The Young Wife CHAPTER 10.
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Strange things will happen sometimes, and one among the strangest we have to record, is that which took place in the mind of Frank Lawton. From presenting a steady and persevering opposition to all arguments in favor of boarding for more than ten years, he came around, and finally consented to break up housekeeping. True, it came to pass after six weeks of incessant clouds and storm, growing out of one of those periodic changes of servants with which so many families are annoyed.
"You will have an auction, of course," said Mrs. Lawton, after the main point was gained.
"I shall have no such thing," was the decided answer of her husband, who, now that he had yielded so much, felt himself privileged to be a little crusty.
"Why, what in the world will you do with all of our parlor and kitchen furniture, and a hundred other things that we shall have no more use for?"
"Store them, of course."
"Why, we shall have no more use for them, you know, and storage will only be a useless expense. I really think you had better have an auction, which will be a regular clearing out at once. I am sure I don't want the trouble of packing up everything."
"I'll take all the trouble," was the brief reply.
"But what in the world do you want to store them for, Frank? We shall have no more need for them."
"It's a mere notion of mine, Julia," was the evasive answer.
Having gained the most important point, Julia thought it hardly worth while to contend for this, and so it was given up.
The next thing was to find a suitable boarding-house. This, which was considered quite an easy matter, viewed in the distance, was found rather difficult when the actual experiment was tried. The first application was at one of the hotels, as it was thought that in a hotel they would be more alone than in a boarding-house. The price asked, however, banished all ideas of a hotel from their minds. For Mr. and Mrs. Lawton, their three children, and a servant, with a parlor and two chambers, the terms were fifty dollars a week. Application was next made at a fashionable boarding-house. The landlady, after some hesitation at the idea of taking a whole family into her house, finally agreed to accommodate them with a private parlor and two chambers, at thirty-five dollars a week. This was nearly two thousand dollars a year, far more than it cost them to keep house, pay their servants' wages, and buy all their clothing.
After this, Mr. Lawton relinquished the search, but his wife was by no means discouraged. She knew very well, she said, that good boarding could be obtained at a far less price. The lady at whose house Mrs. Campbell boarded, was applied to, but she said she could take no more, as all of her rooms were full. Though the fact was, that Mrs. Campbell had quietly hinted to her, that she didn't believe that Mrs. Lawton's whole family would add anything to the comfort of her boarders, as her friend had not the best government in the world over her children.
As a last resort, Mrs. Lawton caused an advertisement to be inserted in one of the daily newspapers. Among the several applications made, in answer to this advertisement, was one from a widow lady, with two daughters, and one son, a mere lad. She said, that if they were pleased with her terms, she would at once rent a large house then vacant, and accommodate them. Her charge would be fifteen dollars a week; eight for Mr. and Mrs. Lawton, six for the two oldest children, and one for the infant. For the servant, she said that she would not charge anything, as she could always do enough "odd jobs" to pay for all she would eat.
This was the very thing. And now came the severe trial to Mr. Lawton — the actual breaking up — the consummation so long dreaded and struggled against with manly determination. But he tried to be as earnest and cheerful in the matter as possible, and did actually gain so far over his reluctance, as to feel reconciled in the idea that he should, by the change, accomplish a great saving.
Mrs. Baillie, the lady who proposed to set up a boarding-house, was a widow in reduced circumstances. Her husband had, while living, been engaged in an extensive wholesale trade with the south and west; but, like thousands of others, had suddenly found himself with a large amount of unproductive debts upon his books, and a host of eager creditors pressing, with the accumulated force of a general pressure, for their dues. And like thousands of others who yielded to the disastrous gales of 1840, he became a bankrupt. Being an honest man, he retained nothing for his family, who, until that time, had known no mere external want unsatisfied.
The fiery ordeal through which Mr. Baillie had to pass, an ordeal that none but he who has himself gone through it can appreciate, completely broke down his spirits. Had there been any hope of his rising, there would have been something to inspirit him; but there was none. Every section of the country was suffering under a wide-spread commercial disorder. Though a man of extensive business acquaintance, business habits, and known integrity, he could make no new connection in trade, nor even obtain the more quiet and less responsible station of clerk; for there was no inducement for men of capital to enter into business, and those already inextricably involved in its details, had more help than they needed. Indeed, thousands of clerks were thrown out of employment. And to all this, was added the unfeeling persecutions of one or two creditors, who persisted in alleging the existence of fraud. All these suddenly accumulated distresses, completely broke down the man. He saw no hope-star glimmering with a feeble ray of promise through the dark clouds that overshadowed him. A man of less vigor of mind than he, could have bent low, and still been unbroken. But, like the strong tree which resists the war of elements that levels the reed to the earth — he broke down when the storm increased to a tempest. In a word, Mr. Baillie's distress of mind, brought on a sickness of which he died.
And now, for the sorrow-stricken widow and her two daughters, came trials and sufferings, to bear which they found themselves but poorly able.
"We cannot remain here, my children," the mother said to her two daughters, the eldest twenty, and the other just entering her seventeenth year, glancing as she spoke at the comfortable, even elegantly arranged room in which they were sitting. It was three months from the day her husband had been buried out of her sight; and, as she spoke, the tears came into her eyes.
"We are ready, dear mother!" Anna, the eldest, replied, "to go where you think best, and to do what you think best."
"I know that, my children. But where shall we go, and what shall we do? These are questions that I ask myself over and over again, but can find no answer."
"But why can't we stay here, Mother?" asked Josephine, the younger of the two daughters. "I am sure it would be much pleasanter to live here, than to go to any other place that I know of."
"Because, my dear child, we cannot afford to remain here. All that we have left to us is just what you see around you. When your father's business was broken up, everything was taken out of his hands, and our furniture is all that has been spared. We cannot live on this. It is, therefore, necessary for us to reduce, in some way, our expenses to the lowest possible sum."
"But even then, Mother, how shall we live?" inquired Josephine, whose mind fully comprehended her mother's statement.
"Indeed, that is more than I can tell. But can you not help me to devise some way, my children. Your little brother, you know, must be sent to school, and there is no one left now to do it but his mother and sisters."
A silence of some minutes ensued, during which the thoughts of each were busy. At length, with a deep sigh, Anna looked up and said,
"One thing can at least be done, mother."
"And what is that, my child?"
"We cannot of course live here, burdened with a rent of seven hundred dollars."
"That is certain, Anna."
"And we have a great deal more furniture than we need in a smaller house."
"Yes."
"Now, we can sell a portion of this, and move where the rent will be much less. What we get by selling the furniture, will support us until we have time to look about for something to do."
"That is all very good, Anna. It is exactly what I have myself thought. Suppose then, we go out at once and look for a house."
This proposition was agreed to, and on that very day Mrs. Baillie and Anna went out in search of a house. But they came home tired and dispirited, having looked in vain for one that seemed just what they wanted. On the next day they tried it again; and met with the upstairs portion of a house to rent, at two hundred dollars. It was not in a very pleasant part of the city, and the rooms, which were three in the second story, with a garret room, and the use of the kitchen in the basement, were not in very good repair.
"Well, mother, what do you think about the house we saw in Grand Street?" asked Anna, after their return.
"I do not like it, Anna. But can we do better?"
"I am afraid not. The next question is, how shall we pay even two hundred dollars?"
"We will have to sell a good deal of our furniture, you know, and that will keep us for a while."
"But when that is gone, what shall we do?" asked Anna, in a concerned tone.
"Indeed, my child, I cannot tell. For I have no idea at all of what we can do to earn money. It is true, that we can take in sewing, if we can get it. But it will be impossible for us to support ourselves with the needle, and pay a rent of two hundred dollars."
"How sorry I am, that I do not know some trade!" Anna remarked, thoughtfully.
"And suppose that you did, what could you do then?" asked Josephine.
"Why, if I was a good dress-maker or a milliner, how easy it would be for us to set up the business with what we would get for our extra furniture.
"But you are surely not in earnest, Anna!" exclaimed Josephine, in surprise.
"Certainly I am, sister. Why did you think I was not in earnest?"
"You, set up a milliner's shop, Anna!"
"And why not, Josephine?"
"That would be too base, indeed! O, I did not think it had come to that!"
"It would be a happy resource in our present difficulties," Anna replied, whose mind, in its deep and earnest sympathy with her mother, had lost sight of the mere conventional prejudices which she had herself before indulged. "Surely, Josephine, there is no moral wrong, and, therefore, no disgrace, in making bonnets or dresses — more than in doing any other kind of sewing. What we now need, is an honorable means of supporting ourselves, and educating our little brother. And if both you and I understood one of the two trades I have named, we would have, I feel sure, a certain means of providing comfortably for our mother and brother. For we could set it up, in handsome style, with the money we would obtain in selling our furniture."
"But really, Anna, I cannot bear the thought of going behind the counter, and becoming a mere milliner."
"I must own, sister, that I feel as you do; but I know that it is founded in prejudice, and a false estimate of things. Surely, the end we have in view is a motive strong enough to obliterate any such false idea, with its unpleasant feeling. You remember what Mr. Pope says; and now that so great a change has suddenly come over us, we cannot think of the sentiment too often:
'Honor and shame, from no condition rise;
Act well your part; there all the honor lies.'
"You are no doubt right, sister; but still, I cannot help feeling as I do."
"I only wish, Josephine, that both of us could feel on that subject to some purpose. But, alas! we cannot. Neither you nor I know anything at all about mantua-making or millinery operations. Nor are we so perfect in our music or French, as to be able to offer ourselves as teachers of either branch. And so we come back to the yet unanswered question — what shall we do?"
"What would you think, Anna, of our renting that large house we saw in Broome Street, and opening a boarding-house? A great many ladies who have become reduced in circumstances, support themselves in that way."
"They ask a thousand dollars for the house, do they not?"
"Yes. But it is a large old-fashioned house, and would accommodate a good many boarders. By the sale of a few costly articles, we would be enabled to furnish a number of rooms, besides having as much furniture as we wanted."
"I am sure I hardly know what to say, mother," Anna replied. "It is certainly worth thinking about. If we had a few boarders to begin with, I should almost feel like a trial at least."
Thus things remained until the next morning, when Anna, in looking over the newspaper, exclaimed, "Just listen to this mother —
"Wanted. — Genteel boarding for a small family, in a central part of the city."
"That may be the very thing for us," Mrs. Baillie said, while her countenance brightened up; for she had thought so much about the subject since, it had been introduced on the day before, that she had come to feel that the only chance for them was to open a boarding-house.
A note was at once written and sent to the printing-office, and then they waited in anxiety and suspense all through the day, and there came no answer. Poor Mrs. Baillie felt gloomy enough as night came slowly on, and yet there had been no response to their application. But about ten o'clock on the next morning she had a visit from Mr. Lawton and his wife, at which interview all the preliminaries were settled, and it was agreed that Mrs. Baillie should rent the house at once, on the certainty of receiving fifteen dollars a week. This she accordingly proceeded to do, and, in the course of a week, was ready to receive her boarders.
To Mr. Lawton and his family were assigned a neat parlor and two adjoining chambers, which were furnished by themselves, of course. And now the two experiments of boarding, and taking boarders, commenced in good earnest.
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