All the Days of My Life: An Autobiography. Barr Amelia E.
an hour after her departure, my own dear mother came to me, and two days later, my daughter Mary was born, “a bonnie wee lassie, world-like, and wise-like,” said the old nurse pleasantly. She kept her sixtieth birthday a week ago, and may God spare her to keep her eightieth as well, and as joyfully. After the birth of Mary, her father’s affairs began to settle, and it was not necessary for him to travel so constantly between Glasgow and Huddersfield. And the furniture question gave me neither trouble nor anxiety. I took it to the Highest Court, and the Best Councillor known to man, and I never heard of it again. Robert did not speak of it to me, and I asked him no questions. There are times in life when it is wisest to let sleeping dogs lie, and I thought this subject was one of such occasions. About May Robert received his certificate of just and lawful bankruptcy, and was free to reopen his warehouse and recommence his business.
But I could see it was hard and discouraging work. An American can hardly estimate how cruel an English bankruptcy is. On its business side, I could only form opinions from Robert’s depression and remarks; but I could see, and feel, and hear on every hand, the social ostracism it entails. The kindest heart quickly drops the friend who has failed. The man is never forgiven by his family. Years cannot efface the stain, nor future success give back his former social position, or ever dispel the uncertainty of his business reputation. Now bankruptcy is not the unpardonable sin in the United States that it is – or was – in England and Scotland, and one of the things which struck me most forcibly, when I came to America, was the indifference with which men spoke of “being broke,” or having failed here or there, or in this, or that line of business, taking misfortune as cheerily as good fortune, and beginning again and again until they at last succeeded.
With small economies, small anxieties, and one man’s ceaseless struggle against misfortune, the next year passed away. Hitherto, I had always felt a contempt for struggling men; I had told myself, that their opportunities were so many, there was no excuse for the strife. If one thing, or one place was unfavorable, they could go elsewhere; the whole world was a market-place for their hands, or their brains. But during this year I discovered my mistake. Robert was tied by invisible bonds, and he had not the strength – perhaps not the will – to burst them asunder.
As for myself, I was busy with my house, and my child, my music, and books, my needle, and my correspondence with my home, and I could have been quite content with these sources of pleasure, if Robert had been in any measure satisfied and successful. But he could not hide from me the anxiety which was making his life a burden hard to bear. It was then the idea of exile, of a new country, new surroundings, and an entirely new effort, unhampered by the débris of an old failure, took possession of my mind; for this one year’s dismaying results satisfied me that nothing but the most radical changes would be of any use. But I was daily expecting the birth of my second child, and I told myself that nothing could be done for another month. I was, however, mistaken. Robert came home one night in such evident distress, that I was sure it arose from some social slight, and I asked, “Whatever has vexed you so much today, Robert?”
“Why, Milly,” he said, “three things: My old Sunday school teacher, to whom I am much attached, passed me without a word, and then turned back and said angrily, ‘Man Robert! I’m disappointed in you. I’m sair disappointed! I thought you were going to be a rich man, and a pillar o’ the Kirk.’ I said, ‘It is not my fault, Deacon.’ ‘It is your fault,’ he continued, ‘whatna for, did you buy Alexander Hastie’s business, if you didna ken how to run it? Hastie is now our member to Parliament, and you hae disgraced the whole city o’ Glasgow, by letting a business so weel kent in his name, go to the dogs. I wonder me, what your good father would say to the disgrace you hae brought on his name, and I am sorry, Dod! I’m heart sorry for your poor mother.’”
“O Robert! How cruel! How unjust!”
“I cannot live down such prejudice, Milly. It is impossible. He had scarcely left me, when I saw Mrs. Semple coming towards me. She hesitated a moment, then went into a small jeweler’s shop to avoid the meeting. This afternoon Mother came to my office, and we had some very hard words, about a piece of property that is solely and entirely my own.”
“Have you anything left, that is your own?”
“This piece of property is. Once, when I had plenty of money, I helped Donald McLeod to save it, and when he died, three months ago, he left it to me.”
“Hold to it fast, Robert,” I said. “I beg you not to touch it for anything.”
“Donald told me he had left it for an ‘emergency,’ and I am keeping it till that time arrives.”
“That time is now here, dear Robert. As soon as my trouble is past, let us go far away from Scotland, and begin a new life. You are not twenty-nine years old, and I am only twenty-two. Shall we give up our lives to a ceaseless, contemptible struggle, that brings us neither money nor respect? Somewhere in the world, there is peace and good fortune for us. We will go and find it.”
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