Chapter Twenty Five.
His Last Friend.
Midwinter in the metropolis!
If you are blessed with a sufficient income, a snug club, a cheerful abode and a good digestion, there is nothing very terrible in the above. But, if your shillings are scanty in number, and each one disbursed with infinite reluctance, if you have been so long in a far country as to be unknown to, or forgotten by, every living soul, if you are condemned to pig it in a miserable slum, because needs must when the devil drives—then, O friend and reader—Heaven help you!
Midwinter in the metropolis!
Streets knee-deep in black, slushy, half-melted snow; a pelting, ceaseless rain falling from the opaque, lowering vapour above, which makes one doubt the existence of Heaven’s blue firmament otherwise than in dreams; foot passengers with streaming umbrellas and muffled in vast wraps, jostling each other angrily, as, red-nosed and watery-eyed, they hurry through the rain and mire; then, as the short afternoon fades into night, the yellow light of gas lamps and the glare of shop windows reflects itself slimily on the sloppy pavements, and the breath of the cab and omnibus horses mingles in a steamy cloud with the prevailing dank and fog-laden atmosphere.
On just such a day as this Roland Dorrien sits moodily in his dreary, comfortless room, looking out into the darkling vista of rain and fog. A tiny handful of fire flickers in the grate, hardly enough to make itself felt twelve inches off, and though he is wrapped in a warm, thick overcoat he shivers from time to time. He is looking very altered from when we saw him last, three or four months ago, very pale, and haggard, and hollow-eyed, and a frown is seldom altogether away from his brow; but his clothes are not shabby, nor does his countenance wear the neglected and unkempt aspect of a man who had come down so irretrievably in the world as to be careless of appearances. His dark curling hair is as neat, but his face is no longer clean-shaven, for he has allowed a thickly-growing beard to hide it, in addition to the heavy, drooping moustache. From a vestiary point of view he would seem as prosperous as in the days when he was known to, and envied by, Wandsborough and its neighbourhood as the future Squire of Cranston. But as a set-off against this, he seldom indulges in more than one full meal a day, sometimes not that. Prevention is better than cure, he thinks, and if the pangs of hunger assail him, why, a crust of bread will stave it off for the time being. As a consequence, his system is rapidly falling to zero, and now he lives in a kind of lethargy which is half a waking slumber. He goes out and comes in, taking not the slightest notice of what transpires around him, and of society or acquaintances he has none. In the intervals between his brooding fits, his pen affords him a solace, and at times he will sit down and by the hour confide his reflections to sympathising paper, strange, weird fancies and reasonings, so startling and bizarre in their wildness, that, but for the strong, logical sequence running through them, they might be taken for the ravings of delirium.
As with food, so with other bodily comforts. Firing costs money, of which he has but the scantiest store, wherefore he sits and shivers. Tobacco he has hardly touched since his ruin, for the same reason, and as for anything alcoholic he has almost forgotten what it was like. There is method in his madness, and against this temptation he has set a resolute face. It may be that he will soon find an unknown and nameless grave, probably he will—indeed, this is a contingency he has quite brought himself to contemplate with equanimity, but never will he sink to the level of a raving, drink-sodden beast. Yet another danger, more imminent still, he somehow overlooks. A little more of this morbid, brooding life in its frightful loneliness, and the man will go mad.
But if he himself overlooks the possibility, others do not. He has changed his lodgings no less than three times in as many months, in reality, obliged to do so by the fears of his respective landladies, who didn’t like to “’ave a gentleman in the ’ouse as was that queer—no, not if you was to give them the whole Bank of England. Why, they might be murdered any night in their beds.” So one after another politely hinted that they would rather have his room than his occupation, and to each and all poor Roy afforded a ready pretext.
And it is chiefly, in fact wholly, with Roy that his thoughts are concerned, as we once more look in upon him this dark, desolate afternoon. For it has come to this, that any moment, now, he may be called upon to part with this faithful friend, who has been with him in his prosperity, as through no inconsiderable portion of his adversity. Roy is sold.
Yes, sold, and his purchaser is the man who it will be remembered had shown great anxiety to possess him on the occasion of meeting with his master in Kensington Gardens.
And how comes it that his master has brought himself to part with him? The answer is simple. Necessity has no law. Hardly able to keep himself, how shall he be able to keep Roy. The ruined exile foresees the time when he must yield up the struggle which is not worth maintaining: what then is to become of this attached and more than human companion in adversity? And as, in imagination, he sees him the property of some brute or cad, beaten and starved, and spending his days chained to a miserable kennel, he makes up his mind to accept Mr Marsland’s offer. At any rate, Roy will be well-treated by his new master, possibly so well that he may in time come to forget his old one. Never mind, he must go; but it is with a very heavy heart that Roland scribbles off a few lines to the address the other man had given him. He purposely put the price low, he said, as that was only a secondary consideration, the dog’s future comfort and well-being was the chief thing. If the other was disposed to agree, the sooner he sent for Roy the better.
A reply soon came. Mr Marsland was out of town, or would have called himself; as it was he would send for Roy at a stipulated time. He was sorry so little had been asked, as he himself would have been glad to obtain the dog at a far larger figure. In reality, of course, he understood the state of affairs, but being a good-hearted fellow and a gentleman he divined that the other would rather be left alone, and forebore to press the point.
And so we find the exile sitting here to-day, momentarily expecting the ring at the bell which shall summon him to deliver up his faithful companion. The afternoon wears on. It will soon be dark, and now he hopes that something may occur to delay the sad hour, at any rate until the next morning. Poor Roy sits unsuspectingly, with his head on his master’s knee, his soft brown eyes watching his master’s moody countenance with a wistful gaze.
Rat-tat, tat-tat-tat! goes the door knocker. Roy, who has become used to persons passing in and out, takes no notice beyond a slight cocking of his ears. A moment more, and the slipshod maid of all work appears, ushering in—
“A gentleman, sir.”
With a sigh Roland looks up at the “gentleman,” who might be a stableman or an under-keeper, but is a decent-looking, civil fellow enough.
“From Mr Marsland?”
“Yes, sir. Can I take the dog now, sir?”
“Yes.”
He goes into the other room, and returns with a chain and collar. Roy, becoming alive to the import of the situation, backs under the table and whines piteously.
“Come here, Roy—come here, sir,” says his master, in a voice that he vainly strives to render firm. “You dear old fellow, you must go, there’s no help for it. Come.”
The dog obeys, and stands crestfallen, with a world of sad reproach in his soft, pleading eyes, as his master fastens the collar round his white, silky ruff, and kisses him in the middle of his smooth, glossy forehead.
“Now, good-bye, old dog, and don’t forget your master too soon,” and he gives the chain to the man, who stands waiting.
“Thankee, sir—good-evenin’, sir. He’ll go quiet enough directly, bless him.”
They had reached the front door, Roy hanging back and tugging vigorously at his chain. Roland stands looking after them down the street, in order to see the last of his faithful friend. Suddenly Roy ceases his struggles and trots along quietly for a few steps. Then he stops short. A couple of sudden jerks and he is free. He has slipped his head through the collar and comes running back to his master, and presses against him, looking up into his face with such a piteous whine.
“Good God! There’s nothing like piling on the agony,” mutters Roland between his set teeth, as he readjusts the collar, drawing the strap tighter, the dog licking his face all the while. “Here—take him away—and—stop, there’s half a crown for yourself. And mind you take devilish good care of the dog if you have anything to do with him.”
Now, the man was an honest countryman, and, unspoiled by any taint of socialism, he still entertained a hearty respect for his betters, and “a gentleman down on his luck” was in his eyes an object for reverential sympathy. He had taken in the bare, mean vulgarity of the room in which its occupant looked so sadly out of place—and his natural shrewdness told him that the other would not have parted with the dog save under the direst stress of circumstances. So he stammered, and looked nervous, as he tried to refuse the proffered gratuity in a suitable manner.
“Thankee kindly, sir. But master, he don’t let none of us take anything from gentlemen, except when they’s down for the shootin’,” answers the man, hitting upon the only excuse he could invent. “But it’s thank ye kindly, sir, all the same, and I’ll take downright good care of the dog. Good-evenin’, sir.”
The now sole occupant of the room feels desolate and lonely indeed. There is Roy’s pan of water, and the few crumbs remaining from the dog-biscuits Roy had for his dinner. How silent and intolerable the room feels without him. His last friend!
And now a resolve takes root in his mind, a wild and desperate resolve, and it was partly with this idea that he brought himself to accept a price for Roy. Even now he had better dismiss it, and accept the situation, and hasten on towards oblivion. It is not too late.
Nebuchadnezzar, we read, was transformed into a beast of the field. There comes a time, or times, in most men’s lives when they undergo a similar metamorphosis. Such a time had come to Roland Dorrien. He was transformed into—an ass.
Nature, however, was willing to do her best for him, by upsetting, if possible, his wise resolve above referred to. When he tried to rise the following morning, his head was throbbing with an agonising pain, and his consciousness only permitted him to realise one fact—that to move from his bed that day would be a stark impossibility.