_ 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. _