The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 03, No. 16, February, 1859

Fletcher started as though he would return to his place of business. But Sandford dropped his smooth and honeyed tone and spoke more decidedly.

"You can't blind me, Fletcher. You know what the bears are doing. They are ruining everything, knocking down prices, destroying credit, using what little money there is for speculation, thriving on the distress of the public. It's no better than highway-robbery; and it's my belief you are concerned in the plot."

"You had better go to the nobs, and not talk to me. You might as well pitch into the tellers or messengers when the banks suspend payment."

"No,—I shan't let you off. The 'nobs,' as you call them, dare not be seen in this matter; they will pocket the chestnuts, but they will get some cat's-paw to rake them out of the ashes."

"Well, what are you going to do about it?"

Fletcher was astonished at his own temerity as soon as he had uttered the words; but his prosperity and the support of Bullion had given him some courage.

"Do? you scoundrel!" said Sandford, in a rage that rarely overtook him. "What am I going to do? I'll break every bone in your skin, if you don't give up this plot you are in. Do you dare to set yourself to put me down? Don't let any of your tools dare to run my stocks! If you do, I'll go to a magistrate and have you arrested."

"When I am arrested, my good Sir," said Fletcher, with a face pale as death, but with lips firmly set, "I advise you to have your accounts ready. For I shan't be in the jug a minute before you'll have to show your papers and your cash-book to the Company."

Sandford staggered as though he had received a blow from a bruiser. He gasped for breath,—turned pale, then red,—at length with difficulty said, "You defy me, then? We shall see!"

"You have it;—I defy you, hate you, despise you! I have been your slave long enough. Do your worst. But the instant you move, I promise you that a man will look after you, d—d quick."

Sandford looked around. Tonsor was calmly counting the pile of bank-notes before him. It was near eleven. This Board would soon commence its session. He stepped into the street, slamming the door after him.

"Pretty well, for a beginning!" said Fletcher, meditating, "a shot betwixt wind and water. So much for Bullion's advice. Bullion is a trump, and Sandford be hanged!"

CHAPTER XIII.

SED REVOCARE GRADUM!—

The fatigue, drenching, and terror of the unlucky day's sail produced their natural effects upon a rather delicate constitution. Miss Sandford was ill the following day, and, in spite of the doctors, a fever set in. Her sister-in-law was assiduous in her attentions, and Greenleaf called daily with inquiries and tender messages. While thus occupied, he had little time to consider the real state of his feelings towards the new love, still less to reflect upon his conduct towards the old. For the first time in his life he became a coward. If he meant to abide by his last engagement, honor should have led him to break the unwelcome news to Alice as best he might, and extricate himself from his false and embarrassing position. If he still loved the girl of his first choice, and felt that his untruth to her was only the result of a transient, sensuous passion, it was equally plain that he must resolutely break away from the beautiful tempter. But he oscillated, pendulum-like, between the two. When Marcia began to recover, and he was allowed to see her in her chamber, the influence she had at first exerted returned upon him with double force. In her helplessness, she appealed powerfully to the chivalric sentiment which man feels towards the dependent; her tones, softened by affection and tremulous from weakness, thrilled his soul; and the touch of her hand was electric. When he returned to his studio, as he thought of the trustful, unsuspecting, generous heart of Alice, he was smitten with a pang of remorse too keen to be borne. He tried to look at her picture, but the face was to him like the sight of a reproving angel. He could not look steadily upon the placid features; the calm eyes turned his heart to stone; the sweet mouth was an accuser he dared not face. But when next he saw Marcia, all was forgotten; while under her spell he could have braved the world, only too happy to live and die for her.

For days this struggle continued. His art had no power to amuse him or engross his thought. His friends were neglected,—Easelmann with the rest. His enemy could not have wished to see him more completely miserable. He knew that he must decide, must act; but whatever might be his determination, he had a most painful duty to perform. Let him do what he might, he must prove himself a villain. He loathed, detested himself. Sometimes he was tempted to fly; but then he reflected that he should in that way prove a scoundrel to two women instead of one. For three weeks he had not written to Alice, and the last letter he had received from her was now a month old. He took it from his pocket, where it lay among the perfumed and tinted evidences of his unfaithfulness. It was a simple thing, but how the gentle words smote upon his heart!

"MY DEAR GEORGE, (her dear George!)—How I wish I could be with you, to rejoice over your success! You are really a great artist, the papers say, and are becoming famous! Not that I love you the more for that. If you were still unknown to the world, still only a lover of beauty for its own sake, and content with painting for your own pleasure, I am not sure that I should not love you the more. But you will believe me, that I am proud of your success. If I am ambitious, it is for you. I would have the world see and know you as I do. Yet not as I do,—nobody can do that. To the world you are a great painter. To me—ah, my dearest George!—you are the noblest and truest heart that ever woman rested upon. Nobody but me knows that. I shall be proud of the homage the world gives you, because at the same time I shall say, 'That is my betrothed, my husband, whom they praise; what his heart is, no woman knows but me'"–

He could read no farther. His emotions were too powerful to be borne in silence. He yielded, and, strong man as he was, bowed his head and wept. The tears of childhood, and oftentimes the tears of woman, lie shallow; they come at the first bidding of sorrow or sympathy. But it is no common event, no common feeling, that prevails over man; nothing less than a convulsion like an earthquake unseals the fountain of tears in him. Whoever has seen the agony of a manly nature in groans and tears and sobs has something to remember for a life-time.

It was a long night,—a night of unutterable suffering, struggle, and doubt. The hours seemed shod with lead. Sleep seemed banished from the universe. But with the coming of dawn the tempest was stilled. In the clear light of day the path of duty seemed plain. He felt sure that in his heart of hearts he loved Alice, and her only. He would go at once to Marcia and tell her of his perfidy, implore the forgiveness of silence and charity, and bid her farewell. When he had reached this conclusion he became calm. As he looked out from his window, he saw the world awake from slumber, and he shared in the gladness of Nature. He even rejoiced in the prospect of deliverance from his wretched condition, although he well knew the humiliation he must pass through to attain it. He waited impatiently for the hour when he could present himself before Marcia, own his duplicity, and take leave of her. He felt strong in his new resolution. All vacillation was past. He could face any temptation without one flutter of inconstancy towards his first-love.

Greenleaf was not the only one in the city with whom the night had passed heavily. The cloud still hung over the mercantile world. Failures, by dozens, were announced daily. Men heard the dismal intelligence, as in time of pestilence they would hear the report of the dead and dying. No business-man felt secure. No amount of property, other than ready money, was any safeguard. Neighbor met neighbor, asking, with doleful accent, "Where is this going to end?" The street, at 'change hours, presented a crowd of haggard faces, furrowed with care, their eyes fixed and despairing. Some looked white with apprehension, some crushed and tearful, others stony, sullen, or defiant. Whatever was bravest had been drawn out in manly endeavor; whatever was most generous was excited to sympathy and brotherly-kindness; whatever was most selfish was stimulated by the fierce desire for self-preservation; whatever was most fiendish was roused by blind rage and useless resentment. In the halcyon days of plenty and prosperity men know little of each other; trade has its accustomed way; balances are smoothly adjusted; notes are given and paid with smiling faces; one would think that honor and manliness were the commonest of qualities. Now, every man was put to the severest proof, and showed the inborn and essential traits of his nature. Like a ship's crew on a raft, alone on the ocean without provisions, they looked at each other as they were. There, in their extremity, were to be seen calm resignation, unmanly terror, moody despair, turbulent passion, and stealthy, fiendish glances that blinked not at cannibalism itself.

Mr. Sandford, almost for the first time in his life, had been rendered nervous with apprehension. To be sure, he was not one of the "sleek-headed men that sleep o' nights"; he was always busy with some scheme; but, heretofore, success had followed every plan, and he had gone on with steadfast confidence. Now the keenest foresight was of no avail; events defied calculation; misfortunes came without end and without remedy. It was the moment of fate to him. He had gone to the last verge, exhausted every resource, and, if there were not some help, as unlooked for as a shower of gold from heaven, he must stop payment —he, whose credit had been spotless and without limit, whose name in the financial world was honor itself, whose influence had been a tower of strength in every undertaking. It was not without a struggle that he brought himself to look this inexorable fact in the face. Marcia and his sister-in-law heard him as he paced the room through the night; they had noticed his abstracted and downcast air the preceding evening; and at breakfast the few words that escaped from between his firm-set lips were sufficiently ominous. It was the first morning that Marcia had appeared at the table, and in her feeble condition the apprehension of danger was intense and overpowering. Mrs. Sandford tried in vain to change the conversation, by significant glances towards the invalid; but the brother was too much absorbed to notice anything outside of the gloomy circle that hemmed him in. Muttering still of "ruin," "beggary," and similar topics, so admirably adapted to cheer the convalescent, he swallowed his breakfast like an animal, left the room without his usual bland "good morning," and slammed the street-door after him.

A fit of hysterics was the natural consequence. The kind and sisterly widow bore, rather than led, Marcia to an upper room, propped her with pillows in an arm-chair, and employed every tender and womanly art to soothe her excited nerves. Calmness came, but only with exhaustion. The door-bell rang. Mrs. Sandford gave an inaudible direction to the servant. But Marcia exclaimed, "It is George! I heard his step on the pavement. I must see him. Let him in." Mrs. Sandford remonstrated to no purpose, and then went to her own room.

It was "George." He entered the room with a pale face, and a look betokening both suffering and resolution. He was evidently struck by the appearance of Miss Sandford, rightly judging that she was not able to bear what he had come to tell her. He would have uttered a few commonplace courtesies, and deferred his weighty communication to another time. But Marcia's senses were preternaturally sharpened; weak as a vine without its trellis, instinct seemed to guide her to clasp by every tendril the support to which she had been wont to cling. She noticed a certain uneasiness in Greenleaf's demeanor; ready to give the worst interpretation to everything, she exclaimed, in a quick, frightened manner, "George, dear George, what is the matter? You are cold, you are distant. Are you in trouble, too, like all the world?"

"Deeply in trouble," he answered gravely,—still standing, hat in hand.

"Trouble that I cannot soothe?"

"I am afraid not."

"And you won't tell me?"

"Not to-day."

"Then you don't love me."

Greenleaf was silent; his lips showing the emotion he strove to control. Her voice took a more cheerful tone, as if she would assure herself, and, with a faint smile, she said,—

"You are silent; but I am only childish. You do love me,—don't you, George?"

"As much as I ever did."

A mean subterfuge; for though it was true, perhaps, to him, he knew it was a falsehood to her. She attempted to rise from her chair; he sprang to support her.

"You are so gloomy, reserved, to-day!" she continued.

Still Greenleaf was silent. He aided her to resume her seat; but when he had done so, she detained him, seizing his arm and then his hand. His heart beat rapidly, and he turned away his head to avoid the fond but keen scrutiny of her eyes,—at the same time gently, but ineffectually, attempting to free his hand. Once more he resolved, since the conversation had taken such a turn, to risk the consequences, and prepare her mind for a separation. But a sudden thought struck her, and, before he could frame a sentence, she spoke:—

"You have heard bad news this morning?"

He shook his head.

"No,—I know you are not mercenary; I would not wrong you with the suspicion."

"What suspicion, pray?" he asked, turning suddenly towards her.

"You have not heard?"

"I have heard nothing."

"Pity my foolishness. But my brother is in difficulty; he may fail; perhaps has failed even now. Pray, don't chide me for my fears. All the world goes with the rich and the prosperous."

"The world has very little company just now, then," said Greenleaf, with a grim smile. "But assure yourself," he continued; "the dowry of my wife is a matter I have never considered. With the woman I love," said he, with deep emphasis, "honest poverty is what I do not dread."

Interpreting this fervent declaration in the natural way, Marcia reached forth her arms with sudden fervor, drew him nearer, and covered his forehead, lips, and cheeks with kisses. Every kiss fell like a spot of mildew on his flesh; her caresses filled him with shame. Could he undeceive her? In her feeble condition, the excitement into which she had been thrown by her brother's danger was all she could bear. False as his position was, heartless and empty as his soothing words and caresses were, he must continue to wear the mask, and show himself as he was at some time when she had no other trouble to weigh her down. Still she chid his gloomy reserve, his absent air, and mechanical movements. Was he weak, if under such influences his fixed resolves bent?—if his nerves felt the old thrill?—if his voice took a softer tone?—and if he parted from her with something of his former tenderness? He tried to excuse himself to his conscience by the plea, that the deception once begun must be kept up until it could be ended with safety. For he saw that her heart was really bound up in him. She no longer kept up the brilliant fence of repartee; she had abandoned all coquettish arts, and, for once at least, was sincerely, fondly, even foolishly, in love. Home he went, sadder than before, his conscience yet more aroused, and his resolutions farther than ever from accomplishment.

Poor little Alice!

CHAPTER XIV.

EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF

Mr. Sandford walked towards his office, that fine autumn morning, in no amiable mood. Nature seemed to protest against his angry violence; the very stones of the pavement seemed to say,—"He need not thump us in that way; we can't pay his notes." The trees along Mount Vernon Street rustled their leaves with a shudder, as he passed under them; they dropped no benison upon a face which even the golden morning could not lighten. "Let him stride on!" said they; "we shall be more cheerful in company with the maids washing the sidewalks or taking out the children (blessed darlings!) for an airing." Canaries ceased their songs in the windows; urchins stopped their hoops and stood on the curbstones, eyeing the gloomy man askance. When he passed the Granary Burying-Ground, he saw a squirrel dart down a tree, and scamper over the old graves in search of some one of his many stores; then rising on his haunches, he munched the pea-nut which he had unearthed, (the gift of some schoolboy, months ago,) as much as to say, "We know how to look out for hard times; but what have you done with your pea-nuts, old fellow, that you look so cross? Can't get 'em, eh? You should put 'em where you'll know where they are." A whisk of his tail and he flew up the tree. The lesson was lost upon the financier. At the office-door he met Bullion,—his face a trifle more ruddy, his eye with a colder glitter, and his queer eyebrow pointing with an odder significance.

"How are you, Sandford?"—A very short nod.—"Cool, this morning."– Standing with his dumpy legs apart, he nibbled at the ivory head of his cane.

"Mr. Bullion," said Sandford, "you must help me. You must lift that note. Come, I know you can do it,—and I'll make it worth your while."