The Lights and Shadows of Real Life Part 83

"That I know, too well. But how am I to prevent it? That is what drives me almost beside myself."

"You must hit upon some expedient for making money fast."

"I know of no honest expedients."

"I think that I do."

"Name one."

"Do you know Hardville?"

"Yes."

"He came as near failure as could possibly be, last week."

"He did?"

"Yes."

"And how did he get through?"

"It is the answer to that question which I wish you to consider. He was saved from ruin in the last extremity, and by what some would call a desperate expedient. Your case is a desperate one, and, if you would save yourself, you must resort to desperate expedients, likewise."

"Name the expedient."

"Hardville had one thousand dollars to pay, more than he could possibly raise. He tried everywhere, but to no purpose. He could neither borrow nor collect that sum. In a moment of desperation, he put one hundred dollars into his pocket, and went to a regular establishment near here, and staked that sum at play. In two hours he came away with twelve hundred dollars in his pocket, instead of one hundred. And thus he was saved from ruin."

When Arnold ceased speaking, Wilmer looked him in the face with a steady, stern, half-angry look, but made no reply.

"Try another gla.s.s of this brandy," the former said, pouring out a pretty liberal supply for each. Mechanically, Wilmer put the gla.s.s to his lips, and turned off the contents.

"Well, what do you think of that plan?" asked the friend, after each had sat musing for some time.

"I am not a gambler!" was the reply.

"Of course not. But your case, as I said, and as you admit, is a desperate one; and requires desperate remedies. The fact of your going to a regular establishment, and gaining there, in an honourable way, something, as a capital to begin with, does not make you a gambler. After you have got a start, you needn't go there any more. And all you want is a start. Give you that, and, my word for it, you will make your way in the world with the best of them."

"O, yes! Give me a start, as you say, and I'll go ahead as fast as anybody. Give me that start, and I'll show old Mr. Jackson in a few years that I can count dollars with him all day."

"Exactly. And that start you must have. Now, how are you going to get it, unless in the way that I suggest?"

"I am not so sure that I can get it in that way."

"I am, then. Only make the trial. You owe it to your wife to do so.

For her sake, then, let me urge you to act promptly and efficiently."

Thus tempted, while his mind was greatly obscured by the strong potations he had taken, Theodore Wilmer began to waver. It did not seem half so wrong, nor half so disgraceful, to play for money, as it did at first. Finally, he agreed to meet his friend that evening, and get introduced to some one of the many gambling establishments that infest all large cities.

A reaction in his feelings now took place. The elation of mind caused by the brandy, made him confident of success. He saw before him a rapid elevation to wealth and standing in society, and, consequently, a rapid restoration of Constance to the circle in which she had moved.

Before marriage, he had rented a handsome house, and had it furnished in very good style, upon means which he had prudently saved from a liberal salary. Into this, he at once introduced his young wife, who had already begun to feel her heart yearning for her mother's voice, and her mother's smile. One young friend had been with her all the morning, but had left towards the middle of the day Alone, for the first time, since her hurried marriage, her feelings became somewhat saddened in their hue. But as the hour approached for her husband to come home, those feelings gate place, in a degree, to an ardent desire for his return, the result of deep and fervent love for him. She had sat for some moments, expecting to hear him at the door, when the bell rung, and she started to her feet, and stood on the floor, ready to spring forward the moment he should enter the room. No one, however, came in, and her heart sunk in her bosom with the disappointment. In a moment after, the servant handed her a note, the seal of which she broke hastily. It was from her husband, and ran thus:--

"DEAR CONSTANCE:--An acc.u.mulation of business in my absence so presses upon me now, that I cannot possibly come so great a distance to dinner, at least for this day. It may likewise keep me away until eight or nine o'clock this evening. But keep a good heart, dear; our meeting will be pleasanter for the long absence--Adieu,

THEODORE."

The note dropped from her hand, and she sank into a chair, overcome with a feeling of strong disappointment. To wait until eight or nine o'clock in the evening, before she should see him, when the morning had appeared lengthened to a day! O, it seemed as if she could not endure the wearisome interval!

As for Wilmer, the truth was, he found himself so much under the influence of the liberal quant.i.ty of brandy which he had taken, that he dared not go home to Constance. He would not have appeared before her as he was, for the world. It was under the consciousness of his condition, that he wrote the billet, which his young wife had received. After doing so, he went to bed at a public house, and slept until towards evening. When he awoke, Arnold was sitting in the chamber. Some feelings of bitter regret for the pains which his absence must have caused his young wife, pa.s.sed through his mind, as he aroused himself. These were soon drowned by a few gla.s.ses of wine, which his friend had already ordered to be sent up. That friend, let it here be remarked, was not a professed gambler--nor had he any sinister designs in urging on Wilmer as he was doing. But he was a man of loose morals, and, therefore, really believed that he was doing him a service in urging him to make an effort to get upon his feet by means of the gambling-table. Knowing the young man's high-toned feelings--and how utterly he must, from his character, condemn anything like play, he had purposely sought to obscure his perceptions by inducing him to drink freely. In this, he had succeeded.

As soon as night had thrown her dark shadows over the city, the two young men took their steps towards one of those haunts, known, too appropriately, by the name of "h.e.l.ls." At eight o'clock, Theodore went in, with two hundred dollars in his pocket--all the money he possessed;--and at ten o'clock, came out penniless.

Lonely and long was the afternoon to the young bride, giving opportunity to many thoughts of a sober, and even saddening nature.

Evening came at last, and then night with its deeper gloom. Eight o'clock arrived, and nine, but her husband did not return. And then the minutes slowly pa.s.sed, until the clock struck ten.

"O, where can he be!" Constance e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, rising to her feet, and beginning to pace the room to and fro, pausing every moment to listen to the sound of pa.s.sing footsteps. Thus she continued for the s.p.a.ce of something like half an hour, when she sunk exhausted upon a chair. It was twelve o'clock when he at length came in. As he opened the door, his young wife sprung to his side, exclaiming--

"O, Theodore! Theodore! Why have you staid away so very long?"

As she said this, he staggered against her, almost throwing her over, and then pa.s.sed on to the parlors without a word in return to her earnest and affectionate greeting.

Poor Constance was stunned for the moment. But she quickly recovered, her woman's heart nerving itself involuntarily, and followed after her husband. He had thrown himself upon a sofa, and sat, half-reclining, with his head upon his bosom.

"Are you sick, dear Theodore?" his young wife asked, in a tone of deep and earnest affection, laying her hand upon him, and bending down and kissing his forehead.

"Yes, I am sick, Constance," was the half-stupid reply--

"Come, then, let me a.s.sist you up to bed. A good night's rest will do you good," she said, gently urging him to rise.

She understood perfectly his condition. She knew that it was intoxication. But while it pained her young heart deeply, it awoke in her bosom no feelings of alarm. She felt convinced that it was the result of accident, and had no expectation of ever again seeing its recurrence. She asked him if he were sick, to spare him the mortification of knowing that she perceived the true nature of his indisposition.

Thus urged, he at once arose, and supported by the weak arm of his young wife, slowly ascended the stairs, and entered his chamber. It was not many minutes before his senses were locked in profound slumber.

Not so, however, Constance. The earnestness with which she had looked for evening to come, that she might again see the face, and hear the voice of her husband, had greatly excited her mind. This excitement was increased by the condition in which he had so unexpectedly returned. The effect was, to keep her awake, in spite of strong efforts to sink away into sleep. Many sad and desponding thoughts forced themselves upon her, as she lay, hour after hour, in a state of half-waking consciousness. It was nearly day-dawn, when, from all this, she found relief in a deep slumber.

The next day was one of heart-aching reflections to Theodore Wilmer.

In his eager, but half-insane effort to elevate himself rapidly for the sake of his young wife, he had sunk into actual want, and not only forfeited his own self-respect, but degraded himself, he felt, in the eyes of her whose love was dearer to him than life.

The events of two years must now be pa.s.sed over, with but a brief notice. There will be enough in the after history of Wilmer and his young wife, to awaken the reader's keenest sympathies, without unveiling the particular incidents of this period.

Suffice it, then, to say,--that the first night's experience at the gambling-table was not enough to satisfy Wilmer, that it was neither the right way, nor the most successful way of elevating himself in the world. So anxious did he feel on account of Constance, that be borrowed money of his false friend Arnold, on the evening of the very next day, and after drinking, freely, to nerve himself up, sought again the gambling-table. At ten o'clock, he left, the winner by fifty dollars. He left thus early on account of his wife, who would be, he knew, anxiously looking for his return. This encouraged him to go on, and he did go on. But he could never feel sanguine of success, or be able to still the troubled whispers within, until he had drunken freely. Of course, he was every day more or less under the influence of liquor. For a year, he managed, in this way, to keep up the style of living in which he had commenced, but he could get nothing ahead. None could imagine how this was done, for the young man was exceedingly cautious. He looked to some good turn of fortune by which he should be enabled to abandon for ever a course of life that he hated and despised. No such lucky turn, however, met his anxious expectations. After the first year of this course of life, his health, which had never been very good, began rapidly to fail. His cheeks became hollow, and a racking cough began to show itself. Still he went on keeping late hours, and drinking more and more freely, while his mind was all the time upon the rack. Towards the close of the second year, he was taken down with a severe illness, the result of all this abuse of mind and body. He lingered long upon the brink of the grave; but the little energy which his system retained, rallied at last, and he began slowly to recover.

During convalescence, he had full time for reflection. For full two years, he had been almost constantly so much under the influence of brandy, as really to be unable to think rationally upon any subject, and he had, in consequence, pursued a course of life, injurious, both to his own moral and physical health, and to the happiness of her for whom he would, at any moment of that time, have sacrificed everything, even life itself. In rising from that bed of sickness, it was with a solemn vow never again to enter a gaming-house, and never again to touch the bewildering poison that had been the secondary, if not, indeed, the primary cause of two years'

folly--nay, madness.

And Constance, what of her, all that time? the reader asks. It would be a difficult task to give even a feeble idea of all she patiently endured, and of all she suffered. Not once in that long period did she either see, or hear from her parents. Three or four times had she written to them, but no answer was returned. At last she ventured under the yearning anxiety that she felt once more to see her mother, and to hear the voice that lingered in her memory like old familiar music to go to her, and ask her forgiveness and her love. But she was coldly and cruelly repulsed--not even being permitted to gain her mother's presence.

In regard to her husband, her love was like a deep, pure stream. Its course was never troubled by pa.s.sion, or obstructed in its onward course. Though he would come home often and often in a state of stupor from drink--though it was rarely earlier than midnight when he returned to make glad with his presence her watching and waiting heart, she never felt a reproaching thought. And to her, his words and tones, and manner, were ever full of tenderness. Deeply did he love her--and for her sake more than for his own, was he struggling thus against a powerful current daily exhausting his strength, without moving onward.