Chapter IX

Three years have passed; years to which in later life Edward Beaumont looked back with loathing and with wonder, wonder that in so short a time he should have not merely fallen from that fair place he had filled in the eye of what was to him the world, but worse, infinitely worse, have fallen from his purer, better, nobler self; years in which, merged, well-nigh submerged, in London’s restless, ruthless sea, he had struggled to keep body and soul together by the use of his pen. When first he had come to town he could, doubtless, have obtained employment as a managing clerk. There are hundreds of men of his profession who are glad to earn the bread of dependence in that capacity; but a false pride forbade him to serve as clerk, who had so recently kinged it in his own office. So he had turned to that refuge of the educated out-of-work—literature—to find, as thousands have found before, that literature is, perhaps, the hardest of all professions. And yet it seems so easy a thing to start in life as a writer; all you need is a J pen, a few sheets of foolscap, and, yes, there’s the rub, something to write about that people want to read about; and, given all that, he’s a lucky man that does not find someone else has forestalled him and has written on the same theme infinitely better than he can write himself. Beaumont, in those days, often recalled the three ways in which, according to the traditions of the Bar, a young barrister may rise rapidly: by writing a book on some legal subject, by huggery—_id est_—by marrying an attorney’s daughter, or by a miracle. For the man who must needs write daily for his daily crust it is not easy to write a book, certainly not easy to find an appreciative publisher; as for huggery, or marrying an editor’s daughter editor’s daughters look far beyond the out-at elbows penny-a-liner; and as for miracles, well, he had never believed in them. Indeed, in these days he had ceased to believe in anything or anybody, even in himself. It was the worst of his misfortunes that he had lost, as it were, at one fell swoop, everything, even the desire to succeed. If he could earn enough to keep life within him, though why he should care even to do that he would have been hard put to it to say, that would suffice. He who loses fortune loses much, who loses friends loses more, but who loses courage loses all. And Beaumont’s heart was dead within him.

It was a dark, dreary night of March. The rain beat fitfully against the window of a bedroom in a small by-street off the Holloway Road. The room is Edward’s sleeping room, his eating-room, and his workshop. A tiny fire burns dully in a tiny grate and emits rather less heat than the gas that blares with a sickly flame above Beaumont’s head. It is close upon ten of the night, and Edward has thrown down his pen, collected the sheets of “copy” that he hopes to turn into money if editors prove kind on the morrow, and is now, pipe in mouth and book in hand, trying to find a comfortable place in the rickety, horse-hair armchair, called by his landlady in some fit of uncanny humour, an easy chair, and trying, too, to so focus his book as to catch the rays from his solitary gas-jet. A very different Edward this from the easy, debonair youth whom men had envied and maidens smiled upon. His clothes are well cut, but woefully white at the seams, his linen is frayed, his boots down at heel, the watch he glances at is manifestly a Waterbury, its chain of steel; and before he lights his pipe he is compelled to cut a pipeful of unmistakeable Limerick. Upon the small table are a jug of water, a tumbler, and a bottle labelled “Pride of the Glen.” Edward holds it to the light and measures its contents with his eye.

“Still three-parts full. Behold the rewards of abstinence. Had I not been frugal last night I must have been frugal to-night; but, heaven be thanked, there are two or three hours’ quiet soaking in three-quarters of a 3s. 6d. bottle of the ‘Pride of the Glen,’ and by that is drunk this dingy hole will be a palace and Edward Beaumont its prince; my tea of bread and margarine, with a bloater, will look in the retrospect a Guildhall banquet; this very angular, grid-iron like chair will be as cosy as a divan; the cheap prints that adorn my walls will show as the works of Watteau and Greuze; my rags will fall away, and I shall be clad in purple and fine linen; my whiskey will be imperial Tokay; my twist Havanas; and, in fine, it will be Edward Beaumont and not the bottle that will be three-parts full. It is true that tomorrow my mouth will be parched and I shall crave for a hair of the dog that bit me, and have to crave unless the landlord of the ‘Jolly Dogs’ is in confiding mood; my gorge will rise at the streaky, sickly slice of bacon and the ghastly ‘shop-’un’ and the leathery bread that will be served for breakfast; it is also true my eye ill be bleared, if not blood-shot, my head will ache fit to split, and my hand tremble till I can scarce lift to my lips the cup of wash-up water my landlady calls tea. All these things I verily believe. It is doubtless also true that I am shortening my life, true as gospel, oh! most sapient Sir Wilfrid Lawson. But is it not written that man shall take no thought for the morrow and that sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. Here, benign deity at 3s. 6d. the bottle! here, thou offerest three hours’ oblivion, and they’re well purchased by tomorrow’s reckoning.”

And he poured from the bottle a generous measure of the _elixir mortis_, puffed his pipe to a vigorous glow, and with a sigh of something like content, set himself to the reading of his well-thumbed “Omar Khayyam.”

“Ah, my Beloved, fill the cup that clears

TO-DAY of past Regrets and future Fears—

_To-morrow?_ Why, To-morrow I may be

Myself with Yesterday’s Sev’n Thousand years”

“Good old Omar,” the reader mutters, as he drains his goblet, and replenishes it from bottle and jug, “good old Omar, thine is the only true philosophy. _Carpe diem_, pluck the passing hour, let us eat and drink for to-morrow we may die, and who cares?

“Into this Universe, and why not knowing,

Nor _whence_, like Water willy-nilly flowing;

And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,

I know not _whither_, willy-nilly blowing.

What, without asking, hither hurried _whence?_

And, without asking, whither hurried _hence!_

Another and another Cup to drown

The Memory of this Impertinence.”

“Now, talk of Impertinence, who the deuce is this coming up my stairs at this hour of the night, and such a night? It can’t be the printer’s devil, besides, the step’s a man’s at that. If his thirst’s as big as himself, God help the bottle or what’s left of it. Oh! come in, whoever you are, and be hanged to you!” and in response to this not very pressing invitation the door opens, and in the doorway stands, peering into the room, dazzled in the transition from the gloomy staircase, a tall, erect figure, closely draped in a heavy Inverness cape, sodden with the rain.

“It is Mr. Beaumont, is it not?” asks a manly, pleasant voice. “Why, of course it is, now I can see you. How are you, Beaumont?” and a white but strong firm hand is outstretched and grasps the hand that not too gladly meets it.

“Denis Caird, by all that’s holy!”

“Of course, it’s Denis Caird, and glad to see you, Beaumont. Been hunting for you everywhere this month or two back. Was up in the West Riding lecturing, inquired about my old pupil we all prophesied such great things from, expected to find you in the Mayor’s parlour at least, till such times as you could follow Chamberlain’s lead heard you’d gone under, been seen in London, made up my mind to find you by hook or crook, and here I am and there you are. I say, what’s this, and this?” And the speaker, who had thrown off his cape, took up the little volume of verse, glanced at the title, and shook his head at the tall bottle. “‘Omar Khayyam’ and a whiskey bottle; bad food for mind, worse food for the body, my friend; the apostle of self-indulgence, and the worst, or nearly the worst, way to gratify it. This won’t do, Beaumont; this won’t do, my lad.”

Edward moved uneasily in his chair.

“_Dulce est_” he began.

“_Dulce est_ be hanged,” quoth his visitor.

“I’m a clergyman or I’d say something stronger than that. What’s a young fellow like you want cooped up in a garret reading that rubbish, beautiful rubbish, if you like, but still rubbish, and making matters ten thousand times worse by drinking liquid damnation at three-and-six a bottle; up here, I say, in a garret, mooning over a lot of verses and soaking yourself with poison, when all around you there’s work to be done, man’s work, God’s work, and none too many to do it. What’s wrong with you, Beaumont, what’s wrong, say?”

“Everything’s wrong. You know, of course, how I came a mucker up yonder. Well, I’ve cared for nothing since, but just to get a crust of bread, and as much of that stuff as the money’ll run to.”

“Wasn’t there a girl in the case. Hadn’t you her to live for if nothing and nobody else?”

“Oh! yes, there was a girl, if it comes to that. But when the smash came she very promptly declined to permit me to ‘live for her,’ as you put it. See, look here, you can read my letters of dismissal, if you care to. Short and sweet, like a donkey’s gallop, I call ’em.”

And Beaumont took from a drawer and threw upon the table two letters:

“The Vicarage,
Caistorholm,
Lincs.
February, 188

“DEAR MR. BEAUMONT,— I am exceedingly distressed to learn of your misfortune. You will do me the justice to remember that I gave only a reluctant and conditional assent to my daughter’s engagement to you. Of course that must now be absolutely and finally broken. I trust the dear girl may be given strength to bear this fearful trial, and I hope that your future may be brighter than present prospects indicate.

Yours faithfully,

HUGH ST. CLAIR.”

“The Vicarage,
Caistorholm.

“DEAR EDWARD,—
Papa insists that I endorse his words. What else can I do? I am so
sorry, but there seems no other way. And, after all, I’m sure I should
not have made you the wife you ought to have. With best wishes,

ELEANOR ST. CLAIR.”

“Humph!” said the Rev. Denis Caird.

“There’s nothing lacking on the score of lucidity anyway. Anything else?”

“Merely this,” said Edward, bitterly, as he handed a newspaper to his visitor.

“A marriage has been arranged, and will shortly be solemnised, between
Mr. George Wright, of Thoresby Manor, Lincs, and Eleanor, only child
of the Very Reverend Archdeacon St. Clair, of Caistorholm Vicarage,
Lincs.”

“Ah, well!” said Mr. Denis; “there’s an end of that chapter anyway.”

“With your permission we’ll drop these precious letters carefully into that not very cheerful fire of yours. It’s simply mawkish sentimentality keeping them by you to gloom over. I don’t know the lady, but it seems to me she knew what she was talking about when she said she wasn’t quite the kind of wife you want. A fair-weather sort of mate isn’t quite the sort of mate for a shipwrecked mariner. And so, because you’ve got two nasty slaps in the face from that fickle jade, Dame Fortune, you coop yourself up in this dingy hole, read Omar Khayyam and that rot, and drink yourself into a fool’s paradise or a sot’s oblivion, by way of mending matters. I thought you were made of better stuff, Beaumont, and that’s a fact. Why, man alive, if you’ve no more backbone in you than that comes to Eleanor St. Clair’s well rid of you, or any other decent woman for that matter.”

“Oh, yes, I’m down, jump on me,” said Beaumont, savagely.

“It’s time somebody did jump on you to some purpose. I’ve no patience with you, man. Why, it’s just such nasty knocks as those that test a man. Life’s a fight for the best of us, a stand-up fight, shoulders squared, knees braced, fists clenched, lips tight-pressed, and eyes intent and steadfast. A fight not with your fellow-man, to see which can down the other, that’s a poor business, but with the world, the flesh, and the devil. What sort of a fighter do you call the man who, on the first knockout, lies grovelling in the saw-dust, bleating for mercy? he’s not the man you put your money on. No, it’s the little game one who never knows when he’s beaten, that takes his gruel kindly, and is up on his feet after a breathing space, bruised and stricken, if you like, but eager for another round, and another, and still another, so long as he’s a leg to stand on. Now, you’ve had your breathing space. Look on me, if you like, as the man who brushes the saw-dust off your clothes, sponges your brow, gives you a knee, and bucks you up generally for another set-to. I want to see you in the ring again. Are you willing, or is it to be whiskey and Omar Khayyam, till the inevitable end, a leap over Westminster Bridge into the Thames, or the Workhouse? I could almost quote Scripture to you: ‘See, I have set before thee this day life and good, death and evil. Therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.’”

For a long time there was silence between the men. Edward leaned with his elbows upon his knees, gazing into the dull embers of the fire, the minister watching him anxiously. Then Beaumont rose and stretched out his hand.

“I choose life,” he said. “Show me the way.”

“There is only one way, Beaumont. There never has been, never will be, anyway but one. It is the _Via Crucis_—the way of the Cross. It is a way that was before Gethsemane, though men knew it not as they may know it now, if they but will. And you may put your foot on that way to-night, this very moment. What are you going to do with that whiskey bottle? You can’t carry that sort of luggage on the _Via Crucis?”_

“There’s the sink,” said Edward.

“Precisely, there’s the sink, and here goes for the sink and the sewer and the rats. And those letters?”

“There’s the fire.”

“Exactly. Let the dead past bury its dead, or as burial is not convenient for letters, here’s for cremation. And Omar Khayyam?”

“In with him.”

“Now we breathe a purer air. Now put on your hat and coat and come with me to a place I wot of where you can get the juiciest steak in all London town, with fried onions and roast potatoes and a cup of very decent coffee, piping hot. And then we’ll talk of things, and I may be able to put you in the way of doing a bit of useful work and earning a modest shilling or two by doing it. And that’s something to be thankful for in this vale of tears, I can tell you.”