"I have just come away from Stone Court, Mr. Bulstrode."
"You found nothing wrong there, I hope," said the banker; "I wasthere myself yesterday. Abel has done well with the lambs this year."
"Why, yes," said Caleb, looking up gravely, "there is somethingwrong—a stranger, who is very ill, I think. He wants a doctor, and Icame to tell you of that. His name is Raffles."
He saw the shock of his words passing through Bulstrode's frame. Onthis subject the banker had thought that his fears were too constantly onthe watch to be taken by surprise; but he had been mistaken.
"Poor wretch!" he said in a compassionate tone, though his lipstrembled a little. "Do you know how he came there?"
"I took him myself," said Caleb, quietly—"took him up in my gig. Hehad got down from the coach, and was walking a little beyond theturning from the toll-house, and I overtook him. He remembered seeingme with you once before, at Stone Court, and he asked me to take himon. I saw he was ill: it seemed to me the right thing to do, to carry himunder shelter. And now I think you should lose no time in getting advicefor him." Caleb took up his hat from the floor as he ended, and roseslowly from his seat.
"Certainly," said Bulstrode, whose mind was very active at thismoment. "Perhaps you will yourself oblige me, Mr. Garth, by calling atMr. Lydgate's as you pass—or stay! he may at this hour probably be atthe Hospital. I will first send my man on the horse there with a note thisinstant, and then I will myself ride to Stone Court."
Bulstrode quickly wrote a note, and went out himself to give thecommission to his man. When he returned, Caleb was standing as beforewith one hand on the back of the chair, holding his hat with the other.In Bulstrode's mind the dominant thought was, "Perhaps Raffles onlyspoke to Garth of his illness. Garth may wonder, as he must have donebefore, at this disreputable fellow's claiming intimacy with me; but hewill know nothing. And he is friendly to me—I can be of use to him."
He longed for some confirmation of this hopeful conjecture, but tohave asked any question as to what Raffles had said or done would havebeen to betray fear.
"I am exceedingly obliged to you, Mr. Garth," he said, in his usualtone of politeness. "My servant will be back in a few minutes, and I shallthen go myself to see what can be done for this unfortunate man.Perhaps you had some other business with me? If so, pray be seated."
"Thank you," said Caleb, making a slight gesture with his right handto waive the invitation. "I wish to say, Mr. Bulstrode, that I must requestyou to put your business into some other hands than mine. I am obligedto you for your handsome way of meeting me—about the letting of StoneCourt, and all other business. But I must give it up." A sharp certaintyentered like a stab into Bulstrode's soul.
"This is sudden, Mr. Garth," was all he could say at first.
"It is," said Caleb; "but it is quite fixed. I must give it up."
He spoke with a firmness which was very gentle, and yet he couldsee that Bulstrode seemed to cower under that gentleness, his facelooking dried and his eyes swerving away from the glance which restedon him. Caleb felt a deep pity for him, but he could have used nopretexts to account for his resolve, even if they would have been of anyuse.
"You have been led to this, I apprehend, by some slandersconcerning me uttered by that unhappy creature," said Bulstrode,anxious now to know the utmost.
"That is true. I can't deny that I act upon what I heard from him."
"You are a conscientious man, Mr. Garth—a man, I trust, who feelshimself accountable to God. You would not wish to injure me by beingtoo ready to believe a slander," said Bulstrode, casting about for pleasthat might be adapted to his hearer's mind. "That is a poor reason forgiving up a connection which I think I may say will be mutuallybeneficial."
"I would injure no man if I could help it," said Caleb; "even if Ithought God winked at it. I hope I should have a feeling for my fellow-creature. But, sir—I am obliged to believe that this Raffles has told methe truth. And I can't be happy in working with you, or profiting by you.It hurts my mind. I must beg you to seek another agent."
"Very well, Mr. Garth. But I must at least claim to know the worstthat he has told you. I must know what is the foul speech that I amliable to be the victim of," said Bulstrode, a certain amount of angerbeginning to mingle with his humiliation before this quiet man whorenounced his benefits.
"That's needless," said Caleb, waving his hand, bowing his headslightly, and not swerving from the tone which had in it the mercifulintention to spare this pitiable man. "What he has said to me will neverpass from my lips, unless something now unknown forces it from me. Ifyou led a harmful life for gain, and kept others out of their rights bydeceit, to get the more for yourself, I dare say you repent—you wouldlike to go back, and can't: that must be a bitter thing"—Caleb paused amoment and shook his head—"it is not for me to make your life harder toyou."
"But you do—you do make it harder to me," said Bulstrodeconstrained into a genuine, pleading cry. "You make it harder to me byturning your back on me."
"That I'm forced to do," said Caleb, still more gently, lifting up hishand. "I am sorry. I don't judge you and say, he is wicked, and I amrighteous. God forbid. I don't know everything. A man may do wrong,and his will may rise clear out of it, though he can't get his life clear.That's a bad punishment. If it is so with you,—well, I'm very sorry foryou. But I have that feeling inside me, that I can't go on working withyou. That's all, Mr. Bulstrode. Everything else is buried, so far as my willgoes. And I wish you good-day."
"One moment, Mr. Garth!" said Bulstrode, hurriedly. "I may trustthen to your solemn assurance that you will not repeat either to man orwoman what—even if it have any degree of truth in it—is yet a maliciousrepresentation?" Caleb's wrath was stirred, and he said, indignantly—
"Why should I have said it if I didn't mean it? I am in no fear of you.Such tales as that will never tempt my tongue."
"Excuse me—I am agitated—I am the victim of this abandoned man."
"Stop a bit! you have got to consider whether you didn't help to makehim worse, when you profited by his vices."
"You are wronging me by too readily believing him," said Bulstrode,oppressed, as by a nightmare, with the inability to deny flatly whatRaffles might have said; and yet feeling it an escape that Caleb had notso stated it to him as to ask for that flat denial.
"No," said Caleb, lifting his hand deprecatingly; "I am ready tobelieve better, when better is proved. I rob you of no good chance. As tospeaking, I hold it a crime to expose a man's sin unless I'm clear it mustbe done to save the innocent. That is my way of thinking, Mr. Bulstrode,and what I say, I've no need to swear. I wish you good-day."
Some hours later, when he was at home, Caleb said to his wife,incidentally, that he had had some little differences with Bulstrode, andthat in consequence, he had given up all notion of taking Stone Court,and indeed had resigned doing further business for him.
"He was disposed to interfere too much, was he?" said Mrs. Garth,imagining that her husband had been touched on his sensitive point, andnot been allowed to do what he thought right as to materials and modesof work.
"Oh," said Caleb, bowing his head and waving his hand gravely. AndMrs. Garth knew that this was a sign of his not intending to speakfurther on the subject.
As for Bulstrode, he had almost immediately mounted his horse andset off for Stone Court, being anxious to arrive there before Lydgate.
His mind was crowded with images and conjectures, which were alanguage to his hopes and fears, just as we hear tones from thevibrations which shake our whole system. The deep humiliation withwhich he had winced under Caleb Garth's knowledge of his past andrejection of his patronage, alternated with and almost gave way to thesense of safety in the fact that Garth, and no other, had been the man towhom Raffles had spoken. It seemed to him a sort of earnest thatProvidence intended his rescue from worse consequences; the way beingthus left open for the hope of secrecy. That Raffles should be afflictedwith illness, that he should have been led to Stone Court rather thanelsewhere—Bulstrode's heart fluttered at the vision of probabilities whichthese events conjured up. If it should turn out that he was freed from alldanger of disgrace—if he could breathe in perfect liberty—his life shouldbe more consecrated than it had ever been before. He mentally lifted upthis vow as if it would urge the result he longed for—he tried to believein the potency of that prayerful resolution—its potency to determinedeath. He knew that he ought to say, "Thy will be done;" and he said itoften. But the intense desire remained that the will of God might be thedeath of that hated man.
Yet when he arrived at Stone Court he could not see the change inRaffles without a shock. But for his pallor and feebleness, Bulstrodewould have called the change in him entirely mental. Instead of his loudtormenting mood, he showed an intense, vague terror, and seemed todeprecate Bulstrode's anger, because the money was all gone—he hadbeen robbed—it had half of it been taken from him. He had only comehere because he was ill and somebody was hunting him—somebody wasafter him he had told nobody anything, he had kept his mouth shut.Bulstrode, not knowing the significance of these symptoms, interpretedthis new nervous susceptibility into a means of alarming Raffles into trueconfessions, and taxed him with falsehood in saying that he had not toldanything, since he had just told the man who took him up in his gig andbrought him to Stone Court. Raffles denied this with solemn adjurations;the fact being that the links of consciousness were interrupted in him,and that his minute terror-stricken narrative to Caleb Garth had beendelivered under a set of visionary impulses which had dropped back intodarkness.
Bulstrode's heart sank again at this sign that he could get no graspover the wretched man's mind, and that no word of Raffles could betrusted as to the fact which he most wanted to know, namely, whetheror not he had really kept silence to every one in the neighborhood exceptCaleb Garth. The housekeeper had told him without the least constraintof manner that since Mr. Garth left, Raffles had asked her for beer, andafter that had not spoken, seeming very ill. On that side it might beconcluded that there had been no betrayal. Mrs. Abel thought, like theservants at The Shrubs, that the strange man belonged to the unpleasant"kin" who are among the troubles of the rich; she had at first referred thekinship to Mr. Rigg, and where there was property left, the buzzingpresence of such large blue-bottles seemed natural enough. How he couldbe "kin" to Bulstrode as well was not so clear, but Mrs. Abel agreed withher husband that there was "no knowing," a proposition which had agreat deal of mental food for her, so that she shook her head over itwithout further speculation.
In less than an hour Lydgate arrived. Bulstrode met him outside thewainscoted parlor, where Raffles was, and said—
"I have called you in, Mr. Lydgate, to an unfortunate man who wasonce in my employment, many years ago. Afterwards he went toAmerica, and returned I fear to an idle dissolute life. Being destitute, hehas a claim on me. He was slightly connected with Rigg, the formerowner of this place, and in consequence found his way here. I believe heis seriously ill: apparently his mind is affected. I feel bound to do theutmost for him."
Lydgate, who had the remembrance of his last conversation withBulstrode strongly upon him, was not disposed to say an unnecessaryword to him, and bowed slightly in answer to this account; but justbefore entering the room he turned automatically and said, "What is hisname?"—to know names being as much a part of the medical man'saccomplishment as of the practical politician's.
"Raffles, John Raffles," said Bulstrode, who hoped that whateverbecame of Raffles, Lydgate would never know any more of him.
When he had thoroughly examined and considered the patient,Lydgate ordered that he should go to bed, and be kept there in ascomplete quiet as possible, and then went with Bulstrode into anotherroom.
"It is a serious case, I apprehend," said the banker, before Lydgatebegan to speak.
"No—and yes," said Lydgate, half dubiously. "It is difficult to decideas to the possible effect of long-standing complications; but the man hada robust constitution to begin with. I should not expect this attack to befatal, though of course the system is in a ticklish state. He should be wellwatched and attended to."
"I will remain here myself," said Bulstrode. "Mrs. Abel and herhusband are inexperienced. I can easily remain here for the night, if youwill oblige me by taking a note for Mrs. Bulstrode."
"I should think that is hardly necessary," said Lydgate. "He seemstame and terrified enough. He might become more unmanageable. Butthere is a man here—is there not?"
"I have more than once stayed here a few nights for the sake ofseclusion," said Bulstrode, indifferently; "I am quite disposed to do sonow. Mrs. Abel and her husband can relieve or aid me, if necessary."
"Very well. Then I need give my directions only to you," saidLydgate, not feeling surprised at a little peculiarity in Bulstrode.
"You think, then, that the case is hopeful?" said Bulstrode, whenLydgate had ended giving his orders.
"Unless there turn out to be further complications, such as I have notat present detected—yes," said Lydgate. "He may pass on to a worsestage; but I should not wonder if he got better in a few days, by adheringto the treatment I have prescribed. There must be firmness. Remember,if he calls for liquors of any sort, not to give them to him. In my opinion,men in his condition are oftener killed by treatment than by the disease.Still, new symptoms may arise. I shall come again to-morrow morning."
After waiting for the note to be carried to Mrs. Bulstrode, Lydgaterode away, forming no conjectures, in the first instance, about thehistory of Raffles, but rehearsing the whole argument, which had latelybeen much stirred by the publication of Dr. Ware's abundant experiencein America, as to the right way of treating cases of alcoholic poisoningsuch as this. Lydgate, when abroad, had already been interested in thisquestion: he was strongly convinced against the prevalent practice ofallowing alcohol and persistently administering large doses of opium; andhe had repeatedly acted on this conviction with a favorable result.
