Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  Alas! it was no fancy. Ellen saw too plainly, that something was going wrong: but as her husband persisted in silence, she could not tell how to assist or comfort him.

  Mrs. Dolly in the mean time was going on spending her money in junketing. She was, besides, no longer satisfied with taking her spoonful of brandy in every dish of tea; she found herself uncomfortable, she said, unless she took every morning fasting a full glass of the good cordial recommended to her by her friend, Mrs. Joddrell, the apothecary’s wife. Now this good cordial, in plain English, was a strong dram. Ellen, in the gentlest manner she could, represented to Mrs. Dolly that she was hurting her health, and was exposing herself, by this increasing habit of drinking; but she replied with anger, that what she took was for the good of her health; that everybody knew best what agreed with them; that she should trust to her own feelings; and that nobody need talk, when all she took came out of the apothecary’s shop, and was paid for honestly with her own money.

  Besides what came out of the apothecary’s shop, Mrs. Dolly found it agreed with her constantly to drink a pot of porter at dinner, and another at supper; and always when she had a cold, and she had often a cold, she drank large basins full of white wine whey, “to throw off her cold,” as she said.

  Then by degrees, she lost her appetite, and found she could eat nothing, unless she had a glass of brandy at dinner. Small beer, she discovered, did not agree with her; so at luncheon time she always had a tumbler full of brandy and water. This she carefully mixed herself, and put less and less water in every day, because brandy, she was convinced, was more wholesome for some constitutions than water; and brandy and peppermint, taken together, was an infallible remedy for all complaints, low spirits included.

  CHAPTER II.

  Mrs. Dolly never found herself comfortable, moreover, unless she dined abroad two or three days in the week, at a public-house, near Paddington, where she said she was more at home than she was any where else. There was a bowling-green at this public-house, and it was a place to which tea-drinking parties resorted. Now Mrs. Dolly often wanted to take little George out with her to these parties, and said, “It is a pity and shame to keep the poor thing always mewed up at home, without ever letting him have any pleasure! Would not you like to go with me, George dear, in the one-horse chaise? and would not you be glad to have cakes, and tea, and all the good things that are to be had?”

  “I should like to go in the one-horse chaise, to be sure, and to have cakes and tea; but I should not like to go with you, because mother does not choose it,” answered George, in his usual plain way of speaking. Ellen, who had often seen Mrs. Dolly offer him wine and punch to drink, by way of a treat, was afraid he might gradually learn to love spirituous liquors; and that if he acquired a habit of drinking such when he was a boy, he would become a drunkard when he should grow to be a man. George was now almost nine years old; and he could understand the reason why his mother desired that he would not drink spirituous liquors. She once pointed out to him a drunken man, who was reeling along the street, and bawling ridiculous nonsense: he had quite lost his senses, and as he did not attend to the noise of a carriage coming fast behind him, he could not get out of the way time enough, and the coachman could not stop his horses; so the drunken man was thrown down, and the wheel of the carriage went over his leg, and broke it in a shocking manner. George saw him carried towards his home, writhing and groaning with pain.

  “See what comes of drunkenness!” said Ellen.

  She stopped the people, who were carrying the hurt man past her door, and had him brought in and laid upon a bed, whilst a surgeon was sent for. George stood beside the bed in silence; and the words “See what comes of drunkenness!” sounded in his ears.

  Another time, his mother pointed out to him a man with terribly swollen legs, and a red face blotched all over, lifted out of a fine coach by two footmen in fine liveries. The man leaned upon a gold-headed cane, after he was lifted from his carriage, and tried with his other hand to take off his hat to a lady, who asked him how he did; but his hand shook so much that, when he had got his hat off, he could not put it rightly upon his head, and his footman put it on for him. The boys in the street laughed at him. “Poor man!” said Ellen; “that is Squire L —— , who, as you heard the apothecary say, has drunk harder in his day than any man that ever he knew; and this is what he has brought himself to by drinking! All the physic in the apothecary’s shop cannot make him well again! No; nor can his fine coach and fine footmen any more make him easy or happy, poor man!”

  George exclaimed, “I wonder how people can be such fools as to be drunkards! I will never be a drunkard, mother; and now I know the reason why you desired me not to drink the wine, when Mrs. Dolly used to say to me, ‘Down with it, George dear, it will do ye no harm.’”

  These circumstances made such an impression upon George that there was no further occasion to watch him; he always pushed away the glass when Mrs. Dolly filled it for him.

  One day his mother said to him, “Now I can trust you to take care of yourself, George, I shall not watch you. Mrs. Dolly is going to a bowling-green tea-party this evening, and has asked you to go with her; and I have told her you shall.”

  George accordingly went with Mrs. Dolly to the bowling-green. The company drank tea out of doors, in summer-houses. After tea, Mrs. Dolly bid George go and look at the bowling-green; and George was very well entertained with seeing the people playing at bowls; but when it grew late in the evening, and when the company began to go away, George looked about for Mrs. Dolly. She was not in the summer-house, where they had drunk tea, nor was she any where upon the terrace round the bowling-green; so he went to the public-house in search of her, and at last found her standing at the bar with the landlady. Her face was very red, and she had a large glass of brandy in her hand, into which the landlady was pouring some drops, which she said were excellent for the stomach.

  Mrs. Dolly started so when she saw George, that she threw down half her glass of brandy. “Bless us, child! I thought you were safe at the bowling-green,” said she.

  “I saw every body going away,” answered George; “so I thought it was time to look for you, and to go home.”

  “But before you go, my dear little gentleman,” said the landlady, “you must eat one of these tarts, for my sake.” As she spoke, she gave George a little tart: “and here,” added she, “you must drink my health too in something good. Don’t be afraid, love; it’s nothing that will hurt you: it’s very sweet and nice.”

  “It is wine, or spirits of some sort or other, I know by the smell,” said George; “and I will not drink it, thank you, ma’am.”

  “The boy’s a fool!” said Mrs. Dolly; “but it’s his mother’s fault. She won’t let him taste any thing stronger than water. But now your mother’s not by, you know,” said Mrs. Dolly, winking at the landlady; “now your mother’s not by—”

  “Yes, and nobody will tell of you,” added the landlady; “so do what you like: drink it down, love.”

  “No!” cried George, pushing away the glass which Mrs. Dolly held to his lips. “No! no! no! I say. I will not do any thing now my mother’s not by, that I would not do if she was here in this room.”

  “Well; hush, hush; and don’t bawl so loud though,” said Mrs. Dolly, who saw, what George did not see, a gentleman that was standing at the door of the parlour opposite to them, and who could hear every thing that was saying at the bar.

  “I say,” continued George, in a loud voice, “mother told me she could trust me to take care of myself; and so I will take care of myself; and I am not a fool, no more is mother, I know; for she told me the reasons why it is not good to drink spirituous — .” Mrs. Dolly pushed him away, without giving him time to finish his sentence, bidding him go and see whether the gig was ready; for it was time to be going home.

  As George was standing in the yard, looking at the mechanism of the one-horse chaise and observing how the horse was put to, somebody tapped him upon the shoulder, and loo
king up, he saw a gentleman with a very good-natured countenance, who smiled upon him, and asked him whether he was the little boy who had just been talking so loud in the bar?

  “Yes, sir,” says George. “You seem to be a good little boy,” added he; “and I liked what I heard you say very much. So you will not do any thing when your mother is not by, that you would not do if she was here — was not that what you said?”

  “Yes, sir; as well as I remember.”

  “And who is your mother?” continued the gentleman. “Where does she live?”

  George told him his mother’s name, and where she lived; and the gentleman said, “I will call at your mother’s house as I go home, and tell her what I heard you say; and I will ask her to let you come to my house, where you will see a little boy of your own age, whom I should be very glad to have seen behave as well as you did just now.”

  Mr. Belton, for that was the name of the gentleman who took notice of George, was a rich carpet manufacturer. He had a country-house near Paddington; and the acquaintance which was thus begun became a source of great happiness to George. Mr. Belton lent him several entertaining books, and took him to see many curious things in London. Ellen was rejoiced to hear from him the praises of her son. All the pleasure of Ellen’s life had, for some months past, depended upon this boy; for her husband was seldom at home, and the gloom that was spread over his countenance alarmed her, whenever she saw him. As for Mrs. Dolly, she was no companion for Ellen: her love of drinking had increased to such a degree that she could love nothing else; and when she was not half intoxicated, she was in such low spirits that she sat (either on the side of her bed, or in her arm-chair, wrapped in a shawl) sighing and crying, and see-sawing herself; and sometimes she complained to Maurice that Ellen did not care whether she was dead or alive; and at others that George had always something or other to do, and never liked to sit in her room and keep her company. Besides all this, she got into a hundred petty quarrels with the neighbours, who had a knack of remembering what she said when she was drunk, and appealing to her for satisfaction when she was sober. Mrs. Dolly regularly expected that Ellen should, as she called it, stand her friend in these altercations; to which Ellen could not always in justice consent. Ah! said Ellen to herself one night, as she was sitting up late waiting for her husband’s return home, it is not the having five thousand pounds that makes people happy! When Maurice loved to come home after his day’s work to our little cottage, and when our George was his delight, as he is mine, then I was light of heart; but now it is quite otherwise. However, there is no use in complaining, nor in sitting down to think upon melancholy things; and Ellen started up and went to work, to mend one of her husband’s waistcoats.

  Whilst she was at this employment, she listened continually for the return of Maurice. The clock struck twelve, and one, and no husband came! She heard no noise in the street when she opened her window, for every body but herself was in bed and asleep. At last she heard the sound of footsteps; but it was so dark that she could not see who the person was, who continued walking backwards and forwards, just underneath the window.

  “Is it you, Maurice? Are you there, Maurice?” said Ellen. The noise of the footsteps ceased, and Ellen again said, “Is it you, Maurice? Are you there?”

  “Yes,” answered Maurice; “it is I. Why are you not abed and asleep, at this time of night?”

  “I am waiting for you,” replied Ellen. “You need not wait for me; I have the key of the house door in my pocket, and can let myself in whenever I choose it.”

  “And don’t you choose it now?” said Ellen.

  “No. Shut down the window.”

  Ellen shut the window, and went and sat down upon the side of her boy’s bed. He was sleeping. Ellen, who could not sleep, took up her work again, and resolved to wait till her husband should come in. At last, the key turned in the house door, and presently she heard her husband’s steps coming softly towards the room where she was sitting. He opened the door gently, as if he expected to find her asleep, and was afraid of awakening her. He started when he saw her; and slouching his hat over his face, threw himself into a chair without speaking a single word. Something terrible has happened to him, surely! thought Ellen; and her hand trembled so that she could scarcely hold her needle, when she tried to go on working.

  “What are you doing there, Ellen?” said he, suddenly pushing back his hat.

  “I’m only mending your waistcoat, love,” said Ellen, in a faltering voice.

  “I am a wretch! a fool! a miserable wretch!” exclaimed Maurice, starting up and striking his forehead with violence as he walked up and down the room.

  “What can be the matter?” said Ellen. “It is worse to me to see you in this way, than to hear whatever misfortune has befallen you. Don’t turn away from me, husband! Who in the world loves you so well as I do?”

  “Oh, Ellen,” said he, letting her take his hand, but still turning away, “you will hate me when you know what I have done.”

  “I cannot hate you, I believe,” said Ellen.

  “We have not sixpence left in the world!” continued Maurice, vehemently. “We must leave this house to-morrow; we must sell all we have; I must go to jail, Ellen! You must work all the rest of your days harder than ever you did; and so must that poor boy, who lies sleeping yonder. He little thinks that his father has made a beggar of him; and that, whilst his mother was the best of mothers to him, his father was ruining him, her, and himself, with a pack of rascals at the gaming-table. Ellen, I have lost every shilling of our money!”

  “Is that all?” said Ellen. “That’s bad; but I am glad that you have done nothing wicked. We can work hard, and be happy again. Only promise me now, dear husband, that you will never game any more.”

  Maurice threw himself upon his knees, and swore that he never, to the last hour of his life, would go to any gaming-table again, or play at any game of chance. Ellen then said all she could to soothe and console him; she persuaded him to take some rest, of which he was much in need, for his looks were haggard, and he seemed quite exhausted. He declared that he had not had a night’s good sleep for many months, since he had got into these difficulties by gaming. His mind had been kept in a continual flurry, and he seemed as if he had been living in a fever. “The worst of it was, Ellen,” said he, “I could not bear to see you or the boy when I had been losing; so I went on, gaming deeper and deeper, in hopes of winning back what I had lost; and I now and then won, and they coaxed me and told me I was getting a run of luck, and it would be a sin to turn my back on good fortune. This way I was ‘ticed to go on playing, till, when I betted higher and higher, my luck left me; or, as I shrewdly suspect, the rascals did not play fair, and they won stake after stake, till they made me half mad, and I risked all I had left upon one throw, and lost it! And when I found I had lost all, and thought of coming home to you and our boy, I was ready to hang myself. Oh, Ellen, if you knew all I have felt! I would not live over again the last two years for this room full of gold!”

  Such are the miserable feelings, and such the life, of a gamester!

  Maurice slept for a few hours, or rather dozed, starting now and then, and talking of cards and dice, and sometimes grinding his teeth and clenching his hand, till he wakened himself by the violence with which he struck the side of the bed.

  “I have had a terrible dream, wife,” said he, when he opened his eyes, and saw Ellen sitting beside him on the bed. At first he did not recollect what had really happened; but as Ellen looked at him with sorrow and compassion in her countenance, he gradually remembered all the truth; and, hiding his head under the bed-clothes, he said he wished he could sleep again, if it could be without dreaming such dreadful things.

  It was in vain that he tried to sleep; so he got up, resolving to try whether he could borrow twenty guineas from any of his friends, to pay the most pressing of his gaming companions. The first person he asked was Mrs. Dolly: she fell into an hysteric fit when she heard of his losses; and it was not till af
ter she had swallowed a double dram of brandy that she was able to speak, and to tell him that she was the worst person in the world he could have applied to; for that she was in the greatest distress herself, and all her dependance in this world was upon him.

  Maurice stood in silent astonishment. “Why, cousin,” said he, “I thought, and always believed, that you had a power of money! You know, when you came to live with us, you told me so.”

  “No matter what I told you,” said Mrs. Dolly. “Folks can’t live upon air. Yesterday the landlady of the public-house at the bowling-green, whom I’m sure I looked upon as my friend, — but there’s no knowing one’s friends, — sent me in a bill as long as my arm; and the apothecary here has another against me worse again; and the man at the livery-stables, for one-horse chays, and jobs that I’m sure I forgot ever having, comes and charges me the Lord knows what! and then the grocer for tea and sugar, which I have been giving to folks from whom I have got no thanks. And then I have an account with the linen-draper of I don’t know how much! hut he has over-charged me, I know, scandalously, for my last three shawls. And then I have never paid for my set of tea china; and half of the cups are broke, and the silver spoons, and I can’t tell what besides.”

  In short, Mrs. Dolly, who had never kept any account of what she spent, had no idea how far she was getting into a tradesman’s debt till his bill was brought home: and was in great astonishment to find, when all her bills were sent in, that she had spent four hundred and fifty pounds in her private expenses, drinking included, in the course of three years and eight months. She had now nothing left to live upon but one hundred pounds, so that she was more likely to be a burden to Maurice than any assistance. He, however, was determined to go to a friend, who had frequently offered to lend him any sum of money he might want, and who had often been his partner at the gaming-table.