“Who? James?” inquired Nancy, not wholly indifferent to what this might portend.
Hannah shook her head. “Nay, I mean Baldwin. It’s all over t’ place ’at he goes to bed drunk night after night.”
It was on Nancy’s lips to deny it; but one or two suspicious circumstances she had observed held back the contradiction.
“James has never said aught,” she remarked hesitatingly.
“Maybe not,” replied Hannah, who was careful not to make mischief between husband and wife. “They say your husband’s done his level best to keep him off it,—locked t’ drink up, and Baldwin broke t’ lock, he was that mad for’t. But I’ve happen done wrong to tell you, for you’ll be safe enough with your husband in t’ house. All t’ same when you’re as you are it’s as well to know.”
“Yes, I’m glad you’ve told me,” Nancy said. “I daresay folks are making a deal out o’ very little; but I’ll keep my eyes open and say naught.”
When Keturah heard of it she was at first tearfully indignant, but it was her nature to believe the worst, and her sense of helplessness led her to patch up a kind of peace with Nancy upon whom she was ready to lean now that the only prop she had known was likely to fail her. Later, when Baldwin was at no pains to conceal his condition, fear dried her tears, and drove her into a mood of despondency that left her limp and unequal to the strain of her ordinary household duties.
The seeds thus sown bore the crop of results Inman had foreseen, and hearing of Baldwin’s moral wreckage, the firms that had continued to give him credit now withheld it, whilst others gambled with the risk by charging higher prices. It was in vain that Inman interviewed and pleaded with them, for he was always forced to admit reluctantly in the end that in their place he would have done the same.
“The business is sound enough,” he would say; “but of course I’m not master and Mr. Briggs is. It’s a sad pity that trouble’s driven him to this; but we’ve to take facts as they are and I can’t blame you, though I wish you could see your way just this once——”
“Would you, if you were in my place?”