University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.
AMONG THE BREAKERS.

AFTER another brief but fuller examination of
Mr. Allen in the privacy of his own room,
Dr. Mark went down to the parlors. The guests
were gathered in little groups, talking in low, excited
whispers; those who had seen the reading of
the note and Mr. Allen's strange action, gaining
brief eminence by their repeated statements of
what they had witnessed, and their varied surmises.
The rôle of commentator, if mysterious
human action be the text, is always popular, and
as this explanatory class are proverbially gifted in
conjecture, there were many theories of explanation.
Some of the guests had already the good
taste to prepare for departure, and when Dr.
Mark appeared from the sick room, and said,—

“Mr. Allen and the family will be unable to
appear again this evening. I am under the painful
necessity of saying that this occasion, that
opened so brilliantly, must now come to sad and
sudden end. I will convey your adieux and expressions
of sympathy to the family”—there was
a general move to the dressing-rooms. The
Doctor was overwhelmed for a moment with expressions

of sympathy, that in the main were felt,
and well questioned by eager and genuine curiosity,
for Fox had dropped some mysterious hints
during the evening, which had been quietly circulating.
But Dr. Mark was professionally non-committal,
and soon excused himself that he might
attend to his patient.

The house, that seemingly a moment before
was ablaze with light and resounding with fashionable
revelry, suddenly became still, and grew
darker and darker, as if the shadowing wings of the
dreaded angel were drawing very near. In the
large, elegant rooms, where so brief a time since
gems and eyes vied in brightness, old Hannibal
now walks alone with his silent tread, and a peculiarly
awed and solemn visage. One by one he extinguished
the lights, leaving but faint glimmers
here and there, that were like a few forlorn hopes
struggling against the increasing darkness of disaster.
Under his breath he kept repeating fervently,
“De Lord hab mercy,” and this, perhaps,
was the only intelligent prayer that went up from
that stricken household in this hour of sudden
danger and alarm. Though we believe the Divine
Father sees the dumb agony of his creatures, and
pities them, and often when they, like the drowning,
are grasping at straws of human help and
cheer, puts out His strong hand and holds them
up; still it is in accordance with His just law that
those who seek and value His friendship find it
and possess it in adversity. The height of the

storm and the middle of the angry Atlantic is a
poor time and a poor place to provide life-boats.

The Allens had never looked to Heaven, save
as a matter of form. They had a pew in a fashionable
church, but were not very regular attendants,
and such attendance had done scarcely anything
to awaken or quicken their spiritual life.
They came home and gossiped about the appearance
of their “set,” and perhaps criticized the
music, but one would never have dreamed from
manner or conversation that they had gone to a
sacred place to worship God in humility. Indeed,
scarcely a thought of Him seemed to have dwelt
in their minds. Religious faith had never been of
any practical help, and now in their extremity it
seemed utterly intangible, and in no sense to be
depended on.

When Mrs. Allen recovered from her swoon,
and Laura had gained some self-control, they sent
for Dr. Mark, and eagerly suggested both their
hope and fear.

“It's only a fainting fit, doctor, is it not? Will
he not soon be better?”

“My dear madam, we will do all we can,”
said the doctor, with that professional solemnity
which is like reading a death warrant, “but it is my
painful duty to tell you to prepare for the worst.
Your husband has an attack of apoplexy.”

He had scarcely uttered the words before she
was again in a swoon, and Laura also lost her transient
quietness. Leaving his assistant and Mrs.

Allen's maid to take care of them, he went back to
his graver charge.

Mr. Allen lay insensible on his bed, and one
could hardly realize that he was a dying man.
His face was as flushed and full as it often appeared
on his return from his club. To the girls'
unpracticed ears, his loud stertorous breathing only
indicated heavy sleep. But neither they nor the
doctor could arouse him, and at last the physician
met Edith's questioning eyes, and gravely and
significantly shook his head. Though she had
borne up so steadily and quietly, he felt more for
her than for any of the others.

“O, doctor, can't you save him?” she pleaded.

“You must save him,” cried Zell, her eyes
flashing through her tears, “I would be ashamed,
if I were a physician, to stand over a strong man,
and say helplessly, `I can do nothing.' Is this all
your boasted skill amounts to? Either do something
at once or let us get some one who will.”

“Your feelings to-night, Miss Zell,” said the
doctor quietly, “will excuse anything you say, however
wild and irrational. I am doing all—”

“I am not wild or unreasonable,” cried Zell.
“I only demand that my father's life be saved.”
Then starting up she threw off a shawl and stood
before Doctor Mark in the dress she had worn in
the evening, that seemed a sad mockery in that
room of death. Her neck and arms were bare,
and even the cool, experienced physician was
startled by her wonderful beauty and strange manner.

Her white throat was convulsed, her bosom
heaved tumultuously, and on her face was the expression
that might have rested on the face of a
maiden like herself centuries before, when shown
the rack and dungeon, and told to choose between
her faith and her life.

But after a moment she extended her white
rounded arm toward him and said steadily,—

“I have read that if the blood of a young, vigorous
person is infused into another who is feeble
and old, it will give renewed strength and health.
Open a vein in my arm. Save his life if you take
mine.”

“You are a brave, noble girl,” said Doctor
Mark, with much emotion, taking the extended
hand and pressing it tenderly, “but you are asking
what is impossible in this case. Do you not remember
that I am an old friend of your father's?
It grieves me to the heart that his attack is so
severe that I fear all within the reach of human
skill is vain.”

Zell, who was a creature of impulse, and often
of noblest impulse, as we have seen, now reacted
into a passion of weeping, and sank helplessly on
the floor. She was capable of heroic action, but
she had no strength for woman's lot, which is so
often patient endurance.

Edith came and put her arms around her, and
with gentle, soothing words, as if speaking to a
child, half carried her to her room, where she at
last sobbed herself asleep.

For another hour Edith and the doctor watched
alone, and the dying man sank rapidly, going down
into the darkness of death without word or sign.

“Oh, that he would speak once more,” moaned
Edith.

“I fear he will not, my dear,” said the doctor,
pitifully.

A little later Mr. Allen was motionless, like one
who has been touched in unquiet sleep and becomes
still. Death had touched him, and a deeper
sleep had fallen upon him.

One of the great daily bulletins will go to press
in an hour. A reporter jumps into a waiting hack
and is driven rapidly up town.

While the city sleeps preparations must go on
in the markets for breakfast, and in printing rooms
for that equal necessity in our day, the latest news.
Therefore all night long there are dusky figures
flitting hither and thither, seeing to it that when
we come down in gown and slippers, our steak and
the world's gossip may be ready.

The breakfast of the Gothamites was furnished
abundantly with “sauce piquante” on the morning
of the last day of February, for Hannibal had
shaken his head ominously, and wiped away a few
honest tears, before he could tremulously say to
the eager reporter:

“Mr. Allen—hab—just—died.”

Gathering what few particulars he could, and
imagining many more, the reporter was driven

back even more rapidly, and with the elation of a
man who has found a good thing and means to
make the most of it. Mr. Allen himself was nothing
to him, but news about him was; and this fact
crowning the story of his violation of the revenue
law and prospective loss of a million, would make
a brisk breeze in the paper to which he was attached,
and might waft him a little farther on as
an enterprising news-gatherer.

It certainly would be the topic of the day on
all lips, and poor Mr. Allen might have plumed
himself on this if he had known it, for few people,
unless they commit a crime, are of sufficient importance
to be talked of all day in large, busy New
York. In the world's eyes Mr. Allen had committed
a crime. Not that they regarded his stock
gambling as such. Multitudes of church members
in good and regular standing were openly engaged
in this. Nor could the slight and unintentional
violation of the revenue law be regarded as such,
though so grave in its consequences. But he had
faltered and died when he ought not to have done
so. What the world demands is success; and
sometimes a devil may secure this where a true
man cannot. The world regarded Mr. Van Dam
and Mr. Goulden as very successful men.

Mr. Fox also had secured success by one adroit
wriggle (for we can describe his mode of achieving
greatness by no better phrase). He was destined
to receive half a million for his treachery to
his employers. During the war, when United

States securities were at their worst; when men,
pledged to take them, forfeited money rather than
do so, Mr. Allen had lent the Government millions,
because he believed in it, loved it, and was resolved
to sustain it. That same government now rewards
him by putting it in the power of a dishonest clerk
to ruin him, and gave him $500,000 for doing so.
Thus it resulted; for we are compelled to pass
hastily over the events subsequent to Mr. Allen's
death. His partners made a good fight, showed
that there was no intention to violate the law, and
that it was often difficult to comply with it literally—that
the sum claimed to be lost to the government
was ridiculously disproportionate with the
amount confiscated. But it was all in vain.
There was the letter of the law, and there were
Mr. Fox and his associates in the Custom-house,
“all honorable men,” with hands itching to clutch
the plunder.

But before this question was settled, the fate of
the stock operation in Wall street was most effectually.
As soon as Mr. Goulden heard of Mr. Allen's
death, he sold all he had at a slight loss, but
his action awakened suspicion, and it was speedily
learned that the rise was due mainly to Mr. Allen's
strong pushing, and the inevitable results followed.
As poor Mr. Allen's remains were lowered into the
vault, his stock in Wall street was also going down
with a run.

In brief, the absence of the master's hand and
by reason of his complications, there was general

wreck and ruin in his affairs, and Mrs. Allen was
soon compelled to face the even more awful fact,
to her, than her husband's death, that not a penny
remained of his colossal fortune, and that she had
yawningly sighed away all of her own means. But
she could only wring her hands in view of these
blighting truths, and indulge in half uttered complaints
against her husband's “folly,” as she termed
it. From the first her grief had been more emotional
than deep, and her mind recovering some
of its usual poise, had begun to be much occupied
with preparations for a grand funeral, which was
carried out to her taste. Then arose deeply interesting
questions as to various styles of mourning
costume, and an exciting vista of dressmaking
opened before her. She was growing into quite a
serene and hopeful frame when the miserable and
blighting facts all broke upon her. When there
was little of seeming necessity to do, and multitudes
to do for her, Mrs. Allen's nerves permitted
no small degree of activity. But now as it became
certain that she and her daughters must do all
themselves, her hands grew helpless. The idea of
being poor was like dying to her. It was entering
on an experience so utterly foreign and unknown
that it seemed like going to another world and
phase of existence, and she shrank in pitiable
dread from it.

Laura had all her mother's helpless shrinking
from poverty, but with another and even bitterer
ingredient added. Mr. Goulden was extremely

polite, exquisitely sympathetic, and in terms as
vague as elegantly expressed, had offered to do
anything (but nothing in particular) in his power
to show his regard for the family, and his esteem
for his departed friend. He was very sorry that
business would compel him to leave town for some
little time—

Laura had the spirit to interrupt him saying,
“It matters little, sir. There are no further Wall
street operations to be carried on here. Invest
your time and friendship where it will pay.”

Mr. Goulden, who plumed himself that he would
slip out of this bad matrimonial speculation with
snch polished skill that he would leave only flattering
regret and sighs behind, suddenly saw under
the biting satire of Laura's words what a contemptible
creature is the man whom selfish policy governs,
rather than honor and principle. He had brains
enough to comprehend himself and lose his self-respect
then and there, as he went away tingling
with shame from the girl he wronged, but who had
detected his sordid meanness. Sigh after him!
She would ever despise him, and that hurt Mr.
Goulden's vanity severely. He had come very near
loving Laura Allen, about as near perhaps as he
ever would loving any one, and it had cost him a
little more to give her up than to choose between
a good and a bad venture on the street. With
compressed lips he had said to himself—“No gushing
sentiment. In carrying out your purpose to be
rich you must marry rich.” Therefore he had gone

to make what he meant to be his final call, feeling
quite heroic in his steadfastness—his loyalty to
purpose, that is himself. But as he recalled during
his homeward walk, her glad welcome, her
wistful pleading looks, and then, as she realized the
truth, her pain, contempt, and her meaning words
of scorn, his miserable egotism was swept aside,
and for the first time the selfish man saw the question
from her standpoint, and as we have said he
was not so shallow but that he saw and loathed
himself. He lost his self-respect as he never had
before, and therefore to a certain extent, his power
ever to be happy again.

Small men, full of petty conceit, can recover
from any wounds upon their vanity, but proud and
large minded men have a self-respect, even though
based upon questionable foundation. It is essential
to them, and losing it, they are inwardly
wretched. As soldiers carry the painful scars of
some wounds through life, so Mr. Goulden would
find that Laura's words had left a sore place while
memory lasted.

Mr. Van Dam quite disarmed Edith's suspicions
and prejudices by being more friendly and intimate
with Zell than ever, and the latter was happy and
exultant in the fact, saying, with much elation,
that her friend was “not a mercenary wretch, like
Mr. Goulden, but remained just as true and kind as
ever.”

It was evident that this attention and show of
kindness to the warm-hearted girl, made a deep

impression and greatly increased Mr. Van Dam's
power over her. But Edith's suspicion and dislike
began to return as she saw more of the manner
and spirit of the man. She instinctively felt that
he was bad and designing.

One day she quite incensed Zell, who was
chanting his praises, by saying:

“I haven't any faith in him. What has he
done to show real friendship for us? He only
comes here to amuse himself with you; Gus Elliot
is the only one who has been of any help.”

But Edith had her misgivings about Gus also.
Now, in her trouble and poverty, his weakness
began to reveal itself in a new and repulsive light.
In fact, that exquisitely fine young gentleman
loved Edith well enough to marry her, but not to
work for her. That was a sacrifice that he could
not make for any woman. Though out of his
natural kindness and good-nature he felt very
sorry for her, and wanted to help and pet her, he
had been shown his danger so clearly that he was
constrained and awkward when with her, for, on
one hand, his father had taken him aside and
said,—

“Look here, Gus. See to it that you don't
entangle yourself with Miss Allen, now her father
has failed. She couldn't support you now, and
you never can support even yourself. If you
would go to work like a man—but one has got to
be a man to do that. It seems true, as your
mother says, that you are of too fine clay for common

uses. Therefore, don't make a fool of yourself.
You can't keep up your style on a pretty
face, and you must not wrong the girl by making
her think you can take care of her. I tell you
plainly, I can't bear another ounce added to my
burden, and how long I'll stand up under it as it
is, I can't tell.”

Gus listened with a sulky, injured air. He felt
that his father never appreciated him as did his
mother and sisters, and indeed society at large.
Society to Gus was the ultra-fashionable world of
which he was one of the shining lights.

The ladies of the family quite restored his
equanimity by saying,—

“Now see here, Gus, don't dream of throwing
yourself away on Edith Allen. You can marry
any girl you please in the city; so, for heaven's
sake (though what heaven had to do with their
advice it is hard to say), don't let her lead you on
to say what you would wish unsaid. Remember
they are no more now than any other poor people,
except that they are refined, etc., but this will only
make poverty harder for them. Of course we are
sorry for them, but in this world people have got
to take care of themselves. So we must be on the
lookout for some one who has money which can't
be sunk in a stock operation as if thrown into the
sea.”

After all this sound reason, poor, weak Gus,
vaguely conscious of his helplessness, as stated by
his father, and quite believing his mother's assurance

that “he could marry any girl he pleased,” was
in no mood to urge the penniless Edith to give him
her empty hand, while before the party, when he
believed it full, he was doing his best to bring her
to this point, though in fact, she gave him little
opportunity.

Edith detected the change, and before very
long, surmised the cause. It made the young girl
curl her lip, and say, in a tone of scorn that would
have done Gus good to hear,—

“The idea of a man acting in this style.”

But she did not care enough about him to receive
a wound of any depth, and with a good-natured
tolerance, recognized his weakness, and
his genuine liking for her, and determined to make
him useful.

Edith was very practical, and possessed of a
brave, resolute nature. She was capable of strong
feelings, but Gus Elliot was not the man to awaken
such in any woman. She liked his company, and
proposed to use him in certain ways. Under her
easy manner, Gus also became at ease, and finding
that he was not expected to propose and be sentimental,
was all the more inclined to be friendly.

“I want you to find me books, and papers also,
if there are any, that tell how to raise fruit,” she
said to him one day.

“What a funny request! I would as soon expect
you would ask for instruction how to drive
four-in-hand.”

“Nothing of that style, henceforth. I must

learn something useful now. Only the rich can
afford to be good-for-nothing, and we are not rich
now.”

“For which I am very sorry,” said Gus, with
some feeling.

“Thank you. Such disinterested sympathy is
beautiful,” said Edith dryly.

Gus looked a little red and awkward, but hastened
to say, “I will hunt up what you wish, and
bring it as soon as possible.”

“You are very good. That is all at present,”
said Edith, in a tone that made Gus feel that it
was indeed all that it was in his power to do for
her at that time, and he went away with a dim
perception that he was scarcely more than her
errand boy. It made him very uncomfortable.
Though he wished her to understand he could not
marry her now, he wished her to sigh a little after
him. Gus' vanity rather resented that, instead of
pining for him, she should set him to work with a
little quiet satire. He had never read a romance
that ended so queerly. He had expected that
they might have a little tender scene over the inexorable
fate that parted them, give and take a
memento, gasp, appeal to the moon, and see each
other's faces no more, she going to the work and
poverty that he could never stoop to from the innate
refinement and elegance of his being, and he
to hunt up the heiress to whom he would give the
honor of maintaining him in his true sphere.

But his little melodrama was entirely spoiled

by her matter-of-fact way, and what was worse still
he felt in her presence as if he did not amount to
much, and that she knew it; and yet, like the
poor moth that singes its wings around the lamp,
he could not keep away.

The prominent trait of Gus' character, as of so
many others in our luxurious age of self-pleasing,
was weakness; and yet one must be insane with
vanity to be at ease, if he can do nothing resolutely,
and dare nothing great. He is a cripple,
and if not a fool, knows it.

During the eventful month that followed Mr.
Allen's death, Mrs. Allen and her daughters led,
what seemed to them, a very strange life. While
in one sense it was real and intensely painful, in
another the experiences were so new and strange,
it all seemed an unreal dream, a distressing nightmare
of trouble and danger, from which they might
awaken to their old life.

Mrs. Allen, from her large circle of acquaintances,
had numerous callers, many coming from mere
morbid curiosity, more from mingled motives, and
not a few from genuine tearful sympathy. To
these “her friends,” as she emphatically called
them, she found a melancholy pleasure in recounting
all the recent woes, in which she ever appeared
as chief sufferer, and chief mourner, though her
husband seemed among the minor losses, and thus
most of her time was spent during the last few
weeks at her old home. Her friends appeared to
find a melancholy pleasure in listening to these details

and then in recounting them again to other
“friends” with a running commentary of their own,
until that little fraction of the feminine world acquainted
with the Allens, had sighed, surmised,
and perhaps gossiped over the “afflicted family”
so exhaustively that it was really time for something
new. The men and the papers down town
also had their say, and perhaps all tried as far as
human nature would permit, to say nothing but
good of the dead and unfortunate.

Laura, after the stinging pain of each successive
blow to her happiness, sank into a dreary apathy,
and did mechanically the few things Edith asked
of her.

Zell lived in varied moods and conditions, now
weeping bitterly for her father, again resenting with
impotent passion the change in their fortunes, but
ending usually by comforting herself with the
thought that Mr. Van Dam was true to her. He
was as true and faithful as an insidious, incurable
disease when once infused into the system. His
infernal policy now was to gradually alienate her
interest from her family and centre it in him.
Though promising nothing in an open, manly way,
he adroitly made her believe that only through
him could she now hope to reach brighter days
again, and to Zell he seemed the one means of escape
from a detested life of poverty and privation.
She became more infatuated with him than ever,
and cherished a secret resentment against Edith
because of her distrust and dislike of him.

The Allens had but few near relatives in the
city at this time, and with these they were not on
very good terms, nor were they the people to be
helpful in adversity. Mr. Allen's partners were men
of the world like himself, and they were also incensed
that he should have been carrying on private
speculations in Wall street to the extent of
risking all his capital. His fatal stock operation,
together with the government confiscation, had involved
them in ruin also, and they had enough to
do to look after themselves. They were far more
eager to secure something out of the general wreck
than to see that anything remained for the family.
The Allens were left very much to themselves in
their struggle with disaster, securing help and
advice chiefly as they paid for it.

Mr. Allen was accustomed to say that women
were incapable of business, and yet here are the
ladies of his own household compelled to grapple
with the most perplexing forms of business or
suffer aggravated losses. Though all of his family
were of mature years, and thousands had been
spent on their education, they were as helpless as
four children in dealing with the practical questions
that daily came to them for decision. At first all
matters were naturally referred to the widow, but
she would only wring her hands and say,—

“I don't know anything about these horrid
things. Can't I be left alone with my sorrow in
peace a few days? Go to Edith.”

And to Edith at last all came till the poor girl

was almost distracted. It was of no use to go to
Laura for advice, for she would only say in dreary
apathy,—

“Just as you think best. Anything you say.”

She was indulging in unrestrained wretchedness
to the utmost. Luxurious despair is so much easier
than painful perplexing action.

Zell was still “the child” and entirely occupied
with Mr. Van Dam. So Edith had to bear the
brunt of everything. She did not do this in uncomplaining
sweetness, like an angel, but scolded
the others soundly for leaving all to her. They
whined back that they “couldn't do anything, and
didn't know how to do anything.”

“You know as much as I do,” retorted Edith.

And this was true. Had not Edith possessed
a practical resolute nature, that preferred any kind
of action to apathetic inaction and futile grieving,
she would have been as helpless as the rest.

Do you say then that it was a mere matter of
chance that Edith should be superior to the others,
and that she deserved no credit, and they no
blame? Why should such all important conditions
of character be the mere result of chance and
circumstance? Would not christian education and
principle have vastly improved the Edith that existed?
Would they not have made the others
helpful, self-forgetting, and sympathetic? Why
should the world be full of people so deformed, or
feeble morally, or so ignorant, as to be helpless?
Why should the naturally strong work with only

contempt and condemnation for the weak? While
many say, “stand aside, I am holier than thou,”
perhaps more say, “stand aside, I am wiser—
stronger than thou,” and the weak are made more
hopelessly discouraged. This helplessness on one
hand, and arrogant fault-finding strength on the
other, are not the result of chance, but of an
imperfect education. They come from the neglect
and wrong-doing of those whose province it
was to train and educate.

If we find among a family of children reaching
maturity, one helpless from deformity, and another
from feebleness, and are told that the parents, by
employing surgical skill, might have removed the
deformity, and overcome the weakness by tonic
treatment, but had neglected to do so, we would
not have much to say about chance. I know of a
poor man who spent nearly all that he had in the
world, to have his boy's leg straightened, and he
was called a “good father.” What are these physical
defects compared with the graver defects of
character?

Even though Mr. Allen is dead, we cannot say
that he was a good father, though he spent so
many thousands on his daughters. We certainly
cannot call Mrs. Allen a good mother, and the
proof of this is that Laura is feeble and selfish, Zell
deformed through lack of self-control, and Edith
hard and pitiless in her comparative strength.
They were unable to cope with the practical questions
of their situation. They had been launched

upon the perilous uncertain voyage of life, without
the compass of a true faith, or the charts of principle
to guide them, and in case of disaster, they
had been provided with no life-boats of knowledge
to save them. They are now tossing among the
breakers of misfortune, almost utterly the sport of
the winds and waves of circumstances. If these
girls never reached the shore of happiness and
safety, could we wonder?

How would your daughter fare, my reader, if
you were gone and she were poor, with her hands
and brain to depend on for bread, and her heart
culture for happiness? In spite of all your providence
and foresight, such may be her situation.
Such becomes the condition of many men's daughters
every day.

But time and events swept the Allens forward,
as the shipwrecked are borne on the crest of a
wave, and we must follow their fortunes. Hungry
creditors, especially the petty ones up town, stripped
them of everything they could lay their hands
on, and they were soon compelled to leave their
Fifth Avenue mansion. The little place in the
country, given to Edith partly in jest by her father
as a birthday present, was now their only refuge,
and to this they prepared to go the first of April.
Edith, as usual, took the lead, and was to go in
advance of the others with such furniture as they
had been able to keep, and prepare for their coming.
Old Hannibal, who had grown grey in the
service of the family, and now declined to leave it,

was to accompany her. On a dark, lowering day,
symbolic of their fortunes, some loaded drays took
down to the boat that with which they would
commence the meagre housekeeping of their poverty.
Edith went slowly down the broad steps
leading from her elegant home, and before she
entered the carriage turned for one lingering, tearful
look, such as Eve may have bent upon the gate
of Paradise closing behind her, then sprang into
the carriage, drew the curtains, and sobbed all the
way to the boat. Scarcely once before, during
that long, hard month, had she so given way to her
feelings. But she was alone now and none could
see her tears and call her weak. Hannibal took
his seat on the box with the driver, and looked
and felt very much as he did when following his
master to Greenwood.