Part 38 (1/2)

But the wives knew all about such places as the George.

It is upon the women that the burden falls, gentle or simple, nearly always the women.

Mrs. Gaunt, the naval officer's wife, knew very well why her husband had never got his s.h.i.+p, and why he ”went into the Coast-guard.” She was accustomed to hear unsteady steps upon the gravel sweep a little after eleven, to see the flushed face of the man she loved, to know that he had spent the evening tippling with his social inferiors, to lie sad and uncomplaining by his side while his snores filled the air and the bedroom was pervaded by the odour of spirits--an Admiral's daughter she, gently nurtured, gently born, well accustomed to these sordid horrors by now.

Mrs. Reeves, the Maltster's wife, was soured in temper and angular of face. She had been a pretty and trusting girl not so long ago as years measure. She ”gave as good as she got,” and the servants of the big bourgeois house with its rankly splendid furniture only turned in their sleep when, towards midnight and once or twice a month, loud recriminations reached them from the downstairs rooms.

The solicitor, a big genial brute with a sense of humour, only frightened to tears the elderly maiden sister who kept his house. He was never unkind, never used bad language, and was merely noisy, but at eight o'clock on the mornings following an audit dinner, a ”Lodge Night,” or the evening of Petty Sessions, a little shrivelled, trembling spinster would creep out of the house before breakfast and kneel in piteous supplication at the Altar rails for the big, blond and jovial brother who was ”dissolving his soul” in wine--the well-remembered phrase from the poem of Longfellow which she had learned at school was always with her and gave a bitter urgency to her prayers.

All the company who met almost nightly at the George were prosperous, well-to-do citizens. The government of the little town was in their hands. They administered the laws for drunkards, fined them or sent them to prison at Norwich. Their prosperity did not suffer. Custom flowed to Mr. Pashwhip and Mr. Moger, who were always ready to take or stand a drink. The malt of Mr. Reeves was bought by the great breweries of England and deteriorated nothing in quality, while more money than the pompous and heavy man could spend rolled into his coffers. The solicitor did his routine conveyancing and so on well enough.

No one did anything out of the ordinary. There were no scandals, ”alarums and excursions.” It was all decent and ordered.

The doctor could have given some astonis.h.i.+ng evidence before a Medical Commission. But he was a wise and quiet general pract.i.tioner who did his work, held his tongue and sent his three boys to Cambridge.

The Rector might have had an illuminating word to say. He was a good but timid man, and saw how impossible it was to make any movement. They were all his own church-wardens, sidesmen, supporters! How could he throw the sleepy, stagnant, comfortable town into a turmoil and disorder in which souls might be definitely lost for ever?

He could only pray earnestly as he said the Ma.s.s each morning during the seasons of the year.

It is so all over England. Deny it who may.

In Whitechapel the Fiend Alcohol is a dishevelled fury shrieking obscenities. In the saloons and theatres of the West End he is a suave Mephistopheles in evening dress. In Wordingham and the other provincial towns and cities of England, he appears as a plump and prosperous person in broadcloth, the little difficulty about his feet being got over by well-made country shoes, and with a hat pressed down over ears that may be a trifle pointed or may not.

But the mothers, the wives, the sisters recognise him anywhere.

The number of martyrs is uncounted. Their names are unknown, their hidden miseries unsung.

Who hears the sobs or sees the tears shed by the secret army of Slaves to the Slaves of Alcohol?

It is they who must drink the cup to the last dregs of horror and of shame. The unbearable weight is upon them, that is to say, upon tenderness and beauty, on feebleness and Love. Women endure the blows, or cruel words more agonising. They are the meek victims of the Fiend's malice when he enters into those they love. It is womanhood that lies helpless upon the rack for ruthless hands to torture.

Cujus animam geminentem!

--She whose soul groaning, condoling and grieving the sword pierced through!

Saviours sometimes, sufferers always.

Into the ”lounge” of the George Hotel came Gilbert Lothian and d.i.c.kson Ingworth.

They were well-dressed men of the upper cla.s.ses. Their clothes proclaimed them--for there will be (unwritten) sumptuary laws for many years in England yet. Their voices and intonation stamped them as members of the upper cla.s.ses. A railway porter, a duke, or the Wordingham solicitor would alike have placed them with absolute certainty.

They were laughing and talking together with bright, animated faces, and in this masked life that we all lead to-day no single person could have guessed at the forces and tragedies at work beneath.

They sat down in a long room with a good carpet upon the floor, dull green walls hung with elaborate pictures advertising whiskeys, in gold frames, and comfortable leather chairs grouped in threes round tables with tops of hammered copper.

Mr. Helzephron did everything in a most up-to-date fas.h.i.+on--as he could well afford. ”The most select lounge in the county” was a minor heading upon the hotel note-paper.

At one end of the room was a semicircular counter, upon which were innumerable regiments of tumblers and wine-gla.s.ses and three or four huge crystal vessels of spirits, tulip-shaped, with gilded inscriptions and s.h.i.+ning plated taps.