Читать книгу The Threatening Eye - E. F. Knight - Страница 6

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It is not so much the custom now as formerly for unmarried men, barristers and others, to reside in the Temple and the other ancient Inns of Court.

How many of us look back with a sigh of regret to that old jovial free bachelor life in the snug chambers! Indeed, those were pleasant days. To those who have led that life how full of associations is busy Fleet Street! Ah me! the old taverns we frequented in our youth—the familiar faces of the waiters in them who knew us and all our ways so well. The boon-companionship of fellow-barristers, Bohemian litterateurs, and all the wild, witty manhood that used to haunt that neighbourhood.

Temple Bar was the centre of a land as interesting in its way as the Quartier Latin was—a Cocagne of barristers, writers, and actors;—a jovial trio of professions that much fraternise with each other even in these sober respectable and rather dull days.

Even now there are one or two of the old taverns left, where in sand-floored rooms careless groups from Grub Street sit at night over pipe and excellent punch—punch so cunningly mixed, of such good liquor too, punch that you cannot find in those new gaudy cafés that have lately sprung up in London, great palaces of sham and glitter, fit only to fascinate the undergraduate and the shop-boy.

But clubs have killed the old tavern life; and certainly some of the lower class of literary clubs about the Strand are far from desirable substitutes for the antique haunts of the Bohemian.

On a fine summer evening, a young barrister sat in his chambers in the Temple. He was in his shirt-sleeves, smoking meditatively, waiting till it was time to go out and dine at a restaurant.

His meditations did not seem to be of an over lively nature; indeed, he looked excessively bored and melancholy. Just as he rose with a weary yawn to go into his bed-room, and prepare himself for sallying forth, there came a loud knock at his door.

"Who the deuce can that noisy person be?" he muttered to himself, as he approached the outer defences of his castle on tip-toe, and proceeded to reconnoitre his visitor through the key-hole before admitting him.

"A man. Can't make out who it is, but doesn't look dangerous, so here goes," and he unfastened the ponderous lock.

A young man of his own age was standing in the passage, whom he at once recognised with a shout of cordial welcome. "Why, Duncan, old man, you're the last fellow I expected to see; you have not looked me up these six months. Come in, you rascal! what do you mean by it?" and he struck his visitor on the back with a jovial familiarity that only a long intimacy could warrant.

"I have called on you half-a-dozen times, man," replied the other young man, "but you are always out. I always find your oak sported, with a little slip of paper on it saying that Mr. Hudson will be back in five minutes. I'm the one who has just cause of complaint: you never call at my diggings."

"You live in such a deuced out of the way hole—where is it again—Chalk Farm? You can't expect a man to travel a Sabbath-day's journey on the remote chance of finding you in."

"Well, now I have got you, I am going to inflict myself on you for a few hours," said Duncan. "What are you going to do to-night? Come and dine at the Gaiety or Blanchard's, or somewhere, and we'll go to the promenades afterwards."

"With pleasure; just as you came in I was wondering what on earth to do with myself to-night. I feel as if I wanted waking up. I am rather in the blues to-day, but—" and a look of blank dismay came to his face.

"Well?" said his friend in an inquiring tone.

"The truth is, I'm rather hard up just now—don't like to risk another cheque at the bank, and I don't think I've got three shillings in the world."

"I can lend you two pounds, old man, if that will do," Duncan promptly urged.

"Thanks very much; you're a brick. Just sit down and smoke a cigarette, you'll find some good old cognac in that decanter, while I wash my hands and brush up."

These two young men had been friends for more than half their lives. They had been chums in old Westminster as boys, were at Cambridge together, and at the same college; but since they had been in town their separate paths in life had gradually diverged, so that now they saw but little of each other.

Thomas Hudson—Tommy Hudson as his intimates called him—had taken up the Bar as a profession. He was a pleasant young Irishman of twenty-seven or thereabouts. His practice was a small one, and what there was of it he had acquired rather by impudence than by knowledge of law.

He was to be found in the Criminal and Police Courts; and solicitors had discovered his value in a certain class of cases. He was good on a losing side. No one could talk down this bold young gentleman. He would retort wittily to Sergeant Buzfuz, and turn the laugh against some insolent old counsel, who thought to brow-beat so young an opponent—for Tommy, with his fresh complexion and his merry Irish eyes, appeared younger even than he was.

But his was an inferior sort of a practice, one that did not benefit his reputation, one that was not likely to improve or lead to anything better.

His income, if calculated from his fee-book, was small, but still smaller was the reality. The solicitors who were on his books were not the most respectable of their profession, and oftener than not, forgot to hand over to Counsel the honorarium which they had taken very good care to extract from their clients.

But as Tommy had a small private income, he managed to scrape along somehow, though he was generally head over heels in debt, and in a chronic state of being "clean broke," as he himself jovially described it to his friends.

Like many other young barristers of small practice, he was Bohemian in his ways: he frequented taverns, was often an associate of not over-respectable characters, had rather drifted out of the society of ladies, and indeed voted as slow any party at which a fair amount of Bohemian freedom did not prevail.

A merry supper-party, at which the feminine element was represented by frolicsome young actresses from the burlesque theatres, was far more to his taste than the duller entertainments of Mrs. Grundy.

Careless, generous, with little evil in him, though his moral code was not such as finds favour everywhere out of Bohemia, he was not naturally a bad sort of a fellow, but being weak of will, was too easily influenced by his surroundings, a fault which embraces every other.

On the other hand, his friend Duncan, who enjoyed no private income, was a struggling physician.

His was a profounder and stronger nature; not so generally emotional as Hudson, he was yet capable of far fiercer passions and deeper feelings when they were aroused.

"Now I'm ready to do anything you like," said the barrister as he came out of the bed-room, and the two men went out arm-in-arm, exulting in their youth and health, casting aside all care for the nonce, determined to enjoy themselves.

For, not being young men of the new school, they could enjoy themselves, and were not ashamed of their capacity for pleasure. They were young barbarians who did not even have the good taste to effect the elegant virtue of ennui, if they had it not. They could laugh at a play; they could enjoy their pipes and grog as they chatted in their rooms; they could devour steaks with a healthy appetite; they despised mashers and lemon-squash; in short, were Philistines and not effeminate beings of the new style, full of fads and affectations, serenely soaring above all generous virtues and vices.

They dined in the Gaiety grill-room, not without a cheering bottle of Burgundy, and then adjourned upstairs for a cigar, and a cup of black coffee, with its accompanying liqueur of cognac.

Having now reached the point of perfect physical comfort, and the fit state of mind for appreciation of amusement, the question arose whither to go next.

"The Promenade Concerts would be the best place to go to," said Dr. Duncan.

"Why, man, they don't commence for another two months yet," replied the barrister, laughing.

"You are right; you are more up to these things than I am. Well, suppose as we are here we drop into the Gaiety Theatre: Nelly Farren and Terry are always amusing."

"It's the best thing we can do—time's up too, so let's move."

Having enjoyed a burlesque, which was attractive in consequence rather of the cleverness of the two above-mentioned comedians than the humour of the author; the two young men returned to the Temple, to finish up the evening in Hudson's chambers with an hour's chat over pipes and hot whisky.

The conversation commenced to assume rather a thoughtful tone, as it often does when two old friends, who have not seen each other for some time, are together.

"Having answered all your cross-examination as to my doings, it's my turn to pump you now," Dr. Duncan was saying.

"How are you getting on at the bar?"

"Badly, very badly. I wish to God I had never taken up such a profession. I was never cut out for a lawyer."

"But I see your name in the papers sometimes—"

"Sometimes! but it's a struggling, miserable sort of a practice. I wish I had become a leech like you, Duncan. I might have done something then. Now, you were cut out for a barrister."

"How do you make that out?"

"Because you are steady—not a volatile ass like I am. It is this idleness, this waiting for briefs, that ruins a weak man. You see, Duncan, I'm a restless being that must be doing something, and doing it hard. I can work hard when I get the work, but when I can't get it, then I must be playing hard."

"Dissipating hard, I suppose you mean," said the doctor with a smile.

"Well, that's about it."

"You ought to have sown your wild oats by this time, my boy. To begin with, what makes you drink such a precious lot of whisky. If I had taken half as many glasses as you have to-night, I shouldn't be fit for much work to-morrow morning."

"Oh, I'm not afraid of going much too far in that line. I can foresee that my fate is rather to be driven to the dogs by the women," replied Hudson.

"That is very probable, judging from the reports that are current about you," said the doctor.

"Yes, Duncan," continued the barrister, "I don't mind confessing myself to an old friend like you. It is the women—and I seem to be becoming a greater idiot every year. My mind's always distracted by some intrigue or other, generally with some actress who chucks me up as soon as I have spent upon her all the money I can raise by every means known to the Gentiles. There's nothing that so unsettles a man's mind, so unfits him for work, and is so certain to ruin him as such a life. I know all this, but I can't pull myself together and reform. In short, I'm a confounded fool."

"Some wise man said that no man ever does any good in the world till he gets women altogether out of his mind," said the doctor.

"And how on earth does that same wise man propose to bring about that happy consummation?" asked Hudson.

"I suppose the wise man meant that as long as a man passed a large portion of his life in a sort of restless fever, worrying about one fancy after another, always full of anxiety and uncertainty over some new intrigue, he was in too unsettled a condition to concentrate himself on really good work. The remedy, I suppose, is to marry."

"Marriage is certainly often a good settler," replied Hudson; "but it's all very well to say marry—the question is how and to whom? You are clever at diagnozing, doctor. You don't tell me where to get the medicine."

"That, of course, I can't," replied his friend with a laugh. "But seriously, old man, you must take care what you are about. You are drifting. I know your temperament. You are living here alone in chambers; I know the life—too much leisure, unlimited temptations, little society. It is not to be wondered at that so many of you young barristers go to the dogs.

"I knew a man, as clever, as good a fellow as ever lived. He was a good deal my senior. He is a barrister, a briefless barrister, with a considerable private income. By the very loneliness of his life, for he too did not care about going into society, he was driven out for mere companionship's sake into vicious ways. He was of an uxorious nature, not sensual, but to be in love with some woman was a necessity of his life. His idleness, of course, intensified the necessity.

"His were not cold and heartless attachments. As long as it lasted, his was a generous fierce love enough, God knows. Women adored him; but a woman could twist him round her little finger; a bad, clever woman could ruin him. But he was not ruined, in the ordinary sense of the word, by women; but ruined morally he has been, utterly. A morbid restless craving for excitement grew on him. When not with women he was generally half-drunk. A good woman could have saved that weak generous affectionate nature, and made his a noble and useful life. But he never came across a really good woman, so what happened? As he grew older, sentiment, idealism, became dull. His intrigues were no longer poetical. His illusions vanished, but women of course became more than ever a necessity to him. He became the cold sensualist, the miserable being that has worn out all power of love, but yet is devoured by a desire which seeks all sorts of abnormal means for its gratification.

"He knew what a degraded wretch he had become, what an unhappy slave to vices that tortured without giving joy. Sometimes, for a week or so at a time, his conscience would wake up, and would present so terrible a picture to him, that to avoid madness he would drink—drink deeply, moody, sulky, and silent all the time, looking like a wild beast.

"I have seen him during one of these long spells of despairing agony, and the expression of his face was such as I could never forget. Hell must be full of such faces. Hudson, I saw that man to-day, I left him just before I came here."

Dr. Duncan paused and seemed rather overcome by emotion; he mixed himself another glass of grog, and after swallowing some continued:

"I was called to see him in his present lodgings off the Strand, with the object of signing a certificate of his lunacy."

Hudson, whose face had assumed a thoughtful and gloomy expression during this narrative, shivered perceptibly and put his glass to his lips but returned it to the table untasted, and said in a low voice:

"Ay, Duncan, I am afraid that same story will be told of me some day. Even now, I sometimes think it is too late—too late. … But, dash it all! let's have no more of this ghastly discourse. I am going to give myself a stiff glass of grog to drive away the blues you have conjured up to me."

"It is getting late. I have to be up early, to-morrow, and I must be off," said the doctor, and he rose and seized Hudson by the hand. "I hope I have not riled you, old man, with my sermonizing. Sermonizing isn't much in my line; but you know you are a very old friend of mine, and I take real interest in you."

"I know that," replied the barrister, giving his friend a warm grip of the hand.

"Well, good-night, old man; I'll look you up again soon."

After Dr. Duncan had gone, Hudson opened the window, and leaning on the sill, stayed there motionless, and thinking of many things as he looked out on the beautiful court, with its splashing fountain, and across the green to the Thames beyond, and the distant Surrey shore.

This is one of the most delightful views in London, and on such a quiet summer night as this was, with a clear sky filled with stars above it, I doubt whether any of the great cities of Europe could produce a more impressive scene than this oasis in the great desert of bricks and mortar, this quiet old-fashioned garden between the quaint buildings—all, too, so full of memories and associations.

What memories of his thoughtless childhood, of his clever and flattered boyhood with its high hopes, and of his utterly wasted manhood, succeeded each other in crowds in the young man's mind, as he gazed out upon that peaceful scene!

"Ay!" he thought, "I'm nearly thirty now—and what have I done?—nothing—and I'm becoming weaker and more idiotic every day, drifting—yes, Duncan is quite right—I am drifting. It will soon be too late to travel back, too."

Oppressed by his melancholy reflections he closed the window with a slam, and returning to the table mixed himself a stiff glass of grog. After drinking it he mixed himself another, and by the time he had finished that one he felt more comfortable. His melancholy mood departed and was succeeded by a very sanguine one. He became brave and hopeful once again, and he said to himself, "It it not too late; I will do something yet, and astonish all these sober dunces who shake their heads and whisper to each other that poor Tommy has gone to the dogs. I have ten times more ability than they have, and I will show them what I can do when I like. I will knock off this silly trifling and buckle to without delay."

And he made a great many very noble plans and resolutions of reform under the genial influence of his hot spirits and water, as he had done dozens of times before—plans and resolutions that would evaporate from his brain as quickly as the alcoholic fumes that begat them, to be replaced by nerveless despair and sullen recklessness.