April Hopes

by William Dean Howells

  XXXIX.

  A period of entire harmony and tenderness followed the episode whichseemed to threaten the lovers with the loss of each other. Maveringforbore to make Alice feel that in attempting a sacrifice whichconsulted only his good and ignored his happiness, and then failing init so promptly, she had played rather a silly part. After one or twotentative jokes in that direction he found the ground unsafe, and withthe instinct which served him in place of more premeditated piety hewithdrew, and was able to treat the affair with something like religiousawe. He was obliged, in fact, to steady Alice's own faith in it, andto keep her from falling under dangerous self-condemnation in that andother excesses of uninstructed self-devotion. This brought no fatigue tohis robust affection, whatever it might have done to a heart more triedin such exercises. Love acquaints youth with many things in characterand temperament which are none the less interesting because it neverexplains them; and Dan was of such a make that its revelations of Alicewere charming to him because they were novel. He had thought her aperson of such serene and flawless wisdom that it was rather a reliefto find her subject to gusts of imprudence, to unexpected passions andresentments, to foibles and errors, like other people. Her power of coldreticence; which she could employ at will, was something that fascinatedhim almost as much as that habit of impulsive concession which seemed tocame neither from her will nor her reason. He was a person himselfwho was so eager to give other people pleasure that he quivered withimpatience to see them happy through his words or acts; he could notbear to think that any one to whom he was speaking was not perfectlycomfortable in regard to him; and it was for this reason perhaps that headmired a girl who could prescribe herself a line of social conduct, andfollow it out regardless of individual pangs--who could act from idealsand principles, and not from emotions and sympathies. He knew that shehad the emotions and sympathies, for there were times when she lavishedthem on him; and that she could seem without them was another proof ofthat depth of nature which he liked to imagine had first attracted himto her. Dan Mavering had never been able to snub any one in his life;it gave him a great respect for Alice that it seemed not to cost her aneffort or a regret, and it charmed him to think that her severity waspart of the unconscious sham which imposed her upon the world for aperson of inflexible design and invariable constancy to it. He was notlong in seeing that she shared this illusion, if it was an illusion, andthat perhaps the only person besides himself who was in the joke washer mother. Mrs. Pasmer and he grew more and more into each other'sconfidence in talking Alice over, and he admired the intrepidity of thislady, who was not afraid of her daughter even in the girl's most toppingmoments of self-abasement. For his own part, these moods of hers neverfailed to cause him confusion and anxiety. They commonly intimatedthemselves parenthetically in the midst of some blissful talk they werehaving, and overcast his clear sky with retrospective ideals of conductor presentimental plans for contingencies that might never occur. Hefound himself suddenly under condemnation for not having reproved her ata given time when she forced him to admit she had seemed unkind or coldto others; she made him promise that even at the risk of alienating heraffections he would make up for her deficiencies of behaviour in suchmatters whenever he noticed them. She now praised him for what he haddone for Mrs. Frobisher and her sister at Mrs. Bellingham's reception;she said it was generous, heroic. But Mavering rested satisfied with hisachievement in that instance, and did not attempt anything else of thekind. He did not reason from cause to effect in regard to it: a man'slove is such that while it lasts he cannot project its object far enoughfrom him to judge it reasonable or unreasonable; but Dan's instinctshad been disciplined and his perceptions sharpened by that experience.Besides, in bidding him take this impartial and even admonitory coursetoward her, she stipulated that they should maintain to the world aperfect harmony of conduct which should be an outward image of theunion of their lives. She said that anything less than a continuedself-sacrifice of one to the other was not worthy of the name of love,and that she should not be happy unless he required this of her. Shesaid that they ought each to find out what was the most distastefulthing which they could mutually require, and then do it; she asked himto try to think what she most hated, and let her do that for him; as forher, she only asked to ask nothing of him.

  Mavering could not worship enough this nobility of soul in her, andhe celebrated it to Boardman with the passionate need of impartinghis rapture which a lover feel. Boardman acquiesced in silence, with aglance of reserved sarcasm, or contented himself with laconic satireof his friend's general condition, and avoided any comment that mightspecifically apply to the points Dan made. Alice allowed him to havethis confidant, and did not demand of him a report of all he said toBoardman. A main fact of their love, she said, must be their utter faithin each other. She had her own confidante, and the disparity of yearsbetween her and Miss Cotton counted for nothing in the friendship whichtheir exchange of trust and sympathy cemented. Miss Cotton, in thefreshness of her sympathy and the ideality of her inexperience, wasin fact younger than Alice, at whose feet, in the things of soul andcharacter, she loved to sit. She never said to her what she believed:that a girl of her exemplary principles, a nature conscious of suchnoble ideals, so superior to other girls, who in her place would begiven up to the happiness of the moment, and indifferent to the sense ofduty to herself and to others, was sacrificed to a person of Mavering'sgay, bright nature and trivial conception of life. She did not denyhis sweetness; that was perhaps the one saving thing about him; and sheconfessed that he simply adored Alice; that counted for everything, andit was everything in his favour that he could appreciate such a girl.She hoped, she prayed, that Alice might never realise how little depthhe had; that she might go through life and never suspect it. If shedid so, then they might be happy together to the end, or at least Alicemight never know she was unhappy.

  Miss Cotton never said these things in so many words; it is doubtful ifshe ever said them in any form of words; with her sensitive anxiety notto do injustice to any one, she took Dan's part against those who viewedthe engagement as she allowed it to appear only to her secret heart. Shedefended him the more eagerly because she felt that it was for Alice'ssake, and that everything must be done to keep her from knowing howpeople looked at the affair, even to changing people's minds. She saidto all who spoke to her of it that of course Alice was superior to him,but he was devoted to her, and he would grow into an equality withher. He was naturally very refined, she said, and, if he was not a veryserious person, he was amiable beyond anything. She alleged many littleincidents of their acquaintance at Campobello in proof of her theorythat he had an instinctive appreciation of Alice, and she was sure thatno one could value her nobleness of character more than he. She had seenthem a good deal together since their engagement, and it was beautifulto see his manner with her. They were opposites, but she counted a gooddeal upon that very difference in their temperaments to draw them toeach other.

  It was an easy matter to see Dan and Alice together. Their engagementcame out in the usual way: it had been announced to a few of theirnearest friends, and intelligence of it soon spread from their own setthrough society generally; it had been published in the Sunday paperswhile it was still in the tender condition of a rumour, and had beendenied by some of their acquaintance and believed by all.

  The Pasmer cousinship had been just in the performance of the duties ofblood toward Alice since the return of her family from Europe, and nowdid what was proper in the circumstances. All who were connected withher called upon her and congratulated her; they knew Dan, the younger ofthem, much better than they knew her; and though he had shrunk from thenebulous bulk of social potentiality which every young man is to thatmuch smaller nucleus to which definite betrothal reduces him, they couldbe perfectly sincere in calling him the sweetest fellow that ever was,and too lovely to live.

  In such a matter Mr. Pasmer was naturally nothing; he could not be lessthan he was at other times, but he was not more; and it was Mrs. Pasmerwho
shared fully with her daughter the momentary interest which theengagement gave Alice with all her kindred. They believed, of course,that they recognised in it an effect of her skill in managing; theyagreed to suppose that she had got Mavering for Alice, and to ignore thebeauty and passion of youth as factors in the case. The closest ofthe kindred, with the romantic delicacy of Americans in such things,approached the question of Dan's position and prospects, and heard withsatisfaction the good accounts which Mrs. Pasmer was able to give ofhis father's prosperity. There had always been more or less apprehensionamong them of a time when a family subscription would be necessary forBob Pasmer, and in the relief which the new situation gave them someof them tried to remember having known Dan's father in College, but itfinally came to their guessing that they must have heard John Munt speakof him.

  Mrs. Pasmer had a supreme control in the affair. She believed with therest--so deeply is this delusion seated--that she had made the match;but knowing herself to have used no dishonest magic in the process, shewas able to enjoy it with a clean conscience. She grew fonder of Dan;they understood each other; she was his refuge from Alice's ideals, andhelped him laugh off his perplexity with them. They were none the lesssincere because they were not in the least frank with each other. Shelet Dan beat about the bush to his heart's content, and waited for himat the point which she knew he was coming to, with an unconsciousnesswhich he knew was factitious; neither of them got tired of this, orfailed freshly to admire the other's strategy.