“”Anna,” he said, after a brief silence, during which even my unpracticed eyes could see that an intense struggle was going on in his mind, “Anna, you will have to give up your visit to Saratoga this year.”
“Why, father!” It seemed as if my blood were instantly on fire. My face was, of course, all in a glow. I was confounded, and, let me confess it, indignant; it seemed so like a tyrannical outrage.
“It is simply as I say, my daughter.” He spoke without visible excitement. “I cannot afford the expense this season, and you will, therefore, all have to remain in the city.”
“That’s impossible!” said I. “I couldn’t live here through the summer.”
“I manage to live!” There was a tone in my father’s voice, as he uttered these simple words, partly to himself, that rebuked me. Yes, he did manage to live, but how? Witness his pale face, wasted form, subdued aspect, brooding silence, and habitual abstraction of mind!
“I manage to live!” I hear the rebuking words even now–the tones in which they were uttered are in my ears. Dear father! Kind, tender, indulgent, long-suffering, self-denying! Ah, how little were you understood by your thoughtless, selfish children!
“Let my sisters and mother go,” said I, a new regard for my father springing up in my heart; “I will remain at home with you.”
“Thank you, dear child!” he answered, his voice suddenly veiled with feeling. “But I cannot afford to let any one go this season.”
“The girls will be terribly disappointed. They have set their hearts on going,” said I.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But necessity knows no law. They will have to make themselves as contented at home as possible.”
And he left me, and went away to his all-exacting “business.”
When I stated what he had said, my sisters were in a transport of mingled anger and disappointment, and gave utterance to many unkind remarks against our good, indulgent father. As for my oldest sister, she declared that she would go in spite of him, and proposed our visiting the store of a well-known merchant, where we often made purchases, and buying all we wanted, leaving directions to have the bill sent in. But I was now on my father’s side, and resolutely opposed all suggestions of disobedience. His manner and words had touched me, causing some scales to drop from my vision, so that I could see in a new light, and perceive things in a new aspect.
We waited past the usual time for my father’s coming on that day, and then dined without him. A good deal to our surprise he came home about four o’clock, entering with an unusual quiet manner, and going up to his own room without speaking to any one of the family.
“Was that your father?” We were sitting together, still discussing the question of Saratoga and Newport. It was my mother who asked the question. We had heard the street door open and close, and had also heard footsteps along the passage and up the stairs.
“It is too early for him to come home,” I answered.
My mother looked at her watch, and remarked, as a shade of concern flitted over her face,
“It certainly was your father. I cannot be mistaken in his step. What can have brought him home so early? I hope he is not sick.” And she arose and went hastily from the room. I followed, for a sudden fear came into my heart.
“Edward! what ails you? Are you sick?” I heard my mother ask, in an alarmed voice, as I came into her room. My father had laid himself across the bed, and his face was concealed by a pillow, into which it was buried deeply.
“Edward! Edward! Husband! What is the matter? Are you ill?”
“Oh, father! dear father!” I cried, adding my voice to my mother’s, and bursting into tears. I grasped his hand; it was very cold. I leaned over, and, pressing down the pillow, touched his face. It was cold also, and clammy with perspiration.
“Send James for the doctor, instantly,” said my mother.
“No, no–don’t.” My father partially aroused himself at this, speaking in a thick, unnatural voice.
“Go!” My mother repeated the injunction, and I flew down stairs with the order for James, our waiter, to go in all haste for the family physician. When I returned, my mother, her face wet with tears, was endeavoring to remove some of my father’s outer garments. Together we took off his coat, waistcoat and boots, he making no resistance, and appearing to be in partial stupor, as if under the influence of some drug. We chafed his hands and feet, and bathed his face, that wore a deathly aspect, and used all the means in our power to rekindle the failing spark of life. But he seemed to grow less and less conscious of external things every moment.
When the physician came, he had many questions to ask as to the cause of the state in which he found my father. But we could answer none of them. I watched his face intently, noting every varying expression, but saw nothing to inspire confidence. He seemed both troubled and perplexed. Almost his first act was to bleed copiously.
Twice, before the physician came, had my father been inquired for at the door, a thing altogether unusual at that hour of the day. Indeed, his presence in the house at that hour was something which had not occurred within a year.
“A gentleman is in the parlor, and says that he must see Mr. W—-,” said the waiter, speaking to me in a whisper, soon after the physician’s arrival.
“Did you tell him that father was very ill,” said I.
“Yes; but he says that he must see him, sick or well.”
“Go down and tell him that father is not in a state to be seen by any one.”
The waiter returned in a few moments, and beckoned me to the chamber door.
“The man says that he is not going to leave the house until he sees your father. I wish you would go down to him. He acts so strangely.”
Without stopping to reflect, I left the apartment, and hurried down to the parlor. I found a man walking the floor in a very excited manner.
“I wish to see Mr. W.—-,” said he, abruptly, and in an imperative way.
“He is very ill, sir,” I replied, “and cannot be seen.”
“I must see him, sick or well.” His manner was excited.
“Impossible, sir.”
The door bell rang again at this moment, and with some violence. I paused, and stood listening until the servant answered the summons, while the man strode twice the full length of the parlor.
“I wish to see Mr. W—-.” It was the voice of a man.
“He is sick,” the servant replied.
“Give him my name–Mr. Walton–and say that I must see him for just a moment.” And this new visitor came in past the waiter, and entered the parlor.
“Mr. Arnold!” he ejaculated, in evident surprise.
“Humph! This a nice business!” remarked the first visitor, in a rude way, entirely indifferent to my presence or feelings. “A nice business, I must confess!”
“Have you seen Mr. W.—-?” was inquired.
“No. They say he’s sick.”
There was an unconcealed doubt in the voice that uttered this.
“Gentlemen,” said I, stung into indignant courage, “this is an outrage! What do you mean by it?”
“We wish to see your father,” said the last comer, his manner changing, and his voice respectful.
“You have both been told,” was my firm reply, “that my father is too ill to be seen.”
“It isn’t an hour, as I am told, since he left his store,” said the first visitor, “and I hardly think his illness has progressed so rapidly up to this time as to make an interview dangerous. We do not wish to be rude or uncourteous, Miss W—-, but our business with your father is imperative, and we must see him. I, for one, do not intend leaving the house until I meet him face to face!”
“Will you walk up stairs?” I had the presence of mind and decision to say, and I moved from the parlor into the passage. The men followed, and I led them up to the chamber where our distressed family were gathered around my father. As we entered the hushed apartment the men pressed forward somewhat eagerly, but their steps were suddenly arrested. The sight was one to make its own impression. My father’s face, deathly in its hue, was turned towards the door, and from his bared arm a stream of dark blood was flowing sluggishly. The physician had just opened a vein.
“Come! This is no place for us,” I heard one of the men whisper to the other, and they withdrew as unceremoniously as they had entered. Scarcely had they gone ere the loud ringing of the door bell sounded through the house again.
“What does all this mean!” whispered my distressed mother.
“I cannot tell. Something is wrong,” was all that I could answer; and a vague, terrible fear took possession of my heart.
In the midst of our confusion, uncertainty and distress, my uncle, the only relative of my mother, arrived, and from him we learned the crushing fact that my father’s paper had been that day dishonored at bank. In other words, that he had failed in business.
The blow, long suspended over his head; and as I afterwards learned, long dreaded, and long averted by the most desperate expedients to save himself from ruin, when it did fall, was too heavy for him. It crushed the life out of his enfeebled system. That fearful night he died!
It is not my purpose to draw towards the survivors any sympathy, by picturing the changes in their fortunes and modes of life that followed this sad event. They have all endured much and suffered much. But how light has it been to what my father must have endured and suffered in his long struggle to sustain the thoughtless extravagance of his family–to supply them with comforts and luxuries, none of which he could himself enjoy! Ever before me is the image of his gradually wasting form, and pale, sober, anxious face. His voice, always mild, now comes to my ears, in memory, burdened with a most touching sadness. What could we have been thinking about? Oh, youth! how blindly selfish thou art! How unjust in thy thoughtlessness! What would I not give to have my father back again! This daily toil for bread, those hours of labor, prolonged often far into the night season–how cheerful would I be if they ministered to my father’s comfort. Ah! if we had been loving and just to him, we might have had him still. But we were neither loving nor just. While he gathered with hard toil, we scattered. Daily we saw him go forth hurried to his business, and nightly we saw him come home exhausted; and we never put forth a hand to lighten his burdens; but, to gratify our idle and vain pleasures, laid new ones upon his stooping shoulders, until, at last, the cruel weight crushed him to the earth!
My father! Oh, my father! If grief and tearful repentance could have restored you to our broken circle, long since you would have returned to us. But tears and repentance are vain. The rest and peace of eternity is yours!”