Hard Cash

"Ay; your mother-in-law, that shall never be. Mrs. Dodd."

"Mrs. Dodd here!" said Alfred, clasping his hands. Then he reflected, and said coolly: "It is false; what should she come here for?"

"To see your father-in-law."

"My father-in-law? What, is he here, too?" said Alfred with an incredulous sneer.

"Yes, the raving maniac that calls himself Thompson, and that you took to from the first: he is your precious father-in-law--that shall never be."

Alfred was now utterly amazed, and bewildered. Mrs. Archbold eyed him in silent scorn.

"Poor man," said he at last; and hung his head sorrowfully. "No wonder then his voice went so to my heart. How strange it all is! and how will it all end?"

"In your being a madman instead of an insolent fool," hissed the viper.

At this moment Beverley appeared at the end of the yard. Mrs. Archbold whistled him to her like a dog. He came running zealously. "Who was that called while I was out?" she inquired.

"A polite lady, madam: she said sir to me, and thanked me."

"That sounds like Mrs. Dodd," said the Archbold quietly.

"Ah, but," continued Frank, "there was another with her a beautiful young lady; oh, so beautiful!"

"Miss Julia Dodd," said the Archbold grimly.

Alfred panted, and his eyes roved wildly in search of a way to escape and follow her; she could not be far off.

"Anybody else, Frank?" inquired Mrs. Archbold.

"No more ladies, madam; but there was a young gentleman all in black. I think he was a clergyman--or a butler."

"Ah, that was her husband that is to be; that was Mr. Hurd. She can go nowhere without him, not even to see her old beau."

At these words, every one of them an adder, Alfred turned on her furiously, and his long arm shot out of its own accord, and the fingers opened like an eagle's claw. She saw, and understood, but never blenched. Her vindictive eye met his dilating flas.h.i.+ng orbs unflinchingly.

"You pa.s.s for a woman," he said, "and I am too wretched for anger."

He turned from her with a deep convulsive sob, and, almost staggering, leaned his brow against the wall of the house.

She had done what no man had as yet succeeded in; she had broken his spirit. And here a man would have left him alone. But the rejected beauty put her lips to his ear, and whispered into them, "This is only the beginning." Then she left him and went to his room and stole all his paper, and pens, and ink, and his very Aristotle. He was to have no occupation now, except to brood, and brood, and brood.

As for Alfred, he sat down upon a bench in the yard a broken man: up to this moment he had hoped his Julia was as constant as himself. But no; either she had heard he was mad, and with the universal credulity had believed it, or perhaps, not hearing from him at all believed herself forsaken; and was consoling herself with a clergyman. Jealousy did not as yet infuriate Alfred. Its first effect resembled that of a heavy blow. Little Beverley found him actually sick, and ran to the Robin.

The ex-prizefighter brought him a thimbleful of brandy, but he would not take it. "Ah no, my friends," he said, "that cannot cure me; it is not my stomach; it is my heart. Broken, broken!"

The Robin retired muttering. Little Beverley kneeled down beside him, and kissed his hand with a devotion that savoured of the canine. Yet it was tender, and the sinking heart clung to it. "Oh, Frank!" he cried, "my Julia believes me mad, or thinks me false, or something, and she will marry another before I can get

He moaned, and young Frank sorrowed over him, till the harsh voice of Rooke summoned him to some menial duty. This discharged, he came running back; and sat on the bench beside his crushed benefactor without saying a word. At last he delivered this sapient speech: "I see. You want to get out of this place."

Alfred only sighed hopelessly.

"Then I must try and get you out," said Frank. Alfred shook his head.

"Just let me think," said Frank solemnly; and he sat silent looking like a young owl: for thinking soon puzzled him, and elicited his intellectual weakness, whereas in a groove of duties he could go as smoothly as half the world, and but for his official, officious Protector, might just as well have been Boots at the Swan, as Boots and Chambermaid at the Wolf.

So now force and cunning had declared war on Alfred, and feebleness in person enlisted in his defence. His adversary lost no time; that afternoon Rooke told him he was henceforth to occupy a double bedded room with another patient.

"If he should be violent in the middle of the night, sing out, and we will come--if we hear you," said the keeper with a malicious smile.

The patient turned out to be the able seaman. Here Mrs. Archbold aimed a double stroke; to shake Alfred's nerves, and show him how very mad his proposed father-in-law was. She thought that, if he could once be forced to realise this, it might reconcile him to not marrying the daughter.

The first night David did get up and paraded an imaginary deck for four mortal hours. Alfred's sleep was broken; but he said nothing, and David turned in again, his watch completed.

Not a day pa.s.sed now but a blow was struck. Nor was the victim pa.s.sive; debarred writing materials, he cut the rims off several copies of the _Times,_ and secreted them: then catching sight of some ink-blots on the back of Frank's clothes-brush, sc.r.a.ped them carefully off, melted them in a very little water, and with a toothpick scrawled his wrongs to the Commissioners; he rolled the slips round a half-crown, and wrote outside, "Good Christian, keep this half-crown, and take the writing to the Lunacy Commissioners at Whitehall, for pity's sake." This done, he watched, and when n.o.body was looking, flung his letter, so weighted, over the gates; he heard it fall on the public road.

Another day he secreted a spoonful of black currant preserve, diluted it with a little water, and wrote a letter, and threw it into the road as before: another day, hearing the Robin express disgust at the usage to which he was now subjected, he drew him apart, and offered him a hundred pounds to get him out. Now the ex-prizefighter was rather a tender-hearted fellow, and a great detester of foul play. What he saw made him now side heartily with Alfred; and all he wanted was to be indemnified for his risk.

He looked down and said, "You see, sir, I have a wife and child to think of."

Alfred offered him two hundred pounds.

"That is more than enough, sir," said the Robin; "but you see I can't do it alone. I must have a pal in it. Could you afford as much to Garrett?

He is the likeliest; I've heard him say as much as that he was sick of the business."

Alfred jumped at the proposal: he would give them two hundred apiece.

"I'll sound him," said the Robin; "don't you speak to him, whatever. He might blow the gaff. I must begin by making him drunk, then he'll tell me his real mind."

One fine morning the house was made much cleaner than usual; the rotatory chair, in which they used to spin a maniac like a teetotum, the restraint chairs, and all the paraphernalia were sent into the stable, and so disposed that, even if found, they would look like things scorned and dismissed from service: for Wolf, mind you, professed the non-restraint system.

Alfred asked what was up, and found all this was in preparation for the quarterly visit of the Commissioners: a visit intended to be a surprise; but Drayton House always knew when they were coming, and the very names of the two thunderbolts that thought to surprise them.

Mrs. Archbold communicated her knowledge in off-hand terms. "It is only two old women: Bartlett and Terry."

The gentlemen thus flatteringly heralded arrived next day. One an aged, infirm man, with a grand benevolent head, bald front and silver hair, and the gold-headed cane of his youth, now a dignified crutch: the other an ordinary looking little chap enough, with this merit--he was what he looked. They had a long interview with Mrs. Archbold first, for fear they should carry a naked eye into the asylum. Mr. Bartlett, acting on instructions, very soon inquired about Alfred; Mrs. Archbold's face put on friendly concern directly. "I am sorry to say he is not so well as he was a fortnight ago--not nearly so well. We have given him walks in the country, too; but I regret to say they did him no real good; he came back much excited, and now he shuns the other patients, which he used not to do." In short, she gave them the impression that Alfred was a moping melancholiac.

"Well, I had better see him," said Mr. Bartlett, "just to satisfy the Board."

Alfred was accordingly sent for, and asked with an indifferent air how he was.

He said he was very well in health, but in sore distress of mind at his letters to the Commissioners being intercepted by Mrs. Archbold or Dr.

Wolf.

Mrs. Archbold smiled pityingly. Mr. Bartlett caught her glance, and concluded this was one of the patient's delusions. (Formula.)

Alfred surprised the glances, and said, "You can hardly believe this, because the act is illegal. But a great many illegal acts, that you never detect, are done in asylums. However, it is not a question of surmise; I sent four letters in the regular way since I came. Here are their several dates. Pray make a note to inquire whether they have reached Whitehall or not."

"Oh, certainly, to oblige you," said Mr. Bartlett, and made the note.