CHAPTER XLII.—A LAND SHIPWRECK.
To be unhappy and alone at night in chambers is to have an opportunity of realising the sense of desolation in its bitterest degree. The double doors and double windows which secure the stillness that is of so much importance for working purposes, seem now to shut you off doubly from the world; from help if you are dying, and from sympathy if you live. The rumble of the heaviest wagon reaches the ears as a faint sound from afar off; no footstep is heard at all; and the adjacent chambers are silent as the tenements of the dead. You welcome the plash of rain against the window-panes—dull as that is—as if it were a friend come to speak to you in your solitude.
That is the time for thoughts of suicide to haunt a man if his mind is disturbed; and that is the time for cynical broodings on the vanity of life, the falsehood of friendship, and the fickleness of love. He sees in what miserable failure his most earnest efforts have resulted; he misinterprets the most trivial word and look of his friend, and he loses grip altogether of that faith which in healthier state enables him to find consolation in love. He recalls all the bitter things that have been written about women, and for the time-being believes them.
How was it, Philip asked himself, that he had fallen into this desperate position? He had laboured with all his might for others rather than for himself; his object was a noble one, and quite feasible, he was still convinced. Yet the social revolution he had dreamed of was as far off as ever, and he suddenly found that he was face to face with absolute ruin. Evidently his blunder lay in his miscalculation of the power of his capital. There had been disappointments with his fellow-workers, who, shrewdly counting the cost of material and the market value of the manufactured article, saw that the latter would barely realise enough to give them a fair ordinary wage in the best of times, to say nothing of the share of profits promised them. The cost of material was too high; and it was natural that they should conclude the cost was so fixed by arrangement with their chief in order to deprive them of what they now called their rights.
Philip saw the force of their argument, and began to inquire about the items of expenditure. Hitherto, he had been so deeply occupied in the organisation of his scheme, that he had left financial matters almost entirely in Wrentham’s hands. Hints were given him that the prices he was charged were not the prices paid for materials, but that a large proportion went in secret commissions. As soon as he began to look into the question closely, he was met by the astounding fact, that he had reached the end of his capital, and had heavy liabilities to meet almost immediately, as well as heavy current expenses to provide for. How to do this without applying to Mr Shield, he had been trying for weeks to find out; and the more harassed he became, the more impossible it appeared to work through the mess without assistance.
Then had come the last humiliation: he must submit to the immediate and entire overthrow of all he had been working for, and in which he had sunk the considerable fortune placed at his disposal, or he must seek the help which only a short time ago had appeared to him as an impossible necessity. He was bewildered, and could not understand how it came about. It should not have been so. He yielded to the necessity, however; but determined that when his course became clear again, his first task should be to institute a thorough investigation into the causes of his failure.
Through all this agitated survey of his position, how was it that the figure of Beecham continually obtruded itself? What could Wrentham have had in his head, when he urged him so strongly to find out from Madge all that she knew of the man’s history and possible friendship with Mr Shield? He had not felt very keenly impressed by the suggestion during Wrentham’s presence; but now, in the silence and alone with his chagrin, he became infected with Wrentham’s suspicion. It had not occurred to him until now that there was something most incongruous and altogether incomprehensible in a girl consenting to accept from an acquaintance of only a few weeks a confidence which she could not disclose to her guardians or the man who was soon to be her husband.
If Beecham had been a younger man than he was, there would have been a ready and most bitter explanation of the mystery; but it was not available in the present case. And yet (so outrageously morbid had he become that he was capable of the thought!) women were such strange creatures, that there was no telling who might win their favour or by what charm it might be done.
Pah!—What madness was this?
He went to the front room and opened a window overlooking Gray’s Inn Road. The stillness of the chambers had become intolerable. This was better; much better. There was more air; he could hear the rattle of cabs, and catch glimpses of hurrying foot-passengers on the opposite side of the way.
Why should he remain indoors, to be haunted by these horrible phantoms of doubt and suspicion? He knew they were phantoms, and yet he could not drive them from his brain. Sleep was impossible, and he was afraid to take more drugs, for he was conscious that they had already impaired his power of self-control. When would the morning come? The active duties he had to discharge would relieve him. He looked at his watch. Very little past midnight. Why, it seemed as if two nights had passed since Wrentham went away!
Well, he would try Dr Joy’s specific, and endeavour to work, or walk off this nervous frenzy. First he tried the work. There was much need that he should master the accounts and compare prices paid with prices quoted in the markets. But the figures performed such strange antics before his eyes, that after an hour of vain endeavour to master their meaning, he impatiently closed the book and rose no wiser, or rather less wise, than he had been before he sat down.
He took himself to task. It was of the utmost importance that in the morning he should be cool and clear-headed; but he could not hope to be so unless he obtained sleep. Well, he would try the second remedy.
He put on his hat and overcoat and went out. It was not of any consequence to him in which direction he should walk, his sole object being to exhaust himself by the physical exercise, in order to induce healthy sleep. To distract his mind from its troublous ruminations, he turned instinctively towards those quarters where he was most likely to encounter signs of life.
He strode along Oxford Street and down Regent Street. But he was walking in a dream. The lights of the lamps were dim in his eyes, the figures which flitted by him were like shadows, and he could not have told whether they were men or women. The voices of those who passed him seemed to be muffled, and he scarcely distinguished any sounds. A hansom cab came rattling at full speed towards him: the horse slipped, staggered, fell. There was a commotion, and although, a minute before, the street seemed to be deserted, figures sprang out of the darkness, and there was a crowd at the scene of disaster.
He passed on, with that insensibility to the fate of others which characterises people when in dreamland. His feelings were numbed as his eyes were dimmed. The sense of humiliation at the utter failure of what he had believed to be so certain of success produced the one pain of which he was conscious, and which no drugs, fatigue, or reason had power to subdue.
If the money had been his own, he could have borne with comparative calmness the overthrow of his hopes and the ridicule of those who had from the first called his project folly.
But despite the assurances of Mr Shield and of Mr Shield’s solicitors, Philip had never regarded the money otherwise than as held in trust; and the loss of it was as bitter as the destruction of the beautiful palace he had built in air.
The only bit of ballast left him was the dogged conviction that the principle which he had endeavoured to carry into practical effect was a right one, and would be turned to good account by some one more fortunate or more careful than he had been.
He set his teeth together and marched on. He began to realise how strangely numbed his sensations were, and how vague everything appeared to him. The rain had ceased, and the tiny pools in the roadway glistening in the lamplight seemed like great white eyes staring at him in pity. He passed down the Haymarket, nor did he slacken his pace until he reached the Embankment. There he halted and leaned over the parapet. He was not fatigued: the rapid walk seemed to have instilled new strength into him and had partially cleared the cobwebs from his brain. He was attracted by the lights gleaming in the dark fast-flowing river. Out there, were black islets of barges, and on the opposite shore the fantastic outlines of buildings, showing like irregular ramparts against the dull gray sky. He was thinking of Madge, and the pain she would suffer on his account, when the worst was made known to her in the morning, perhaps, or next day.
‘Got a copper to spare a poor cove as hasn’t had a crust for two days?’ said a husky voice close to him.
Philip started up. He was aware of the evil reputation of the Embankment and the character of the roughs who infest it after nightfall. A lamp close by showed him a miserable-looking wretch, ragged and hungry-eyed. He did seem to need help, poor fellow. Philip gave him a shilling, and was about to pass on. But a huge hulk of a fellow stood in his way.
‘We want som’at more nor that, guv’nor. So tip us’——
The man went down as if he had been shot. Philip was in the mood for mischief, and he had not forgotten his practice with the gloves. So the first words of the ruffian plainly intimating his purpose, a well-delivered blow straight from the shoulder finished the sentence for him. Philip knew that it would have been madness to have given the man time to attack him, and as it was, the other man was already attempting to rifle his pockets. This one belonged to the sneak tribe, and finding his throat suddenly gripped by fingers that seemed to possess the strength of a vice, his hands went up to loosen them. He was hurled aside; and Philip hurried away with a sort of savage pleasure in having punished the brace of scoundrels, as well as disappointed them of their expected prize.
Near Blackfriars Bridge he met a policeman, to whom he briefly reported the incident. The man listened with stolid indifference.
‘They are a bad lot about here, at nights, sir,’ he said composedly; ‘and it ain’t a place for decent people at this hour.’
The constable’s idea evidently was that decent people should keep out of the way of the roughs, not that it was his duty to keep the roughs from molesting the decent people who might be compelled to use the thoroughfare.
Philip entered his dreary chambers again. He felt better, but still he could not sleep.