Lady of the Ice (23 page)

Jack
had been falling off more and more. I was taken up with the O'Hallorans; he, with those two points between which he oscillated like a pendulum; and our intercourse diminished, until at length days would intervene without a meeting between us.

It was in the middle of June.

I had not seen Jack for more than a week.

Suddenly, I was reminded of him by a startling rumor that reached my ears after every soul in the garrison and in the city had heard it. It referred to Jack. It was nothing about the widow, nothing about Louie, nothing about Marion, nothing about Miss Phillips.

It did not refer to duns.

He had not been nabbed by the sheriff.

He had not put an end to himself.

In short, the news was, that an uncle of his had died, and left him a fortune of unknown proportions. Omne ignotum pro mirifico, of course; and so up went Jack's fortune to twenty thousand a year. Jack had told me about that uncle, and I had reason to know that it was at least six or seven thousand; and, let me tell you, six or seven thousand pounds per annum isn't to be laughed at.

So here was Jack — raised up in a moment — far above the dull level of debt, and duns, and despair; raised to an upper and, I trust, a better world, where swarms of duns can never arise, and bailiffs never come; raised, my boy, to a region of serene delight, where, like the gods of Epicurus, he might survey from his cloudless calm the darkness and the gloom of the lower world. A fortune, by Jove! Seven thousand pounds sterling a year! Hard cash! Why, the thing fairly took my breath away. I sat down to grapple with the stupendous thought. Aha! where would the duns be now? What would those miserable devils say now, that had been badgering him with lawyers' letters? Wouldn't they all haul off? Methought they would. Methought! why, meknew they would — mefancied how they would fawn, and cringe, and apologize, and explain, and lick the dust, and offer to polish his noble boots, and present themselves for the honor of being kicked by him. Nothing is more degrading to our common humanity than the attitude of a creditor toward a poor debtor — except the attitude of that same creditor, when he learns that his debtor has suddenly become rich.

Having finally succeeded in mastering this great idea, I hurried off to Jack to congratulate him.

I found him in his room. He was lying down, looking very blue, very dismal, and utterly used up. At first, I did not notice this, but burst forth in a torrent of congratulations, shaking his hand most violently. He raised himself slightly from the sofa on which he was reclining, and his languid hand did not return my warm grasp, nor did his face exhibit the slightest interest in what I said. Seeing this, I stopped short suddenly.

“Hallo, old boy!” I cried. “What's the matter? Any thing happened? Isn't it true, then?”

“Oh, yes,” said Jack, dolefully, leaning forward, with his elbows on his knees, and looking at the floor.

“Well, you don't seem very jubilant about it. Any thing the matter? Why, man, if you were dying, I should think you'd rise up at the idea of seven thousand a year.”

Jack said nothing.

At such a check as this to my enthusiastic sympathy, I sat in silence for a time, and looked at him. His elbows were on his knees, his face was pale, his hair in disorder, and his eyes were fixed on the wall opposite with a vacant and abstracted stare. There was a haggard look about his handsome face, and a careworn expression on his broad brow, which excited within me the deepest sympathy and sadness. Some thing had happened — some thing of no common kind. This was a some thing which was far, very far, more serious than those old troubles which had oppressed him. This was some thing far different from those old perplexities — the entanglements with three engagements. Amid all those he was nothing but a big, blundering baby; but now he seemed like a sorrow-stricken man. Where was the light of his eyes, the glory of his brow, the music of his voice? Where was that glow that once used to pervade his fresh, open, sunny face? Where! It was Jack — but not the Jack of old. It was Jack — but

“Alas! how changed from him

That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim!”

Or, as another poet has it —

“'Twas Jack — but living Jack no more!”

“Jack,” said I, after a long and solemn silence, in which I had tried in vain to conjecture what might possibly be the cause of this — “Jack, dear boy, you and I have had confidences together, a little out of the ordinary line. I came here to congratulate you about your fortune; but I find you utterly cut up about some thing. Will you let me ask you what it is? I don't ask out of idle curiosity, but out of sympathy. At the same time, if it's any thing of a private nature, I beg pardon for asking you to tell it.”

Jack looked up, and a faint flicker of a smile passed over his face.

“Oh, all right, old boy!” he said. “I'm hit hard — all up — and that sort of thing — hit hard — yes, damned hard — serves me right, too, you know, for being such an infernal fool.”

He frowned, and drew a long breath.

“Wait a minute, old chap,” said he, rising from the sofa, “I'll get some thing to sustain nature, and then I'll answer your question. I'm glad you've come. I don't know but that it'll do me good to tell it all to somebody. It's hard to stay here in my den, fretting my heart out — damned hard! — but wait a minute, and I'll explain.”

Saying this, he walked over to the sideboard.

“Will you take any thing?”

“Thanks, no,” said I; “a pipe is all I want.” And I proceeded to fill and light one.

Thereupon Jack poured out a tumbler of raw brandy, which he swallowed. Then he came back to the sofa. A flush came to his face, and his eyes looked brighter; but he had still the same haggard aspect.

“I'm in for it, Macrorie,” said he at last, gloomily.

“In for it?”

“Yes — an infernal scrape.”

“What?”

“The widow — damn her!” and he struck his clinched fist against the head of the sofa.

“In for it? The widow?” I repeated.

“What do you mean?”

Jack drew a long breath, and regarded me with a fixed stare.

“I mean,” said Jack, fixing his eyes upon me with an awful look, “I mean this — that I have to marry that woman.”

“Marry her?”

“Yes,” he exclaimed, dashing his fist upon the table savagely, “marry her! There you have it. I'm in for it. No escape. Escape — ha! ha! Nabbed, sir. All up! Married and done for — yes, eternally done for!”

He jerked these words out in a fierce, feverish way; and then, flinging himself back, he clasped his knees with his hands, and sat regarding me with stern eyes and frowning brow.

This mood of Jack's was a singular one. He was evidently undergoing great distress of mind. Under such circumstances as these, no levity could be thought of. Had he not been so desperate, I might have ventured upon a jest about the widow driving the others from the field and coming forth victorious; but, as it was, there was no room for jest. So I simply sat in silence, and returned his gaze.

“Well?” said he at last, impatiently.

“Well?” said I.

“Haven't you got any thing to say about that?”

“I don't know what to say. Your manner of telling this takes me more by surprise than the thing itself. After all, you must have looked forward to this.”

“Looked forward? I'll be hanged if I did, except in a very general way. Damn it, man! I thought she'd have a little pity on a fellow, and allow me some liberty. I didn't look forward to being shut up at once.”

“At once? You speak as though the event were near.”

“Near? I should think it was. What do you say to next week? Is that near or not? Near? I should rather think so.”

“Next week? Good Lord! Jack, do you really mean it? Nonsense!”

“Next week — yes — and worse — on Tuesday — not the end, but the beginning, of the week — Tuesday, the 20th of June.”

“Tuesday, the 20th of June!” I repeated, in amazement.

“Yes, Tuesday, the 20th of June,” said Jack.

“Heavens, man! what have you been up to? How did it happen? Why did you do it? Couldn't you have postponed it? It takes two to make an agreement. What do you mean by lamenting over it now? Why didn't you get up excuses? Haven't you to go home to see about your estates? Why, in Heaven's name, did you let it be all arranged in this way, if you didn't want it to be?”

Jack looked at me for a few moments very earnestly.

“Why didn't I?” said he, at length, “simply because I happen to be an unmitigated, uncontrollable, incorrigible, illimitable, and inconceivable ass! That's the reason why, if you must know.”

Jack's very forcible way of putting this statement afforded me no chance whatever of denying it or combating it. His determination to be an ass was so vehement, that remonstrance was out of the question. I therefore accepted it as a probable truth.

For some time I remained silent, looking at Jack, and puffing solemnly at my pipe. In a situation of this kind, or in fact in any situation where one is expected to say some thing, but doesn't happen to have any thing in particular to say, there's nothing in the world like a pipe. For the human face, when it is graced by a pipe, and when the pipe is being puffed, assumes, somehow, a rare and wonderful expression of profound and solemn thought. Besides, the presence of the pipe in the mouth is a check to any overhasty remark. Vain and empty words are thus repressed, and thought, divine thought, reigns supreme. And so as I sat in silence before Jack, if I didn't have any profound thoughts in my mind, I at least had the appearance of it, which after all served my purpose quite as well.

“I don't mind telling you all about it, old chap,” said Jack, at last, who had by this time passed into a better frame of mind, and looked more like his old self. “You've known all about the row, all along, and you'll have to be in at the death, so I'll tell you now. You'll have to help me through — you'll be my best man, and all that sort of thing, you know — and this is the best time for making a clean breast of it, you know: so here goes.”

Upon this Jack drew a long breath, and then began:

“I've told you already,” he said, “how abominably kind she was. You know when I called on her after the row with Miss Phillips, how sweet she was, and all that, and how I settled down on the old terms. I hadn't the heart to get up a row with her, and hadn't even the idea of such a thing. When a lady is civil, and kind, and all that, what can a fellow do? So you see I went there as regular as clock-work; and dined, and then left. Sometimes I went at six, and stayed till eight; sometimes at five, and stayed till nine. But that was very seldom. Sometimes, you know, she'd get me talking, and somehow the time would fly, and it would be ever so late before I could get away. I'm always an ass, and so I felt tickled, no end, at her unfailing kindness to me, and took it all as so much incense, and all that — I was her deity, you know — snuffing up incense — receiving her devotion — feeling half sorry that I couldn't quite reciprocate, and making an infernal fool of myself generally.

“Now you know I'm such a confounded ass that her very reticence about my other affairs, and her quiet way of taking them, rather piqued me; and several times I threw out hints about them, to see what she would say. At such times she would smile in a knowing way, but say nothing. At last there was one evening — it was a little over a week ago — I went there, and found her more cordial than ever, more amusing, more fascinating — kinder, you know, and all that. There was no end to her little attentions. Of course all that sort of thing had on me the effect which it always has, and I rapidly began to make an ass of myself. I began to hint about those other affairs — and at last I told her I didn't believe she'd forgiven me.”

Here Jack made an awful pause, and looked at me in deep solemnity.

I said nothing, but puffed away in my usual thoughtful manner.

“The moment that I said that,” continued Jack, “she turned and gave me the strangest look. ‘Forgiven you,' said she, ‘after all that has passed, can you say that?'

‘“Well,' I said, ‘you don't seem altogether what you used to be —'

“‘I!' she exclaimed. ‘I not what I used to be? — and you can look me in the face and say that.'

“And now, Macrorie, listen to what an ass can do.

“You see, her language, her tone, and her look, all piqued me. But at the same time I didn't know what to say. I didn't love her — confound her! — and I knew that I didn't — but I wanted to assert myself, or some other damned thing or other — so what did I do but take her hand.”

I puffed on.

“She leaned back in her chair.

“‘Ah, Jack,' she sighed, ‘I don't believe you care any thing for poor me.'”

Jack paused for a while, and sat looking at the floor.

“Which was quite true,” he continued, at last. “Only under the circumstances, being thus challenged, you know, by a very pretty widow, and being an ass, and being conceited, and being dazzled by the surroundings, what did I do but begin to swear that I loved her better than ever?

“‘And me alone!' she sighed.

“‘Yes, you alone!' I cried, and then went on in the usual strain in which impassioned lovers go under such circumstances, but with this very material difference, that I didn't happen to be an impassioned lover, or any other kind of a lover of hers at all, and I knew it all the time, and all the time felt a secret horror at what I was saying.