John Holdsworth

“ Holdsworth started up violently and shook himself, with a mighty effort, clear of the benumbing torpor that had weighed him down throughout the night. He stared in the direction indicated by Johnson, then rubbed his eyes furiously with his knuckles, and stared again, but could see nothing but the ocean growing blue under the gathering light in the east, and stretching its illimitable surface to the horizon.
“Come, master, let’s get the oars out. Why, where [143] have we drifted? O Lord, see the trees! how green and beautiful! ”

“ She turned presently and looked down the road, and Holdsworth saw a little face upon which God had graven a sign that made the poor father clutch at the wall to steady himself. For there was his own face in miniature—the face that Dolly had loved before the sufferings of the mind, and the anguish of hunger and thirst, had twisted from it all resemblance it had ever borne to what was manly and beautiful in the human countenance. ”

“ The young people’s life was an idyl until the time approached for Holdsworth to sail. They went away for a week after they were married, and Dolly saw life: that is, she saw London, which frightened her, and she was very glad to get home. They had pretty nearly three months before them, and that seemed to give them plenty of time to enjoy themselves in. To be sure, the little cloud upon the horizon grew bigger and bigger every day, and Dolly saw it, and knew that in three months’ time it would have overspread the heavens, and filled the earth with its leaden shadow ”

“ It was after dark always when Dolly, closely veiled, would creep down the road, with some little bundle under her shawl, for the pawnbroker, that she might obtain a trifle in order to furnish her child with a meal on the morrow. It was in the privacy of her own home that she laboured, as no menial ever will labour; sitting up late night after night, over the endless task of darning and mending her own and her child’s shabby apparel; often going supperless to bed, and waking to a day even more hopeless than the one that had preceded it. ”

“ Will you do this?”
“With the greatest of pleasure, sir; and I’m sure you must have a very kind heart to take so much interest in poor folks.”
And Mrs. Parrot ran off for her bonnet, and was presently hurrying down the road with a market-basket on her arm, and her untied bonnet-strings streaming over her shoulders.
Holdsworth waited impatiently for her return, whilst Nelly, who had finished dinner, toddled about the room, gazing with round earnest eyes into the recesses, and the cupboards, and at the shepherds on the mantelpiece, and the yellow roses on the mat. ”

“ No thoroughly bad man could feel the nervousness that disturbed him.
“I have called, Mr. Hampden, to thank you, for your kindness to my little step-daughter. Indeed, sir, both my wife and myself thoroughly appreciate your goodness. Believe us, we do.”
“Pray do not trouble to thank me. She is a sweet child, and it makes me happy to have her,” answered Holdsworth, now at his ease, and studying his visitor with curiosity and surprise. ”

“ I could souse my handkerchief in rum and set fire to it. Hi! Mr. St. Aubyn! feel if you have a match in your pockets.” But the actor answered with a stupefied stare, whereupon Holdsworth searched his pockets without avail.
Johnson was awake, standing up in the bows, with his arms lifted.
“Ship ahoy!” roared Holdsworth. One might have thought the voice deep and powerful enough to have carried twice the distance of that gliding shadow. ”

“ Figure this, and you will then very faintly realise what “taking the lee-earing” in a gale at sea means.
[51]
The cries of the men aloft, and the beating of the canvas, sounded like an unearthly contest in mid-air; but they ceased presently, and then the hands came hurrying down the rigging and fell to the halliards. Holdsworth sprang on to the poop, his cap gone, his hair blown about his eyes, and roared out orders, while the captain, more easy in his mind about his spars, went aft and hung about the binnacle, watching the compass often. ”

“ The little man nodded and walked away. Had Dolly been a rich man’s wife, a sympathetic deputation, introduced by the churchwardens, might have made a procession to her house to break the news gently, but how can you expect sympathy for the wife of a man who dies owing everybody money?
Holdsworth was stunned, and stood for some moments staring idly from the porch. He then returned hastily to Dolly’s side.
“She’s comin’ to, sir,” said Mrs. Parrot, slapping the poor girl’s hand, and expending what breath she had upon the cold white forehead. “What awful noos, sir!... Conway dead! ”

“ His sensibility did not smart the less because he reflected that hundreds of better men than himself had [336] been insulted by rejections as offensive as that with which his inquiry had been encountered.
Thoughts of something tender and innocent will often quell the stubbornest warmth. Holdsworth grew mild in a moment when his mind went to little Nelly. ”

“ Life’s full o’ troubles, God knows! and there are husbands in this world as is enough to make a woman forget her sect and strike ’em. But a friend, ma’am, is as good as sunshine to a frost-bitten man, and I’m sure you’ve got a good and kind one in Mr. Hampden.”
“It’s my husband’s desertion,” cried Dolly, “that I think of. I don’t mind the loss of my home. But to think of his deserting me and my little one when he could not know that I had a friend—when I married him for Nelly’s sake, to get her bread. ”

“ Life is something more than a breath. I would be content to know nothing but its sorrows, rather than think it the hollow illusion people call it. Oh, Dolly, you must cheer up and help to give me heart. I want all the courage I can get. After this voyage we needn’t be separated any more. Remember, next year I shall be skipper, and then I can take you to sea with me.”
“If next year had only come!” the poor little girl sobs, and lets her face fall upon her husband’s hand.
“Nay, nay,” the old lady chides, gently, “’tis thy business to help and support thy husband, Dolly. Will tears help him? ”

“ Hampden a kiss, and thank him prettily for his beautiful presents.”
The child approached Holdsworth, who kissed her gently, repressing the passionate emotion that, had he been alone, would have prompted him to raise her in his arms and press her to his breast.
“Here are some little cakes,” he said, taking the parcel Mrs. Parrot had prepared, and giving them to the child, but addressing Dolly, “which will amuse her to play with. When may she come again, Mrs. Conway?”
“Oh, she must not intrude ...”
“No, no! she cannot come too often. Pray let me make a companion of her. ”

“ Parrot,” cried Dolly.
Mrs. Parrot took a deep breath, and then, to the amazement of the others, burst into tears.
“Oh, sir, I can’t help it,” she sobbed. “I niver did hear in all my life of such beautiful conduct. Niver .. And is this your child?... Why, of course it is! Oh dear! who’d ha’ thought that any mortal man could ha’ acted so nobly! Oh, sir, let me shake your hand.”
She not only shook his hand, but actually fell against him and kissed him; and then, overwhelmed with her effrontery and her feelings, was rushing out of the room, when Holdsworth stopped her. ”

“ Go and clap that snivelling actor on the back and put some heart in him. One coward makes many, and this is no time for any man on board my ship who values his life at one farthing to lose his pluck.”
By this time the hands forward had lashed a block on the stump of the fore-mast, and run up a spare staysail. [75] Holdsworth then came aft to the poop. The captain called him to the skylight, and they hung together over the chart, calculating their neighbourhood, and devising expedients in subdued tones. ”

“ But what position is so secure that it can stand against the lies of rivalry and jealousy? the slanderous reports of ruffians who make capital for themselves out of a neighbour’s trifling errors, and—and—oh! damn them!”
“How can I serve you?” said Holdsworth, coming quietly back to the point.
“If I dare name my wants to you, sir—if I dare presume upon that benevolence which you have so signally illustrated in your behaviour to little Nelly, I—I——”
“I am a poor man,” said Holdsworth, as the other paused; “and can afford but little. ”

“ Her prettiness was but enhanced by the looped-up skirt, showing the little feet and small firm ankles. Her bright hair was in disorder, and there was the little flush of recent exertion on her cheeks.
“I’ve called wi’ a message from my gentleman lodger. He wants Miss Nelly to drink tea with him, and sent me across to ask you to let her come.”
“The same gentleman who gave Nelly a shilling yesterday?” asked Dolly, looking half surprised and half pleased.
“Yes, ma’am. He’s a very nice person, and seems uncommon partial to children. ”

“ Holdsworth’s linen was marked with H; nothing more. They found in his pockets a watch, a clasp-knife, some money, and one or two other articles, which Mr. Sherman made into a parcel, hoping that the sight of things which would be familiar might help the poor fellow’s memory.
“It is evident,” says the skipper, “that whatever we are to learn must come from the man himself. His clothes tell us nothing.” ”

“ Dolly watched to see if he would step across to Mrs. Parrot’s; but he walked straight on.
“Hush, my darling, hush!” she exclaimed, catching up the sobbing child. “Dolly shall have her parasol; I will buy it myself. Hush, my pet! Nelly’s tears break poor mamma’s heart.... Oh, John! oh, husband!” [295] she murmured; “why did God take you from me? Why did He lead me and my little one into this misery?”
Truly, it was misery, of a forlorn and hopeless kind. But you have seen the man Dolly had married at his worst. The most brutal husband is not always brutal. The drunkard is not always drunk. ”

“ Sherman, laying his hand kindly on Holdsworth’s. “I look upon you as a man whom, having brought to life—for I take the credit of your recovery to myself—it is my proper privilege to support. But I shall not allow you to be dependent on charity. I have an office in Sydney, and you shall have a desk in that office, and so earn a salary that will maintain you in comfort. By-and-by your memory will come back. ”

“ So the mystery is solved, is it? So her lodger isn’t a gentleman after all, but an insidious man who, under pretence of liking Nelly’s company, has been paying attention to mamma! and now, with Conway’s body lying in the Town Hall, dead only a few hours, is actually caressing the widow in Mrs. Parrot’s respectable house!
Holdsworth and Dolly exchange glances, and Dolly hangs her head with a look of confusion on her face (and well she may, thinks Mrs. Parrot) as Holdsworth puts Nelly down and rises. ”

“ The mind of an infant has been likened to a sheet of blank paper; we may extend the image in Holdsworth’s case by conceiving that all the characters which [173] experience had written upon his mind had been effaced, and that, what new characters there were upon it, were the impressions only which he had received since he had been awakened from the deadly stupor that had conquered him a few hours before his rescue.
Mr. Sherman was fully persuaded that Holdsworth’s memory would return with his strength ”

“ Blowed if they’ve got any butter in this house!”
“What is the amount of the debt?”
“Twenty-three pun four and sevenpence,” said the man, removing his pipe to expectorate again. “Are you a creditor?”
“No,” answered Holdsworth, listening for Dolly’s footsteps.
“Then if you vent on your bended knees for gratitood you vouldn’t be overdoin’ it,” said the man, giving Holdsworth a sagacious nod. “There ain’t above ten pound in the house, and not that. Cast yer eye into that parler. The best of the goods is there, and if you can make three pound out of ’em, I’ll swaller my pipe.” ”

“ Hanwitch was about fifty miles from London. To-day a traveller would be carried the distance in about an hour and three-quarters. Holdsworth, starting at half-past seven in the morning, would, providing that the coach did not break down or overturn, reach the town at about four o’clock in the afternoon. ”

“ The little arena should have been vital with memory, so small was the space in which infinite human misery had been packed. But to Holdsworth it conveyed no ideas. Not the faintest illumination entered his face in surveying it. To Mr. Sherman it was a thousandfold more significant than to Holdsworth, who was the chief actor in the heart-breaking tragedy that had been enacted in it. Yet he knew that it ought to have an interest for him; and he stood clutching and staring at it, with a frowning forehead, wrestling wildly with his mind, in which the corpse of memory lay deep and hidden. ”

“ The last shroud was at length severed, the last rope parted; the hull, drifting faster than the dead weight of wreck, fell astern of the horrible incumbrance, and the next flash of lightning showed the water boiling round the black spars ahead.
“Hurrah!” shouted Holdsworth; but the men, wearied and faint after their long and great struggle, and sickened by the shriek of their perishing comrade, whose cry still sounded in their ears, answered the encouraging shout faint-heartedly. ”

“ The intense tedium of their captivity cannot be expressed by words. The eternal iteration of the water-line became a torment and a pang, and forced them to look into the boat or upon one another for relief of the strained and weary eye. Their limbs were cramped for want of space to stretch themselves. Holdsworth’s cheeks were sunk, and the hollows of his eyes dark; and a black beard and moustache, sprouting upon his chin and lip, gave him a gaunt and grizly look. ”

“ It would ease me, sir, greatly ease me, if God would but illuminate my mind only for a moment, that I might know what is lost to me. And the loneliness of it all!—the feeling of desolation that comes over me in my solitude! Mr. Sherman, consider how lonely I am! Not a voice, not an echo of anything that may be dear to me, comes out of that darkness behind me. Who would believe that memory is life, and the loss of it worse than death?”
He bowed his head and covered his face with his thin hands, and some tears trickled through his fingers. ”