Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  Her education proceeded fitfully. He would not let her be forced to household tasks that she disliked; and as a little girl she went to school chiefly because she liked to go, and not because she would have been obliged to it if she had not chosen. When she grew older, she wished to go away to school, and her father allowed her; he had no great respect for boarding-schools, but if Marcia wanted to try it, he was willing to humor the joke.

  What resulted was a great proficiency in the things that pleased her, and ignorance of the other things. Her father bought her a piano, on which she did not play much, and he bought her whatever dresses she fancied. He never came home from a journey without bringing her something; and he liked to take her with him when he went away to other places. She had been several times at Portland, and once at Montreal; he was very proud of her; he could not see that any one was better-looking, or dressed any better than his girl.

  He came into the kitchen, and sat down with his hat on, and, taking his chin between his fingers, moved uneasily about on his chair.

  “What’s brought you in so early?” asked his wife.

  “Well, I got through,” he briefly explained. After a while he said, “Bartley Hubbard’s been out there.”

  “You don’t mean ‘t he knew she—”

  “No, he didn’t know anything about that. He came to tell me he was going away.”

  “Well, I don’t know what you’re going to do, Mr. Gaylord,” said his wife, shifting the responsibility wholly upon him. “‘D he seem to want to make it up?”

  “M-no!” said the Squire, “he was on his high horse. He knows he aint in any danger now.”

  “Aint you afraid she’ll carry on dreadfully, when she finds out ‘t he’s gone for good?” asked Mrs. Gaylord, with a sort of implied satisfaction that the carrying on was not to affect her.

  “M-yes,” said the Squire, “I suppose she’ll carry on. But I don’t know what to do about it. Sometimes I almost wish I’d tried to make it up between ’em that day; but I thought she’d better see, once for all, what sort of man she was going in for, if she married him. It’s too late now to do anything. The fellow came in to-night for a quarrel, and nothing else; I could see that; and I didn’t give him any chance.”

  “You feel sure,” asked Mrs. Gaylord, impartially, “that Marcia wa’n’t too particular?”

  “No, Miranda, I don’t feel sure of anything, except that it’s past your bed-time. You better go. I’ll sit up awhile yet. I came in because I couldn’t settle my mind to anything out there.”

  He took off his hat in token of his intending to spend the rest of the evening at home, and put it on the table at his elbow.

  His wife sewed at the mending in her lap, without offering to act upon his suggestion. “It’s plain to be seen that she can’t get along without him.”

  “She’ll have to, now,” replied the Squire.

  “I’m afraid,” said Mrs. Gaylord, softly, “that she’ll be down sick. She don’t look as if she’d slept any great deal since she’s been gone. I d’ know as I like very much to see her looking the way she does. I guess you’ve got to take her off somewheres.”

  “Why, she’s just been off, and couldn’t stay!”

  “That’s because she thought he was here yet. But if he’s gone, it won’t be the same thing.”

  “Well, we’ve got to fight it out, some way,” said the Squire. “It wouldn’t do to give in to it now. It always was too much of a one-sided thing, at the best; and if we tried now to mend it up, it would be ridiculous. I don’t believe he would come back at all, now, and if he did, he wouldn’t come back on any equal terms. He’d want to have everything his own way. M-no!” said the Squire, as if confirming himself in a conclusion often reached already in his own mind, “I saw by the way he began to-night that there wasn’t anything to be done with him. It was fight from the word go.”

  “Well,” said Mrs. Gaylord, with gentle, sceptical interest in the outcome, “if you’ve made up your mind to that, I hope you’ll be able to carry it through.”

  “That’s what I’ve made up my mind to,” said her husband.

  Mrs. Gaylord rolled up the sewing in her work-basket, and packed it away against the side, bracing it with several pairs of newly darned socks and stockings neatly folded one into the other. She took her time for this, and when she rose at last to go out, with her basket in her hand, the door opened in her face, and Marcia entered. Mrs. Gaylord shrank back, and then slipped round behind her daughter and vanished. The girl took no notice of her mother, but went and sat down on her father’s knee, throwing her arms round his neck, and dropping her haggard face on his shoulder. She had arrived at home a few hours earlier, having driven over from a station ten miles distant, on a road that did not pass near Equity. After giving as much of a shock to her mother’s mild nature as it was capable of receiving by her unexpected return, she had gone to her own room, and remained ever since without seeing her father. He put up his thin old hand and passed it over her hair, but it was long before either of them spoke.

  At last Marcia lifted her head, and looked her father in the face with a smile so pitiful that he could not bear to meet it. “Well, father?” she said.

  “Well, Marsh,” he answered huskily. “What do you think of me now?”

  “I’m glad to have you back again,” he replied.

  “You know why I came?”

  “Yes, I guess I know.”

  She put down her head again, and moaned and cried, “Father! Father!” with dry sobs. When she looked up, confronting him with her tearless eyes, “What shall I do? What shall I do?” she demanded desolately.

  He tried to clear his throat to speak, but it required more than one effort to bring the words. “I guess you better go along with me up to Boston. I’m going up the first of the week.”

  “No,” she said quietly.

  “The change would do you good. It’s a long while since you’ve been away from home,” her father urged.

  She looked at him in sad reproach of his uncandor. “You know there’s nothing the matter with me, father. You know what the trouble is.” He was silent. He could not face the trouble. “I’ve heard people talk of a heartache,” she went on. “I never believed there was really such a thing. But I know there is, now. There’s a pain here.” She pressed her hand against her breast. “It’s sore with aching. What shall I do? I shall have to live through it somehow.”

  “If you don’t feel exactly well,” said her father “I guess you better see the doctor.”

  “What shall I tell him is the matter with me? That I want Bartley Hubbard?” He winced at the words, but she did not. “He knows that already. Everybody in town does. It’s never been any secret. I couldn’t hide it, from the first day I saw him. I’d just as lief as not they should say I was dying for him. I shall not care what they say when I’m dead.”

  “You’d oughtn’t, — you’d oughtn’t to talk that way, Marcia,” said her father, gently.

  “What difference?” she demanded, scornfully. There was truly no difference, so far as concerned any creed of his, and he was too honest to make further pretence. “What shall I do?” she went on again. “I’ve thought of praying; but what would be the use?”

  “I’ve never denied that there was a God, Marcia,” said her father.

  “Oh, I know. That kind of God! Well, well! I know that I talk like a crazy person! Do you suppose it was providential, my being with you in the office that morning when Bartley came in?”

  “No,” said her father, “I don’t. I think it was an accident.”

  “Mother said it was providential, my finding him out before it was too late.”

  “I think it was a good thing. The fellow has the making of a first-class scoundrel in him.”

  “Do you think he’s a scoundrel now?” she asked quietly.

  “He hasn’t had any great opportunity yet,” said the old man, conscientiously sparing him.

  “Well, then, I’m sorry I found him out. Yes!
If I hadn’t, I might have married him, and perhaps if I had died soon I might never have found him out. He could have been good to me a year or two, and then, if I died, I should have been safe. Yes, I wish he could have deceived me till after we were married. Then I couldn’t have borne to give him up, may be.”

  “You would have given him up, even then. And that’s the only thing that reconciles me to it now. I’m sorry for you, my girl; but you’d have made me sorrier then. Sooner or later he’d have broken your heart.”

  “He’s broken it now,” said the girl, calmly.

  “Oh, no, he hasn’t,” replied her father, with a false cheerfulness that did not deceive her. “You’re young and you’ll get over it. I mean to take you away from here for a while. I mean to take you up to Boston, and on to New York. I shouldn’t care if we went as far as Washington. I guess, when you’ve seen a little more of the world, you won’t think Bartley Hubbard’s the only one in it.”

  She looked at him so intently that he thought she must be pleased at his proposal. “Do you think I could get him back?” she asked.

  Her father lost his patience; it was a relief to be angry. “No, I don’t think so. I know you couldn’t. And you ought to be ashamed of mentioning such a thing!”

  “Oh, ashamed! No, I’ve got past that. I have no shame any more where he’s concerned. Oh, I’d give the world if I could call him back, — if I could only undo what I did! I was wild; I wasn’t reasonable; I wouldn’t listen to him. I drove him away without giving him a chance to say a word! Of course, he must hate me now. What makes you think he wouldn’t come back?” she asked.

  “I know he wouldn’t,” answered her father, with a sort of groan. “He’s going to leave Equity for one thing, and—”

  “Going to leave Equity,” she repeated, absently Then he felt her tremble. “How do you know he’s going?” She turned upon her father, and fixed him sternly with her eyes.

  “Do you suppose he would stay, after what’s happened, any longer than he could help?”

  “How do you know he’s going?” she repeated.

  “He told me.”

  She stood up. “He told you? When?”

  “To-night.”

  “Why, where — where did you see him?” she whispered.

  “In the office.”

  “Since — since — I came? Bartley been here! And you didn’t tell me, — you didn’t let me know?” They looked at each other in silence. At last, “When is he going?” she asked.

  “To-morrow morning.”

  She sat down in the chair which her mother had left, and clutched the back of another, on which her fingers opened and closed convulsively, while she caught her breath in irregular gasps. She broke into a low moaning, at last, the expression of abject defeat in the struggle she had waged with herself. Her father watched her with dumb compassion. “Better go to bed, Marcia,” he said, with the same dry calm as if he had been sending her away after some pleasant evening which she had suffered to run too far into the night.

  “Don’t you think — don’t you think — he’ll have to see you again before he goes?” she made out to ask.

  “No; he’s finished up with me,” said the old man.

  “Well, then,” she cried, desperately, “you’ll have to go to him, father, and get him to come! I can’t help it! I can’t give him up! You’ve got to go to him, now, father, — yes, yes, you have! You’ve got to go and tell him. Go and get him to come, for mercy’s sake! Tell him that I’m sorry, — that I beg his pardon, — that I didn’t think — I didn’t understand, — that I knew he didn’t do anything wrong—” She rose, and, placing her hand on her father’s shoulder, accented each entreaty with a little push.

  He looked up into her face with a haggard smile of sympathy. “You’re crazy, Marcia,” he said, gently.

  “Don’t laugh!” she cried. “I’m not crazy now. But I was, then, — yes, stark, staring crazy. Look here, father! I want to tell you, — I want to explain to you!” She dropped upon his knee again, and tremblingly passed her arm round his neck. “You see, I had just told him the day before that I shouldn’t care for anything that happened before we were engaged, and then at the very first thing I went and threw him off! And I had no right to do it. He knows that, and that’s what makes him so hard towards me. But if you go and tell him that I see now I was all wrong, and that I beg his pardon, and then ask him to give me one more trial, just one more — You can do as much as that for me, can’t you?”

  “Oh, you poor, crazy girl!” groaned her father. “Don’t you see that the trouble is in what the fellow is, and not in any particular thing that he’s done? He’s a scamp, through and through; and he’s all the more a scamp when he doesn’t know it. He hasn’t got the first idea of anything but selfishness.”

  “No, no! Now, I’ll tell you, — now, I’ll prove it to you. That very Sunday when we were out riding together; and we met her and her mother, and their sleigh upset, and he had to lift her back; and it made me wild to see him, and I wouldn’t hardly touch him or speak to him afterwards, he didn’t say one angry word to me. He just pulled me up to him, and wouldn’t let me be mad; and he said that night he didn’t mind it a bit because it showed how much I liked him. Now, doesn’t that prove he’s good, — a good deal better than I am, and that he’ll forgive me, if you’ll go and ask him? I know he isn’t in bed yet; he always sits up late, — he told me so; and you’ll find him there in his room. Go straight to his room, father; don’t let anybody see you down in the office; I couldn’t bear it; and slip out with him as quietly as you can. But, oh, do hurry now! Don’t lose another minute!”

  The wild joy sprang into her face, as her father rose; a joy that it was terrible to him to see die out of it as he spoke: “I tell you it’s no use, Marcia! He wouldn’t come if I went to him—”

  “Oh, yes, — yes, he would! I know he would! If—”

  “He wouldn’t! You’re mistaken! I should have to get down in the dust for nothing. He’s a bad fellow, I tell you; and you’ve got to give him up.”

  “You hate me!” cried the girl. The old man walked to and fro, clutching his hands. Their lives had always been in such intimate sympathy, his life had so long had her happiness for its sole pleasure, that the pang in her heart racked his with as sharp an agony. “Well, I shall die; and then I hope you will be satisfied.”

  “Marcia, Marcia!” pleaded her father. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “You’re letting him go away from me, — you’re letting me lose him, — you’re killing me!”

  “He wouldn’t come, my girl. It would be perfectly useless to go to him. You must — you must try to control yourself, Marcia. There’s no other way, — there’s no other hope. You’re disgraceful. You ought to be ashamed. You ought to have some pride about you. I don’t know what’s come over you since you’ve been with that fellow. You seem to be out of your senses. But try, — try, my girl, to get over it. If you’ll fight it, you’ll conquer yet. You’ve got a spirit for anything. And I’ll help you, Marcia. I’ll take you anywhere. I’ll do anything for you—”

  “You wouldn’t go to him, and ask him to come here, if it would save his life!”

  “No,” said the old man, with a desperate quiet, “I wouldn’t.”

  She stood looking at him, and then she sank suddenly and straight down, as if she were sinking through the floor. When he lifted her, he saw that she was in a dead faint, and while the swoon lasted would be out of her misery. The sight of this had wrung him so that he had a kind of relief in looking at her lifeless face; and he was slow in laying her down again, like one that fears to wake a sleeping child. Then he went to the foot of the stairs, and softly called to his wife: “Miranda! Miranda!”

  IX.

  Kinney came into town the next morning bright and early, as he phrased it; but he did not stop at the hotel for Bartley till nine o’clock. “Thought I’d give you time for breakfast,” he exclaimed, “and so I didn’t hurry up any about get
tin’ in my supplies.”

  It was a beautiful morning, so blindingly sunny that Bartley winked as they drove up through the glistening street, and was glad to dip into the gloom of the first woods; it was not cold; the snow felt the warmth, and packed moistly under their runners. The air was perfectly still; at a distance on the mountain-sides it sparkled as if full of diamond dust. Far overhead some crows called.

  “The sun’s getting high,” said Bartley, with the light sigh of one to whom the thought of spring brings no hope.

  “Well, I shouldn’t begin to plough for corn just yet,” replied Kinney. “It’s curious,” he went on, “to see how anxious we are to have a thing over, it don’t much matter what it is, whether it’s summer or winter. I suppose we’d feel different if we wa’n’t sure there was going to be another of ‘em. I guess that’s one reason why the Lord concluded not to keep us clearly posted on the question of another life. If it wa’n’t for the uncertainty of the thing, there are a lot of fellows like you that wouldn’t stand it here a minute. Why, if we had a dead sure thing of over-the-river, — good climate, plenty to eat and wear, and not much to do, — I don’t believe any of us would keep Darling Minnie waiting, — well, a great while. But you see, the thing’s all on paper, and that makes us cautious, and willing to hang on here awhile longer. Looks splendid on the map: streets regularly laid out; public squares; band-stands; churches; solid blocks of houses, with all the modern improvements; but you can’t tell whether there’s any town there till you’re on the ground; and then, if you don’t like it, there’s no way of gettin’ back to the States.” He turned round upon Bartley and opened his mouth wide, to imply that this was pleasantry.

  “Do you throw your philosophy in, all under the same price, Kinney?” asked the young fellow.

  “Well, yes; I never charge anything over,” said Kinney. “You see, I have a good deal of time to think when I’m around by myself all day, and the philosophy don’t cost me anything, and the fellows like it. Roughing it the way they do, they can stand ‘most anything. Hey?” He now not only opened his mouth upon Bartley, but thrust him in the side with his elbow, and then laughed noisily.