to him, and for a time he tried to think he was glad. And yet? He did not go straight to the root of the matter, and own that the "peace of nothingness" looked less attractive when viewed nearly; he said instead what a wretched life he had had, how little enjoyment, how much suffering, and now he was to die forlorn and unattended in a miserable London lodging. Then came a great longing to see his mother.

He called the girl to him, made her find writing materials, and, raising himself on his elbow, wrote with great difficulty a few pencil words.

"I am very ill; my death will perhaps ease more consciences than one. Will you not come to me, mother?--it may be our last meeting."

He was growing faint; the effort had been very great, but, still exerting all his strength of will, he controlled his weakness sufficiently to scrawl the address on the envelope. Then he sank back again utterly exhausted.

"You'll have to see the clergyman if you get worse," said Anne, sympathetically. "There's one as come next door to an old chap as was dying last summer, and they say he do make the folks quake and sweat."

Donovan was past smiling.

After that he did not remember much; there was only an ever-present consciousness of endless pain, the raging, burning, aching misery of fever. Till then the hours had dragged on with the terrible slowness of which only those who have been alone in illness can form any idea; but now he lost all thought of time, and was only dimly aware of the visitors who came to him. Now and then he had a sort of vision, of Rouge's round red face anxiously peering down at him. Once he fancied himself chained down in one of Doery's red-hot furnaces, where Dives-like he had cried for water, and then he had looked up, and Noir was beside him with the cooling draught he had thirsted for, and he had fallen back again refreshed, wondering greatly that his request had been granted. The Christian's God was, after all then, merciful! Wild thoughts they were which haunted him in his delirium; and yet Noir Frewin, as he watched beside him, was struck by the tone of his fevered utterances. He was prepared for ravings against injustice, but, instead, Donovan's most vehement words were of self-reproach. At times he would take a theological turn, and would argue for and against every conceivable doctrine, and then again he would fancy himself back among his late companions, gambling or indulging in wild revelry; but throughout there was never one impure word, and Noir marvelled at it. A strange wild life was revealed, with an under-current of anxious questioning, one predominant vice, but behind it much that was noble, a familiarity with every kind of evil, but, in spite of it, a strange retaining of purity.

One name, too, was constantly on his lips--a name which Noir had never heard him mention before. He wondered much to whom it referred, what gave rise to the agonised longing for this one presence.

Perhaps in this was Donovan's keenest suffering. He dreamt continually of Dot; she was beside him, no longer ill and helpless, but happy, and strong, and bright. As yet, remembrance was such terrible pain to him--it was so entirely his object not to remember the past--that the vision which kept recurring to him was almost more than he could bear, and the extraordinary reality of it deluded him at times. It must be real, she had come back to him, and he would stretch out his arms to keep her; then, coming to himself, would find that it was only a dream. One night the dream was more vivid than ever. He fancied himself on a wide-open down; he was ill and faint, and the sun was beating down upon him pitilessly. He closed his eyes to shut out the intolerable brightness, and then suddenly became aware of a shade between him and the sun, and, looking up, saw Dot standing beside him. Such a rapturous meeting it was! Her face seemed changed, and yet the same, and her bright eyes shone down upon him with just the old loving light. He could feel her fingers ruffling up his hair as she used to do in the old times, and her voice, merry and child-like as ever, seemed to give him new strength. "It is my turn to nurse you now," she said. And then, just as he was feeling the full bliss of her presence, a thick white mist rose from the ground and rolled between them. He stretched out his hands, tried to struggle up, helplessly beating against the cold white wall. Dot was there just beyond. He must reach her! this sudden meeting, only to part, was too cruel! But the more he dashed himself against the impenetrable barrier, the harder it became, and maddened by hearing her voice in the distance, he grew more and more reckless, till at last his own cry of despair woke him. Trembling, exhausted, panting for breath, he stared round the little room. The scene was changed. Fight as he would, there was no chance of his seeing Dot again; even the white barrier was gone. The gas was turned low, and close beside it sat Noir, nodding over his newspaper. The blank of realisation was so terrible that he felt he _must_ call on some one or something outside himself, and his companion was roused by a call so wild, so despairing, that he started up at once and hurried to the bedside.

"What is it?" he questioned, anxiously; but Donovan could not answer; his breath would only come in gasps, his whole frame was convulsed. By the strange freemasonry of suffering, Noir Frewin understood him; he did not say a word, but just took the two burning hands in his, and Donovan, with a sense of relief, tightened his hold till the grip was absolutely painful. Anything human would have served to support him; he clung to the hands of this hardened cheat with helpless gratitude.

And Noir, as he looked down at the struggling agony, understood it all far better than many would have done. A well-regulated mind accustomed to view things quietly, or a Christian who has never known what it is to be anything else, would probably not have known so exactly what to do; they would have offered words to a state utterly beyond the comprehension of speech, or would have advised self-control when the very fact of the convulsed frame and sealed lips showed that no control was needed. But Noir had been through just the same fierce conflicts in his cell at Dartmoor; he knew that no words would avail, no thought comfort, that what nature cried out for was a presence stronger than self--something or some one who would not preach, but would understand. He gave, poor fellow, all he could give--himself; and after a time Donovan's convulsed limbs relaxed, the hands loosened their hold, the face settled into its usual stern sad expression.

"Thanks, old fellow," he said, faintly.

Noir, with an odd choking in his throat, turned away and made ready some gruel which had been heating. By the time he had brought it, Donovan had recovered a little more, and there was a sort of smile on his worn face.

"I can't get over you turning nurse, Noir," he said, in rather trembling tones; "you've been--awfully good to me."

"Only make haste and get well," said Noir, roughly, but kindly.

"Am I not doing my best by swallowing this abomination?" said Donovan, trying to form his lips into a smile, but failing piteously.

"You'd better be quiet, or you won't get off to sleep again," said Noir, peremptorily, the fact being that he could not stand the effort at cheerfulness which his patient was making, for there are few things more painful than to see a thin veil of assumed cheerfulness drawn over great suffering. But the effort was a brave one, he could not help knowing it, and as he returned to his place beneath the gas, instead of taking up his newspaper, he mused over the hidden trouble which had been half revealed to him, from time to time casting a glance towards the bed. Nothing, however, was to be seen there except a mass of rough brown hair; Donovan had turned his face away from the light, and Noir only knew that he was not asleep by the absolute stillness of his form, and by the long-drawn but half-restrained sighs which reached him every few minutes.

The next morning the old captain, with his feather-brush, was as usual dusting his shells and corals, when he was interrupted by the little maid-of-all-work.

"If you please, sir," she said, with unusual animation, "'ere's a lady as will 'ave it that Mr. Farrant lives 'ere, and I can't get 'er away no'ow."

Rouge, removing his smoking-cap, hurried forward, and found himself face to face with an elderly woman with a rather thin severe face.

"There must be some mistake, madam," he said, in his pleasant voice. "No one of the name of Farrant lives here. We are the only lodgers, except one poor fellow named Donovan, who is very ill."

"There!" exclaimed Mrs. Doery, with relief. "Now why didn't you tell me that before, though I was certain he must be here somewhere, he'd never make a fault in the address. Take me to him at once, please, sir--I've come to nurse him."

"Bless me!" exclaimed the old captain, "now that's really a wonderful piece of luck, for he's in need of better nursing than we can give him. You are a relation of his?"

"Relation, indeed!" said Mrs. Doery, with virtuous indignation--"relation, sir! A pretty pass he must have come to if you take me for a relation. I am the housekeeper."

"Your pardon, madam," said the captain. "May I not offer you some refreshment after your journey," and he put his hand on the inevitable black bottle which was always within convenient reach.

"I'll thank you, sir, to take me to Mr. Donovan," said Doery, severely, "and not go offering a respectable party spirits at this time of day."

Rouge, feeling snubbed, hastily led the way to the sick-room, muttering under his breath, "A very dragon!" But nevertheless he rather enjoyed the new arrival, and there was a ring of amusement in his hearty voice as he went up to the disordered uncomfortable-looking bed where Donovan lay.

"Well, milord, I've brought you a new nurse."

If anyone had told Donovan in his childhood that he would ever welcome the sight of his grim tyrant he would not have believed it, but nevertheless there was an unspeakable comfort and relief in the advent of poor old Doery.

"Oh! Mr. Donovan, what have they been a-doin' to you?" she exclaimed, horror-struck at his looks, for he was evidently quite clear-headed, but utterly weak and helpless, and with a face so thin and worn that she hardly recognized it.

"Did my mother send you?" he asked, as soon as the captain had left the room.

"No, sir, master sent me, with orders to say nothing about it to mistress. It was the only way he'd let me come, Mr. Donovan, so you mustn't mind. Mistress is to be told I'm gone to nurse my sister. I promised I wouldn't say a word to her, otherwise master wouldn't have told me where you was."

"He opened the letter, then?" asked Donovan.

"He had your letter, sir. I made no doubt it was sent to him, for the mistress hadn't seen it."

Evidently, then, it would be quite useless to attempt writing to his mother; after the lapse of all these months of silence, Ellis still kept guard over her correspondence. A sort of dim idea which had crossed his mind of appealing to his mother for money to start him in some honest calling, died away. He must continue to support himself by his precarious winnings, only--and here all his strength of will asserted itself--he would never be a party to Noir's deceptions again. It was not a very cheering prospect, he saw that it must involve an entire break with the Frewins, and they had been so good to him that he shrank very much from the thought. After all, as he often said to himself, his death would solve many difficulties.

But he was not to die--that was evident. Thanks to Mrs. Doery's good nursing he began to recover steadily, and, as his strength returned, a certain enjoyment of life returned to him too, at times. He began to wish very much to be out and about again, even though so many difficulties would have then to be faced.

His intercourse with old Mrs. Doery was a good deal hampered by various causes. He never mentioned Dot's name, he never mentioned his present way of life, so that their range of conversation was rather limited. He asked a thousand questions, indeed, about his mother, and the whole Manor household, but except with regard to this subject he was very silent and utterly uncommunicative. From day to day he would lie with a sort of rigid patience, abstractedly watching Doery as she sat mending his linen, or with his eyes fixed on the hateful little oil-painting of the "Shipwreck," which stared down at him from the dingy green wall paper with black spots. It used to remind him a good deal of his own life, that forlorn-looking vessel with broken mast and battered hull.

One night when he was almost recovered he was roused from his first sleep by noisy merriment in the adjoining room, and found poor Mrs. Doery fairly frightened out of her wits.

"Such a calling and a shouting and a quarrelling as she'd never heard in her life!"

"They are only enjoying themselves," said Donovan, with weary sarcasm.

"Well, Mr. Donovan, it's more like animals than like men, that I will say," replied Doery, with her customary shrewd severity.

"May be," said Donovan, turning from side to side with the restless discomfort of one disturbed.

"And nobody can't deny that it's a dreadful place that you're in," continued the housekeeper. "Such a shocking goings on in them courts out at the back, and then all this noise in the very next room when honest folks ought to be a-bed and asleep. It's a dreadful place, I call it."

"London isn't made up of Connaught Squares," said Donovan, bitterly; and then he drew the bed-clothes over his face, and would not say another word.

The next day was Sunday, and by dint of many assurances of his perfect recovery, Mrs. Doery was at length persuaded to leave him for a little while and go to church, Donovan having over-ruled her dread of losing her way by assuring her that the old captain went every now and then to salve his conscience, and would be delighted to escort her. When she had left him he lay for a few minutes listening to the church bells, but his thoughts were very troublesome that day, and just to stifle them he reached out his hand and took Mrs. Doery's Bible from the table. It was nearly four years since he had opened one, and then it had only been under compulsion at school, and though he had read many books written against it, he had never had the slightest inclination to study the book itself. Beyond a few chapters which he had been made to learn in his childhood as a punishment, he remembered little but the sort of general outline of the history, and a few of the more striking parables.

He took it up now rather curiously, opened at St. Matthew's Gospel, and, skipping the Table of Genealogy, began to read in a careless, cursory way. By-and-by, however, in spite of himself, he grew interested. From the few isolated chapters which he had heard occasionally in church and during his school life, he had never gained any idea of the character of Christ. Now reading straight on, with a great craving after some fresh interest, he was naturally very much struck. A life of poverty, and suffering, and self-denial, a career of apparent failure, surroundings low and incapable of understanding, a trial of glaring injustice, and an unmerited death of the deepest pain! It was a story which could not fail to touch him; a character which filled him with great admiration. There were two things which especially appealed to his sympathy--the injustice suffered, and the strong endurance manifested. He put down the book reluctantly when he was too tired to hold it any longer, not even thinking of any possible change in his fixed beliefs, but simply very much struck by a noble life, which, it seemed probable, had been lived thousands of years ago--with something of the same sort of interest which he had felt for one or two of the old Romans, and for a few of Shakspere's characters. Modern Christianity--or the so-called Christianity which had been brought under his notice--offered no attractions to him. The whole system seemed to him hollow and false, a great profession and a niggardly performance, a mixture of selfishness, hypocrisy, and superstition. But the life of Christ was grand! Such an unexampled career of noble self-devotion filled him with wonder and reverence. However much the misguided followers had fallen off, there could be no doubt that the mind of Christ had been--he naturally used the past tense--one of dazzling purity and beauty.

In the enforced stillness of convalescence the story haunted him strangely, and undoubtedly he was influenced by it--his admiration of a noble mind ennobled him. At present that was all; but it was much.

As soon as he was about again, he took an early opportunity of telling Noir the decision which he had made before his illness. Noir, who had already shrewdly surmised that he should lose his young accomplice, made no attempt to turn him from his purpose.

"Turned good, I suppose, as most fellows do when they have been within an ace of dying," he remarked, sneeringly.

"Glad to hear you think so," said Donovan, with coolness. "I own you've a proverb to fall back on. 'The Devil he fell sick; the Devil a monk would be.' However, I've no monkish tendencies, only I don't mean to be your decoy any longer."

"Well," said Noir, good-humouredly, "I myself shan't be sorry to leave the old trade for a bit. We've been talking of going abroad. Come with us. It would set you up in no time. What do you say to Monaco? A try at the red and black?"

"Anything for a change," said Donovan; but there was relief in his tone, for the break with the Frewins, which he had dreaded a good deal, would be no longer necessary. "Honest" gambling of course he had not renounced, in fact by means of it he must live, and this proposal to go to Monaco exactly fell in with his present frame of mind. His spirits began to rise.

The old captain coming into the room was surprised at the change in his look and voice.

"Well, captain!" he exclaimed. "Has Noir told you? It's all settled, we leave this hole next week, and go to try our luck at Monte Carlo."

"So I hear," said Rouge. "It'll be first rate for you, for myself I like Old England best. None of your froggy Frenchmen for me. I'm going out, milord, d'you want anything? papers? books?"

A change came over Donovan's face.

"Oh! yes, that reminds me. Here!"--he threw down eighteen pence on the table, scrawled something on a piece of paper and handed it to Rouge,--"Just get me that if you're passing a book-shop."

The captain looked at the paper, lifted his eyebrows, but did not venture any comment. On it was written, "Renan's 'Life of Jesus.'"