THE CRASH, UP TOWN.
The moment Mrs. Dagon heard the dismal news of Boniface Newt's failure
she came running round to see his wife. The house was as solemnly still
as the store and office down town. Mrs. Dagon looked in at the parlor,
which was darkened by closed blinds and shades drawn over the windows,
and in which all the furniture was set as for a funeral, except that
the chilly chintz covers were not removed.
She found Mrs. Nancy Newt in her chamber with May.
"Well, well! What does this mean? It's all nothing. Don't you be alarmed.
What's failing? It doesn't mean any thing; and I really hope, now that
he has actually failed and done with it, Boniface will be a little more
cheerful and liberal. Those parlor curtains are positively too bad!
Boniface ought to have plenty of time to himself; and I hope he will give
more of those little dinners, and cheer himself up! How is he?"
Mrs. Newt was dissolved in tears. She shook her head weakly, and rubbed
her hands.
"Oh! Aunt Dagon, it's dreadful to see him. He don't seem himself. He does
nothing but sit at the table and drum with his fingers; and in the night
he lies awake, thinking. And, oh dear!" she said, giving way to a sudden
burst of grief, "he doesn't scold at any thing."
Mrs. Dagon listened and reflected.
"My dear," she asked, "has he settled any thing upon you?"
"Nothing," replied Mrs. Newt.
"Aunt Dagon," said May, who sat by, looking at the old lady, "we are now
poor people. We shall sell this house, and go and live in a small way out
of sight."
"Fiddle, diddle! my dear," returned Mrs. Dagon, warmly; "you'll do no
such thing. Poor people, indeed! Why, May, you know nothing about these
things. Failing, failing; why, my dear, that's nothing. A New York
merchant expects to fail, just as an English lord expects to have the
gout. It isn't exactly a pleasant thing, but it's extremely respectable.
Every body fails. It's understood."
"What's understood?" asked May.
"Why, that business is a kind of game, and that every body runs for luck.
Oh, I know all about it, my dear! It's all a string of cards--as Colonel
Burr used to say; and I think if any body knew the world he did--it's all
a string of blocks. B trusts A, C trusts B, D trusts C, and so on. A
tumbles over, and down go B, and C, and D. That's the whole of it, my
dear. Colonel Burr used to say that his rule was to keep himself just out
of reach of any other block. If they knock me over, my dear Miss Bunley,
he once said to me--ah! May, what a voice he said it in, what an eye!--if
they knock me over, I shall be so busy picking myself up that I shall be
forced to be selfish, and can't help them, so I had better keep away, and
then I can be of some service. That was Colonel Burr's principle. He
declared it was the only way in which you could be sure of helping
others. People talk about Colonel Burr. My dear, Colonel Burr was a man
who minded his own business."
May Newt held her tongue. She felt instinctively that a woman of
sixty-five, who had been trained by Colonel Burr, was not very likely to
accept the opinions of a girl of her years. Mrs. Newt was feebly rocking
herself during the conversation between her daughter and aunt; and when
they had finished said, despairingly,
"Dear me! what will people say? Oh! I can't go and live poor. I'm not
used to it. I don't know how."
"Live poor!" sniffed Mrs. Dagon; "of course you won't live poor. I've
heard Boniface say often enough that it was too bad, but it was a world
of good-for-nothing people; and you don't think he's going to let
good-for-nothing people drive him from a becoming style of living?
Fiddle! I'd like to see him undertake to live poor."
"Do you think people will come to see us?" gasped Mrs. Newt.
"Come? Of course they will. They'll all rush, the first thing, to see how
you take it. Why, such a thing as this is a godsend to 'em. They'll have
something to talk about for a week. And they'll all try to discover if
you mean to sell out at auction. Oh, they will be _so_ sorry!" said the
old lady, imitating imaginary callers; "'and, my dear Mrs. Newt, what
_are_ you going to do? And to think of your being obliged to leave this
lovely house!' Come?--did you ever know the vultures not to come to a
carcass?"
Mrs. Nancy Newt looked appalled; and so energetic was Mrs. Dagon in her
allusion to vultures and carcass, that her niece unconsciously put to her
nose the smelling-bottle she held in her hand.
"Oh, it's dreadful!" she sighed, rocking and smelling, and with the tears
oozing from her eyes.
"Fiddle! I won't hear of it. 'Tain't dreadful. It's nothing at all. You
must go out with me and make calls this very morning. It's none of your
business. If your husband chooses to fail, let him fail. He can't expect
you to take to making shirts, and to give up society. I shall call at
twelve in the carriage; and, mind, don't you look red and mopy. Remember.
So, good-morning! And, May, I want to speak to you."
They left Mrs. Newt rocking and weeping, with the smelling-bottle at her
nose, and descended to the solemn parlor.
"What brought this about?" asked Mrs. Dagon, as she closed the door.
"Your mother is in such a state that it does no good to talk to her.
Where's Abel?"
"Aunt Dagon, I have my own opinion, but I know nothing. I suppose Abel is
down town."
"What's your opinion?"
May paused for a moment, and then said:
"From what I have heard drop from father during the last few years since
Abel has been in the business, I don't believe that Abel has helped
him--"
"Exactly," interrupted Mrs. Dagon, as if soliloquizing; "and why on earth
didn't the fellow marry Hope Wayne, or that Southern girl, Grace Plumer?"
"Abel marry Hope Wayne?" asked May, with an air and tone of such utter
amazement and incredulity that Aunt Dagon immediately recovered from her
abstraction, and half smiled.
"Why, why not?" said she, with equal simplicity.
May Newt knew Hope Wayne personally, and she had also heard of her from
Gabriel Bennet. Indeed, Gabriel had no secrets from May. The whole school
story of his love had been told to her, and she shared the young man's
feeling for the woman who, as a girl, had so utterly enthralled his
imagination. But Gabriel's story of school life also included her brother
Abel, and what she heard of the boy agreed with what she knew and felt of
the man.
"I presume," said May Newt, loftily, "that Hope Wayne would be as likely
to marry Aaron Burr as Abel Newt."
Mrs. Dagon looked at her kindly, and with amused admiration.
"Well, May, at any rate I congratulate Gabriel Bennet."
May's lofty look drooped.
"And if"--continued Mrs. Dagon--"if it was so wonderfully impossible
that Abel should marry Hope Wayne, why might he not have married Grace
Plumer, or some other rich girl? I'm sure I don't care who. It was
evidently the only thing for _him_, whatever it may be for other people.
When you are of my age, May, you will rate things differently. Well-bred
men and women in society ought to be able to marry any body. Society
isn't heaven, and it's silly to behave as if it were. Your romance is
very pretty, dear; we all have it when we are young, as we have the
measles and the whooping-cough. But we get robust constitutions, my
dear," said the old lady, smiling kindly, "when we have been through
all that business. When you and Gabriel have half a dozen children,
and your girls grow up to be married, you'll understand all about it.
I suppose you know about Mellish Whitloe and Laura Magot, don't you,
dear?"
May shook her head negatively.
"Well, they are people who were wise early. Just after they were married
he said to her, 'Laura, I see that you are fond of this new dance which
is coming in; you like to waltz.' 'Yes, I do,' said she. 'Well, I don't
like it, and I don't want you to waltz.' She pouted and cried, and called
him a tyrant. He hummed Yankee Doodle. 'I _will_ waltz,' said she at
length. 'Very well, my dear,' he answered. 'I'll make a bargain with
you. If you waltz, I'll get drunk.' You see it works perfectly. They
respect each other, and each does as the other wishes. I hope you'll be
as wise with Gabriel, my dear."
"Aunt, I hope I shall never be as old as you are," said May, quietly.
"I'd rather die."
Mrs. Dagon laughed her laugh. "That's right, dear, stand by your colors.
You're all safe. Gabriel is Lawrence's partner. You can afford to be
romantic, dear."
As she spoke the door opened, and Abel entered. His dress was disordered,
his face was flushed, and his manner excited. He ran up to May and kissed
her. She recoiled from the unaccustomed caress, and both she and Mrs.
Dagon perceived in his appearance and manner, as well as in the odor
which presently filled the room, that Abel was intoxicated.
"May, darling," he began in a maudlin tone, "how's our dear mother?"
"She's pretty well," replied May, "but you had better not go up and see
her."
"No, darling, I won't go if you say not."
His eyes then fell uncertainly upon Mrs. Dagon, and he added, thickly,
"That's only Aunt Dagon. How do, Aunt Dagon?"
He smiled at her and at May, and continued,
"I don't mind Aunt Dagon. Do you mind her, May?"
"What do you want, Abel?" asked May, with the old expression sliding into
her eyes that used to be there when she sat alone--a fairy princess in
her tower, and thought of many things.
Abel had seated himself upon the sofa, with his hat still on his head.
There was perhaps something in May's tone that alarmed him, for he began
to shed tears.
"Oh! May, don't you love your poor Abel?"
She looked at him without speaking. At length she said, "Where have you
been?"
"I've been to General Belch's," he sobbed, in reply; "and I don't mind
Aunt Dagon, if you don't."
"What do you mean by that, you silly fool?" asked Mrs. Dagon, sharply.
Abel stopped and looked half angry, for a moment, but immediately fell
into the old strain.
"I mean I'd just as lieve say it before her."
"Then say it," said May.
"Well, May, darling, couldn't you now just coax Gabriel--good fellow,
Gabriel--used to know him and love him at school--couldn't you coax him
to get Uncle Lawrence to do something?"
May shook her head. Abel began to snivel.
"I don't mean for the house. D----n it, that's gone to smash. I mean for
myself. May, for your poor brother Abel. You might just try."
He lay back and looked at her ruefully.
"Aunt Dagon," she said, quietly, "we had better go out of the room. Abel,
don't you come up stairs while you are in this state. I know all that
Uncle Lawrence has done for father and you, and he will do nothing more.
Do you expect him to pay your gambling debts?" she asked, indignantly.
Abel raised himself fiercely, while the bad blackness filled his eyes.
"D----d old hunks!" he shouted.
But nobody heard. Mrs. Dagon and May Newt had closed the door, and Abel
was left alone.
"It's no use," he said, moodily and aloud, but still thickly. "I
can't help it. I shall have to do just as Belch wishes. But he must
help me. If he expects me to serve him, he must serve me. He says he
can--buy off--Bodley--and then--why, then--devil take it!" he said,
vacantly, with heavy eyes, "then--then--oh yes!" He smiled a maudlin
smile. "Oh yes! I shall be a great--a great--great--man--I'll
be--rep--rep--sentive--ofs--ofs--dear pe--pe."
His head fell like a lump upon the cushion of the sofa, and he breathed
heavily, until the solemn, dark, formal parlor smelled like a bar-room.