“And remember that you must become one of us before night, or go to jail.”
Ludgate said he would take an hour to consider of the business, and here they parted; Lewis promising to call at his house before evening, to learn his final decision.
“And am I come to this?” thought the wretched man. “Would to Heaven I had followed my poor father’s maxim! but it is now too late.”
Mr. Ludgate, when he arrived at home, shut himself up in his own room, and continued walking backwards and forwards, for nearly an hour, in a state of mind more dreadful than can be described. Whilst he was in this situation, some one knocked at the door. He thought it was Lewis, and trembled from head to foot. It was only a servant with a parcel of bills, which several tradesmen, hearing that an execution was in the house, had hastened to present for payment. Among them were those of Mr. Beech, the upholsterer, and Mrs. Ludgate’s milliner and mantua-maker, which having been let to run on for above two years and a half, now amounted to a sum that astonished and shocked Mr. Ludgate. He could not remonstrate with his wife, or even vent his anger in reproaches, for she was lying senseless in her bed.
Before he had recovered from this shock, and whilst the tradesmen who brought the bills were still waiting for their money, Lewis and one of his companions arrived. He came to the point immediately. He produced bank-notes sufficient to discharge all his debts, and proposed to lend him this money on condition that he would enter into the confederacy as he had proposed. “All that we ask of you is to pass a certain number of notes for us every week. You will find this to your advantage; for we will allow you a considerable percentage, besides freeing you from your present embarrassments.”
The sight of the bank-notes, the pressure of immediate distress, and the hopes of being able to support the style of life in which he had of late appeared, all conspired to tempt Ludgate. When he had, early in life, vaunted to his young companions that he despised his father’s old maxim, while he repeated his own, they applauded his spirit. They were not present, at this instant, to pity the wretched state into which that spirit had betrayed him. But our hero has yet much greater misery to endure. It is true his debts were now paid, and he was able to support an external appearance of affluence; but not one day, not one night, could he pass without suffering the horrors of a guilty conscience, and all the terrors which haunt the man who sees himself in hourly danger of detection. He determined to keep his secret cautiously from his wife: he was glad that she was confined to her bed at this time, lest her prying curiosity should discover what was going forward. The species of affection which he had once felt for her had not survived the first six months of their marriage; and their late disputes had rendered this husband and wife absolutely odious to each other. Each believed, and indeed pretty plainly asserted, that they could live more handsomely asunder: but, alas! they were united for better and for worse.
Mrs. Ludgate’s illness terminated in another eruption on her face. She was extremely mortified by the loss of her beauty, especially as Mrs. Pimlico frequently contrasted her face with that of Mrs. Paget, who was now acknowledged to be the handsomest woman of Mrs. Pimlico’s acquaintance. She endeavoured to make herself of consequence by fresh expense. Mr. Ludgate, to account for the sudden payment of his debts, and the affluence in which he now appeared to live, spread a report of his having had a considerable legacy left to him by a relation, who had died in a distant part of England. The truth of the report was not questioned; and for some time Mr. and Mrs. Ludgate were the envy of their acquaintance. How little the world, as it is called, can judge, by external appearances, of the happiness of those who excite admiration or envy!
“What lucky people the Ludgates are!” cried Mrs. Pimlico. The exclamation was echoed by a crowded card party, assembled at her house. “But then,” continued Mrs. Pimlico, “it is a pity poor Belle is so disfigured by that scurvy, or whatever it is, in her face. I remember the time when she was as pretty a woman as you could see: nay, would you believe it, she had once as fine a complexion as young Mrs. Paget!”
These observations circulated quickly, and did not escape Mrs. Ludgate’s ear. Her vanity was deeply wounded; and her health appeared to her but a secondary consideration, in comparison with the chance of recovering her lost complexion. Mr. Pimlico, who was an eloquent perfumer, persuaded her that her former illness had nothing to do with the beautifying lotion she had purchased at his shop; and to support his assertions, he quoted examples of innumerable ladies, of high rank and fashion, who were in the constant habit of using this admirable preparation. The vain and foolish woman, notwithstanding the warnings which she had received from the physician who attended her during her illness, listened to the oratory of the perfumer, and bought half a dozen bottles of another kind of beautifying lotion. The eruption vanished from her face, after she had used the cosmetic; and, as she did not feel any immediate bad effects upon her health, she persisted in the practice for some months. The consequence was at last dreadful. She was found one morning speechless in her bed, with one side of her face distorted and motionless. During the night, she had been seized with a paralytic stroke: in a few days she recovered her speech; but her face continued totally disfigured.
This was the severest punishment that could have been inflicted on a woman of her character. She was now ashamed to show herself abroad, and incapable of being contented at home. She had not the friendship of a husband, or the affection of children, to afford her consolation and support. Her eldest child was a boy of about five years old, her youngest four. They were as fretful and troublesome as children usually are, whose education has been totally neglected; and the quarrels between them and Jack the footboy were endless, for Jack was alternately their tutor and their playfellow.