Armadale

by Wilkie Collins

  ‘Why not the best of you?’ said Mr Brock, gently.

  ‘Thank you, sir, – but I am here to tell the truth. We will get on, if you please, to the next chapter in my story. The dogs and I did badly, after our master’s death – our luck was against us. I lost one of my little brothers – the best performer of the two; he was stolen, and I never recovered him. My fiddle and my stilts were taken from me next, by main force, by a tramp who was stronger than I. These misfortunes drew Tommy and me – I beg your pardon, sir, I mean the dog – closer together than ever. I think we had some kind of dim foreboding on both sides, that we had not done with our misfortunes yet; anyhow, it was not very long before we were parted for ever. We were neither of us thieves (our master had been satisfied with teaching us to dance); but we both committed an invasion of the rights of property, for all that. Young creatures, even when they are half-starved, cannot resist taking a run sometimes, on a fine morning. Tommy and I could not resist taking a run into a gentleman’s plantation; the gentleman preserved his game; and the gentleman’s keeper knew his business. I heard a gun go off – you can guess the rest. God preserve me from ever feeling such misery again, as I felt when I lay down by Tommy, and took him, dead and bloody, in my arms! The keeper attempted to part us – I bit him, like the wild animal I was. He tried the stick on me next – he might as well have tried it on one of the trees. The noise reached the ears of two young ladies, riding near the place – daughters of the gentleman on whose property I was a trespasser. They were too well brought up to lift their voices against the sacred right of preserving game, but they were kind-hearted girls, and they pitied me, and took me home with them. I remember the gentlemen of the house (keen sportsmen all of them) roaring with laughter as I went by the windows, crying, with my little dead dog in my arms. Don’t suppose I complain of their laughter; it did me good service – it roused the indignation of the two ladies. One of them took me into her own garden, and showed me a place where I might bury my dog under the flowers, and be sure that no other hands should ever disturb him again. The other went to her father, and persuaded him to give the forlorn little vagabond a chance in the house, under one of the upper servants. Yes! you have been cruising in company with a man who was once a footboy. I saw you look at me, when I amused Mr Armadale by laying the cloth on board the yacht. Now you know why I laid it so neatly, and forgot nothing. It has been my good fortune to see something of Society; I have helped to fill its stomach and black its boots. My experience of the servants’ hall was not a long one. Before I had worn out my first suit of livery, there was a scandal in the house. It was the old story; there is no need to tell it over again for the thousandth time. Loose money left on a table, and not found there again; all the servants with characters to appeal to except the footboy, who had been rashly taken on trial. Well! well! I was lucky in that house to the last; I was not prosecuted for taking what I had not only never touched, but never even seen – I was only turned out. One morning, I went in my old clothes to the grave where I had buried Tommy. I gave the place a kiss; I said good-by to my little dead dog; and there I was, out in the world again, at the ripe age of thirteen years!’

  ‘In that friendless state, and at that tender age’ said Mr Brock, ‘did no thought cross your mind of going home again?’

  ‘I went home again, sir, that very night – I slept on the hill-side. What other home had I? In a day or two’s time, I drifted back to the large towns and the bad company, – the great open country was so lonely to me, now I had lost the dogs! Two sailors picked me up next; I was a handy lad, and I got a cabin-boy’s berth on board a coasting-vessel. A cabin-boy’s berth means dirt to live in, offal to eat, a man’s work on a boy’s shoulders, and the rope’s-end at regular intervals. The vessel touched at a port in the Hebrides. I was as ungrateful as usual to my best benefactors – I ran away again. Some women found me, half-dead of starvation, in the northern wilds of the Isle of Skye. It was near the coast, and I took a turn with the fishermen next. There was less of the rope’s-end among my new masters; but plenty of exposure to wind and weather, and hard work enough to have killed a boy who was not a seasoned tramp like me. I fought through it till the winter came, and then the fishermen turned me adrift again. I don’t blame them – food was scarce, and mouths were many. With famine staring the whole community in the face, why should they keep a boy who didn’t belong to them? A great city was my only chance in the winter time; so I went to Glasgow, and all but stepped into the lion’s mouth as soon as I got there. I was minding an empty cart on the Broomielaw,2 when I heard my stepfather’s voice on the pavement-side of the horse by which I was standing. He had met some person whom he knew, and, to my terror and surprise, they were talking about me. Hidden behind the horse, I heard enough of their conversation to know that I had narrowly escaped discovery before I went on board the coasting-vessel. I had met, at that time, with another vagabond boy, of my own age; we had quarrelled and parted. The day after, my stepfather’s inquiries were made in that very district; and it became a question with him (a good personal description being unattainable in either case) which of the two boys he should follow. One of them, he was informed, was known as “Brown”, and the other as “Midwinter”. Brown was just the common name which a cunning runaway boy would be most likely to assume; Midwinter, just the remarkable name which he would be most likely to avoid. The pursuit had accordingly followed Brown, and had allowed me to escape. I leave you to imagine whether I was not doubly and trebly determined to keep my gipsy master’s name after that. But my resolution did not stop here. I made up my mind to leave the country altogether. After a day or two’s lurking about the outward-bound vessels in port, I found out which sailed first, and hid myself on board. Hunger tried hard to force me out before the pilot had left; but hunger was not new to me, and I kept my place. The pilot was out of the vessel when I made my appearance on deck, and there was nothing for it but to keep me or throw me overboard. The captain said (I have no doubt quite truly) that he would have preferred throwing me overboard; but the majesty of the law does sometimes stand the friend even of a vagabond like me. In that way I came back to a sea life. In that way, I learnt enough to make me handy and useful (as I saw you noticed) on board Mr Armadale’s yacht. I sailed more than one voyage, in more than one vessel, to more than one part of the world; and I might have followed the sea for life, if I could only have kept my temper under every provocation that could be laid on it. I had learnt a great deal – but, not having learnt that, I made the last part of my last voyage home to the port of Bristol in irons; and I saw the inside of a prison for the first time in my life, on a charge of mutinous conduct to one of my officers. You have heard me with extraordinary patience, sir, and I am glad to tell you, in return, that we are not far now from the end of my story. You found some books, if I remember right, when you searched my luggage at the Somersetshire inn?’

  Mr Brock answered in the affirmative.

  ‘Those books mark the next change in my life – and the last, before I took the usher’s place at the school. My term of imprisonment was not a long one. Perhaps my youth pleaded for me; perhaps the Bristol magistrates took into consideration the time I had passed in irons on board ship. Anyhow, I was just turned seventeen, when I found myself out on the world again. I had no friends to receive me; I had no place to go to. A sailor’s life, after what had happened, was a life I recoiled from in disgust. I stood in the crowd on the bridge at Bristol,3 wondering what I should do with my freedom now I had got it back. Whether I had altered in the prison, or whether I was feeling the change in character that comes with coming manhood, I don’t know; but the old reckless enjoyment of the old vagabond life seemed quite worn out of my nature. An awful sense of loneliness kept me wandering about Bristol, in horror of the quiet country, till after nightfall. I looked at the lights kindling in the parlour windows, with a miserable envy of the happy people inside. A word of advice would have been worth something to me at that time. Well! I got it: a policeman a
dvised me to move on. He was quite right – what else could I do? I looked up at the sky, and there was my old friend of many a night’s watch at sea, the north star. “All points of the compass are alike to me,” I thought to myself; “I’ll go your way.” Not even the star would keep me company that night. It got behind a cloud, and left me alone in the rain and darkness. I groped my way to a cart-shed, fell asleep, and dreamed of old times, when I served my gipsy master and lived with the dogs. God! what I would have given when I woke to have felt Tommy’s little cold muzzle in my hand! Why am I dwelling on these things? why don’t I get on to the end? You shouldn’t encourage me, sir, by listening so patiently. After a week more of wandering, without hope to help me, or prospects to look to, I found myself in the streets of Shrewsbury, staring in at the windows of a bookseller’s shop. An old man came to the shop-door, looked about him, and saw me. “Do you want a job?” he asked. “And are you not above doing it cheap?” The prospect of having something to do, and some human creature to speak a word to, tempted me, and I did a day’s dirty work in the bookseller’s warehouse, for a shilling. More work followed at the same rate. In a week, I was promoted to sweep out the shop, and put up the shutters. In no very long time after, I was trusted to carry the books out; and when quarter-day came, and the shopman left, I took his place. Wonderful luck! you will say; here I had found my way to a friend at last. I had found my way to one of the most merciless misers in England; and I had risen in the little world of Shrewsbury by the purely commercial process of underselling all my competitors. The job in the warehouse had been declined at the price by every idle man in the town – and I did it. The regular porter received his weekly pittance under weekly protest. – I took two shillings less, and made no complaint. The shopman gave warning on the ground that he was underfed as well as underpaid. I received half his salary, and lived contentedly on his reversionary scraps. Never were two men so well suited to each other as that bookseller and I! His one object in life was to find somebody who would work for him at starvation wages. My one object in life was to find somebody who would give me an asylum over my head. Without a single sympathy in common – without a vestige of feeling of any sort, hostile or friendly, growing up between us on either side – without wishing each other good-night, when we parted on the house stairs, or good-morning when we met at the shop counter – we lived alone in that house, strangers from first to last, for two whole years. A dismal existence for a lad of my age, was it not? You are a clergyman and a scholar – surely you can guess what made the life endurable to me?’

  Mr Brock remembered the well-worn volumes which had been found in the usher’s bag.‘The books made it endurable to you’ he said.

  The eyes of the castaway kindled with a new light.

  ‘Yes!’ he said,‘the books – the generous friends who met me without suspicion – the merciful masters who never used me ill! The only years of my life that I can look back on with something like pride, are the years I passed in the miser’s house. The only unalloyed pleasure I have ever tasted, is the pleasure that I found for myself on the miser’s shelves. Early and late, through the long winter nights and the quiet summer days, I drank at the fountain of knowledge, and never wearied of the draught. There were few customers to serve – for the books were mostly of the solid and scholarly kind. No responsibilities rested on me – for the accounts were kept by my master, and only the small sums of money were suffered to pass through my hands. He soon found out enough of me to know that my honesty was to be trusted, and that my patience might be counted on, treat me as he might. The one insight into his character which I obtained, on my side, widened the distance between us to its last limits. He was a confirmed opium-eater in secret – a prodigal in laudanum, though a miser in all besides. He never confessed his frailty, and I never told him I had found it out. He had his pleasure apart from me; and I had my pleasure apart from him. Week after week, month after month, there we sat without a friendly word ever passing between us – I, alone with my book at the counter: he, alone with his ledger in the parlour, dimly visible to me through the dirty window-pane of the glass door, sometimes poring over his figures, sometimes lost and motionless for hours in the ecstasy of his opium trance. Time passed, and made no impression on us; the seasons of two years came and went, and found us still unchanged. One morning, at the opening of the third year, my master did not appear as usual to give me my allowance for breakfast. I went upstairs, and found him helpless in his bed. He refused to trust me with the keys of the cupboard, or to let me send for a doctor. I bought a morsel of bread, and went back to my books – with no more feeling for him (I honestly confess it), than he would have had for me under the same circumstances. An hour or two later, I was roused from my reading by an occasional customer of ours, a retired medical man. He went upstairs. I was glad to get rid of him, and return to my books. He came down again, and disturbed me once more. “I don’t much like you, my lad,” he said; “but I think it my duty to say that you will soon have to shift for yourself. You are no great favourite in the town, and you may have some difficulty in finding a new place. Provide yourself with a written character from your master before it is too late.” He spoke to me coldly. I thanked him coldly on my side, and got my character the same day. Do you think my master let me have it for nothing? Not he! He bargained with me on his deathbed. I was his creditor for a month’s salary, and he wouldn’t write a line of my testimonial until I had first promised to forgive him the debt. Three days afterwards, he died, enjoying to the last the happiness of having over-reached his shopman. “Aha!” he whispered, when the doctor formally summoned me to take leave of him, “I got you cheap!” – Was Ozias Midwinter’s stick as cruel as that? I think not. Well! there I was, out on the world again, but surely with better prospects, this time. I had taught myself to read Latin, Greek, and German; and I had got my written character to speak for me. All useless! The doctor was quite right; I was not liked in the town. The lower order of the people despised me for selling my services to the miser, at the miser’s price. As for the better classes, I did with them (God knows how!) what I have always done with everybody, except Mr Armadale – I produced a disagreeable impression at first sight; I couldn’t mend it afterwards; and there was an end of me in respectable quarters. It is quite likely I might have spent all my savings, my puny little golden offspring of two years’ miserable growth, but for a school advertisement which I saw in a local paper. The heartlessly mean terms that were offered, encouraged me to apply; and I got the place. How I prospered in it, and what became of me next, there is no need to tell you. The thread of my story is all wound off; my vagabond life stands stripped of its mystery; and you know the worst of me at last.’

  A moment of silence followed those closing words. Midwinter rose from the window-seat, and came back to the table with the letter from Wildbad in his hand.

  ‘My father’s confession has told you who I am; and my own confession has told you what my life has been’ he said, addressing Mr Brock, without taking the chair to which the rector pointed. ‘I promised to make a clean breast of it when I first asked leave to enter this room. Have I kept my word?’

  ‘It is impossible to doubt it’ replied Mr Brock. ‘You have established your claim on my confidence and my sympathy. I should be insensible indeed if I could know what I now know of your childhood and your youth, and not feel something of Allan’s kindness for Allan’s friend.’

  ‘Thank you, sir’ said Midwinter, simply and gravely.

  He sat down opposite Mr Brock at the table for the first time.

  ‘In a few hours you will have left this place’ he proceeded. ‘If I can help you to leave it with your mind at ease, I will. There is more to be said between us than we have said up to this time. My future relations with Mr Armadale are still left undecided; and the serious question raised by my father’s letter is a question which we have neither of us faced yet.’

  He paused and looked with a momentary impatience at the candle still burn
ing on the table, in the morning light. The struggle to speak with composure, and to keep his own feelings stoically out of view, was evidently growing harder and harder to him.

  ‘It may possibly help your decision,’ he went on, ‘if I tell you how I determined to act towards Mr Armadale – in the matter of the similarity of our names – when I first read this letter, and when I had composed myself sufficiently to be able to think at all’ He stopped, and cast a second impatient look at the lighted candle. ‘Will you excuse the odd fancy of an odd man’ he asked, with a faint smile. ‘I want to put out the candle – I want to speak of the new subject, in the new light.’

  He extinguished the candle as he spoke, and let the first tenderness of the daylight flow uninterruptedly into the room.

  ‘I must once more ask your patience’ he resumed, ‘if I return for a moment to myself and my circumstances. I have already told you that my stepfather made an attempt to discover me some years after I had turned my back on the Scotch school. He took that step out of no anxiety of his own, but simply as the agent of my father’s trustees. In the exercise of their discretion, they had sold the estates in Barbadoes (at the time of the emancipation of the slaves, and the ruin of West Indian property) for what the estates would fetch. Having invested the proceeds they were bound to set aside a sum for my yearly education. This responsibility obliged them to make the attempt to trace me – a fruitless attempt, as you already know. A little later (as I have been since informed) I was publicly addressed by an advertisement in the newspapers – which I never saw. Later still, when I was twenty-one, a second advertisement appeared (which I did see) offering a reward for evidence of my death. If I was alive, I had a right to my half share of the proceeds of the estates, on coming of age; if dead, the money reverted to my mother. I went to the lawyers, and heard from them what I have just told you. After some difficulty in proving my identity – and, after an interview with my stepfather, and a message from my mother, which has hopelessly widened the old breach between us – my claim was allowed; and my money is now invested for me in the funds, under the name that is really my own.’