Rivers of Ice

Chapter Twenty Two.

Mysterious Proceedings of the Captain and Gillie

We are back again in London—in Mrs Roby’s little cabin at the top of the old tenement in Grubb’s Court.

Captain Wopper is there, of course. So is Mrs Roby. Gillie White is there also, and Susan Quick. The Captain is at home. The two latter are on a visit—a social tea-party. Little Netta White, having deposited Baby White in the mud at the lowest corner of the Court for greater security, is waiting upon them—a temporary handmaiden, relieving, by means of variety, the cares of permanent nursehood. Mrs White is up to the elbows in soap-suds, taking at least ocular and vocal charge of the babe in the mud, and her husband is—“drunk, as usual?” No—there is a change there. Good of some kind has been somewhere at work. Either knowingly or unwittingly some one has been “overcoming evil with good,” for Mrs White’s husband is down at the docks toiling hard to earn a few pence wherewith to increase the family funds. And who can tell what a terrible yet hopeful war is going on within that care-worn, sin-worn man? To toil hard with shattered health is burden enough. What must it be when, along with the outward toil, there is a constant fight with a raging watchful devil within? But the man has given that devil some desperate falls of late. Oh, how often and how long he has fought with him, and been overcome, cast down, and his armoury of resolutions scattered to the winds! But he has been to see some one, or some one has been to see him, who has advised him to try another kind of armour—not his own. He knows the power of a “new affection” now. Despair was his portion not long ago. He is now animated by Hope, for the long uncared-for name of Jesus is now growing sweet to his ear. But the change has taken place recently, and he looks very weary as he toils and fights.

“Well, mother,” said Captain Wopper, “now that I’ve given you a full, true, an’ partikler account of Switzerland, what d’ee think of it?”

“It is a strange place—very, but I don’t approve of people risking their lives and breaking their limbs for the mere pleasure of getting to the top of a mountain of ice.”

“But we can’t do anything in life without riskin’ our lives an’ breakin’ our limbs more or less,” said the Captain.

“An’ think o’ the interests of science,” said Gillie, quoting the Professor.

Mrs Roby shook her tall cap and remained unconvinced. To have expected the old nurse to take an enlightened view on that point would have been as unreasonable as to have looked for just views in Gillie White on the subject of conic sections.

“Why, mother, a man may break a leg or an arm in going down stairs,” said the Captain, pursuing the subject; “by the way, that reminds me to ask for Fred Leven. Didn’t I hear that he broke his arm coming up his own stair? Is it true?”

“True enough,” replied Mrs Roby.

“Was he the worse of liquor at the time?”

“No. It was dark, and he was carrying a heavy box of something or other for his mother. Fred is a reformed man. I think the sight of your poor father, Gillie, has had something to do with it, and that night when his mother nearly died. At all events he never touches drink now, and he has got a good situation in one of the warehouses at the docks.”

“That’s well,” returned the Captain, with satisfaction. “I had hopes of that young feller from the night you mention. Now, mother, I’m off. Gillie and I have some business to transact up the water. Very particular business—eh, lad?”

“Oh! wery partickler,” said Gillie, responding to his patron’s glance with a powerful wink.

Expressing a hope that Susan would keep Mrs Roby company till he returned, the Captain left the room with his usual heavy roll, and the spider followed with imitative swagger.

Captain Wopper was fond of mystery. Although he had, to some extent made a confidant of the boy for whom he had taken so strong a fancy, he nevertheless usually maintained a dignified distance of demeanour towards him, and a certain amount of reticence, which, as a stern disciplinarian, he deemed to be essential. This, however, did not prevent him from indulging in occasional, not to say frequent, unbendings of disposition, which he condescended to exhibit by way of encouragement to his small protégé; but these unbendings and confidences were always more or less shrouded in mystery. Many of them, indeed, consisted of nothing more intelligible than nods, grins, and winks.

“That’ll be rather a nice cottage when it’s launched,” said the Captain, pointing to a building in process of erection, which stood so close to the edge of the Thames that its being launched seemed as much a literal allusion as a metaphor.

“Raither bobbish,” assented the spider.

“Clean run fore and aft with bluff bows, like a good sea-boat,” said the Captain. “Come, let’s have a look at it.”

Asking permission to enter of a workman who granted the same with, what appeared to Gillie, an unnecessarily broad grin, the Captain led the way up a spiral staircase. It bore such a strong resemblance to the familiar one of Grubb’s Court that Gillie’s eyes enlarged with surprise, and he looked involuntarily back for his soapy mother and the babe in the mud. There were, however, strong points of dissimilarity, inasmuch as there was no mud or filth of any kind near the new building except lime; and the stair, instead of leading like that of the Tower of Babel an interminable distance upwards, ended abruptly at the second floor. Here, however, there was a passage exactly similar to the passage leading to Mrs Roby’s cabin, save that it was well lighted, and at the end thereof was an almost exact counterpart of the cabin itself. There was the same low roof, the same little fireplace, with the space above for ornaments, and the same couple of little windows looking out upon a stretch of the noble river, from which you might have fished. There was the same colour of paint on the walls, which had been so managed as to represent the dinginess of antiquity. There was also, to all appearance, Mrs Roby’s own identical bed, with its chintz curtains. Here, however, resemblance ended, for there was none of the Grubb’s Court dirt. The craft on the river were not so large or numerous, the reach being above the bridges. If you had fished you not have hooked rats or dead cats, and if you had put your head out and looked round, you would have encountered altogether a clean, airy, and respectable neighbourhood, populous enough to be quite cheery, with occasional gardens instead of mud-banks, and without interminable rows of tall chimney-pots excluding the light of heaven.

Gillie, not yet having been quite cured of his objectionable qualities, at once apostrophised his eye and Elizabeth Martin.

“As like as two peas, barrin’ the dirt!”

The Captain evidently enjoyed the lad’s astonishment.

“A ship-shape sort o’ craft, ain’t it? It wouldn’t be a bad joke to buy it—eh?”

Gillie, who was rather perplexed, but too much a man of the world to disclose much of his state of mind, said that it wouldn’t be a bad move for any feller who had got the blunt. “How much would it cost now?”

“A thousand pounds, more or less,” said the Captain, with discreet allowance for latitude.

“Ha! a goodish lump, no doubt.”

“I’ve half a mind to buy it,” continued the Captain, looking round with a satisfied smile. “It would be an amoosin’ sort o’ thing, now, to bring old Mrs Roby here. The air would be fresher for her old lungs, wouldn’t it?”

Gillie nodded, but was otherwise reticent.

“The stair, too, wouldn’t be too high to get her down now and again, and a boat could be handy to shove her into without much exertion. For the matter of that,” said the Captain, looking out, “we might have a slide made, like a Swiss couloir, you know, and she could glissade comfortably into the boat out o’ the winder. Then, there’s a beam to hang her ship an’ Chinee lanterns from, an’ a place over the fireplace to stick her knick-knacks. What d’ee think, my lad?”

Gillie, who had begun to allow a ray of light to enter his mind, gave, as his answer, an emphatic nod and a broad grin.

The Captain replied with a nod and a wink, whereupon the other retired behind his patron, for the purpose of giving himself a quiet hug of delight, in which act, however, he was caught; the Captain being one who always, according to his own showing, kept his weather-eye open.

“W’y, what’s the matter with you, boy?”

“Pains in the stummick is aggrawatin’ sometimes,” answered Gillie.

“You haven’t got ’em, have you?”

“Well, I can’t exactly go for to say as I has,” answered Gillie, with another grin.

“Now, look ’ee here, youngster,” said the Captain, suddenly seizing the spider by his collar and trousers, and swinging him as though about to hurl him through the window into the river, “if you go an’ let your tongue wag in regard to this matter, out you go, right through the port-hole—d’ee see?”

He set the spider quietly on his legs again, who replied, with unruffled coolness—

“Mum’s the word, Cappen.”

Gillie had been shorn of his blue tights and brass buttons, poor Mrs Stoutley having found it absolutely necessary, on her return home, to dismiss all her servants, dispose of all her belongings, and retire into the privacy of a poor lodging in a back street. Thus the spider had come to be suddenly thrown on the world again, but Captain Wopper had retained him, he said, as a mixture of errand-boy, cabin-boy, and powder-monkey, in which capacity he dwelt with his mother during the night and revolved like a satellite round the Captain during the day. A suit of much more appropriate pepper-and-salt had replaced the blue tights and buttons. Altogether, his tout-ensemble was what the Captain styled “more ship-shape.”

We have said that Mrs Stoutley and her family had made a descent in life. As poor Lewis remarked, with a sad smile, they had quitted the gay and glittering heights, and gone, like a magnificent avalanche, down into the moraine. Social, not less than physical, avalanches multiply their parts and widen their course during descent. The Stoutleys did not fall alone. A green-grocer, a shoemaker, and a baker, who had long been trembling, like human boulders, on the precipice of bankruptcy, went tumbling down along with them, and found rest in a lower part of the moraine than they had previously occupied.

“It’s a sad business,” said Lewis to Dr Lawrence one morning; “and if you continue to attend me, you must do so without the most distant prospect of a fee.”

“My dear fellow,” returned Lawrence, “have you no such thing as gratitude in your composition?”

“Not much, and, if I had ever so much, it would be poor pay.”

“Poor, indeed, if regarded as one’s only source of livelihood,” rejoined Lawrence, “but it is ample remuneration from a friend, whether rich or poor, and, happily, capable of being mixed with pounds, shillings and pence without deterioration. In the present case, I shall be more than rejoiced to take the fee unmixed, but, whether fee’d or not fee’d, I insist on continuing attendance on a case which I have a right to consider peculiarly my own.”

“It would have been a bad case, indeed, but for you,” returned Lewis, a flush for a moment suffusing his pale cheek as he took his friend’s hand and squeezed it. “I am thoroughly convinced, Lawrence, that God’s blessing on your skill and unwearied care of me at the time of the accident is the cause of my being alive to thank you to-day. But sit down, my dear fellow, and pray postpone your professional inquiries for a little, as I have something on my mind which I wish to ask you about.”

Lawrence shook his head. “Business first, pleasure afterwards,” he said; “professional duties must not be postponed.”

“Now,” said Lewis when he had finished, “are you satisfied? Do you admit that even an unprofessional man might have seen at a glance that I am much better, and that your present draft on my gratitude is a mere swindle?”

“I admit nothing,” retorted the other; “but now, what have you got to say to me?”

“I am going to make a confidant of you. Are you to be trusted?”

“Perhaps; I dare not say yes unconditionally, because I’m rather sociable and communicative, and apt to talk in my sleep.”

“That will do. Your answer is sufficiently modest. I will venture. You know Captain Wopper, I mean, you are well acquainted with his character; well, that kind and eccentric man has made a proposal to my dear mother, which we do not like to accept, and which at the same time we do not quite see our way to refuse. My mother, when in great distress in Switzerland, was forced to borrow a small sum of money from him, and thought it right to justify her doing so by letting him know—what everybody, alas! may know now—that we were ruined. With that ready kindness which is his chief characteristic he at once complied. Since our return home he has, with great delicacy but much determination, insisted that we shall accept from him a regular weekly allowance until we have had time to correspond with our uncle Stout in California. ‘You mustn’t starve,’ he said to my mother—I give you his own words—‘and you’d be sure to starve if you was to try to wegitate for six months or so on atmospheric air. It’ll take that time before you could get a letter from Willum, an’ though your son Lewis could an’ would, work like a nigger to keep your pot bilin’ if he was well an’ hearty, it’s as plain as the nose on your own face, ma’am, that he can’t work while he’s as thin as a fathom of pump-water an’ as weak as a babby. Now, you know-at least I can tell ’ee—that my old chum Willum is as rich as a East Injin nabob. You wouldn’t believe, madam, what fortins some gold-diggers have made. W’y, I’ve seed men light their pipes with fi’-pun’ notes for a mere brag out there. I’ve made a goodish lump o’ money myself too,—a’most more than I know what to do with, an’ as to Willum, I may say he’s actooally rollin’ in gold. He’s also chockfull of regard for you and yours, ma’am. That bein’ so, he’s sure to send you somethin’ to tide you over yer difficulties, an’ he’s also sure to send somethin’ to Lewis to help him start fair when he gits well, and he’s surest of all to send somethin’ to Miss Emma for all the kind letters she’s writ to him doorin’ the last five or six years. Well, then, I’m Willum’s buzzum friend, and, knowin’ exactly what he’ll say an’ do in the circumstances, what more nat’ral an’ proper than that Willum’s chum should anticipate Willum’s wishes, and advance the money—some of it at least—say three thousand pounds to start with.’ Now, Lawrence,” continued Lewis, “what should we do? Should we accept this offer? The good fellow has evidently made a great deal of money at the gold-fields, and no doubt speaks truly when he says he can afford to advance that sum. And we know our uncle William’s character well enough, though we have never seen him, to be quite sure that he will assist my dear mother until I am able to support her. What say you?”

“Accept the offer at once,” said Lawrence. “From what I have seen of the Captain, I am convinced that he is a warm friend and a genuine man. No doubt he can well afford to do what he proposes, and his opinion of William Stout’s character is just, for, from what I know of him through Mrs Roby, who knew him when he was a lad, when his life was saved by my father, he must have a kind heart.”

“I have no doubt of it, Lawrence, and a grateful heart too, if I may judge from a few words that fell from Captain Wopper about your father and yourself.”

“Indeed! what did he say about us?”

“I have no right to repeat observations dropped inadvertently,” said Lewis, with a laugh.

“Nor to raise curiosity which you don’t mean to satisfy,” retorted his friend; “however, my advice is, that you accept the Captain’s offer, and trust to your uncle’s generosity.”

Chapter Twenty Three.

The Captain surprises his Friends in various Ways, and is himself Baffled

Time and Tide passed on—as they are proverbially said to do—without waiting for any one. Some people in the great city, aware of this cavalier style of proceeding on the part of Time and Tide, took advantage of both, and scaled the pinnacled heights of society. Others, neglecting their opportunities, or misusing them, produced a series of avalanches more or less noteworthy, and added a few more boulders to the vast accumulations in the great social moraine.

Several of the actors in this tale were among those who, having learnt a few sharp lessons in the avalanche school, began to note and avail themselves of Time and Tide—notably, Mrs Stoutley and her son and niece. A decided change had come over the spirit of Mrs Stoutley’s dream of life. She had at last visited the great London moraine, especially that part of it called Grubb’s Court, and had already dug up a few nuggets and diamonds, one of which latter she brought to her humble home in the back street, with the design of polishing it into a good servant-maid. Its name was Netta White. Mrs Stoutley had formerly been a spendthrift; now she was become covetous. She coveted the male diamond belonging to the same part of the moraine—once named the Spider, alias the Imp—but Captain Wopper had dug up that one for himself and would not part with it. Gradually the good lady conceived and carried out the idea of digging out and rescuing a number of diamonds, considerably lower in the scale than the Netta type, training them for service, and taking pains to get them into good situations. It was hard work no doubt, but Mrs Stoutley persevered, and was well repaid—for the Master of such labourers esteems them “worthy of their hire.” Emma assisted in the work most heartily. It was by no means new to her. She might have directed if she had chosen, but she preferred to follow.

Lewis recovered rapidly—so rapidly that he was soon able to resume his medical studies and prosecute them with vigour. No bad effects of the accident remained, yet he was an altered man—not altered in appearance or in character, but in spirit. He was still off-hand in manner, handsome in face and figure, hearty in society, but earnest and grave—very grave—in private. He pored over his books, and strove, successfully too, to master the difficulties of the healing art; but do what he would, and fight against it as he might, he was constantly distracted by a pretty face with bright sparkling eyes and a strangely sad expression coming between him and the page. He made continual inquiries after the owner of the sparkling eyes in every direction without success, and at last got into the habit when walking, of looking earnestly at people as if he expected to meet with some one. “If I had got into this state,” he sometimes said to himself, “because of being merely in love with a pretty face, I should consider myself a silly nincompoop; but it is such a terrible thing for so sweet and young a creature to be chained to a man who must in the nature of things, land her in beggary and break her heart.” Thus he deceived himself as to his main motive. Poor Lewis!

One morning Captain Wopper got up a little earlier than usual, and began a series of performances which Mrs Roby had long ago styled “rampadgin” round his garret.

The reader may have discovered by this time that the Captain was no ordinary man. Whatever he did in connection with himself was done with almost superhuman energy and noise. Since the commencement of his residence in the garret he had unwittingly subjected the nerves of poor Mrs Roby to such a variety of shocks, that the mere fact of her reason remaining on its throne was an unquestionable proof of a more than usually powerful constitution. It could not well be otherwise. The Captain’s limbs resembled the limbs of oaks in regard to size and toughness. His spirits were far above “proof.” His organs were cathedral organs compared with the mere barrel-organs of ordinary men. On the other hand, the “cabin” in Grubb’s Court was but a flimsy tenement; its plank floorings were thin, and its beams and rafters slim and somewhat loose owing to age, so that when the captain snored, which he did regularly and continuously, it was as if a mastiff had got inside a double-bass and were growling hideously.