“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.