Sir, I had the misfortune to lose a very n.o.ble mother when I was young.
When I was ten years old, and my brother (I have one brother) was eight, our mother died! We were but children, you will say; but I don"t, even now that I am a dying, sinful old man, forget my mother. She taught us to pray and to shun sin. She also surrounded us with such high and holy thoughts--she so gave us the perfection of all pure mother love, that we must have been less than human not to be good boys during her lifetime.
I remember even now the look in her eyes when I refused on any childish occasion to follow the good, and then chose the evil. I have a daughter--one beloved daughter, something like my mother. I have seen the same high and honorable light in her eyes, but never since in any others. Well, my mother died, and Jasper and I had only her memory to keep us right. We used to talk about her often, and often fretted for her as, I suppose, few little boys before or since have fretted for a mother. After her death we were sent to school. Our father even then was a rich man: he was a self-made man; he started a business in a small way in the City, but small beginnings often make great endings, and the little business grew, and grew, and success and wealth came almost without effort. Jasper and I never knew what poverty meant. I loved learning better than my brother did, and at the age of eighteen, when Jasper went into our father"s business, I was sent to Oxford. At twenty-two I had taken my degree, and done so, not perhaps brilliantly, but with some honor. Any profession was now open to me, and my father gave me full permission to choose any walk in life I chose; at the same time he made a proposal. He was no longer so young as he had been; he had made his fortune; he believed that Jasper"s apt.i.tude for business excelled his own. If we would become partners in the firm which he had made, and which was already rising into considerable eminence, he would retire altogether. We young men should work the business in our own way.
He was confident we should rise to immense wealth. While making this proposal our father said that he would not give up his business to Jasper alone. If both his sons accepted it, then he would be willing to retire, taking with him a considerable sum of money, but still leaving affairs both unenc.u.mbered and flourishing. "You are my heirs eventually." he said to us both; "and now I give you a week to decide."
At the end of the allotted time we accepted the offer. This was princ.i.p.ally Jasper"s doing, for at that time I knew nothing of business, and had thought of a profession. Afterwards I liked the counting-house, and became as absorbed as others in the all-engrossing acc.u.mulation of wealth. Our father had taken a very large sum of money out of the business, and it was impossible for us not to feel for a time a considerable strain; but Jasper"s skill and talent were simply wonderful, and success attended all our efforts.
"Two years after I joined the business, I married my Charlotte"s mother.
I was a wealthy man even then. Though of no birth in particular, I was considered gentlemanly. I had acquired that outward polish which a university education gives; I was also good-looking. With my money, good looks, and education, I was considered a match for the proud and very poor daughter of an old Irish baronet. She had no money; she had nothing but her beautiful face, her high and honorable spirit, her blue blood.
You will say, "Enough!" Ay, it was more than enough. She made me the best, the truest of wives. I never loved another woman. She was a little bit extravagant. She had never known wealth until she became my wife, and wealth, in the most innocent way in the world, was delightful to her. While Jasper saved, I was tempted to live largely. I took an expensive house--there was no earthly good thing I would not have given to her. She loved me; but, as I said, she was proud. Pride in birth and position was perhaps her only fault. I was perfect in her eyes, but she took a dislike to Jasper. This I could have borne, but it pained me when I saw her turning away from my old father. I dearly loved and respected my father, and I wanted Constance to love him, but she never could be got to care for him. It was at that time, that that thing happened which was the beginning of all the after darkness and misery.
"My father, finding my proud young wife not exactly to his taste, came less and less to our house. Finally, he bought an old estate in Hertfordshire, and then one day the news reached us that he had engaged himself to a very young girl, and that he would marry at once. There was nothing wrong in this marriage, but Jasper and I chose to consider it a sin. We had never forgotten our mother, and we thought it a dishonor to her. We forgot our father"s loneliness. In short, we were unreasonable and behaved as unreasonably as unreasonable men will on such occasions.
Hot and angry words pa.s.sed between our father and ourselves. We neither liked our father"s marriage nor his choice. Of course, we were scarcely likely to turn the old man from his purpose, but we refused to have anything to do with his young wife. Under such circ.u.mstances we had an open quarrel. Our father married, and we did not see him for years. I was unhappy at this, for I loved my father. Before his second marriage, he always spent from Sat.u.r.day to Monday at our house, and though my own wife not caring for him greatly marred our pleasure, yet now that the visits had absolutely ceased I missed them--I missed the gray head and the shrewd, old, kindly face; and often, very often, I almost resolved to run down into Hertfordshire and make up my quarrel. I did not do so, however; and as the years went on, I grew afraid to mention my father"s name to either my wife or brother. Jasper and I were at this time deeply absorbed in speculation; our business was growing and growing; each thing we embarked in turned out well; we were beginning quite to recover from the strain which our father"s removal of so large a sum of money had caused. Jasper was a better man of business than I was. Jasper, though the junior partner, took the lead in all plans. He proposed that an Australian branch of our business should be opened. It was done, and succeeded well.
"About this time we heard that a little son had arrived at the Hermitage in Hertfordshire. He did not live long. We saw his birth announced in _The Times_. It may have been some months later, though, looking back on it, it seems but a few days, that the birth was followed by the death. A year or two pa.s.sed away, and my wife and I were made happy by the arrival of our first child. The child was a daughter. We called her Charlotte, after my much-loved mother. Time went on, until one day a telegram was put into my hand summoning my brother and myself to our father"s deathbed. The telegram was sent by the young wife. I rushed off at once; Jasper followed by the next train.
"The hale old man had broken up very suddenly at last, and the doctor said he had but a few days to live. During those few days, Jasper and I scarcely left his bedside; we were reconciled fully and completely, and he died at last murmuring my own mother"s name and holding our hands.
"It was during this visit that I saw the little wife for the first time.
She was a commonplace little thing, but pretty and very young; it was impossible to dislike the gentle creature. She was overpowered with grief at her husband"s death. It was impossible not to be kind to her, not to comfort her. There was one child, a girl of about the age of my own little Charlotte. This child had also been named Charlotte. She was a pale, dark-eyed child, with a certain strange look of my mother about her. She was not a particle like her own. My father loved this little creature, and several times during those last days of his he spoke of her to me.
""I have called her after your own mother," he said. "I love my second wife; but the Charlotte of my youth can never be forgotten. I have called the child Charlotte; you have called your daughter Charlotte.
Good! let the two be friends."
"I promised readily enough, and I felt pity and interest for the little forlorn creature. I also, as I said, intended to be good to the mother, who seemed to me to be incapable of standing alone.
"Immediately after my father"s death and before the funeral, I was summoned hastily to town. My wife was dangerously ill. A little dead baby had come into the world, and for a time her life was despaired of; eventually she got better; but for the next few days I lived and thought only for her. I turned over all business cares to Jasper. I was unable even to attend our father"s funeral. I never day or night left Constance"s bedside. I loved this woman most devotedly, most pa.s.sionately. During all those days when her life hung in the balance, my time seemed one long prayer to G.o.d. "Spare her, spare her precious life at any cost, at any cost." Those were the words, forever on my lips. The prayer was heard; I had my wife again. For a short time she was restored to me. I have often thought since, was even that precious life worth the price I paid for it?"
Here Mr. Harman paused. Some moisture had gathered on his brow; he took out his handkerchief to wipe it away. A gla.s.s of water stood by his side; he drank a little.
"I am approaching the sin," he said addressing the clergyman. "The successfully buried sin is about to rise from its grave; pardon me if I shrink from the awful sight."
"G.o.d will strengthen you, my dear sir," answered Home. "By your confession, you are struggling back into the right path. What do I say?
Rather you are being led back by G.o.d himself. Take courage. Lean upon the Almighty arm. Your sin will shrink in dimensions as you view it; for between you and it will come forgiveness."
Mr. Harman smiled faintly, After another short pause, he continued.
"On the day on which my dear wife was p.r.o.nounced out of danger, Jasper sent for me. My brother and I had ever been friends, though in no one particular were we alike. During the awful struggle through which I had just pa.s.sed. I forgot both him and my father. Now I remembered him and my father"s death, and our own business cares. A thousand memories came back to me. When he sent for me I left my wife"s bedside and went down to him. I was feeling weak and low, for I had not been in bed for many nights, and a kind of reaction had set in. I was in a kind of state when a man"s nerves can be shaken, and his whole moral equilibrium upset. I do not offer this as an excuse for what followed. There is no excuse for the dark sin; but I do believe enough about myself to say that what I then yielded to, I should have been proof against at a stronger physical moment. I entered my private sitting-room to find Jasper pacing up and down like a wild creature. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair tossed. He was a calm and cheerful person generally. At this instant, he looked like one half bereft of reason. "Good heavens! what is wrong?" I said. I was startled out of myself by his state of perturbation.
""We are ruined; that is what is wrong," answered Jasper.
"He then entered into particulars with which I need not trouble you. A great house, one of the greatest and largest houses in the City, had come to absolute grief; it was bankrupt. In its fall many other houses, ours amongst them, must sink.
"I saw it all quite plainly. I sat down quiet and stunned; while Jasper raved and swore and paced up and down the room, I sat still. Yes we were, beggars, nothing could save the house which our father had made with such pride and care.
"After a time I left Jasper and returned to my wife"s room. On the way I entered the nursery and paid my pretty little Charlotte a visit. She climbed on my knee and kissed me, and all the time I kept saying to myself, "The child is a beggar, I can give her no comforts; we are absolutely in want." It was the beginning of the winter then, and the weather was bitterly cold. The doctor met me on the threshold of my wife"s room; he said to me, "As soon as ever she is better, you must either take or send her out of England. She may recover abroad; but to winter in this climate, in her present state, would certainly kill her."
How bitter I felt; for was I not a beggar? How could I take my wife away? I sat down again in the darkened room and thought over the past.
Hitherto the wealth, which was so easily won, seemed of comparatively small importance. It was easy with a full purse to wish, then to obtain.
I had often wondered at Constance"s love for all the pretty things with which I delighted to surround her, her almost childish pleasure in the riches which had come to her. She always said to me at such times:
""But I have known such poverty; I hate poverty, and I love, I love the pretty things of life."
"This very night, as I sat by her bedside, she opened her lovely eyes and looked at me and said:
""John, I have had such a dream so vivid, so, so terrible. I thought we were poor again--poorer than I ever was even with my father; so poor, John, that I was hungry, and you could give me nothing to eat. I begged you to give me food. There was a loaf in a shop window, such a nice crisp loaf; and I was starving. When you said you had no money, I begged of you to steal that loaf. You would not, you would not, and at last I lay down to die. Oh! John, say it was a dream."
""Of course it was only a dream, my darling!" I answered, and I kissed her and soothed her, though all the time my heart felt like lead.
"That evening Jasper sent for me again. His manner now was changed. The wildness and despair had left it. He was his old, cool, collected self.
He was in the sort of mood when he always had an ascendency over me--the sort of mood when he showed that wonderful business faculty for which I could not but admire him.
""Sit down, John," he said, "I have a great deal to say to you. There is a plan in my head. If you will agree to act with me in it, we may yet be saved."
"Thinking of my Constance lying so ill upstairs, my heart leaped up at these words.
""What is your plan?" I said. "I can stay with you for some time. I can listen as long as you like."
""You hate poverty?" said Jasper.
""Yes," I said, thinking of Constance, "I hate it."
""If you will consent to my scheme; if you will consent before you leave this room, we need not sink with Cooper, Cooper and Bennett."
""I will listen to you," I said.
""You have always been so absorbed lately in your wife," continued Jasper, "that you have, I really believe, forgotten our father"s death: his funeral was last Thursday. Of course you could not attend it. After the funeral I read the will."
""Yes," I said, "I had really forgotten my father"s will. He left us money?" I said. "I am glad; it will keep us from absolute want.
Constance need not be hungry after all."
"My brother looked at me.
""A little money has been left to us," he said, "but so little that it must go with the rest. In the general crash those few thousands must also go. John, you remember when our father took that very large sum out of the business, he promised that we should be his heirs. It was a loan for his lifetime."
""He had not married then," I said.
""No," answered Jasper, "he had not married. Now that he has married he has forgotten all but this second wife. He has left her, with the exception of a few thousands, the whole of that fine property. In short, he has left her a sum of money which is to realize an income of twelve hundred a year."
""Yes," I said, wearily.
"Jasper looked at me very hard. I returned his gaze.
""That money, if left to us, would save the firm. _Quite absolutely save the firm in this present crisis_," he said, slowly and emphatically.
""Yes," I said again. I was so innocent, so far from what I since became, at that moment, that I did not in the least understand my brother. "The money is not ours," I said, seeing that his eyes were still fixed on me with a greedy intense light.
""If my father were alive now," said Jasper, rising to his feet and coming to my side, "if my father were alive now, he would break his heart, to see the business which he made with such pride and skill, come to absolute grief. If my father were still alive; if that crash had come but a fortnight ago, he would say, "Save the firm at any cost."
""But he is dead," I said, "we cannot save the firm. What do you mean, Jasper? I confess I cannot see to what you are driving."
""John," said my brother, "you are stupid. If our father could speak to us now, he would say, "Take the money, all the money I have left, and save the firm of Harman Brothers."