62. CHAPTER LXII.
THE CRASH, UP TOWN.
The moment Mrs. Dagon heard the dismal news of Boniface
Newt's failure she came running round to see his wife.
The house was as solemnly still as the store and office down
town. Mrs. Dagon looked in at the parlor, which was darkened
by closed blinds and shades drawn over the windows,
and in which all the furniture was set as for a funeral, except
that the chilly chintz covers were not removed.
She found Mrs. Nancy Newt in her chamber with May.
“Well, well! What does this mean? It's all nothing.
Don't you be alarmed. What's failing? It doesn't mean
any thing; and I really hope, now that he has actually failed
and done with it, Boniface will be a little more cheerful and
liberal. Those parlor curtains are positively too bad! Boniface
ought to have plenty of time to himself; and I hope he
will give more of those little dinners, and cheer himself up!
How is he?”
Mrs. Newt was dissolved in tears. She shook her head
weakly, and rubbed her hands.
“Oh! Aunt Dagon, it's dreadful to see him. He don't
seem himself. He does nothing but sit at the table and drum
with his fingers; and in the night he lies awake, thinking.
And, oh dear!” she said, giving way to a sudden burst of
grief, “he doesn't scold at any thing.”
Mrs. Dagon listened and reflected.
“My dear,” she asked, “has he settled any thing upon you?”
“Nothing,” replied Mrs. Newt.
“Aunt Dagon,” said May, who sat by, looking at the old
lady, “we are now poor people. We shall sell this house, and
go and live in a small way out of sight.”
“Fiddle, diddle! my dear,” returned Mrs. Dagon, warmly;
“you'll do no such thing. Poor people, indeed! Why, May,
you know nothing about these things. Failing, failing; why,
my dear, that's nothing. A New York merchant expects to
fail, just as an English lord expects to have the gout. It isn't
exactly a pleasant thing, but it's extremely respectable. Every
body fails. It's understood.”
“What's understood?” asked May.
“Why, that business is a kind of game, and that every body
runs for luck. Oh, I know all about it, my dear! It's all a
string of cards—as Colonel Burr used to say; and I think if
any body knew the world he did—it's all a string of blocks.
B trusts A, C trusts B, D trusts C, and so on. A tumbles
over, and down go B, and C, and D. That's the whole of it,
my dear. Colonel Burr used to say that his rule was to keep
himself just out of reach of any other block. If they knock
me over, my dear Miss Bunley, he once said to me—ah! May,
what a voice he said it in, what an eye!—if they knock me
over, I shall be so busy picking myself up that I shall be forced
to be selfish, and can't help them, so I had better keep away,
and then I can be of some service. That was Colonel Burr's
principle. He declared it was the only way in which you
could be sure of helping others. People talk about Colonel
Burr. My dear, Colonel Burr was a man who minded his
own business.”
May Newt held her tongue. She felt instinctively that a
woman of sixty-five, who had been trained by Colonel Burr,
was not very likely to accept the opinions of a girl of her years.
Mrs. Newt was feebly rocking herself during the conversation
between her daughter and aunt; and when they had finished
said, despairingly,
“Dear me! what will people say? Oh! I can't go and
live poor. I'm not used to it. I don't know how.”
“Live poor!” sniffed Mrs. Dagon; “of course you won't
live poor. I've heard Boniface say often enough that it was
too bad, but it was a world of good-for-nothing people; and
you don't think he's going to let good-for-nothing people drive
him from a becoming style of living? Fiddle! I'd like to see
him undertake to live poor.”
“Do you think people will come to see us?” gasped Mrs.
Newt.
“Come? Of course they will. They'll all rush, the first
thing, to see how you take it. Why, such a thing as this is a
godsend to 'em. They'll have something to talk about for a
week. And they'll all try to discover if you mean to sell out
at auction. Oh, they will be so sorry!” said the old lady, imitating
imaginary callers; “`and, my dear Mrs. Newt, what
are you going to do? And to think of your being obliged to
leave this lovely house!' Come?—did you ever know the
vultures not to come to a carcass?”
Mrs. Nancy Newt looked appalled; and so energetic was
Mrs. Dagon in her allusion to vultures and carcass, that her
niece unconsciously put to her nose the smelling-bottle she
held in her hand.
“Oh, it's dreadful!” she sighed, rocking and smelling, and
with the tears oozing from her eyes.
“Fiddle! I won't hear of it. 'Tain't dreadful. It's nothing
at all. You must go out with me and make calls this
very morning. It's none of your business. If your husband
chooses to fail, let him fail. He can't expect you to take to
making shirts, and to give up society. I shall call at twelve
in the carriage; and, mind, don't you look red and mopy.
Remember. So, good-morning! And, May, I want to speak
to you.”
They left Mrs. Newt rocking and weeping, with the smelling-bottle
at her nose, and descended to the solemn parlor.
“What brought this about?” asked Mrs. Dagon, as she
closed the door. “Your mother is in such a state that it
does no good to talk to her. Where's Abel?”
“Aunt Dagon, I have my own opinion, but I know nothing.
I suppose Abel is down town.”
“What's your opinion?”
May paused for a moment, and then said:
“From what I have heard drop from father during the last
few years since Abel has been in the business, I don't believe
that Abel has helped him—”
“Exactly,” interrupted Mrs. Dagon, as if soliloquizing; “and
why on earth didn't the fellow marry Hope Wayne, or that
Southern girl, Grace Plumer?”
“Abel marry Hope Wayne?” asked May, with an air and
tone of such utter amazement and incredulity that Aunt Dagon
immediately recovered from her abstraction, and half smiled.
“Why, why not?” said she, with equal simplicity.
May Newt knew Hope Wayne personally, and she had also
heard of her from Gabriel Bennet. Indeed, Gabriel had no secrets
from May. The whole school story of his love had been
told to her, and she shared the young man's feeling for the
woman who, as a girl, had so utterly enthralled his imagination.
But Gabriel's story of school life also included her brother
Abel, and what she heard of the boy agreed with what she
knew and felt of the man.
“I presume,” said May Newt, loftily, “that Hope Wayne
would be as likely to marry Aaron Burr as Abel Newt.”
Mrs. Dagon looked at her kindly, and with amused admiration.
“Well, May, at any rate I congratulate Gabriel Bennet.”
May's lofty look drooped.
“And if”—continued Mrs. Dagon—“if it was so wonderfully
impossible that Abel should marry Hope Wayne, why
might he not have married Grace Plumer, or some other rich
girl? I'm sure I don't care who. It was evidently the only
thing for him, whatever it may be for other people. When
you are of my age, May, you will rate things differently.
Well-bred men and women in society ought to be able to marry
any body. Society isn't heaven, and it's silly to behave as
if it were. Your romance is very pretty, dear; we all have it
when we are young, as we have the measles and the whooping-cough.
But we get robust constitutions, my dear,” said the
old lady, smiling kindly, “when we have been through all
that business. When you and Gabriel have half a dozen children,
and your girls grow up to be married, you'll understand
all about it. I suppose you know about Mellish Whitloe and
Laura Magot, don't you, dear?”
May shook her head negatively.
“Well, they are people who were wise early. Just after
they were married he said to her, `Laura, I see that you are
fond of this new dance which is coming in; you like to waltz.'
`Yes, I do,' said she. `Well, I don't like it, and I don't want
you to waltz.' She pouted and cried, and called him a tyrant.
He hummed Yankee Doodle. `I will waltz,' said she at length.
`Very well, my dear,' he answered. `I'll make a bargain with
you. If you waltz, I'll get drunk.' You see it works perfectly.
They respect each other, and each does as the other wishes.
I hope you'll be as wise with Gabriel, my dear.”
“Aunt, I hope I shall never be as old as you are,” said May,
quietly. “I'd rather die.”
Mrs. Dagon laughed her laugh. “That's right, dear, stand
by your colors. You're all safe. Gabriel is Lawrence's partner.
You can afford to be romantic, dear.”
As she spoke the door opened, and Abel entered. His dress
was disordered, his face was flushed, and his manner excited.
He ran up to May and kissed her. She recoiled from the unaccustomed
caress, and both she and Mrs. Dagon perceived in
his appearance and manner, as well as in the odor which presently
filled the room, that Abel was intoxicated.
“May, darling,” he began in a maudlin tone, “how's our
dear mother?”
“She's pretty well,” replied May, “but you had better not
go up and see her.”
“No, darling, I won't go if you say not.”
His eyes then fell uncertainly upon Mrs. Dagon, and he
added, thickly,
“That's only Aunt Dagon. How do, Aunt Dagon?”
He smiled at her and at May, and continued,
“I don't mind Aunt Dagon. Do you mind her, May?”
“What do you want, Abel?” asked May, with the old expression
sliding into her eyes that used to be there when she
sat alone—a fairy princess in her tower, and thought of many
things.
Abel had seated himself upon the sofa, with his hat still on
his head. There was perhaps something in May's tone that
alarmed him, for he began to shed tears.
“Oh! May, don't you love your poor Abel?”
She looked at him without speaking. At length she said,
“Where have you been?”
“I've been to General Belch's,” he sobbed, in reply; “and
I don't mind Aunt Dagon, if you don't.”
“What do you mean by that, you silly fool?” asked Mrs.
Dagon, sharply.
Abel stopped and looked half angry, for a moment, but immediately
fell into the old strain.
“I mean I'd just as lieve say it before her.”
“Then say it,” said May.
“Well, May, darling, couldn't you now just coax Gabriel—
good fellow, Gabriel—used to know him and love him at
[ILLUSTRATION]
"Rep-Rep-Sentive Ofs-Ofs-Dear Pe-Pe."
[Description: 538EAF. Page 365. In-line Illustration. Image of a young man partially reclined on a sofa. His eyes are closed and he is fully dressed in suit and coat. His top hat lies on the floor near his hand.]
school—couldn't you coax him to get Uncle Lawrence to do
something?”
May shook her head. Abel began to snivel.
“I don't mean for the house. D—n it, that's gone to smash.
I mean for myself, May, for your poor brother Abel. You
might just try.”
He lay back and looked at her ruefully.
“Aunt Dagon,” she said, quietly, “we had better go out
of the room. Abel, don't you come up stairs while you are in
this state. I know all that Uncle Lawrence has done for father
and you, and he will do nothing more. Do you expect
him to pay your gambling debts?” she asked, indignantly.
Abel raised himself fiercely, while the bad blackness filled
his eyes.
“D—d old hunks!” he shouted.
But nobody heard. Mrs. Dagon and May Newt had closed
the door, and Abel was left alone.
“It's no use,” he said, moodily and aloud, but still thickly.
“I can't help it. I shall have to do just as Belch wishes. But
he must help me. If he expects me to serve him, he must
serve me. He says he can—buy off—Bodley—and then—why,
then—devil take it!” he said, vacantly, with heavy eyes, “then
—then—oh yes!” He smiled a maudlin smile. “Oh yes! I
shall be a great—a great—great—man—I'll be—rep—rep—
sentive—ofs—ofs—dear pe—pe.”
His head fell like a lump upon the cushion of the sofa, and
he breathed heavily, until the solemn, dark, formal parlor
smelled like a bar-room.
