Chapter Twelve.

Mr Tankardew’s Story Finished.

“All was joy for a time. We called our little one Mary; it was a name I loved. I had not lived as a total abstainer; though, as I told you once, my mother, whom I can only recollect as a widow, had banished all intoxicants from our table. But I was young when she died, and I became, and continued for many years a moderate drinker. But now when our little girl was born, I had swept the house clear of all alcoholic drinks; we hadn’t a drop in the place from cellar to attics, so I thought. And my wife agreed with me that our little one should never know the taste of the strong drink. We had not many friends, for I was shy and reserved still, and my home was my world and society; at least I wished it to be so. Sometimes I thought my wife strangely excited, it looked very like the old misery, but she solemnly declared that she never tasted anything intoxicating. I hoped she spoke the truth, even against the evidence of my senses. After a while she persuaded me that I wanted change, that I was rusting out in my loneliness. She would have me accept an invitation to a friend’s house now and then: it would do me good. She was happy in her home, she said, only she should be happier still if she could see me gaining spirits by occasional intercourse with like-minded friends. Not that she wished me to leave her; it was for my own good she said it, and she should be delighting in the thoughts of the good it would do me, and should find abundance to cheer her in my absence, in the care of our darling child. She said all this so openly, so artlessly, that I believed her. I thought she might be right; so I went now and then from home for a few days, and, by degrees, more and more frequently. And my wife encouraged it. She said it did me so much good, and the benefit I reaped in improved health, spirits, and intelligence quite reconciled her to the separation. We went on so till our Mary was five years old; I could not say that my wife was ever manifestly intemperate, but painful suspicions hung like a black cloud over me. At last one summer’s day, one miserable day: I can never forget it: I set out to pay a week’s visit to a friend, who lived some ten miles distant from my home. I drove myself in a light, open carriage; my horse was young and rather shy. I was just going round a bend in the road, when a boy jumped suddenly over a hedge, right in front of us. Away went my horse at the top of his speed, and soon landed me in a ditch, and broke away, leaving the carriage with a fractured shaft behind him. I was not hurt myself, so I got assistance from the nearest cottage; and, having caught my horse, and found someone to whom I could trust the repairing of my vehicle, I walked home. It was afternoon when I arrived. I walked straight in through the back of the premises, and entered the dining-room; there was no one there. I was going to ring for one of the servants, when the door opened, and little Mary toddled (I ought rather to say tottered) up to me. Her mother was close behind her, but, at the sight of me, she uttered a wild cry, shut the door violently, and rushed upstairs. I had seen enough in her face: too much, too much! And the little child, our darling little Mary, what was amiss with her? Could it be? Had that cruel woman dared to do such a thing? Yes: it was so indeed: the little child was under the influence of strong drink; I drew the horrible truth from her by degrees. The mother had taught that little babe to like the exciting cup; she had sweetened and made it specially palatable. She had done this to make the child a willing partaker in her sin, to bribe her to secrecy, and to use her as a tool for the gratifying of her own vile appetite. Thus was she deliberately poisoning the body and soul of her child, and training her in deceit, that she might league that little one, as she grew up, with herself in procuring the forbidden stimulant, and in deceiving her own father. O accursed drink, which can thus turn a mother into the tempter and destroyer of her own guileless and unsuspecting child! I rushed out of the room, and was about to hurry upstairs, but I shrank back shivering and heart-sick. Then I went up slowly and heavily: my bedroom door was bolted; so was the door of my wife’s dressing-room; I came downstairs again, and, taking Mary by the hand, went into my library. There the storm of trouble did its work, for it drove me down upon my knees. I poured out my heart in strong crying to God; I owned that I had lived without Him, and that I had not loved nor sought Him. I prayed for pardon and a new heart, and that He would have mercy on my poor wife and child. As I knelt in my agony of supplication I felt two little hands placed on my own, then mine were gently pulled from me, and my precious little child, looking up in my face with streaming eyes, said, ‘Papa, don’t cry; dear papa, don’t cry. I will be a good girl.’ I pressed her to my heart, and blessed God that it was not yet too late. Before nightfall I had driven away with that dear child, and had placed her with a valued friend whom I could trust, one of the few who had ever visited at our house, a total abstainer, and, better still, a devoted Christian. My child had always loved her, and I felt that I could leave her in such hands with the utmost confidence. But I had a home still, in name at least, for all the sunshine had gone out of the word ‘home’ for me. I returned the next day to our childless house: where was the mother? She lay on the floor of her dressing-room, crushed in spirit to the dust. I raised her up; she would not look at me, but hid her face in her hands; her eyes were dry, she had wept away all her tears. I could not bear her grief, and I tried to comfort her; all might yet be well. Again she confessed all, her deceit, her heartlessness; but she laid it to the drink. True, she was in this a self-deceiver, but how terrible must be the power for evil in a stimulant which can so utterly degrade the soul, cloud the intellect, and benumb the conscience! Well, she poured forth a torrent of vows, promises, and resolutions for the future. I bade her turn them into prayers, but she did not understand me. However, there was peace for awhile: our Mary came home again, and I watched her with an unwearying carefulness. Another year brought us a son: he sits among us now: John Randolph we call him. There was a sort of truce till John was ten years old. I knew that my poor unhappy wife still continued to obtain strong drink, but she did not take it to excess to my knowledge, and it was never placed upon our table. I was myself, at this time, practically a total abstainer, but I had signed no pledge. I didn’t see the use of it then, so I had not got my children to sign. My poor wife professed to take no alcoholic stimulants, yet I could not but know that she was deceiving herself. She was, alas! Too self-confident. She seemed to think that all danger of excess was now over, and that a white lie about taking none was no real harm, so long as it satisfied me; but it neither deceived nor satisfied me. At last, one winter’s day, she proposed that John should drive her in her pony-carriage to the neighbouring village, where there was an old servant of ours who was ill, whom she wanted to see. The pony was a quiet one, and was used to John’s driving, so I did not object, as I was very busy at the time, and could not therefore drive myself. It was very late before she came back; she had kept the poor boy at the cottage door nearly two hours, and when she returned to the carriage was so excited that he was in fear and trembling all the way home. That night his miserable mother lay hopelessly intoxicated on a sofa when I retired to my resting-place, for to rest I certainly did not retire. From that day she utterly broke down, and became lost to all shame; one appetite, one passion alone, possessed her; a mad thirst for the drink. We separated by mutual consent, and I made her an allowance sufficient to supply all her lawful wants. Alas! Alas! The sad end hurries on. She wrote to me for a larger allowance; I knew what she wanted it for, and I refused. She wrote again and I did not reply. Then she wrote to Mary with the same object. Of course, I need hardly tell you that the children remained with me. Poor dear Mary loved her mother dearly, and sent her all her own pocket money. I found it out, and forbade it for the future. Two more years passed by. From time to time I heard of my miserable wife; she was sinking lower and lower. At last, in the twilight of an autumn evening, as Mary was returning home alone, a wild-looking, ragged woman crept towards her with a strange, undecided step: it was her mother. She flung herself at her child’s feet, imploring her, if she still had any love for her, to find her the means of gratifying her insatiable thirst. She must die, she said, if she refused her. Poor Mary, poor Mary! Terror-stricken, heart-broken, she spoke words of love, of entreaty, to that miserable creature; she urged her to break off her sin; she pointed her to Jesus for strength; she told her that she dared not supply her regularly with money, as she had promised me that she would not, and it would do her no good. The wretched woman slunk away without another word. Next day her body was found floating on the river; she had destroyed herself. Poor, dear Mary never looked up after that. She connected her mother’s awful end with her own refusal to give her money for the drink, though there could be no blame to her: and so she faded away, my lovely child, and left me, ere another spring came round, for the land of eternal summers. I was heart-sick, hopeless; life seemed objectless; I gave way to despondency, and forgot my duty as a man and a Christian. I felt that I was no proper guide nor companion for poor John; so I sent him first to France, where he gained his skill as an artist and musician; and since then he has, by his own desire, been a traveller in distant lands. I let my house, and came over to Hopeworth, to be out of the way of everything and everybody that could remind me of the past. Yet, I could not forget. You noticed the vacant space in my sitting-room, where a picture should have been; that empty space reminded me of what might have been, had my wife, whose portrait should have been there, been a different wife to me. But light came at last. When I saw you, Mary my child, for the first time, I scarce knew what to say or think. You were, and are, the very image of my own loved and lost one, my Mary my beloved child; the portrait behind the panel is hers. I longed to have you for my own. I determined, however, to see what you were; I went to the juvenile party merely for that end. And then, when John came home unexpectedly, I resolved in my heart that, if I could bring it about, you should be my own dear child. So John and I talked it over; and John, who is a true branch from the old tree, a little crotchety or so, was resolved to win you in his own fashion; and, having learnt a little colonial independence, he wished to look at you a bit behind the scenes; so he would come before you, not as the heir of an eccentric old gentleman, with a good estate and plenty of money to speak for him, but as the travelled artist and music-master. And now, I think I’ve pretty well unravelled the greater part of the tangle; the rest you can easily smooth out for yourselves.

“So you see it has been ‘nearly lost, but dearly won.’ My child, Mary, you nearly lost old Esau’s heart, when you seemed bent on throwing your own away; but you’ve won it, and won it dearly, like a dear good child. You nearly lost your peace to one who would soon have drowned it out of home, but you won it dearly and bravely, I know, at no little sacrifice. And John, my son, I once thought you’d nearly lost the noblest and best of wives; but you’ve won her, and dearly, too, but she’s worth the price of a little stooping, ay, and of a great deal too. And old Esau Tankardew nearly lost his peace and his self-respect, in selfish unsanctified sorrow, but he has won something better than respect, though it cost him a hard struggle; he has won a daughter who hates that drink which blotted out light and joy from the old man’s home and heart; and he has won, through grace, a peace that passeth understanding, and can say, ‘Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.’”

The End.