IN THE DINING-ROOM.
One of the most strange and painful things about ruin is, that for days, and even weeks, after it has actually come upon a man, his outward life remains in all its details as it was before; so that in the interval between the loss of fortune and the abandonment of his habitual way of living he leads a double life, just as a ghost would do if it were condemned to simulate the earthly existence it led before death amongst the dear familiar scenes. For there are two sorts of separation. You get into a railway train, and take ship, and emigrate to some distant colony or some alien empire, and see no more the land which gave you birth, nor the house which sheltered you, nor the faces of your friends. This separation is full of sadness; but there is another separation which, in its effect upon the mind, is incomparably more to be dreaded, whose pain is incomparably more poignant. I mean, that terrible separation which divides you from the persons with whom you are still living, from the house you have never quitted, from the horses in the stable, from the dog upon the hearth, from the bed you lie in, from the chair you sit upon, from the very plate out of which you eat your daily food! The man who, still in his old house, knows that he has become insolvent, feels this in a thousand subtly various tortures, that succeed each other without intermission. A curse has fallen on every thing that he sees, on every thing that he touches—a wonderful and magical curse, devised by the ingenuity of Plutus, the arch-enchanter! The wildest fairy tale narrates no deeper sorcery than this. Every thing shall remain, materially, exactly as it was; but when you go into your library you shall not be able to read, in your dining-room the food shall choke you, and you shall toss all night upon your bed.
And thus did it come to pass that from this hour all the beauties, and the luxuries, and all the accumulated objects and devices that made up the splendor of Wenderholme, became so many several causes of torture to John Stanburne. And by another effect of the same curse, he was compelled to torture himself endlessly with these things, as a man when he is galvanized finds that his fingers contract involuntarily round the brass cylinders through which flows the current that shatters all his nerves with agony.
The first bell rings for dinner, and the Colonel, from long habit, leaves his little den, and is half-way up the grand staircase before he knows that he is moving. That great staircase had been one of the favorite inventions in new Wenderholme. It was panelled with rich old yew, and in the wainscot were inserted a complete series of magnificent Italian tapestries, in which was set forth the great expedition of the Argonauts. There was the sowing of the poisoned grain, the consequent pestilence of Thebes, the flight of Phryxus and Helle on the winged ram with the golden fleece, the fall of poor Helle in the dark Hellespont, the sacrifice of the ram at Colchis, the murder of Phryxus. Above all, there was the glorious embarkation in the good ship Argo, when Jason and the Grecian princes came down to the shore, with a background of the palaces they left. And in another great tapestry the ship Argo sailed in the open sea, her great white sail curving before the wind, and the blue waves dancing before her prow, whilst the warriors stood quaintly upon the deck, with all their glittering arms. Then there was the storm on the coast of Thrace, and the famous ploughing-scene with the golden-horned bulls, and the sowing of the dragon's teeth.
Dragon's teeth! John Stanburne paused long before that tapestry. Had he not likewise been a sower of dragon's teeth, and were not the armed men rising, terrible, around him?
Who will help him as Medea helped Jason? Who will pass him through all his dangers in a day?
It will not be his wife—it will not be Lady Helena. She is coming up the great staircase too, whilst he is vacantly staring at the tapestry. He does not know that she is there till the rustle of her draperies awakens him. She passes in perfect silence, slowly, in the middle of the broad carpeted space, between the margins of white stone.
They met again that evening at dinner. So long as the men waited they talked about this thing and that. But when the dessert was on the table, and the men were gone, the Colonel handed the following letter to Lady Helena:—
"My dear Colonel Stanburne,—As you have been aware for some time of the precarious position of the Bank, the bad news I have to communicate will not find you altogether unprepared. We have been obliged to stop payment, and it will require such a large sum to meet the liabilities of the company that both you and I and many other shareholders must consider ourselves ruined men. God grant us fortitude to bear it! When I advised you to embark in this speculation, God knows I did so honestly, and you have the proof of it in the fact that I am ruined along with you. It will be hard for you to descend from a station you were born for and are accustomed to, and it is hard for me to see the fruits of a life of hard work swept away just as I am beginning to be an old man. Pray think charitably of me, Colonel Stanburne. I did what I believed to be best, and though my heart is heavy, my conscience is clear still. May Heaven give strength to both of us, and to all others who are involved in the same ruin!