XXIV
Early in the new year Marsden had a serious illness. He caught a chill on a suburban racecourse, came home to shiver and groan and curse, and two days afterwards was down with double pneumonia.
He kept the hospital nurses, his wife, and the doctor busy for three weeks; and throughout this time there was no point at which it could be said that he was not in imminent danger of death.
Then the shop assistants heard, with properly concealed feelings of exultation, that a devoted wife, a clever doctor, and two skilled nurses had saved the governor's life. The governor had pulled through. Dr. Eldridge, as the shop understood, was able to make the gratifying pronouncement that the patient possessed a naturally magnificent frame and constitution, which had been but partially weakened or impaired by carelessness and imprudence. They need not entertain any further fear. The dear governor will last for a splendidly long time yet.
But his convalescence was slow; and after the recovery of normal health he passed swiftly into a third phase. He showed no inclination to rush about; his mental indolence had become so great that the mere notion of a train-journey fatigued him; he did his betting locally, and spent his days with the red-haired barmaid in the Dolphin bar.
At the Dolphin Hotel he had slid down a descending scale of importance which emblematized, with a strange accurateness, his descent in the town of Mallingbridge and in the world generally. Once he used to come swaggering into the noble coffee room, and be flattered by the landlord and fawned on by the manager while he gave his orders for sumptuous luncheons and dinners à la carte, with champagne of the choicest brands, and the oldest and costliest of liqueurs. After that, a period arrived when the restaurant and a table-d'hôte repast, washed down with any cheap but strong wine, were good enough for him. Then he was seen only in the billiard room; or in the small grill-room, where he would sit drinking for hours while relays of commercial travellers and minor tradesmen bolted their chops and steaks. Now he had descended to what was called the saloon bar; and here, since he had lost his club, he made himself quite at ease, and was listened to with some semblance of respect by the shabby frequenters, and always smiled upon by the barmaid—who was an old, and of late a very intimate friend. He could not drop any lower at the Dolphin, unless he went out to the stable yard and sat with ostlers and fly-drivers in the taproom beneath the arch.
At mid-day there were eatables of a light sort on the saloon counter; but, rejecting such scratchy fare, Mr. Marsden regularly came home for his solid luncheon. After lunching heavily he went back to the saloon, stayed there through the tea hour, and returned to St. Saviour's Court for dinner. He was regular in his attendance at meals, but except for meal-time the house never saw him. In fact he was settling down into stereotyped habits. When dinner was over he retired again—to take his grog in the saloon, to help the barmaid close the saloon, and to escort her thence to her modest little dwelling-house.
Mrs. Marsden knew all about this barmaid, with her fascinating smiles and her Venetian red hair—and indeed about her dwelling-house also. It was common knowledge that a few years ago she had been a parlourmaid in Adelaide Crescent; had somehow got into trouble; and somehow getting out of it, had risen to the surface as a saloon siren, and proved herself attractive to more persons than one. As to her place of residence, an illuminating letter had reached Marsden & Thompson and been duly opened behind the glass—"re No. 16 New Bridge Road. We beg to remind you that your firm have guaranteed Miss Ingram's rent, and the same being now nearly a quarter in arrear, we beg, etc., etc...."