THE DREAM OF DUNCAN PARRENNESS
[Footnote: Copyright, 1891, by MACMILLAN& Co.]
Like Mr. Bunyan of old, I, Duncan Parrenness, Writer to the MostHonourable the East India Company, in this God-forgotten city ofCalcutta, have dreamed a dream, and never since that Kitty my mare felllame have I been so troubled. Therefore, lest I should forget my dream,I have made shift to set it down here. Though Heaven knows how unhandythe pen is to me who was always readier with sword than ink-horn when Ileft London two long years since.
When the Governor-General's great dance (that he gives yearly at thelatter end of November) was finisht, I had gone to mine own room whichlooks over that sullen, un-English stream, the Hoogly, scarce so soberas I might have been. Now, roaring drunk in the West is but fuddled inthe East, and I was drunk Nor'-Nor' Easterly as Mr. Shakespeare mighthave said. Yet, in spite of my liquor, the cool night winds (though Ihave heard that they breed chills and fluxes innumerable) sobered mesomewhat; and I remembered that I had been but a little wrung and wastedby all the sicknesses of the past four months, whereas those youngbloods that came eastward with me in the same ship had been all, a monthback, planted to Eternity in the foul soil north of Writers' Buildings.So then, I thanked God mistily (though, to my shame, I never kneeleddown to do so) for license to live, at least till March should be uponus again.
Indeed, we that were alive (and our number was less by far than thosewho had gone to their last account in the hot weather late past) hadmade very merry that evening, by the ramparts of the Fort, over thiskindness of Providence; though our jests were neither witty nor such asI should have liked my Mother to hear.
When I had lain down (or rather thrown me on my bed) and the fumes of mydrink had a little cleared away, I found that I could get no sleep forthinking of a thousand things that were better left alone. First, andit was a long time since I had thought of her, the sweet face of KittySomerset, drifted, as it might have been drawn in a picture, across thefoot of my bed, so plainly, that I almost thought she had been presentin the body. Then I remembered how she drove me to this accursed countryto get rich, that I might the more quickly marry her, our parents onboth sides giving their consent; and then how she thought better (orworse may be) of her troth, and wed Tom Sanderson but a shortthree months after I had sailed. From Kitty I fell a-musing on Mrs.Vansuythen, a tall pale woman with violet eyes that had come to Calcuttafrom the Dutch Factory at Chinsura, and had set all our young men, andnot a few of the factors, by the ears. Some of our ladies, it is true,said that she had never a husband or marriage-lines at all; but women,and specially those who have led only indifferent good lives themselves,are cruel hard one on another. Besides, Mrs. Vansuythen was farprettier than them all. She had been most gracious to me at theGovernor-General's rout, and indeed I was looked upon by all as herpreux chevalier--which is French for a much worse word. Now, whetherI cared so much as the scratch of a pin for this same Mrs. Vansuythen(albeit I had vowed eternal love three days after we met) I knew notthen nor did till later on; but mine own pride, and a skill in the smallsword that no man in Calcutta could equal, kept me in her affections. Sothat I believed I worshipt her.
When I had dismist her violet eyes from my thoughts, my reason reproachtme for ever having followed her at all; and I saw how the one year thatI had lived in this land had so burnt and seared my mind with the flamesof a thousand bad passions and desires, that I had aged ten months foreach one in the Devil's school. Whereat I thought of my Mother for awhile, and was very penitent: making in my sinful tipsy mood a thousandvows of reformation--all since broken, I fear me, again and again.To-morrow, says I to myself, I will live cleanly for ever. And I smileddizzily (the liquor being still strong in me) to think of the dangersI had escaped; and built all manner of fine Castles in Spain, whereofa shadowy Kitty Somerset that had the violet eyes and the sweet slowspeech of Mrs. Vansuythen, was always Queen.
Lastly, a very fine and magnificent courage (that doubtless had itsbirth in Mr. Hastings' Madeira) grew upon me, till it seemed that Icould become Governor-General, Nawab, Prince, ay, even the Great Mogulhimself, by the mere wishing of it. Wherefore, taking my first steps,random and unstable enough, towards my new kingdom, I kickt my servantssleeping without till they howled and ran from me, and called Heaven andEarth to witness that I, Duncan Parrenness, was a Writer in the serviceof the Company and afraid of no man. Then, seeing that neither the Moonnor the Great Bear were minded to accept my challenge, I lay down againand must have fallen asleep.
I was waked presently by my last words repeated two or three times, andI saw that there had come into the room a drunken man, as I thought,from Mr. Hastings' rout. He sate down at the foot of my bed in all theworld as it belonged to him, and I took note, as well as I could, thathis face was somewhat like mine own grown older, save when it changedto the face of the Governor-General or my father, dead these six months.But this seemed to me only natural, and the due result of too much wine;and I was so angered at his entry all unannounced, that I told him, notover civilly, to go. To all my words he made no answer whatever, onlysaying slowly, as though it were some sweet morsel: 'Writer in theCompany's service and afraid of no man.' Then he stops short, andturning round sharp upon me, says that one of my kidney need fearneither man nor devil; that I was a brave young man, and like enough,should I live so long, to be Governor-General. But for all these things(and I suppose that he meant thereby the changes and chances of ourshifty life in these parts) I must pay my price. By this time I hadsobered somewhat, and being well waked out of my first sleep, wasdisposed to look upon the matter as a tipsy man's jest. So, says Imerrily: 'And what price shall I pay for this palace of mine, which isbut twelve feet square, and my five poor pagodas a month? The Devil takeyou and your jesting: I have paid my price twice over in sickness.' Atthat moment my man turns full towards me: so that by the moonlight Icould see every line and wrinkle of his face. Then my drunken mirth diedout of me, as I have seen the waters of our great rivers die away inone night; and I, Duncan Parrenness, who was afraid of no man, was takenwith a more deadly terror than I hold it has ever been the lot of mortalman to know. For I saw that his face was my very own, but marked andlined and scarred with the furrows of disease and much evil living--asI once, when I was (Lord help me) very drunk indeed, have seen mine ownface, all white and drawn and grown old, in a mirror. I take it that anyman would have been even more greatly feared than I. For I am in no waywanting in courage.
After I had lain still for a little, sweating in my agony and waitinguntil I should awake from this terrible dream (for dream I knew it tobe) he says again, that I must pay my price, and a little after, asthough it were to be given in pagodas and sicca rupees: 'What price willyou pay?' Says I, very softly: 'For God's sake let me be, whoever youare, and I will mend my ways from to-night.' Says he, laughing a littleat my words, but otherwise making no motion of having heard them: 'Nay,I would only rid so brave a young ruffler as yourself of much that willbe a great hindrance to you on your way through life in the Indies;for believe me,' and here he looks full on me once more, 'there is noreturn.' At all this rigmarole, which I could not then understand, I wasa good deal put aback and waited for what should come next. Says he verycalmly, 'Give me your trust in man.' At that I saw how heavy would bemy price, for I never doubted but that he could take from me all thathe asked, and my head was, through terror and wakefulness, altogethercleared of the wine I had drunk. So I takes him up very short, cryingthat I was not so wholly bad as he would make believe, and that Itrusted my fellows to the full as much as they were worthy of it. 'Itwas none of my fault,' says I, 'if one half of them were liars and theother half deserved to be burnt in the hand, and I would once more askhim to have done with his questions.' Then I stopped, a little afraid,it is true, to have let my tongue so run away with me, but he took nonotice of this, and only laid his hand lightly on my left breast and Ifelt very cold there for a while. Then he says, laughing more: 'Give meyour faith in women.' At that I started in my bed as though I ha
d beenstung, for I thought of my sweet mother in England, and for a whilefancied that my faith in God's best creatures could neither be shakennor stolen from me. But later, Myself's hard eyes being upon me, I fellto thinking, for the second time that night, of Kitty (she that jiltedme and married Tom Sanderson) and of Mistress Vansuythen, whom only mydevilish pride made me follow, and how she was even worse than Kitty,and I worst of them all--seeing that with my life's work to be done,I must needs go dancing down the Devil's swept and garnished causeway,because, forsooth, there was a light woman's smile at the end of it. AndI thought that all women in the world were either like Kitty or MistressVansuythen (as indeed they have ever since been to me) and this put meto such an extremity of rage and sorrow, that I was beyond word gladwhen Myself's hand fell again on my left breast, and I was no moretroubled by these follies.
After this he was silent for a little, and I made sure that he must goor I awake ere long: but presently he speaks again (and very softly)that I was a fool to care for such follies as those he had taken fromme, and that ere he went he would only ask me for a few other triflessuch as no man, or for matter of that boy either, would keep about himin this country. And so it happened that he took from out of my veryheart as it were, looking all the time into my face with my own eyes, asmuch as remained to me of my boy's soul and conscience. This was to mea far more terrible loss than the two that I had suffered before. Forthough, Lord help me, I had travelled far enough from all paths ofdecent or godly living, yet there was in me, though I myself write it, acertain goodness of heart which, when I was sober (or sick) made me verysorry of all that I had done before the fit came on me. And this I lostwholly: having in place thereof another deadly coldness at the heart. Iam not, as I have before said, ready with my pen, so I fear that whatI have just written may not be readily understood. Yet there be certaintimes in a young man's life, when, through great sorrow or sin, all theboy in him is burnt and seared away so that he passes at one step to themore sorrowful state of manhood: as our staring Indian day changesinto night with never so much as the gray of twilight to temper thetwo extremes. This shall perhaps make my state more clear, if it beremembered that my torment was ten times as great as comes in thenatural course of nature to any man. At that time I dared not think ofthe change that had come over me, and all in one night: though I haveoften thought of it since. 'I have paid the price,' says I, my teethchattering, for I was deadly cold, 'and what is my return?' At this timeit was nearly dawn, and Myself had begun to grow pale and thin againstthe white light in the east, as my mother used to tell me is the customof ghosts and devils and the like. He made as if he would go, but mywords stopt him and he laughed--as I remember that I laughed when I ranAngus Macalister through the sword-arm last August, because he said thatMrs. Vansuythen was no better than she should be. 'What return?'--sayshe, catching up my last words--'Why, strength to live as long as God orthe Devil pleases, and so long as you live my young master, my gift.'With that he puts something into my hand, though it was still too darkto see what it was, and when next I lookt up he was gone.
When the light came I made shift to behold his gift, and saw that it wasa little piece of dry bread.