CHAPTER VII.

HALF MEASURES.

AS soon as Mrs. Rodney was buried, Bessie entered upon her charge of Rodney and Nelly. She was little more than a child herself in years, but her life in the streets had given her a keen, shrewd knowledge of human nature. She set about at once to make Rodney's home more attractive than it had been during his wife's illness. And every evening, as soon as her own necessary livelihood was earned, she hastened to spend all the time she could with him and Nelly. She could sing and talk well; and Rodney, whose good resolutions were deeper than usual, was often induced to stay at home, or pay only a brief visit to some public-house, for the sake of society, accompanied by both Bessie and Nelly, who waited for him outside the door, now and then sending in a message, till he was ashamed of keeping them longer.

There was a little change for the better. Nelly's rags were covered by a gay pink cotton frock, trimmed with a number of small flounces, which Bessie picked up cheap at a clothes-shop, and which she washed until the colour was faded. Rodney often promised to buy his little daughter the other clothes she so greatly needed; but work was slack, very slack for unsteady hands like him; and he could earn but little, more than half of which still went for drink. But he had no violent outbreak, and often when he was tempted to greater excesses, there rose before his mind the image of his dead wife, with the violets in her folded hands. This memory, with Bessie's influence and Nelly's love, had a salutary effect upon him in part; and in his heart, he had determined to be altogether a changed and reformed man some day.

By degrees Rodney recovered confidence in himself and his own power of moderation. Three months had passed since his wife's death, and he had never been so drunk as to be incapable. Bessie, with the sanguine delight of a girl, believed in his reformation, and rejoiced in it openly; while Nelly praised and fondled him every day. The slavery of the habit seemed over; he was master of it, or at least he was no more than a hired servant, who could cast off the yoke at any moment, and be altogether free. He drank still, drank deeply; but he could come out of the gin-palace with money in his pocket; a feat impossible a few months ago. The abject drunkards, who could not tear themselves away from the neighbourhood of the spirit-vaults, became objects of contempt and disgust to him. He was pursuing the rational and manly course of breaking off the habit by slow but sure degrees.

Yet there was not after all much to be proud of. The poor place at home was still bare and comfortless, in spite of Bessie's efforts; Nelly was pining for better food, and he himself was shabby and out-at-elbow. No person passing him in the street would have distinguished him from the drunken objects he despised. He was feeble and tremulous still; his eyes were red and dim, and his head was hot. The only point gained was that the vice, which still had possession of him, held him with a somewhat slighter grasp.

But when the next autumn came, and heavy fogs from the river filled the town, Bessie caught cold after cold till her spirits failed her, and she could do little more than call in at Rodney's house upon her way home to her lodgings, where she longed to lie down to rest. There was nobody to wile away the listless time at home, and if he stayed longer than usual at the beer-shop or gin-palace, there was no one waiting for him outside, for he took care to lock Nelly up safely before he left her. By little and little the old slavery established itself again in all its tyranny. He had built his house upon the sand, and the storm came and beat upon it, and it fell; and great was the fall thereof.

Night after night Rodney came home late, raving more furiously than ever, while Nelly crouched in the darkest corner of the little room in an agony of terror, not daring to stir lest she should draw his attention to her. Sometimes, as she grew better, Bessie would make her way through the chilly evenings to the house to exert her old influence, but she found that it was all gone before this new outbreak. Once he struck her brutally, and thrust her out into the rain, bidding her begone, and come back no more; but the faithful girl would not forsake him and little Nelly. She was hoping against hope.

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