CHAPTER X.
A GREAT DISASTER.
Mr. Townsend left his home one morning, and was passing slowly along the street, in the direction of his counting-room, when a business friend, who was walking on the opposite side of the street, came briskly over on seeing him, and asked, in an agitated voice,
“Have you heard the news from Philadelphia?”
“No; what is it?”
“The United States’ Bank has failed!”
The face of Mr. Townsend became instantly pale, and he caught hold of an iron railing to support himself.
“Impossible!” he said, in a faint, husky voice.
“It is too true. Do you hold any of the stock?”
“Every dollar I am worth is there!”
“Every dollar! Surely not, Mr. Townsend!”
“I’m ruined! ruined! ruined!” murmured the wretched man, losing all control of himself; “hopelessly ruined!”
“Not so bad as that, I trust, sir. A large percentage of the stock will no doubt be paid.”
“When? Where? How? Hasn’t the Bank failed? And when did a bank fail and a stockholder receive a dollar? Gracious heavens!”
And with this ejaculation, Mr. Townsend turned away and walked hastily in the direction of his place of business, murmuring to himself, “Ruined! ruined! ruined!”
At his counting-room he found a letter from a correspondent in Philadelphia, announcing the failure of the Bank, but advising him by all means not to sacrifice his stock, nor be alarmed at the low price to which those interested in its depression would at first cause it to fall. Mr. Townsend read over this letter, and then laying it aside, murmured to himself, as he bowed his head upon a desk,
“Ruined! ruined! ruined!”
To this, and only to this conclusion, could his bewildered mind come.
But, at length, the very extremity and almost hopelessness of the condition into which he found himself so suddenly reduced, aroused his mind into a more active state.
“I must not sit idly here,” he said. “If any thing is to be saved, let me try to save it. Not sell! Yes, I will sell at any price, turn the proceeds into gold, and bury it in my cellar.”
Under this new impulse, Mr. Townsend, after calming himself by a strong effort of the will, left his counting-room for the purpose of obtaining information as to the actual condition of the Bank, the price at which the stock was held, and the ultimate probable result, as determined in the minds of those who possessed the most accurate information.
But he found every body astounded and bewildered at the unexpected event. There was no quotation of the stock whatever, except at a very low nominal price. Those who did, and those who did not, hold scrip, alike spoke of the folly of selling at present. Every one said—“Wait.”
The merchant returned to his counting-room, more undecided than when he went out, and feeling quite as deeply impressed with the idea that all was hopeless. The next thoughts that began to pervade his mind, were of his family. No one at home knew of the particular disposition that he had made of his property. His wife and daughters might hear of the failure of the Bank, without having their hearts filled with alarm, or dreaming that, in this event, was foreshadowed their fall from affluence to poverty. For the present, at least, he determined to keep them in ignorance of the approaching danger, while he watched the progress of events, and seized upon the first favorable opportunity to clutch, with a vigorous grasp, the remnant of his shattered fortune. To do one thing his mind was made up, and that was to sell so soon as there should be any thing like a settled state of the market, and the stock from a uniform quotation begin to decline in price. If there was an advance, he would hold on until there came appearance of depression, and then sell, and invest the proceeds in ground rents, the only security in which he had now a particle of faith.
At last, the market became, to a certain extent, steady, but at appallingly low rates. Even at these Mr. Townsend felt disposed to sell, but every one said “No!” so emphatically, and so confidently predicted an advance, that he hesitated and delayed, day after day, week after week, and month after month, while the price still went down, until shares that had cost him from a dollar and ten cents to a dollar and twenty, were quoted at twenty cents nominally, and the tendency still downward.
To describe Mr. Townsend’s state of mind during the few months that this steady decline in the price of shares continued, would be impossible. No man could be more wretched than he was. Carefully did he conceal from his family the condition of his affairs, fearing all the time to look his wife or daughters steadily in the face, lest they should read the truth in his eyes.
In the mean time the precarious state of Mr. Townsend’s worldly affairs became pretty well known in business circles, and all manner of comments were made thereon. Every one could see and be astonished at his folly in withdrawing his capital from commerce, in which he had amassed a handsome fortune, and investing it in the stock of a single institution, whose very name was a fraud upon the community, and ought to have been a fact sufficiently conclusive to destroy all confidence in its safety. Many were the conversations held on the subject, much after this tenor:
“Poor Townsend, I pity him.”
“It’s more than I do, then. Any man who plays the fool, as he has, deserves to lose his money. I have no charity for him. He had made two or three hundred thousand dollars in fair, honest, regular trade, and not content with that, must sell his ships and go to speculating in western towns.”
“He was certainly very indiscreet.”
“Indiscreet! He was a fool! How any man, thoroughly educated as a merchant, and in the habit of dealing in only such commodities as possess an intrinsic value, could be so mad as to give forty or fifty thousand dollars for lots in an imaginary western city, on the mere word of a speculating sharper, passes my comprehension.”
“One of the strange occurrences of the present strange times. Had Townsend much money in United States’ Bank stock?”
“Every dollar he is worth, I am told.”
“It can’t be possible! What could have possessed him to make such a disposition of his property?”
“The blindest folly of which any man could be guilty.”
“But this stock was considered the safest in the country. You can hardly blame a man for investing his money therein.”
“I blame any man for putting all he has in one adventure or security. Nothing is absolutely certain here.”
“And you really think Townsend has beggared himself?”
“There is no doubt of it in the world. I have my information from those who know. I don’t believe he is worth ten thousand dollars, if all he has were turned into cash, and his debts paid.”
“He still maintains his old style of living.”
“Yes, but that will not last long. You’ll see a different order of things before long. I can’t have much sympathy for him. Townsend, in his best days, was a hard man, and never had the slightest sympathy for one who happened to be unfortunate in business. You remember Elderkin’s failure, about three years ago?”
“Very well.”
“I was one of the creditors, and attended all the meetings. Townsend was the most unyielding of all. I shall never forget the insulting language he used to poor Elderkin, who was honest at heart, if ever there was an honest man in the world. Every one noticed it, and felt it as an outrage. ‘No man who properly attends to his business,’ he said, ‘need fail.’”
“Indeed! That is his view of the case.”
“I have heard him express it more than a dozen times.”
“I wonder what he thinks now?”
“He has not changed his mind, I presume. Nothing in the history of his own affairs, rightly viewed, would cause him to do so.”
“They who stand too high may chance to fall.”
“Yes; and the higher they stand, the more disastrous will be their fall.”
“I wonder what old Pascal’s son thinks of all this?”
“Rather ask what Pascal himself thinks of it. In my opinion, there’s a match broken off. Eveline ought to have secured her lover long and long ago. She has had time enough. But I doubt not it is too late now. Pascal loves money too well to let his son marry a portionless bride.”
“Won’t Henry consult his own fancy in the matter?”
“If he does, it will not run off in a tangent to that of his father’s, I presume. He knows the value of money too well, indifferent as he is about making it.”
“Eveline is a beautiful girl. I feel sorry for her.”
“So do I. But it can’t be helped. She’s somewhat proud and haughty. Her sister Eunice is the flower of that flock. I don’t know a sweeter young girl.”
“She ought to have been married long ago.”
“And so she would, I am told, if her father had not interfered.”
“To whom?”
“To some young man, who, not being rich enough, was not considered good enough.”
“Then there is some chance for her now.”
“I don’t know. Perhaps the young man loved her father’s money quite as well as he loved her, and will now change his mind altogether. Ah me! It is wonderful how a man’s views and opinions will alter under the force of a money-argument.”
Thus the gossip ran.
As for old Mr. Pascal, to whom allusion was made in this conversation, he had his eyes about him, and his ears open to all that concerned Mr. Townsend. Long before the failure of the United States Bank, he had seen enough to make him dissatisfied with the proposed alliance, and, as has been shown, endeavored to induce his son to give up all idea of marrying Eveline. Immediately upon the failure of the Bank, in the stock of which he had some twenty or thirty thousand dollars invested, he said to his son:
“Henry, nearly every dollar of Mr. Townsend’s property is locked up in the stock of this institution.”
“It cannot surely be!” returned the son, evincing surprise and concern.
“It is true, Henry. Mr. Townsend has acknowledged it himself, and declared that the failure had ruined him. You will see the necessity for breaking off all connection with the family, and you had better do it at once.”
“There seems something so mercenary and heartless in that,” said the young man.
“As to its seeming, Henry, you have nothing to do with that,” replied Mr. Pascal. “You are, certainly, not so mad as to think of connecting yourself with this family now, when your position gives you the chance of forming an alliance with one of the best and wealthiest in the city. In six months, take my word for it, Mr. Townsend will be bankrupt. Are you prepared to marry the daughter with that certainty staring you in the face?”
“I hardly think I am.”
“Believe me that such a certainty exists.”
Under this assurance, Henry Pascal began the work of withdrawing himself from the society of Eveline. The death of her brother caused her to exclude herself from company almost entirely, so that he rarely saw her abroad. To meet her, he had to visit her. Instead of calling every week, and sometimes two or three times a week, his visits were made at longer intervals, were briefer, while his manner was more reserved.
There was something so deliberately heartless in this, that the young man shrunk in shame from the image of himself that was reflected in his own mind. The act lost him his self-respect; but such was the potency of the influences acting within and without him, that he steadily persevered in his design, until finally all intercourse between him and Eveline was at an end.