WEAKNESS
Vinton Arnold's walk down Fifth Avenue was so rapid as to indicate
strong perturbation. At last he entered a large house of square,
heavy architecture, a creation evidently of solid wealth in the
earlier days of the thoroughfare's history. There was something
in his step as he crossed the marble hall to the hat-rack and then
went up the stairway that caused his mother to pass quickly from
her sitting-room that she might intercept him. After a moment's
scrutiny she said, in a low, hard tone:
"You have spent the evening with Miss Jocelyn again."
He made no reply.
"Are you a man of honor?"
His pallid face crimsoned instantly, and his hands clenched with
repressed feeling, but he still remained silent. Neither did he
appear to have the power to meet his mother's cold, penetrating
glance.
"It would seem," she resumed, in the same quiet, incisive tone,
"that my former suggestions have been unheeded. I fear that I must
speak more plainly. You will please come with me for a few moments."
With evident reluctance he followed her to a small apartment, furnished
richly, but with the taste and elegance of a past generation. He had
become very pale again, but his face wore the impress of pain and
irresolution rather than of sullen defiance or of manly independence.
The hardness of the gold that had been accumulating in the family
for generations had seemingly permeated the mother's heart, for the
expression of her son's face softened neither her tone nor manner.
And yet not for a moment could she be made to think of herself
as cruel, or even stern. She was simply firm and sensible in the
performance of her duty. She was but maintaining the traditional
policy of the family, and was conscious that society would thoroughly
approve of her course. Chief of all, she sincerely believed that
she was promoting her son's welfare, but she had not Mrs. Jocelyn's
gentle ways of manifesting solicitude.
After a moment of oppressive silence, she began:
"Perhaps I can best present this issue in its true light by again
asking, Are you a man of honor?"
"Is it dishonorable," answered her son irritably, "to love a pure,
good girl?"
"No," said his mother, in the same quiet, measured voice; "but it
may be very great folly and a useless waste. It is dishonorable,
however, to inspire false hopes in a girl's heart, no matter who
she is. It is weak and dishonorable to hover around a pretty face
like a poor moth that singes its wings."
In sudden, passionate appeal, he exclaimed, "If I can win Miss
Jocelyn, why cannot I marry her? She is as good as she is beautiful.
If you knew her as I do you would be proud to call her your daughter.
They live very prettily, even elegantly--"
By a simple, deprecatory gesture Mrs. Arnold made her son feel that
it was useless to add another word.
"Vinton," she said, "a little reason in these matters is better
than an indefinite amount of sentimental nonsense. You are now
old enough to be swayed by reason, and not to fume and fret after
the impossible like a child. Neither your father nor I have acted
hastily in this matter. It was a great trial to discover that
you had allowed your fancy to become entangled below the circle
in which it is your privilege to move, and I am thankful that my
other children have been more considerate. In a quiet, unobtrusive
way we have taken pains to learn all about the Jocelyns. They are
comparative strangers in the city. Mr. Jocelyn is merely a junior
partner in a large iron firm, and from all your father says I fear
he has lived too elegantly for his means. That matter will soon
be tested, however, for his firm is in trouble and will probably
have to suspend. With your health, and in the face of the fierce
competition in this city, are you able to marry and support a
penniless girl? If, on the contrary, you propose to support a wife
on the property that now belongs to your father and myself, our
wishes should have some weight. I tell you frankly that our means,
though large, are not sufficient to make you all independent and
maintain the style to which you have been accustomed. With your
frail health and need of exemption from care and toil, you must
marry wealth. Your father is well satisfied that whoever allies
himself to this Jocelyn family may soon have them all on his hands
to support. We decline the risk of burdening ourselves with these
unknown, uncongenial people. Is there anything unreasonable in that?
Because you are fascinated by a pretty face, of which there are
thousands in this city, must we be forced into intimate associations
with people that are wholly distasteful to us? This would be a
poor return for having shielded you so carefully through years of
ill health and feebleness."
The young man's head drooped lower and lower as his mother spoke,
and his whole air was one of utter despondency. She waited for his
reply, but for a few moments he did not speak. Suddenly he looked
up, with a reckless, characteristic laugh, and said:
"The Spartans were right in destroying the feeble children. Since
I am under such obligations, I cannot resist your logic, and I
admit that it would be poor taste on my part to ask you to support
for me a wife not of your choosing."
"'Good taste' at least should have prevented such a remark. You can
choose for yourself from a score of fine girls of your own station
in rank and wealth."
"Pardon me, but I would rather not inflict my weakness on any of
the score."
"But you would inflict it on one weak in social position and without
any means of support."
"She is the one girl that I have met with who seemed both gentle
and strong, and whose tastes harmonize with my own. But you don't
know her, and never will. You have only learned external facts about
the Jocelyns, and out of your prejudices have created a family of
underbred people that does not exist. Their crime of comparative
poverty I cannot dispute. I have not made the prudential inquiries
which you and father have gone into so carefully. But your logic
is inexorable. As you suggest, I could not earn enough myself to
provide a wife with hairpins. The slight considerations of happiness,
and the fact that Miss Jocelyn might aid me in becoming something
more than a shadow among men, are not to be urged against the solid
reasons you have named."
"Young people always give a tragic aspect to these crude passing
fancies. I have known 'blighted happiness' to bud and blossom again
so often that you must pardon me if I act rather on the ground of
experience and good sense. An unsuitable alliance may bring brief
gratification and pleasure, but never happiness, never lasting and
solid content."
"Well, mother, I am not strong enough to argue with you, either in
the abstract or as to these 'wise saws' which so mangle my wretched
self," and with the air of one exhausted and defeated he languidly
went to his room.
Mrs. Arnold frowned as she muttered, "He makes no promise to cease
visiting the girl." After a moment she added, even more bitterly,
"I doubt whether he could keep such a promise; therefore my will
must supply his lack of decision;" and she certainly appeared
capable of making good this deficiency in several human atoms.
If she could have imparted some of her firmness and resolution to
Martin Jocelyn, they would have been among the most useful gifts
a man ever received. As the stanchness of a ship is tested by the
storm, so a crisis in his experience was approaching which would
test his courage, his fortitude, and the general soundness of his
manhood. Alas! the test would find him wanting. That night, for the
first time in his life, he came home with a step a trifle unsteady.
Innocent Mrs. Jocelyn did not note that anything was amiss. She
was busy putting her home into its usual pretty order after the
breezy, gusty evening always occasioned by one of Belle's informal
companies. She observed that her husband had recovered more than
his wonted cheerfulness, and seemed indeed as gay as Belle herself.
Lounging on a sofa, he laughed at his wife and petted her more
than usual, assuring her that her step was as light, and that she
still looked as young and pretty as any of the girls who had tripped
through the parlors that evening.
The trusting, happy wife grew so rosy with pleasure, and her tread
was so elastic from maternal pride and exultation at the prospects
of her daughters, that his compliments seemed scarcely exaggerated.
"Never fear, Nan," he said, in a gush of feeling; "I'll take care
of you whatever happens," and the glad smile she turned upon him
proved that she doubted his words no more than her own existence.
They were eminently proper words for a husband to address to his
wife, but the circumstances under which they were uttered made
them maudlin sentiment rather than a manly pledge. As spoken, they
were so ominous that the loving woman might well have trembled and
lost her girlish flush. But even through the lurid hopes and vague
prospects created by dangerous stimulants, Mr. Jocelyn saw, dimly,
the spectre of coming trouble, and he added:
"But, Nan, we must economize--we really must."
"Foolish man!" laughed his wife; "always preaching economy, but
never practicing it."
"Would to God I had millions to lavish on you!" he exclaimed, with
tears of mawkish feeling and honest affection mingled as they never
should in a true man's eyes.
"Lavish your love, Martin," replied the wife, "and I'll be content."
That night she laid her head upon her pillow without misgiving.
Mrs. Jocelyn was the daughter of a Southern planter, and in her
early home had been accustomed to a condition of chronic financial
embarrassment and easy-going, careless abundance. The war had swept
away her father and brothers with the last remnant of the mortgaged
property.
Young Jocelyn's antecedents had been somewhat similar, and they
had married much as the birds pair, without knowing very definitely
where or how the home nest would be constructed. He, however,
had secured a good education, and was endowed with fair business
capacities. He was thus enabled for a brief time before the war
to provide a comfortable support in a Southern city for his wife
and little daughter Mildred, and the fact that he was a gentleman
by birth and breeding gave him better social advantages than mere
wealth could have obtained. At the beginning of the struggle he was
given a commission in the Confederate army, but with the exception
of a few slight scratches and many hardships escaped unharmed. After
the conflict was over, the ex-officer came to the North, against
which he had so bravely and zealously fought, and was pleased to
find that there was no prejudice worth naming against him on this
account. His good record enabled him to obtain a position in a large
iron warehouse, and in consideration of his ability to control a
certain amount of Southern trade he was eventually given an interest
in the business. This apparent advancement induced him to believe
that he might safely rent, in one of the many cross-streets up town,
the pretty home in which we find him. The fact that their expenses
had always a little more than kept pace with their income did not
trouble Mrs. Jocelyn, for she had been accustomed to an annual
deficit from childhood. Some way had always been provided, and
she had a sort of blind faith that some way always would be. Mr.
Jocelyn also had fallen into rather soldier-like ways, and after
being so free with Confederate scrip, with difficulty learned the
value of paper money of a different color.
Moreover, in addition to a certain lack of foresight and frugal
prudence, bred by army life and Southern open-heartedness, he
cherished a secret habit which rendered a wise, steadily maintained
policy of thrift wellnigh impossible. About two years before the
opening of our story he had been the victim of a painful disease,
the evil effects of which did not speedily pass away. For several
weeks of this period, to quiet the pain, he was given morphia powders;
their effects were so agreeable that they were not discontinued
after the physician ceased to prescribe them. The subtle stimulant
not only banished the lingering traces of suffering, but enabled
him to resume the routine of business with comparative ease much
sooner than he had expected. Thus he gradually drifted into the
habitual use of morphia, taking it as a panacea for every ill. Had
he a toothache, a rheumatic or neuralgic twinge, the drug quieted
the pain. Was he despondent from any cause, or annoyed by some
untoward event, a small white powder soon brought hopefulness
and serenity. When emergencies occurred which promised to tax his
mental and physical powers, opium appeared to give a clearness and
elasticity of mind and a bodily vigor that was almost magical, and
he availed himself of the deceptive potency more and more often.
The morbid craving which the drug inevitably engenders at last
demanded a daily supply. For months he employed it in moderate
quantities, using it as thousands do quinine, wine, or other
stimulants, without giving much thought to the matter, sincerely
intending, however, to shake off the habit as soon as he felt a
little stronger and was more free from business cares. Still, as the
employment of the stimulant grew into a habit, he became somewhat
ashamed of it, and maintained his indulgence with increasing
secrecy--a characteristic rarely absent from this vice.
Thus it can be understood that his mind had ceased to possess
the natural poise which would enable him to manage his affairs in
accordance with some wisely matured system of expenditure. In times
of depression he would demand the most rigid economy, and again he
would seem careless and indifferent and preoccupied. This financial
vacillation was precisely what his wife had been accustomed to in
her early home, and she thoughtlessly took her way without much
regard to it. He also had little power of saying No to his gentle
wife, and an appealing look from her blue eyes would settle every
question of economy the wrong way. Next year they would be more
prudent; at present, however, there were some things that it would
be very nice to have or to do.
But, alas, Mrs. Jocelyn had decided that, for Mildred's sake, the
coming summer must be spent at Saratoga. In vain her husband had
told her that he did not see how it was possible. She would reply,
"Now, Martin, be reasonable. You know Mr. Arnold spends his summers
there. Would you spoil Millie's chances of making one of the best
matches in the city?"
He would shrug his shoulders and wonder where the money was to
come from. Meanwhile he knew that his partners were anxious. They
had been strong, and had endured the evil times for years without
wavering, but now were compelled to obtain a credit more and more
extended, in the hope of tiding themselves over the long period of
depression.
This increasing business stagnation occasioned a deepening anxiety
to her husband and a larger resort to his sustaining stimulant.
While he had no sense of danger worth naming, he grew somewhat
worried by his dependence on the drug, and it was his honest purpose
to gradually abandon it as soon as the financial pressure lifted
and he could breathe freely in the safety of renewed commercial
prosperity. Thus the weeks and months slipped by, finding him more
completely involved in the films of an evil web, and more intent
than ever upon hiding the fact from every one, especially his wife
and children.
He had returned on the evening of Belle's company, with fears for
the worst. The scene in his pretty and happy home, in contrast with
the bitter experiences that might be near at hand, so oppressed
him with foreboding and trouble that he went out and weakly sought
temporary respite and courage in a larger amount of morphia than
he had ever yet taken.
While off his guard from the resulting exaltation, he met a business
acquaintance and was led by him to indulge in wine also, with the
results already narrated.