Nothing but Money! CHAPTER 3.
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Lydia did not feel more peaceful, for this morning visit from her friend. Some things that Diane said, particularly about her husband, remained distinctly in her thoughts. The promise of money was fairer for Adam and herself, than it was for Doctor Hofland and his wife; but the promise for happiness was on the other side. At dinner time, as Adam Guyton and his wife sat at the table, on which their meal was laid, Lydia referred to the call she had received from her friend Diane.
"Playing the lady," said Adam, sententiously.
"How? What do you mean ?" Lydia did not clearly understand her husband.
"Aping rich and fashionable people," replied Adam, "in morning calls, when she ought to be at home attending to her house, and aiding her husband. She keeps a servant, which will cost for hire and board, not less than two hundred dollars in the year — more, I'll warrant you, than the Doctor's practice will yield him in that time. Now, I don't call any woman, who is so idle and extravagant, a good wife. Instead of helping her husband to succeed, she will help to keep his nose always on the grindstone. That is not like you, dear."
This last approving sentence, spoken in a gentler tone than he had used in condemning Diane, softened the shock of language that was felt as a harsh and unjust judgment.
"It is not as I am doing, Adam," she returned, "But, all are not alike in this world, you know."
"And all do not end up alike. As we sow in this world — so will we reap, Lydia. Can thrift come as a result of idleness, waste, and extravagance? Never! The Doctor and his wife are beginning wrong, and they will end up wrong — mark my word for it! Diane is just as able to do the light work of their household, as he is to meet the demands of his profession. Does he hire a man to make his pills and spread his plasters? I have no patience with women who commit such folly! Gadding about the street, and making morning calls! Bah! It nauseates me, this pretense of gentility. I thought better of Diane. Why, if you were to set up to play the lady after this fashion, Lydia, the house would soon be too hot to hold us. I wonder at the Doctor for submitting to such a state of things."
"It is all right in his eyes, I presume," said Lydia.
"Then they're a couple of blind fools! That's the best I can say for them."
As the young man remarked this, his eyes lighted on the bouquet of flowers which Diane had brought for her friend, and which had been placed in a glass of water on the mantelpiece.
"Ha! More flowers! Where did they come from?"
"Diane gave them to me." The blood crimsoned over Lydia's face.
"Humph! She bought them, no doubt."
"The Doctor bought them for her, as he went through the market this morning."
"And she gave them away. Upon my word! How she valued her husband's gift."
"She only divided it with me," replied Lydia. "I love flowers, and she wished to give me pleasure. It was kind and thoughtful of her."
Adam Guyton shook his head, in marked disapproval.
"And so it was the Doctor who threw his money away? Well, they are a precious pair! I wonder where they expect to end up?"
"Right in the end," said Lydia.
"They will, when arithmetical laws change, and subtraction gives the result of addition — not before. But, the world is full of such wasteful people. Just look at it, for a moment. The Doctor has only three or four hundred dollars to live upon, outside of the returns from his practice. At the best, his practice will not give him over five hundred a year, on an average, for the next three years. Very well; look at it, as I say. Look at it.
House rent, two hundred;
cost of a servant, two hundred more;
food expenses, three hundred, at the lowest figure;
clothing and outside expenses, two hundred and fifty;
flowers, jewelry, pictures, gewgaws and other nonsense, two hundred more;
in all, eleven hundred and fifty dollars! Run this through three years, and you have three thousand four hundred and fifty dollars.
Now, let us see what the prospect is for meeting so large a sum. There is, we will say, four hundred to start with; and we will give six hundred a year for the Doctor's average income during the next three years, and that is a liberal estimate. Three times six hundred make eighteen hundred — add four hundred, and we have two thousand two hundred dollars of means — against an expenditure of three thousand four hundred and fifty! Figures don't lie, my dear. At the end of three years, the Doctor will be twelve hundred and fifty dollars in debt! Think of that!"
A troubled expression came into the fair young face of Lydia Guyton, as she sat looking at her husband. She understood him perfectly, and saw, for the time, clearly with hisarithmetical eyes. The promise was not a good one for her young friend. There was misfortune in the world for Diane, and the heart of Lydia was touched by it, in saddening anticipation.
"Debt! — yes debt, that curse of a man's life!" resumed Guyton, almost bitterly, as if he felt the fiend's grip on his arm. "They will be overridden by debt, as surely as the breath is in them! Somebody's money besides their own will have to go for their waste and extravagance. Whose shall it be? Not mine, I can tell them. No, not a dollar of mine! Adam Guyton's hard earnings and careful savings shall never go to sustain the pride, self-indulgence, and wasteful extravagance of such people! I'll burden nobody — and nobody shall burden me. I have the industry, patience, self-denial, and persistence needed for accumulation — and with it the nerve to keep what I gain. No man shall find in me a weak spirit of yielding. I can be iron and brass to importunity — and I will."
There was a tone in her husband's voice, and an expression on his face — that made the blood flow back in a chill from Lydia's heart. She had never seen him in just the light he now presented himself.
"You haven't thrown that flower out of the window," he said, with more than half seriousness, a little while afterward, as they arose from the table, and his eyes glanced toward the geranium which his wife had bought in the morning.
"No, nor have I any intention of doing so," replied Lydia. "That would be wantonly to destroy a thing of beauty."
"There's no use in it," said Guyton.
"I'm not so sure of that. The sight of a flower refreshes my mind. If I am dull — a new life flows through my veins; if I am sad — a cheerful spirit awakes. Don't condemn the flowers, Adam; they have a mission for our hearts."
"And that mission is, to teach us how frail and perishing is all ornament — how valueless are flaunting color and mere exterior grace! We spend our substance for nothing, when we spend it for these worthless things. That is the lesson the flowers teach us, Lydia, if they teach us anything."
He took up the flower-pot, as he closed the last sentence, and poising it in his hand said:
"Let me throw it from the window."
But Lydia sprung to his side, and catching his arm, cried — "No! — no! — Don't do that!" in such earnest remonstrance, that he desisted from his purpose. She felt that her husband was going too far, and anger blended with the feelings that made her heart beat more violently, and sent the hot blood to her face. Before the flush of anger died, she said, with a sharpness that stung him:
"Adam! You are stepping a little beyond your prerogative. If I care to have a flower, it is not for you to object."
"It is for me to object to a foolish waste of money," he answered in a cold, firm voice; "and I advise you here, that I shall always do so!"
And saying this, Adam Guyton took up his hat, and left the house.
The day which had opened so unfavorably for their peace, gathered blackness as it advanced. Here was the first storm that had troubled their serene sky. Lydia stood, for some minutes, like one who had been stunned by a blow. Then she sat down — not in tears — but with a pale, abstracted face, and brows knit gloomily. Painfully the conviction forced itself upon her mind — that there had been a great error in her girlish estimate of Adam Guyton's character; that she had comprehended him only in part. The morning's troubled questionings were taking the shape of distinct perceptions. She saw him as she never had seen him before, and felt herself removed, as it were, to a distance from him. A sense ofrepulsion arose in her heart. The moral beauty, which had appeared as a fair garment clothing his spirit — seemed to fade and change to an unlovely vesture. If it was with him, as from this new revelation of himself, it appeared to be — the sweet idea she had formed of a marriage union, would prove to her like the airy fabric of a vision. Their minds could never grow into each other, by the attraction of similar tastes, feelings, affections and principles — they could never blend into harmonious oneness. All this and more, was seen and felt by Lydia, as she sat lost to external things for a long, long time, after the departure of her husband.
Lydia Guyton was alone in the world, so far as near relatives were considered. Two years before her marriage, the death of her mother had left her without a home, or any means of support beyond the product of her own hands. From school, she passed to the work-room of a dress-maker, and in six months learned the art of constructing garments so skillfully, that she was able to support herself in independence. Not alone did her fair countenance, grace of form, sweetness of manner, and more than ordinary intelligence, attract the eyes and win the heart of Adam Guyton. These would have allured him in vain, had there not appeared the more solid basis of thrift and industry. He saw that she would make a good wife, in another sense than is always considered — that she would work and save, and help him to grow rich. He did not find in her the nonsense, frivolity and lack of thought that displayed itself in so many of the young ladies who came under his observation; and he was especially pleased to note the fact that she had acquired a better estimate of money than is ordinarily held by her gender. The necessity of earning before spending — had produced this result.
Before marriage, they had talked freely about their housekeeping arrangements. Lydia noted, that in his calculation of expenses, nothing was said about the hire, or cost of keeping a servant in the beginning. As she felt well and strong, and really desired to join hands with her future husband, as a "help-meet for him," she saw no objection to this; she was willing, in the outset, to perform all the work of their little household. It could be a labor of love, and nothing else. She was used to being busy over some kind of work all the day long; and the thought of having a home of her own to work in, and one loved above all others, to work for and make happy — was imagining to herself a paradise.
And so they had begun their housekeeping, as we have seen, Lydia doing all her own work; and, up to the day on which she is introduced to the reader, doing it cheerfully. But, from that day, a change came over her heart.
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