BREAKERS.
Lawrence Newt had certainly told the truth of his brother's home. Mr.
Boniface Newt had become so surly that it was not wise to speak to him.
He came home late, and was angry if dinner were not ready, and cross if
it were. He banged all the doors, and swore at all the chairs. After
dinner he told May not to touch the piano, and begged his wife, for
Heaven's sake, to take up some book, and not to sit with an air of
imbecile vacancy that was enough to drive a man distracted. He snarled at
the servants, so that they went about the house upon tip-toe and fled his
presence, and were constantly going away, causing Mrs. Newt to pass many
hours of the week in an Intelligence Office. Mr. Newt found holes in the
carpets, stains upon the cloths, knocks upon the walls, nicks in the
glasses and plates at table, scratches upon the furniture, and defects
and misfortunes every where. He went to bed without saying good-night,
and came down without a good-morning. He sat at breakfast morose and
silent; or he sighed, and frowned, and muttered, and went out without a
smile or a good-by. There was a profound gloom in the house, an unnatural
order. Nobody dared to derange the papers or books upon the tables, to
move the chairs, or to touch any thing. If May appeared in a new dress
he frowned, and his wife trembled every time she put in a breast-pin.
Only in her own room was May mistress of every thing. If any body had
looked into it he would have seen only the traces of a careful and
elegant hand, and often enough he would have seen a delicate girl-face,
almost too thoughtful for so young a face, resting upon the hand, as if
May Newt were troubled and perplexed by the gloom of the house and the
silence of the household. Her window opened over the street, and there
were a few horse-chestnut trees before the house. She made friends with
them, and they covered themselves with blossoms for her pleasure. She
sat for hours at her window, looking into the trees, sewing, reading,
musing--solitary as a fairy princess in a tower.
Sometimes flowers came, with Uncle Lawrence's love. Or fine fruit for
Miss May Newt, with the same message. Several times from her window May
had seen who the messenger was: a young man with candid eyes, with a
quick step, and an open, almost boyish face. When the street was still
she heard him half-singing as he bounded along--as nobody sings, she
thought, whose home is not happy.
Solitary as a fairy princess in a tower, she looked down upon the figure
as it rapidly disappeared. The sewing or the reading stopped entirely;
nor were they resumed when he had passed out of sight. May Newt thought
it strange that Uncle Lawrence should send such a messenger in the middle
of the day. He did not look like a porter. He was not an office boy. He
was evidently one of the upper-clerks. It was certainly very kind in
Uncle Lawrence.
So thought the solitary Princess in the tower, her mind wandering from
the romance she was reading to a busy speculation upon the reality in the
street beneath her.
The blind was thrown partly back as she sat at the open window. A simple
airy dress, made by her own hands, covered her flower-like figure. The
brown hair was smoothed over the white temples, and the sweet girl eyes
looked kindly into the street from which the figure of the young man had
just passed. If by chance the eyes of that young man had been turned
upward, would he not have thought--since one Sunday morning, when he
passed her on the way to church, he was sure that she looked like an
angel going home--would he not have thought that she looked like an angel
bending down toward him out of heaven?
It was not strange that Uncle Lawrence had sent him. For somehow Uncle
Lawrence had discovered that if there was any thing to go to May Newt,
there was nothing in the world that Gabriel Bennet was so anxious to do
as to carry it.
But while the young man was always so glad to go to Boniface Newt's
gloomy house--for some reason which he did not explain, and which even
his sister Ellen did not know--or, at least, which she pretended not to
know, although one evening that wily young girl talked with brother
Gabriel about May Newt, as if she had some particular purpose in the
conversation, until she seemed to have convinced herself of some hitherto
doubtful point--yet with all the willingness to go to the house, Gabriel
Bennet never went to the office of Boniface Newt, Son, & Co.
If he had done so it would not have been pleasant to him, for it was
perpetual field-day in the office. A few days after Uncle Lawrence's
visit to his nephew, the senior partner sat bending his hard, anxious
face over account-books and letters. The junior partner lounged in his
chair as if the office had been a club-room. The "Company" never
appeared.
"Father, I've just seen Sinker."
"D---- Sinker!"
"Come, come, father, let's be reasonable! Sinker says that the Canal will
be a clear case of twenty per cent, per annum for ten years at least, and
that we could afford to lose a cent or two upon the Bilbo iron to make it
up, over and over again."
Mr. Abel Newt threw his leg over the arm of the chair and looked at his
boot. Mr. Boniface Newt threw his head around suddenly and fiercely.
"And what's Sinker's commission? How much money do you suppose he has to
put in? How much stock will he take?"
"He has sold out in the Mallow Mines to put in," said Abel, a little
doggedly.
"Are you sure?"
"He says so," returned Abel, shortly.
"Don't believe a word of it!" said his father, tartly, turning back again
to his desk.
Abel put both hands in his pockets, and both feet upon the ground, side
by side, and rocked them upon the heels backward and forward, looking all
the time at his father. His face grew cloudy--more cloudy every moment.
At length he said,
"I think we'd better do it."
His father did not speak or move. He seemed to have heard nothing, and
to be only inwardly cursing the state of things revealed by the books and
papers before him.
Abel looked at him for a moment, and then, raising his voice, continued:
"As one of the firm, I propose that we sell out the Bilbo and buy into
the Canal."
Not a look or movement from his father.
Abel jumped up--his eyes black, his face red. He took his hat and went to
the door, saying,
"I shall go and conclude the arrangement!"
As he reached the door his father raised his eyes and looked at him. The
eyes were full of contempt and anger, and a sneering sound came from his
lips.
"You'll do no such thing."
The young man glanced sideways at his parent.
"Who will prevent me?"
"I!" roared the elder.
"I believe I am one of the firm," said Abel, coldly.
"You'd better try it!" said the old man, disregarding Abel's remark.
Abel was conscious that his father had this game, at least, in his hands.
The word of the young man would hardly avail against a simultaneous
veto from the parent. No transaction would stand a moment under such
circumstances. The young man slowly turned from the door, and fixing his
eyes upon his father, advanced toward him with a kind of imperious
insolence.
"I should like to understand my position in this house," said he, with
forced calmness.
"Good God! Sir, a bootblack, if I choose!" returned his father, fiercely.
"The unluckiest day of my life was when you came in here, Sir. Ever since
then the business has been getting more and more complicated, until it
is only a question of days how long it can even look respectable. We
shall all be beggars in a month. We are ruined. There is no chance,"
cried the old man, with a querulous wail through his set teeth. "And you
know who has done it all. You know who has brought us all to shame and
disgrace--to utter poverty;" and, rising from his chair, the father shook
his clenched hands at Abel so furiously that the young man fell back
abashed.
"Don't talk to me, Sir. Don't dare to say a word," cried Mr. Newt, in a
voice shrill with anger. "All my life has come to nothing. All my
sacrifices, my industry, my efforts, are of no use. I am a beggar, Sir;
so are you!"
He sank back in his chair and covered his face with his hands. The noise
made the old book-keeper outside look in. But it was no new thing. The
hot debates of the private room were familiar to his ear. With the
silent, sad fidelity of his profession he knew every thing, and was dumb.
Not a turn of his face, not a light in his eye, told any tales to the
most careful and sagacious inquirer. Within the last few months Mr. Van
Boozenberg had grown quite friendly with him. When they met, the
President had sought to establish the most familiar intercourse. But he
discovered that for the slightest hint of the condition of the Newt
business he might as well have asked Boniface himself. Like a mother, who
knows the crime her son has committed, and perceives that he can only a
little longer hide it, but who, with her heart breaking, still smiles
away suspicion, so the faithful accountant, who supposed that the crash
was at hand, was as constant and calm as if the business were never
before so prosperous.