The Golden Calf by M. E. Braddon

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'I know that he is clever, and I believe him,' answered Ida; 'my own
common sense tells me that he is right. I see you the wreck and ruin of
what you have been; and I know there is only one reason for this dreadful
change.

'It is your fault,' he said sullenly. 'I should be a different man if you
had cared for me. I had nothing worth living for.'

Ida soothed him, and argued with him, with inexhaustible patience, full
of pity for his fallen state. She was firm in her refusal to order brandy
for him, in spite of his angry protest that he was being treated like a
child, in spite of his assertion that the London physician had ordered
him to take brandy. She stayed with him for hours, during which he
alternated between rambling garrulity and sullen despondency; till at
last, worn out with the endeavour to control or to soothe him, she
withdrew to her own room, adjoining his, and left him, in the hope that,
if left to himself, he would go to bed and sleep.

Rest of any kind for herself was impossible, weighed down with anxiety
about her husband's condition, and stricken with remorse at the thought
that it was perhaps his ill-starred marriage which had in some wise
tended to bring about this ruin of a life. And yet things had gone well
with him, existence had been made very easy for him, since his marriage;
and only moral perversity would have so blighted a career which had
lain open to all the possibilities of good fortune. The initial
difficulty--poverty, which so many men have to overcome, had been
conquered for Brian within the first year of his marriage. And now six
years were gone, and he had done nothing except waste and ruin his mind
and body.

Ida left the door ajar between the two rooms, and lay down in her
clothes, ready to go to her husband's assistance if he should need help
of any kind. She had taken the key out of the door opening from his room
into the corridor, so that he would have to pass through her own room in
going out. She had done this from a vague fear that he might go roaming
about the house in the dead of the night, scaring her stepmother or the
boy by some mad violence. She made up her mind to telegraph for the
London physician early next morning, and to obtain some skilled attendant
to watch and protect her husband. She had heard of a man in such a
condition throwing himself out of a window, or cutting his throat: and
she felt that every moment was a moment of fear, until proper means had
been taken to protect Brian from his own madness.

She listened while he paced the adjoining room, muttering to himself;
once she looked in, and saw him sitting on the floor, hunting for some
imaginary objects which he saw scattered around him.

'How did I come to drop such a lot of silver?' he muttered; 'what a devil
of a nuisance not to be able to pick it up properly?'

She watched him groping about the carpet, pursuing imaginary objects,
with eager sensitive fingers, and muttering to himself angrily when they
evaded him.

By-and-by he flung himself upon his bed, but not to sleep, only to turn
restlessly from side to side, over and over again, with a weary monotony
which was even more wearisome to the watcher than to himself.

Two or three times he got up and hunted behind the bed curtains,
evidently with the idea of some lurking foe, and then lay down again,
apparently but half convinced that he was alone. Once he started up
suddenly, just as he was dropping off to sleep, and complained of a flash
of light which had almost blinded him.

'Lightning,' he muttered; 'I believe I am struck blind. Come here, Ida.'

She went to him and soothed him, and told him there had been no
lightning; it was only his fancy.

'Everything is my fancy,' he said, 'the world is built out of fancies,
the universe is only an extension of the individual mind;' and then he
began to ramble on upon every metaphysical theory he had ever read
about, from Plato and Aristotle to Leibnitz and Kant, from Hegel to
Bain--talking, talking, talking, through the slow hours of that terrible
night.

At last, when the sun was high, he fell into what seemed a sound sleep;
and then Ida, utterly worn with care and watching, changed her gown for a
cashmere _peignoir_, and lay down on her bed.

She slept soundly for a blessed hour or more of respite and
forgetfulness, then woke suddenly with an acute consciousness of trouble,
yet vaguely remembering the nature of that trouble Memory came back only
too soon. She rose hurriedly, and went to look at her patient.

His room was empty. He had passed through her room and gone out into the
corridor, without awakening her. She rang her bell, and was answered by
Lady Palliser's own maid, Jane Dyson, who came in a leisurely way with
the morning cups of tea. It was now seven o'clock.

'Is Mr. Wendover downstairs--in the dining-room or library?' Ida asked,
trying not to look too anxious.

'I have not seen him, ma'am.'

'Inquire, please. I want to know where he is, and why he left his room so
much earlier than usual.'

She had a dismal feeling that all the household must know what was amiss,
that the shame and degradation of the case could hardly be deepened.

'Yes, ma'am; I'll go and see.'

'Do, please, while I take my bath,' said Ida. 'You can come back to me in
ten minutes.'

The cold bath refreshed her, and she was dressing hurriedly when Jane
Dyson returned to announce that Mr. Wendover and Sir Vernon had gone out
fishing at half-past six--the under-housemaid had seen them go, and had
heard Mr. Wendover say that they would have a long day.

'Go and ask her if she heard where they were going,' said Ida, going on
with her dressing, eager to be out of doors on her brother's track.

That wild talk of Brian's last night--that horrible delusion about the
boy's death--coupled with this early expedition, filled her with
unspeakable fear. It was no new thing for Brian and the boy to go out
fishing together. They had spent many a long day whipping distant trout
streams in the summer that was gone, but this year Vernon had vainly
endeavoured to tempt his old companion to join him in his wanderings with
rod and line. Brian had refused all such invitations peevishly or
sullenly; as if it were an offence to remind him how poor a creature he
had become. And now, after a night of wakefulness and delirium, Brian,
with his brain still wild and disordered, perhaps, had taken the boy out
with him on some indefinite excursion--alone--the helpless child in the
power of a maniac!

Ida did not wait for the return of the maid, but ran downstairs as soon
as she was dressed, and questioned Rogers the butler. Rogers, as an old
and valuable servant, took his ease of a morning, and only appeared upon
the scene when underlings had made all things comfortable and ready to
his hand. He therefore knew nothing of the mode and manner of Mr.
Wendover and the boy's departure.

Robert, Sir Vernon's body-guard, groom, and general out-door retainer,
was fetched from his breakfast; and he was able to inform Mrs. Wendover
how Sir Vernon had gone out to the stables at twenty minutes past six,
with his fishing basket slung over his shoulder, to ask for some
artificial flies which Robert had been making for him, and to say that he
should not want the pony or Robert all the morning, as he was going out
with Mr. Wendover. He had not mentioned his destination, but Robert knew
that the water meadows on the other side of Blackman's Hanger were his
favourite ground for such sport. He had been there with Robert many a
day.

His remotest point in this direction was five or six miles from home. The
boy was able to walk twelve miles in a day without undue fatigue, resting
a good deal, and taking his own time; but in a general way he rode his
pony when he went on any long excursion, and dismounted from time to time
as the fancy took him.

'I'm afraid he may overtire himself with Mr. Wendover, said Ida, anxious
to give a good reason for her anxiety. 'Get Cleopatra ready for me, and
get a horse for yourself, and we'll ride after them. Mr. Wendover is an
invalid, and ought not to have the trouble of a child upon his hands all
day. If I can overtake them, I shall persuade them both to come back.'

'If they don't, they'll be likely to get caught,' said Robert, exploring
the clouds with the sagacious eyes of a rustic observer schooled by long
experience to read signs and tokens in the heavens. 'There'll be a storm,
I'm afeard, before dinner-time.'

Dinner-time with Robert meant the hour of the sun's meridian, which he
took to be the universal and legitimate dinner-hour for all mankind,
designed so to be from the creation.

'How soon can you have the horses ready?'

'In a quarter of an hour, ma'am.'

Ida flew upstairs, meeting her step-mother on the way. Lady Palliser had
gone to her son's room as soon as she left her own--her custom always;
and on missing the boy, had made instant inquiries as to his whereabouts,
and had already taken fright.

'Oh, Ida, if that dreadful husband of yours should lure him into some
lonely place, and kill him! My boy, my beloved, my lovely boy!'

'Dear mother, be reasonable. Brian would not hurt a hair of his head.
Brian loves him,' urged Ida soothingly, yet with a torturing pain at her
heart, remembering Brian's delirious raving last night.

'What will not a madman do? Who can tell what he will do?' cried Lady
Palliser, wringing her hands.

'Trust in God, mother; no harm will come to our boy. No harm shall come
to him--except perhaps a wetting. Get warm clothes ready for him against
I bring him home. I am going to ride after him,' said Ida, hurrying off
to her room.

In less than ten minutes she had put on her habit, and was in the stable
yard; and three minutes afterwards Fanny Palliser, roaming up and down
and round about her son's room like a perturbed spirit, heard the clatter
of hoofs, and saw her stepdaughter ride out of the yard attended by
Robert, the best and kindest of grooms, and devoted to his young master.

Lady Palliser went downstairs, and again interrogated the housemaid who
had witnessed Sir Vernou's departure. 'How had Mr. Wendover seemed?' she
asked--'good-tempered, and pleasant, and quiet?'

Very good-tempered, and very pleasant, the girl told her, but not quiet;
he talked and laughed a great deal, and seemed full of fun, but in a
great hurry.

The mother remembered how many a time her boy and Brian Wendover had been
out together, and tried to put away fear. After all, Brian was a nice
fellow--he had always made himself agreeable to her. It was only of late
that he had become fitful and strange in his ways. She had seen such a
case before in her own family, her own flesh and blood, her mother's only
brother. That victim to his own vice had been elderly at the time she
knew him--a chronic sufferer. She but too well remembered his tottering
knees, and restless, tremulous feet: those painful morning hours when he
shook like an aspen leaf: those dreadful nights, when he sat cowering
over the fire, glancing askant over his shoulder every now and then,
haunted by phantoms, hearing and replying to imaginary voices, striving
with restless, shivering hands to rid himself of imaginary vermin. He had
been mad enough at times in all conscience, as mad as any lunatic in
Bedlam; but he had never tried to injure any one but himself. Once they
found him with an open razor, possibly contemplating suicide; but he
abandoned the idea meekly enough when surprised by his friends, and
explained himself with one of those lies with which his tremulous tongue
was every so ready.

Arguing with herself by the light of past experience, that after all this
drink-madness was a disease apart, seldom culminating in actual violence,
Lady Palliser sat down before her silver urn, and made believe to
breakfast, in solitary state, thinking as she poured out her tea how very
little all these grand things upon the table could help or comfort one in
the hour of trouble. Nay, in such times of misfortune, the little
sitting-room of her childhood, the round table and shabby old chairs, the
kettle on the hob, and the cat upon the hearth, had seemed to possess an
element of sympathy and comfort entirely wanting in this spacious formal
dining-room, with its perpetual repetition of straight lines, and its
chilling distances.

Ida rode through the park, and across the common, and round the base of
Blackman's Hanger, as fast as her clever mare could carry her with any
degree of comfort to either. The clever mare was somewhat skittish from
want of work, and inclined to show her cleverness by shying at every
stray rabbit, or crocodile-shaped excrescence in the way of fallen
timber, lying within her range of vision; but Ida was too anxious to be
disconcerted by any such small surprises, and rode on without drawing
rein to the banks of the trout-stream which wound its silvery way through
the valley on the other side of Blackman's Hanger. If they could have
crossed the hill, the distance would have been lessened by at least
two-thirds, but the steep was much to sheer for any horse to mount, and
Ida had to circumnavigate the wooded promontory, which narrowed and
dwindled to a furzy ridge at the edge of the river. Once in the valley
her way was easy, with only here and there a low hedge for the mare to
jump, just enough to put her in good spirits. But after riding for about
seven miles along the bank of the stream, Ida pulled up in despair, to
ask Robert where next she must look for his master. It was evident this
was the wrong scent.

'They'd hardly have come further nor this within the time,' Robert
admitted, with a rueful look at the lather on Cleopatra's dark brown neck
and shoulder; 'and this is further nor ever I come with Sir Vernon. We
must try somewheres else, ma'am.

And so they turned, and at Robert's direction Ida rode off, this time at
a walking pace, for another of Vernon's happy hunting grounds.

A sudden ray of hope occurred to her as they returned by the base of
Blackman's Hanger. What if Vernon should have taken Brian to Cheap Jack's
cottage, to have introduced him to that gifted misanthrope, who, among
his other accomplishments, had a talent for repairing fishing tackle?

Moved by this hope, Ida dismounted, and gave Cleopatra's bridle to
Robert, who was on his feet almost as soon as his mistress.

'Let the mare rest for a little while, Robert,' she said;' I am going up
to the top of the hill to see the pedlar--Sir Vernon may have been with
him this morning.'

'Not unlikely, ma'am--he be a rare favourite with Sir Vernon.'

'I hope he's a respectable person.'

'Oh, I think the chap's honest enough,' answered the groom, with a
patronising air; 'but he's a queer customer--a reg'lar Peter the wild
boy, he is.'

Ida, who had never heard of this gentleman, was not particularly
enlightened by the comparison. She went lightly and quickly up the steep
ascent, and along a furzy ridge which rose imperceptibly skywards, until
she came to the fir plantation which sheltered the gamekeeper's cottage.
The lattice stood wide open, and a man was leaning with folded arms on
the sill as she came in sight, but in a flash the man had gone, and the
lattice was closed.

She ran on, nothing deterred by this discourtesy, and knocked at the door
with the handle of her whip.

'Is my brother, Sir Vernon Palliser, here?' she asked.

'No,' a gruff voice answered from within.

'Please open the door, 'I want to ask your advice. The boy has wandered
off on a fishing expedition. Have you seen anything of him this morning?'

'No.'

'Are you sure?'

'Do you think I should tell you a lie?' growled the sulky voice from
within.

'What a surly brute!' thought Ida. 'How can Vernon like to make a
companion of such a man?'

She lingered, only half convinced, and nervously repeated her story--how
Sir Vernon had gone out with Mr. Wendover that morning before seven, and
how she had been looking for them, and was afraid they would be caught in
the storm which was evidently coming.

'You'd better go home before you're half drowned yourself,' growled the
surly voice. 'I'll look for the boy and send him home to you, if he's
above ground.'

'Will you I will you really look for him?' faltered Ida, in a rapture of
gratitude. 'You know his ways, and he is so fond of you. Pray find him,
and bring him home. You shall be liberally rewarded. We shall be deeply
grateful,' she added hastily, fearing she had offended by this suggestion
of sordid recompense.

'I'll do my best,' grumbled the woman-hater, 'when you've cleared off. I
shan't stir till you're gone.'

'I am going this instant, my horse is at the bottom of the Hanger. God
bless you for your goodness to my brother.'

'God bless you,' replied the voice in a deeper and less strident tone.

Big drops were falling slowly and far apart from the lowering sky as Ida
went down the hill, a steep and even dangerous descent for feet less
accustomed to that kind of ground.

'You'd better ride home as fast as you can, ma'am,' said Robert, as he
mounted Cleopatra's light burden. 'The mare's had a good blow, and you
can canter her all the way back.'

'I don't care about the storm for myself. Sir Vernon must be out in it.'

A low muttering peal of thunder rolled slowly along the valley as she
settled herself in her saddle.

'Sir Vernon won't hurt, ma'am. Besides, who knows if he ain't at home by
this time?'

There was comfort in this suggestion; but after a smart ride home, under
a drenching shower diversified by thunder and lightning, Ida found Lady
Palliser waiting for her in the portico. There had been no tidings of the
boy. Two of the gardeners had been despatched in quest of him--each
provided with a mackintosh and an umbrella; and now the mother, no longer
apprehensive of homicidal mania on the part of Brian, was tortured by her
fear of the fury of the elements, the pitiless rain which might give her
boy rheumatic fever, lightnings which might strike him with blindness or
death, rivers which might heave themselves above their banks to drown
him, trees which might wrench themselves up from their roots on purpose
to tumble on him. Lady Palliser always took the catastrophic view of
nature when she thought of her boy.

Luncheon was out of the question for either Ida or her stepmother. They
went into the dinning-room when the gong sounded, and each was
affectionately anxious that the other should take some refreshment; but
they could do nothing except watch the storm, the fine old trees bending
to the tempest, the darkly lurid sky brooding over the earth, thick
sheets of rain, driven across the foregound, and almost shutting out the
distant woods and hills. The two women stood silently watching that
unfriendly sky, and listened for every footstep in the hall, in the fond
hope of the boy's return. And then they tried to comfort, each other with
the idea that he was under cover somewhere, at some village inn, eating a
homely meal of bread and cheese happy and cheery as a bird, perhaps,
while they were so miserable about him.

'I have an idea that Cheap Jack will find them,' said Ida by-and-by.
'Vernon says he is such a clever fellow; and a rover like that would know
every inch of the country.'

The day wore on; the storm rolled away towards other hills; and woods;
and a rent in the dun-coloured clouds showed the bright blue above them.
Soon all the heaven was clear, and the wet grass was shining in the
afternoon sunlight.

One of the messengers now returned with the useless mackintosh. He had
been able to hear nothing of Sir Vernon and his companion. He had been at
Wimperfield village, and through two other villages, and had taken a
circuitous way back by another meadow-stream, where there might be a hope
of trout; but he had seen no trace of the missing boy. The field
labourers he had met had been able to give him no information.

There was nothing to be done but to wait, and wait, and wait. Robert had
mounted a fresh horse and had gone off to scour the country, wondering
not a little that there should be such a fuss about a day's fishing.

Five o'clock came, and afternoon tea, usually the pleasantest hour of the
day; for in this summer-time the five o'clock tea-table was prepared in
the rose garden in front of the drawing-room, under a Japanese umbrella,
and in the shade of a screen of magnolia and Portugal laurel, mock orange
and guelder rose, that had been growing for half a century. To-day Lady
Palliscr and her step-daughter took their tea in silent dejection. They
had grown weary of comforting each other--weary of all hopeful
speculations.

It was on the stroke of six--the boy and his companion had been away
nearly twelve hours. They could do nothing but wait.

Suddenly they heard voices--two or three voices talking excitedly and all
together--and then a shrill sweet cry in a voice they both knew so well.

'He is alive!' cried Fanny Palliser, starting up and rushing towards the
house.

She had scarcely gone half-a-dozen steps when Rogers came out, crimson,
puffing with excitement, leading Vernon by the arm.

'Here he is, my lady, safe and sound!' said Rogers; 'but he has had a
rare drenching--the sooner we put him to bed the better.'

'Yes, yes, he must go to bed this instant. Oh, thank God, my darling, my
darling! Oh, you naughty boy, how could you give me such a fright! You
have almost broken your poor mother's heart, and Ida's too.'

'Dear mother, dear Ida, I am so sorry. But I didn't go alone. I went with
Brian. That wasn't naughty, was it?' the boy asked, innocently.

'Naughty to stay away so long--to go so far. Where have you been?'

'Bird's-nesting in the woods, and I have got a honey-buzzard's nest--two
lovely eggs, worth ten shillings apiece--the nest is built on the top of
a crow's nest, don't you know. First we went fishing, but there were no
fish; and then I asked Brian to let me do some bird's-nesting, and we
went into the woods--oh, a long, long way, and I got very tired--and we
had no lunch. Brian had something in a bottle; he bought it at an inn on
the road; I think it was brandy. He swore because it was so bad, but he
didn't give me any; and when the storm came on we were on Headborough
Hanger, and Brian and I lost each other, and I suppose he came straight
home.'

'No, Brian has not come home.'

'Oh, dear,' said the boy; 'I hope he's not looking for me all this time.'

'Come, darling, you must go to bed; we must get off these wet clothes,'
said Ida, and Vernon's mother and sister carried him off to his room,
where a fire was lighted, and blankets heated, and hot-water bottles
brought for the comfort of the young wanderer.

The boy prattled on unweariedly all the time he was being undressed,
telling his day's adventures,--how Brian had been frightened because he
thought there were some men following them, who wanted to take Brian to
prison. He did not see the men, but Brian saw them hiding behind trees,
and watching and following them secretly.

'I was very tired,' said the boy, with a piteous look, 'and my feet
ached, for Brian would go so fast. And I wanted to come home badly; but
Brian said the men were after us, and we must double upon them; and we
went round and round and round till we lost ourselves; and then Brian
told me to rest on the trunk of a tree while he went a little way further
to see if the men were really gone; and I sat and waited till I got very
cold, but he did not come back; and then I went to look for him, and
couldn't find him; and then I began to cry. I was not frightened, mother,
but I was so tired.'

'My poor darling! how could Brian be so cruel?' sobbed the mother,
hugging her boy, while Ida was preparing warm negus and chicken
sandwiches for his refreshment.

'He wasn't cruel,' explained Vernon; 'he was frightened about those men,
ever so much more afraid than I was. But I never saw any men, Ida. How
was it Brian could see them, when I couldn't?'

'How did you find your way home at last, dearest?' asked Ida.

'I didn't find it. I should be in the wood still if it was not for
Jack--Jack found me, and carried me across the Hanger on his back, and
took me up to his cottage, and took off my clothes and dried them, and
gave me some brandy in a teaspoon, and then wrapped me in a bear-skin,
and carried me all the way here.'

'How good of him!' said Ida; 'and how I should like to thank him for his
kindness!'

'He doesn't want to be thanked. He hates girls,' said Vernon, with
perfect frankness. 'He just gave me into Rogers' arms and walked off. But
I shall go and thank him to-morrow morning, and I shall take him my onyx
breast-pin,--the one you gave me last Christmas, mother. You don't mind,
do you?'

'No, dear; you may give him anything you like. But I think he would
rather have a sovereign--or a nice warm overcoat for the winter. What
would be the good of an onyx pin to him?'

'What would be the good of it! Why, he would keep it for my sake, of
course!' answered Vernie, with a grand air.

Vernon had no appetite for the chicken sandwiches, or inclination for
_Madeira negus_. He took a few sips of the latter to please his
womankind, but he could eat nothing. He had fasted all day, and now, in
his over excited state, he had no power to eat. Lady Palliser took fright
at this, and sent off for the family doctor, that fatherly counsellor in
whose wisdom she had such confidence. The boy was evidently feverish, his
eyes were too bright, his cheeks flushed. He was restless, and unable to
sleep off his fatigue in that placid slumber of childhood which brings
healing with its rythmical ebb and flow.

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