"I know How far high failure overtops the bounds Of low successes. Only suffering draws The inner heart of song, and can elicit The perfumes of the soul."
Epic of Hades.
Next week, Lawrence went off like a hero to the war; and my friend--also I think like a hero--stayed on at Bath, enduring as best he could the worst form of loneliness; for undoubtedly there is no loneliness so frightful as constant companionship with an uncongenial person. He had, however, one consolation: the Major's health steadily improved, under the joint influence of total abstinence and Bath water, and, with the improvement, his temper became a little better.
But one Saturday, when I had run down to Bath without writing beforehand, I suddenly found a different state of things. In Orange Grove I met Dr. Mackrill, the Major's medical man; he used now and then to play whist with us on Saturday nights, and I stopped to speak to him.
"Oh! you've come down again. That's all right!" he said. "Your friend wants someone to cheer him up. He's got his arm broken."
"How on earth did he manage that?" I asked.
"Well, that's more than I can tell you," said the Doctor, with an odd look in his eyes, as if he guessed more than he would put into words. "All that I could get out of him was that it was done accidentally. The Major is not so well--no whist for us to-night, I'm afraid."
He passed on, and I made my way to Gay Street. There was an air of mystery about the quaint old landlady; she looked brimful of news when she opened the door to me, but she managed to 'keep herself to herself,' and showed me in upon the Major and Derrick, rather triumphantly I thought. The Major looked terribly ill--worse than I had ever seen him, and as for Derrick, he had the strangest look of shrinking and shame-facedness you ever saw. He said he was glad to see me, but I knew that he lied. He would have given anything to have kept me away.
"Broken your arm?" I exclaimed, feeling bound to take some notice of the sling.
"Yes," he replied; "met with an accident to it. But luckily it's only the left one, so it doesn't hinder me much! I have finished seven chapters of the last volume of 'Lynwood,' and was just wanting to ask you a legal question."
All this time his eyes bore my scrutiny defiantly; they seemed to dare me to say one other word about the broken arm. I didn't dare--indeed to this day I have never mentioned the subject to him.
But that evening, while he was helping the Major to bed, the old landlady made some pretext for toiling up to the top of the house, where I sat smoking in Derrick's room.
"You'll excuse my making bold to speak to you, sir," she said. I threw down my newspaper, and, looking up, saw that she was bubbling over with some story.
"Well?" I said, encouragingly.
"It's about Mr. Vaughan, sir, I wanted to speak to you. I really do think, sir, it's not safe he should be left alone with his father, sir, any longer. Such doings as we had here the other day, sir!
Somehow or other--and none of us can't think how--the Major had managed to get hold of a bottle of brandy. How he had it I don't know; but we none of us suspected him, and in the afternoon he says he was too poorly to go for a drive or to go out in his chair, and settles off on the parlour sofa for a nap while Mr. Vaughan goes out for a walk. Mr. Vaughan was out a couple of hours. I heard him come in and go into the sitting-room; then there came sounds of voices, and a scuffling of feet and moving of chairs, and I knew something was wrong and hurried up to the door--and just then came a crash like fire-irons, and I could hear the Major a-swearing fearful. Not hearing a sound from Mr. Vaughan, I got scared, sir, and opened the door, and there I saw the Major a leaning up against the mantelpiece as drunk as a lord, and his son seemed to have got the bottle from him; it was half empty, and when he saw me he just handed it to me and ordered me to take it away. Then between us we got the Major to lie down on the sofa and left him there. When we got out into the passage Mr. Vaughan he leant against the wall for a minute, looking as white as a sheet, and then I noticed for the first time that his left arm was hanging down at his side. 'Lord! sir,' I cried, 'your arm's broken.' And he went all at once as red as he had been pale just before, and said he had got it done accidentally, and bade me say nothing about it, and walked off there and then to the doctor's, and had it set. But sir, given a man drunk as the Major was, and given a scuffle to get away the drink that was poisoning him, and given a crash such as I heard, and given a poker a-lying in the middle of the room where it stands to reason no poker could get unless it was thrown--why, sir, no sensible woman who can put two and two together can doubt that it was all the Major's doing."
"Yes," I said, "that is clear enough; but for Mr. Vaughan's sake we must hush it up; and, as for safety, why, the Major is hardly strong enough to do him any worse damage than that."
The good old thing wiped away a tear from her eyes. She was very fond of Derrick, and it went to her heart that he should lead such a dog's life.
I said what I could to comfort her, and she went down again, fearful lest he should discover her upstairs and guess that she had opened her heart to me.
