The Rise of Silas Lapham

by William Dean Howells

  “What have you got there under your apron? A bottle?” demanded Lapham, who stood with his hat on and his hands in his pockets, indifferent alike to the ineffective reception of the sailor and the chair Zerrilla had set him.

  “Well, yes, it’s a bottle,” said the woman, with an assumption of virtuous frankness. “It’s whiskey; I got to have something to rub my rheumatism with.”

  “Humph!” grumbled Lapham. “You’ve been rubbing his rheumatism too, I see.”

  He twisted his head in the direction of the sailor, now softly and rhythmically waving to and fro on his feet.

  “He hain’t had a drop today in this house!” cried the woman.

  “What are you doing around here?” said Lapham, turning fiercely upon him. “You’ve got no business ashore. Where’s your ship? Do you think I’m going to let you come here and eat your wife out of house and home, and then give money to keep the concern going?”

  “Just the very words I said when he first showed his face here, yist’day. Didn’t I, Z’rilla?” said the woman, eagerly joining in the rebuke of her late boon companion. “You got no business here, Hen, s’d I. You can’t come here to live on me and Z’rilla, s’d I. You want to go back to your ship, s’d I. That’s what I said.”

  The sailor mumbled, with a smile of tipsy amiability for Lapham, something about the crew being discharged.

  “Yes,” the woman broke in, “that’s always the way with these coasters. Why don’t you go off on some them long v’y’ges? s’d I. It’s pretty hard when Mr. Wemmel stands ready to marry Z’rilla and provide a comfortable home for us both—I hain’t got a great many years more to live, and I should like to get some satisfaction out of ’em, and not be beholden and dependent all my days—to have Hen, here, blockin’ the way. I tell him there’d be more money for him in the end; but he can’t seem to make up his mind to it.”

  “Well, now, look here,” said Lapham. “I don’t care anything about all that. It’s your own business, and I’m not going to meddle with it. But it’s my business who lives off me; and so I tell you all three, I’m willing to take care of Zerrilla, and I’m willing to take care of her mother—”

  “I guess if it hadn’t been for that child’s father,” the mother interpolated, “you wouldn’t been here to tell the tale, Colonel Lapham.”

  “I know all about that,” said Lapham. “But I’ll tell you what, Mr. Dewey, I’m not going to support you.”

  “I don’t see what Hen’s done,” said the old woman impartially.

  “He hasn’t done anything, and I’m going to stop it. He’s got to get a ship, and he’s got to get out of this. And Zerrilla needn’t come back to work till he does. I’m done with you all.”

  “Well, I vow,” said the mother, “if I ever heard anything like it! Didn’t that child’s father lay down his life for you? Hain’t you said it yourself a hundred times? And don’t she work for her money, and slave for it mornin’, noon, and night? You talk as if we was beholden to you for the very bread in our mouths. I guess if it hadn’t been for Jim, you wouldn’t been here crowin’ over us.”

  “You mind what I say. I mean business this time,” said Lapham, turning to the door.

  The woman rose and followed him, with her bottle in her hand. “Say, Colonel! what should you advise Z’rilla to do about Mr. Wemmel? I tell her there ain’t any use goin’ to the trouble to git a divorce without she’s sure about him. Don’t you think we’d ought to git him to sign a paper, or something, that he’ll marry her if she gits it? I don’t like to have things going at loose ends the way they are. It ain’t sense. It ain’t right.”

  Lapham made no answer to the mother anxious for her child’s future, and concerned for the moral questions involved. He went out, and down the stairs, and on the pavement at the lower door he almost struck against Rogers, who had a bag in his hand, and seemed to be hurrying toward one of the depots. He halted a little, as if to speak to Lapham; but Lapham turned his back abruptly upon him, and took the other direction.

  The days were going by in a monotony of adversity to him, from which he could no longer escape, even at home. He attempted once or twice to talk of his troubles to his wife, but she repulsed him sharply; she seemed to despise and hate him; but he set himself doggedly to make a confession to her, and he stopped her one night, as she came into the room where he sat—hastily upon some errand that was to take her directly away again.

  “Persis, there’s something I’ve got to tell you.”

  She stood still, as if fixed against her will, to listen.

  “I guess you know something about it already, and I guess it set you against me.”

  “Oh, I guess not, Colonel Lapham. You go your way, and I go mine. That’s all.”

  She waited for him to speak, listening with a cold, hard smile on her face.

  “I don’t say it to make favor with you, because I don’t want you to spare me, and I don’t ask you; but I got into it through Milton K. Rogers.”

  “Oh!” said Mrs. Lapham contemptuously.

  “I always felt the way I said about it—that it wasn’t any better than gambling, and I say so now. It’s like betting on the turn of a card; and I give you my word of honor, Persis, that I never was in it at all till that scoundrel began to load me up with those wildcat securities of his. Then it seemed to me as if I ought to try to do something to get somewhere even. I know it’s no excuse; but watching the market to see what the infernal things were worth from day to day, and seeing it go up, and seeing it go down, was too much for me; and, to make a long story short, I began to buy and sell on a margin—just what I told you I never would do. I seemed to make something—I did make something; and I’d have stopped, I do believe, if I could have reached the figure I’d set in my own mind to start with; but I couldn’t fetch it. I began to lose, and then I began to throw good money after bad, just as I always did with everything that Rogers ever came within a mile of. Well, what’s the use? I lost the money that would have carried me out of this, and I shouldn’t have had to shut down the Works, or sell the house, or—”

  Lapham stopped. His wife, who at first had listened with mystification, and then dawning incredulity, changing into a look of relief that was almost triumph, lapsed again into severity. “Silas Lapham, if you was to die the next minute, is this what you started to tell me?”

  “Why, of course it is. What did you suppose I started to tell you?”

  “And—look me in the eyes!—you haven’t got anything else on your mind now?”

  “No! There’s trouble enough, the Lord knows; but there’s nothing else to tell you. I suppose Pen gave you a hint about it. I dropped something to her. I’ve been feeling bad about it, Persis, a good while, but I hain’t had the heart to speak of it. I can’t expect you to say you like it. I’ve been a fool, I’ll allow, and I’ve been something worse, if you choose to say so; but that’s all. I haven’t hurt anybody but myself—and you and the children.”

  Mrs. Lapham rose and said, with her face from him, as she turned toward the door. “It’s all right, Silas. I shan’t ever bring it up against you.”

  She fled out of the room, but all that evening she was very sweet with him, and seemed to wish in all tacit ways to atone for her past unkindness.

  She made him talk of his business, and he told her of Corey’s offer, and what he had done about it. She did not seem to care for his part in it, however; at which Lapham was silently disappointed a little, for he would have liked her to praise him.

  “He did it on account of Pen!”

  “Well, he didn’t insist upon it, anyway,” said Lapham, who must have obscurely expected that Corey would recognize his own magnanimity by repeating his offer. If the doubt that follows a self-devoted action—the question whether it was not after all a needless folly—is mixed, as it was in Lapham’s case, with the vague belief that we might have done ourselves a good turn wi
thout great risk of hurting anyone else by being a little less unselfish, it becomes a regret that is hard to bear. Since Corey spoke to him, some things had happened that gave Lapham hope again.

  “I’m going to tell her about it,” said his wife, and she showed herself impatient to make up for the time she had lost. “Why didn’t you tell me before, Silas?”

  “I didn’t know we were on speaking terms before,” said Lapham sadly.

  “Yes, that’s true,” she admitted, with a conscious flush. “I hope he won’t think Pen’s known about it all this while.”

  XXIV

  THAT evening James Bellingham came to see Corey after dinner, and went to find him in his own room.

  “I’ve come at the instance of Colonel Lapham,” said the uncle. “He was at my office today, and I had a long talk with him. Did you know that he was in difficulties?”

  “I fancied that he was in some sort of trouble. And I had the bookkeeper’s conjectures—he doesn’t really know much about it.”

  “Well, he thinks it time—on all accounts—that you should know how he stands, and why he declined that proposition of yours. I must say he has behaved very well—like a gentleman.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “I am. It’s hard to behave like a gentleman where your interest is vitally concerned. And Lapham doesn’t strike me as a man who’s in the habit of acting from the best in him always.”

  “Do any of us?” asked Corey.

  “Not all of us, at any rate,” said Bellingham. “It must have cost him something to say no to you, for he’s just in that state when he believes that this or that chance, however small, would save him.”

  Corey was silent. “Is he really in such a bad way?”

  “It’s hard to tell just where he stands. I suspect that a hopeful temperament and fondness for round numbers have always caused him to set his figures beyond his actual worth. I don’t say that he’s been dishonest about it, but he’s had a loose way of estimating his assets; he’s reckoned his wealth on the basis of his capital, and some of his capital is borrowed. He’s lost heavily by some of the recent failures, and there’s been a terrible shrinkage in his values. I don’t mean merely in the stock of paint on hand, but in a kind of competition which has become very threatening. You know about that West Virginian paint?”

  Corey nodded.

  “Well, he tells me that they’ve struck a vein of natural gas out there, which will enable them to make as good a paint as his own at a cost of manufacturing so low that they can undersell him everywhere. If this proves to be the case, it will not only drive his paint out of the market, but will reduce the value of his Works—the whole plant—at Lapham to a merely nominal figure.”

  “I see,” said Corey dejectedly. “I’ve understood that he had put a great deal of money into his Works.”

  “Yes, and he estimated his mine there at a high figure. Of course, it will be worth little or nothing if the West Virginia paint drives his out. Then, besides, Lapham has been into several things outside of his own business, and, like a good many other men who try outside things, he’s kept account of them himself; and he’s all mixed up about them. He’s asked me to look into his affairs with him, and I’ve promised to do so. Whether he can be tided over his difficulties remains to be seen. I’m afraid it will take a good deal of money to do it—a great deal more than he thinks, at least. He believes comparatively little would do it. I think differently. I think that anything less than a great deal would be thrown away on him. If it were merely a question of a certain sum—even a large sum—to keep him going, it might be managed; but it’s much more complicated. And, as I say, it must have been a trial to him to refuse your offer.”

  This did not seem to be the way in which Bellingham had meant to conclude. But he said no more; and Corey made him no response.

  He remained pondering the case, now hopefully, now doubtfully, and wondering, whatever his mood was, whether Penelope knew anything of the fact with which her mother went nearly at the same moment to acquaint her.

  * * *

  “Of course, he’s done it on your account,” Mrs. Lapham could not help saying.

  “Then he was very silly. Does he think I would let him give Father money? And if Father lost it for him, does he suppose it would make it any easier for me? I think Father acted twice as well. It was very silly.”

  In repeating the censure, her look was not so severe as her tone; she even smiled a little, and her mother reported to her father that she acted more like herself than she had since Corey’s offer.

  “I think, if he was to repeat his offer, she would have him now,” said Mrs. Lapham.

  “Well, I’ll let her know if he does,” said the Colonel.

  “I guess he won’t do it to you!” she cried.

  “Who else will he do it to?” he demanded.

  They perceived that they had each been talking of a different offer.

  After Lapham went to his business in the morning, the postman brought another letter from Irene, which was full of pleasant things that were happening to her; there was a great deal about her cousin Will, as she called him. At the end she had written, “Tell Pen I don’t want she should be foolish.”

  “There!” said Mrs. Lapham. “I guess it’s going to come out right all ’round”; and it seemed as if even the Colonel’s difficulties were past. “When your father gets through this, Pen,” she asked impulsively, “what shall you do?”

  “What have you been telling Irene about me?”

  “Nothing much. What should you do?”

  “It would be a good deal easier to say what I should do if Father didn’t,” said the girl.

  “I know you think it was nice in him to make your father that offer,” urged the mother.

  “It was nice, yes; but it was silly,” said the girl. “Most nice things are silly, I suppose,” she added.

  She went to her room and wrote a letter. It was very long, and very carefully written; and when she read it over, she tore it into small pieces. She wrote another one, short and hurried, and tore that up too. Then she went back to her mother, in the family room, and asked to see Irene’s letter, and read it over to herself. “Yes, she seems to be having a good time,” she sighed. “Mother, do you think I ought to let Mr. Corey know that I know about it?”

  “Well, I should think it would be a pleasure to him,” said Mrs. Lapham judicially.

  “I’m not so sure of that—the way I should have to tell him. I should begin by giving him a scolding. Of course, he meant well by it, but can’t you see that it wasn’t very flattering? How did he expect it would change me?”

  “I don’t believe he ever thought of that.”

  “Don’t you? Why?”

  “Because you can see that he isn’t one of that kind. He might want to please you without wanting to change you by what he did.”

  “Yes. He must have known that nothing would change me—at least, nothing that he could do. I thought of that. I shouldn’t like him to feel that I couldn’t appreciate it, even if I did think it was silly. Should you write to him?”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  “It would be too pointed. No, I shall just let it go. I wish he hadn’t done it.”

  “Well, he has done it.”

  “And I’ve tried to write to him about it—two letters: one so humble and grateful that it couldn’t stand up on its edge, and the other so pert and flippant. Mother, I wish you could have seen those two letters! I wish I had kept them to look at if I ever got to thinking I had any sense again. They would take the conceit out of me.”

  “What’s the reason he don’t come here anymore?”

  “Doesn’t he come?” asked Penelope in turn, as if it were something she had not noticed particularly.

  “You’d ought to know.”

  “Yes.” She sat silent awhile. “I
f he doesn’t come, I suppose it’s because he’s offended at something I did.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Nothing. I—wrote to him—a little while ago. I suppose it was very blunt, but I didn’t believe he would be angry at it. But this—this that he’s done—shows he was angry, and that he wasn’t just seizing the first chance to get out of it.”

  “What have you done, Pen?” demanded her mother sharply.

  “Oh, I don’t know. All the mischief in the world, I suppose. I’ll tell you. When you first told me that Father was in trouble with his business, I wrote to him not to come anymore till I let him. I said I couldn’t tell him why, and he hasn’t been here since. I’m sure I don’t know what it means.”

  Her mother looked at her with angry severity. “Well, Penelope Lapham! For a sensible child, you are the greatest goose I ever saw. Did you think he would come here and see if you wouldn’t let him come?”

  “He might have written,” urged the girl.

  Her mother made that despairing “Tchk!” with her tongue, and fell back in her chair. “I should have despised him if he had written. He’s acted just exactly right, and you—you’ve acted—I don’t know how you’ve acted. I’m ashamed of you. A girl that could be so sensible for her sister, and always say and do just the right thing, and then when it comes to herself to be such a disgusting simpleton!”

  “I thought I ought to break with him at once, and not let him suppose that there was any hope for him or me if Father was poor. It was my one chance, in this whole business, to do anything heroic, and I jumped at it. You mustn’t think, because I can laugh at it now, that I wasn’t in earnest, Mother! I was—dead! But the Colonel has gone to ruin so gradually, that he’s spoiled everything. I expected that he would be bankrupt the next day, and that then he would understand what I meant. But to have it drag along for a fortnight seems to take all the heroism out of it, and leave it as flat!” She looked at her mother with a smile that shone through her tears, and a pathos that quivered ’round her jesting lips. “It’s easy enough to be sensible for other people. But when it comes to myself, there I am! Especially, when I want to do what I oughtn’t so much that it seems as if doing what I didn’t want to do must be doing what I ought! But it’s been a great success one way, Mother. It’s helped me to keep up before the Colonel. If it hadn’t been for Mr. Corey’s staying away, and my feeling so indignant with him for having been badly treated by me, I shouldn’t have been worth anything at all.”