[CHAPTER VIII.]
DARK-EYED EMMIE.
"But who could have expected this,
When we two drew together first,
Just for the obvious human bliss,
To satisfy life's daily thirst?"
R. BROWNING.
THE "queer little red house near the Post-Office," owned by Captain Lucas, had been for three years empty. It was not an easy house to let: standing just too far out of the main track for business purposes, yet too much buried in a region of shops to be attractive. Perhaps Captain Lucas asked too high a rent. One way or another, it had remained long in the hands of an aged caretaker; and the Lucases had troubled their heads little about the matter, till sudden curtailment of income came. Then, since nobody else was content to live there, and to pay a reasonable rent, Captain Lucas decided to make it his home.
The decision cost him a good deal; and he would hardly have reached it without necessity. He was not anxious to put himself in the way of relatives, who would look him in the face, and pass him by as a stranger. Captain Lucas was a man who naturally loved society, naturally delighted in pleasant companionship; and to cut himself off from intercourse with his fellow-men was like cutting off his right hand or foot; yet to a large extent, he had done and would do this. Not for a limited time only, but year after year; sustained by his courageous wife, and surely upheld by Divine power: he and she knowing, alas, too well, that only by such means could he hope to keep in check the terrible tendency which all his life had dragged him downward.
The heroism of such a strife, and of the self-denial which it entailed, could only be appreciated by those who knew him best.
But to refuse himself certain perilous indulgences, such as hotels, clubs, dinner-parties, nay, even such as taking lunch or supper with a friend, as a matter of manly self-control, was one thing; and to be treated as an outcast by those to whom he was bound by natural ties, was another thing. The first, however trying, brought a certain sense of satisfaction in his own victory over weakness. The second could bring only smarting and pain.
Moreover, he know that Dutton would be dull for his wife and child; and Captain Lucas, with all his faults—perhaps it would be more forcible to say, with his one great fault—was an affectionate man. He dearly loved his gentle wife, and his sunny Emmeline. They were all that he had to make life bright. He would have sacrificed much to bring brightness to them; but there seemed to be no choice. He could no longer afford to travel, or to pay rent elsewhere.
There was a charm of manner still about Captain Lucas: a charm which Cyril had felt at once. He was not in the least heroic-looking; not tall, and rather stout; while the face, which had once been handsome, was marred by early years of self-indulgence. Still he had retained the manners of a gentleman; and he had by nature an unusual power of making himself agreeable.
His wife and daughter loved him dearly despite all they had endured through him—despite the shame he had made them suffer. And for more than a year he had not once given way. Emmeline's tender little heart was sure—quite sure—he never would again. The poor wife would fain have felt equally sure. She better understood the power of sudden temptation.