CHAPTER XLVI.—KATE BEGINS TO REAP THE WHIRLWIND.
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.