Not long after his marriage, he discovered one slight error in his calculations, and found that his wife’s hundred thousand dollars had in reality dwindled down to thirty thousand. But even this was not to be despised, and Charles, conscious that he had nothing but talents and industry when he commenced life, felt that he had drawn a prize in the lottery. Grateful to his wife for her preference of him, and conscious that he had not bestowed on her his full affection, he determined to make all the amends in his power, by lavishing every kindness upon her, and submitting implicitly to her wishes. Having intimated to him that she should prefer boarding during the first year of their married life, he accordingly engaged a suite of apartments at the Astor House, where they lived in a style of splendor and ease exceedingly agreeable to the taste of both. Mrs. Waterton was extremely pretty, with an innocent, child-like face, and a graceful figure, and Charles felt so much pride in the admiration which she received in society, that he forgot to notice her mental deficiency. Their time was passed in a perpetual round of excitement and gayety. During the hours when the counting room claimed the husband’s attention, the young wife lounged on a sofa, read the last new novel, dawdled through a morning’s shopping, or paid fashionable visits. The afternoon was spent over the dinner table, while the evening soon passed in the midst of a brilliant party, or amid the pleasures of some public amusement. But living in the bustle of a hotel, with a large circle of acquaintances always ready to drink Mr. Waterton’s wine and flirt with his pretty wife, they were rarely left to each other’s society, and at the termination of the first twelvemonth, they knew little more of each other’s tempers and feelings than when they pledged their vows at the altar. Charles had learned that his placid Laura was somewhat pertinacious and very fond of dress, while she had been deeply mortified by the discovery that Charles’s deceased mother had, during her widowhood, kept a thread and needle store; but this was all that they had ascertained of each other. There had been no studying of each other’s character—no opportunity of practising that adaptation so necessary to the comfort of married life. They had lived only in a crowd, and were as yet in the position of partners in a quadrille, associated rather for a season of gayety than for the changeful scenes of actual life.
The commencement of the second year found the young couple busily engaged in preparing for house-keeping. A stately house, newly built and situated in a fashionable part of the city, was selected by Mrs. Waterton, and purchased by her obsequious husband in obedience to her wishes, though he did not think it necessary to inform her that two thirds of the purchase money was to remain on mortgage. They now only awaited the arrival of the rich furniture which Mrs. Waterton had directed her sister to select in Paris. This came at length, and with all the glee of a child she beheld her house fitted with carpets of such turf-like softness that the foot was almost buried in their bright flowers; mirrors that might have served for walls to the palace of truth; couches, divans and fauteuils, inlaid with gold and covered with velvet most exquisitely painted; curtains, whose costly texture had been quadrupled in value by the skill of the embroideress; tables of the finest mosaic; lustres and girandoles of every variety, glittering with their wealth of gold and chrystal; and all the thousand expensive toys which serve to minister to the frivolous tastes of fashion. The arrangement of the sleeping apartments was on a scale of equal magnificence. French dressing tables, with all their paraphernalia of Sevres china and chrystal; Psyche glasses, in frames of ivory and gold; beds of rosewood, inlaid with ivory, and canopied with gold and silver, were among the decorations. But should the reader seek to ascend still higher—the upper rooms—the servants’ apartments, uncarpeted, unfurnished, destitute of all the comforts which are as necessary to domestics as to their superiors, would have been found to afford a striking contrast to the splendors of those parts of the mansion which were intended for display.
With all his good sense, Charles Waterton was yet weak enough to indulge a feeling of exultation as he looked round his magnificent house, and felt himself “master of all he surveyed.” His thoughts went back to the time when the death of his father had plunged the family almost into destitution—when his mother had been aided to open a little shop, of which he was chief clerk, until the kindness of his old uncle had procured for him a situation in a wholesale store, which had finally enabled him to reach his present eminence. He remembered how often he had stood behind a little counter to sell a penny ball of thread or a piece of tape—how often he had been snubbed and scolded at when subject to the authority of a purse-proud employer—and, in spite of his better reason, Charles felt proud and triumphant. His self-satisfaction was somewhat diminished, however, by the sight of a bill drawn upon him by his brother-in-law in Paris, for the sums due on this great display of elegance. Ten thousand dollars—one third of his wife’s fortune—just sufficed to furnish their new house. Thus seven hundred dollars was cut off from their annual income, to be consumed in the wear and tear of their costly gew-gaws; another thousand was devoted to the payment of interest on the mortgage which remained on his house; so that, at the very outset of his career, Charles found himself, notwithstanding his wife’s estate, reduced to the “paltry two thousand a year,” which he derived from his business. But he had too much false pride to confess the truth to his wife, and at once to alter their style of living. Each had been deceived in their estimate of the other’s wealth. Laura’s income had been large enough, while she remained single, to allow her indulgence in every whim, and Charles, ambitious of the reputation of a man of fashion, after slaving all the morning in his office, had been in the habit of driving fast trotting horses, or sporting a tilbury and tiger in Broadway, every afternoon, spending every cent of his income, and giving rise to the belief among the young men that he was very rich, while the old merchants only looked upon him as very imprudent. They were now to learn that their combined fortunes would not support the extravagancies of a household, but Laura, accustomed to the command of money from childhood, knew not its value, because she had never known its want, and her husband shrunk from the duty of enlightening her on the subject, by informing her of their real situation.
By the time the arrangements of their house were completed, and had been admired, envied and sneered at by her “dear five thousand friends,” the season arrived for Mrs. Waterton’s usual visit to Saratoga. Her husband of course accompanied her, though with rather a heavy heart, for he knew that only by close attention to business he could hope to provide the necessary funds for all such expenditures, although he had not sufficient moral courage to confess that he was so closely chained to the galley of commerce. The usual round of gayety was traversed—the summer was spent in lounging at different watering places—and the autumn found them returning, heartily wearied, to their splendid home. With the assistance of some kind suggestors, Mrs. Waterton now planned a series of entertainments for the coming winter, and Charles listened with ill-dissembled anxiety to the schemes for balls, parties, soirees, musical festivals and suppers. There was but one way to support all this. Charles determined to extend his business, and instead of confining himself to a regular cash trade, he resolved to follow the example of his neighbors, and engage in speculation. Accordingly, he sold his wife’s stock in several moneyed institutions, and, investing the proceeds in merchandise, commenced making money on a grander scale. This was in the beginning of the year ’36, and every one knows the excitement of that momentous season; a season not soon to be forgotten by the bankrupt merchants, the distressed wives and the beggared children who can date their misfortunes from the temporary inflation of the credit system, by which that fatal year was characterized. Mr. Waterton’s books soon showed an immense increase of business, and, upon the most moderate calculation, his profits could scarcely be less than from eight to ten thousand dollars within six months. This was doing pretty well for a man who had formerly been content with a “paltry two thousand a year,” but as avarice, like jealousy, “grows by what it feeds on,” Charles began to think he might as well make money in more ways than one. He therefore began to buy real estate, and pine lands in Maine, wild tracts in Indiana, town lots in Illinois, together with the thousand schemes which then filled the heads of the sanguine and the pockets of the cunning, claimed his attention and obtained his money; while, at the same time, the fashionable society of New York were in raptures with Mrs. Waterton’s splendid parties, her costly equipage, and her magnificent style of dress.
“Have you counted the cost of all these things, Charles?” said his old uncle, as he entered the house one morning, and beheld the disarray consequent upon a large party the previous night.
“Yes, uncle, I think I have,” said Charles, smiling, as he sipped his coffee, at the old man’s simplicity. “The fellows who manage these affairs soon compel us to count the cost, for when I came down this morning, I found on the breakfast table this bill for nine hundred and fifty-four dollars.”
“Nine hundred dollars, Charles! You don’t mean to say that your party last night cost that sum?”
“I do, my dear sir, and considering that the bill includes every thing but the wines, I do not consider it an exorbitant one; however, the elegant colored gentleman who takes all this trouble for me does not charge me quite so much as he would if I employed him less frequently.”
The old man looked round and sighed. The apartments were in sad disorder, for the servants, overcome by the fatigues of the previous day, had followed the example of their master, and stolen from the morning the sleep they had been denied at night. A bottle lay shivered in one corner of the supper room, the champaigne with which it had been filled soaking into the rich carpet—a piece of plum-cake had been crushed by some heedless foot into the snow-white rug which lay before the drawing-room fire—the sweeping draperies of one of the curtains was still dripping with something which bore a marvellous resemblance to melted ice cream, and the whole suite of apartments wore that air of desolation which usually characterizes a “banquet hall deserted.”
“Do you calculate the destruction of furniture in counting the cost of your parties, Charles?” asked Mr. Waterton.