71. CHAPTER LXXI.
RICHES HAVE WINGS.
They rang at the door of Boniface Newt. It was quite late
in the evening, and when they entered the parlor there were
several persons sitting there.
“Why! father and mother!” exclaimed Gabriel, who was
sitting in a remote dim corner, and who instantly came forward,
with May Newt following him.
Mrs. Newt rose and bowed a little stiffly, and said, in an
excited voice, that really she had no idea, but she was very
happy indeed, she was sure, and so was Mr. Newt. When she
had tied her sentence in an inextricable knot, she stopped and
seated herself.
Boniface Newt rose slowly and gravely. He was bent like
a very old man. His eye was hard and dull, and his dry voice
said:
“How do you do? I am happy to see you.”
Then he sat down again, while Lawrence went up and shook
hands with the new-comers. Boniface drummed slowly upon
his knees with the long, bony white fingers, and rocked to and
fro mechanically, as he sat.
When Lawrence had ended his greetings there was a pause.
Mrs. Newt seemed to be painfully conscious of it. So did
Mr. Bennet, whose eyes wandered about the room, resting
for a few instants upon Boniface, then sliding toward his
wife. Boniface himself seemed to be entirely unconscious of
any pause, or of any person, or of any thing, except some
mysterious erratic measure that he was beating with the bony
fingers.
“It is a great while since we have met, Mrs. Newt,” said
Mrs. Bennet.
“Yes,” returned Mrs. Nancy Newt, rapidly; “and now that
we are to be so very nearly related, it is really high time that
we became intimate.”
She looked, however, very far off from intimacy with the
person she addressed.
“I am glad our children are so happy, Mrs. Newt,” said
Gerald Bennet, in a tremulous voice, with his eyes glimmering.
“Yes. I am glad Gabriel's prospects are so good,” returned
Mrs. Newt. “I've no doubt he'll be a very rich man
very soon.”
When she had spoken, Boniface Newt, still drumming,
turned his face and looked quietly at his wife. Nobody
spoke. Gabriel only winced at what May's mother had said;
and they all looked at Boniface. The old man gazed fixedly
at his wife as if he saw nobody else, and as if he were repeating
the words to which the bony fingers beat time. He said,
in a cold, dry voice, still beating time,
“Riches have wings! Riches have wings!”
“I'm sure, Boniface, I know that, if any body does,” said
his wife, pettishly, and in a half-whimpering voice. “I think
we've all learned that.”
“Riches have wings! Riches have wings!” he said, beating
with the bony fingers.
“Really, Boniface,” said his wife, with an air of offended
propriety, “I see no occasion for such pointed allusions to our
misfortunes. It is certainly in very bad taste.”
“Riches have wings! Riches have wings!” persisted her
husband, still gazing at her, and still beating time with the
white bony fingers.
Mrs. Newt's whimpering broadened into crying. She sat
weeping and wiping her eyes, in the way which used to
draw down a storm from her husband. There was no storm
now. Only the same placid stare—only the same measured
refrain.
“Riches have wings! Riches have wings!”
Lawrence Newt laid his hand gently on his brother's arm.
[ILLUSTRATION]
"Riches have Wings!"
[Description: 538EAF. Page 402. In-line Illustration. Image of a balding man sitting in a chair with his hands on his knees. He has a large frown on his face.]
“Boniface, you did your best. We all did what we thought
best and right.”
The old man turned his eyes from his wife and went on silently
drumming, looking at the wall.
“Nancy,” said Lawrence, “as Mr. and Mrs. Bennet are about
to be a part of the family, I see no reason for not saying to
them that provision is made for your husband's support. His
affairs are as bad as they can be; but you and he shall not
suffer. Of course you will leave this house, and—”
“Oh dear! What will people say? Nobody'll come to see
us in a small house. What will Mrs. Orry say?” interrupted
Mrs. Newt.
“Let her say what she chooses, Nancy. What will honest
people say to whom your husband owes honest debts, if you
don't try to pay them?”
“They are not my debts, and I don't see why I should
suffer for them,” said Mrs. Newt, vehemently, and crying.
“When I married him he said I should ride in my carriage;
and if he's been a fool, why should I be a beggar?”
There was profound silence in the room.
“I think it's very hard,” said she, querulously.
It was useless for Lawrence to argue. He saw it, and merely
remarked,
“The house will be sold, and you'll give up the carriage and
live as plainly as you can.”
“To think of coming to this!” burst out Mrs. Newt afresh.
But a noise was heard in the hall, and the door opened to
admit Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Dinks.
It was the first time they had entered her father's house
since her marriage. May, who had been the last person Fanny
had seen in her old home, ran forward to greet her, and
said, cheerfully,
“Welcome home, Fanny.”
Mrs. Dinks looked defiantly about the room. Her keen
black eyes saw every body, and involuntarily every body
looked at her—except her father. He seemed quite unconscious
of any new-comers. Alfred's heavy figure dropped into
a chair, whence his small eyes, grown sullen, stared stupidly
about. Mrs. Newt merely said, hurriedly, “Why Fanny!”
and looked, from the old habit of alarm and apprehension, at
her husband, then back again to her daughter. The silence
gradually became oppressive, until Fanny broke it by saying,
in a dull tone,
“Oh! Uncle Lawrence.”
He simply bowed his head, as if it had been a greeting.
Mr. Bennet's foot twitched rather than wagged, and his wife
turned toward him, from time to time, with a tender smile.
Mrs. Newt, like one at a funeral, presently began to weep
afresh.
“Pleasant family party!” broke in the voice of Fanny, clear
and hard as her eyes.
“Riches have wings! Riches have wings!” repeated the
gray old man, drumming with lean white fingers upon his
knees.
“Will nobody tell me any thing?” said Fanny, looking
sharply round. “What's going to be done? Are we all
beggars?”
“Riches have wings! Riches have wings!” answered the
stern voice of the old man, whose eyes were still fixed upon
the wall.
Fann turned toward him half angrily, but her black eyes
quailed before the changed figure of her father. She recalled
the loud, domineering, dogmatic man, insisting, morning and
night, that as soon as he was rich enough he would be all that
he wanted to be—the self-important, patronizing, cold, and unsympathetic
head of the family. Where was he? Who was
this that sat in the parlor, in his chair, no longer pompous and
fierce, but bowed, gray, drumming on his thin knees with lean
white fingers?
“Father!” exclaimed Fanny, involuntarily, and terrified.
The old man turned his head toward her. The calm, hard
eyes looked into hers. There was no expression of surprise,
or indignation, or forgiveness—nothing but a placid abstraction
and vagueness.
“Father!” Fanny repeated, rising, and half moving toward
him.
His head turned back again—his eyes looked at the wall—
and she heard only the words, “Riches have wings! Riches
have wings!”
As Fanny sank back into her chair, pale and appalled, May
took her hand and began to talk with her in a low, murmuring
tone. The others fell into a fragmentary conversation,
constantly recurring with their eyes to Mr. Newt. The talk
went on in broken whispers, and it was quite late in the evening
when a stumbling step advanced to the door, which was
burst open, and there stood Abel Newt, with his hat crushed,
his clothes soiled, his jaw hanging, and his eyes lifted in a
drunken leer.
“How do?” he said, leaning against the door-frame and
nodding his head.
His mother, who had never before seen him in such a condition,
glanced at him, and uttered a frightened cry. Lawrence
Newt and Gabriel rose, and, going toward him, took his arms
and tried to lead him out. Abel had no kindly feeling for
either of them. His brow lowered, and the sullen blackness
shot into his eyes.
“Hands off!” he cried, in a threatening tone.
They still urged him out of the room.
“Hands off!” he said again, looking at Lawrence Newt, and
then in a sneering tone:
“Oh! the Reverend Gabriel Bennet! Come, I licked you
like — like — like hell once, and I'll — I'll — I'll — do it again.
Stand back!” he shouted, with drunken energy, and struggling
to free his arms.
But Gabriel and Lawrence Newt held fast. The others
rose and stood looking on, Mrs. Newt hysterically weeping,
and May pale with terror. Alfred Dinks laughed, foolishly,
and gazed about for sympathy. Gerald Bennet drew his
wife's arm within his own.
The old man sat quietly, only turning his head toward the
noise, and looking at the struggle without appearing to see
it.
Finding himself mastered, Abel swore and struggled with
drunken frenzy. After a little while he was entirely exhausted,
and sank upon the floor. Lawrence Newt and Gabriel
stood panting over him; the rest crowded into the hall. Abel
looked about stupidly, then crawled toward the staircase, laid
his head upon the lower step, and almost immediately fell into
a deep, drunken slumber.
“Come, come,” whispered Gerald Bennet to his wife.
They took Mrs. Newt's hand and said Good-by.
“Oh, dear me! isn't it dreadful?” she sobbed. “Please
don't say any thing about it. Good-night.”
They shook her hand, but as they opened the door into the
still moonlight midnight they heard the clear, hard voice in
the parlor, and in their minds they saw the beating of the
bony fingers.
“Riches have wings! Riches have wings!”
