Derrick Vaughan Novelist
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Edna Lyall >> Derrick Vaughan Novelist
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"You will come and see us in town," said Lady Probyn, kindly. And
Lord Probyn invited us both for the shooting at Blachington in
September. "We will have the same party on shore, and see if we
can't enjoy ourselves almost as well," he said in his hearty way;
"the novel will go all the better for it, eh, Vaughan?"
Derrick brightened visibly at the suggestion. I heard him talking
to Freda all the time that Sir John stood laughing and joking as to
the comparative pleasures of yachting and shooting.
"You will be there too?" Derrick asked.
"I can't tell," said Freda, and there was a shade of sadness in her
tone. Her voice was deeper than most women's voices--a rich
contralto with something striking and individual about it. I could
hear her quite plainly; but Derrick spoke less distinctly--he always
had a bad trick of mumbling.
"You see I am the youngest," she said, "and I am not really 'out.'
Perhaps my mother will wish one of the elder ones to go; but I half
think they are already engaged for September, so after all I may
have a chance."
Inaudible remark from my friend.
"Yes, I came here because my sisters did not care to leave London
till the end of the season," replied the clear contralto. "It has
been a perfect cruise. I shall remember it all my life."
After that, nothing more was audible; but I imagine Derrick must
have hazarded a more personal question, and that Freda had admitted
that it was not only the actual sailing she should remember. At any
rate her face when I caught sight of it again made me think of the
girl described in the 'Biglow Papers':
"''Twas kin' o' kingdom come to look
On sech a blessed creatur.
A dogrose blushin' to a brook
Ain't modester nor sweeter.'"
So the train went off, and Derrick and I were left to idle about
Southampton and kill time as best we might. Derrick seemed to walk
the streets in a sort of dream--he was perfectly well aware that he
had met his fate, and at that time no thought of difficulties in the
way had arisen either in his mind or in my own. We were both of us
young and inexperienced; we were both of us in love, and we had the
usual lover's notion that everything in heaven and earth is prepared
to favour the course of his particular passion.
I remember that we soon found the town intolerable, and, crossing by
the ferry, walked over to Netley Abbey, and lay down idly in the
shade of the old grey walls. Not a breath of wind stirred the great
masses of ivy which were wreathed about the ruined church, and the
place looked so lovely in its decay, that we felt disposed to judge
the dissolute monks very leniently for having behaved so badly that
their church and monastery had to be opened to the four winds of
heaven. After all, when is a church so beautiful as when it has the
green grass for its floor and the sky for its roof?
I could show you the very spot near the East window where Derrick
told me the whole truth, and where we talked over Freda's
perfections and the probability of frequent meetings in London. He
had listened so often and so patiently to my affairs, that it seemed
an odd reversal to have to play the confidant; and if now and then
my thoughts wandered off to the coming month at Mondisfield, and
pictured violet eyes while he talked of grey, it was not from any
lack of sympathy with my friend.
Derrick was not of a self-tormenting nature, and though I knew he
was amazed at the thought that such a girl as Freda could possibly
care for him, yet he believed most implicitly that this wonderful
thing had come to pass; and, remembering her face as we had last
seen it, and the look in her eyes at Tresco, I, too, had not a
shadow of a doubt that she really loved him. She was not the least
bit of a flirt, and society had not had a chance yet of moulding her
into the ordinary girl of the nineteenth century.
Perhaps it was the sudden and unexpected change of the next day that
makes me remember Derrick's face so distinctly as he lay back on the
smooth turf that afternoon in Netley Abbey. As it looked then, full
of youth and hope, full of that dream of cloudless love, I never saw
it again.
Chapter III.
"Religion in him never died, but became a habit--a habit of enduring
hardness, and cleaving to the steadfast performance of duty in the
face of the strongest allurements to the pleasanter and easier
course."
Life of Charles Lamb, by A. Ainger.
Derrick was in good spirits the next day. He talked much of Major
Vaughan, wondered whether the voyage home had restored his health,
discussed the probable length of his leave, and speculated as to the
nature of his illness; the telegram had of course given no details.
"There has not been even a photograph for the last five years," he
remarked, as we walked down to the quay together. "Yet I think I
should know him anywhere, if it is only by his height. He used to
look so well on horseback. I remember as a child seeing him in a
sham fight charging up Caesar's Camp."
"How old were you when he went out?"
"Oh, quite a small boy," replied Derrick. "It was just before I
first stayed with you. However, he has had a regular succession of
photographs sent out to him, and will know me easily enough."
Poor Derrick! I can't think of that day even now without a kind of
mental shiver. We watched the great steamer as it glided up to the
quay, and Derrick scanned the crowded deck with eager eyes, but
could nowhere see the tall, soldierly figure that had lingered so
long in his memory. He stood with his hand resting on the rail of
the gangway, and when presently it was raised to the side of the
steamer, he still kept his position, so that he could instantly
catch sight of his father as he passed down. I stood close behind
him, and watched the motley procession of passengers; most of them
had the dull colourless skin which bespeaks long residence in India,
and a particularly yellow and peevish-looking old man was grumbling
loudly as he slowly made his way down the gangway.
"The most disgraceful scene!" he remarked. "The fellow was as drunk
as he could be."
"Who was it?" asked his companion.
"Why, Major Vaughan, to be sure. The only wonder is that he hasn't
drunk himself to death by this time--been at it years enough!"
Derrick turned, as though to shelter himself from the curious eyes
of the travellers; but everywhere the quay was crowded. It seemed
to me not unlike the life that lay before him, with this new shame
which could not be hid, and I shall never forget the look of misery
in his face.
"Most likely a great exaggeration of that spiteful old fogey's," I
said. "Never believe anything that you hear, is a sound axiom. Had
you not better try to get on board?"
"Yes; and for heaven's sake come with me, Wharncliffe!" he said.
"It can't be true! It is, as you say, that man's spite, or else
there is someone else of the name on board. That must be it--
someone else of the name."
I don't know whether he managed to deceive himself. We made our way
on board, and he spoke to one of the stewards, who conducted us to
the saloon. I knew from the expression of the man's face that the
words we had overheard were but too true; it was a mere glance that
he gave us, yet if he had said aloud, "They belong to that old
drunkard! Thank heaven I'm not in their shoes!" I could not have
better understood what was in his mind.
There were three persons only in the great saloon: an officer's
servant, whose appearance did not please me; a fine looking old man
with grey hair and whiskers, and a rough-hewn honest face,
apparently the ship's doctor; and a tall grizzled man in whom I at
once saw a sort of horrible likeness to Derrick--horrible because
this face was wicked and degraded, and because its owner was drunk--
noisily drunk. Derrick paused for a minute, looking at his father;
then, deadly pale, he turned to the old doctor. "I am Major
Vaughan's son," he said.
The doctor grasped his hand, and there was something in the old
man's kindly, chivalrous manner which brought a sort of light into
the gloom.
"I am very glad to see you!" he exclaimed. "Is the Major's luggage
ready?" he inquired turning to the servant. Then, as the man
replied in the affirmative, "How would it be, Mr. Vaughan, if your
father's man just saw the things into a cab? and then I'll come on
shore with you and see my patient safely settled in."
Derrick acquiesced, and the doctor turned to the Major, who was
leaning up against one of the pillars of the saloon and shouting out
"'Twas in Trafalgar Bay," in a way which, under other circumstances,
would have been highly comic. The doctor interrupted him, as with
much feeling he sang how:
"England declared that every man
That day had done his duty."
"Look, Major," he said; "here is your son come to meet you."
"Glad to see you, my boy," said the Major, reeling forward and
running all his words together. "How's your mother? Is this
Lawrence? Glad to see both of you! Why, you'r's like's two peas!
Not Lawrence, do you say? Confound it, doctor, how the ship rolls
to-day!"
And the old wretch staggered and would have fallen, had not Derrick
supported him and landed him safely on one of the fixed ottomans.
"Yes, yes, you're the son for me," he went on, with a bland smile,
which made his face all the more hideous. "You're not so rough and
clumsy as that confounded John Thomas, whose hands are like
brickbats. I'm a mere wreck, as you see; it's the accursed climate!
But your mother will soon nurse me into health again; she was always
a good nurse, poor soul! it was her best point. What with you and
your mother, I shall soon be myself again."
Here the doctor interposed, and Derrick made desperately for a
porthole and gulped down mouthfuls of fresh air: but he was not
allowed much of a respite, for the servant returned to say that he
had procured a cab, and the Major called loudly for his son's arm.
"I'll not have you," he said, pushing the servant violently away.
"Come, Derrick, help me! you are worth two of that blockhead."
And Derrick came quickly forward, his face still very pale, but with
a dignity about it which I had never before seen; and, giving his
arm to his drunken father, he piloted him across the saloon, through
the staring ranks of stewards, officials, and tardy passengers
outside, down the gangway, and over the crowded quay to the cab. I
knew that each derisive glance of the spectators was to him like a
sword-thrust, and longed to throttle the Major, who seemed to enjoy
himself amazingly on terra firma, and sang at the top of his voice
as we drove through the streets of Southampton. The old doctor kept
up a cheery flow of small-talk with me, thinking, no doubt, that
this would be a kindness to Derrick: and at last that purgatorial
drive ended, and somehow Derrick and the doctor between them got the
Major safely into his room at Radley's Hotel.
We had ordered lunch in a private sitting-room, thinking that the
Major would prefer it to the coffee-room; but, as it turned out, he
was in no state to appear. They left him asleep, and the ship's
doctor sat in the seat that had been prepared for his patient, and
made the meal as tolerable to us both as it could be. He was an
odd, old-fashioned fellow, but as true a gentleman as ever breathed.
"Now," he said, when lunch was over, "you and I must have a talk
together, Mr. Vaughan, and I will help you to understand your
father's case."
I made a movement to go, but sat down again at Derrick's request. I
think, poor old fellow, he dreaded being alone, and knowing that I
had seen his father at the worst, thought I might as well hear all
particulars.
"Major Vaughan," continued the doctor, "has now been under my care
for some weeks, and I had some communication with the regimental
surgeon about his case before he sailed. He is suffering from an
enlarged liver, and the disease has been brought on by his
unfortunate habit of over-indulgence in stimulants." I could almost
have smiled, so very gently and considerately did the good old man
veil in long words the shameful fact. "It is a habit sadly
prevalent among our fellow-countrymen in India; the climate
aggravates the mischief, and very many lives are in this way ruined.
Then your father was also unfortunate enough to contract rheumatism
when he was camping out in the jungle last year, and this is
increasing on him very much, so that his life is almost intolerable
to him, and he naturally flies for relief to his greatest enemy,
drink. At all costs, however, you must keep him from stimulants;
they will only intensify the disease and the sufferings, in fact
they are poison to a man in such a state. Don't think I am a bigot
in these matters; but I say that for a man in such a condition as
this, there is nothing for it but total abstinence, and at all costs
your father must be guarded from the possibility of procuring any
sort of intoxicating drink. Throughout the voyage I have done my
best to shield him, but it was a difficult matter. His servant,
too, is not trustworthy, and should be dismissed if possible."
"Had he spoken at all of his plans?" asked Derrick, and his voice
sounded strangely unlike itself.
"He asked me what place in England he had better settle down in,"
said the doctor, "and I strongly recommended him to try Bath. This
seemed to please him, and if he is well enough he had better go
there to-morrow. He mentioned your mother this morning; no doubt
she will know how to manage him."
"My mother died six months ago," said Derrick, pushing back his
chair and beginning to pace the room. The doctor made kindly
apologies.
"Perhaps you have a sister, who could go to him?"
"No," replied Derrick. "My only sister is married, and her husband
would never allow it."
"Or a cousin or an aunt?" suggested the old man, naively unconscious
that the words sounded like a quotation.
I saw the ghost of a smile flit over Derrick's harassed face as he
shook his head.
"I suggested that he should go into some Home for--cases of the
kind," resumed the doctor, "or place himself under the charge of
some medical man; however, he won't hear of such a thing. But if he
is left to himself--well, it is all up with him. He will drink
himself to death in a few months."
"He shall not be left alone," said Derrick; "I will live with him.
Do you think I should do? It seems to be Hobson's choice."
I looked up in amazement--for here was Derrick calmly giving himself
up to a life that must crush every plan for the future he had made.
Did men make such a choice as that while they took two or three
turns in a room? Did they speak so composedly after a struggle that
must have been so bitter? Thinking it over now, I feel sure it was
his extraordinary gift of insight and his clear judgment which made
him behave in this way. He instantly perceived and promptly acted;
the worst of the suffering came long after.
"Why, of course you are the very best person in the world for him,"
said the doctor. "He has taken a fancy to you, and evidently you
have a certain influence with him. If any one can save him it will
be you."
But the thought of allowing Derrick to be sacrificed to that old
brute of a Major was more than I could bear calmly.
"A more mad scheme was never proposed," I cried. "Why, doctor, it
will be utter ruin to my friend's career; he will lose years that no
one can ever make up. And besides, he is unfit for such a strain,
he will never stand it."
My heart felt hot as I thought of Derrick, with his highly-strung,
sensitive nature, his refinement, his gentleness, in constant
companionship with such a man as Major Vaughan.
"My dear sir," said the old doctor, with a gleam in his eye, "I
understand your feeling well enough. But depend upon it, your
friend has made the right choice, and there is no doubt that he'll
be strong enough to do his duty."
The word reminded me of the Major's song, and my voice was
abominably sarcastic in tone as I said to Derrick, "You no longer
consider writing your duty then?"
"Yes," he said, "but it must stand second to this. Don't be vexed,
Sydney; our plans are knocked on the head, but it is not so bad as
you make out. I have at any rate enough to live on, and can afford
to wait."
There was no more to be said, and the next day I saw that strange
trio set out on their road to Bath. The Major looking more wicked
when sober than he had done when drunk; the old doctor kindly and
considerate as ever; and Derrick, with an air of resolution about
that English face of his and a dauntless expression in his eyes
which impressed me curiously.
These quiet, reserved fellows are always giving one odd surprises.
He had astonished me by the vigour and depth of the first volume of
'Lynwood's Heritage.' He astonished me now by a new phase in his
own character. Apparently he who had always been content to follow
where I led, and to watch life rather than to take an active share
in it, now intended to strike out a very decided line of his own.
Chapter IV.
"Both Goethe and Schiller were profoundly convinced that Art was no
luxury of leisure, no mere amusement to charm the idle, or relax the
careworn; but a mighty influence, serious in its aims although
pleasureable in its means; a sister of Religion, by whose aid the
great world-scheme was wrought into reality."
Lewes's Life of Goethe.
Man is a selfish being, and I am a particularly fine specimen of the
race as far as that characteristic goes. If I had had a dozen
drunken parents I should never have danced attendance on one of
them; yet in my secret soul I admired Derrick for the line he had
taken, for we mostly do admire what is unlike ourselves and really
noble, though it is the fashion to seem totally indifferent to
everything in heaven and earth. But all the same I felt annoyed
about the whole business, and was glad to forget it in my own
affairs at Mondisfield.
Weeks passed by. I lived through a midsummer dream of happiness,
and a hard awaking. That, however, has nothing to do with Derrick's
story, and may be passed over. In October I settled down in
Montague Street, Bloomsbury, and began to read for the Bar, in about
as disagreeable a frame of mind as can be conceived. One morning I
found on my breakfast table a letter in Derrick's handwriting. Like
most men, we hardly ever corresponded--what women say in the eternal
letters they send to each other I can't conceive--but it struck me
that under the circumstances I ought to have sent him a line to ask
how he was getting on, and my conscience pricked me as I remembered
that I had hardly thought of him since we parted, being absorbed in
my own matters. The letter was not very long, but when one read
between the lines it somehow told a good deal. I have it lying by
me, and this is a copy of it:
"Dear Sydney,--Do like a good fellow go to North Audley Street for
me, to the house which I described to you as the one where Lynwood
lodged, and tell me what he would see besides the church from his
window--if shops, what kind? Also if any glimpse of Oxford Street
would be visible. Then if you'll add to your favours by getting me
a second-hand copy of Laveleye's 'Socialisme Contemporain,' I should
be for ever grateful. We are settled in here all right. Bath is
empty, but I people it as far as I can with the folk out of
'Evelina' and 'Persuasion.' How did you get on at Blachington? and
which of the Misses Merrifield went in the end? Don't bother about
the commissions. Any time will do.
"Ever yours,
"Derrick Vaughan."
Poor old fellow! all the spirit seemed knocked out of him. There
was not one word about the Major, and who could say what
wretchedness was veiled in that curt phrase, "we are settled in all
right"? All right! it was all as wrong as it could be! My blood
began to boil at the thought of Derrick, with his great powers--his
wonderful gift--cooped up in a place where the study of life was so
limited and so dull. Then there was his hunger for news of Freda,
and his silence as to what had kept him away from Blachington, and
about all a sort of proud humility which prevented him from saying
much that I should have expected him to say under the circumstances.
It was Saturday, and my time was my own. I went out, got his book
for him; interviewed North Audley Street; spent a bad five minutes
in company with that villain 'Bradshaw,' who is responsible for so
much of the brain and eye disease of the nineteenth century, and
finally left Paddington in the Flying Dutchman, which landed me at
Bath early in the afternoon. I left my portmanteau at the station,
and walked through the city till I reached Gay Street. Like most of
the streets of Bath, it was broad, and had on either hand dull,
well-built, dark grey, eminently respectable, unutterably dreary-
looking houses. I rang, and the door was opened to me by a most
quaint old woman, evidently the landlady. An odour of curry
pervaded the passage, and became more oppressive as the door of the
sitting-room was opened, and I was ushered in upon the Major and his
son, who had just finished lunch.
"Hullo!" cried Derrick, springing up, his face full of delight which
touched me, while at the same time it filled me with envy.
Even the Major thought fit to give me a hearty welcome.
"Glad to see you again," he said pleasantly enough. "It's a relief
to have a fresh face to look at. We have a room which is quite at
your disposal, and I hope you'll stay with us. Brought your
portmanteau, eh?"
"It is at the station," I replied.
"See that it is sent for," he said to Derrick; "and show Mr.
Wharncliffe all that is to be seen in this cursed hole of a place."
Then, turning again to me, "Have you lunched? Very well, then,
don't waste this fine afternoon in an invalid's room, but be off and
enjoy yourself."
So cordial was the old man, that I should have thought him already a
reformed character, had I not found that he kept the rough side of
his tongue for home use. Derrick placed a novel and a small
handbell within his reach, and we were just going, when we were
checked by a volley of oaths from the Major; then a book came flying
across the room, well aimed at Derrick's head. He stepped aside,
and let it fall with a crash on the sideboard.
"What do you mean by giving me the second volume when you know I am
in the third?" fumed the invalid.
He apologised quietly, fetched the third volume, straightened the
disordered leaves of the discarded second, and with the air of one
well accustomed to such little domestic scenes, took up his hat and
came out with me.
"How long do you intend to go on playing David to the Major's Saul?"
I asked, marvelling at the way in which he endured the humours of
his father.
"As long as I have the chance," he replied. "I say, are you sure
you won't mind staying with us? It can't be a very comfortable
household for an outsider."
"Much better than for an insider, to all appearance," I replied.
"I'm only too delighted to stay. And now, old fellow, tell me the
honest truth--you didn't, you know, in your letter--how have you
been getting on?"
Derrick launched into an account of his father's ailments.
"Oh, hang the Major! I don't care about him, I want to know about
you," I cried.
"About me?" said Derrick doubtfully. "Oh, I'm right enough."
"What do you do with yourself? How on earth do you kill time?" I
asked. "Come, give me a full, true, and particular account of it
all."
"We have tried three other servants," said Derrick; "but the plan
doesn't answer. They either won't stand it, or else they are bribed
into smuggling brandy into the house. I find I can do most things
for my father, and in the morning he has an attendant from the
hospital who is trustworthy, and who does what is necessary for him.
At ten we breakfast together, then there are the morning papers,
which he likes to have read to him. After that I go round to the
Pump Room with him--odd contrast now to what it must have been when
Bath was the rage. Then we have lunch. In the afternoon, if he is
well enough, we drive; if not he sleeps, and I get a walk. Later on
an old Indian friend of his will sometimes drop in; if not he likes
to be read to until dinner. After dinner we play chess--he is a
first-rate player. At ten I help him to bed; from eleven to twelve
I smoke and study Socialism and all the rest of it that Lynwood is
at present floundering in."
"Why don't you write, then?"
"I tried it, but it didn't answer. I couldn't sleep after it, and
was, in fact, too tired; seems absurd to be tired after such a day
as that, but somehow it takes it out of one more than the hardest
reading; I don't know why."
"Why," I said angrily, "it's because it is work to which you are
quite unsuited--work for a thick-skinned, hard-hearted, uncultivated
and well-paid attendant, not for the novelist who is to be the chief
light of our generation."
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