If it was the organist of Cullerne who had been ill at ease when their interview began, it was the Bishop of Carisbury who was embarrassed at the end of it. He had asked himself to lunch with Mr Sharnall with a definite object, and towards the attainment of that object nothing had been done. He had learnt that his old friend had fallen upon evil times, and, worse, had fallen into evil courses—that the failing which had ruined his Oxford career had broken out again with a fresh fire in advancing age, that Nicholas Sharnall was in danger of a drunkard’s judgment.
There had been lucid intervals in the organist’s life; the plague would lie dormant for years, and then break out, to cancel all the progress that had been made. It was like a “race-game” where the little leaden horse is moved steadily forward, till at last the die falls on the fatal number, and the racer must lose a turn, or go back six, or, even in the worst issue, begin his whole course again. It was in the forlorn hope of doing something, however little, to arrest a man on the downward slope that the Bishop had come to Bellevue Lodge; he hoped to speak the word in season that should avail. Yet nothing had been said. He felt like a clerk who has sought an interview with his principal to ask for an increase of salary, and then, fearing to broach the subject, pretends to have come on other business. He felt like a son longing to ask his father’s counsel in some grievous scrape, or like an extravagant wife waiting her opportunity to confess some heavy debt.
“A quarter past two,” the Bishop said; “I must be going. It has been a great pleasure to recall the old times. I hope we shall meet again soon; but remember it is your turn now to come and see me. Carisbury is not so very far off, so do come. There is always a bed ready for you. Will you walk up the street with me now? I have to go to the Rectory, and I suppose you will be going to the church, will you not?”
“Yes,” said Mr Sharnall; “I’ll come with you if you wait one minute. I think I’ll take just a drop of something before I go, if you’ll excuse me. I feel rather run down, and the service is a long one. You won’t join me, of course?” And he went to the cupboard.
The Bishop’s opportunity was come.
“Don’t, Sharnall. Don’t, Nick,” he said; “don’t take that stuff. Forgive me for speaking openly, the time is so short. I am not speaking professionally or from the religious standpoint, but only just as one man of the world to another, just as one friend to another, because I cannot bear to see you going on like this without trying to stop you. Don’t take offence, Nick,” he added, as he saw the change of the other’s countenance; “our old friendship gives me a right to speak; the story you are writing on your own face gives me a right to speak. Give it up. There is time yet to turn; give it up. Let me help you; is there nothing I can do to help?”
The angry look that crossed Mr Sharnall’s face had given way to sadness.
“It is all very easy for you,” he said; “you’ve done everything in life, and have a long row of milestones behind you to show how you’ve moved on. I have done nothing, only gone back, and have all the milestones in front to show how I’ve failed. It’s easy to twit me when you’ve got everything you want—position, reputation, fortune, a living faith to keep you up to it. I am nobody, miserably poor, have no friends, and don’t believe half we say in church. What am I to do? No one cares a fig about me; what have I got to live for? To drink is the only chance I have of feeling a little pleasure in life; of losing for a few moments the dreadful consciousness of being an outcast; of losing for a moment the remembrance of happy days long ago: that’s the greatest torment of all, Willis. Don’t blame me if I drink; it’s the elixir vitae for me just as much as for Paracelsus.” And he turned the handle of the cupboard.
“Don’t,” the Bishop said again, putting his hand on the organist’s arm; “don’t do it; don’t touch it. Don’t make success any criterion of life; don’t talk about ‘getting on.’ We shan’t be judged by how we have got on. Come along with me; show you’ve got your old resolution, your old will-power.”
“I haven’t got the power,” Mr Sharnall said; “I can’t help it.” But he took his hand from the cupboard-door.