All's for the Best Part 18

My sister looked something abashed at this unexpected rebuke, when my mother took occasion to add, with an earnestness of manner that I could not help remarking as singular,

"Your father is troubled about something. Business may not be going on to his satisfaction. Last night I awoke, and found him walking the floor. To my questions he merely answered that he was wakeful. His health is not so good as formerly, and his spirits are low. Don't, let me pray you, do anything to worry him. Say no more about this money, Jane; you will get it whenever it can be spared."

I did not see my father again until tea-time. Occasionally, business engagements pressed upon him so closely that he did not come home at the usual hour for dining. He looked pale--weary--almost haggard.

"Dear father, are you sick?" said I, laying a hand upon him, and gazing earnestly into his countenance.

"I do not feel very well," he replied, partly averting his face, as if he did not wish me to read its expression too closely. "I have had a weary day."

"You must take more recreation," said I. "This excessive devotion to business is destroying your health. Why will you do it, father?"

He merely sighed as he pa.s.sed onwards, and ascended to his own room. At tea-time I observed that his face was unusually sober. His silence was nothing uncommon, and so that pa.s.sed without remark from any one.

On the next day Jane received the hundred dollars, which was spent for a shawl like mine. This brought the sunshine back to her face. Her moody looks, I saw, disturbed my father.

From this time, the hand which had ever been ready to supply all our wants real or imaginary, opened less promptly at our demands. My father talked occasionally of retrenchment and economy when some of our extravagant bills came in; but we paid little heed to his remarks on this head. Where could we retrench? In what could we economize? The very idea was absurd. We had nothing that others moving in our circle did not have. Our house and furniture would hardly compare favorably with the houses and furniture of many of our fashionable friends. We dressed no better--indeed, not so well as dozens of our acquaintances.

Retrenchment and economy! I remember laughing with my sisters at the words, and wondering with them what could be coming over our father. In a half-amused way, we enumerated the various items of imaginary reform, beginning at the annual summer recreations, and ending with our milliner's bills. In mock seriousness, we proposed to take the places of cook, chambermaid, and waiter, and thus save these items of expense in the family. We had quite a merry time over our fancied reforms.

But our father was serious. Steadily he persisted in what seemed to us a growing penuriousness. Every demand for money seemed to give him a partial shock, and every dollar that came to us was parted with reluctantly. All this was something new; but we thought less than we felt about it. Our father seemed to be getting into a very singular state of mind.

Summer came round--I shall never forget that summer--and we commenced making our annual preparations for Saratoga. Money was, of course, an indispensable prerequisite. I asked for fifty dollars.

"For what purpose?" inquired my father.

"I haven't a single dress fit to appear in away from home," said I.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

I thought the question a strange one, and replied, a little curtly,

"To Saratoga, of course."

"Oh!" It seemed new to him. Then he repeated my words, in a questioning kind of a way, as if his mind were not altogether satisfied on the subject.

"To Saratoga?"

"Yes, sir. To Saratoga. We always go there. We shall close the season at Newport this year."

"Who else is going?" My father's manner was strange. I had never seen him just in the mood he then appeared to be.

"Jane is going, of course; and so is Emily. And we are trying to persuade mother, also. She didn't go last year. Won't you spend a week or two with us? Now do say yes."

My father shook his head at this last proposal, and said, "No, child!"

very decidedly.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because I have something of more importance to think about than Saratoga and its fashionable follies."

"Business! business!" said I, impatiently. "It is the Moloch, father, to which you sacrifice every social pleasure, every home delight, every good! Already you have laid health and happiness upon the b.l.o.o.d.y altars of this false G.o.d!"

A few quick flushes went over his pale face, and then its expression became very sad.

"Anna," he said, after a brief silence, during which even my unpracticed eyes could see that an intense struggle was going on in his mind, "Anna, you will have to give up your visit to Saratoga this year."

"Why, father!" It seemed as if my blood were instantly on fire. My face was, of course, all in a glow. I was confounded, and, let me confess it, indignant; it seemed so like a tyrannical outrage.

"It is simply as I say, my daughter." He spoke without visible excitement. "I cannot afford the expense this season, and you will, therefore, all have to remain in the city."

"That's impossible!" said I. "I couldn't live here through the summer."

"_I_ manage to live!" There was a tone in my father's voice, as he uttered these simple words, partly to himself, that rebuked me. Yes, he did manage to live, but _how_? Witness his pale face, wasted form, subdued aspect, brooding silence, and habitual abstraction of mind!

"_I_ manage to live!" I hear the rebuking words even now--the tones in which they were uttered are in my ears. Dear father! Kind, tender, indulgent, long-suffering, self-denying! Ah, how little were you understood by your thoughtless, selfish children!

"Let my sisters and mother go," said I, a new regard for my father springing up in my heart; "I will remain at home with you."

"Thank you, dear child!" he answered, his voice suddenly veiled with feeling. "But I cannot afford to let any one go this season."

"The girls will be terribly disappointed. They have set their hearts on going," said I.

"I'm sorry," he said. "But necessity knows no law. They will have to make themselves as contented at home as possible."

And he left me, and went away to his all-exacting "business."

When I stated what he had said, my sisters were in a transport of mingled anger and disappointment, and gave utterance to many unkind remarks against our good, indulgent father. As for my oldest sister, she declared that she would go in spite of him, and proposed our visiting the store of a well-known merchant, where we often made purchases, and buying all we wanted, leaving directions to have the bill sent in. But I was now on my father's side, and resolutely opposed all suggestions of disobedience. His manner and words had touched me, causing some scales to drop from my vision, so that I could see in a new light, and perceive things in a new aspect.

We waited past the usual time for my father's coming on that day, and then dined without him. A good deal to our surprise he came home about four o'clock, entering with an unusual quiet manner, and going up to his own room without speaking to any one of the family.

"Was that your father?" We were sitting together, still discussing the question of Saratoga and Newport. It was my mother who asked the question. We had heard the street door open and close, and had also heard footsteps along the pa.s.sage and up the stairs.

"It is too early for him to come home," I answered.

My mother looked at her watch, and remarked, as a shade of concern flitted over her face,

"It certainly was your father. I cannot be mistaken in his step. What can have brought him home so early? I hope he is not sick." And she arose and went hastily from the room. I followed, for a sudden fear came into my heart.

"Edward! what ails you? Are you sick?" I heard my mother ask, in an alarmed voice, as I came into her room. My father had laid himself across the bed, and his face was concealed by a pillow, into which it was buried deeply.

"Edward! Edward! Husband! What is the matter? Are you ill?"

"Oh, father! dear father!" I cried, adding my voice to my mother's, and bursting into tears. I grasped his hand; it was very cold. I leaned over, and, pressing down the pillow, touched his face. It was cold also, and clammy with perspiration.

"Send James for the doctor, instantly," said my mother.

"No, no--don't." My father partially aroused himself at this, speaking in a thick, unnatural voice.

"Go!" My mother repeated the injunction, and I flew down stairs with the order for James, our waiter, to go in all haste for the family physician. When I returned, my mother, her face wet with tears, was endeavoring to remove some of my father's outer garments. Together we took off his coat, waistcoat and boots, he making no resistance, and appearing to be in partial stupor, as if under the influence of some drug. We chafed his hands and feet, and bathed his face, that wore a deathly aspect, and used all the means in our power to rekindle the failing spark of life. But he seemed to grow less and less conscious of external things every moment.