CHAPTER XIX.

MR. SHELDRAKE SUGGESTS THAT IT IS TIME FOR MUZZY TO TURN OVER A NEW LEAF.

Congratulating himself upon the escape he had had of losing his precious liquor in his encounter with Felix on the stairs, Muzzy, hugging the bottle to his breast, mounted to the one room in the garret which formed his home. The room was not so dark that he could not see shadows on the walls, which as he opened the door seemed to be imbued with weird animation. His own shadow, as he stood in the centre of the room, assumed monstrous proportions, and covered one side of the wall and ceiling; there was something so threatening in it, and so dreadfully suggestive to the old man, that he hastened, with trembling fingers, to light a candle, still keeping the bottle hugged to his breast the while as tenderly as if it were human. The candle being lighted, he felt as if he had escaped some great danger, and his manner became more assured. Before laying the bottle on the mantelshelf, he looked at it wishfully, and uncorking it, was about to drink, when he closed his lips with a snap, and resisted the temptation. Taking off his hat, he produced from the interior a flower which was stuck in the lining for safety. This flower was evidently intended for a special purpose, which, had he needed any reminding, recurred to him as he looked round the room. It was very poorly furnished, containing merely a bed, two or three chairs, and a table. But everything was tidy and in its place. The bed was made, and the little piece of faded carpet in front of the fender had been newly swept and put straight. He opened a little cupboard, and saw the few pieces of crockery it contained set in their proper places. Indeed there was about the whole place an order and cleanliness one would scarcely have expected from the appearance of the owner.

"Good girl, good girl!" muttered Muzzy, as he noted these evidences of comfort; "there are few like her, I should say."

He went into the passage, and called, "Lizzie, Lizzie!" receiving no reply, however. He tapped at the door of the room next to the one he occupied, and after a moment or two turned the handle; put the door was locked. Disappointed, he returned to his own room, and wandered about it in a restless, uncertain manner, as if, being alone, he did not know what to do. Every now and then he came near to the bottle, and sometimes turned his head resolutely from it, and sometimes could not resist the temptation of gazing at it. "No," he said aloud once, as if answering some inward questioning or argument; "no; I promised Lizzie I wouldn't, and I won't. What is this?" He had laid the bottle on a piece of folded paper, containing a key. "The key of her room. Good girl, good girl!" He took his candle, and went into Lizzie's room. It was in every respect more comfortable than his own, although the furniture, with the exception of a smart little sewing-machine, was of the same humble kind. There were two or three cheap ornaments on the mantelshelf, the table could boast of a cover, and a carpet was laid down which nearly covered the floor. "She can't have gone out long," said Muzzy, who, having no one else to talk to, talked to himself, in defiance of an old-fashioned proverb not very complimentary to such self-communings. "She knew I would be home soon, and thought I should like to sit here." On the table were some needlework and a workbox, and behind the door hung a dress, which Muzzy touched with his hand, as the most civilising influence within his reach. A picture an the wall evidently possessed a fascination for him, and presently he sat gazing at it, dreamily. It was the picture of a woman's face, fair and comely, and the eyes seemed to follow his as he gazed; but the reflections raised by the contemplation were not pleasant ones, and he rose and walked about in the same restless, uncertain manner. Soon he was in his own room again, and the bottle was in his hand uncorked. "I could have kept from it if she had been here," he muttered; "but how can I when I am alone--alone?" He repeated the word two or three times with desolate distinctness. "Alone--alone--always alone until she came! What should I do if she went away? And she may--she may. That young fellow who comes to see her so often--who is he, who is he? I wish he was dead, I mustn't go into the room when he's there--Lizzie hasn't told me so, but I know I mustn't. And there they sit, laughing and talking----Laughing and talking! No, not always. He made her cry once; I heard her. I'll ask Lizzie who he is. If he wants to take her away, I'd like to kill him--secretly, secretly!" The feeble old man scowled as he said this, and mechanically took a glass from the cupboard, and poured some gin in it. But a restraining influence was upon him even then, and he did not immediately raise it to his lips. "I promised her I wouldn't," he said; "I swore I'd give it up. But how can I when I have no one to talk to? So old a friend too; so old a friend! I should have gone mad without it many a time. I'll take one drop--just one little drop. But she mustn't know--she mustn't know." Looking round warily, he, swiftly and with a secret air, drained the glass, and immediately afterwards endeavoured to assume an unconsciousness that he had broken his promise and his oath. But although presently he took a second draught in the same secret manner, it was evident that he could not quite satisfy his conscience, for he pushed the empty glass from him, retaining the bottle in his hand. "What made me buy it? I didn't intend to, and didn't intend to pass the public house; but I got there somehow, and I couldn't resist going in. It seemed to draw me to it. But it'll be my ruin, my ruin, my ruin! The governor said it would, and it will." As he sat there, battling with himself, his deeply-lined face and his thin hair straggling over his forehead, did he have no ambition, no aspiration, no hope, outside the walls of brick which formed his home? This Lizzie of whom he spoke was, according to his own showing, not an old friend. Had he any other link of love, or had other human affection quite died out of his life? It was hard to tell. It seemed that, but for this girl, to whom he was not linked by ties of blood, his life was colourless, purposeless. But every living breast contains a smouldering fire, and even to this old man, wreck as he was, a spark might come to kindle once more into a flame the fire that must have burned when he was young. Supposing him to have been bright and handsome in his youth--as he must have been, despite his worn and almost hopeless face--how, could he have seen it, would he have received a vision of the future which showed him truthfully what he was to be in years to come? A vision of some sort was upon him now, as, sitting with no purpose in his mind, he fell into a doze. From which, after the lapse of a few moments, which seemed to him hours, he awoke with a bewildered air, and looked about him, and listened wonderingly for voices which he might have heard in his dream, or as if the dead past had cast up its ghosts, and he had seen them. He saw something more tangible as he raised his eyes to the door, and recognised his governor, Mr. David Sheldrake. The bottle was still in Muzzy's hand, and he tried to put it out of sight as he rose to welcome his most unexpected visitor.

"Surprised to see me, eh, Muzzy!" exclaimed Mr. Sheldrake, in an easy tone.

"You're welcome, sir, you're welcome," said Muzzy, his looks contradicting his words. "Anything wrong, sir?"

"No, old man, don't be alarmed; there's nothing wrong."

Mr. Sheldrake was smartly dressed, and presented quite a gay appearance in his cut-away velvet coat and his cane and fashionable hat, and with his moustaches carefully curled. He did not remove his hat, but looked round upon the room and its poor furnishings superciliously, with the air of a suzerain; and looked also at Muzzy with more than usual interest.

"Will you take a seat, sir?" asked Muzzy humbly, and with inward trepidation; for any occurrence out of the usual run of things filled him with fear.

Mr. Sheldrake seated himself by the table and took up the empty glass. "Been drinking, Muzzy?"

"No, sir, no," replied Muzzy, striving to look Mr. Sheldrake in the face as he told the untruth, but failing most signally. "I've given it up, sir, I've given it up."

Mr. Sheldrake smiled and nodded, as much as to say, "I know you are lying, but it's of no consequence;" and said aloud, with another disparaging look round the apartment, "Not a very handsome lodging, old man."

"As good as I can afford, sir," said Muzzy.

"You sly old dog," said Mr. Sheldrake merrily; "it's my opinion you have a pot of money put by somewhere."

"No, sir, indeed, sir, no; if I had, I should live in a better place than this."

"A flower, eh?" taking up the flower which Muzzy had bought for Lizzie. "You amorous old dog! What lady fair is this for?"

"For a friend who lives in the next room."

"I thought you told me you had no friends," said Mr. Sheldrake, with a swift but searching glance at Muzzy's drooping form.

"More I have, sir; only this one, a good girl who tidies up my place, and cooks a bit for me now and then. I told you the truth, sir. I have not known her long."

"Can she hear us talk, this charmer of yours?"

"She's not at home, sir."

"But if she came in quietly--women are sly ones, some of them; like cats--could she hear us?"

"No, sir, not when the door is shut."

Mr. Sheldrake rose and closed the door.

"Now, Muzzy, let's to business."

"Yes, sir."

"I haven't come here for nothing to-night, old man. You're getting too old for the work at the office----"

"Don't say that, sir," implored Muzzy; "don't say that!"

"Don't put yourself in a flurry old man. We want younger heads than yours now; they're looking sharper after us than they used to do, and in the case of a blow-up they'd frighten all sorts of things out of you. The fact is, we're going to break up the office here, and start a new one in Scotland. But I've something better in view for you, if I thought I could depend upon you."

"Don't think, sir; be sure. I'll do anything you tell me. You'll find the old man faithful to the last. I didn't think you'd throw me off, sir; you're not that sort."

"I suppose you would be faithful, as it would be for your interest to be so. You'd go to the dogs fast enough if I threw you off. And if I thought you were not to be trusted----"

Mr. Sheldrake did not finish his speech, but he had said enough to strike terror to Muzzy, who sat before him shaking and trembling with fear.

"I asked you," continued Mr. Sheldrake, after a sufficient pause, "a little while ago if it was possible you could keep sober were it worth your while."

"I remember, sir."

"And you told me, as you told me just now, that you had given up drink."

Muzzy's only answer was a frightened, nervous look.

"Look here, old man," exclaimed Mr. Sheldrake sternly, "once and for all--no more of your lies to me. You've been drinking to-night. I saw you hide the bottle as I came into the room."

"There's no concealing anything from you, sir," said Muzzy, in an imploring tone. "I felt lonely, and I _did_ buy a little--not much, upon my soul, sir!--and I tried to keep from it, but wasn't quite able. If Lizzie had been here----"

"Lizzie?"

"The girl in the next room, sir. If she had been at home I shouldn't have tasted a drop. But what can an old man do, in such a place as this, with not a soul to speak to? It is a terrible lonely life, sir, and grows worse and worse as one grows older. If I wasn't afraid, I'd kill myself, but I'm frightened of death--I'm frightened of death."

Muzzy shook and shuddered and raised his feeble hand; had he been alone, with this fear upon him, he would undoubtedly have emptied his bottle of gin in a very short time. Mr. Sheldrake, with an air of thoughtfulness, lit a cigar, and slowly paced the room for a few moments. Pausing before the trembling old man, he said,

"This girl Lizzie, how old is she?"

"About eighteen I should say, sir; but I don't exactly know."

"Where are her parents?"

"She has none, sir."

"Does she live alone?"

"Yes, sir."

"How does she get her living?"

"By the sewing-machine, sir; and sometimes goes out to work."

The sound of laughing voices on the stairs stopped this cross-examination. A look of astonishment flashed into the eyes of Mr. Sheldrake.

"Who's that?" he asked abruptly.

"It must be Lizzie," answered Muzzy; "no one else but her and me lives on this floor."

"Come and listen--quick! Come and listen!"

In his impatience he almost dragged Muzzy to the door. The persons outside were laughing and talking on the landing.

"Yes, it is Lizzie," said the old man.

"And the other?" questioned Mr. Sheldrake, with strange eagerness. "The other, who is he?"

An expression of displeasure, almost of envy, passed across Muzzy's face. "It's a young man who comes to see her sometimes."

"Her lover?" Muzzy did not reply, and Mr. Sheldrake demanded again impatiently, "Her lover?"

"I suppose so," answered Muzzy reluctantly; "it looks like it."

"Do you know him--what is he like?"

"I haven't seen him, but I know his voice; I hear it often enough."

Mr. Sheldrake laughed--a triumphant, self-satisfied laugh, as if he had made a gratifying discovery. By this time the persons outside had entered Lizzie's room; the listeners heard the door close.

"Muzzy, old man," cried Mr. Sheldrake heartily; but he checked himself suddenly, and opening the door, stepped quietly into the passage, and listened to the voices in Lizzie's room. Returning with a beaming face, he repeated, "Muzzy, old man! the time has come for you to turn over a new leaf."

"I am quite ready, sir," acquiesced Muzzy, without the slightest consciousness of his patron's meaning.