Nothing but Money! CHAPTER 19.
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After eating his dinner, Mr. Guyton arose from the table, and coming round to where his wife sat, laid the money which she had refused to take from his hand beside her plate, saying, in his ungracious way, "You see that, don't you?" She did not answer, nor touch the money. "Lydia!"
"Well, sir?" A cold gleam went up into his face. "You see that money?"
"I have eyes."
"Oh, well, I'm glad. Then you see the money. Don't let it go into the fire."
"I would suggest the same to you!" And Mrs. Guyton arose from the table and left the room.
"Did anyone ever see the like of that," muttered Guyton, in a baffled way, as he caught up the bills.
"She doesn't know the use of money, does she, father?" said young Henry.
"O, dear, no!" responded the father, in a half despairing voice.
"She'd waste and scatter faster than ten men could earn," added the boy, drawing from his memory a sentence which he had treasured from his father's lips.
"Yes, faster than forty men!" was answered, in strange thoughtlessness, or indifference, as to the ears that drank in the words.
Guyton went off to his store without seeing his wife again. A little slip of paper, in the hands of a black man, reading thus —
"Due Jim Lane for oysters — $1.40,
Lydia Guyton"
pricked him sharply during the afternoon, and admonished him to settle this question of money on some basis that would be satisfactory to his wife. The due bill annoyance had come to be a source of amusement with the clerks, who all knew him well enough to dislike and despise him; and more than once he caught their smiling interchange of glances, as the demands came in. The meaning of it all, they were not slow in guessing.
"This has gone far enough, Lydia," he said, when they were alone in the evening.
His wife looked at him without answering — looked at him with a cold indifference of manner.
"I wish you to pay for everything as you get it. No more of those bills and due bills. It must be stopped immediately."
No reply.
"Do you understand me, Lydia?"
"I'm not certain that I do."
'"I said, that you must pay for everything as you get it — no more of these bills and due bills."
"Just as you please. It's a matter of indifference to me." Mrs. Guyton's voice was at a dead-level.
Guyton gave utterance to a few words of angry impatience — but they provoked no answer from his wife.
"Make me out a statement of expenses, that I may know what sum to supply. I'm sick of this working in the dark — this pouring out of money in an incessant stream, and seeing it disappear like water in the sand. Here's a small blank book. You must keep an account of what you spend. Set down, on this side, all you receive, and on this side, all you pay out. That's the way to do it. I've wanted this system from the beginning, and said so a hundred times. Now, I insist upon it."
He reached the book towards Lydia, who took it from his hand, and without apparent feeling, tossed it lightly into the grate where a strong fire was burning. The flames curled eagerly around it, and threw a bright glare over the room. Guyton started to his feet, exclaiming in a hot passion,
"Madam! Are you insane!"
Three or four hasty turns were made through the room; then the excited merchant stopped before his wife and confronted her. She sat, with her chin drawn down, looking up to him with a cold smile of triumph in her eyes — a smile so singular and unusual, that he shivered under it into calmness.
"What do you mean, Lydia?" The question was in a greatly subdued tone.
"Nothing but self-protection," she answered.
"Self-protection!" Adam Guyton's lip curled. "You are playing at a bold game, madam; and will, in all probability, find that you have mistaken your man."
"As you have found, already, that you have mistaken your woman. But, we shall see!"
Her tone was implacable.
Guyton endeavored to look his wife down — but failed. There was a new expression in her eyes that he could not fathom, and a meaning in her air, voice, and conduct, that threw him entirely at fault.
"How much money do you need for expenses?" That's the matter in hand, now," he said, recovering himself, and coming back to the theme uppermost in his mind.
"I didn't ask for anything," replied Lydia with irritating indifference.
"Confound it all!" stormed Guyton, breaking away from all self-control. "Are you possessed with devil?"
"Perhaps," his wife answered. And another gleam shot out upon him from her strange eyes.
"Will forty dollars a week supply your needs?" said Guyton, taking out his pocket-book. His manner was changed.
"I have no needs," she answered, with provoking indifference.
"Will forty dollars supply the needs of the family, then? You know what I mean."
"Can't say," replied Mrs. Guyton.
"Can't you guess?"
She merely shook her head.
"Well, here's fifty. That must serve, surely." And Guyton held the money towards his wife. But she did not raise her head.
"Why don't you take it?" he asked.
"I'm neither your slave, nor your dog, nor a beggar, Adam Guyton! Can't you understand me?"
Her eyes flashed; her cheeks burned; her pale lips quivered with feeling. Starting to her feet, with the springy bound of an animal, she stood with him face to face, in attitude and expression proudly defiant. He moved back a step or two.
"No, I don't understand you," Guyton answered. "All this passes my comprehension."
"I'm sorry for you, then. But you will understand me."
"Why don't you take the money?"
"Simply, because it isn't rightly offered. There's to be no more tossing of your dirty rags in my face, Adam Guyton! I'm no beggar to pick up your crumbs; no slave to accept your grudged offerings and be thankful. But your wife and your equal in all things; and as such, I will be treated with respect, if not kindness."
"You will!" Guyton was recovering himself. He retorted with a rising sneer.
Lydia raised her hand in a warning way, and sent a glance through and through her husband. He paused and wavered.
"Please, give a formula, that I may know how to conduct myself." His tone was slightly contemptuous.
"Conduct yourself like a gentleman," was the calm, dignified answer. "That will cover the whole ground. I ask for nothing more — and will accept of nothing less."
A dark scowl settled over the face of Adam Guyton. He found it impossible to go any further in the way across which this new obstruction had been thrown, and so stepped back from it; not, however, in weak acceptance of an ultimatum, but to scheme and plot over the means of getting it out of his road. He was too strong-willed — too much in the habit of compassing his ends, to retire from this field. On the next morning, he again offered money to his wife, saying, now, in a kind, respectful way —
"Here are fifty dollars, Lydia, for expenses."
Mrs. Guyton received the money with a quiet air, and placed it in her pocket.
Three days afterwards, a woman who kept a small dry goods store to which Mrs. Guyton was in the habit of sending or going for tape, needles, trimmings and the like, called on Mr. Guyton at the store, and presented a due bill, signed by his wife, for twenty-seven dollars and a few odd cents. On the same day, the baker dropped in with another due bill, calling for sixteen dollars. Guyton paid them both, without a sign of feeling, just as if disbursements in this way were a part of his system. Already there had been sufficient ofmortifying exposure in the face of his clerks, and he was not inclined to lift the veil again. But, to have due bills to the amount of over forty dollars presented within three days after giving his wife fifty dollars, struck him as a calamity. This was indeed, he felt, like pouring water on the sand.
"If I were a millionaire, I could not stand this!" he said, in his thought. "The woman is losing her senses!"
In the evening, Guyton endeavored to approach his wife with remonstrance on the money question — but she pushed him aside with a cold dignity that chafed him into passion.
"Madam!" he exclaimed, "I will not have my goods wasted — my hard accumulations scattered to the wind!"
Lydia made no response; not even so much as lifting her eyes from the book she was reading.
"Where are the fifty dollars I placed in your hands, day before yesterday?"
No answer — no sign.
"Lydia!"
Mrs. Guyton looked up.
"Did you hear my question?"
She bowed, indifferently.
"Then why don't you speak?"
"You have got to learn another way with me, Adam." Lydia's strangely altered eyes dwelt on her husband's face with so fixed a stare, that he felt the low shudder which had once before crept along his nerves.
"I shall, in all probability, take another way," he answered, a threat half revealing itself in his tones. "As just said, I will not have my hard accumulations scattered to the wind. Justice to myself and children demand restriction. It seems that you are bent on carrying things with a high hand. Nearly a hundred dollars spent in three days, and not a word of explanation. No wonder even your children say, that you waste and scatter faster than ten men can earn."
Mrs. Guyton startled as if stung by a serpent, a sudden paleness overspreading her face.
"My children, Adam?" she said, huskily, and in a voice painful with surprise.
"Yes, your children!" returned her husband, with an air of cruel triumph.
"Who said it? What child? When?" There was a trembling earnestness about Mrs. Guyton, now.
"I heard it with my own ears; that is sufficient. And when things come to the pass that a woman's children remark upon her wasteful use of money, it is about time for the husband to interfere and save himself from ruin — as I shall do."
This was too hard a blow for Mrs. Guyton. She arose, without answering, and left the room. In a few minutes she returned, and handing her husband a small pocket-book, said, in a mild, yet firm voice —
"You will find twenty dollars in that pocket-book, Adam, the remainder of what you gave me day before yesterday. The due bills were in settlement of standing accounts. In the future, you must do all the buying. I shall waste no more of your hard accumulations. What you bring into the house, I will dispense; but not a dollar shall again pass through my fingers. There is such a thing as going too far; and you have stepped over the line."
"Don't play the fool, Lydia," said Guyton, impatiently, tossing back the pocket-book, which fell upon the floor. "I've had enough of your silly airs. You're trifling with the wrong man."
"There's no trifling, Adam, as you will find." Lydia was calm — but resolute of manner. "When my children are brought up as false witnesses against me, it is time that I withdraw from a position that has never been satisfactorily administered — and I do now withdraw."
And leaving her husband, Mrs. Guyton went to her own room. She had been there only a little while, when her cook tapped at the door.
"There's no coffee in the house, ma'am," said cook, on being admitted; "nor any eggs, nor lard; and I don't think we've sugar enough for breakfast. Shall I run round to the store?"
"No, Margaret. See Mr. Guyton, and tell him what is needed. He will attend to these matters hereafter.
The cook stood in unconcealed wonder, gazing at Mrs. Guyton.
"Did you understand me, Margaret?"
"Yes, ma'am. I'm to go to Mr. Guyton."
"That is what I said. If anything is needed in the house, go to him."
The cook lingered for a little while, and then went slowly downstairs. After thinking over the matter tor some time, and wondering what it could mean, she ventured into the presence of Mr. Guyton, who sat in the dining-room, pondering in moody perplexity over this new aspect of affairs. The inflexible persistence of character, united with something in her looks and manner that made him feel uncomfortable, which Mrs. Guyton had shown of late — admonished him that trouble was at hand. Margaret entered, and stood before the master of the house.
"Mrs. Guyton is upstairs," said he, gruffly.
"It's you that I want to see, sir." Margaret spoke in doubt and hesitation.
"Well, say on."
"There's no coffee, nor eggs, nor lard, sir, in the house — and the sugar's out."
Guyton swept around in his chair — he had merely looked at Margaret over his shoulder — and confronted her with a look of halt' angry surprise.
"Mrs. Guyton bid me tell you, sir!" stammered the cook.
"Mis Guyton."
"Yes, sir. I told her about it, and she bid me come to you."
"To me! Aren't you mistaken?"
"Oh no, indeed, sir! She said that when anything was needed in the house, I must come to you."
"When did she say that, Margaret?"
"Just this minute, sir. I told her what we needed, and she sent me to you.
"For money to buy them?" said Guyton.
"No, sir. She didn't say anything about money. She just told me to come to you."
"Will a dollar get what you want?" asked the perplexed man, diving into his pocket.
"Yes sir," replied Margaret.
Guyton handed the cook a dollar, and then went striding, in high feeling, upstairs, to demand of his wife what she meant by all this.
"Nothing more nor less," was her cold answer, "than what I have already declared. You are a hard man for a woman to come in contact with, Adam Guyton — a hard, selfish, iron-hearted man! For years I have been wounded and bruised in the contact. Now, I retire from the strife. Flesh has nothing to gain in reacting upon iron. It must, sooner or later, become paralyzed. If gold is your idol, worship on — I shall be no priestess to keep the fires burning on your unhallowed altars."
It was all in vain that Adam Guyton stormed, threatened, remonstrated — even persuaded. Lydia had retired from the strife. Folding her arms passively, she sat down, in dreamy introversion of state — taking no care or responsibility in her household, and even becoming strangely indifferent towards, and neglectful of her children. The whole care of the household devolved on her husband, who had to order and superintend, as best he could, in every department.
In doing this, however, he had an intelligent auxiliary in Henry, his oldest son, now in his twelfth year — a boy who inherited from his father a strong love of money, with the instinct of hoarding. Guyton could trust Henry. So, to this boy was delegated certain functions in the household. He and his father held a conference every evening, and Henry rendered accounts of expenditure in the various departments over which he had control. He, also, in the capacity of spy, kept his father informed of everything that went on during the hours he was at home from school; and often, through the influence of a morbidly excited imagination, of things that had no existence in reality. Particularly was Henry sharp-eyed in regard to the conduct of his mother; stimulated thereto by the eagerness with which his father listened to every word that threw shadow, blame, or doubt upon her.
So entire a change in the order of life, could not but prove hurtful to a mind already pushed from its even balance. Mrs. Guyton's thought and care in her household, under all the painful obstructions that were in her way, were far better for mental health than this dead level, half forced, half morbid indifference. If, in strife with her husband, the powers of an outraged and starved mind were beginning to show signs of failure — the abandonment of that strife, and the giving up of all interest in external things, was to risk the most fatal consequences. Lydia was not in a condition to have the mental strain removed. Safety was in life and action, even though every heart-stroke lifted itself in pain.
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