WHEN Farrell returned to his post in the morning, Jackson reported Mr.
Lawrence asleep in the office. No one thought of him again until about
ten o'clock, when some protested notes came in. Jeffries knocked at the
door, opened it softly, spoke, but received no answer; then stepped
nearer, and peered curiously at the face. It was ghastly white, the eyes
wide open and staring, and with a shriek Jeffries alarmed the whole
establishment.
Old Dr. Lecounte came, pronounced him dead, and then sent for Dr.
Maverick, to whom he had taken a great liking. Between them both they
found a faint sign of life; and he was removed to his elegant mansion on
Hope Terrace, where his wife went into immediate and violent hysterics.
They remained several hours, and decided it to be that terrible death in
life, entire paralysis of brain, nerve, and muscle. He might linger some
days; he might drop away any moment.
Horace Eastman, looking over the news items the next morning, saw this
account, and returned at once to Yerbury. Certainly fortune had favored
him. Affairs were in wild confusion. He learned that a telegram had been
sent to young Mr. Lawrence, and an answer received. He would be back
next Monday. Mrs. Minor came up, and brought an experienced nurse.
The mill kept open until Saturday. Then Mr. Eastman called the men
together.
He was very much puzzled to know what to do, he said. He had resigned
his position as superintendent of the mills, nearly a month ago; but
Mr. Lawrence had begged him to stay on until he could come to some
decision. The affairs were in a very embarrassed condition, and now
suspension was imperative. What Mr. Lawrence would have done, he could
not tell; but he did not feel justified in taking the responsibility. He
was most truly sorry--he could say it from his heart--for those whose
cheerful faces and light steps he had watched year after year, until he
came to have a friendly feeling for them all; and he was shocked at the
result of all this trouble to his dear friend, to whom he was bound by a
deeper tie than that of mere business. But there had been two years of
unparalleled depression, and Mr. Lawrence had made a brave fight. No one
beside himself knew all the difficulties that had beset his old friend's
path. It was not only here in Yerbury that trade was dull: it was from
the Atlantic to the Pacific. England, Germany, and France were suffering
as deeply as ourselves. Production had been overdone by most of the
employers using their best efforts to keep their hands at work in the
face of a falling market, or no market at all. Shelves were packed with
goods everywhere. We were on the eve of a great change, and it would be
some time before values would become stable again. If the balance of
trade (high-sounding, but imperfectly understood term) could once more
turn in our favor; if we could export our surplus goods, and find new
markets,--as no doubt we would,--every shop and factory would soon be
ringing with the cheerful sound of labor. It would be a hard winter; but
he, for one, believed the spring would open auspiciously, that business
would revive, homes be prosperous, and every heavy heart light. Let them
all take courage for their own future and that of Hope Mills in the
hands of its young master. He regretted deeply that there was no money
to pay them with to-night; but that would doubtless be attended to
soon. He wanted to bid them a cordial good-by, and beg them to stand by
young Mr. Lawrence.
There was some rather faint cheering. Troubled eyes questioned
despondent eyes; what were they to do with winter coming on? First it
was the bank, now the mills, and what next God only could tell.
Fred Lawrence reached Yerbury Monday evening; and at midnight the faint,
fluttering soul of his father passed over that mighty river. There had
been no return to consciousness. Mrs. Lawrence still lay in her darkened
room, unable to bear any sound beyond that of the trained nurse.
To say that Fred was shocked, would feebly express his emotion. He had
never dreamed of his father's dying,--never dreamed of any thing like
misfortune happening to him, of any keener suffering than some temporary
annoyance. He felt quite helpless. His old philosophies did not inspire
him with courage, or open a way out of this dark present. There was to
be a funeral; there were business complications; some one had to think
of the future; the mill was shut up, the fortune swept away, and he had
been stranded on a strange shore, knowing not which way to turn.
Eastman was still in Yerbury. He was intensely sympathetic with the
bereaved family. In fact, now that he would never have to meet the eye
of the man he had so deeply wronged, his spirits rose, his pity
overflowed. Fred was quite touched by it. Hamilton Minor, with his
rather brusque business ways, jarred against his sorrow.
He was rather testy with Mr. Eastman. "For the life of me, I can't see
how things have come to this pass," he said sharply. "Hope Mills has
been considered as sound as a nut,--one of the surest places in the
country. Mr. Lawrence has made thousands and thousands. I have known a
good deal about his affairs."
"It is the result of a large-hearted philanthropy,--of keeping poor
devils at work when there was no demand for goods, so that they should
not starve. I should have closed out the concern two years ago. When you
begin to lose, it is time to get out,--not wait until every stiver is
gone. But, if ever there was a noble man, it is our dead friend David
Lawrence."
His chest swelled as he pronounced this eulogy, and he laid his white
hand sympathetically on his waistcoat.
"What is all this bank muddle about?"
"I really don't know. Heavy real-estate business"--
"And you a director!" interrupted Minor, with an unpleasant quickness.
"I have had so much on my hands that I did not pay strict attention to
it, I must confess. You know, Minor, what a tremendous shrinkage there
has been in values: it seems to me as if the bottom had fallen out of
every thing. I have an interest out in Nevada that I am anxious to look
after, and should have gone a year ago, but Lawrence begged me to hold
over until matters brightened a little. He was so sure times would
improve. By Jove! I think they grow worse and worse!"
"And Fred knows no more than a baby!" said Minor, in a tone of contempt.
"You'd be a help to him, Eastman, if you would stay and go over
accounts."
"I don't know about that," shaking his head slowly. "The books are all
on the square, as you will see. If one could only make money as easily
as one can add up that which has been made and spent!" and Eastman gave
a little laugh.
"But it cannot be a total loss. The house, I know, is settled upon Mrs.
Lawrence. And the mill-property"--
"Mortgaged for all it is worth in such times as these. Perhaps I ought
not to speak of it, but George was in a little difficulty which the old
gentleman tided over. Too much real estate, Minor!"
Hamilton Minor had no great amount of confidence in the man before him;
but then, he did not have in any one. He was on a little of the paper,
and just now he felt exceedingly dubious about it. Some arrangement
ought to be made whereby members of the family who had stood by Mr.
Lawrence ought not to be losers.
The funeral was strangely quiet and solemn; I was about to add, select.
The mill overseers and officers were formally invited. Fred had a
feeling about the men,--it seemed as if they ought to form a procession;
but the walk to the cemetery was a long one, and Mrs. Minor decisively
negatived any plan that took in the "rabble." The coffin lay in the
spacious drawing-room, where friends and acquaintances, in the same set,
nodded solemnly, and uttered a few words of well-bred condolence. The
mourners were up-stairs. The few coaches were filled with men, a little
group stood around the open grave, and David Lawrence passed out of
mortal sight,--his life-work all done. Had the toil been worth the
reward?
The next day Eastman left for New York, and his stay there was brief. He
knew what would be surmised after much trouble and searching, but it
could not be positively laid at his door. And with a cheerful heart he
set out to seek a new fortune.
To the great surprise of Mr. and Mrs. Minor, they found Hope Terrace
mortgaged. Mrs. Lawrence could talk of nothing, could not endure the
confusion of voices in her room. Some trustees were appointed to
investigate the whole affair, for Fred was as ignorant as a child of all
pertaining to the mill.
The examination disclosed a pitiable state of affairs. George Eastman
had built up Yerbury on borrowed capital, lived on it in luxury,
speculated, lost and won like any other gaming. He had persuaded each
individual that he was on the high road to wealth. There had been a
peculiar fascination about the man; or is it that the appeal to greed
and covetousness is so much more convincing than that to honor and
truth, that the baser impulses are quicker with their response? It was a
great bubble upon credit, and carried with it the seeds of
self-destruction. True, the bank held mortgages on rows of flimsy-built
houses where walls were cracking apart, foundations settling, plumbing
in such a condition that it was a hotbed of disease. They would not
cover the indebtedness. The available cash had been drawn out by large
depositors, the best bonds and stocks surreptitiously sold. And with all
this there was a defalcation traceable to Hope Mills or the Eastmans.
The money had gone in that direction. On the other hand, it was proven
by the income of Hope Mills, and the amount paid out for labor, that
there was no reason why they should not be solvent to-day.
Lavishly as the Lawrences had spent money, they had not taken it all. No
one could or did accuse David Lawrence of private speculation. Minor had
once tried his best to induce him to join in some enterprises, but
failed. It was an easy matter to blame the Eastmans for every thing:
they were away, and could not deny the charge. But had all these
bank-officials clean hands? They had been given a sacred trust, the
savings of the poor, the estates of widows and orphans; they had winked
at investments of the most precarious kind; they had paid a high rate of
interest, exacting a higher, which had been gladly given for a brief
while. Safe principles of finance had been quite ignored: the new era
was different from any thing that had ever happened to the world before,
and required new men, and now they would have to go back to the old way.
Surely there is not much that is new under the sun!
To bring back the Eastmans, and try them for their crimes, seemed hardly
worth while. More than one man in Yerbury felt that it was safer to
berate them at a distance, than meet their damaging retorts face to
face. They could not get back any money. Hope Mills was ruined beyond a
peradventure, and the affairs of the bank were best wound up as speedily
as possible. There could be no large stealings for a receiver,
consequently no occasion for delay. The sooner the wrecks and _débris_
were cleared away, the quicker the moral atmosphere would be purified.
There are wounds for which the instant cautery means life, the careful
hesitation death.
And now every one looked at the exploded bubble in surprise, and cried
angrily, "What has become of the money? Yesterday we were rich: where
has it gone to? Six months ago we had twenty per cent dividend: why are
these stocks worthless now? Why have railroads and shops and mills
ceased to pay? What sudden blight has fallen over the world?"
Alas! There had been no money. Sanguine credit had traded on the honor
and faith and nobleness of man toward man, and, behold, it had all been
selfishness and falsehood and dishonor. Truth and virtue had been
scorned and flouted in the highway, because forsooth there was a more
brilliant semblance. Like a garment had men wrapped themselves in it,
and now it was but rags and tatters.
There could be nothing extracted from the wreck of Hope Mills. Indeed,
Fred would have given up a rich inheritance to save his father's honor,
had it been his. To go on at Hope Terrace was madness. The fires and the
servants would cost enough to maintain a family. Mrs. Minor and Fred
quarrelled because Mrs. Lawrence had been persuaded to mortgage the
place: she simply groaned and moaned, and wondered why they must worry
her about every thing!
"I hope Irene will have the good sense to marry abroad," said Mrs.
Minor. "And, Fred, what a pity you haven't a profession! What can you
do?"
Last winter it had been, "my brother, De Woolfe," whom all the young
ladies in Mrs. Minor's set were wild over.
Fred gave a sigh.
"I suppose I _can_ do something to earn my bread," he replied bitterly.
"Fred," began Agatha suddenly, "there is that Miss Tillon. You know how
absolutely wild she was over you last winter! Her fortune is all in her
own right, and it is a solid one too. Hamilton has had occasion to know
about it. You cannot do a better thing than marry her."
Fred glanced up. His sister was in sober earnest. To be bargained off
like a woman, for a bare existence! Miss Tillon was at least thirty, of
a suspicious, jealous turn of mind, well-enough looking perhaps, but
narrow, with no intellectual culture, no approval of any thing beside
her money. He had been amused at her preference. Possibly she might
marry him, and rescue him from the pains of poverty. And he?
He might be vain and trifling, but he was not sunk so low in cowardice.
His face flushed a vivid scarlet.
"I am not quite prepared to become chargeable to a woman yet," he said
in a cold, calm voice.
"What nonsense! Some man will marry her, and get the money," Agatha
retorted decisively.
"Not much of hers;" in a dry, contemptuous tone.
"You know what I mean. She will live in style, and travel; and her
husband"--
"Will be the laughing-stock of his friends," interrupted Fred angrily.
"No, Agatha, I will be dependent upon no one for my bread: if I cannot
earn it I will starve."
"Oh, very well!" with a scornful smile. "I only hope Rene will be wiser.
They are in Paris--I heard from Gertrude last week. She was very much
shocked, of course. I hope George has not been foolish enough to let
every thing slip through his fingers. Who could have believed that
Horace Eastman would turn out such a swindler! Papa trusted him
altogether too far. It does not answer to be too noble and disinterested
in this world."
Fred made no reply to this charming bit of worldly wisdom. His delicate
and high opinion of self had received a crushing blow. Married off, out
of hand, to save him from poverty!
Why should his thoughts turn to Sylvie at that moment? Something stirred
within him, an insane desire to win her--oh, mad enough, surely! He
could, he _would_, do something! There was all his education and talent;
yes, he really had talent. He would make himself famous. She should see
that he had the right kind of stuff in him. He would climb up the hard
hill in his lonely, sorrowful, proud way, until she, looking on, would
come to repent her unjust verdict!
He shut himself up in his study, and made some very fair translations
from his beloved poets. There were better ones, doubtless; and, after
all, fame might not lie in that direction. There was physical science,
much in vogue, and entertaining: no doubt he could do something in that
line. There were theories and speculations, there were old
philosophies--surely the ground was rich everywhere.
It was very poor at Yerbury, though there were theories enough. But,
when you took them for temporal meat and drink, they were not a
fattening diet. Men lounged in the streets and on the corners, or, worst
of all, in saloons, talking themselves angry and hoarse over the bad
luck, and blaming every one right and left. Women sat at home, and cried
over losses and crosses, cooked their scanty dinners, and retired to bed
early to save fuel. The poorer ones went out to a day's washing, glad to
get that. Boys played cards, read dime-novels, and dreamed of wonderful
fortunes at the West: some few stout-hearted chaps set out to seek
them.
There were panaceas. Mr. Rantley preached the rankest communism and
broadest free-thinking. Capital, i.e., money, was the tyrant of the
world, and always would be until the laborers of the world rose up and
claimed their rights. Why should this man starve when the man over
yonder had his store-house full of flour that he was holding for higher
prices? What right had he, except the might? So long as men were allowed
to hoard up these monstrous fortunes, they could control the market, and
would! What were the starving thousands to them? What if half the
provision in the country rotted on the owner's hands? he could get as
much or more money for the other half. What if the miners were at work
only a small portion of time? could not the amount of coal be managed
more easily, and prices kept up? Capital desired to keep production at
the lowest ebb, because it could be more conveniently mastered. The only
remedy was to give every man a chance, to break up these colossal
fortunes, to have no great mills and mines; to have smaller capitalists,
fewer hours of labor, to divide the immense hoards among the poor and
needy until there should be no more want or suffering!
The Rev. Mr. Bristow shook his head at this modern anti-Christ. Every
thing was anti-Christ, with Mr. Bristow, that went outside of his own
narrow creed. He preached some stirring sermons. It was God's judgment
upon them for their sins. They had forgotten him, they had been led away
by false gods; they had made golden calves, and worshipped them; their
sons had strayed into infidelity; their daughters had flaunted in gay
attire, with plaiting of the hair, and dancing away their immortal
souls; and now they must return to their God, to the meat that perisheth
not, to the bread of life, and to the well of living water. There must
be such a returning to God, such a revival of religion, that the world
would be swept clear and clean out of its old sins!
"Splendid sermon! splendid sermon!" said Deacon Boyd, rubbing his hands
together unctuously. "Parson's hit the nail just on the head. We've all
strayed out of the way. I think a good old-fashioned revival'll set us
straight sooner'n any thing. Nothing like coming to the Lord on the
spot! This very week we ought to begin."
"I think you're right, Deacon Boyd," said grave Mr. Rising. "I, for one,
will take hold of the work."
They called the church together, and began. I will not disparage the
work. There were hungry souls that seemed fed with spiritual food,
aching hearts that were bound up, reckless minds that paused on the
verge of desperation. But there were others who wondered, even in the
midst of the deacon's prayer, how it was that the Lord warned him to
draw his twenty thousand dollars out of Yerbury Bank a week before the
failure, when there were only he and his wife to keep, and let poor Mrs.
Wharton with her five helpless children lose her husband's
life-insurance, her little all, by putting it in the bank just a
fortnight before the failure. Special providences, whereof Deacon Boyd
discoursed so eloquently, happened oftener to the rich than to the poor.
However, they prayed and fasted and repented. To many, any strong
emotion that took them out of the wearing round of thought was a
blessing.
Jack Darcy, with a curious disbelief in every thing, went the rounds,
and dropped into Maverick's office to talk it over. Sylvie was not home
this winter: she and her aunt spent it in Philadelphia. Then Jack grew
dull and restless. If the end of all things had come in Yerbury, he
ought to try some other place in the great world.
It was settled presently quite by accident. A cousin of Mrs. Darcy's,
one of your strong, thorough, energetic women, came to spend the winter
with them; and Jack's mother, watching the throes of her son's soul, a
little afraid of socialism, materialism, and all the other isms,
proposed that Jack should take a journey West or South, and have a
glimpse of the men and things beyond this narrow boundary.
"Grandmother grows feebler all the time now; and, being past ninety, we
can't expect to keep her much longer. Of course, Jack, when she is gone,
I shall have no tie but you; and, if it suited you to settle elsewhere,
I should not object. You are young and ambitious, and I ought to think
of your advancement. There never has been a time since your poor
father's death that you could be so well spared;" yet the mother sighed.
"And you have been a good son, Jack: you have given up many a wish
cheerfully to two poor old women."
"Don't call yourself an old woman," said Jack almost gruffly, then he
stooped to kiss her.
His heart gave a great boyish bound.
"Good-by, old Yerbury!" he cried exultantly one morning, quite sure of a
new, glad life elsewhere.
"Though I shall be sorry to leave Sylvie and Maverick," he thought.
"These old towns do grind the very soul out of a fellow who has any
desire or energy in him. The world isn't all alike, I know," giving his
chestnut mane a toss like a young, mettlesome colt.