Nothing but Money! CHAPTER 11.
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The moody silence that followed the scene of strife about money between Mr. and Mrs. Guyton, had been prolonged to nearly an hour, when the street door bell was heard to ring loudly.
"Who is it?" asked Mr. Guyton, as a servant entered the room where they were sitting.
"A man wants to see you, sir." "What's his business?" "He did not say."
Adam Guyton, with no pleasing aspect of countenance, for the interruption came upon a scheme of profit half thought out, went into the hall, where he found a bad-looking stranger standing near the vestibule.
"Well, sir?" Adam Guyton had already learned the purse-proud art of being rude to people whom men of his class consider as of little account in the world, except as hewers of wood and drawers of water, and so spoke roughly to the man. Without answering, the visitor handed him a letter.
"What's this?" Guyton broke the seal and read —
"Dear Sir — I am, unfortunately, in the hands of an officer, arrested for a debt of ninety-three dollars, and will go to prison tonight unless I get bail. Will you come to my relief, and save me from this disgrace, and my family from mortification and distress? The bearer will accompany you to the office where I am held. I am grieved to trouble you — but the extremity admits of no alternative.
Truly,
Edward Hofland."
Adam Guyton read the letter hastily, and then folding it in a resolute manner thrust it back upon the man, saying coldly —
"I know nothing about it."
"Then you will not post his bail?"
"No, sir! That's a thing I never do. Good evening!" And the merchant turned from the messenger, who went muttering from the house.
"Who was it?" asked Mrs. Guyton, as her husband returned; but he made no answer. For nearly ten minutes he sat with his chin on his bosom — his usual position during the silent evenings spent at home — then, with a curl of the lip, and a veiled pleasure in his tones, he said —
"The Doctor has reached the end of his rope at last."
"Who? What Doctor?"
"Doctor Hofland."
"What about him, Adam?"
"He's in the hands of a constable, and likely to get some experience in jail life."
"What! Oh, Adam! A painful expression contracted the face of Mrs. Guyton.
It's nothing more than I've expected. He and his wife began in extravagance and wasteful self-indulgence, and have kept on the same way steadily. No other result could follow. The Doctor has made his bed — now let him lie in it. It will do him good. Men of his class never grow wise until they get a few hard knocks. A short term in jail will make him a wiser and a better man."
"Oh, Adam! How can you talk so coldly!" said Mrs. Guyton, showing still greater distress of mind. "Please, go to his rescue! Don't let an old friend be dealt with so cruelly. What is the debt?"
"I made a vow ten years ago, and by my life I'll keep it!" was the emphatic answer; "a vow never to endorse or be security for any man. If my own brother were in Doctor Hofland's place, I'd say as I do now — 'He's made his bed — let him lie in it!' Men like him waste their substance, and run in debt; and then, debt penalties lash them into something like prudence and honesty. I don't pity him in the least."
"Oh, Adam! Adam! Think of his wife and children!" Mrs. Guyton wrung her hands, as she looked at her husband through pleading eyes.
"His wife is as much to blame as himself. Diane was idle and extravagant from the beginning," was the hard reply. "Let her feel some of the consequences of her own folly; it will make her a better woman, I trust. No, no — the causes of this trouble are with themselves, and with themselves must rest the consequences. I shall not help them, if the Doctorrots in jail."
A shudder ran through the frame of Mrs. Guyton, and she threw up her hands in half instinctive horror, as if a monster were before her.
"You needn't whimper to me, Madam, nor put on any of your distressed looks," said Adam Guyton, coldly and cruelly, as his wife essayed once more to reach him. "The Doctor's path and mine diverged years ago, and will never run side by side, nor cross again. I want nothing from him, and he will get nothing from me. If he bids for the jail or the almshouse, in heaven's name let him take his choice; I won't put a feather in his way."
Mrs. Guyton, seeing that no impression could be made on her husband, and pained beyond endurance by the thought of Diane's distress — old, tender feelings were rushing back upon her heart for Diane, between whom and herself circumstances, not alienations, had interposed barriers difficult to pass — left the room and went to her chamber. All her sympathies were quickened into life — sympathies, which contact with sordidness, narrow selfishness, and hard fighting with an enemy that always seemed on the eve of victory, had only palsied, not destroyed — and she was moved by an irrepressible desire to go to her friend, and offer comforting words, even if she had no power to give aid in her extremity. Hope in her husband, there was none. She knew that what he had said, he would not gainsay. In all his denunciations of Doctor Hofland, there lay, only half concealed in his tones, a cruel pleasure.
"Poor Diane! poor Diane!" she sobbed, as her pitying heart ran over through her eyes.
"If I had power to aid you, Heaven knows how speedily help would come."
Then, after weeping for awhile, she said resolutely,
"I must go to Diane in her dreadful extremity. I must know all about this trouble in which the Doctor is involved. If I cannot help them with money, I may help by sympathy or suggestion."
Hastily putting on her bonnet and cloak, Mrs. Guyton left the chamber, and was coming lightly downstairs, when she met her husband, through whose mind had passed a suspicion of just this course on the part of his wife.
"Where are you going?" he asked, knitting his brows.
"Out for a little while," Lydia answered.
"Where?"
"It doesn't matter. I shall not be gone long."
"Going out, and alone, at this time of night! I think it does matter. Answer plainly, can't you? A husband has some right to question as to where his wife goes at an hour like this."
"I am going to see my friend Diane, if you must know." Mrs. Guyton looked unflinchingly at her husband, and spoke like a woman in earnest.
"And I say you are not going!"
"Adam Guyton!"
"Lydia Guyton!"
Defiantly they gazed in each other's faces for several moments.
"You must not go, Lydia!"
"Why?"
"Let them alone! They have only themselves to blame. Diane is as criminal as her husband, and as deserving of a just punishment."
"Criminal, Adam?"
"Yes, criminal! Haven't they been living on other people's means, and that without consent? Does a thief do more? The law has laid its hard grip on them, and I say it is well. The law is no respecter of persons; those who violate it must take the penalty. I would not interpose a feather to hinder its free course — no, not a feather, in any case. Not in the case of my best friend, even. Let the criminal be punished; it is our only social safety. Let Doctor Hofland be punished, I say. If he will wrong other people — let him feel the lash. Go back to your room, and don't play the weak fool; the matter is no concern of yours."
"It does concern me, Adam, that a dear friend is in trouble, and, right or wrong, I must go to Diane," answered Mrs. Guyton.
"You shall not go! There! I have said it again, and by all that is sacred, I will keep my word!" and striding to the door, Guyton locked it, and drew out the key. "Now, Madam!"There was a hard, cruel look in his eyes, as he turned to Lydia.
Poor woman! She was not strong enough for open contention with a nature like this man's. She would have gone against his will, and braved the after-consequences, if she could have been free of present obstruction; but, face to face with his iron resolution, she found herself like a reed in the wind.
"Cruel of heart!" Lydia moaned out the words in a bitter wail, as, covering her face with her hands, she sunk upon the stairs.
Adam walked two or three times the full length of the hall, in unusual disturbance of manner; then stopping before his wife, he said, "Lydia!"
But she gave no response.
"Lydia! Do you hear me!"
She crouched on the stairs, her face hidden in her hands, still and statue-like.
"Lydia, I say!" He stamped his foot in out-leaping anger; but she stirred not, spoke not. A shade of concern swept over his face, as he stood looking at her motionless figure.
"Come, come child! this is weak folly — get up!" He had stepped across the hall, and laid a hand upon her arm. A great change was apparent in his voice; it was soft with persuasion. But there came no response. The arm was nerveless, and offered no resistance.
"Lydia!" Something like alarm was now manifest. He lifted her face; it was white! and the dark fringe of her lashes lay as still as if penciled above her cheeks.
"Good heavens! Lydia! Child! Lydia! What ails you? Are you sick?"
As he tried to raise her up, the nerveless form slid from his arms, and he caught it back with an eager grasp, just preventing its heavy fall upon the passage floor. Lifting the fragile body — how light it was! — he bore it to a chamber above. Cold water dashed in the face; friction of the hands, feet and limbs; with other rapidly succeeding means of restoration, gave motion in time to the impeded life-circle, and the pulses began again their feeble beat.
"Poor Diane!" Her heart was still with her old friend. They were the first words that parted her pale lips, in returning consciousness.
Poor Lydia, rather! If Diane had come into a piteous strait — how much more piteous was the strait of Lydia! It was, in the one case — but as the falling of a summer storm, or the closing of a summer day; the storm would pass and leave the sky clearer than before — the night give place to morning. But, for Lydia, the sky was leaden with perpetual clouds and unceasing rain — for Lydia, it was Arctic night and winter! The sun of earthly love went down long ago, never to bless her eyes in reappearing. Her path was in darkness, and she must grope on painfully to the end.
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