Mary was clinging to a chair.
“Oh, Liz,” she whispered faintly, but Elizabeth turned and went out of the room without a single word.
CHAPTER X. EDWARD IS PUT OUT
That which the frost can freeze,
That which is burned of the fire,
Cast it down, it is nothing worth
In the ways of the Heart's Desire.
Foot or hand that offends,
Eye that shrinks from the goal,
Cast them forth, they are nothing worth,
And fare with the naked soul.
MARY did not tell Edward about the scene with David Blake.
“You know, Liz, he behaved shamefully, but I don't want there to be a quarrel with Edward, and it would be sure to make a quarrel. And then people would talk, and there 's no knowing what they would say. I think it would be perfectly dreadful to be talked about. I 'm sure I can't think how Katie Ellerton can stand it. Really, every one is talking about her.”
In her heart of hearts Mary was a little flattered at David's last outburst. She would not for the world have admitted that this was the case, but it certainly contributed to her resolution not to tell Edward.
“I suppose some people would never forgive him,” she said to Elizabeth, “but I don't think that 's right, do you? I don't think it 's at all Christian. I don't think one ought to be hard. He might do something desperate. I saw him go into Katie Ellerton's only this morning. I think I 'll write him a little note, not referring to anything of course, and ask him if he won't come in to supper on Sundays. Then he 'll see that I mean to forgive him, and there won't be any more fuss.”
Sunday appeared to be quite a suitable day upon which to resume the role of guardian angel. Mary felt a pleasant glow of virtue as she wrote her little note and sent it off to David.
David Blake did not accept either the invitation or the olive branch. His anger against Mary was still stronger than his craving for her presence. He wrote a polite excuse and sat all that evening with his eyes fixed upon a book, which he made no pretence of reading. He had more devils than one to contend with just now. David had a strong will, and he was putting the whole strength of it into fighting the other craving, the craving for drink. In his sudden heat of passion he had taken an oath that he meant to keep. He had been drunk, and Mary had laughed at him. Neither Mary nor any one else should have that cause for mocking laughter again, and he sat nightly with a decanter at his elbow.
“And,” as Mrs. Havergill remarked, “never touching a mortal drop,” because if he was to down the devil at all he meant to down him in a set battle, and not to spend his days in ignominious flight.
Mrs. Havergill prognosticated woe to Sarah, with a mournful zest.
“Them sudden changes is n't 'olesome, and I don't hold with them, Sarah, my girl. One young man I knew, Maudsley 'is name was, he got the 'orrors, and died a-raving. And all through being cut off his drink too sudden. He broke 'is leg, and 'is mother, she said, 'Now I 'll break 'im of the drink.' A very strict Methody woman, were Jane Ann Maudsley. 'Now I 'll break 'im' sayd she; and there she sits and watches 'im, and the pore feller 'ollering for whisky, just fair 'ollering. 'Gemme a drop, Mother,' says he. 'Not I,' says she. 'It's 'ell fire, William,' says she. 'I'm all on fire now, Mother,' says he. 'Better burn now than in 'ell, William,' says Jane Ann; and then the 'orrors took him, and he died. A fine, proper young man as ever stepped, and very sweet on me before I took up with Havergill,” concluded Mrs. Havergill meditatively, whilst Sarah shivered, and wished, as she afterwards confessed to a friend, “that Mrs. Havergill would be more cheerful like-just once in a way, for a change, as it were.”
“For she do fair give a girl the 'ump sometimes,” concluded Sarah, after what was for her quite a long speech.
Mrs. Havergill was a very buxom and comely person of unimpeachable respectability, but her fund of doleful reminiscence had depressed more than Sarah. David had been known to complain of it between jest and earnest. On one such occasion, at a tea-party to which Mary Chantrey had inveigled him, Miss Dobell ventured a mild protest.
“But she is such a treasure. Oh, yes. Your dear mother always found her so.”
David winced a little. His mother had not been dead very long then. He regarded Miss Dobell with gravity.
“I have always wondered,” he said, “whether it was an early apprenticeship to a ghoul which has imparted such a mortuary turn to Mrs. Havergill's conversation, or whether it is due to the fact of her having a few drops of Harvey 's Sauce in her veins.”
“ Harvey 's Sauce?” inquired the bewildered Miss Dobell.
David explained in his best professional manner.
“I said Harvey 's Sauce because it is an old and cherished belief of mind that the same talented gentleman invented the sauce and composed the well-known 'Meditations among the Tombs.' The only point upon which I feel some uncertainty is this: Did he compose the Meditations because the sauce had disagreed with him, or did he invent the sauce as a sort of cheerful antidote to the Meditations? Now which do you suppose, Miss Dobell?”
Miss Dobell became very much fluttered.
“Oh, I 'm afraid-” she began. “I really had no idea that Harvey 's Sauce was an unwholesome condiment. Yes, indeed, I fear that I cannot be of any great assistance, or in fact of any assistance at all. No, oh, no. I fear, Dr. Blake, that you must ask some one else who is better informed than myself. Oh, yes.”
Afterwards she confided to Mary Chantrey that she had never heard of the work in question. “Have you, my dear?”
“No, never,” said Mary, who was not greatly attracted by the title. Girls of two-and-twenty with a disposition to meditate among the tombs are mercifully rare.
“But,” pursued little Miss Dobell with a virtuous lift of the chin, “the title has a religious sound-yes, quite a religious sound. I hope, oh, yes, indeed, I hope that Dr. Blake has no dreadful skeptical opinions. They are so very shocking,” and Mary said, “Yes, they are, and I hope not, too.” Even in those days she was a little inclined to play at being David's guardian angel.
Those days were two years old now. Sometimes it seemed to David that they belonged to another life.
Meanwhile he had his devil to fight. In the days that followed he fought the devil, and beat him, but without either pride or pleasure in the victory, for, deprived of stimulant, he fell again into the black pit of depression. Insomnia stood by his pillow and made the nights longer and more dreadful than the longest, gloomiest day.
Mary met him in the High Street one day, and was really shocked at his looks. She reproached. herself for neglecting him, smiled upon him sweetly, and said:
“Oh, David, do come and see us. Edward will be so pleased. He got a parcel of butterflies from Java last week, and he would so much like you to see them. He was saying so only this morning.”
David made a suitable response. His anger was gone. Mary was Mary. If she were unkind, she was still Mary. If she were trivial, foolish, cruel, what did it matter? Her voice made his blood leap, her eyes were like wine, her hand played on his pulses, and he asked nothing more than to feel that soft touch, and answer to it, with every high-strung nerve. He despised her a little, and himself a good deal, and when a man's passion for a woman is mingled with contempt, it goes but ill with his soul.
That evening saw him again in his old place. He came and went as of old, and, as of old, his fever burned, and burning, fretted away both health and self-respect. He slept less and less, and if sleep came at all, it was so thin, so haunted by ill dreams, that waking was a positive relief. At least when he waked he was still sane, but in those dreams there lurked an impending horror that might at any moment burst the gloom, and stare him mad. It was madness that he feared in the days which linked that endless processing of long, unendurable nights. It was about this time that he began to be haunted by a strange vision, which, like the impending terror, lay just beyond the bounds of consciousness. As on the one side madness lurked, so on the other there were hints, stray gleams, as it were, from some place of peace. And the strange thing about it was, that at these moments a conviction would seize him that this place was his by right. His the deep waters of comfort, and his the wide, unbroken fields of peace, his-but lost.