Part 20 (1/2)
Hudson sat up in his chair and appeared quite sober as he replied:
”It's too late. You don't know what a weak fool I am. It is no good my making resolutions. No, my boy, 'It's all up with poor Tommy now,' as that music-hall man sings--and I don't care. I used to try and reform once. It was no good--Ha! ha! Why it was only three months back, that I made my last attempt. I actually had resolution enough to live one whole week of the most abject virtue; think of that! but it was all the worse afterwards. I've gone a long way further down the hill these last three months.”
He paused for some time, resting his head on his hand, as he tried to collect his scattered ideas, then he continued:
”Duncan, I am the most miserable of men--I am the slave of half-a-dozen vices. I have drunk them all to the dregs, yet I am not blase; I wish to G.o.d I were. No, I still love the world, love my vices more than ever, but cannot enjoy them--and in that is the h.e.l.l of it. I hate respectability; I hate work. I love dissipation, and can't dissipate. I look at steady fellows grinding away for little incomes and I hate them, I hate myself. No one can pity me--it's all my own fault. I feel sick and mad sometimes with regret, almost to killing myself--yes, with regret, and what for? I'll tell you--listen--regret that I cannot fly about, as I used to before health and coin and all had taken wings. Not regret for the wasting of any good there might have been in me--not a bit of it, I am too far gone to envy and admire _good_. Who can pity a man who suffers from so selfish and ign.o.ble a grief? and yet, dear Duncan, I believe that such a suffering is as bitter as any the human soul is capable of--all the bitterer because it can meet no sympathy, no pity. G.o.d help me!--The other day I heard a theatre-girl ask of another about me, 'Who is that bloated-looking old masher? Doesn't he look an old beast?' Yes, women have come to talk about me like that; you don't know, old man, you with your steady mind, what a h.e.l.l I am in. Despised where I loved. I gave up all for pleasure.--She is a hard mistress, not only does she jilt one--chuck one over with a heartless laugh when she has wrung all the good out of one--but she leaves one without the possibility of ever getting another mistress. Ambition will not come to the old rake--Fortune, mind, const.i.tution all gone.--Well, it can't be helped--d.a.m.n it! I can still drink anyhow. Bring me a s.h.i.+lling's worth of brandy, waiter. What for you, dear boy?”
”Nothing for me, old man, and don't you have any more just now.--Look here, Hudson, come along with me--to my diggings--we'll have a drink and a chat there. It will remind us of old times. I can give you a shake-down for the night.”
The barrister smiled with that knowing and suspicious smile that is peculiar to drunkards. ”Not to be caught, doctor,” he cried, ”none of that gammon for me.--I know your game--but I'm not so drunk as all that.
You are right, quite right, old man; I'm going to h.e.l.l--but I'll go there my own way--d.a.m.n it! the sooner the better.”
”Hush, man!” said his friend. ”Those two men at that table are listening to our conversation. We'll clear out of this. We can talk much better in my rooms, or your's if you prefer it as they are nearer.”
Hudson glared at the men in question, rose a little from his chair, so that the doctor feared he was about to engage in a quarrel with them, but then altered his mind, drunk some of his brandy--neat again--sobered down, and continued in more subdued tones:
”No! no! doctor; don't think I am as bad as I appear. I'm a flabby idiot, but I'm never as far gone as I am to-night. But I've been upset to-day, Duncan. I saw a girl to-day--for the first time for three years.
She pa.s.sed me in Oxford Street--a girl that I knew when I was a different man. She was beautiful then as I had never seen woman before, and now she is more so. O G.o.d! I loved her then; I have often thought of her since; and to-day I saw her again.... I felt mad to see her beauty; and I, shabby, bloated drunkard, dared not speak to her, dared not contaminate her by my companions.h.i.+p. She did not recognize me, I pa.s.sed by her, and I have been mad ever since.--Oh, mad! to love and know that it is too late--too late--to think what might have been. Oh, dear old friend, pity me, do pity me a little--no one loves, no one pities me now.”
There were tears in his eyes and his voice trembled--he was becoming maudlin again.
”Pity you! of course I pity you, old friend. I know poor human nature too well to do otherwise. Who am I to judge other's weakness? Good Heavens! I have been lately on the edge of a precipice myself, and I know how easy it is for a mind to lose its balance. Come with me, old man. I too am a miserable wretch even as you are. We will comfort each other. There is comfort in comforting one's fellows. I will help you and you will help me. Come along, Hudson,” and he rose from his seat, anxious to get his friend quietly out of the place.
Hudson looked softened, then he smiled--an inscrutable smile: perhaps it had no meaning. He swallowed his brandy and got up from his chair. He was quite sober now and calm, but with an ominous glitter in his eyes that the doctor understood. He rose and said quietly, ”Good night, Duncan; I can't come with you to-night, but I'll look you up in a day or two.”
He then paid the waiter, carefully counted the change, and walked out of the Albion with the manner of a perfectly sober man.
But the doctor knew that the poor wretch was on the very verge of delirium tremens, and that a paroxysm might occur at any moment, so followed him close.
Once out of the Albion, the madman--before his friend could seize his arm--leaped back a few yards, laughed a discordant laugh in the doctor's face, and ran like a deer down the street.
Dr. Duncan ran after him; but the barrister's veins were full of fire!
his nerves tingled with the poison of alcohol, and he ran as only one in such a state of fearful exaltation of all the faculties can run; not to the right or to the left, but straight on, careless whither he rushed, unconscious of effort--feeling light as the wind, and as if impelled by spirits. The doctor soon lost sight of him, good runner though he was, and returned home with a heart heavier than ever. How dark all life seemed just then to this successful and prosperous man!
Deep was his compa.s.sion for his unfortunate friend--for he knew now that it would not have taken so much to have seen himself on the same downward career to destruction.
His pa.s.sion for Mary had revealed to him how weak his nature too was, how circ.u.mstances may overset the balance even of the strongest mind.
CHAPTER XII.
IN GREAT PERPLEXITY.
Mary had known what wretchedness was during her old life at Brixton; but that was almost happiness to the mental agony she was now experiencing.
For the image of one man was ever in her mind; the sound of his voice rang in her ears; and when the remembrance of his burning kisses came to her, as it often did, her cheek flushed and her heart beat with a flood of new emotions that terrified her.
She could not put him out of her thoughts. She hardly knew whether she loved him; but, with the exception of Mrs. King, he was her only friend, the only human being she liked and venerated; and though to be with him raised only thoughts of pain, yet when she was away from him, there came to her a worse misery, a want, that made her wish for that sweet pain again.