Part 12 (1/2)

We were at St. John's then; you were right above me--in a different world altogether. You were a leader amongst the best of them, and I was a hanger-on amongst the worst. You were in with the gentlemen set and the reading set. Neither of them would have anything to do with me--and they were quite right. I was what they thought me--a cad. I'd no head for work, and no taste for anything worth doing, and I wasn't a gentleman, and hadn't sense to behave like one. I'd no right to have been at the University at all, but my poor old dad would have me go.

He had an idea that he could make a gentleman of me. It was a mistake!”

Matravers moved slightly in his chair,--he was suffering tortures.

”Is it worth while recalling all these things?” he asked quietly.

”Life cannot be a success for all of us; yet it is the future, and not the past.”

”I have no future,” the man interrupted doggedly; ”no future here, or in any other place. I have got my deserts. I wanted to remind you of that night when you came to see me in my rooms, after I'd been sent down for being drunk. I suppose you were the first gentleman who had ever crossed my threshold, and I remember wondering what on earth you'd come for! You didn't lecture me, and you didn't preach. You came and sat down and smoked one of my cigars, and talked just as though we were friends, and tried to make me see what a fool I was. It didn't do much good in the end--but I never forgot it. You shook hands with me when you left, and for once in my life I was ashamed of myself.”

”I am sorry,” Matravers said with an effort, ”that I did not go to see you oftener.”

Drage shook his head.

”It was too late then! I was done for,--done for as far as Oxford was concerned. But that was only the beginning. I might easily have picked up if I'd had the pluck! The dad forgave me, and made me a partner in the business before he died. I was a rich man, and I might have been a millionaire; instead of that I was a d.a.m.ned fool! I can't help swearing! you mustn't mind, sir! Remember what I am! I don't swear when Freddy's in the room, if I can help it. I went the pace, drank, kept women, and all the rest of it. My wife found me out and went away. I ain't saying a word against her. She was a good woman, and I was a bad man, and she left me! She was right enough! I wasn't fit for a decent woman to live with. All the same, I missed her; and it was another kick down h.e.l.lward for me when she went. I got desperate then; I took to drink worse than ever, and I began to let my business go and speculate. You wouldn't know anything of the city, sir; but I can tell you this, when a cool chap with all his wits about him starts speculating outside his business, it's touch and go with him; when a chap in the state I was in goes for it, you can spell the result in four letters! It's RUIN, ruin! That's what it meant for me. I lost two hundred thousand pounds in three years, and my business went to pot too. Then I had this cursed stroke, and here I am! I may stick on for years, but I shall never be able to earn a penny again. Where Freddy's schooling is to come from, or how we are to live, I don't know!”

”I am very sorry,” Matravers said gently. ”Have you no friends then, or relations who will help you?”

”Not a d.a.m.ned one,” growled the man on the couch. ”I had plenty of pals once, only too glad to count themselves John Drage's friends; but where they are now I don't know. They seem to have melted away.

There's never a one comes near me. I could do without their money or their help, somehow, but it's d.a.m.ned hard to lie here for ever and have not one of 'em drop in just now and then for a bit of a talk and a cheering word. That's what gives me the blues! I always was fond of company; I hated being alone, and it's like h.e.l.l to lie here day after day and see no one but a cross landlady and a miserable servant girl.

Lately, I can't bear to be alone with Freddy. He's so d.a.m.ned like his mother, you know. It brings a lump in my throat. I wouldn't mind so much if it were only myself. I've had my cake! But it's rough on the boy!”

”It is rough on the boy, and it is rough on you,” Matravers said kindly. ”I wonder you have never thought of sending him to his mother!

She would surely like to have him!”

The man's face grew black.

”Not till I'm dead,” he said doggedly. ”I don't want him set against me! He's all I've got! I'm going to keep him for a bit. It ought not to be so difficult for us to live. If only I could get down to the city for a few hours!”

”Could not a friend there do some good for you?” Matravers asked.

”Of course he could,” Mr. Drage answered eagerly; ”but I haven't got a friend. See here!”

He took a little account book from under his pillow, and with trembling fingers thrust it before his visitor.

”You see all these amounts. They are all owing to me from those people--money lent, and one thing and another. There is an envelope with bills and I O U's. They belong to me, you understand,” he said, with a sudden touch of dignity. ”I never failed! My business was stopped when I was taken ill, but there was enough to pay everybody.

Now some of these amounts have never been collected. If I could see these people myself, they would pay, or if I could get a friend whom I could trust! But there isn't a man comes near me!”

”I--am not a business man,” Matravers said slowly; ”but if you cared to explain things to me, I would go into the city and see what I could do.”

The man raised himself on his elbow and gazed at his visitor open-mouthed.

”You mean this!” he cried thickly. ”Say it again,--quick! You mean it!”

”Certainly,” Matravers answered. ”I will do what I can.”

John Drage did not doubt his good fortune for a moment. No one ever looked into Matravers' face and failed to believe him.