Transformed; or, Three Weeks in a Lifetime

Chapter I. Success

21 II. WHAT THE HOUSEKEEPER HAD TO SAY . . 30 III. THE LAUGniNG WOODPECKER . - . .46 IV. THE SPIRIT OF THE PAST . . . . 65 V. AN UNCONSCIOUS HERO . . . .77

Part II. Midas

I. UTILITARIANISM AND IMAGINATION . . 95 II. 'FRIENDSHIP OBLIGE' CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE III. WHEREIN THEY DIFFERED .... 143 IV. A STRANGELY ASSORTED PAIR . . . 166 V. AT HIS CHILD-TEACHER'S FEET . . .197 VI. CHANGED VIEWS . . . . . . 215 VII. THE CHURCH IN THE OLD COUNTY-TOWN . 232 VIII. THE TWO FRIENDS IN SOCIETY . . . 251 XI. HOW IS IT ALL TO END. . . . .285

Part III. Nemesis

I. CONSEQUENCES 301 II. THE MESSAGE FROM THE RECTORY . . . 316 III. AN INTERVIEW 326 CLOSING CHAPTER. JOHN RAMSAY . . .339 Errata Page 160, line 8, for child's spirit read child-spirit „ 314, „ 4, for tublmed read tumbled ., 886, „ 10,/w And, read 'And,' Opening Chapter JOHN RAMSAY B OPENING CHAPTER. JOHN RAMSAY. John Eamsay was taking his ticket. It Avas done as he did everything ; leisurely, attentively, his mind for the moment concentrated on the ticket he was taking, and on nothing else. No hurry nor bustle ; no vagueness nor inattention. It Avas so always. Whatever he did, he did Avell ; giving his whole attention to it ; Avhich Avas per haps why he had been successful : as men count success, at least. For, in so far as getting, in this Avorld, the thing we wish to get, and have always B been determined upon getting, constitutes a successful life, John Eamsay's hfe had been successful.

But success may cost one dear for all that ; and the question may nevertheless arise — Cui bono ? He had done what he had resolved to do ; and everyone cannot say the same. Years ago, when only a boy, not much more than nine years old, John Eamsay had determined Avithin himself to make enough money to buy back the old family place, the old home of his childhood, which had then been sold to satisfy his father's creditors. He was fifty-nine iioav, and he had done it some ten years previously. His whole Hfe had been spent in the effort ; and Avork — hard, grinding Avork — had been the instrument he had em ployed. As a young man he had given up society, good fellowship, friendship, everything : for his work. He Avas a laAvyer, and, with the one object in A-ieAv of making money, he had worked and slaATed day and night ; never alloAving himself recreation, relaxation, rest, or change, till he had attained a certain eminence in his profession.

He then accepted a legal appointment in India, and toiled and moiled in the heat there for over tAventy years, Avithout ever coming home. His object Avas attained Avhen he was forty-nine ; but he continued to work as before. He had lost sight of the end, in his concentration on the means ! Work had become to him second nature ; and the making of money a goal, an idol, a god almost. He hardly cared for anything else. The aim of his life Avas accomplished, but he had ceased to care for it. Everything Avas swamped in the passion for Avork, and for what work brought. To see his gains increase ; to invest those gains ; and then to see them aug mented by the unspent dividends, Avhich re-invested created an ever rolling and rolling heap, became another charm. The momentary suspension of his con centration on all this Avhile he gave his mind to the details of buying, re-furnishing, etc., through agents, the family place, Avas irksome to him.

The necessary arrangements fretted him. He was dying all the time to get back to his work. If his health had not begun to fail, I do not beheve he would ever have come back to England at all. But India began to tell upon him ; and so he had, at last, come home. But he had not, for some time, got further than London. He took some dingy lodgings close to the Stock Exchange, and there he estab lished himself, in company Avith an old clerk, who had been Avith him all his life. He took to gambling on the Stock Exchange ; and appeared to have forgotten the existence of the place he had toiled to recover. But it Avas not exactly so. He had ahvays had, at the back of his mind, as it were, a feeling that there Avas a satisfaction in store for him in the re covered possession, Avhene ver he should have time to turn his mind to it ; it was there Avaiting, Avhenever he chose to take it up.

All through his hard Avork he had ahvays had this consciousness. It Avas a sort of vista in the future, in which his thoughts could always rest, whenever he was so disposed. So it Avas not so strange in him as it seems, that he should put cff and put off the pleasure of going down to the old home, so dearly bought. But the day, hoAvever, came at length, Avhen he made his long-delayed pilgrimage to it. But once there, the conviction daAvned upon him that it Avas too late ! He realised the fact that the recovered possession gave him no pleasure. It Avas not Avorth the devotion of a lifetime. He felt quite out of conceit with it It was so much smaller than he had remembered it. It was a mere villa, as it seemed to him. Its sentimental value too, to which he had unconsciously clung all these years, Avas gone.

The memory of his childhood, Avhich he had ahvays supposed the sight of the place Avould evoke, did not come to him. People talk of old associations bringing back past scenes and past feelings ! Well ! all he could say was, the place did neither. His past was a blank. He could not look back over the dim Avaste of years, and merge his present identity in that of the fair-haired, dreamy boy avIio had wan dered, and thought, and planned here ; Avho had loved every stick and stone about the place, and Avhose name Avas John Earn say, too ! No ! He could get up no sentiment ; not even when he stood on the very grass knoll where, fifty years ago, he had formed his resolution. He had not even heart or imagination enough left to be disappointed that his ful filled ambition was nothing to him. There was no pang at his heart as he Avandered aimlessly about — only a longing, a craving, to get back to his dingy lodging and bury himself in figures once more.

Which he did. His hurried visit of inspection came to an end the very next day ; and he left the place and returned to London. A poorer man than before, for his one remaining illusion Avas gone. Back to his absorbing occupations, like an opium-eater — but without his dreams. And from that time till the moment when we see him taking his ticket he had never been near it again. There Avas another reason Avhich kept him away. A feAV miles from the old Manor House, lived his only blood relation, a half-brother, many years younger than he, to whom, on its falling vacant, he had presented the family hving. This brother Avas married, and had several children, to one of whom the brought-back property Avould, of course, eventually come. John Eamsay was glad that there Avas some one to bear the family name, and hve in the family place, but there his interest in his brother and his children began and ended.

He had a nervous dread, all the time he had been doAvn there, that some of them might come over to see him. He felt so entirely out of sympathy with their interests, and with family life. And then clergymen ahvays wanted money. The church Avould want repair, or there would be a great deal of distress in the village, or something or other. Not that John Eamsay was anti-religious. He had a great respect for rehgion. He, the highly-respectable, was a man who never absented himself from church on Sunday morning, even noAV ; while that fair-haired shadow of the past had been of a thoughtful, and, as long as his young mother had lived, of a devotional, nature. He never, I say, absented himself from church once on Sunday, but I will not attempt to answer for his thoughts while there. But there were figures on the fly leaves of his prayer-book, and even on the margin of some of its pages, which certainly did not relate to the psalms or hymns.

How far the debasing tendency of his constant thoughts (for there is nothing so debasing as the constant thought of money, for its oavii sake, and the love of the doubling and trebling thereof) shut out the thought of God, and quenched the light of his higher nature, we will not noAV enquire. His brother had come to see him immediately after his return from India, and welcomed him home with all the warmth of fraternal affection. But they h .d not been together ten minutes before both recognised the enor mous gulf that divided them : the difference of their feelings, interests, aims, and hopes, and their outlook on life, altogether. Both were embarrassed and constrained. The clergyman, accustomed to study human nature, and to meet with every variety of character, recovered himself first. He concealed his disappointment as well as he could, and did not abate one jot of his kindness and consideration.

He expressed his regret that his brother had no intention, just then, of settling at home, and begged him to use the Eectory as an hotel, whenever he felt inclined to do so. ' My children are longing to see the unknown uncle of whom they have heard so much all their lives,' he said (which sentence was entirely mysterious to John Eamsay. He could not, for long after his brother had departed, conceive what he meant by it). To hide his confusion at the moment, he asked hoAV many children there Avere, but I need not say he did not listen to the answer. 'I have one daughter and tAvo little boys,' the clergyman, answered. ' Come down and see them and make acquaintance with my wife.' The last words of the sentence reached John Eamsay's inner ear, and roused him from his apathy. A lady ! an unknown sister-in-law.

He had a poor opinion of Avomen in general, as Avell as an indifference to their society, which amounted to distaste. Frivolous, unbusiness-hke, talking crea tures, requiring httle attentions, expecting JOHN RAMSAY 16 pretty speeches, offering to sing or play to you. Inwardly he shrank and shuddered, but outAvardly he only looked aAvay, and said : ' Out of the question, at present. I am far too busy.' ' Well ! ' said Gilbert Eamsay, ' I will not press you, only remember when you want a change and a holiday, how Avelcome you Avill be.' And with that they shook hands and parted : and John Eamsay had not seen his brother again. He had had an urgent letter or two from him since, on an unwelcome subject ; which he had not answered. And there their intercourse had ended. The visit to the Manor House and this intervieAV with his brother were noAV matters of past history.

JOHN RAMSA \ 17 But in the period which had since elapsed, matters had somewhat changed with John Eamsay. That is to say, what he would not do of himself, Nature had forced on him. Lassitude and Aveariness came upon him ; the ovenvorked brain refused any longer to perform the duties demanded of it ; and the doctor, Avhom he had at last unwillingly consulted, said absolute rest was necessary. Not only necessary, but imperative. This is why Ave see John Eamsay on the platform of a railway station, on his way doAvn to the old place again. We left him taking his ticket. Having done so, he took his place in the train, bought an evening paper, and turned at once to the money article. The bell rang soon after, and the train started. c Part I ENCELADUS c CHAPTEE I. SUCCESS. The train tore along, bearing -the silent figure in the compartment, intent upon the stocks and shares : never giving a look or a thought to the beauty of the country through which he Avas passing, or to the glory of the June evening.

Tavo hours or so after John Eamsay Avas driving up to his OAvn door. The housekeeper Avas waiting in the hall to Avelcome him back. She received him with a Ioav courtesy : and then led the way to the library, which, ENCELADUS 22 she said as she ushered him in, she fancied Avould be the room he would prefer. He curtly replied to her observations, and, Avithout giving a glance round the room, sat himself doAvn in a big red leather chair by the writing-table, and began to wish she Avould go. She showed, however, no intention of doing so : but remained standing in the middle of the room, making various re marks on the preparations she had made for his arrival, enquiring as to the hour at which it suited him to dine, etc., etc. His replies were so very brief and uninterested, that she Avas evidently not encouraged to continue.

It was impossible to sustain so one-sided a conversation. She therefore withdreAV, saying she Avould look in again a little later, Avhen she hoped he might have recovered the fatigue SUCCESS 23 of his journey. No doubt a httle nap would refresh him. She would see that he Avas not disturbed. She had a look all the time as if she had something to say ; if only the moment had been more opportune for saying it, or a little more encouragement been given. There was rather a stress laid on the intimation that she Avould look in again. John Eamsay, hoAvever, observed nothing of all this. He Avas watching her im patiently. Her presence Avas a gene to him, and he was longing to be left to himself. At last she did go. The door closed behind her, and silence settled doAvn upon the library, and its solitary occupant.

Why does he Avear that look of deep dejection ? Why with such a weary un satisfied gaze do his eyes wander round the room, and travel, with the same ENCELADUS 24 mournful expression, to the lovely coun try outside the windoAv, lying in all the still beauty of a June evening ? Why? Because, as he sits there in the midst of the realised hopes of a lifetime, there has come suddenly upon him that sense of disappointment which had not assailed him on his former visit. A cruel sense of disappointment in the conviction that his realised joy is no joy to him Avhatever after all. He had been too much buried in his work before to feel it. But ever since the putting aside of the anodyne of constant occupation had laid him bare, as it Avere, to the world outside his business-room ; he had been a prey to sad thoughts.

And noAV they suddenly overAvhelmed him. He had never knoAvn till this moment SUCCESS 25 Avhat it had been to him all his life to have an illusion in the future : a promise of pleasure Avhenever he should have time or inclination to turn his thoughts towards it : whenever he should choose to stretch out his hand, and grasp it. And iioav it was gone ! That little beacon in the future, that little light which had led him on and on for so many years, was but a will-o'-the-Avisp after all, and had landed him, after going out itself, in a morass of indifference and disappointment. Ah ! not to have your wish is sad enough, but to have it, and to find it dust and ashes, is the saddest thing of all. He fought with the feeling desperately, and tried to put it aside. He told himself he Avas ill, unstrung, overwrought, morbid : that the causes of his depression Avere altogether physical.

ENCELADUS 26 But it was no use. The thought would not leave him. This longing to enjoy, what had cost him so much, returned in full force ; it was a feeling akin to pain. It seemed so hard. When young, he had not had the means of enjoyment ; when middle-aged, he had not had the leisure. Now he had both means and leisure : and the power of enjoyment was gone. That he had missed the meaning of his life somehoAV, came very strongly OA*er him as he sat. He Avas at the top of the hill, it was true ; but the sun Avas already setting behind him, and Avhat Avas there in front ? Nothing — absolutely nothing. A chill came down upon his spirit to think it Avas all ending — and ending so ! Hoav frightfully empty his life was. Hoav joyless ! Hoav aimless ! Everything SLCCESS 27 tasteless, and now even the capacity for work beginning to fail.

The means, and not the end, were, after all, he saw, what he had been living for all these years ; and now the poAver of using the means was going to be taken away from him. The emptiness of his individual life came home to him more and more every moment. He felt himself to be Avithout interest, without hope, without feeling : without an object in hfe here, and Avith no definite aspiration after that which is to come. A strange feeling of unrest came over him ; a vague longing for the things that used to be ; for the feelings he used to have in his childhood, here ; in this very place. He tried with all his might to throw himself back into them ; into the dreams ENCELADUS 28 and visions of his youth, and the love of the scenes by which he was surrounded, that he might force himself to enjoy the consciousness that all was once more his own.

But he could not do it. He could not catch the broken thread. The heaven of his childhood had de parted, to be conjured up no more. All seemed a blank. He could remem ber nothing ; could revive no past. He passed his hand across his forehead, and felt quite bewildered. A tap at the door broke in upon his reflections. The housekeeper again ! What could she Avant, disturbing him like this ? He glanced at her impatiently. This time, even to his unobservant eye, SUCCESS 29 it was evident she had something particular to say. She stood in the middle of the room, smoothing doAvn her apron with both hands, in a somewhat nervous manner. There was a short pause. It Avas broken by the housekeeper. ENCELADUS 30 CHAPTEE II. WHAT THE HOUSEKEEPER HAD TO SAY. ' I am sorry to say there is bad news, sir,' she said gravely, and her kind face was troubled as she said it.

Hoav such an announcement on an arrival at home would make some hearts beat — some stop beating altogether ! But here comes in the advantage of having dried-up feelings, and no ties. John Eamsay Avas quite unmoved. His pulses did not stir. His business mind could only conceive of one kind of news, and he answered accordingly: ' You are mistaken,' he said, ' I have the WHAT THE HOUSEKEEPER HAD TO SAY 31 evening papers. There is nothing new. The money-market has been very quiet, and there is no change in the quotations either for loans or discounts.' ' I beg your pardon, sir,' ansAvered the housekeeper, ' but it was not of any neAvs paper news I was speaking. It is nearer home than that. The Eector, sir, is very ill.' She paused a moment, as if to give him time to recover from Avhat she supposed must be a very painful piece of intelligence.

John Eamsay tried to shake himself free of his abstraction, so as to understand Avhat she meant ; and in so doing realised two things : first, that the Eector Avas his brother ; and secondly, that, that being so, he ought to show some concern that the Eector Avas ill. ' I am sorry to hear it,' he stammered. ' What is the nature of his illness ? ' ENCELADUS 32 ' Typhoid fever, sir,' said the housekeeper, in a tremulous tone ; ' and a serious case, I am afraid.' ' He'll get through,' said Mr. Eamsay quickly ; and his tone Avas so confident that the housekeeper stopped short, in what she was beginning to say. ' Oh sir ! ' she exclaimed eagerly. 'Have you heard anything fresh ? Did you know something before I told you ? ' But Mr. Eamsay was only providing himself with an excuse for not feeling, on the same principle that makes some people say, ' I don't think it's true.

I don't believe it ' ; when they do not want to have the trouble of expressing sympathy. 'No — no — ,' he answered, ' but I feel sure I — Hoav did he get it ? ' he interrupted himself, not quite knowing what to say. ' The drains at the Eectory have been getting into a bad state for a long while,' was the answer ; ' and are, the doctor says, the cause of the outbreak. The Eector ' ' Outbreak ? ' repeated Mr. Eamsay rather nervously. For, as she spoke, a dim recollection of some letters from his brother on the subject of drains, flitted through his mind : letters, which, only half read, had very speedily found a resting place in the waste-paper basket. 'Did you say outbreak ? Is there any other case, then, beside my brother ? ' ' I am sorry to say, sir, that two of the servants have attacks of the same kind, though of a milder form, and one of the children has scarlatina.

This last is a slight case, but the doctor says it's from the same cause. The Eector has been D ENCELADUS 34 continually patching up the drains this year past : but they wanted thorough re-doing, which was more than he could afford.' John Eamsay turned aAvay rather hastily, and said nothing more. He longed to be left alone again, and hoped every minute the housekeeper Avould go. But she seemed to have still something to say. ' I beg your pardon, sir,' she said, ' but not expecting you doAvn, and thinking you Avould not object, I have had Master Gilbert (that's the Eector's youngest httle boy, sir), over here Avith me to keep him out of the Avay and to help to keep the house quiet. And then Avhen the scarlatina appeared, it Avas not safe to send him back. It is a great relief to poor Mrs. Eamsay to feel the child's safe and happy Avith me.

But I thought I'd better mention it, sir.' John Eamsay Avas much startled. A few minutes before he Avould have very distinctly shoAvn it. But iioav a certain sense of shame kept him quiet ; and he only said, ' Well, Mrs. Prior, it's an aAvkAvard business, a very aAvkward business ; but you must do your best.' To this someAvhat incomprehensible sen tence, Mrs. Prior — Avho, having a motherly heart, could not see how the presence of a child in a house could be considered an ' awkward business ' — answered, ' Master Gilbert is a dear little boy, sir. I'm glad of his company in this big empty house.' And then she left the room, and Mr. Eamsay leaned back in his chair. D ENCELADUS There was a very uncomfortable feeling deep down in his breast about those letters lying in the Avaste-paper basket in his lodg ings in London.

He had not half read them, but iioav the gist of them returned to him, and they certainly had been something about the Eectory drains. He remembered feeling angry at being asked to spend money, and impatiently tossing them aside Avith the reflection that he kneAv it Avould be like this — clergymen always Avanted money for something or other. But above these thoughts rose others. The housekeeper's last words somehoAv clung to him. There Avas something about the Avay she had said ' a dear little boy ' that seemed to strike a chord deep doAvn within him, Avhich had not sounded for many and many a day. It Avas A*ery, very long since he had heard the words ' a dear little boy, and they somehoAv fell upon his ear with a soothing effect. She spoke them so that they sounded almost like a caress. A dreamy feeling stole over him, for which he could not account.

Something from the very far past, seemed to come and lay its hand on Ms head, and say ' My dear little boy.' His eye Avas dim for a moment as the thought of that touch and that voice came over him, and involuntarily his hand stole to a locket Avhich hung upon his watch chain ; and he opened it, and looked for a moment at the bright tress of hair it con tained. His mother's hair ! His fair young ENCELADUS 38 mother, AATho died Avhen he was nine years old. What centuries it seemed since he and she in the summer twilight had sat hand-in-hand in this very room, and talked together ! He took up the evening paper, but something blurred his vision. It fell from his hand. ' Master Gilbert is a dear little boy, sir ! ' All unsought, his own far past began stealing over him with a vividness he could not have thought possible a feAV minutes ago !

Was it after all that the old associations around him were beginning to tell ? Or Avas it the thought of that child in the house, lying perhaps in the very same room Avhere that other boy used to lie ; over Avhom some one with the fair hair of the locket used to bend at night, and say ' My dear little boy ' ? What he had tried in vain to do for himself, the Avords of the housekeeper, ringing in his ears, began to do for him. Some key seemed to have unlocked the paralysed feelings and recollections buried for so many years. His past began sloAvly rising before him. He became able to revive it. It began to stand out clear. First, the happy, dreamy life with his young mother, the ' heaven that lies about us in our infancy.' Then the terrible Avrench of the parting Avith her on his de parture for school ; and the sudden going out of the light in his life : for from that moment he had never seen her again.

Ere his first holidays arrived, she had gone to her long home, to learn the Avell- ENCELADUS 40 kept secret which no one comes back to tell. He remembered vividly the sudden summons, the long journey, and the arrival at the blank, desolate home — the darkened rooms, the aching void, the emptiness, and the closing scene at the funeral. And it seemed to him noAV that out of that darkness and that emptiness he had never really come. All the innocence and the joyousness, and the poetry of his hfe had, it seemed to him, gone away Avith the spirit of his young mother ; and, ever since, over him, as Avell as over her, the crust of the earth — the most earthy of earthiness — had formed. His higher nature, all that there Avas of the spirit about him, had taken flight with her spirit ; and, it seemed to him noAV, had never returned.

For in those old days he had had aspirations, he had had longings after what was good and true and worthy of a life's devotion. Where Avere they all gone ? He remembered so clearly Iioav in that first school-time he had struggled against difficulties and temptations for her sake ; and the hope of telling her all about it, and the thought of her smile of approval, had kept him straight among the many temptations and provocations of the large, rough school, to which his father had, because it Avas inexpensive, sent him. He had stored it all up to tell her, and he had never, never been able to do so. He had come to lay the griefs of his child's heart, and the weight of his young life's burden on her loving breast ; and had found that breast cold as marble, in the long last sleep of death. ENCELADUS 42 There was nothing after that to struggle for, no end in vieAV.

He could never tell her noAV ; never shew her the prize for good conduct it had cost him such infinite struggles, for her sake, to Avin. The light of his life Avas quenched for eATer, and from thenceforAvard he had been left in the dark alone. And coldness and hardness and in difference had come doAvn upon him then. FolloAving closely upon her death had come the break-up of the home, the sale of the place to pay his father's debts, and the removal to the uninteresting country town Avhere his father settled. Later on, the cheap public school, the dull, unsatis factory holidays, and home became more utterly distasteful to him since his father's second marriage to a middle-aged, bustling woman. Then had come stronger than ever the overmastering determination, formed before leaving it, of buying back the old place some day, the place hallowed by his early recollections.