Henry's position in his business depended solely upon the pleasure of the senior partners. There were curious conditions in their agreement with him; and if they heard of his embarrassments, no doubt it would injure him greatly, and might make them consider themselves justified in perhaps something far more serious than a remonstrance. O that we had acted differently! that the past could be lived over again with our present experience!
Once or twice I thought of confiding our woes to my mother; but I dared not; intuitively I knew that although in his prosperity Henry was a great favourite with her, she would regard him very differently if misfortunes came; and I felt I could bear anything rather than hear him blamed, especially as in my inmost heart I knew I was equally, if not actually more to blame than he was; for now I saw clearly how true it was what Uncle Jocelyn said, that a wife can make or mar her husband. If I had quietly set to work at the outset, and advised him aright, all would have been well; but now every day brought some hateful dun or threatening letter. A ring at the bell would cause me to start; and the sound of a man's voice in the hall parleying with Sophy, was enough to make me tremble all over.
'The crash could not be staved off for long; a crisis must shortly come.' So said Henry one lovely June evening, when we were sitting disconsolately discussing all manner of wild impossible schemes. It was an exquisite night; the heat of the day was over; not a breath of wind stirred the delicate blossoms of the plants which adorned our balcony, and the moon was rising in all her liquid loveliness, casting a clear cool light over the scene. Everything looked calm and quiet and peaceful; the pulses of the great city were hushed; there was nothing to break the silence, except poor Henry's hopeless tones repeating, 'A crisis can't be far off, Kate. What we are to do, I know not!'
We fancied the amazement of our friends—the nine days' wonder our misfortunes would cause, little dreaming that our ending had long been confidently predicted by them, and that our hospitality had been roundly censured and condemned by the very partakers of it. Still less did we imagine that Mr Trevor, so far from being favourably impressed with our surroundings, had gone away—fully aware as he was with the exact amount of Henry's income—shocked and sorry to see that Henry Arden had married a wife with so little sense and judgment; and no second glance from his keen eyes was wanting to prove to him how terribly beyond it we were living. His observations had satisfied him that serious embarrassments must ensue; consequently he and his partners had bestowed the desired post and increased emoluments upon one who, if he needed it less than we did, certainly understood its value better.
So no one except my mother and Uncle Jocelyn would be surprised, though we imagined so differently, as we sat on and on in our pretty drawing-room talking over the weary subject and pondering what we could possibly do. We should have to sell off everything, to leave Amberley Villas, and to begin life over again. Henry's prospects of course would be seriously damaged, and we could never hope to thoroughly regain the position our own folly had deprived us of. It was not pleasant to think of; but there could be no shuffling out of the question now; it must be met and answered immediately: What were we to do? Nothing very definite could be arrived at; but one thing was quite clear—the change could not be far off.
I can never describe the anxiety of the days that followed, nor tell the agony it cost me to write and tell my mother that we were hopelessly, desperately involved, and that our difficulties were so great, it was impossible for us ever to surmount them. What would she say? What would everybody say? Worst of all, what would Uncle Jocelyn say? For the worst had come to the worst—our house was our own no longer; a man—strange and to me most terrible—was comfortably making himself at home in our kitchen—in other words, had taken possession! How could Henry shew his face at the office! How could I ever venture out again!
I shall never forget the two days that followed after I wrote and told my mother; on the third, when I was almost stupefied with the magnitude of our misfortunes, and during Henry's (poor Henry certainly had the hardest part to bear, for he could not stay quietly at home) absence had shut myself up in my room, some one knocked at the door, and in answer to my very subdued 'Come in,' it was gently opened, and not Sophy, as I had anticipated, appeared, but the familiar friendly face of Uncle Jocelyn.
'My poor child!' he exclaimed—'my little Kate!'—and he folded me in his arms with all the tenderness of a father. 'I only heard of it all this morning,' he said, 'and I started off immediately. Cheer up, Kate; don't grieve your old uncle by tears. Things can't be past mending; and I wouldn't be here if I hadn't come to help you.'
And how he helped us! Without a word of anger or reproach, he listened to Henry's and my story; we told it truthfully, not sparing or attempting to justify ourselves for our culpable conduct; and when all was confessed, he simply wrote a cheque for the full amount of our liabilities. The total was a serious one; but we were saved not only from the disgrace but from Henry's dismissal from a partnership which afterwards was the means of our possessing a fortune far beyond what we had ever in our rosiest imaginings dreamed of.
By Uncle Jocelyn's advice we sublet Amberley Villas, and retired to a more roomy house in a less expensive and less fashionable locality; we sold all our superfluities, which had become actually hateful to me, and we started once more with a small but certain income.