Hot corn: Life Scenes in New York Illustrated Part 21

Creditors are not slow when they see misfortune fall upon one, whom they were ready to bow to yesterday, to tread upon him to-day. Creditors and their ministers,--the judges, attorneys, sheriffs,--are all ready for a share of the pound of the broken merchant's flesh. Shylocks still live, and Antonios still fail.

That was a sad funeral cortege which accompanied the dead bankrupt back to the city. Sad, not so much from sorrow, as wounded pride and fallen greatness. It was sad to see the daughters of a dead father absolutely refuse to travel upon the same train, with an only brother's wife. He would not go without her, and so they went without him. It was night when they arrived. They had despatched John in advance, to set the house in order, and meet them at the depot with the carriage and a hea.r.s.e. The latter was there, the former was not, and they had to submit to the indignity of a hired hack. At the house, all was dark. What could it mean? "That villain, John, has got drunk again!" That was the fact. Who taught him? He was only following the long-studied precepts of his employer and lady, the young ladies, the young gentlemen, and all their fas.h.i.+onable a.s.sociates, in their fondness for exhilarating drink. Why should he not get drunk?

They rung the bell angrily. It was a long time before it was answered.

Then a heavy footstep came down stairs--not up from the servants'

room--and approached the door, and opened the inner one, so that he could see through the blind who demanded admission. A sharp-faced, keen, black-eyed, weasel-looking man, with a chamber-lamp in his hand, and one of Mr. Morgan's dressing gowns upon his back, stood before the astonished family with the question trembling upon his lips, of "Vats you vant here?"

"Want? we want to come in, to be sure, why don't you open the door? Who are you? What are you doing here?"

"Vell, you can't come in. I is the sheriff's man, and he has put me keeper here, and he tells me not to let anybody in without his order.

You must go to him. Vat you vakes me up for?"

And he closed the door in their faces, and they heard his heavy step reverberating through the long hall, and up the broad stair-case, as he went back to his lounge, "in my lady's chamber."

There were heavy hearts upon the outside of that door. The men had brought the coffin up, and set it down upon the steps. The hea.r.s.e and hired hack had driven off. There lay the dead--he never would say, "This is my business," again--the wine-maker might say so. Both were silent.

Neither would own his work. In the vaults of that house, three thousand dollars worth--no, _cost_--of wines were stored. Fifty thousand dollars worth of the richest rosewood and mahogany furniture, china, cut gla.s.s, and silver ware, stood idle, while its late possessor lay in his coffin upon the threshold, with his family standing around, vainly asking permission to rest the body of the dead owner one night, in its journey to the tomb. What should they do? Walter, if he had been there, could have directed what to do. He was not. Then he was cursed in thought, if not word, because he was not there.

"It is all his fault," said Elsie; "it was his abominable marriage that killed father."

Where was her husband? She looked around for him. He had slipped away "to get a drink." What a brute, she thought. So he was. That is what going to "get a drink" makes of a man.

"We must go to Mr. Grundy's," said the widow.

How? The hea.r.s.e and hack were gone, and could not be got back in an hour. A pa.s.sing cart was called, and the coffin of the millionaire placed upon it, and the family followed, to knock at the door of a neighbor's house, with the same results--to be answered by another sheriff's officer, but who, by chance, happening to be an American, and possessed of common sense enough to know that the dead would not steal, and those who attended upon him would not be likely to do so, he opened the door, lit the gas, called up one or two of the servants still left in the house, and did a few other things that natural humanity dictates upon such an occasion. An hour after, the Grundys themselves arrived, to find their home in the hands of a "keeper," who had let in the Morgans by courtesy, and now admitted them as mourning friends of the family.

Here, I draw the curtain. You have already seen the termination of a man who could leave his young wife and her dead father standing in the street, to go and "get a drink." It was him that died in the rat hole, in Cow Bay. It was Elsie that told how he died, how she gave birth to a child by the side of her dead husband, and how the rats sucked up the life blood of that child.

You have seen Matilda, before. Turn back to a picture, in Chapter V., and look at her upon her wedding-day. It is needless for me to go with you along the beaten path of her career, down, down, down, from ball-room to bar-room; from house of----"a place to meet a friend"--to a house of----"ladies' boarding-house"--to a house of common resort--the abode of wretchedness, woe, sin, degradation, disease, and "painted sepulchres"--from that to a low room, with "my man," and, finally, to fill the picture in the Twopenny Marriage.

Let the curtain fall--the dead rest in peace.

Watch the living.

CHAPTER X.

ATHALIA, THE SEWING GIRL.

"It is their husbands' fault, if wives do fall."

"The weakest goes to the wall."

Walter came down on the train with the Grundys. They urged him to "abandon his folly, and go home with them." They little thought they had no home to go to themselves. He said, no; she was his wife, and he never would leave her. He thought so then. If he had left the bottle, he never would.

"Where shall we go, Athalia?"

"Come with me; I have a home."

So he went to her little room in Broome street. The door was fast, and the room dark. She rapped, and was soon answered by Jeannette's voice:

"Who is there?"

"It is me."

What a world of meaning is in those three little words. How the memory of many a wife will wander back into other days, when she heard a midnight rap, and putting her head out of the chamber window, where she had been "making a frock and rocking the cradle" all the early part of the night; and how her heart palpitates at the answer to her half spoken, half whispered question, "Who is there?"

"It is me," comes up to her ready ear in the open window. Down goes the sash, for the wind might blow on "the baby;" they "have got a baby." In a minute, oh half that time, "me" sees the light through the key-hole, and hears a little step running down stairs. It stops an instant to set the lamp on the table. What for? She could hold it in one hand, while she unlocked the door with the other. Yes, but when the door is open she will have work for both hands--both arms will be around the neck of somebody.

"Heigho, for somebody!" I wish every loving heart had somebody; somebody to say, "It is me."

"Wait a minute."

A little light flashed through the key-hole, then the bolt went back with a click, then the door opened, a night-cap and white gown, a pair of blue eyes, and some pale red curls, were seen a moment, and then a very light scream, and Athalia and Walter were in the dark again. The door was closed in their faces. Was she, too, shut out from her home?

"Open the door, Jeannette. Never mind your night-gown."

"Oh. I cannot; indeed I cannot. That is not all. Charles is here."

Charles there, at that time of night, and she in her night-gown! What can it mean?

"Jeannette, what does it mean?"

"Now, don't go to being angry with me, Athalia." And she opened the door a little way, and looked out. She had slipped on a wrapper, and slipped off the night-cap. What is there in a night-cap, or night-gown, that a lady should be ashamed to be seen in it?

"What does it mean, Jeannette?"

"Oh, now, don't go to being angry, Athalia, don't. Indeed I could not help it, I was so lonesome after you went away--only think of staying here all alone."

"Shame on you, Jeannette. And so because you were lonesome, you have taken cousin Charles to sleep with you."

"Yes; why not?"

"Why not! why, Jeannette?"

"Why, Athalia, we are married. You don't think I would do it if we were not, do you?"

"Married! ha, ha, ha! Come in Walter, you can come in now. We are all married folks together. Ha, ha, ha!"

How her laugh did ring. She was anything but angry.

"Why, Athalia, you are only joking."

"No. I am in sober earnest."

How Jeannette did laugh, and hug, and kiss Athalia; and then she ran to the bed, and there was a "kiss in the dark."