Read the book: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 03, No. 19, May, 1859», page 10
CHAPTER XXVIII
Fletcher rose next morning betimes, after a night of fitful and unrefreshing slumber. In his dreams he had sought Bullion in vain; that substantial person seemed to have become a new Proteus, and to escape, when nearly overtaken, by taking refuge in some unexpected transformation. Sometimes the scene changed, and it was the dreamer that was flying, while Sandford, shod with swiftness, pursued him, swinging a lasso; and as often as the fierce hunter whirled the deadly coil, Fletcher awoke with a suffocating sensation, and a cold sweat trickling from his forehead. At breakfast, his wife noticed with intense anxiety his sharpened features and his evident preoccupation of mind. He hurried off, snatching a kiss from the baby and from the mother who held it, and walked towards Bullion's office. He knew Bullion was an early riser, and he felt sure of being able to see him before the usual hour of commencing business. But the office was not even opened; and, looking through the glass door, he saw that there was no fire in the grate. What was the meaning of this? Going into the street, he met Tonsor near the post-office. At the first sight of the broker's face, Fletcher's heart seemed to stop beating.
"Good-morning, Fletcher. Bad business, this! I suppose you've heard. Bullion went to protest yesterday. Hope you got wind of it in time, and made all safe."
"Bullion failed!" exclaimed Fletcher, through his chattering teeth.
"Then I'm a ruined man!"
But a sudden thought struck him, and he asked eagerly,—
"But the money,—haven't you got it still?"
"No,—paid it over yesterday."
"Well, the shares, then?"
"No,—sorry to say, Bullion's clerk came for them not ten minutes before I heard of the protest."
"O God!" groaned the unhappy man, "there is no hope! But you, Mr. Tonsor, you are my friend; help me out of this! You can raise the money."
"Ten thousand dollars! It's a pretty large sum. I'm afraid I couldn't get it."
"Try, my friend,—you shall never regret it."
Tonsor hesitated, and Fletcher's spirits rose. He watched the broker's composed face with eyes that might pierce a mummy.
"What is the collateral?" asked Tonsor, slowly raising his wrinkled eyelids.
"Bullion's notes for seventeen thousand dollars."
"And Bullion gone to protest."
"He'll come up again."
"Perhaps; but while he is down, I can't do anything with his paper. The truth is, Fletcher, you ought not to have advanced the money for him. Remember, I warned you when you were about to do it."
Fletcher did not look as though he found the "Balm of I-told-you-so" very consoling.
Tonsor continued,—
"Now, if I were in your place, I would go and make a clean breast of it to Danforth. It was wrong, though I know you didn't mean any harm. He may be angry, but he won't touch you. You can't raise ten thousand dollars in these times,—not to save your soul."
"Keep your advice, and your money, too," said Fletcher, in sullen despair. "I ask for bread, and you give me a stone. Your moral lecture won't pay my debts."
He turned away abruptly and went again to Bullion's office. It was still closed. Determined at all hazards to see the man for whom he had risked so much, he went to his house on Beacon Hill. The servant said Mr. Bullion was not at home. Fletcher did not believe it, but the door was closed in his face before he could send a more urgent message, and with a sinking heart he retraced his steps towards State Street.
The horror of his position was now fully before him. He could not conceal his defalcation, and there was no longer a shadow of hope of replacing the money. Many a time he had taken the risk of lending large sums to brokers and others; but who would trust him, a man without estate, in a time like this? In his terrible anxiety about the new obligation, he had forgotten the old, until he chanced to observe Sandford on the opposite sidewalk, strolling leisurely towards the business quarter of the town. The ex-secretary made a barely-perceptible bow, and, drawing out his watch, significantly turned the face towards his debtor. It was enough; there was no need of words. It was a little after ten o'clock; the fatal letter would be delivered at eleven! Fletcher crossed the street and accosted Sandford, though not without trepidation; for he shuddered like a swimmer within reach of a shark, as he encountered those cold and pitiless eyes.
"Come to the office, Mr. Sandford, at eleven," he said. "The affair will be settled then, and forever."
Mr. Sandford nodded and walked on. Fletcher, meanwhile, quivering with agony, hurried to his employer's office. He scanned each face sharply as he entered, and felt sure that the loss had not yet been discovered. Going to his desk, he wrote and sealed a letter, and then went out, saying he had some business with a lawyer overhead.
Mrs. Fletcher grew momently more uneasy, after her husband left the house. A vague sense of coming evil oppressed her, until at length she could bear it no longer; she left her child with the servant, and, walking to the nearest stand, took a coach for State Street. On the way she recalled again and again the muttered words she heard during the night; she thought of the silent, comfortless breakfast, the hurried good-bye; she felt again the pressure of his trembling lips upon her own. Full of apprehension, she asked the coachman to call her husband to the door. Answer was made by a clerk that Mr. Fletcher was out on business, but was expected back presently. So she waited, looking out of the carriage-window,—a sad face to see! The hands of the Old State-House clock pointed at eleven, when Mr. Sandford punctually made his appearance,—smooth, cheerful, and with a slight exhilaration, in prospect of the two thousand dollars. Almost at the same moment Bullion came also; for Tonsor, fearing that Fletcher would take some desperate step, had been to the surly bankrupt's house and insisted upon his coming down to see his unfortunate agent. Just at the office-door, and opposite the carriage, met the two bankrupts, the disgraced "bull" and the vanquished "bear." It was an odd look of recognition that was exchanged between them; and if there was a shade of triumph in Sandford's face, it was not to be wondered at. They stood at the door, each motioning the other to enter first, when an unusual sound from the adjoining entry caused both of them to stop, and one of them, at least, to shiver. It was a sound of slow and hesitating, shuffling steps, as of men carrying a burden. The steps came nearer. Both Bullion and Sandford moved hurriedly to the spot. The men stopped in the doorway with their burden, and in a moment, with frantic shrieks, Mrs. Fletcher rushed in and fell upon the body of her husband!
"Good God! what's this?" exclaimed Bullion. "Dead?" He stooped down and thrust his hand under the waistcoat. The heart was still! He shuddered convulsively and drew back, covering his eyes. "Dead!"
Mr. Sandford seemed frozen to the threshold in speechless horror. There was his debtor, free,—the old account settled forever! The pallid temples would throb no more; the mobile lips had trembled their last; the glancing, restless eyes had found a ghastly repose; the slender and shapely frame, bereft of its active tenant, was limp and unresisting. What a moment for the two men, as they stood over the corpse of their victim!
Attracted by the unusual outcry, Mr. Danforth came hastily out of the office, and stood, as it were, transfixed at the sight of the dead. The men who had brought down the body at last found words to tell their dismal story.
They were at work on the upper floor, when they heard a noise in one of the adjoining rooms; as the apartment had been for some time unoccupied, they were naturally surprised. After a while all sounds ceased, and still no one came out to descend the stairs. Appalled by the silence, they broke open the door, and discovered Fletcher hanging by the neck from a coat-hook; a chair, overturned, had served as the scaffold from which he had stepped into eternity. They took him down, but life was already gone. A paper lay on his hat, with these words hastily pencilled on it:—
"On my desk is a letter that explains all. I'm off. Good-bye.
"JOHN FLETCHER."
Mr. Danforth, hearing this, instantly went into his office, and reappeared, reading a note addressed to him. Mr. Sandford, meanwhile, was striving to raise the wretched woman to her feet, and to lead her to the carriage. Mr. Bullion no longer whisked his defiant eyebrow, but stood downcast, silent, and conscience-stricken.
"Listen a moment," said Mr. Danforth. "Here is a letter from our rash friend, and, as it concerns you, gentlemen, I will read it. But first, my dear Madam, let me help you into the carriage."
The prostrate woman made no answer, save by a slow rolling of her body,—her sobs continuing without cessation. The letter was read:—
"MR. DANFORTH,
"To make a payment for shares bought by Mr. Bullion, I borrowed ten thousand dollars from your house yesterday. Mr. Bullion has failed, and does not protect me. He escapes, and I am left in the trap. I charge him to pay my wife the notes he owes me. As he hopes to be saved, let him consider that a debt of honor.
"But my death I lay at Sandford's door. He has followed me with a steady bay, like a bloodhound. His claim is now settled forever, as I told him. I don't ask God to forgive him;—I don't, and God won't. Let him live, the cold-blooded wretch that he is; one world or another would make no difference; for, to a devil like him, there is no heaven, no earth, nothing but hell.
"My poor wife! See to her, if you have any pity for
"JOHN FLETCHER."
"Look," said Mr. Danforth, holding the letter under the stony eyes of Sandford,—"see where the tears blistered the paper!"
All the while, Mrs. Fletcher kept up an inarticulate moaning, though the sound grew fainter from exhaustion.
"Let us stop this," said Bullion, seeing the gathering crowd of passers-by. "Better be at home."
Pointing to the still prostrate woman, he, with Mr. Danforth, gently raised her up and placed her in the carriage. She did not speak, but murmured pleadingly, while her face wore a look of agonized longing, and her outstretched hands clutched nervously.
"Poor thing!" said Mr. Danforth, his voice beginning to tremble,—"she shall have her dead husband, if it is any comfort to her."
"That's right," said Bullion,—"carry him off before half-a-dozen coroner-buzzards come to fight over him."
The body was laid in the carriage, the head she had so often caressed resting in her lap, while her tears bathed the unconscious face, and her groans became heart-rending. Still holding the carriage-door, Mr. Danforth turned to Sandford, saying,—
"I don't know what you have done, but his blood is on your soul. I would rather be like him there, than you, on your feet.—Bullion, I don't mind the ten thousand dollars; but was it just the manly thing to leave a man that trusted you in this way to be sacrificed? Why didn't you come down this morning? God forgive you!—Coachman, drive to Carleton Street."
He stepped into the carriage, and away it rolled with its load of sorrow.
Mr. Sandford found the glances of his companion and the bystanders quite uncomfortable, and he slunk silently away. Failure and disgrace he had met; but this was a position for which he had not the nerve. The self-accusing Cain was not the only man who has exclaimed, "My punishment is greater than I can bear." Flight was the only alternative for Sandford. As long as he remained in Boston, every face seemed to wear a look of condemnation. The mark was set upon him, and avenging fiends pursued him. That very day he left the city in disguise. Through what trials he passed will never be known. But destitute, friendless, and broken-spirited, he wandered from city to city, a vagabond upon the face of the earth. Nor did a sterner retribution long delay. In New Orleans, he was so far reduced that he was obliged to earn a miserable support in an oyster-saloon near the levee. One night, a fight began between some drunken boatmen: and Sandford, though in no way concerned in the affair, received a chance bullet in his forehead, and fell dead without a word.
CHAPTER XXIX
Bullion, at last, in spite of his armor of selfishness and stoicism, was touched in a vital part. His dreams of wealth had vanished into air. The confederate in New York in whom he had trusted had only made him a dupe. Blindly following out his agreement, he found himself saddled with a load of railroad-shares, useless for any present purpose, and all his convertible property gone. The consciousness that he—the man of all others who prided himself upon his sagacity—had been so easily overreached was quite as humiliating as the idea of ruin itself. He remembered Kerbstone's appeals, also, and now cursed his own stupidity in refusing to aid him. There he had overreached himself; it was his own stocks which he had thrown down to the "bears." And now, heaviest stroke of all, Fletcher, his intrepid and chivalrous agent, who had stepped into the breach for him, had paid for his indiscretion with his life. The thought gave him a pang he had never felt, not even when he followed his wife to the grave. Homeward he went, but slowly and almost without volition. He recognized no acquaintances that he met, but walked on abstractedly, fixing his eyes on vacancy with a look as mournful as his iron features could wear. In his ears still rang those thrilling cries. His hand, that had groped over that motionless heart, still felt a creeping chill; it would not warm. And constantly an accusing voice asked, "Why didn't you come down?"—and conscience repeated the question in tones like those of a judge arraigning a criminal. He reached his house and gave orders that no one should be admitted. In his room he passed the day alone, drifting on an ocean of remorse, full of vague purposes of repentance and restitution. Dinner passed unheeded, and still he paced the silent chamber. With the approach of evening his terrors increased; he rang for a servant and had the gas-burners lighted. Still, in all the blaze, shapes would haunt him; they crouched at the foot of his bed; they lurked behind his wardrobe-door. He dared not look over his shoulder, but forced himself to stand up and face what he so dreaded to see. He rang again and bade the servant bring a screw-driver and take down the coat-hooks from the wardrobe; the garments hanging there seemed to be men struggling in the agonies of asphyxia. The slender thread of sound from the gas-burners seemed to be changed to low, mournful cries, as of a woman over the dead. He turned the gas down a little; then the shadows of the cannel-coal fire danced like spectres on the ceiling. He jumped up and raised the lights again; again the low, dismal monotone sang in his ears. He stopped them with his fingers; again the persistent voice asked, "Why didn't you come down?" Flakes fell off the coal in the grate in shapes like coffins; the flames seemed to dart at him with their fiery tongues. He rang once more, and when the servant came he bade him drink enough strong tea and then take his chair by the fire.
"Touch me, if I groan," said he to the astonished John. "Keep awake yourself, and hold your tongue. If you go to sleep or leave me, I'll murder you."
Then wrapping himself in his dressing-gown, he settled down in his easy-chair for the night.
The night passed, as all nights will, and in the morning Mr. Bullion was calmer. The first intelligence he received after breakfast was in a message from Tonsor, delivered by a servant.
"Plaze, Sur, Mr. Tonsor's compliments, and he says the banks is suspinded and money's to be asier."
"Send after Mr. Tonsor; overtake him, and ask him to come back. I want to see him."
Tonsor returned, and they had a long conference. It now seemed probable that stocks would be more buoyant and the "bulls" would have their turn. Any considerable rise in shares would place Bullion on his feet and enable him to resume payment. Most of his time-contracts had been met, and the change would be of the greatest service to him. He placed his shares, therefore, in Tonsor's hands with instructions to sell when prices advanced. He then looked over the amount of his liabilities, and saw, with some of his old exultation, that, if he could effect sales at the rates he expected, he should have at least two hundred thousand dollars after paying all his debts. Ambition again whispered to him, that he might now take his old place in the business world, and perhaps might more than retrieve his losses. But he thought of the last night, and shrank from encountering a new brood of horrors. Firm in his new purpose, he dismissed the broker and sent for his counsellor.
"My son," he meditated, "is a lawyer in good practice. He needs no fortune. Twenty thousand will be enough for him; more than I had, which wasn't a penny. My daughter is married rich. Didn't mean to have any pauper son-in-law to be plaguing me. The same for her. The rest will square those old accounts,—and the new one, too, on the book up yonder! Best to fix it now, while I can muster the courage. If I once get the money, I'm afraid I shouldn't do it. So my will shall set all these matters right; and it shall be drawn and signed to-day."
That night Mr. Bullion needed no servant to watch with him. The ghosts were laid.
[To be concluded in the next number.]
* * * * *
INSCRIPTION
FOR AN ALMS-CHEST MADE OF CAMPHOR-WOOD
This fragrant box that breathes of India's balms
Hath one more fragrance, for it asketh alms;
But, though 'tis sweet and blessed to receive,
You know who said, "It is more blest to give":
Give, then, receive His blessing,—and for me
Thy silent boon sufficient blessing be!
If Ceylon's isle, that bears the bleeding trees,
With any perfume load the Orient breeze,—
If Heber's Muse, by Ceylon as he sailed,
A pleasant odor from the shore inhaled,—
More lives in me; for underneath my lid
A sweetness as of sacrifice is hid.
Thou gentle almoner, in passing by,
Smell of my wood, and scan me with thine eye;—
I, too, from Ceylon bear a spicy breath
That might put warmness in the lungs of death;
A simple chest of scented wood I seem,
But, oh! within me lurks a golden beam,—
A beam celestial, and a silver din,
As though imprisoned angels played within;
Hushed in my heart my fragrant secret dwells;
If thou wouldst learn it, Paul of Tarsus tells;—
No jangled brass nor tinkling cymbal sound,
For in my bosom Charity is found.
* * * * *
A TRIP TO CUBA.
THE DEPARTURE
Why one leaves home at all is a question that travellers are sure, sooner or later, to ask themselves,—I mean, pleasure-travellers. Home, where one has the "Transcript" every night, and the "Autocrat" every month, opera, theatre, circus, and good society, in constant rotation,—home, where everybody knows us, and the little good there is to know about us,—finally, home, as seen regretfully for the last time, with the gushing of long frozen friendships, the priceless kisses of children, and the last sad look at dear baby's pale face through the window-pane,—well, all this is left behind, and we review it as a dream, while the railroad-train hurries us along to the spot where we are to leave, not only this, but Winter, rude tyrant, with all our precious hostages in his grasp. Soon the swift motion lulls our brains into the accustomed muddle; we seem to be dragged along like a miserable thread pulled through the eye of an ever-lasting needle,—through and through, and never through,—while here and there, like painful knots, the dépôts stop us, the poor thread is arrested for a minute, and then the pulling begins again. Or, in another dream, we are like fugitives threading the gauntlet of the grim forests, while the ice-bound trees essay a charge of bayonets on either side; but, under the guidance of our fiery Mercury, we pass them as safely as ancient Priam passed the outposts of the Greeks,—and New York, as hospitable as Achilles, receives us in its mighty tent. Here we await the "Karnak," the British Mail Company's new screw-steamer, bound for Havana, viâ Nassau. At length comes the welcome order to "be on board." We betake ourselves thither,—the anchor is weighed, the gun fired, and we take leave of our native land with a patriotic pang, which soon gives place to severer spasms.
I do not know why all celebrated people who write books of travels begin by describing their days of sea-sickness. Dickens, George Combe, Fanny Kemble, Mrs. Stowe, Miss Bremer, and many others, have opened in like manner their valuable remarks on foreign countries. While intending to avail myself of their privilege and example, I would, nevertheless, suggest, for those who may come after me, that the subject of sea-sickness should be embalmed in science, and enshrined in the crypt of some modern encyclopaedia, so that future writers should refer to it only as the Pang Unspeakable, for which vide Ripley and Dana, vol. –, page –. But, as I have already said, I shall speak of sea-sickness in a hurried and picturesque manner, as follows:—
Who are these that sit by the long dinner-table in the forward cabin, with a most unusual lack of interest in the bill of fare? Their eyes are closed, mostly, their cheeks are pale, their lips are quite bloodless, and to every offer of good cheer, their "No, thank you," is as faintly uttered as are marriage-vows by maiden lips. Can they be the same that, an hour ago, were so composed, so jovial, so full of dangerous defiance to the old man of the sea? The officer who carves the roast-beef offers at the same time a slice of fat;—this is too much; a panic runs through the ranks, and the rout is instantaneous and complete. The ghost of what each man was disappears through the trap-door of his state-room, and the hell which the theatre faintly pictures behind the scenes begins in good earnest.
For to what but to Dante's "Inferno" can we liken this steamboat-cabin, with its double row of pits, and its dismal captives? What are these sighs, groans, and despairing noises, but the alti guai rehearsed by the poet? Its fiends are the stewards who rouse us from our perpetual torpor with offers of food and praises of shadowy banquets,—"Nice mutton-chop, Sir? roast-turkey? plate of soup?" Cries of "No, no!" resound, and the wretched turn again, and groan. The philanthropist has lost the movement of the age,—keeled up in an upper berth, convulsively embracing a blanket, what conservative more immovable than he? The great man of the party refrains from his large theories, which, like the circles made by the stone thrown into the water, begin somewhere and end nowhere. As we have said, he expounds himself no more, the significant fore-finger is down, the eye no longer imprisons yours. But if you ask him how he does, he shakes himself, as if, like Farinata,—
"avesse l' inferno in gran dispetto,"—
"he had a very contemptible opinion of hell." Let me not forget to add, that it rains every day, that it blows every night, and that it rolls through the twenty-four hours till the whole world seems as if turned bottom upwards, clinging with its nails to chaos, and fearing to launch away. The captain comes and says,—"It is true, you have a nasty, short, chopping sea hereabouts; but you see, she is spinning away down South jolly!" And this is the Gulf-Stream!
But all things have an end, and most things have two. After the third day, a new development manifests itself. Various shapeless masses are carried upstairs and suffered to fall like snow-flakes on the deck, and to lie there in shivering heaps. From these larvae gradually emerge features and voices,—the luncheon-bell at last stirs them with the thrill of returning life. They look up, they lean up, they exchange pensive smiles of recognition,—the steward comes, no fiend this time, but a ministering angel, and, lo! the strong man eats broth, and the weak woman clamors for pickled oysters. And so ends my description of our sea-sickness.
For, as for betraying the confidences of those sad days, as for telling how wofully untrue Professors of Temperance were to their principles, how the Apostle of Total Abstinence developed a brandy-flask, not altogether new, what unsuccessful tipplings were attempted in the desperation of nausea, and for what lady that stunning brandy-smasher was mixed,—as for such tales out of school, I would have you know that I am not the man to tell them.
Yet a portrait or so lingers in my mental repository;—let me throw them in, to close off the lot.
No. 1. A sober Bostonian in the next state-room, whose assiduity with his sea-sick wife reminds one of Cock-Robin, when he sent Jenny Wren sops and wine. This person was last seen in a dressing-gown, square-cut night-cap, and odd slippers, dancing up and down the state-room floor with a cup of gruel, making wild passes with a spoon at an individual in a berth, who never got any of the contents. Item, the gruel, in a moment of excitement, finally ran in a stream upon the floor, and was wiped up by the steward. Result not known, but disappointment is presumable.
No. 2. A stout lady, imprisoned by a board on a sofa nine inches wide, called by a facetious friend "The Coffin." She complains that her sides are tolerably battered in;—we hold our tongues, and think that the board, too, has had a hard time of it. Yet she is a jolly soul, laughing at her misfortunes, and chirruping to her baby. Her spirits keep up, even when her dinner won't keep down. Her favorite expressions are "Good George!" and "Oh, jolly!" She does not intend, she says, to lay in any dry goods in Cuba, but means to eat up all the good victuals she comes across. Though seen at present under unfavorable circumstances, she inspires confidence as to her final accomplishment of this result.
No. 3. A woman, said to be of a literary turn of mind, in the miserablest condition imaginable. Her clothes, flung at her by the stewardess, seem to have hit in some places, and missed in others. Her listless hands occasionally make an attempt to keep her draperies together, and to pull her hat on her head; but though the intention is evident, she accomplishes little by her motion. She is perpetually being lugged about by a stout steward, who knocks her head against both sides of the vessel, folds her up in the gangway, spreads her out on the deck, and takes her up-stairs, down-stairs, and in my lady's chamber, where, report says, he feeds her with a spoon, and comforts her with such philosophy as he is master of. N.B. This woman, upon the first change of weather, rose like a cork, dressed like a Christian, and toddled about the deck in the easiest manner, sipping her grog, and cutting sly jokes upon her late companions in misery,—is supposed by some to have been an impostor, and, when ill-treated, announced intentions of writing a book.
No. 4, my last, is only a sketch;—circumstances allowed no more. Can Grande, the great dog, has been got up out of the pit, where he worried the stewardess and snapped at the friend who tried to pat him on the head. Everybody asks where he is. Don't you see that heap of shawls yonder, lying in the sun, and heated up to about 212 degrees Fahrenheit? That slouched hat on top marks the spot where his head should lie,—by treading cautiously in the opposite direction you may discover his feet. All between is perfectly passive and harmless. His chief food is pickles,—his only desire is rest. After all these years of controversy, after all these battles, bravely fought and nobly won, you might write with truth upon this moveless mound of woollens the pathetic words from Père la Chaise:—Implora Pace.
But no more at present, for land is in sight, and in my next you shall hear how we found it, and what we saw at Nassau.
