Thorne Guy
The Drunkard

The interlude pleased the tired, jaded minds of the sad companions, and it was with some fictitious reconstruction of past gaiety and animation that they drove to St. Pancras.

The train was in.

Gilbert's dressing-case was already placed in a first-class compartment, his portmanteau snug in the van.

When he walked up the long platform with Rita, a porter, the Guard of the train and the steward of the dining-car, were grouped round the open door.

He was well known. All the servants of the line looked out for him and gave him almost ministerial honours. They knew he was a "somebody," but were all rather vague as to the nature of his distinction.

He was "Mr. Gilbert Lothian" at least, and his bountiful largesse was generally spoken of.

The train was not due to start for six minutes. The acute guard, raising his cap, locked the door of the carriage.

Gilbert and Rita were alone in it for a farewell.

He took her in his arms and looked long and earnestly into the young lovely face.

He saw the tears gathering in her eyes.

"Have you been happy, sweetheart, with me?"

"Perfectly happy." There was a sob in the reply.

"You really do care for me?"

"Yes."

His breath came more quickly, he held her closer to him – only a little rose-faced girl now.

"Do you care for me more than for any other man you have ever met?"

She did not answer.

"Tell me, tell me! Do you?"

"Yes."

"Rita, my darling, say, if things had been different, if I were free to ask you to be my wife now, would you marry me?"

"Yes."

"Would you be my dear, dear love, as I yours, for ever and ever and ever?"

She clung to him in floods of tears. He had his answer. Each tear was an answer.

The guard of the train, looking the other way, opened the door with his key and coughed.

"Less than a minute more, sir," said the guard.

.. "Once more, say it once more! You would be my wife if I were free?"

"I'd be your wife, Gilbert, and I'd love you – oh, what shall I do without you? How dull and dreadful everything is going to be now!"

"But I shall be back soon. And I shall write to you every day!"

"You will, won't you, dear? Write, write – " The train was almost moving.

It began to move. Gilbert leaned out of the window and waved his hand for a long time, to a forlorn little girl in a brown coat and skirt who stood upon the platform crying bitterly.

The waiter of the dining-car, knowing his man well, brought Lothian a large whiskey and soda before the long train was free of the sordid Northwest suburbs.

Lothian drank it, arranged about dinner, and sank back against the cushions. He lit a cigarette and drew the hot smoke deep into his lungs.

The train was out of the town area now. There was no more jolting and rattling over points. Its progress into the gathering night was a continuous roar.

Onwards through the gathering night..

"I'd be your wife, Gilbert, and I'd love you – if you were free."

CHAPTER V
THE NIGHT JOURNEY FROM NICE WHEN MRS. DALY SPEAKS WORDS OF FIRE

 
"Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud,
It is but for a time; I press God's lamp
Close to my breast: its splendour, soon or late
Shall pierce the gloom. I shall emerge one day."
 

– Browning.

A carriage was waiting outside a white and gilded hotel on the Promenade des Anglais at Nice.

The sun was just dipping behind the Esterelle mountains and the Mediterranean was the colour of wine. Already the Palais du Jetée was being illuminated and outlined itself in palest gold against the painted sky above the Cimiez heights, where the olive-coloured headland hides Villefranche and the sea-girt pleasure city of Monte Carlo.

The tall palms in the gardens which front the gleaming palaces of the Promenade were bronze gold in the fading light, and their fans clicked and rustled in a cool breeze which was eddying down upon the Queen of the Mediterranean from the Maritime Alps.

Mary Lothian came out of the hotel. Her face was pale and very sad. She had been crying. With her was a tall, stately woman of middle-age; grey-haired, with a massive calmness and peace of feature recalling the Athena of the Louvre or one of those noble figures of the Erectheum crowning the hill of the Acropolis at Athens.

She was Mrs. Julia Daly, who had been upon the Riviera for two months. Dr. Morton Sims had written to her. She had called upon Mary and the two had become fast friends.

Such time as Mary could spare from the sickbed of her sister, she spent in the company of this great-souled woman from America, and now Mrs. Daly, whose stay at Nice was over, was returning to London with her friend.

The open carriage drove off, by the gardens and jewellers' shops in front of the Casino and Opera House and down the Avenue de la Gare. The glittering cafés were full of people taking an apéritif before dinner. There was a sense of relaxation and repose over the pleasure city of the South, poured down upon it in a golden haze from the last level rays of the sun.

Outside one of the cafés, as the carriage turned to the station, some Italians were singing "O Soli Mio" to the accompaniment of guitars and a harp, with mellow, passionate voices.

The long green train rolled into the glass-roofed station, the brass-work of the carriage doors covered thick with oily dust from the Italian tunnels through which it had passed. The conductor of the sleeping-car portion found the two women their reserved compartment. Their luggage was already registered through to Charing Cross and they had only dressing bags with them.

As the train started again Mrs. Daly pulled the sliding door into its place, the curtains over it and the windows which looked out into the corridor. Then she switched on the electric light in the roof and also the lamp which stood on a little table at the other end.

"There, my dear," she said, "now we shall be quite comfortable."

She sat down by Mary, took her hand in hers and kissed her.

"I know what you are experiencing now," she said in her low rich voice, "and it is very bitter. But the separation is only for a short, short time. God wants her, and we shall all be in heaven together soon, Mrs. Lothian. And you're leaving her with her husband. It is a great mercy that he has come at last. They are best alone together. And see how brave and cheery he is! – There's a real man, a Christian soldier and gentleman if ever one lived. His wife's death won't kill him. It will make him live more strenuously for others. He will pass the short time between now and meeting her again in a high fever of righteous works and duty. There is no death."

Mary held the firm white hand.

"You comfort me," she said. "I thank God that you came to me in my affliction. Otherwise I should have been quite alone till Harold came."

"I'm real glad that dear good Morton Sims asked me to call. Edith Sims and I are like" .. She broke off abruptly. "Like sisters," she was about to say, but would not.

Mary smiled. Her friend's delicacy was easy to understand. "I know," she answered, "like sisters! You needn't have hesitated. I am better now. All you tell me is just what I am sure of and it is everything. But one's heart grows faint at the moment of parting and the reassuring voice of a friend helps very much. I hope it doesn't mean that one's faith is weak, to long for a sympathetic and confirming voice?"

"No, it does not. God has made us like that. I know the value of a friend's word well. Nothing heartens one so. I have been in deep waters in my time, Mary. You must let me call you Mary, my dear."

"Oh, do, do! Yes, it is wonderful how words help, human living words."

"Nothing is more extraordinary in life than the power of the spoken word. How careful and watchful every one ought to be over words. Spoken, they always seem to me to have more lasting influence than words in a book. They pass through mind after mind. Just think, for instance, how when we meet a man or woman with a sincere intellectual belief which is quite opposed to our own, we are chilled into a momentary doubt of our own opinions – however strongly we may hold them. And when it is the other way about, what strength and comfort we get!"

"Thank you," Mary said simply, "you are very helpful. Dr. Morton Sims" – she hesitated for a moment – "Dr. Morton Sims told me something of your life. And of course I know all about your work, as the whole world knows. I know, dear Mrs. Daly, how much you have suffered. And it is because of that that you help me so, who am suffering too."

There was silence for a space. The train had stopped at Cannes and started again. Now it was winding and climbing the mountain valleys towards Toulon. But neither of the two women knew anything of it. They were alone in the quiet travelling room that money made possible for them. Heart was meeting heart in the small luxurious place in which they sat, remote from the outside world as if upon some desert island.

"Dear Morton Sims," the American lady said at length. "The utter sane goodness of that man! My dear, he is an angel of light, as near a perfect character as any one alive in the world to-day. And yet he doesn't believe in Jesus and thinks the Church and the Sacraments – I've been a member of the Episcopalian Church from girlhood – only make-believe and error."

"He is the finest natured man I have ever met," Mary answered. "I've only known him for a short time, but he has been so good and friendly. What a sad thing it is that he is an infidel. I don't use the word in the popular reprehensible sense, but as just what it means – without faith."

"It's a sad thing to us," Mrs. Daly said briskly, "but I have no fears for him. God hasn't given him the gift of Faith. Now that's all we can say about it. In the next world he will have to go through a probation and learn his catechism, so to speak, before he steps right into his proper place. But he won't be a catechumen long. His pure heart and noble life will tell where hearts and wills are weighed. There is a place by the Throne waiting for him."

"Oh, I am sure. He is wonderfully good. Indeed one seems to feel his goodness more than one does that of our clergyman at home, though Mr. Medley is a good man too!"

"Brains, my dear! Brains! Morton Sims, you see, is of the aristocracy. Your clergyman probably is not."

"Aristocracy?"

"The only aristocracy, the aristocracy of brain-power. Don't forget I'm an American woman, Mary! Goodness has the same value in Heaven however it is manifested upon earth. The question of bimetallism doesn't trouble God and His Angels. But a brilliant-minded Saint has certainly more influence down here than a fool-saint."

Mary nodded.

Such a doctrine as this was quite in accord with what she wished to think. She rejoiced to hear it spoken with such sharp lucidity. She also worshipped at a shrine, that of no saint, certainly, but where a flaming intellect illuminated the happenings of life. In his way, quite a different way, of course, she knew that Gilbert had a finer mind than even Morton Sims. And yet, Gilbert wasn't good, as he ought to be… How these speculations and judgments coiled and recoiled upon themselves; puzzled weary minds and, when all was done, were very little good after all!

At any rate, she loved Gilbert more than anything or anybody in the world. So that was that!

But tears came into her eyes as she thought of her husband with deep and yearning love. If he would only give up alcohol! Why wouldn't he? To her, such an act seemed so simple and easy. Only a refusal, that was all! The young man who came to Jesus in the old days was asked to give up so much. Even for Jesus and immortality he found himself unable to do it. But Gilbert had only to give up one thing in order to be good and happy, to make her happy.

It was true that Dr. Morton Sims had told her many scientific facts, had explained and explained. He had definitely said that Gilbert was in the clutches of a disease; that Gilbert couldn't really help himself, that he must be cured as a man is cured of gout. And then, when she had asked the doctor how this was to be done, he had so little comfort to give. He had explained that all the advertised "cures" – even the ones backed up by people of name, bishops, magistrates, and so on, were really worthless. They administered other drugs in order to sober up the patient from alcohol. That was easy and possible – though only with the thorough co-operation of the patient. After a few weeks, when health appeared to be restored, and the will power was certainly strengthened, the "cure" did nothing more. The pre-disposition was not eradicated. That was an affair to be accomplished only by two or three years of abstinence and not always then.

– "I'll talk to Mrs. Daly about it," the sad wife said to herself. "She is a noble, Christian woman. She understands more than even the doctor. She must do so. She loves our Lord. Moreover she has given her life to the cause of temperance." ..

But she must be careful and diplomatic. The natural reticence and delicacy of a well-bred woman shrank from the unveiling, not only of her own sorrow, but of a beloved's shame. The coarse, ill-balanced and bourgeois temperament bawls its sorrow and calls for sympathy from the sweepings of any Pentonville omnibus. It writes things upon a street wall and enjoys voluptuous public hysterics. The refined and gracious mind hesitates long before the least avowal.

"You said," she began, after a period of sympathetic silence, "that you had been in deep waters."

Julia Daly nodded. "I guess it's pretty well known," she said with a sigh. "That's the worst of a campaign like mine. It's partly because every one knows all about what you've gone through that they give you a hearing. In the States the papers are full of my unhappy story whenever I lecture in a new place. But I'm used to it now and it doesn't hurt me. Most of the stories are untrue, though. Mr. Daly was a pretty considerable ruffian when he was in drink. But he wasn't the monster he's been made out to be, and he couldn't help himself, poor, poisoned man. But which story have you read, Mary?"

"None at all. Only Dr. Morton Sims, when he wrote, told me that you had suffered, that your husband, that – "

"That Patrick was an alcoholic. Yes, that's the main fact. He did a dreadful thing when he became insane through drink. There's no need to speak of it. But I loved him dearly all the same. He might have been such a noble man!"

"Ah, that's just what I feel about my dear boy. He's not as bad as – as some people. But he does drink quite dreadfully. I hate telling you. It seems a sort of treachery to him. But you may be able to help me."

"I knew," Mrs. Daly said with a sigh. "The doctor has told me in confidence. I'd do anything to help you, dear girl. Your husband's poems have been such a help and comfort to me in hours of sadness and depression. Oh, what a dreadful scourge it is! this frightful thing that seizes on noble and ignoble minds alike! It is the black horror of the age, the curse of nations, the ruin of thousands upon thousands. If only the world would realise it!"

"No one seems to realise the horror except those who have suffered dreadfully from it."

"More people do than you think, Mary, but, still, they are an insignificant part of the whole. People are such fools! I was reading 'Pickwick' the other day, a great English classic and a work of genius, too, in its way, I suppose. The principal characters get drunk on every other page. Things are better now, as far as books are concerned, though the comic newspapers keep up their ghastly fun about drunken folk. But the cause of Temperance isn't a popular one, here or in my own country."

"A teetotaller is so often called a fanatic in England," Mary said.

"I know it well. But I say this, with entire conviction, absolute bed-rock certainty, my dear, the people who have joined together to go without alcohol themselves and to do all they can to fight it, are in the right whatever people may say of them. And it doesn't matter what people say either. As in all movements, there is a lot of error and mistaken energy. The Bands of Hope, the Blue Ribbon Army, the Rechabites are not always wise. Some of them make total abstinence into a religion and think that alcohol is the only Fiend to fight against. Most of them – as our own new scientific party think – are fighting on wrong lines. That's to say they are not doing a tenth as much good as they might do, because the scientific remedy has not become real to them. That will come though, if we can bring it about. But I tire you?"

"Please go on."

"Well, you know our theory. It is a certain remedy. You can't stop alcohol. But by making it a penal offence for drunkards to have children, drunkenness must be almost eliminated in time."

"Yes," Mary said. "Of course, I have read all about it. But I know so little of science. But what is the individual cure? Is there none, then? Oh, surely if it is a disease it can be cured? Dr. Morton Sims tried to be encouraging, but I could see that he didn't think there really was much chance for a man who is a slave to drink. It is splendid, of course, to think that some day it may all be eliminated by science. But meanwhile, when women's hearts are bleeding for men they love .."

Her voice broke and faltered. Her heart was too full for further speech.

The good woman at her side kissed her tenderly. "Do not grieve," she said. "Listen. I told you just now that so many of the great Temperance organisations err in their rejection of scientific advice and scientific means to a great end. They place their trust in God, forgetting that science only exists by God's will and that every discovery made by men is only God choosing to reveal Himself to those who search for Him. But the Scientists are wrong, too, in their rejection – in so many cases – of God. They do not see that Religion and Science are not only non-antagonistic, but really complement each other. It is beginning to be seen, though. In time it will be generally recognised. I read the admission of a famous scientist the other day, to this effect. He said, 'It is generally recognised that any form of treatment in which the "occult," the "supernatural," or anything secret or mysterious is allowed to play a dominant part in so neurotic an affection as inebriety, often succeeds.' And he closed a most helpful and able essay on the arrest of alcohol with something like these words:

"'The reference to agencies for the uplifting of the drink-victim would be sadly incomplete without a very definite acknowledgment of the incalculable assistance which the wise worker and unprejudiced physician may obtain by bringing to bear upon the whole life of the patient that Power, the majesty and mystery, the consolation and inspiration of which it is the mission of religion to reveal.'"

"Then even the doctors are coming round?" Mary said. "And it means exactly, you would say – ?"

"I would tell you what has been proved without possibility of dispute a thousand times. I would tell you that when all therapeutic agencies have failed, the Holy Spirit has succeeded. The Power which is above every other power can do this. No loving heart need despair. However black the night that influence can enlighten it. Ask those who work among the desolate and oppressed; the outcast and forlorn, the drink-victims and criminals. Ask, here in England, old General Booth or Prebendary Carlile. Ask the clergy of the Church in the London Docks, ask the Nonconformist ministers, ask the Priests of the Italian Mission who work in the slums.

"They will tell you of daily miracles of conversion and transformations as marvellous and mystical as ever Jesus wrought when He was visible on earth. Mary! It goes on to-day, it does go on. There is the only cure, the only salvation. Jesus."

There was a passionate fervour in her voice, a divine light upon her face. She also prophesied, and the Spirit of God was upon her as upon the holy women of old.

And Mary caught that holy fire also. Her lips were parted, her eyes shone. She re-echoed the sacred Name.

"I would give my life to save Gilbert," she said.

"I have no dear one to save, now," the other answered. "But I would give a thousand lives if I had them to save America from Alcohol. I love my land! There is much about my country that the ordinary English man or woman has no glimmering of. Your papers are full of the extravagances and divorces of wealthy vulgarians – champagne corks floating on cess-pools. You read of trusts and political corruption. These are the things that are given prominence by the English newspapers. But of the deep true heart of America little is known here. We are not really a race of money-grubbers and cheap humourists. We are great, we shall be greater. The lamps of freedom burn clearly in the hearts of millions of people of whom Europe never hears. God is with us still! The Holy Spirit broods yet over the forests and the prairies, the mountains and the rivers of my land. Read the 'Choir Invisible' by James Lane Allen and learn of us who are America."

"I will, dear Mrs. Daly. How you have comforted me to-night! God sent you to me. I feel quite happy now about my darling sister. I feel much happier about my husband. Whatever this life has in store, there is always the hereafter. It seems very close to-night, the veil wears thin."

"We will rest, Mary, while these good thoughts and hopes remain within us. But before we go to bed, listen to this."

Julia Daly felt in her dressing bag and withdrew a small volume bound in vermilion morocco.

"It's your best English novel," she said, "far and away the greatest – Charles Reade's 'The Cloister and the Hearth,' I mean. I'm reading it for the fifth time. For five years now I have done so each year."

"For ever?" she began in her beautiful voice, that voice which had brought hope to so many weary hearts in the great Republic of the West.

"'For ever? Christians live "for ever," and love "for ever" but they never part "for ever." They part, as part the earth and sun, only to meet more brightly in a little while. You and I part here for life. And what is our life? One line in the great story of the Church, whose son and daughter we are; one handful in the sand of time, one drop in the ocean of "For ever." Adieu – for the little moment called "a life!" We part in trouble, we shall meet in peace; we part in a world of sin and sorrow, we shall meet where all is purity and love divine; where no ill passions are, but Christ is, and His Saints around Him clad in white. There, in the turning of an hour-glass, in the breaking of a bubble, in the passing of a cloud, she, and thou, and I shall meet again; and sit at the feet of angels and archangels, apostles and saints, and beam like them with joy unspeakable, in the light of the shadow of God upon His throne, for ever – and ever – and ever.'"

 

The two women undressed and said their prayers, making humble supplication at the Throne of Grace for themselves, those they loved and for all those from whom God was hidden.

And as the train bore them through Nimes and Arles, Avignon and the old Roman cities of southern France, they slept as simple children sleep.