University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.

At the end of several weeks, a letter was received from the junior partner
of the French House, for whom Edward was waiting, saying that he
should not leave for New York under ten days, when, on his arrival he
should close up his affairs with the firm and withdraw from it. During the
interval of delay, Edward continued diligently to pass four or five hours, in
fact, every forenoon in the counting-house in Pearl street, devoting himself
to the details of the business upon which he contemplated entering. But
during this period he also frequently visited at Mr. Laurens' mansion, and
there formed the dangerous habit of taking wine at dinner. Nor was he
blind to this fact of a growing habit.

`I will leave it off altogether,' said he to his conscience, `as soon as I form
the connection with this firm!'

He had been, when he said this, for some weeks under this influence of
social table-drinking, and it wanted three weeks to the time of the arrival of
the gentleman whose position he was to take.

It was on the evening of the very day on which he had made this resolution
that he left the table of Mr. Laurens a little flushed with the generous
wines of his cruelly hospitable and thoughtless host, and sought his rooms
at his hotel at an hour earlier than was his habit, from a painful sense that
his step was unsteady and might betray him; and at the same time with a
feeling of shame so deep that he inwardly resolved that he would never take
another glass of wine! But resolutions made in a state of partial inebriation
are no oftener regarded in sobriety, than those made in sobriety are
heeded `when the wine is in.'

On his way to his room he passed a half open door at the head of the hall
which he knew to be the servant's waiting room. Hearing his own name
spoken as he passed he checked his steps and listened, supposing he was
called.

`I can't do it now, and so don't try and tempt me with the tarnel kritter,'
said the well known voice of his `valet' Roundy Beebe. `I never drink'd
nothin' stronger nor water, 'cept it mout be milk, and I don't mean to nuther,
till I has more orakkler evidence as my master Edward drinks than your
word! Ven he tipples, I Roundy, tipples; so long as he's sober, I keeps
sober. He's my model pattern for time and tarnity!'

`You need'nt be afther makin' sich a pother, spalpeen,' answered a rich
Irish brogue, which Edward recognised as belonging to the second porter;
`I did but in kindness offer ye a bit o' the whiskey, as kapes the life in me
shoul and body. But if ye only wait till Misther Edward dhrinks, its meeself
as can pruv it to ye, Roondy. Not that I'd guv a stiver to tempt the
likes o' ye to be afther dhrinking; ony whiles we are kapin ach odther
company here till yer masther comes home, or I have a call, I'd like to make
it plisint and sociable to both of us.'

`If you don't prove my master Edward drinks, I'll knock you down, that's
what I will!' answered Roundy very positively.

`Its niver yer two fists I'd be afther mindin' at all, honney; but misther
Edward ordhered a day-kanther o' wine yisterday for his dinner, for I stood
behind his chair, and was the viry lad as he bade go fetch it til him!'

`Is it true, Jemmy?'

`De'il a bit lie in it from top to toe. I'll tak mee sackrament oath on it!'

`And did master Edward drink it?'

`To the full o' four glasses!'

`That's what I never'd believe! I'll not believe it neither, till I see him.
Now if he'd only let me wait on him at his dinner, he'd never sent for it,
and I'd never got it for him. I'd said to him, master Edward remember
your mother, and don't forget that flask tippler Ralph Waldron, you used to
talk to. Don't, dear master, get to taking to the ways of this wicked city,—
which I wish I was well out of, Jemmy; for if the horrid satan don't reign
here he beant no wheres on airth; oh, dear me, Jemmy, if master Edward
has got to takin' wine, I fear its all up with us.'

Edward did not feel in the mood of hearing more, and passed on to his
room, with feelings of the deepest chagrin, and a sense of humiliation, that
for the moment made him feel inferior to his own servant. He shut his
door and paced thoughtfully up and down his chamber. He had received
from Roundy's words a cutting reproof. It led him to view his true position,
and to confirm and strengthen his resolution not to drink again. Roundy
in a little while came to his room.

`Ah, so you are comed home, Master Edward,' said Roundy, looking at
him very hard; for Edward's face was flushed, and the lids of his eyes heavy
while the pupil was unusually bright. Roundy also very plainly scented
the fragrance of wine, and his suspicions already aroused by Jemmy, he
resolved to ascertain if his master had been really drinking; for he thought
he looked very like it,

`Roundy you may go, I don't want any thing to-night,' said Edward
quickly, fearing he might discover what he wished to conceal from him.

`Yes, master Edward, but the window is up. I will shut it.'

`I just threw it up myself. Go!'

Roundy stood a moment with his hand upon the door, as if he wished to
ask something. Edward fearing that he would question him about taking
wine at the table, and being in no mood to be interrogated, even by this
simple-minded young man, he repeated peremptorily his orders for him to
leave the room. Roundy obeyed; but as he closed the door he sighed heavily,
and said to himself, `I see how it is. He never was so before; his eyes
are red and he speaks sharp. I see how it is! I smelt the wine as plain as
if a demijohn was in the room. I fear Master Edward is got into temptation
in this Babylonist city of distinction and ungodly doin's. But I won't
guv up. I'll see if he don't get over it; and if as how as he does't why I'll
drink too; coz if master Nedward goes to the devil, I'll go with him. So
there'll be two of us!'

The next morning Edward awoke with a sense of shame and self-reproach.
The resolutions he had made the night before he now solemnly
repeated, and kneeling by his bedside fervently implored the divine guidance.
Roundy as he came in to wait upon him appeared sad, and silently
performed his duties about his person.

`Roundy,' said Edward as he was tying his scarf, and speaking in a pleasant
tone.

`Master Nedward!' responded Roundy with a profound sigh.

`What makes you so silent this morning?'

`I was thinkin', master Nedward.'

`Thinking?'

`Yes, master Nedward,' and Roundy sighed again, more heavily than before;
indeed, his sigh partook of the character of a groan.

`And what was you thinking about?'

`Whether I should get drunk on whiskey or heavy wet,' replied Roundy
In a very triste and sorrowful tone.

Edward understood at once the drift of his meaning, and could not help
laughing very heartily.

`Ah, I see how it is, Roundy. You think I have been setting you a bad
example. The truth is, I have taken a little wine at dinner lately with a
few friends, and only to oblige them.'

`But, master Nedward, Jemmy says you called for a decanter when you
was dining alone. If it was only with friends and stopped then, there
might be hopes of you; but when you likes it so well as to drink by yourself,—'

`That will do, Roundy,' interrupted Edward quickly in a displeased tone.
`I did not bring you to the city with me to be my mentor and to watch and
rebuke my conduct. For the future hold your tongue. I shall drink no
more wine, so do not trouble yourself and take on as if I was already a
drunkard.'

He finished his toilet in silence, and Roundy did not again open his mouth,
though at intervals he would sigh very heavily, and from time to time slowly
shake his head in a manner ludicrously desponding.

The habit of taking a glass of wine at dinner was only confined to the table.
Edward never thought about it except at the board, and, therefore, he
had full confidence that he should never be tempted to indulge in it to excess.

`Nevertheless,' he said, as he left his hotel to go to his counting-room;
`nevertheless, as it is becoming a habit, and the love of it may fasten upon
me, I will give it up hence forever; though I have no apprehensions, that
by continuing to take a glass or two with my dinner, I should do myself any
injury. I do not think even Anne would tempt me to drink wine again.—
But there is no danger from this source; I see already that she trembles to
leave me at table with her father, though she has not spoken to me save by
eloquent looks that she thinks I may indulge too freely. Yesterday afternoon
I did take more than I ought to have done; but as Mr. Laurens'
friends were politicians and drank political toasts, I could not refuse but
with ill grace. I would no longer say what I could have said a month ago,
`I never drink any wine!' I wish from my soul I could say so now. But
'tis past, and I must now substitute resolution for a principle! This is a sad
falling away!'

His features expressed regret and mortification, and with a troubled mind
he sought his place of business.

On his return to his hotel he was surprised and gratified to find Mr. Lanrens
waiting to see him.

`Ah, my dear Edward, I have called to invite you to accompany us to see
Macready in Hamlet to-night. I have been to secure seats for three. You
will be up and take your tea with us, and let us start early for the house will
be crammed.'

`I assure you I consent with great pleasure. But you will not go home
now. We dine now and I must have the honor of your company. In
catching you here I hold you as a rare prize.'

`Well, to tell the truth I half made up my mind before I came in to dine
with you; so you have me without much pressing.'

`You are very kind. After dinner I will ride up with you.'

`That is my plan, also. There is—'

What further Mr. Laurens was about to say was lost in the loud roar of
the gong which resounding throughout the vast hotel seemed to shake the
massive structure to its very foundation.

`What a confounded noise!' cried Mr. Laurens, taking his fingers out of
his ears when it had ceased. `This uproar three times a day would be
enough to keep me from living at a hotel. It is deafening. If a gong is to
be sounded why don't they have mercy on people's nerves and ears, and
sound from some distant quarter, and not directly among christian people!
It is a barbarous invention!'

While Mr. Laurens was giving out this philippic against gongs, Edward
was conducting him in to the dining room.

`Every thing is very fine here and in good taste. Table very handsomely
arrayed!' said Mr. Laurens as he received his soup from the hands of
Roundy, who had stationed himself behind his master's chair.

As the soups were being removed Edward saw a decanter placed by a
servant before the gentleman opposite to him; and instantly the thought
flashed upon his mind that he must order wine for Mr. Laurens. He felt
his face glow at the thought and at the recollection of his own resolution.

`I must get wine for Mr. Laurens, but I need not drink any myself,' he
said in his mind. Taking out his pencil he wrote on a card. `Roundy?'

`Master Nedward!'

`Take this card to Mr.—, at the office!'

`What is it for?' stoutly asked the suspicious young countryman.

`It is of no consequence to you. Take it and bring to me what he gives
you.'

Roundy departed and leaving the hall gave the card to Mr.—, saying,

`My master wants me to hand you this. It reads. `1 Dec. Paul—pale.
No, 4—I can't make out no meanin' to it, can yew?'

`There is what it means,' said the gentleman smiling and handing him a
decanter of Paulding's Pale Sherry.

`What's that are?—wine?'

`Yes, take it to Mr. Austin.'

`I'm darn'd if I touch it,' answered Roundy roundly.

`Then what are you doing in the dining room? Take it at once!'

`Wall, I'll take it to him. Pr'aps he ony wants it for the old gentlemen,
as I knows loves wine like a robin loves cherries. I take it, tho' agen my
conscience an' contrary to what I knows is rite; but if enny thing happens,
them as guvs it to me must take the konsekenses.'

`You have been a long while gone,' said Edward angrily.

`There it is, master Nedward, and I warns you!' said Roundy solemnly,
as he placed the decanter emphatically upon the table.

`Ah, that wine has fine colour and transparency, Edward,' said Mr. Laurens,
eyeing the decanter.

`It is your favorite wine, sir; allow me to fill your glass.'

`You were very kind to think of me, my boy. But your own glass?'

`I—that is—excuse me—I am not—'

`Poh—if your head aches it will do you good. Come, come! you will not
let me dine with you and drink alone.'

If Mr. Laurens had formed a plan for tempting his intended son-in-law
to intemperance, he could not have pursued it more directly or earnestly
than he now acted. But himself, for years a moderate `table-drinker,' in
safety, he did not once suspect the consequences that might follow to another.
Even Edward's gradual but growing partiality for wine did not open
his eyes.

`I will then drink a glass with you, sir, though I made a resolution to-day
I would not drink again.'

`If I thought you had not sense and firmness enough to govern your appetite,
I should be the last to ask you to take wine. But I have no more
fear of you than I have of myself.'

Edward quietly filled his own wine-glass, but while he was doing it he
seemed to feel the touch of an icy finger upon his heart. He felt that he
was doing a moral wrong to his conscience and degrading himself in his
own eyes; for men when they deliberately break a resolution feel, in spite
of themselves, humbled and experience an indescribable sensation of self-contempt.
They then become judges of themselves and pass the sentence

of condemnation as severely, if not far more so, upon their own act of
weakness as if they had sat in judgment upon the conduct of another.

The dinner progressed and Edward having once broken his resolution
had no further sense of restraint beyond mere inclination and propriety.—
`In for a penny, in for a pound,' is a very homely and old fashioned proverb;
but it is full of meaning. The feeling it quaintly expresses Edward realised,
and as he had taken one glass of wine he suffered himself, soon after to take
a second, yet inwardly resolving that this days dinner should witness his
last wine-drinking. Men contending with dangerous temptations to which
they see they are inclined are always resolving and re-resolving, till seeing
their own weakness they finally cease to resolve, and in a sort of despair,
yield to the current against which they have been so impotently struggling.

Towards the close of the dinner Edward recognised and bowed to an old
college acquaintance he had not seen for some years. A desire to confirm
the mutual recognition by sending his wine to him was irresistible, he being
too far off up the table to interchange words. So he wrote on a card,

`Edward Austin's compliments to his old friend, Henry Collins.'

`Take my wine and this card to the gentleman in the buff vest,' said Edward
to Roundy.

Roundy took the decanter with a very serious countenance on which was
for him a look of singular and peculiar determination, and performed the
commission without making any mistake.

Edward saw his friend hesitate, turn pale, then blush and fill his wine-glass.
The two friends then nodded, smiled and drank of their sparkling
bumpers. As the guests rose and withdrew, a place by Edward's side was
left vacant, and Henry Collins seeing it left his chair and came and occupied
it. He was warmly welcomed by Edward, and presented to Mr. Laurens.
This gentleman at once recognised in him the son of an old friend,
and after many inquiries after his father, Mr. Laurens invited him to take
wine with him.

`I rarely indulge, sir,' answered Henry; `but on this occasion with you
and Edward, I don't know how to refuse.'

Harry Collins had once been very intemperate, and at one period was
nearly wrecked, soul and body, by habitual intoxication. But he had some
months ago reformed. He had recovered himself and his self-respect, and
was once more respected in the society in which he lived, which was in a
neighboring state. He had only come to the city three days before. He had
not for months touched wine or any thing the drunkard loves. He felt himself
a man! He was invited to drink by his old friend and class-mate; the
sight of his friend, the recognising smile, the unexpected pleasure of the recontre
at table, the offer of the pleasant looking wine, the reluctance to refuse
at such a moment, the inward resolution that it was only for then—conquered.
But he had not yielded without a severe struggle, which as we
have seen, manifested its intensity in his changing colour.

He could not now refuse so respectable a looking person as Mr. Laurens.
Neither could Edward decline joining in the round. They drank. Collins
drank his off with a sort of wild delight. He gazed on the decanter after he
had emptied his wine-glass and looked wistfully. The conversation proceeded.
He did not give it his mind. He was absent and often answered
at random. Scarcely could he keep his eyes off the glowing wine before
him. Suddenly he grasped the decanter:

`Excuse me, Austin, but you must drink with me. I have heard you are
to be married. I drink to your happiness.'

`He filled Edward's glass, that of Mr. Laurens and his own. But why
need we proceed in detailing the steps of this painful scene. When at
length Edward called for Champagne, Mr. Laurens rose to go, saying, with
a smile,

`Come, come, young gentlemen. You must not sit here any longer. I
find you outdo an old winer like me. You have had quite enough!'

`That's my 'pinion too,' echoed Roundy in a very positive tone.

Edward rose and his friend also; and as the former was quite unpleasantly
conscious that he had taken too many glasses of wine to present himself
at once before Anne, he excused himself to Mr. Laurens on the plea of
a desire to talk over `old times,' with his friend Harry.

`Well, then, my dear boy, I will ride up, and we will expect you at six.'

Edward saw Mr. Laurens into an omnibus, and then invited Harry to his
room. Here they began a conversation touching each other's career, and
both talked with great animation, for their tongues and memories were excited
by wine.

`Come, Ned,' at length said Harry, `this is dry work; let me as an old
friend take the liberty of ordering that Champagne Mr. Laurens vetoed to
to be sent up here,' as he spoke he pulled the bell which was within his
reach.

`A bottle of Champagne and two glasses,' said Edward to the servant.—
`Stay, where is Roundy?'

`I hav'nt seen him, sir.'

`If you see him send him to me.'

We can tell where Roundy was. After Edward and his friends had left
the table, he carefully poured the little wine left in their glasses back into
the decanter, and taking it underneath his arm, while he slighly pocketed a
wine-glass, he took his way up stairs to the waiting-room, or servant's lodge.
Here he seated himself upon a trunk, and setting down the decanter and
glass upon a chair before him, thus solioquised.

`It's a go with us now, no mistake. Master Nedward is in for it, and I
mus'nt be left behind. I seed him drink four glasses and a half o' clear
wine, and I could'nt ha' believed it if I had'nt seen it with my own two eyes.
Well, who'd ha' thought this o' master Nedward, as preached so to young
Mr. Waldron there in the woods coz he drinked out of a flask. I don't
know which is worstest, a flask or a dekanter. Master Nedward's decanter
is twice as big as Ralph's hunting flask. Oh dear me! Well, I must
come to it. Here goes! It's enough to make me cry like a baby.'

As he spoke, Roundy filled the wine-glass, and while big tears chased
each other down his fat cheeks he drank off the wine. The taste was new
to him, and the strength being something for his unaccustomed palate, he
nearly strangled.

`Never mind if it kills me dead I'll drink it. I must keep up with master
Nedward. If he gets drunk, I gets drunk. We be as inseperable as the
Siamese Twins.'

There were about two glasses and a half in the decanter, and Roundy
drank the last remaining drop. The wine soon began to exhibit its effects.
He rose up, kicked over the chair, and began to dance, singing at the top of
his voice,

when Jemmy came in. He stopped, petrified at the sight.

`Och! is it you, you slapey elefant as is afther cuttin' thase didoes, and
shakin' the hotil as if a cotton bale was a dancin' a jig on the ruff. What is
in ye now? I niver seen the likes afore from ye!'

`I'm drunk, Jemmy. I've had a jolly tipple all by myself, Hey derry, ho
derry, dee!'

`Drunk?'

`Yes; master Nedward drinks, and so must Roundy. We are both goin'
to the devil together.'

`It's goin' down through the floor ye'll be, if ye kape dancin' and bouncin'
about that a-way. Kape aisy a bit, and till us what's got ye.'

In the meanwhile the Champagne was brought to Edward, and the two
friends drank long and deep. Just as they had finished the bottle, and Edward
was tipsily concluding within himself that he had drank enough if he
expected to accompany Miss Laurens to the theatre that night, the door burst
open and in come Roundy. Edward saw at a glance that he had been
drinking.

`Give us your fist, master Nedward. I'll be true—true—true to you till
death. Catch me deserting you! Not as long as my name is Roundy Bee—
B—Bee—Beebe!'

`You have been drinking, you rascal!'

`To be—to be sure I have!'

`I shall send you back to the country tomorrow.'

`I wish I had sent you back three weeks ago. We are gone cases now,
master Nedward.'

`You are too tipsy to stand; go to bed!'

`I am tipsy, thou art tipsy, he is tipsy, we are tipsy, you are tipsy, they
are tipsy, 'deliberately stuttered Roundy in a very tipsy tone, supporting himself
by the edge of the door, and looking round as he spoke at the chairs,
bed and tables, all which no doubt seemed, to his swiming head, quite as
tipsy as he was himself.

Edward and Harry laughed at his reply, the truth of which, ludicrous as
it was, both keenly felt; and Roundy having at length reeled out, the two
friends soon afterwards parted, Harry promising to see him again at the theatre.