Graham's Magazine, Vol. XLI, No. 6, December 1852

“That is a Mr. Ernest, who has recently returned from abroad, and has come home a perfect virtuoso, and you know that Laura’s taste lies in the same way.”

“Yes, she certainly admires a mustache, for I notice that of late she encourages no one without that fashionable appendage.”

Whilst Miss Laura Bridgeman was listening complacently to the remarks of the mustached beau by her side, and her mother and Mrs. Grayson, a fashionable widow of no particular age, and childless, were discussing things as above, in another part of the room, where lights and music added to the witchery which bright eyes and lovely forms make, young Dawson was hanging over his newly betrothed.

In the meantime her mother was receiving the congratulations of troops of friends, for Henry Dawson was, in the phrase matrimonial, “the catch of the season.” He had long been an orphan – his fortune was large, his intellect fair and well cultivated, his person and address good, and his whole appearance decidedly gentlemanly and prepossessing. That he should have “fallen in love,” as the phrase goes, with his lively fiancée, none wondered, and save a few anxious mothers, who, like Mrs. Bridgeman, had marriageable daughters, all heartily congratulated him.

The family connection of Mrs. Davidson was most respectable; but left a widow, with limited means and a family of young daughters, she had been condemned to much and close economy to maintain appearances and give her daughters an education to fit them for their proper positions in the world. The three eldest were, as we have seen above, respectably married, and now it is not to be wondered that she rejoiced that her youngest was to be transferred from the narrow economy of her house to the comforts and luxuries which a wealthy husband could bestow.

Did our fair heroine entertain like views? They may have crossed her mind in some of her reveries, but they were but shadows. She had given a young, pure heart with all its rich, unworked mine of virgin gold, without one thought of earthly dross about it. She loved with all the ardent devotion of young love, the handsome, intelligent youth who wooed her with soft words and pleading looks. She loved him for what he was, or what she thought he was, and not for what he had. She knew that his love for her must be most disinterested, for she had naught but herself to give, and she was happy in the feeling of loving and of being beloved.

Oh, this love! what a strange power it exercises over the actions and the minds of the human race. What blindness it produces in our mental visions – how it changes defects into beauties, and magnifies ant-hillocks to mountains – what floods of blood and floods of ink it has shed in this world, and is doomed still to shed – how it makes virtue vice and vice virtue – how it lights the torch of discord, and yet throws around the soft and beaming light of harmony – how it makes wise men idiots, and converts brave men into cowards. In a word, how it agitates, distracts, soothes, but generally succeeds best in causing men to stultify themselves, at any rate for a given time.

The evening sped joyously on. Few envied, more rejoiced in the apparent future happiness, and, as it was termed, rare good fortune of the bride elect, whose cheeks maintained a constant rivalry with the rich roses of the fragrant boquet, as time and again some sly inuendo or more open remark reached her ear. Her mother received the more direct congratulations which were lavished upon her, with a quiet ease, in which she endeavored to veil the entire satisfaction which the prospective nuptials afforded her. Thus almost all were pleased. The mother, that her maternal cares were so soon to cease, and the gay pleasure-seekers were satisfied that a new and splendid establishment would in another season be opened to them, and if a feeling of any kind crossed the heart of Laura Bridgeman, that the prize which she once thought within her grasp had fallen to another, she turned to her new admirer, and in the contemplation of his superb mustache forgot, or tried to do so, the vision of the beautiful establishment which had once flitted through her imagination.

Shift we the scene. A few months have passed – the gay festivities of the winter are over – summer now usurps her sway, and nature, decked in her holiday attire, woos to contemplation and quiet enjoyment. The magic words which were to fix for life the destinies of the fair Maria had been spoken; the nuptial benediction pronounced, and in a beautiful villa, a few miles removed from the city, she was passing the first weeks of her bridal life, a loved and loving wife. There are few things in the world more touching than the love of a young, pure wife. The feelings which she entertained for the lover were constrained by a sense of propriety, but now they may pour themselves forth unchecked, in one o’ergushing flood of tenderness. Then she must await his approach, now she may go forth to meet him – then she must check her feelings as they rose, lest, forsooth, she might be thought forward, indelicate. Now she may take the initiative, and her soft hand may push back the locks from the brow on which she may implant a kiss of pure, almost unearthly love. Now she may watch to gratify those little tastes or fancies which then were passed unnoticed.

And never were the gushings of a warm, devoted heart poured forth more tenderly than they were by Maria Dawson for her husband. Nor on his part was the devotion less entire. The villa had been fitted up in every way to gratify her taste and fancy; and between the ride, or the drive, or the wandering about the grounds or in the garden, or music and reading and conversation, the summer passed all too rapidly away, and she almost sighed when the frosts of autumn notified her to prepare to take possession of her luxurious mansion in the city.

Marriage seems to be necessary, as a general rule, to the full development of the characters of women. Circumstances of course have a large share in it, but still it seems almost necessary to the full development of the perfect character of woman that she should be seen in her double position of wife and mother. Germs which have lain dormant are then brought into life; new faculties are called into play; the disposition is fully unfolded, and she exhibits herself frequently in a new and entirely different light from what she was regarded in the days of her girlhood. The timid girl becomes self-reliant; far from being dependent on the views and wishes of those to whom she has been accustomed to look for counsel and guidance, she finds herself called upon to act and decide for others now dependent on her – this gives a vigor to her mind, a firmness to her views, a decision to her actions, which, without some such cause for their development, they would in all probability never have attained.

—

CHAPTER II

“Things look blue.”

“Yes; never saw such unpromising appearances.”

“The best paper in town was done yesterday at 2 per cent. per month,” pursued Mr. John Sharp to his brother broker Mr. Growlem, as they cogitated over their morning’s correspondence. “My letters throw out some inuendoes about certain houses heretofore considered undoubted,” pursued that gentleman, as with a keen glance he peered over his spectacles at his companion.

“Hum – don’t know. In such cases caution is desirable, and so don’t say much; but if stocks continue to fall as they have done for a few weeks past, shan’t consider any man undoubted unless I know him to be short of the whole list, and even then he may be caught.”

“As how, pray?” suggested his companion.

“By buying in before delivery day, and then finding his man smashed, gone, and he himself likely to be in the same pleasant position.”

“You always look at the bright side of things.”

“Certainly I do; especially when the prospect is so charming all round as it is now. Thank God I am pretty well up. I haven’t a contract that has not security up. ‘My man,’ you know, always required it. And as for any stocks I hold, why they are all paid for and I may as well hold on for better times, as I don’t see how I can better myself by putting them in some fellow’s note, who will, in all probability, pay just five cents in the dollar.”

“I am a good deal of your way of thinking. But if this crash goes on when will the revival come?”

“Just as soon as the banks break, and not before.”

“But how can their breakage benefit the matter? I confess my ignorance.”

“My dear fellow, considering your name and experience, I consider you very flat this morning. Are you so green as to think I mean them to stop, as you and I would if we could not meet our engagements. By no means. They will do no such vulgar thing as fail – they will merely suspend; and then, you know, as paper is cheap and engraving not very expensive, we shall have money as plenty as dirt; that is, as soon as presidents and cashiers can sign their names to pieces of paper promising to pay – in what? I don’t know. Do you? Certainly not in the ‘current coin of the realm.’ And yet, by the way, these promises will be the current coin. Mark what I say. He that can hold on until this time will get through – plucked, ringed, well battered – but still he will get through. He that can’t must go to the wall, there to be ground between the upper and the nether mill-stone.”

The brokers parted. It was a time to make the stoutest heart quail. The commercial world was then going through one of those dreadful convulsions which so frequently happen to it, aggravated on this occasion by the most reckless, improvident and profligate expansion of the paper currency known for a century. The consequence was, that the fury of the storm fell upon the heads not of a portion only of the community, but upon the whole. Persons dependent upon the incomes arising from stock investments were suddenly cut off; and all classes, from the laborer deprived of the work which afforded him his daily pittance for the support of his family, upward, felt the blow. Stocks were tumbling down at from one to five per cent. a day; money was not to be had on securities which in ordinary times would have been more than ample, and universal distrust and dismay abounded.

How fared it in all this commotion with the personages of our story? They had been several years wedded, and heaven seemed to smile most benignantly on their union. Three lovely children were grouped around them. Every comfort, every luxury that wealth could procure were lavished by Henry Dawson on his young wife, whose loveliness appeared, in his eyes at least, to increase with each succeeding year. The girlish beauty had passed away, but the matronly grace and elegance and beauty which had succeeded, were only as yet the first full developments of the lovely bud of promise. Nothing had however occurred to test in any way the young mother’s character, and except when occupied with the young family in the nursery at home, she was to all outward appearance the polished, elegant woman of the world, one of fortune’s spoiled children. The richer qualities of head and heart, if indeed she possessed any, had never yet seen the light. Her husband was proud of her in every way – proud of the fine mind which her rich conversational powers showed; proud of the faultless taste which governed all the arrangements of her drawing-rooms and her a own personal appearance – but beyond these he knew nothing of her – nor perhaps did she of herself. The world flocked in crowds to her splendid balls, and gave her the tribute of admiration which her personal graces and loveliness demanded as their right. But this was all that the husband of her choice or the world in which she dwelt knew of Maria Dawson. Her full character was not yet developed, the circumstances had not arisen.

It was about the time of the conversation that we have recorded above, that Henry Dawson one day returned home rather earlier than was his habit. Maria was in the drawing-room when he entered. She noted that his brow was clouded, but this had been the case for several days; and when, on a former occasion, she had spoken to him of it, he had put her off with what she felt was but a pretext, and she determined to abstain from questioning until he was ready to give her his confidence. It had however worried her. Between them, since their marriage, confidence had been entire. They had no secrets from each other, and hence she argued this could not concern Henry alone or he would have communicated with her; the affairs of some friend which he was not at liberty to disclose even to her must be preying upon him, and she would wait until the cloud had been removed, or he was ready of his own accord to disclose it to her.

He had been standing by a table with his back turned to her for a few minutes, engaged apparently in an attentive examination of something on it, when he turned suddenly to her —

“Maria,” and his voice was wanting in all the softness with which he usually addressed her, and was pitched in the key-note of one who has some desperate communication to make – “Maria, you must nerve yourself for ill news. I am a ruined man,” he rather jerked out than said, and as he spoke the strong man sank into a chair by his side.

Not one word did she speak. She sat for a moment as one stunned by a sudden blow; then rising she passed softly to his side, and resting one hand on his shoulder, with the other she drew gently from his face the hands in which he strove to hide it, then stooping down pressed her lips upon his forehead.

“Cheer up, dear husband,” was her first words. “Poor though we may be in earth’s substances, yet in one thing are we still rich – our mutual love. Think not, dearest Henry, that for myself I care for all the glittering baubles around me, so that I still retain your love.” And again were those soft lips pressed upon his forehead, and a flood of tears relieved the anguish of his mind.

Think him not unmanly because he thus wept. This proud man who thus gave way, was in all probability one who on the field of strife could with curling lip, and flashing eye, and with sword or bat waving wildly o’er his head, have led a band of the most reckless and daring who ever trod a battle-field “to do or die;” could have again, as he had done that morning, met his fellow men with cheek unblanched and eye unwandering, and with a ready smile upon his lip, whilst the vulture was gnawing at his heart. But this conduct of his wife, so pure, so heavenly, so devoted – it was too much for his manhood – it touched the inmost chords of deepest sensibility within him, and the strong man wept.

Maria, for a few moments, did not attempt to assuage or interrupt him. She knew that nature was thus affording a relief to his pent-up and restrained feelings, but as soon as the paroxysm began to subside again she leaned over him, and said softly to him —

“Cheer up, dearest Henry. Be not so cast down, love. The worst cannot be so bad as your imagination paints; or let the worst be as bad as may be, it is light to me compared with your distress. Cheer up then, dearest – remember we have others beside ourselves to care for, and if you allow yourself to be so overcome you will be unable to do aught for them.”

He raised an arm, passed it round her waist, and drawing her toward him pressed her to his heart.

“Perhaps, Maria, I should rejoice in my calamities, as it has served to show me what an angel I posses in you.”

“Oh no,” she replied, anxious to divert his thoughts; “not an angel, only a loving, trusting wife. Remember, dearest, I took you for worse as well as better, for poorer as well as richer, and would you have me break my promise? Fie on you, Henry, I thought you had more confidence in my veracity.”

“Nay, Maria, speak not thus to me; treat me not thus. Had you met my avowal with a cold look, or with words of worldly wisdom have arraigned me for my conduct, I could have borne all like a man; but now – thus – such conduct has unmanned me – and our children, too, dearest! When I think of them and of you – and of what my madness – my folly has deprived them and you – it almost distracts me.”

“But, my dear husband, you still can give to your children the bright legacy of an untarnished name, and your wife will bear it more proudly for your sake, than in the days of your greatest prosperity.”

“Yes, Maria, I have, thank Heaven, that consolation. Poor though we are, our name is untarnished by any act of mine. Madman, fool, I may have been, but not a knave.”

“Unburthen yourself to me, Henry, and tell me all, I am a child in matters of business, I know. Your kindness has never let me suspect that any thing was wrong, or that you were at all embarrassed for money, since I have been your wife. Nay, I did not even know that you were engaged in business at all, but thought the income from your property supported us.”

“So it did for a time, and so it should and would have continued to have done but for my own folly – I always lived up to the extreme limit of my income – but extravagance begets extravagance. I was proud of you, your beauty, your accomplishments, your acquirements, and I determined that no money should be spared to place you in possession of every thing your fancy or your taste might dictate. It gratified my vanity to see you arrayed in the richest robes and glittering in the most costly gems. It also gratified the same mean passion, for such I now admit it to be, that your balls and parties should be the most elegant, the dinners and suppers of the house the most recherché in all respects our society could boast. You appeared to take pleasure in them, and hence I rushed madly on until I found my fortune seriously impaired. What should I have done? Prudence and propriety now tell me, have retrenched at once and have gone to you and told you all. In fact they told me so then, and the struggle between them and false pride might have resulted in their favor and spared us this, but for one thing – I never was a gambler. I mean by that, I never ventured at games of chance any sum whose loss would have been worth a passing thought. But whilst I was thus hesitating, I heard among the men with whom I associated, how much this one and that one had cleared in a short time by ”operations“ in certain stocks. This was not gambling. It was the result of an observation of the probable rise and fall of the stock-market. It is unnecessary to my tale, love, to enter into the minute particulars, or to explain at length what is meant by the phrase ‘bulls and bears;’ suffice it to say, I saw the best men in the community, men esteemed in all the various relations of society, vestrymen of churches, elders, trustees, church members, all deeply embarked in these transactions, and of their morality then there could be no doubt, nor do I now mean to impugn it. I heard of the gains of different individuals – I heard nothing of any man’s losses. I consulted a broker, a man of keen business habits, and like almost all the members of the broker’s board, of highly honorable character in his avocation. I pointed out to him what I wanted. For the first time I heard of something beside profits. He pointed out to me clearly all the dangers of the business, and how immeasurably greater they were to one who, like myself, had been educated to spend money, not to make it. Few, he told me, were in the long run successful speculators, and they were usually men of cool, calculating temperament, sagacious and far-seeing in watching the signs of the times, and of an iron-nerve that nothing could shake; and yet, he said, such were the uncertainties, that at times even the most experienced of such men were deceived. I left him fully intending to avoid the dangerous experiment – come to you, and tell you all. Unfortunately, I fell in with a friend who had just embarked in an operation. We had talked the matter over before, we did so again, and before we parted I had given an order to another broker to operate for me. I was successful. This was sufficient. Several other small operations followed, in which I had continued success. I soon formed an exalted opinion of my own judgment; voted the broker who had advised me ‘an old granny’ and embarked much more deeply. Losses now began to accrue – the embarrassments of the times thickened; I fancied them only temporary and that they would soon pass away – I plunged in more deeply and madly than ever, and the result has been, that having to-day settled all my contracts, save the furniture of our houses, our plate, and your jewels, we have not a thousand dollars upon earth.”

He went through his tale firmly, almost calmly. When it was finished, he looked into his wife’s face with a smile so ghastly, so unnatural, that an ice chill fell upon her heart. Rallying in a moment, she again bent to caress him, and then said to him,

“Thank you, dearest Henry, that I now know all. It is a melancholy tale; and how much pain might you have spared yourself, had you known me better. Think you that I cared so much for the splendor with which you have surrounded me or the glittering baubles with which you have decked me, as to have enjoyed the one or worn the other, had I known all I now do. Oh! why, Henry, was not confidence in me so entire as to have advised with me concerning these things. If husbands would only counsel in such matters freely with their wives; if the situation of their affairs was always freely and fully laid before them, much might be spared. I rejoiced in the splendor, I decked myself in costly robes and rich jewels, more from the pleasure I saw that my doing so gave you, than from any positive pleasure they afforded me; though,” she added, with a faint attempt at a smile, “jewels and velvets are things which, in common with most women, I do not affect to despise. But the jewel which I value above all others, is my husband’s love – to see him happy, is to me a source of more exquisite enjoyment than all the splendor earth can give. But, I repeat, cheer up, dear Henry; the past is gone beyond recall, leaving behind it but the lessons of experience which it gives – from them we can derive wisdom. The future is all before us – we are young – trustful in each other – blessed with those objects which will call forth all our energies. There must be no more false pride. My jewels, all, save one or two tokens of your young love, our plate and rich furniture will give us something on which to start afresh in life. Our experience of the past must be our beacon for the future. Compose yourself, dearest. Leave the management of these trifles to me. You must let me have a beginning,” she continued, seconding her appeal with a kiss that was irresistible, as she saw a refusal gathering on his brow. “Keep yourself quiet and contented for a few days, and see how well I will manage. Add now, dearest, let us go see the children.”

Our heroine had not yet fully developed – the process was but commencing.

—

CHAPTER III

Pass we by the scenes of the few succeeding days. In them, however, Maria was all efficiency. Her cheerfulness and the buoyancy of her spirits seemed never to forsake her, at least in her husband’s presence. She had determined that no act, nor look, nor word of her’s should add to the poignancy of the regret, almost remorse, which agitated him. When alone, the serenity of that young brow might be clouded; but it was more from anxious thought for the future, than from regret for the past; or a tear might dim the brightness of her eye, as she bent over her sleeping children, and thought of their altered prospects.

Fortunately there were no debts, and, best of all, no small debts. No tradesman, no mechanic suffered from this mishap. There was enough left to settle all these accounts, and the stock contracts had all been “met;” but there was nothing left, save the furniture of the two mansions. How rapid was her decision on this point. All, every thing, save the most necessary articles, were to go – satin, damask, and velvet, were to be replaced by chintz; rosewood by pine; lounges, and ottomans, and presentation chairs were to be as if they never had been; and if a few good engravings were laid aside with a few cherished family portraits to humanize their new home, wherever it might be, costly paintings were parted with without a sigh. The rich China and costly plate – “Why, certainly, my dear; I am sure things will eat just as well off of Liverpool ware; and as for all that glass, I shall be glad to be rid of the constant dread I had of having it broken, and the set ruined.”

And thus did Maria meet all the objections of her husband as they rose one by one. Two things, however, she determined to keep to the last – one, her husband’s books – the other, her own piano. She knew that be where they might, they would be a constant source of comfort to him; and in time, when, perhaps, they could not be conveniently replaced, they would be needed for the children.