52. CHAPTER LII.
BREAKERS.
Lawrence Newt had certainly told the truth of his brother's
home. Mr. Boniface Newt had become so surly that it
was not wise to speak to him. He came home late, and was
angry if dinner were not ready, and cross if it were. He
banged all the doors, and swore at all the chairs. After dinner
he told May not to touch the piano, and begged his wife,
for Heaven's sake, to take up some book, and not to sit with
an air of imbecile vacancy that was enough to drive a man
distracted. He snarled at the servants, so that they went
about the house upon tip-toe and fled his presence, and were
constantly going away, causing Mrs. Newt to pass many hours
of the week in an Intelligence Office. Mr. Newt found holes
in the carpets, stains upon the cloths, knocks upon the walls,
nicks in the glasses and plates at table, scratches upon the furniture,
and defects and misfortunes every where. He went
to bed without saying good-night, and came down without a
good-morning. He sat at breakfast morose and silent; or he
sighed, and frowned, and muttered, and went out without a
smile or a good-by. There was a profound gloom in the
house, an unnatural order. Nobody dared to derange the papers
or books upon the tables, to move the chairs, or to touch
any thing. If May appeared in a new dress he frowned, and
his wife trembled every time she put in a breast-pin.
Only in her own room was May mistress of every thing. If
any body had looked into it he would have seen only the traces
of a careful and elegant hand, and often enough he would
have seen a delicate girl-face, almost too thoughtful for so
young a face, resting upon the hand, as if May Newt were
troubled and perplexed by the gloom of the house and the silence
of the household. Her window opened over the street,
and there were a few horse-chestnut trees before the house.
She made friends with them, and they covered themselves with
blossoms for her pleasure. She sat for hours at her window,
looking into the trees, sewing, reading, musing—solitary as a
fairy princess in a tower.
Sometimes flowers came, with Uncle Lawrence's love. Or
fine fruit for Miss May Newt, with the same message. Several
times from her window May had seen who the messenger
was: a young man with candid eyes, with a quick step, and
an open, almost boyish face. When the street was still she
heard him half-singing as he bounded along—as nobody sings,
she thought, whose home is not happy.
Solitary as a fairy princess in a tower, she looked down
upon the figure as it rapidly disappeared. The sewing or the
reading stopped entirely; nor were they resumed when he
had passed out of sight. May Newt thought it strange that
Uncle Lawrence should send such a messenger in the middle
of the day. He did not look like a porter. He was not an
office boy. He was evidently one of the upper-clerks. It was
certainly very kind in Uncle Lawrence.
So thought the solitary Princess in the tower, her mind wandering
from the romance she was reading to a busy speculation
upon the reality in the street beneath her.
The blind was thrown partly back as she sat at the open
window. A simple airy dress, made by her own hands, covered
her flower-like figure. The brown hair was smoothed
over the white temples, and the sweet girl eyes looked kindly
into the street from which the figure of the young man had
just passed. If by chance the eyes of that young man had
been turned upward, would he not have thought—since one
Sunday morning, when he passed her on the way to church,
he was sure that she looked like an angel going home—would
he not have thought that she looked like an angel bending
down toward him out of heaven?
It was not strange that Uncle Lawrence had sent him. For
somehow Uncle Lawrence had discovered that if there was
any thing to go to May Newt, there was nothing in the world
that Gabriel Bennet was so anxious to do as to carry it.
But while the young man was always so glad to go to Boniface
Newt's gloomy house—for some reason which he did not
explain, and which even his sister Ellen did not know—or,
at least, which she pretended not to know, although one evening
that wily young girl talked with brother Gabriel about
May Newt, as if she had some particular purpose in the conversation,
until she seemed to have convinced herself of some
hitherto doubtful point—yet with all the willingness to go to
the house, Gabriel Bennet never went to the office of Boniface
Newt, Son, & Co.
If he had done so it would not have been pleasant to him,
for it was perpetual field-day in the office. A few days after
Uncle Lawrence's visit to his nephew, the senior partner sat
bending his hard, anxious face over account-books and letters.
The junior partner lounged in his chair as if the office had
been a club-room. The “Company” never appeared.
“Father, I've just seen Sinker.”
“D— Sinker!”
“Come, come, father, let's be reasonable! Sinker says that
the Canal will be a clear case of twenty per cent. per annum
for ten years at least, and that we could afford to lose a cent or
two upon the Bilbo iron to make it up, over and over again.”
Mr. Abel Newt threw his leg over the arm of the chair and
looked at his boot. Mr. Boniface Newt threw his head around
suddenly and fiercely.
“And what's Sinker's commission? How much money do
you suppose he has to put in? How much stock will he take?”
“He has sold out in the Mallow Mines to put in,” said
Abel, a little doggedly.
“Are you sure?”
“He says so,” returned Abel. shortly.
“Don't believe a word of it!” said his father, tartly, turning
back again to his desk.
Abel put both hands in his pockets, and both feet upon the
ground, side by side, and rocked them upon the heels backward
and forward, looking all the time at his father. His
face grew cloudy—more cloudy every moment. At length he
said,
“I think we'd better do it.”
His father did not speak or move. He seemed to have
heard nothing, and to be only inwardly cursing the state of
things revealed by the books and papers before him.
Abel looked at him for a moment, and then, raising his
voice, continued:
“As one of the firm, I propose that we sell out the Bilbo
and buy into the Canal.”
Not a look or movement from his father.
Abel jumped up—his eyes black, his face red. He took his
hat and went to the door, saying,
“I shall go and conclude the arrangement!”
As he reached the door his father raised his eyes and looked
at him. The eyes were full of contempt and anger, and a
sneering sound came from his lips.
“You'll do no such thing.”
The young man glanced sideways at his parent.
“Who will prevent me?”
“I!” roared the elder.
“I believe I am one of the firm,” said Abel, coldly.
“You'd better try it!” said the old man, disregarding Abel's
remark.
Abel was conscious that his father had this game, at least,
in his hands. The word of the young man would hardly
avail against a simultaneous veto from the parent. No transaction
would stand a moment under such circumstances. The
young man slowly turned from the door, and fixing his eyes
upon his father, advanced toward him with a kind of imperious
insolence.
“I should like to understand my position in this house,”
said he, with forced calmness.
“Good God! Sir, a bootblack, if I choose!” returned his father,
fiercely. “The unluckiest day of my life was when you
came in here, Sir. Ever since then the business has been getting
more and more complicated, until it is only a question of
days how long it can even look respectable. We shall all be
beggars in a month. We are ruined. There is no chance,”
cried the old man, with a querulous wail through his set teeth.
“And you know who has done it all. You know who has
brought us all to shame and disgrace—to utter poverty;”
and, rising from his chair, the father shook his clenched hands
at Abel so furiously that the young man fell back abashed.
“Don't talk to me, Sir. Don't dare to say a word,” cried
Mr. Newt, in a voice shrill with anger. “All my life has
come to nothing. All my sacrifices, my industry, my efforts,
are of no use. I am a beggar, Sir; so are you!”
He sank back in his chair and covered his face with his
hands. The noise made the old book-keeper outside look in.
But it was no new thing. The hot debates of the private
room were familiar to his ear. With the silent, sad fidelity of
his profession he knew every thing, and was dumb. Not a
turn of his face, not a light in his eye, told any tales to the
most careful and sagacious inquirer. Within the last few
months Mr. Van Boozenberg had grown quite friendly with
him. When they met, the President had sought to establish
the most familiar intercourse. But he discovered that for the
slightest hint of the condition of the Newt business he might
as well have asked Boniface himself. Like a mother, who
knows the crime her son has committed, and perceives that he
can only a little longer hide it, but who, with her heart breaking,
still smiles away suspicion, so the faithful accountant, who
supposed that the crash was at hand, was as constant and
calm as if the business were never before so prosperous.
