April Hopes

by William Dean Howells

  XXVIII.

  The parting scene with Alice persisted in Mavering's thought far on theway to Ponkwasset Falls. He now succeeded in saying everything to her:how deeply he felt her giving him her photograph to cheer him inhis separation from her; how much he appreciated her forethought inproviding him with some answer when his mother and sisters should askhim about her looks. He took out the picture, and pretended to the otherpassengers to be looking very closely at it, and so managed to kiss it.He told her that now he understood what love really was; how powerful;how it did conquer everything; that it had changed him and made himalready a better man. He made her refuse all merit in the work.

  When he began to formulate the facts for communication to his family,love did not seem so potent; he found himself ashamed of his passion,or at least unwilling to let it be its own excuse even; he had a wishto give it almost any other appearance. Until he came in sight of thestation and the Works, it had not seemed possible for any one to objectto Alice. He had been going home as a matter of form to receive theadhesion of his family. But now he was forced to see that she might beconsidered critically, even reluctantly. This would only be becausehis family did not understand how perfect Alice was; but they might notunderstand.

  With his father there would be no difficulty. His father had seen Aliceand admired her; he would be all right. Dan found himself hoping thisrather anxiously, as if from the instinctive need of his father'ssupport with his mother and sisters. He stopped at the Works when heleft the train, and found his father in his private office beyond thebook-keeper's picket-fence, which he penetrated, with a nod to theaccountant.

  "Hello, Dan!" said his father, looking up; and "Hello, father!" saidDan. Being alone, the father and son not only shook hands, but kissedeach other, as they used to do in meeting after an absence when Dan wasyounger.

  He had closed his father's door with his left hand in giving his right,and now he said at once, "Father, I've come home to tell you that I'mengaged to be married."

  Dan had prearranged his father's behaviour at this announcement, buthe now perceived that he would have to modify the scene if it were torepresent the facts. His father did not brighten all over and demand,"Miss Pasmer, of course?" he contrived to hide whatever start the newshad given him, and was some time in asking, with his soft lisp, "Isn'tthat rather sudden, Dan?"

  "Well, not for me," said Dan, laughing uneasily. "It's--you know her,father--Miss Pasmer."

  "Oh yes," said his father, certainly not with displeasure, and yet notwith enthusiasm.

  "I've had ever since Class Day to think it over, and it--came to aclimax yesterday."

  "And then you stopped thinking," said his father--to gain time, itappeared to Dan.

  "Yes, sir," said Dan. "I haven't thought since."

  "Well," said his father, with an amusement which was not unfriendly.He added, after a moment, "But I thought that had been broken off," andDan's instinct penetrated to the lurking fact that his father must havetalked the rupture over with his mother, and not wholly regretted it.

  "There was a kind of--hitch at one time," he admitted; "but it's allright now."

  "Well, well," said his father, "this is great news--great news," and heseemed to be shaping himself to the new posture of affairs, while givingit a conditional recognition. "She's a beautiful creature."

  "Isn't she?" cried Dan, with a little break in his voice, for he hadfound his father's manner rather trying. "And she's good too. I assureyou that she is--she is simply perfect every way."

  "Well," said the elder Mavering, rising and pulling down the rolling topof his desk, "I'm glad to hear it, for your sake, Dan. Have you been upat the house yet?"

  "No; I'm just off the train."

  "How is her mother--how is Mrs. Pasmer? All well?"

  "Yes, sir," said Dan; "they're all very well. You don't know Mr. Pasmer,I believe, sir, do you?"

  "Not since college. What sort of person is he?"

  "He's very refined and quiet. Very handsome. Very courteous. Very niceindeed."

  "Ah! that's good," said Elbridge Mavering, with the effect of not havingbeen very attentive to his son's answer.

  They walked up the long slope of the hillside on which the house stood,overlooking the valley where the Works were, and fronting the plateauacross the river where the village of operatives' houses was scattered.The paling light of what had been a very red sunset flushed them, andbrought out the picturesqueness which the architect, who designedthem for a particular effect in the view from the owner's mansion, hadintended.

  A good carriage road followed the easiest line of ascent towards thisedifice, and reached a gateway. Within it began to describe a curvebordered with asphalted footways to the broad verandah of the house, andthen descended again to the gate. The grounds enclosed were planted withdeciduous shrubs, which had now mostly dropped their leaves, and clumpsof firs darkening in the evening light with the gleam of some gardenstatues shivering about the lawn next the house. The breeze grew colderand stiffer as the father and son mounted toward the mansion which Danused to believe was like a chateau, with its Mansard-roof and dormerwindows and chimneys. It now blocked its space sharply out of the thinpink of the western sky, and its lights sparkled with a wintry keennesswhich had often thrilled Dan when he climbed the hill from the stationin former homecomings. Their brilliancy gave him a strange sinkingof the heart for no reason. He and his father had kept up a sort ofdesultory talk about Alice, and he could not have said that hisfather had seemed indifferent; he had touched the affair only tooacquiescently; it was painfully like everything else. When they came infull sight of the house, Dan left the subject, as he realised presently,from a reasonless fear of being overheard.

  "It seems much later here, sir, than it does in Boston," he said,glancing round at the maples, which stood ragged, with half their leavesblown from them.

  "Yes; we're in the hills, and we're further north," answered his father."There's Minnie."

  Dan had seen his sister on the verandah, pausing at sight of him, andpuzzled to make out who was with her father. He had an impulse to hailher with a shout, but he could not. In his last walk with her he hadtold her that he should never marry, and they had planned to livetogether. It was a joke; but now he felt as if he had come to rob her ofsomething, and he walked soberly on with his father.

  "Why, Dan, you good-for-nothing fellow!" she called out when he camenear enough to be unmistakable, and ran down the steps to kiss him."What in the world are you doing here? When did you come? Why didn't youhollo, instead of letting me stand here guessing? You're not sick, areyou?"

  The father got himself indoors unnoticed in the excitement of thebrother's arrival. This would have been the best moment for Dan to tellhis sister of his engagement; he knew it, but he parried her curiosityabout his coming; and then his sister Eunice came out, and he could notspeak. They all went together into the house flaming with naphtha gas,and with the steam heat already on, and Dan said he would take his bagto his room, and then come down again. He knew that he had left them tothink that there was something very mysterious in his coming, and whilehe washed away the grime of his journey he was planning how to appearperfectly natural when he should get back to his sisters. He recollectedthat he had not asked either them or his father how his mother was, butit was certainly not because his mind was not full of her. Alice nowseemed very remote from him, further even than his gun, or his boyishcollection of moths and butterflies, on which his eye fell in rovingabout his room. For a bitter instant it seemed to him as if they wereall alike toys, and in a sudden despair he asked himself what had becomeof his happiness. It was scarcely half a day since he had parted intransport from Alice.

  He made pretexts to keep from returning at once to his sisters, and itwas nearly half an hour before he went down to them. By that time hisfather was with them in the library, and they were waiting tea for him.