And now, alas! fairly began the Teapot's downward course. Every effort of
Richard Jones to rise, only made him sink the deeper. To use a worn out,
though expressive phrase, he stirred heaven and earth to get better tea;
but the spell to conjure it forth was wanting. Jones had very correctly
stated the case to his daughter--he had not credit; he had little or no
cash; what he purchased in small quantities, he bought dear; and he sold
as he bought. And thus, unable to compete with superior, capital and
energy, he declined day by day.
But if he fell, it was not without a struggle. He turned desperate, and
resorted to a desperate expedient; he sold his goods at prime cost, and
left himself without profit. But Jones did not care; all he wanted was to
crush his opponent--that object accomplished, and he once more sole
master of the field, he could make his own price, and gradually retrieve
lost time, and heal the wounds received in the battle.
Business requires a cool head; competition has its limits, beyond which
yawns the bottomless pit of ruin. Jones lost his temper, and with it his
judgment. Not satisfied with the faint change for the better, produced by
the first measure, he impatiently resolved "to settle that Saunders," by
a second and still bolder stroke. He filled his shop-windows with
placards, on which prices were marked, with notes of admiration. He
pressed into his service a dozen of little boys, whose sole business was
to slip bills under doors, and to throw them down areas, or to force them
into the hands of unconscious passengers; and he crowned an these arts by
selling under prime cost.
The customers could not resist this tender appeal to their feelings; they
came back one and all--the Teapot once more was full--the two Teapots
was deserted; and Richard Jones was triumphant.
We profess no particular regard for Joseph Saunders; but we cannot deny
that he played his cruel game skilfully and well. He did not bring down
his prices one farthing. Without emotion he saw his shop forsaken--he
knew his own strength; he knew, too, the weakness of his enemy.
"Oh! It's that dodge you are after," he thought, thrusting his tongue in
his cheek. "Well, then, it has beggared many a man before you; and we
shall see how long you'll keep it up--that's all."
And to whosoever liked to hear, Saunders declared that Mr. Jones was
selling at loss, and that he (Saunders) could not afford to do so; and
was sorry the old man would be so obstinate. "Where was the use, when he
could not go on?"
Nothing did Jones more harm than this assertion, and the knowledge that
it was a literal truth; for though people worship cheapness, that goddess
of modern commerce, it is only on condition that she shall be a reality,
not a fiction; that she shall rest on the solid basis of gains, howsoever
small; not on the sand foundation of loss, that certain forerunner of
failure. Jones could not, of course, long keep up the plan of selling
under cost; he was obliged to give it up. With it, ceased his fallacious
and momentary prosperity.
"I thought so," soliloquized Saunders.
Reader, if you think that we mean to cast a stone at the great shop, you
are mistaken. We deal not with pitiless political economy, with its laws,
with their workings. The great shop must prosper; 'tis in the nature of
things; and the little shop must perish--'tis in their nature too. We
but lament this sad truth, that on God's earth, which God made for all,
there should be so little room for the poor man; for his pride, his
ambition, his desires, which he has in common with the rich man; we but
deplore what all, alas! know too well; that the crown of creation, a
soul, a man by God's Almighty mind, fashioned and called forth into
being, by Christ's priceless blood purchased and redeemed to Heaven,
should be a thing of so little worth--ay, so much, so very much less
worth than some money, in this strange world of ours.
Few pitied Richard Jones in his fall. His little ambition was remembered
as a crime; for success had not crowned it. His little vanities were so
many deadly sins; for gold did not hide or excuse them. To the dregs, the
unhappy man drank the latter draught which rises to the lips of the
fallen, when they see the world deserting them to worship a rival. A
usurper had invaded his narrow realm, and crushed him; his little story
was a true page from that great book of History, which we need not read
to know how power decays, or to learn of man's fickleness, and fortune's
frowns. Alas! History, if we did but know it, lies around us, as mankind
lives in the meanest wretch we meet, and perchance despise.
It is a bitter thing to behold our own ruin; it is a cruel thing to look
on powerless and despairing; and both now fell to the lot of Richard
Jones. He had ventured all, and lost all. He was doomed--he knew it;
every one knew it. But, alas! the cup of his woes was not full.
Mary had always been delicate. One chill evening she took cold; a cough
settled on her chest; sometimes it seemed gone, then suddenly it returned
again. "She felt very well," she said; and, strange to say, her father
thought so too. Rachel was the first to see that something was wrong.
"Mary," she said to her, one morning, "what ails you? Your breath seems
quite short."
"La! bless you, Miss," replied Mary, in her patronizing way, "I am all
right."
They were alone; Rachel looked at the young girl; her eyes glittered; her
cheeks were red with a hectic flush; her breathing was quick and
oppressive. The eyes of Rachel filled with tears; she thought of her
little dead sister in her grave.
"Mary," she said, "do not work any more to-day--go home."
Mary looked up in her face, and laughed--the gay laugh of an unconscious
child, fearless of death.
"Why, Miss, you are crying!" she exclaimed, amazed.
"Am I?" said Rachel, trying to smile, "never mind, Mary; go home--or,
rather, take this parcel to Mrs. Jameson, number three, Albert Terrace.
It is a fine day--the walk will do you good."
Mary jumped up, charmed at the prospect. She tied her bonnet-strings
before the looking-glass, and hummed the tune of "Meet me by moonlight
alone." Mary was turned sixteen; and vague ideas of romance sometimes
fitted through her young brain.
When she was fairly gone, Rachel rose, laid her work by, put on her
bonnet and shawl, and quietly slipped round to the Teapot: ostensibly,
she wanted to buy some tea: her real purpose was to call the attention of
Mr. Jones to his daughter's state.
But, strange to say, Rachel Gray could not make him understand her; his
mind was full of the two Teapots; of the villany of that Saunders; of the
world's ingratitude; of his misfortunes and his wrongs.
"I dare say Mary feels it too," put in Rachel.
"Of course she does, Miss Gray--of course she does. The child has
feelings. And then you know, Miss Gray, if that fellow hadn't a come
there, why, you know, we were getting on as well as could be."
"I notice that she coughs," said Rachel
"Why, yes, poor child; she can't get rid of that cough--she's growing,
you see. And then, you see, that Saunders--"
"And her breathing is so short," interrupted Rachel.
"Sure to be, on account of the cough. And, as I was saying, that
Saunders--"
"But, Mr. Jones, don't you think you had better see a doctor?" again
interrupted Rachel.
"See a doctor!" exclaimed Jones, staring at her. "You don't mean to say
my child is ill, Miss Gray?"
"I don't think she is quite well, Mr. Jones," replied Rachel, trembling
as she said so.
He sank down on his seat behind the counter, pale as death. The obstinate
cough, the short breathing, the hectic flush, all rushed back to his
memory; unseen, unheeded, till then, they now told him one fearful story.
With trembling hand he wiped away the drops of cold perspiration from his
forehead.
"The doctor must see her directly," he said, "directly. I'll go and look
for him, and you'll send her round. It's nothing--nothing at all, I am
sure; she's growing, you see. But still, it must be attended to, you know
--it must be attended to."
A light laugh at the door interrupted him. He turned round, and saw Mary
looking in at him and Rachel Gray, through the glass windows; with
another laugh, she vanished. Rachel went to the door, and called her
back.
"Mary, Mary, your father wants you."
The young girl came in; and, for the first time, her father seemed to see
the bright red spot that burned on her cheek, the unnatural brilliancy of
her blue eyes, the painful shortness of her breath. A mist seemed to fall
from his eyes, and the dread truth to stand revealed before him; but he
did not speak, nor did Rachel; Mary looked at them both, wondering.
"Well, what ails you two, that you stare at me so," she said, pertly. "I
am so hot," she added, after a while. "I think I shall stay at home, as
you said. Miss Gray."
She went into the back parlour, and sat down on the first chair she found
at hand. Rachel Gray and her father followed her in. The poor child, who,
because she had felt no actual pain, had thought that she could not be
ill, now, for the first time, felt that she was so.
"What ails you, dear?" softly asked Rachel, bending over her, as she saw
her gradually turning pale.
"La! bless you. Miss Gray, I am quite well--only I feel so faint like."
And even as she spoke, her head sank on the bosom of Rachel--she had
fainted.
When Mary recovered to consciousness, she was lying on her bed, up
stairs. Rachel stood by her pillow. At the foot of her bed, Mary caught
sight of her father's face, ghastly pale. Between the two, she saw a
strange gentleman, a doctor, who felt her pulse, put a few questions to
her, wrote a prescription, and soon left.
"I must go now," said Rachel, "but I shall come back this evening, and
bring my work."
Jones did not heed her; he looked stupified and like one bereft of sense,
but Mary laughed and replied, "Oh! do Miss Gray, come and take tea with
us."
Rachel promised that she would try, kissed her and left. With great
difficulty she obtained from Mrs. Brown the permission to return.
They on whom the light of this world shone not, were rarely in the favour
of Mrs. Brown. And only on condition of being home early did she allow
Rachel to depart. Before leaving, she went up to her other's chair, he
was not now quite so helpless as at first, and did not require her
constant presence or assistance; though he still did not know her.
"I shall try and not be too long away," said Rachel in a low voice.
"Never mind," he muttered, shaking his head, "never mind."
"There's a precious old fool for you!" said Mrs. Brown laughing coarsely.
A flush of pain crossed Rachel's cheek, but to have replied, would have
been to draw down a storm on her head; she silently left the house.
She found Mary feverish, restless, and full of projects. She would get up
early the next day, and make up for lost time. She remembered all the
work she had to do, and which she had unaccountably neglected. Her
father's shirts to mend, her own wardrobe to see to; the next room to
clean up, for a second lodger had never been found; in short, to hear
her, it seemed as if her life had only begun, and that this was the day
of its opening. In vain Rachel tried to check her soothingly; Mary talked
on and was so animated and so merry, that her father, who came up every
five minutes to see how she was, could not believe her to be so very ill
as Miss Gray thought, or the Doctor had hinted. Indeed, when at nine
Rachel left, and he let her down stairs, he seemed quite relieved.
"The child's only growing," he said to Rachel, "only growing; a little
rest and a little medicine, and she'll be all right again."
But scarcely was Rachel out of the door, when she burst into tears. "My
poor little Mary," she thought, "my poor little Mary!"