Debit and Credit Part 6

In a moment or two Tinkeles returned, and, with more composure of manner, brought out "39-1/2, if you will take it at that."

After some appearance of uncertainty, Fink carelessly replied, "So be it, then;" at which Schmeie Tinkeles underwent an utter transformation, behaving like an amiable friend of the firm, and politely inquiring after the health of the princ.i.p.al.

And so it went on; the door creaking, buyers and sellers coming and going, men talking, pens scratching, and money pouring ceaselessly in.

The household of which Anton now formed part appeared to him to be most impressive and singular. The house itself was an irregular and ancient building, with wings, court-yards, out-houses, short stairs, mysterious pa.s.sages, and deep recesses. In the front part of it were handsome apartments, occupied by the merchant's family. Mr. Schroter had only been married for a very short time, his wife and child had died within the year, and his sister was now his only near relation.

The merchant adhered rigidly to the old customs of the firm. All the unmarried clerks formed part of the household, and dined with him punctually at one o'clock. On the day after Anton's arrival, a few minutes before that hour, he was taken to be introduced to the lady of the house, and gazed with wonder at the elegance and magnificence of the rooms through which he pa.s.sed on his way to her presence.

Sabine Schroter's pale, delicate face, crowned with hair of raven black, shone out very fair above her graceful summer attire. She seemed about Anton's own age, but she had the dignity of a matron.

"My sister governs us all," said the merchant, looking fondly at her.

"If you have any wish, make it known to her; she is the good fairy who keeps the house in order."

Anton looked at the fairy, and modestly replied, "Hitherto I have found every thing exceed my wishes."

"Your life will, in time, appear a monotonous one," continued the merchant. "Ours is a rigidly regular house, where you have much work to look forward to, and little recreation. My time is much engrossed; but, if you should ever need advice or a.s.sistance, I hope you will apply directly to myself."

This short audience over, he rose and led Anton to the dining-room, where all his colleagues were a.s.sembled; next, Sabine entered, accompanied by an elderly lady, a distant relation, who looked very good-natured. The clerks made their obeisance, and Anton took the seat appointed to him at the end of a long table, among the younger of his brethren. Opposite him sat Sabine, beside her brother, then the elderly relative, and next to her, Fink. On the whole, it was a silent dinner.

Anton's neighbors said little, and that under their breath; but Fink rattled away with thorough unconcern, told droll stories, mimicked voices and manners, and was exaggerated in his attentions to the good-natured relative. Anton was positively horrified at this freedom, and fancied that the princ.i.p.al did not like it much better. The black-coated domestics waited with the utmost propriety; and Anton rose with the impression that this repast had been the most solemn and stately of which he had ever partaken, and that he should get on with all the household with the exception of "that Von Fink."

One day that they accidentally met on the staircase, Fink, who had not for some time appeared conscious of his existence, stopped and asked him, "Well, Master Wohlfart, how does this house suit you?"

To which Anton replied, "Exceedingly well, indeed. I see and hear so much that is new to me that I have hardly thought of myself as yet."

"You'll soon get accustomed to it," said Fink, laughing; "one day is the same as the other all the year long. On Sunday, an extra good dinner, a gla.s.s of wine, and your best coat--that's all. You are one of the wheels in the machine, and will be expected to grind regularly."

"I am aware that I must be industrious in order to merit Mr. Schroter's confidence," was the rather indignant reply.

"Truly a virtuous remark; but you'll soon see, my poor lad, what a gulf is fixed between the head of the firm and those who write his letters.

No prince on earth stands so far removed above his va.s.sals as this same coffee-lord above his clerks. But do not lay much stress on what I say,"

added he, more good-naturedly; "the whole house will tell you that I am not quite _compos_. However, I'll give you a piece of good advice. Get an English master, and make some progress before you got rusty. All they teach you here will never make a clever man of you, if you happen to want to be one. Good-night." And, turning upon his heel, he left our Anton somewhat disconcerted.

Indeed, he too, in course of time, began to be conscious of the monotony of a business life, but he did not fret about it, having been taught by his parents habits of industry and order.

Mr. Jordan took much pains to initiate him into the mysteries of divers wares; and the hours that he first spent in the warehouses, amid the varied produce of different lands, were fraught with a certain poetry of their own, as good, perhaps, as any other. There was a large, gloomy, vaulted room on the ground floor, in which lay stores for the traffic of the day. Tuns, bales, chests, were piled on each other, which every land, every race, had contributed to fill. The floating palace of the East India Company, the swift American brig, the patriarchal ark of the Dutchman, the stout-ribbed whaler, the smoky steamer, the gay Chinese junk, the light canoe of the Malay--all these had battled with winds and waves to furnish this vaulted room. A Hindoo woman had woven that matting; a Chinese had painted that chest; a Congo negro, in the service of a Virginian planter, had looped those canes over the cotton bales; that square block of zebra-wood had grown in the primeval forests of the Brazils, and monkeys and bright-hued parrots had chattered among its branches. Anton would stand long in this ancient hall, after Mr.

Jordan's lessons were over, absorbed in wonder and interest, till roof and pillars seemed transferred to broad-leaved palm-trees, and the noise of the streets to the roar of the sea--a sound he only knew in his dreams; and this delight in what was foreign and unfamiliar never wore off, but led him to become, by reading, intimately acquainted with the countries whence all these stores came, and with the men by whom they were collected.

Thus the first months of his life in the capital fled rapidly away; and it was well for him that he took so much interest in his studies, for Fink proved right in one respect. In spite of the daily meal in the stately dining-room, Anton remained as great a stranger as ever to the princ.i.p.al and his family. He was too rational, indeed, to murmur at this, but he could not avoid feeling depressed by it; for, with the enthusiasm of youth, he was ready to revere his chief as the ideal of mercantile greatness. He admired his sagacity, decision, energy, and inflexible uprightness, and would have been devoted to him heart and soul, but that he so seldom saw him. When the merchant was not engaged by business, he lived for his sister, whom he most tenderly loved. For her he kept a carriage and horses which he himself never used, and gave evening parties to which Anton and his colleagues were not invited. Gay equipages rolled in one after the other, liveried servants ran up and down stairs, and graceful shadows flitted across the windows, while Anton sat in his little upper chamber, and yearned eagerly after the brilliant gayeties in which he had no part. True, his reason told him that they did not belong to men of his cla.s.s, but at nineteen reason is not always supreme; and many a time he went back with a sigh from his window to his books, and tried to forget the alluring strains of the quadrille and waltz in the descriptions of the lion's roar and the bull-frog's croak in the far-off tropics.

CHAPTER VI.

The Baron of Rothsattel had moved to his town residence. It was not indeed large, but its furniture, the arabesques on its walls, the arrangement of its hangings were so graceful, that it ranked as a model of comfort and elegance. The baron had made all his preparations in silence. At length the day came when the new carriage stopped at the door, and, lifting down his wife, he led her through the suite of apartments to her own little boudoir, all fitted up with white silk.

Enchanted beyond measure, she flew into his arms, and he felt as proud and happy as a king. They were soon perfectly settled, and able to begin their course of visiting.

It was the custom of a large portion of the n.o.bility to spend the winter in town, and accordingly the Rothsattels met many friends, and several of their acquaintance. Every one was pleased to welcome them, and after a few weeks they found themselves immersed in gayety. The baroness soon became a leader of the feminine world, and her husband, after at first missing his walks through his farm and his woods, began to take equal pleasure in reviving his youthful acquaintance. He became member of a n.o.bleman's club, indulged his virtuoso tendencies, played whist, and filled his idle hours with a little politics and a little art. And so the winter pa.s.sed pleasantly on, and the baron and his wife often wondered why they had not earlier indulged in this agreeable variety.

Lenore was the only one dissatisfied with the change. She continued to justify her mother's fear lest she should become an original. She found it difficult to pay proper respect to the numberless elderly cousins of the family, and still more difficult to refrain from accosting first any pleasant gentleman she had known in the country, and now chanced to meet in the streets. Likewise, the Young Lady's Inst.i.tution, which she had to attend, was in many ways objectionable to her. She had certain maps and tiresome lesson-books to take to and fro, and her mother did not approve of the servants' time being occupied in carrying them after her. One day, when walking like an angry Juno--the tokens of her slavery upon her arm, and her little parasol in her hand--she beheld the young gentleman to whom she had shown her flower-garden coming to meet her, and she rejoiced at it, for he was pleasantly a.s.sociated in her mind with home, the pony, and the family of swans. He was still some way off when her hawk's eye discerned him, but he did not see her even when he came nearer. As her mother had forbidden her ever to accost a gentleman in the street, there was nothing for it but to stand still and to strike her parasol on the flags.

Anton looked up and saw to his pleasant surprise the lovely lady of the lake. Blus.h.i.+ng, he took off his hat, and Lenore observed with satisfaction that, in spite of the satchel on her arm, she impressed him as much us ever.

"How are you, sir?" she inquired, in a dignified way.

"Very well," replied Anton; "how delighted I am to see you in town!"

"We are living here at present," said the young lady, with less stateliness, "at No. 20 Bear Street."

"May I inquire for the pony?" said Anton, respectfully.

"Only think, he had to be left behind!" was the sorrowful reply; "and what are you doing here?"

"I am in the house of T. O. Schroter," said Anton, bowing.

"Oh! a merchant; and what do you deal in?"

"In colonial produce. It is the largest firm in that department in the whole town," replied Anton, complacently.

"And have you met with kind people who take care of you?"

"My princ.i.p.al is very kind, but I must take care of myself."

"Have you any friends here with whom you can amuse yourself?"

"A few acquaintances. But I have much to do, and I must improve myself in my leisure hours."

"You look rather pale," said the young lady, with motherly interest; "you should move more about, and take long walks. I am glad to have met you, and shall be pleased to hear of your well-doing," added she, majestically; and, with an inclination of her pretty little head, she vanished in the crowd, while Anton remained gazing after her, hat in hand.

Lenore did not consider it necessary to mention this meeting. But a few days later, when the baroness happened to inquire where they should get some necessary stores, she looked up from her book and said, "The largest firm here is that of T. O. Schroter, dealer in colonial produce."

"How do you know that?" inquired her father, laughing; "you speak like an experienced merchant."

"All the result of the Young Lady's Inst.i.tution," answered Lenore, pertly.

Meanwhile, in the midst of his social pleasures, the baron did not forget the chief end of his town life. He made close inquiries as to the speculations of other landed proprietors, visited the factories in the town, became acquainted with educated manufacturers, and acquired some knowledge of machinery. But the information thus gained was so contradictory, that he thought it best not to precipitate matters, but to wait till some specially advantageous and safe undertaking should offer.

We must not omit to mention that about this time the family property was increased by a small, handsome, bra.s.s-inlaid casket, with a lock that defied any thief's power of opening, so that, if minded to steal, he would have nothing for it but to carry off the casket itself. In it were laid forty-five thousand dollars in the form of new promissory notes.

The baron contemplated these with much tenderness. At first he would sit for hours opposite the open casket, never weary of arranging the parchment leaves according to their numbers, delighting in their glossy whiteness, and forming plans for paying off the capital; and even when, for safety's sake, the casket had been made over to the keeping of the Joint-stock Company, the thought of it was a continual pleasure. Nay, the spirit of the casket began to peep out even in household arrangements. The baroness was surprised at her husband counseling certain economies, or telling with a degree of pleasure of ten louis d'or won last evening at cards. She was at first a little afraid that he had become in some way embarra.s.sed; but, as he a.s.sured her, with a complacent smile, that this was far from being the case, she soon learned to treat these little attempts at saving as an innocent whim, especially as they only extended to trifling details, the baron insisting as much as ever upon keeping up a dignified and imposing social appearance. Indeed, it was impossible for him to retrench just now. The town life, the furnis.h.i.+ng of the house, and the necessary claims of society, of course increased the outgoings.

And so it came to pa.s.s that the baron, after having paid a visit to his property to settle the yearly accounts, returned to town much out of tune. He had become aware that the expenditure of the last year had exceeded the income, and that the income of the next year gave no promise of balancing the existing deficit of two thousand dollars. The thought occurred that the sum must be taken from the white parchments; and the man who would have stood calm beneath a shower of bullets, broke out into a cold perspiration at the idea of the debts thus to be incurred. It was plain that there had been an error in his calculations.

He who wishes to raise a sum by small yearly savings must not increase, but lessen his expenditure. True, the increase in his case had been unavoidable; but still, a most unlucky coincidence. The baron had not felt such anxiety since his lieutenant-days. There were a thousand good reasons, however, against giving up the town house; it was rented for a term of years; and then, what would his acquaintance say? So he kept his troubles to himself; quieted the baroness by talking of a cold caught on his journey; but all day long the same thought kept gnawing at his heart. Sometimes in the evening he was able to drive it away a while, but it was sure to return in the morning.

It was one of these weary mornings that Mr. Ehrenthal, who had to pay for some grain, was announced. The very name was at that moment unpleasant to the baron, and his greeting was colder than usual; but the man of business did not mind little ups and downs of temper, paid his money, and was profuse in expressions of devoted respect, which all fell coldly, till, just before going away, he inquired, "Did the promissory notes duly arrive?"

"Yes," was the ungracious reply.