The Two Wives; Or, Lost and Won Part 22

Twenty minutes afterward the money was in his hands. It had been obtained from A--, and during the morning returned to him in payment of Ellis's loan.

So much accomplished, Ellis turned his thoughts towards the ways and means for raising the seven hundred dollars yet required for the day's business. By twelve o'clock all of his borrowed money was returned; but his notes still remained in bank. In view of the difficulties yet to be surmounted, he felt that he had erred in not making it the first business of the day to take up his notes, and thus get beyond the danger of protest. But it was too late now for regrets to be of any avail. Four hundred dollars must come from some quarter, or ruin was certain.

But from whence was aid to come? He had not spent an idle moment since he came to his store in the morning, and had so fully pa.s.sed over the limits within which his resources lay, that little ground yet remained to be broken, and the promise of that was small.

While Ellis stood meditating, in much perplexity of mind, what step next to take, a man entered his store, and, approaching him, read aloud from a paper which he drew from his pocket, a summons to answer before an alderman in the case of Carlton, who had brought separate suits on his due-bills, each being for an amount less than one hundred dollars.

"Very well, I will attend to it," said Ellis in a voice of a.s.sumed calmness, and the officer retired.

Slowly seating himself in a chair that stood by a low writing-desk, the unhappy man tried to compose his thoughts, in order that he might see precisely in what position this new move would place him. He could bring nothing in bar of Carlton's claim unless the plea of its being a gambling debt were urged; and that would only ruin his credit in the business community. A hearing of the case was to take place in a week, when judgment would go against him, and then the quick work of an execution would render the immediate payment of the five hundred dollars necessary. All this Ellis revolved in his thoughts, and then deliberately asked himself the question, if it were not better to give up at once. For a brief s.p.a.ce of time, in the exhausted state produced by the un-equal struggle in which he was engaged, he felt like abandoning every thing; but a too-vivid realization of the consequences that would inevitably follow spurred his mind into a resolution to make one more vigorous effort to overcome the remaining difficulties of the day. With this new purpose, came a new suggestion of means, and he was in the act of leaving his store to call upon a friend not before thought of, when a carpet dealer, whom he knew very well, came in, and presented a bill.

"What is this?" asked Mr. Ellis.

"The bill for your parlour carpets," was answered.

"What parlour carpets? You are in an error. We have no new parlour carpets. The bill is meant for some one else."

"Oh, no," returned the man, smiling. "The carpets were ordered two weeks ago; and this morning they were put down by the upholsterer."

"Who ordered them?"

"Mrs. Ellis."

"She did!"

"Yes; and directed the bill sent in to you?"

"What is the amount?"

"One hundred and sixty-eight dollars."

"Very well," said Ellis, controlling himself, "I will attend to it."

The man retired, leaving the mind of Ellis in a complete sea of agitation.

"If this be so," he muttered in a low, angry voice, "then is all over!

To struggle against such odds is hopeless. But I cannot believe it.

There is--there must be an error. The carpets are not mine. He has mistaken some other woman for my wife, and some other dwelling for mine. Yes, yes, it must be so. Cara would never dare to do this! But all doubt may be quickly settled."

And with, this last sentence on his lips, Ellis left his store, and walked with hurried steps homeward. Entering his house, he stood for a moment or two in one of the parlour doors. A single glance sufficed.

Alas! it was but too true.

"Mad woman!" he exclaimed, in a low, bitter tone. "Mad woman! You have driven me over the precipice!"

Turning quickly away, he left the house--to return to his store?--Alas!

no. With him the struggle was over. The manly spirit, that had, for nearly two weeks, battled so bravely with difficulty without and temptation within, yielded under this last a.s.sault. In less than an hour, all sense of pain was lost in the stupor of inebriation!

CHAPTER XX.

WE will not trace, minutely, the particulars attendant on the headlong downward course of Henry Ellis. The causes leading thereto have been fully set forth, and we need not refer back to them. Enough, that the fall was complete. The wretched man appeared to lose all strength of mind, all hope in life, all self-respect. Not even a feeble effort was opposed to the down-rus.h.i.+ng torrent of disaster that swept away every vestige of his business. For more than a week he kept himself so stupefied with brandy, that neither friends nor creditors could get from him any intelligible statement in regard to his affairs. In the wish of the latter for an a.s.signment, he pa.s.sively acquiesced, and permitted all his effects to be taken from his hands. And so he was thrown upon the world, with his family, helpless, penniless, crushed in spirit, and weak as a child in the strong grasp of an over-mastering appet.i.te, which had long been gathering strength for his day of weakness.

Over the sad history of the succeeding five years let us draw a veil.

We have no heart to picture its suffering, its desolation, its hopelessness. If, in the beginning, there was too much pride in the heart of Mrs. Ellis, all was crushed out under the iron heel of grim adversity. If she had once thought too much of herself, and too little of her husband, a great change succeeded; for she clung to him in all the cruel and disgusting forms his abandonment a.s.sumed, and, with a self-sacrificing devotion, struggled with the fearful odds against her to retain for her husband and children some little warmth in the humble home where they were hidden from the world in which they once moved.

From the drunkard, angels withdraw themselves, and evil spirits come into nearer companions.h.i.+p; hence, the b.e.s.t.i.a.lity and cruelty of drunkenness. The man, changing his internal a.s.sociates, receives by inflex a new order of influence, and pa.s.sively acts therefrom. He becomes, for the time, the human agent by which evil spirits effect their wicked purposes; and it usually happens that those who are nearest allied to him, and who have the first claims on him for support, protection, and love, are they who feel the heaviest weight of infernal malice. The husband and father too often becomes, in the hands of his evil a.s.sociates, the cruel persecutor of those he should love and guard with the tenderest solicitude. So it was in the case of Henry Ellis. His manly nature underwent a gradually progressing change, until the image of G.o.d was wellnigh obliterated from his soul. After the lapse of five miserable years, let us introduce him and his family once more to the reader.

Five years! What a work has been done in that time! Not in a pleasant home, surrounded with every comfort, as we last saw them, will they be found. Alas, no!

It was late in the year. Frost had already done its work upon the embrowned forests, and leaf by leaf the withered foliage had dropped away or been swept in clouds before the autumnal winds. Feebler and feebler grew, daily, the sun's planting rays, colder the air, and more cheerless the aspect of nature.

One evening,--it was late in November, and the day had been damp and cold,--a woman, whose thin care-worn face and slender form marked her as an invalid, or one whose spirits had been broken by trouble, was busying herself in the preparation of supper. A girl, between twelve and thirteen years of age, was trying to amuse a child two years old, who, from some cause, was in a fretful humour; and a little girl in her seventh year was occupied with a book, in which she was spelling out a lesson that had been given by her mother. This was the family, or, rather, a part of the family of Henry Ellis. Two members were absent, the father and the oldest boy. The room was small, and meagerly furnished, though every thing was clean and in order. In the centre of the floor, extending, perhaps, over half thereof, was a piece of faded carpet. On this a square, unpainted pine table stood, covered with a clean cloth and a few dishes. Six common wooden chairs, one or two low stools or benches, a stained work-stand without drawers, and a few other necessary articles, including a bed in one corner, completed the furniture of this apartment, which was used as kitchen and sitting-room by the family, and, with a small room adjoining, const.i.tuted the entire household facilities of the family.

"Henry is late this evening," remarked Mrs. Ellis, as she laid the last piece of toast she had been making on the dish standing near the fire.

"He ought to have been here half an hour ago."

"And father is late too," said Kate, the oldest daughter, who was engaged with the fretful child.

"Yes--he is late," returned Mrs. Ellis, as if speaking to herself. And she sighed heavily.

Just then the sound of feet was heard in the pa.s.sage without.

"There's Henry now," said Kate.

And in a moment after the boy entered. His face did not wear the cheerful expression with which he usually met the waiting ones at home.

His mother noticed the change; but asked no question then as to the cause.

"I wish father was home," said Mrs. Ellis. "Supper is all ready."

"I don't think it's any use to wait for him," returned Henry.

"Why not?" asked the mother, looking with some surprise at her son, in whose voice was a covert meaning.

"Because he won't be home to supper."

"Have you seen him, Henry?"

Mrs. Ellis fixed her eyes earnestly upon her son.

"Yes, mother. I saw him go into a tavern as I was coming along. I went in and tried to persuade him to come home with me. But he was angry about something, and told me to go about my business. I then said--'Do, father, come home with me,' and took hold of his arm, when he turned quickly around, and slapped me in the face with the back of his hand."

The boy, on saying this, burst into tears, and sobbed for some time violently.

"Oh, Henry! did he do that?"

Such was the mother's exclamation. She tried to control her feelings, but could not. In a moment or two, tears gushed over her face.