One Of Them. Lever Charles James
men feel when first accosted familiarly by those almost strangers to them.
“Better brandy than this I never tasted,” said Layton, now filling out a bumper, while his hand shook so much that he spilled the liquor over the table; “and, as Tom Warrendar used to say, as he who gives you unpleasant advice is bound in honor to lend you money, so he who gives you light claret, if he be a man of honor, will console you with old brandy afterwards; and you are a man of honor, Millar, and a man of conscience, and so is our colonel here, – albeit nothing remarkable in other respects; and as for that public servant, as he likes to call himself, – the public servant, if I must be candid, – the public servant is neither more nor less than – ” Here he stretched out his arm to its full length, to give by the gesture greater emphasis to what he was about to utter, and then staring half wildly, half insolently around him, he sank down heavily into a deep armchair, and as his arms dropped listlessly beside him, fell back insensible.
“I will say that I never felt deeper obligation to a brandy-bottle; it is the first enjoyable moment of the whole evening,” said Ogden, as he sat down to the tea-table.
In somewhat less than half an hour afterwards, Layton awoke with a sort of start, and looked wildly and confusedly around him. What or how much he remembered of the events of the evening, is not possible to say, as, with a sudden spring to his feet, he took his hat, and with a short “good-night,” left the house, and hurried down the avenue.
CHAPTER X. THE LABORATORY
There was a small closet-like room in Layton’s cottage which he had fitted up, as well as his very narrow means permitted, as a laboratory. Everything in it was, of course, of the very humblest kind; soda-water flasks were fashioned into retorts, and even blacking-jars held strange chemical mixtures. Here, however, he spent most of his time in the search of some ingredient by which he hoped to arrest the progress of all spasmodic disease. An accidental benefit he had himself derived from a certain salt of ammonia had suggested the inquiry, and for years back this had constituted the main object of all his thoughts. Determined, if his discovery were to prove a success, it should burst upon the world in all its completeness, he had never revealed to any one but his son the object of his studies. Alfred, indeed, was made participator of his hopes and ambitions; he had seen all the steps of the inquiry, and understood thoroughly the train of reasoning on which the theory was based. The young man’s patience in investigation and his powers of calculation were of immense value to his father, and Layton deeply regretted the absence of the one sole assistant he could or would confide in. A certain impatience, partly constitutional, partly from habits of intemperance, had indisposed the old man to those laborious calculations by which chemical discovery is so frequently accompanied, and these he threw upon his son, who never deemed any labor too great, or any investigation too wearisome, if it should save his father some part of his daily fatigue. It was not for months after Alfred’s departure that Layton could re-enter his study, and resume his old pursuits. The want of the companionship that cheered him, and the able help that seconded all his efforts, had so damped his ardor, that he had, if not abandoned his pursuit, at least deferred its prosecution indefinitely. At last, however, by a vigorous effort, he resumed his old labor, and in the interest of his search he soon regained much of his former ambition for success.
The investigations of chemistry have about them all the fluctuating fortunes of a deep and subtle game. There are the same vacillations of good and bad luck; the same tides of hope and fear; the almost certain prospect of success dashed and darkened by failure; the grief and disappointment of failure dispelled by glimpses of bright hope. So many are the disturbing influences, so subtle the causes which derange experiment, where some infinitesimal excess or deficiency, some minute accession of heat or cold, some chance adulteration in this or that ingredient, can vitiate a whole course of inquiry, requiring the labor of weeks to be all begun again, that the pursuit at length assumes many of the features of a game, and a game only to be won by securing every imaginable condition of success.
Perhaps this very character was what imparted to Layton’s mind one of the most stimulating of all interests; at all events, he addressed himself to his task like one who, baffled and repulsed as he might be, would still not acknowledge defeat. As well from the indefatigable ardor he showed, as from the occasional bursts of boastful triumph in anticipation of a great success in store, his poor ailing wife had grown to fancy that his pursuit was something akin to those wonderful researches after the elixir vitae, or the philosopher’s stone. She knew as little of his real object as of the means he employed to attain it, but she could see the feverish eagerness that daily gained on him, mark his long hours of intense thought, his days of labor, his nights of wakefulness, and her fears were that these studies were undermining his strength and breaking up his vigor.
It was, then, with a grateful joy at her heart she saw him invited to the Rectory, – admitted once more to the world of his equals, and the notice of society. She had waited hour by hour for his return home, and it was already daybreak ere she heard him enter the cottage, and repair to his own room. Who knows what deep and heartfelt anxieties were hers as she sought her bed at last? What sorrowful forebodings might not have oppressed her? What bitter tears have coursed along her worn cheeks? for his step was short and impatient as he crossed the little hall, and the heavy slam of his door, and the harsh grating of the lock, told that he was ruffled and angry. The morning wore on heavily, – drearily to her, as she watched and waited, and at last she crept noiselessly to the door, and tapped at it gently.
“Who’s there? Come in!” cried he, roughly.
“I came only to ask if you would not have your breakfast,” said she, timidly. “It is already near eleven o’clock.”
“So late, Grace?” said he, with a more kindly accent, as he offered her a seat. “I don’t well know how the time slipped over; not that I was engaged in anything that interested me, – I do not believe I have done anything whatever, – no, nothing,” muttered he, vaguely, as his wearied eye ranged over the table.
“You are tired to-day, Herbert, and you need rest,” said she, in a soft, gentle tone. “Let this be a holiday.”
“Mine are all holidays now,” replied he, with an effort at gayety. Then suddenly, with an altered voice, he added: “I ought never to have gone there last night, Grace. I knew well what would come of it. I have no habits, no temper, no taste, for such associates. What other thoughts could cross me as I sat there, sipping their claret, than of the cold poverty that awaited me at home? What pleasure to me could that short hour of festivity be, when I knew and felt I must come back to this? And then, the misery, the insult of that state of watchfulness, to see that none took liberties with me on the score of my humble station.”
“But surely, Herbert, there is not any one – ”
“I don’t know that,” broke he in. “He who wears finer linen than you is often a terrible tyrant, on no higher or better ground. If any man has been taught that lesson, I have! The world has one easy formula for its guidance. If you be poor, you must be either incompetent or improvident, or both; your patched coat and shabby hat are vouchers for one or the other, and sleek success does not trouble itself to ask which.”
“The name of Herbert Layton is a sure guarantee against such depreciation,” said she, in a voice tremulous with pride and emotion.
“So it might, if it had not earned a little extra notoriety in police courts,” said he, with a laugh of intense bitterness.
“Tell me of your dinner last night,” said she, eager to withdraw him from the vein she ever dreaded most. “Was your party a pleasant one?”
“Pleasant! – no, the very reverse of pleasant! We had discussion instead of conversation, and in lieu of those slight differences of sentiment which flavor talk, we had stubborn contradictions. All my fault, too, Grace. I was in one of my unhappy humors, and actually forgot I was a dispensary doctor and in the presence of an ex-Treasury Lord, with great influence and high acquaintances. You can fancy, Grace, how boldly I dissented from all he said.”
“But if you were in the right, Herbert – ”
“Which is exactly what I was not; at least, I was quite as often in the wrong. My amusement was