Mad: A Story of Dust and Ashes

“Unstable as water,” muttered the curate to himself, though, days after, when meeting with Lucy alone in the front-room of their place in Bennett’s-rents, the barrier was again broken down – the barrier that time had forced him to renew – while the words he could not but utter came pouring forth, to bring no response.

Septimus was away with his boy, and Mrs Hardon slept in the back-room; and the words of Arthur Sterne were low and deep as the passion that prompted them. But there was no response – no loving look in reply – naught but the pale cheek and quivering eyelid, tears and looks of half-anger; for still clung to Lucy the recollection of his scorn and contempt, his misinterpretation of her motives; and the hands he clasped were cold and drawn away.

Then anger took the place of love – a foolish, mad anger, which robbed him of his self-control, and made him utter words beneath whose passion the poor girl bent as bends flower before the storm. He uttered words then that an hour after he would have given anything to recall; telling her angrily of ma mère and her slighting hints, of Jarker’s familiarity, and lastly of the meeting he had witnessed in the Lane; unheeding the hands held up so deprecatingly, the appealing looks, and the tear-wet, pallid cheeks; for, as he told himself again and again that night, he was mad – mad in his passionate love for one unworthy – mad in his words; and he writhed as he recalled the way in which he felt that he had lowered himself.

“I insist – I hold it as a right!” he had exclaimed; “tell me, Lucy, who was that woman? Do you know her character?” And he clutched her wrist angrily as he spoke.

He said no more then, for Lucy’s face was aflame, and she started hastily to her feet, facing him almost as it were at bay, and vainly trying to free her hand from his grasp.

“Do your parents know of your meetings?” he exclaimed.

“No, no, no!” she cried excitedly, as she glanced towards the back-room door.

“Then I must – nay,” he added with almost a cowardly look of triumph, for the weakness of the man was triumphant that afternoon, and he yielded to all that he had hitherto triumphed over – “I will tell them,” he said, “for your good.”

“For pity’s sake,” whispered Lucy, “Mr Sterne. Ah, pray, sir, stop – pray stay! Do not think ill of me – ”

But there Lucy ceased, for she was alone; and once more scornfully, with the cold bitter look, Mr Sterne had dashed her hand from him in contempt and turned from the room, into which Mrs Hardon now came to find Lucy weeping as though her heart would break.

Volume Three – Chapter Two.

Snuff

Old Matt did not wake again for many hours, but, as the days slipped by, he partook with avidity of all that was allowed him, and grumbled for more. His friend the house-surgeon, whom he could look at now without imagining that he took notes inimical to his friend Septimus Hardon’s interest, reported favourably of his condition; while Septimus himself came again and again, each time more eager to get at that which was hidden by the confusion in old Matt’s brain.

“If he had only been so jolly anxious about the Somesham affair, first start off, what a difference it would have made!” grumbled Matt.

But it seemed useless to try and draw the old man’s attention to things he had talked of in the days shortly before his entry of the hospital, for here all seemed blank.

“Well, yes, sir,” Matt would say, “I have some faint recollection of saying something about medicine and attendance; but do you know, sir, I begin to think that one’s memory is in one’s blood? and they took so much out of me that last time, that I can’t remember anything at all. ‘Medicine and attendance,’ did I say? Why, it must have been the medicine and attendance here, and those old cats of nurses. My thinking apparatus is terribly out of order, sir; and when I try to look back at anything, it’s like peeping at it through a dirty window. P’r’aps it won’t come bright and clean again, eh?”

“Don’t try to think,” said Septimus with a sigh. “You will recollect some day; so let it rest.”

“Well, sir, that’s just what I should like to do; but since you’ve asked me, I can’t; for things won’t go just as I like, and I feel all in a muddle. Let’s see, now: you said something about this at your last visit, didn’t you, sir? when I asked you about that talking woman and the office for servants; for I do recollect that, you know.”

“Yes,” replied Septimus, “at every visit.”

“Just so,” said Matt; “I thought you did; but I can’t tell a bit about it now. Sometimes it seems that I heard it; sometimes that I read it, or saw it against a wall, or dancing before my eyes; but let’s see,” he said vacantly, as he held his hand to his head, “what was it we wanted to find?”

“The doctor’s books, or the doctor,” said Septimus.

“To be sure,” said the old man; “I haven’t got it right yet; and really you know, sir, this isn’t a first-class place to get right in, and they won’t part with me yet, though I do long now to be well, and at liberty for a peep at the old law-courts and Lincoln’s-inn once more. I mean to have a holiday, and spend it among all the posts in the old square as soon as I’m out; I’m getting so light-hearted and jolly, sir. Why, it will be quite a treat to be somewhere amongst a bit or two of dirt once more; we’re so clean here.”

“Only a little longer, Matt,” said Septimus smiling.

“You see,” said Matt, “there’s so much to upset one about. What with the screen round this bed, and the screen round that bed, and the groans and sighs, ah, and even shouts sometimes, there’s plenty to make a poor fellow feel low-spirited. Now there’s a chap over there in that bed seems to have taken it into his head that he suffers more than anyone who ever came into the place, and howls and goes on terribly; while the bigger and stronger people are, sir, the more weak they seem to me to be in bearing pain. I believe, after all, you know, sir, that the little weak women beat us hollow.”

“Ah!” said the patient spoken of, surmising from Matt’s gestures that he was being referred to – “ah! Mr Space, you are talking about me, sir, and my groans, and it’s very hard and unfeeling, sir. You may suffer yourself some day.”

The visitor felt uncomfortable; but old Matt took it up directly.

“That’s cool, anyhow,” he gasped; “why, what do you mean? haven’t I suffered as much as any of you, and been through two operations, and lived ’em out too? Why, what more would you have? It would have killed a big fellow like you, I know.”

The patient replied with a groan, and began muttering about the unfeeling behaviour of those about him, from whom, he said, he had expected a little sympathy.

This roused the ire of a neighbour who had lost a leg through being run over by a coal-wagon, and he now took up the matter, followed by several others; so that a wordy warfare seemed imminent.

“That’s it, go on,” growled Matt in an undertone. “They’re all getting better, sir; and, consequently, they’re as cross as two sticks. What a thing it is! There seems to be no gratitude amongst them; and really, sir, if it wasn’t for the nurses, it wouldn’t be such a bad place to come to – that is, for a man with strong nerves, you know. Now just look at ’em, how they are going it!”

The murmurings and dissensions of the other patients seemed to have quite a good effect upon old Matt, who forgot his own pains in the troubles of those around him.

“You don’t know how much longer you will be here?” said Septimus.

“Not for certain, sir; but I think only for a few more days. But it’s wonderful what a difference they have made in me. I mean to go in for a fortune, sir, as soon as I’m out; and then I shall make my will, and leave half to the hospital. Now I’ve got the worst of it all over, I amuse myself with taking a bit of notice of what goes on around me, and listening to what’s said; and it’s wonderful what an amount of misery comes into this place – wonderful. I’ve known of more trouble since I’ve been in here, sir, than I should have thought there had been in the whole of London; and that’s saying no little, sir. Lots die, you know; but then see how many they send out cured. I don’t see all, but one hears so much from the talking of the nurses. I expected when I came here that there would be plenty of accidents, broken bones – legs, arms, and ribs, and so on; but there, bless you, the place is full of it; and they’re getting to such a wonderful pitch now, with their doctoring and surgery, that they’ll be making a new man next, out of the odd bits they always have on hand here.”

“I suppose so,” said Septimus drily.

“Ah, you may laugh, sir,” said Matt; “but it’s wonderful to what a pitch surgery has got. Now, for instance, just fancy – ”

“There,” cried Septimus, “pray stop, or I must leave you. I fancy quite enough involuntarily, without wishing to hear fresh horrors. It’s bad enough having to come into the place.”

“Lor’ bless you, sir,” said Matt, “you should listen to the nurses, when one of ’em happens to be in a good humour. Do you know when that is, sir?”

“When pleased, I suppose,” said Septimus.

“Just so, sir; the very time. And when do you suppose that last is?”

Septimus shook his head.

“You don’t know, of course, sir. Why, when the patients are getting better.”

“I might have supposed that,” said Septimus wearily.

The old man chuckled, and looked brighter than he had looked for weeks. “Yes,” he said, “it’s when the patients are getting better, and there’s plenty of port-wine and gin on the way. That’s the time to find the nurse in a good humour; and she’ll tell you anything, or do anything for you.”

Septimus Hardon looked weary and anxious, and fidgeted in his chair, as if he longed to change the conversation, but the garrulous old man kept on.

“Tell you what, sir, these nurses seem to get their hearts hardened and crusted over; and then when you give them a little alcohol, as the teetotallers call it, the crust gets softened a bit, and things go better. I used to growl and go on terribly at first; but it’s no use to swim against the stream. I used to grumble when I found that they drunk half my wine and watered my gin; but I’m used to that sort of thing now: for which is best – to drink all one’s liquor, or keep friends with the nurse? Last’s best; and they say I’m a dear patient old creature. I look it too, don’t I?” said the old man with a grim smile.

“But,” said Septimus, “I must soon go; and I should like a word or two about my affairs first.”

“All right, sir; we’ll come to that directly. I’m an invalid, and you must humour me. But this is the way of it. My nurse comes to me, like an old foxey vixen as she is, and – ‘Now, my dear, how are we?’ she says. ‘Only middling, nurse,’ I say. ‘I’ve brought you a glass of wine to cheer you up,’ she says. ‘Don’t care about it a bit,’ I say; ‘don’t feel wine-hungry.’ ‘O,’ she says, ‘but the doctor ordered it. Now, take it, like a good soul. You must want it.’ ‘Not half so bad as some people do,’ I say. ‘Toss it off, nurse; and just punch my pillow up a bit, it’s got hard and hot.’ ‘Bless my heart, no,’ she says, ‘I couldn’t think of such a thing!’ so she sets the wine down, and puts my head a bit comfortable. ‘The wine’s for you; so, now, take it directly; I couldn’t touch it – I don’t care for wine.’

“‘Of course you don’t,’ I say to myself; and then I begin to talk to her a bit, and to tell her that she must have a sad wearing life of it, when the old tabby sets up her back and purrs, and likes it all – looking the while as tigerish, and sleek, and clawey, as the old cats can look. Then I tell her she wants more support, and so on, when all at once she finds out that there’s some one else to attend upon, and I must drink my wine directly; so I take the glass and perhaps drink it; but more often I only just put it to my lips and set it back upon the tray, when she’s satisfied. Of course, you know, it would be instant dismissal for a nurse to drink a patient’s wine or spirits if it was known; but any thing left is different altogether. You know, sir, it’s a dreadfully beggarly way of going to work, only as the saying goes, you must fight some one we know of with his own weapons: and now we are the very best of friends possible. You’d be surprised how we get along, and all through going without a glass now and then. The best of it is, though, that she never thinks of watering it now, like she would for another patient; so that what I miss in quantity I get in strength, and, you know, she’ll do anything for me in a minute – that is, if she feels disposed.”

“But,” said Septimus, “it seems strange that you should be so left at the mercy of these women.”

“What can you do?” said the old man. – “There, I ’ve just done, sir, and we’ll go into that directly. – Who can you get to go through what these women do, unless it’s these Sisters of Mercy, who many say are to become general? Suppose there was a strike, eh? Look how few people you can get to come and run the risk of fevers and all sorts of diseases. Sisters of Mercy, eh? God bless them for it then, if they will; but I hope I may never want their help, all the same. But there, we won’t talk about it, only you want iron women a’most to go through it all, and it’s not a life to be envied. Why, if it ain’t almost leaving-time, sir, and you’ve kept me chatting about my affairs here, and yours are nowhere. How are you getting on?”

“Badly, Matt, badly. But I’ve very little to say, Matt, for I was unable to get on without you,” replied Septimus, smiling at the old man’s coolness.

“’Spose so,” said Matt laconically; “let’s see, sir, I think you never went any more to Finsbury?”

“Where was the use,” said Septimus drearily; “who can tell where a day-book fifty years old can be?”

“True,” said the old man thoughtfully; “butter-shop, most likely; and it wouldn’t pay to go all over London buying half-pounds of ‘best Dorset,’ on the chance of getting the right sheet. I can’t see it yet, sir; and still I seem to fancy we shall do it, though everything about it seems to be all in a muddle.”

Septimus Hardon seemed to be of the same opinion, for he sighed, took his hat, and went homeward in a frame of mind that made him feel disposed to bury the past and its cares, and look only to the future; while old Matt picked up a newspaper, and began mechanically folding it into small squares – butter-shop size.

“No,” he muttered, “not much chance of finding that particular scrap of paper, if we don’t get hold of the book through the old doctor’s heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns. And that’s where we ought to begin; putting ads in the Times, and setting private inquirers to work, and all on to that tune; only, to play that tune, sir, you want money. Some careless hussy has burnt that scrap of paper, sir, long ago, to light a fire; or it has been used for twisting-up screws of tobacco, or ha’porths of toffee, or hundreds of other things as some beggarly shop or another is licensed to deal in. Only fancy someone lighting his pipe with that valuable little scrap of paper! ‘Medicine and attendance, Mrs Hardon, two, twelve, six!’ I’ll be bound to say that was the figure, and I’d give something to get hold of that bit. Wonder whether it’s selfishness, and thinking of what it would be worth to me? S’pose be; for this is a rum world, and I’m no better than I should be. But who’d ever have thought this would have come out of my going to his office and asking for a job? Don’t matter, though, about what I feel, for he’d have come to see me here safe enough, even if it had not been about his affairs; for he’s a trump, sir, a trump: but all the same, it’s a pity he ain’t got more in him – worldly stuff, you know.”

Old Matt sat very thoughtfully for awhile, and then began to mutter again.

“Wish I had a pinch of snuff once more. There now; I’m blest. Only to think of that! me having my box in my pocket, and to forget all about it – shows what my head’s worth now. Bravo! though; that seems to clear one’s head wonderfully. I shall recommend its use in lunatic asylums for mental diseases; fine thing, I believe. Only to think, though, for me to get that into my head about that entry I had seen, and trying to write it down, and then for it to be clean gone once more! S’pose I did think of something of the kind, or see it, or something. Heigho!” he sighed; “I must have been precious bad though, sir, confoundedly bad. Thank goodness it’s all over, though, for this time; and I’m going to walk out soon, instead of, as I expected, being taken to the students’ lodgings in small pieces, wrapped up in paper – paper – waste-paper – by jingo! though, I’ll have a go at the waste-paper everywhere. I’ll search every waste-paper shop in London, beginning at Mother Slagg’s – beg her pardon, Gross by this time I suppose, and – and – hooray!” he shouted wildly, to the intense astonishment of the fellow-patients, as he tossed his newspaper in the air. “Snuff for ever! that pinch did it. Only let me get out of this place. At last!”

Volume Three – Chapter Three.

Mr Jarker’s Traits

Men of business cannot afford to continue their grief for any length of time, hence at a very short date after the death of his wife, Mr William Jarker, bird-fancier, bird-catcher, and pigeon-trapper, to be heard of at any time at the Blue Posts, Hemlock-court, by such gents as wanted a few dozen of blue-rocks or sparrows for the next trap-match at Wormwood Scrubbs, stood before a piece of looking-glass nailed to the wall of his room with three tin-tacks, a ragged, three-cornered, wavy-looking scrap, from which, if a little more of the quicksilver had been rubbed off, it would never again have been guilty of distorting the human face divine. Upon this occasion it played strange pranks with the expressive countenance of Mr Jarker, as he stood, with oily fingers, giving the required gloss and under-turn to his side-locks, which were of the true “Newgate-knocker” pattern, their length denoting how long a time Mr Jarker had been running fancy free without troubling her Majesty’s officials for his daily rations and lodging, in return for which he would scrub, polish, and clean to order. Mr Jarker seemed to take extra pains over his toilet, arranging his neck-tie and the silver-mounted lens, buttoning-up his red-plush waistcoat with the fustian back and sleeves, cleaning his finger-nails with the broken-out tooth of a comb, before he stood in front of the glass and smirked at himself.

Now this was a mistake on Mr Jarker’s part, for his was a style of countenance that would not bear a smirking; there was too much stiffness of contour in the various features, a blunt angularity which resisted the softening sweetness of a smirky smile, and the consequence was, that if he had smirked at a stranger, the said stranger would have flinched, from a very strong impression that Mr Jarker was rabid and about to bite. However, mistaken or not, Mr Jarker smirked several times, and after various patterns, before he frowned, which gave a much more respectable cast to his countenance, the scowl being most thoroughly in harmony. Mr Jarker frowned, for one of the side-locks would not keep in position and retain the required bend when he had crowned himself with his slouchy fur-cap; so the erring hair had to be again oiled, combed, and wetted with a solution of brown sugar, which the operator moistened in a natural way in the palms of his hands, then the lock was smoothed and tucked under, and proved a fixture; and now the cap was again placed in position, and displayed a thin wisp of crape fastened round it by means of a piece of string; for being a soldier engaged in the battle of life, Mr Jarker did not doff his uniform, but confined himself to the above slight manifestation of the fact that he was a widower.

Apparently satisfied with his aspect, which was a little more villainous than usual, Mr Jarker turned his attention to the child, who crouched in a corner of the room with a piece of bread in her hand, watching him with her large blue eyes, very round and staring, but evidently pressing her little self as far away from the fellow as possible.

“Ah! and so she comes and plays with the kid when I’m out, does she?” said Mr Jarker, in a ruminating tone. “Ah! we knows what that means, my chicking, don’t we?”

The little thing pressed herself closer to the wall, and Mr Jarker stood very thoughtfully at the window for a few minutes, gazing down at where Lucy’s sewing-machine beat rapidly; but Mr Jarker was not aware that in his turn Jean Marais was watching him fiercely, his dark eyes seeming to flash beneath his overhanging penthouse brows, as he eagerly scanned every motion of the ruffian, looking the while as if prepared to spring across the court at his throat.

“Ah! we knows what that means, don’t we, my chicking?” repeated Mr Jarker, turning once more from the window. “Come here to yer daddy, d’yer hear!”

But though hearing plainly enough, the little thing only shrank back closer into her corner; when, with an oath, the fellow took two steps forward and seized the little thing by its pinky shelly ear, and dragged it, whimpering and trembling, into the middle of the attic, where he made “an offer” at it as if to strike, but the frailty and helplessness of the little one disarmed even him, and as his eyes wandered to the window to see that no opposite neighbour could watch them where they stood, his arm fell to his side as he sat down.

“Now, then!” cried Mr Jarker, “no pipin’; don’t you try none of them games with me, my young warmin’. ’Cos why, it’s ware hawks to yer if yer does. Now hook it back to that there corner.”

The child’s eyes were turned timidly and wonderingly up to his, as it shrank back once more to the corner of the attic.

“Now, then!” cried Jarker sharply, “come here again.”

Like an obedient dog in the course of training, the little thing crept back to his side, and then the tiny face grew more wondering and timid, the eyes more round, and it was very evident that the little brain, soft, plastic, and ready to receive any impression, was working hard to understand the meaning of the ruffian’s words. Bright and beautiful as the faces shown to us on canvas as those of angels, the little countenance, shining the brighter for the squalor around, was turned up more and more towards Jarker, gazing so fixedly and earnestly at him that he grew uneasy, fidgeted and shuffled his feet, and then his eyes sank, guilt cowering before innocence; for, quite disconcerted by the long, steady gaze, the ruffian rose and turned away, growling and muttering, “She’s gallus deep for such a little un.” He then took a short peep at his pigeons, walked back to the window, and stared long and heavily at the white hands he could see busy at the sewing-machine, and then turned once more to the wondering atom, trying to soften himself as he stooped down, but the child only flinched as from a coming blow when he patted the soft, bright curls.

“Here, come here,” he said gently, and he drew the child between his knees as he sat down.

“Now mind this here: nex’ time she comes and plays with you, my chickin’, perhaps she’ll say, ‘Would you like me to be your new mammy?’ she’ll say; and then, ‘Yes,’ says you; d’yer hear? ‘yes,’ says you. Now say it.”

But the little one only continued her wondering gaze till the fellow left her, and slouched out of the room, after raking the last cinder from the fire, in performing which he knocked the bottom of the grate from its frail hold, and then, in his endeavours to replace it, burned his fingers, and ejaculated so loudly that the eyes of the child were turned upon him more wonderingly than ever.

And then – was it that sympathy for the child moved the inmate of the opposite attic, or that he had a natural hatred for Jarker? Jean turned angrily from the window to a cage of half-a-dozen linnets the fellow had brought him an hour or two before, and to his mother’s rage and astonishment, seemed about to wreak his fury upon the birds. He seized one in his hand, and was about to wring its neck, but ma mère leaped forward to stay him, when his fierce gesture sent her back to her seat to watch him. But he did not kill the birds, but carried the cage to the window, and then let them go, one by one, till the last bird hesitated at the wire door for a few moments, and then fled, with a wild chirp of joy, far away into the smoky air.

“Jean, Jean! but you are bête – fou!” exclaimed his mother, trembling with fear and rage at this folly, as she thought of the money he had given for the birds.