Kate Crane was the eldest of a large family; two children younger than
herself had died in infancy, so that her next brother was five years her
junior. He was a fine, high-spirited lad, generous to a fault, as wilful
and determined as his sister, but unfortunately without her power of
self-control or steadiness of principle. Thus constituted, he was at
once the darling and the torment of his family. Through Mr. Crane’s
interest he had obtained a good position in a large mercantile
establishment in the city, where, though Kate had at first entertained
considerable apprehensions as to his steadiness, he appeared to be going
on satisfactorily.
One morning, about three weeks after the date of the occurrences we have
related, Mr. Crane having as usual departed for the city to coin money,
the mid-day post brought the following letter for his wife--
“Dearest Kate,--It is with reluctance that I take up my pen to ask you
whether it will inconvenience you to pay me a part of the next quarter’s
allowance you so generously make us, in advance. You know well how I
strive and struggle to keep down our expenses, without depriving your
dear father (who, I grieve to say, gets weaker and weaker) of the
comforts which his declining health renders daily more necessary for
him. My best endeavours cannot, however, prevent some of the tradesmen’s
bills from getting in arrear,--the fearful expense of your father’s
illness absorbing the addition to our income which your kind husband’s
liberality has enabled you to make. Such a difficulty is now pressing
upon me, and induces me to apply to you. If you can help me, I am
sure you will; if you are unable to do so, I can only trust that the
beneficent Providence who has hitherto supported me under my heavy
trials will not now desert me. Believe me to remain, dearest Kate,
“Ever your affectionate mother,
“Rachel Marsden.”
“P.S.--I am uneasy about Fred; his letters have been short and
unsatisfactory for some time; and for the last three weeks he has not
written to me at all. I wish you would see him, and endeavour to learn
from him how he employs his evenings, &c. You will think my fears
unreasonable; but you know how fond and proud we both are of our boy.
If anything were to go wrong with him, in your father’s present state of
debility, I believe it would be his death-blow.”
Kate’s first impulse on reading the above epistle was to fly to her
writing-desk--ten, twenty, thirty pounds, was all that remained: the
liberal assistance she had bestowed on Mrs. Leonard and her family
having reduced her finances to this low ebb. Reserving only five pounds
for her own use, she immediately dispatched a hurried answer, enclosing
an order for five-and-twenty pounds, and explaining, in general terms,
the reason of her inability to render her parents more effectual
assistance, promising to be more careful of their interest for the
future.
As she was desiring the servant to post her letter without delay, a
sharp knock at the street-door caused her to start, and she had barely
time to close her writing-desk, ere Mr. Frederick Marsden was announced,
and a tall handsome lad entered.
“Why, Fred, how is this? away from business at this hour! what will that
tremendous individual, the ‘Head of the Firm,’ say to you?” inquired
Kate, with an attempt at gaiety which scarcely concealed an undefined
dread of something having gone wrong, with which her brother’s
unexpected arrival, and the information contained in her mother’s
letter, had inspired her.
Young Marsden waited until the servant had quitted the room, then,
meeting his sister’s glance steadily, he replied--
“It does not much signify what he might say, Kate, for I no longer am a
member of his establishment.”
“What do you mean? You have surely never been so mad--so ungrateful to
Mr. Crane--so cruel to our mother, as to throw up your appointment!”
“Do not add to my misfortunes by upbraiding me, for I am wretched enough
as it is; or at all events hear what I have to tell you first,” was the
reply.
Kate made a gesture for him to continue; and he immediately began an
eager, hurried recital of his troubles and difficulties. It was the old
story--poverty and pride, temptation resisted often, yielded to once;
and that once effacing in a moment the recollection and results of
the repeated resistance. Youth and impetuosity, led astray by high
and generous impulses, without judgment to control them; meanness and
malevolence profiting thereby to effect the poor boy’s ruin. And as he
stood before her, with his fair clustering hair in wild disorder, his
bright cheeks glowing with contrition for the past, and real, earnest,
good resolutions for the future,--with the tear-drop sparkling in his
bright blue eye, suggesting the childhood from which he had so lately
emerged, while the compression of the short, stern upper lip, indicated
the approach of the full rich manhood into which, if the world will but
grant him forbearance for the present, and fair play for the future,
he will surely develop,--what wonder that his sister, deeming him more
sinned against than sinning, should press him to her warm woman’s heart,
as she murmured--
“My poor boy! don’t make yourself so miserable; we must see what can be
done to help you.”
When, however, she had in some degree succeeded in calming his emotion,
and they came quietly to review his position, the said question of “What
could be done to help him?” appeared no easy one to answer.
The son of his late employer, and junior partner in the establishment--a
dissipated and unprincipled young man--had, on Fred Marsden’s first
arrival, taken, or pretended to take, an extreme fancy to him,
introduced him to his sporting acquaintance, and made him his constant
companion. The first fruits of this ill-assorted alliance were, that
the high-spirited boy, eager to vie with his associates, was led almost
unconsciously into expenses, which soon left him first penniless, then
in debt.
In debt!--to owe a few shillings, a few pounds, appears a mere
trifle--an imprudence, perhaps, but scarcely a sin; or if a sin, a very
venial one--a peccadillo, nothing more. Believe it not! the fact of
owing that which, if it be required of him, a man cannot pay, is the
step across the Rubicon between honesty and dishonesty, between honour
and dishonour, between being a free agent or a bond-slave. To be in debt
is to forfeit self-respect; to lose self-respect is to lose the practical
result of obedience to the guiding principles of religion and morality;
a loss too soon followed by a distaste for the holy things thus
dishonoured, by a relaxation of all attempts at self-improvement, by
a reckless indifference to the opinion of the good and the true:--the
stone set rolling, gathers speed from its own impetus; the wedge
inserted, the seam widens, and the stoutest oak is riven. Let a young
man be once in debt, and no helping hand stretched out to save him
from the consequences of his imprudence before the sense of shame has
departed, and the dereliction of duty acquired the fatal force of habit,
and it does not require any very profound experience of life to prophesy
his future career. No one who has witnessed the mean subterfuges--the
paltry evasions--the shameless encroachment on kindness--the parasitical
cringing to opulence, which the burden of debt forces on natures not
originally deficient in generosity and delicacy of feeling, but must
dread for those near or dear to him the first downward step towards this
abyss of misery, and exert every nerve to restrain them, ere it be too
late.
Frederick Marsden, ignorant as a child of the value of money, and
imagining his salary calculated to supply his every fancy, had spent it
at least three times over, ere the uncomfortable possibility of being
in debt occurred to him; and when he did open his eyes to the fact, his
pseudo friend soon quieted his scruples by lending him a sum--not indeed
sufficient to defray his debts, but to enable him to continue his
career of extravagance a little longer. But the delusion was soon rudely
dispelled: after a wine-party, at which Marsden had drunk quite as much,
and his friend considerably more than was good for him, the latter,
returning home, chose to follow and insult an unprotected girl. Fred
attempted to restrain him, but in vain; and on his instituting a more
vigorous remonstrance, a quarrel ensued, in which, heated by wine
and anger, the junior partner struck his subordinate, by whom he
was immediately knocked down in return. Becoming from this moment
Frederick’s bitter enemy, he commenced a series of petty persecutions,
to which the high-spirited boy submitted with unexpected patience, until
on one occasion, stung beyond his powers of endurance by some
unjust indignity inflicted on him in the presence of several of his
fellow-clerks, he gave vent to his anger, and was instantly summoned
before the head of the firm, and only saved himself from dismissal by
taking the initiative, and resigning his situation.
“And now, Kate,” he continued, “I have told you the whole truth; I own
myself to blame, I see where I have been weak and foolish, where I have
been headstrong and impetuous; and I admit that by contracting these
debts which are weighing me down, and paralyzing any efforts I might
hope to make to regain my character and position, I have acted weakly,
and--and”--(with a choking sob)--“almost dishonestly;--” he paused, then
added, “and now, seeing all this, feeling it most deeply; anxious only
to retrieve the past, or if that is impossible, at all events to do
better for the future, how am I to carry out my intentions--how prove
to my poor mother that I am in earnest? Oh, Kate, dear Kate, help
me--advise me! I know I don’t deserve it; but I have nobody but you to
look to!”
Thus appealed to, Kate would not have been the true woman she was,
had she hesitated. Fred had acted wrongly, foolishly, but he had done
nothing unmanly or mean; he was her own dear brother still, and all the
assistance in her power she would render him, gladly. But what was
in her power? there was the rub. What were his own ideas? had he any
friends, any future prospects? Friends likely to assist him he had
none--future prospects he had plenty, but they were very hazy. He
should like to go out to India--could Mr. Crane get him a cadetship, or
anything else which would enable him to earn his own living? Kate did
not know. Mr. Crane would of course be very angry, but she would talk to
him, and see what could be done; these debts were the worst part of the
affair--did Fred know their amount?
Fred was not exactly aware of their uncomfortable total, but was afraid
they could not be less than £150: and a peculiar feature in the case
was, that the tradesmen appeared by instinct to have discovered his
altered prospects, and were all sending in their bills at once, and
clamouring for payment. And so while they schemed, and devised, and
hoped, the time slipped away, until it approached the hour at which Mr.
Crane usually returned, when Frederick grew alarmed, and would by no
means risk meeting him until Kate had talked to him well--from which
colloquial process he seemed to expect extraordinary results: thereby
proving that this young fellow, however deficient he might be upon most
points of worldly knowledge, was not wholly ignorant of some of the
arcana of married life; especially of those private enactments relating
to the maintenance of the proper authority, rule, and governance of the
wife, over that legal and clerical fiction, her lord and master.
When her brother had left her, Kate sat down, and endeavoured to review
quietly and dispassionately the circumstances of the case. Her brother
must be saved at all hazards; as a first step, his debts must be paid;
to do this £150 were required, and she possessed exactly £5, and would
not receive any more for another month. She must apply to her husband,
that was clear; and now she should reap the advantage of her sacrifice.
Had she married Arthur Hazlehurst, knowing that every farthing he
possessed was acquired by his mental labour, she could not have ventured
to ask him--it would have been unfair to him, wrong on her part; but now
the case was different, what were a couple of hundred pounds to a man
whose income was reported to be £20,000 a-year! True, Fred had thrown
up the appointment which Mr. Crane had obtained for him; this she knew
would offend and vex him; worse still, Fred had run in debt--a sin
which, as he had no temptation to it himself, her husband regarded
with the greatest horror. He would be very angry with Fred, and perhaps
refuse to assist him. No doubt she had great influence with him, and
where money would in any way make a show, as in the matter of carriages
and horses, plate, jewellery, and the like, he was liberal in the
extreme; but on other points he was strangely parsimonious. She had
never known him give a sixpence away in charity since she had been
married; and all such appeals invariably irritated him, and threw him
into a state of dogged obstinacy, in which it was perfectly impossible
to influence, or in any way control his actions. Her pride rebelled
against asking him a favour, even for her brother’s sake; but the mental
suffering Kate had gone through since we first made her acquaintance,
had given her truer views on certain important points, and she had begun
to perceive pride to be one of the rocks on which she had shipwrecked
her happiness, and had learned to mistrust it accordingly. Occupied by
such thoughts as these, she, for the first time in her married life,
sat awaiting her husband’s return with a feeling of mingled anxiety
and impatience. At last the expected knock sounded, and in due time Mr.
Crane made his appearance in the drawing-room; his greeting to his wife
ran thus:--
“Really, my dear, I must be excused for observing that I know no door
in London at which I am kept waiting so long as at my own. I am sure my
establishment costs me money enough; but the better servants are paid,
and the more they’re indulged, the more useless they become. I shouldn’t
be surprised if I’ve taken cold standing there. I did hope--no doubt it
was unreasonable of me--but I certainly did expect when I married, that
a household conducted on so liberal a scale as--I must be allowed to
remark--mine is, would be well regulated; that the eye of a mistress
would see whether the domestic duties were performed properly.”
He paused, so evidently expecting a reply, that Kate felt it incumbent
on her to say something, so she began--
“If Thomas is inattentive, you should desire Roberts to reprove him; and
if that does not produce the desired effect, give him warning and let
him go.”
“Yes, it is easy to say, ‘Let him go,’ but you forget that one has to
teach a new servant all one’s habits and wishes. Thomas has lived with
me for some years, and though at times he is slow and dilatory, yet he
knows my ways--not that I require much waiting on; thank Heaven, I can
wait upon myself: still I am not going to part with a faithful servant
merely to satisfy--if I may be allowed the expression--female caprice.”
Having delivered himself of this sensible and consistent opinion, Mr.
Crane solemnly stalked off to prepare for dinner. Poor Kate! she had
by this time become acquainted with her husband’s small and dreary
peculiarities, and she perceived, from his fretful, irritable manner,
that something had occurred to disquiet him in the course of the
morning. It was clear that this was no favourable moment in which to
make her appeal; and yet time pressed. She trusted the dinner would
produce a tranquillising effect on him; and she must choose a favourable
opportunity, while he was sitting over his wine, to introduce the
subject of her brother’s troubles and indiscretions.
Mr. Crane re-appeared with a gloomy brow; he had been obliged to wash
his hands in cold water--the hot was a perfect sea of blacks. “Why were
his things not put out for him to dress:” Kate believed they had been;
unless she was very much mistaken, she had seen them laid out in his
dressing-room. “What, his dress shoes?” Kate did not remember to have
seen the shoes. “No! he should think not; the shoes were what he was
particularly alluding to--they were not put out: on the contrary, it
took him quite five minutes to hunt for them. But it was always
the case--few things as he required, those few were certain to be
neglected;” and in this strain did he bewail himself, until, to Kate’s
inexpressible relief, dinner was announced.
Without being exactly a _gourmand_, Mr. Crane took a deep and solemn
interest in his dinner, the cooking of which he criticised with equal
acumen and severity. On the present occasion he helped himself to soup,
and tasted the first spoonful with an air of anxious inquiry. As he
became aware of the flavour, his countenance fell, and the shadow on his
brow darkened.
“Have you tasted that compound, Mrs. Crane?” he asked, in a tone
indicative of deep but tragic feeling.
“It’s rather salt, is it not?” returned Kate.
“Rather salt! it’s brine, made with sea-water, I’m certain such a
deleterious mixture as that is sure to disagree with me: the way they
dress my food in this house is undermining my constitution--bringing
me to my grave! I’m certain of it! Roberts, take that down to Mrs.
Trimmins, and tell her I can’t touch it; and mind such stuff as that
does not come up again. That’s the way money is wasted in this family;
that woman gets the best and most expensive materials, and then, just
because she has not to pay for them herself, goes and spoils them by her
unpardonable carelessness--it’s too bad!--oyster sauce. My dear Kate,
you’ve given me no sounds now!”
“Really,” rejoined Kate, colouring with annoyance, and making vigorous
but fruitless pokes at the cod with the fish-slice, “really, I’m afraid
there are no sounds with this fish.”
“No sounds!” repeated Mr. Crane, in a high, whimpering falsetto;
“codfish and no sounds! the only part, as Mrs. Trimmins knows; that I
care about! Serve up a codfish without sounds! No, really this cannot be
allowed to go on; there’s no man cares less about his eating than I do!
Take it away, Roberts, I shall not touch a bit. A crust of bread and
cheese, if it is but clean and wholesome, is all I require; still, when
I do sit down to a dinner, I like to have that dinner fit to eat. As a
bachelor, I put up with such annoyances; if they spoilt one’s dinner,
one dined at one’s club for the next week, and so gave the cook a hint,
which rendered her more careful; but I own, when I married, I did hope
that these things might be remedied; that while I was out, working
hard from breakfast till dinner-time, to provide funds for all these
expenses, the eye of a mistress might have been applied to an occasional
inspection of her household; and that her husband’s comfort would have
been a fitter study for an amiable and domestic character, than the
immoral and pernicious writings of German and French novelists. Take
that horrible joint up to your mistress, Roberts, and bring me the
cutlets and Tomata-sauce. I should have thought Mrs. Trimmins might have
known by this time how much I dislike a great coarse leg of mutton;
but I suppose your rural tastes lead you to prefer it to a more refined
style of cookery, in which case I must only request that your favourite
dish may always be placed at your end of the table; I declare the
sight of it is enough to destroy my appetite, and makes me quite
uncomfortable!”
“Don’t you think there may be a little fancy in that?” returned Kate,
as cutlet and Tomata-sauce at last filled Mr. Crane’s mouth, and stopped
his grumbling monologue; “I cannot help thinking good roast meat must
contain more nourishment, and for that reason be more wholesome than
made dishes.”
A struggle between his rising anger and his descending food having
occasioned a fit of choking, which did not tend to increase his general
amiability, Mr. Crane, as soon as he was sufficiently recovered,
continued--
“Unless it may be for the sake of contradicting me, my dear, I cannot
conceive--ugh! ugh!--I cannot conceive why you should imagine it
possible you can form a judgment about the matter; with such a strong--I
may say Herculean--digestion as you are gifted with, how should you
guess how these things affect a delicate organisation like mine? You can
doubtless eat these fearful legs of mutton with impunity; but were you
to eat the legs of a horse--as I verily believe you could--that would be
no argument in favour of dieting me on dog’s-meat. I know you think me
fanciful; your more robust temperament does not enable you to sympathise
with the difficulties my delicate, sensitive digestion subjects me
to--ugh!”
“The better way will be to give the housekeeper a general order never
again to send a leg of mutton up to table,” returned Kate; “I have
no especial predilection for the joint, and can dine quite as
satisfactorily on anything else.”
“No, my dear; I beg you will give no such order. I am not of such a
selfish disposition as to wish the dinner ordered merely with a view to
my likes and dislikes; neither is it my desire to curtail any of your
enjoyments, however much I may regret that they are not of a more
refined or intellectual nature;--have your legs of mutton as you have
been accustomed to have. I dare say there will always be bread and
cheese or cold meat in the house; thank Heaven, I am not particular,
anything simple and wholesome--give me some wine, Roberts; no, the
Burgundy, only half a glass--simple and wholesome does for me. Roberts,
desire Mrs. Trimmins to take care that she provides a liberal supply of
legs of mutton for her mistress.”
“Really, Mr. Crane, you mistake me; I have no particular preference for
legs of mutton, I assure--” began Kate.
Mr. Crane raised his hand deprecatingly, and checked her in mid speech.
“Quite enough has been said on this subject,” he interposed, severely;
“these endless discussions weary me. I come home tired and annoyed with
the cares, and anxieties, and fatigues of business: and when I seek for
quiet and repose in the bosom of my family, I am met by these frivolous
and vexatious complaints, my dinner made a trial to me, and my digestion
upset, my constitution undermined, and my comfort in my home--my
domestic comfort, Mrs. Crane--entirely destroyed! However, one word
shall end this matter; if I am to be subjected to these ebullitions
of--I am afraid I must say, a fretful and dissatisfied temper, I dine at
my club in future.”
And having thus worked himself up into a mild, childish, and ineffectual
rage, Mr. Crane continued to growl at his wife and harass the servants
until dinner was over, and the domestics had departed. And then came
out the cause of this agreeable episode in Kate’s married life--the
_Bundelcundah_, East Indiaman, had gone down at sea, all hands had
perished, and £40,000 worth of cargo, the property of Jedidiah Crane,
had gone down with them!
Tears for their loved and lost ones dimmed the eyes of the widows
and orphans of the gallant seamen who had sunk in the _Bundelcundah_;
mothers wept as memory recalled some bright young face, glowing with
health and youthful daring, which now lay pale and swollen in the depths
of mighty waters; girls, with blanched lips and hollow eyes, grieved for
the lovers whom they should behold no more till the sea should give up
its dead, in an agony of speechless anguish, to which the sorrow that
can find vent in tears would have been a merciful relief; and Crane,
the _millionaire_, fretted over the loss of his £40,000 with a grief
as lively and earnest as any of them--for “where the treasure is, there
shall the heart be also.”
During all this scene her brother’s difficulties were never absent from
the mind of Kate Crane, but she felt that this was not the time to
bring them forward, and kept silence. Did the idea occur to her how
differently she would have felt had Arthur Hazlehurst been the person
to whom she had desired to confide her trouble? Let us hope not, for her
heart was full enough without it.