Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  “What do you want she should do?”

  “I haven’t got so far as that yet. What are we going to do about Irene?”

  “What do you want Pen should do,” repeated Mrs. Lapham, “when it comes to it?”

  “Well, I don’t want she should take him, for ONE thing,” said Lapham.

  This seemed to satisfy Mrs. Lapham as to her husband, and she said in defence of Corey, “Why, I don’t see what HE’S done. It’s all been our doing.”

  “Never mind that now. What about Irene?”

  “She says she’s going to Lapham to-morrow. She feels that she’s got to get away somewhere. It’s natural she should.”

  “Yes, and I presume it will be about the best thing FOR her. Shall you go with her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well.” He comfortlessly took up a newspaper again, and she rose with a sigh, and went to her room to pack some things for the morrow’s journey.

  After dinner, when Irene had cleared away the last trace of it in kitchen and dining-room with unsparing punctilio, she came downstairs, dressed to go out, and bade her father come to walk with her again. It was a repetition of the aimlessness of the last night’s wanderings. They came back, and she got tea for them, and after that they heard her stirring about in her own room, as if she were busy about many things; but they did not dare to look in upon her, even after all the noises had ceased, and they knew she had gone to bed.

  “Yes; it’s a thing she’s got to fight out by herself,” said Mrs Lapham.

  “I guess she’ll get along,” said Lapham. “But I don’t want you should misjudge Pen either. She’s all right too. She ain’t to blame.”

  “Yes, I know. But I can’t work round to it all at once. I shan’t misjudge her, but you can’t expect me to get over it right away.”

  “Mamma,” said Irene, when she was hurrying their departure the next morning, “what did she tell him when he asked her?”

  “Tell him?” echoed the mother; and after a while she added, “She didn’t tell him anything.”

  “Did she say anything, about me?”

  “She said he mustn’t come here any more.”

  Irene turned and went into her sister’s room. “Good-bye, Pen,” she said, kissing her with an effect of not seeing or touching her. “I want you should tell him all about it. If he’s half a man, he won’t give up till he knows why you won’t have him; and he has a right to know.”

  “It wouldn’t make any difference. I couldn’t have him after — —”

  “That’s for you to say. But if you don’t tell him about me, I will.”

  “‘Rene!”

  “Yes! You needn’t say I cared for him. But you can say that you all thought he — cared for — me.”

  “O Irene — —”

  “Don’t!” Irene escaped from the arms that tried to cast themselves about her. “You are all right, Pen. You haven’t done anything. You’ve helped me all you could. But I can’t — yet.”

  She went out of the room and summoned Mrs. Lapham with a sharp “Now, mamma!” and went on putting the last things into her trunks.

  The Colonel went to the station with them, and put them on the train. He got them a little compartment to themselves in the Pullman car; and as he stood leaning with his lifted hands against the sides of the doorway, he tried to say something consoling and hopeful: “I guess you’ll have an easy ride, Irene. I don’t believe it’ll be dusty, any, after the rain last night.”

  “Don’t you stay till the train starts, papa,” returned the girl, in rigid rejection of his futilities. “Get off, now.”

  “Well, if you want I should,” he said, glad to be able to please her in anything. He remained on the platform till the cars started. He saw Irene bustling about in the compartment, making her mother comfortable for the journey; but Mrs. Lapham did not lift her head. The train moved off, and he went heavily back to his business.

  From time to time during the day, when he caught a glimpse of him, Corey tried to make out from his face whether he knew what had taken place between him and Penelope. When Rogers came in about time of closing, and shut himself up with Lapham in his room, the young man remained till the two came out together and parted in their salutationless fashion.

  Lapham showed no surprise at seeing Corey still there, and merely answered, “Well!” when the young man said that he wished to speak with him, and led the way back to his room.

  Corey shut the door behind them. “I only wish to speak to you in case you know of the matter already; for otherwise I’m bound by a promise.”

  “I guess I know what you mean. It’s about Penelope.”

  “Yes, it’s about Miss Lapham. I am greatly attached to her — you’ll excuse my saying it; I couldn’t excuse myself if I were not.”

  “Perfectly excusable,” said Lapham. “It’s all right.”

  “Oh, I’m glad to hear you say that!” cried the young fellow joyfully. “I want you to believe that this isn’t a new thing or an unconsidered thing with me — though it seemed so unexpected to her.”

  Lapham fetched a deep sigh. “It’s all right as far as I’m concerned — or her mother. We’ve both liked you first-rate.”

  “Yes?”

  “But there seems to be something in Penelope’s mind — I don’t know—” The Colonel consciously dropped his eyes.

  “She referred to something — I couldn’t make out what — but I hoped — I hoped — that with your leave I might overcome it — the barrier — whatever it was. Miss Lapham — Penelope — gave me the hope — that I was — wasn’t — indifferent to her — —”

  “Yes, I guess that’s so,” said Lapham. He suddenly lifted his head, and confronted the young fellow’s honest face with his own face, so different in its honesty. “Sure you never made up to any one else at the same time?”

  “NEVER! Who could imagine such a thing? If that’s all, I can easily.”

  “I don’t say that’s all, nor that that’s it. I don’t want you should go upon that idea. I just thought, may be — you hadn’t thought of it.”

  “No, I certainly hadn’t thought of it! Such a thing would have been so impossible to me that I couldn’t have thought of it; and it’s so shocking to me now that I don’t know what to say to it.”

  “Well, don’t take it too much to heart,” said Lapham, alarmed at the feeling he had excited; “I don’t say she thought so. I was trying to guess — trying to — —”

  “If there is anything I can say or do to convince you — —”

  “Oh, it ain’t necessary to say anything. I’m all right.”

  “But Miss Lapham! I may see her again? I may try to convince her that — —”

  He stopped in distress, and Lapham afterwards told his wife that he kept seeing the face of Irene as it looked when he parted with her in the car; and whenever he was going to say yes, he could not open his lips. At the same time he could not help feeling that Penelope had a right to what was her own, and Sewell’s words came back to him. Besides, they had already put Irene to the worst suffering. Lapham compromised, as he imagined. “You can come round to-night and see ME, if you want to,” he said; and he bore grimly the gratitude that the young man poured out upon him.

  Penelope came down to supper and took her mother’s place at the head of the table.

  Lapham sat silent in her presence as long as he could bear it. Then he asked, “How do you feel to-night, Pen?”

  “Oh, like a thief,” said the girl. “A thief that hasn’t been arrested yet.”

  Lapham waited a while before he said, “Well, now, your mother and I want you should hold up on that a while.”

  “It isn’t for you to say. It’s something I can’t hold up on.”

  “Yes, I guess you can. If I know what’s happened, then what’s happened is a thing that nobody is to blame for. And we want you should make the best of it and not the worst. Heigh? It ain’t going to help Irene any for you to hurt yourself — or anybody else; and I don’t
want you should take up with any such crazy notion. As far as heard from, you haven’t stolen anything, and whatever you’ve got belongs to you.”

  “Has he been speaking to you, father?”

  “Your mother’s been speaking to me.”

  “Has HE been speaking to you?”

  “That’s neither here nor there.”

  “Then he’s broken his word, and I will never speak to him again!”

  “If he was any such fool as to promise that he wouldn’t talk to me on a subject” — Lapham drew a deep breath, and then made the plunge— “that I brought up — —”

  “Did you bring it up?”

  “The same as brought up — the quicker he broke his word the better; and I want you should act upon that idea. Recollect that it’s my business, and your mother’s business, as well as yours, and we’re going to have our say. He hain’t done anything wrong, Pen, nor anything that he’s going to be punished for. Understand that. He’s got to have a reason, if you’re not going to have him. I don’t say you’ve got to have him; I want you should feel perfectly free about that; but I DO say you’ve got to give him a reason.”

  “Is he coming here?”

  “I don’t know as you’d call it COMING — —”

  “Yes, you do, father!” said the girl, in forlorn amusement at his shuffling.

  “He’s coming here to see ME — —”

  “When’s he coming?”

  “I don’t know but he’s coming to-night.”

  “And you want I should see him?”

  “I don’t know but you’d better.”

  “All right. I’ll see him.”

  Lapham drew a long deep breath of suspicion inspired by this acquiescence. “What you going to do?” he asked presently.

  “I don’t know yet,” answered the girl sadly. “It depends a good deal upon what he does.”

  “Well,” said Lapham, with the hungriness of unsatisfied anxiety in his tone. When Corey’s card was brought into the family-room where he and Penelope were sitting, he went into the parlour to find him. “I guess Penelope wants to see you,” he said; and, indicating the family-room, he added, “She’s in there,” and did not go back himself.

  Corey made his way to the girl’s presence with open trepidation, which was not allayed by her silence and languor. She sat in the chair where she had sat the other night, but she was not playing with a fan now.

  He came toward her, and then stood faltering. A faint smile quivered over her face at the spectacle of his subjection. “Sit down, Mr. Corey,” she said. “There’s no reason why we shouldn’t talk it over quietly; for I know you will think I’m right.”

  “I’m sure of that,” he answered hopefully. “When I saw that your father knew of it to-day, I asked him to let me see you again. I’m afraid that I broke my promise to you — technically — —”

  “It had to be broken.” He took more courage at her words. “But I’ve only come to do whatever you say, and not to be an — annoyance to you — —”

  “Yes, you have to know; but I couldn’t tell you before. Now they all think I should.”

  A tremor of anxiety passed over the young man’s face, on which she kept her eyes steadily fixed.

  “We supposed it — it was — Irene — —”

  He remained blank a moment, and then he said with a smile of relief, of deprecation, of protest, of amazement, of compassion —

  “OH! Never! Never for an instant! How could you think such a thing? It was impossible! I never thought of her. But I see — I see! I can explain — no, there’s nothing to explain! I have never knowingly done or said a thing from first to last to make you think that. I see how terrible it is!” he said; but he still smiled, as if he could not take it seriously. “I admired her beauty — who could help doing that? — and I thought her very good and sensible. Why, last winter in Texas, I told Stanton about our meeting in Canada, and we agreed — I only tell you to show you how far I always was from what you thought — that he must come North and try to see her, and — and — of course, it all sounds very silly! — and he sent her a newspaper with an account of his ranch in it — —”

  “She thought it came from you.”

  “Oh, good heavens! He didn’t tell me till after he’d done it. But he did it for a part of our foolish joke. And when I met your sister again, I only admired her as before. I can see, now, how I must have seemed to be seeking her out; but it was to talk of you with her — I never talked of anything else if I could help it, except when I changed the subject because I was ashamed to be always talking of you. I see how distressing it is for all of you. But tell me that you believe me!”

  “Yes, I must. It’s all been our mistake — —”

  “It has indeed! But there’s no mistake about my loving you, Penelope,” he said; and the old-fashioned name, at which she had often mocked, was sweet to her from his lips.

  “That only makes it worse!” she answered.

  “Oh no!” he gently protested. “It makes it better. It makes it right. How is it worse? How is it wrong?”

  “Can’t you see? You must understand all now! Don’t you see that if she believed so too, and if she — —” She could not go on.

  “Did she — did your sister — think that too?” gasped Corey.

  “She used to talk with me about you; and when you say you care for me now, it makes me feel like the vilest hypocrite in the world. That day you gave her the list of books, and she came down to Nantasket, and went on about you, I helped her to flatter herself — oh! I don’t see how she can forgive me. But she knows I can never forgive myself! That’s the reason she can do it. I can see now,” she went on, “how I must have been trying to get you from her. I can’t endure it! The only way is for me never to see you or speak to you again!” She laughed forlornly. “That would be pretty hard on you, if you cared.”

  “I do care — all the world!”

  “Well, then, it would if you were going to keep on caring. You won’t long, if you stop coming now.”

  “Is this all, then? Is it the end?”

  “It’s — whatever it is. I can’t get over the thought of her. Once I thought I could, but now I see that I can’t. It seems to grow worse. Sometimes I feel as if it would drive me crazy.”

  He sat looking at her with lacklustre eyes. The light suddenly came back into them. “Do you think I could love you if you had been false to her? I know you have been true to her, and truer still to yourself. I never tried to see her, except with the hope of seeing you too. I supposed she must know that I was in love with you. From the first time I saw you there that afternoon, you filled my fancy. Do you think I was flirting with the child, or — no, you don’t think that! We have not done wrong. We have not harmed any one knowingly. We have a right to each other — —”

  “No! no! you must never speak to me of this again. If you do, I shall know that you despise me.”

  “But how will that help her? I don’t love HER.”

  “Don’t say that to me! I have said that to myself too much.”

  “If you forbid me to love you, it won’t make me love her,” he persisted.

  She was about to speak, but she caught her breath without doing so, and merely stared at him. “I must do what you say,” he continued. “But what good will it do her? You can’t make her happy by making yourself unhappy.”

  “Do you ask me to profit by a wrong?”

  “Not for the world. But there is no wrong!”

  “There is something — I don’t know what. There’s a wall between us. I shall dash myself against it as long as I live; but that won’t break it.”

  “Oh!” he groaned. “We have done no wrong. Why should we suffer from another’s mistake as if it were our sin?”

  “I don’t know. But we must suffer.”

  “Well, then, I WILL not, for my part, and I will not let you. If you care for me — —”

  “You had no right to know it.”

  “You make it my privilege
to keep you from doing wrong for the right’s sake. I’m sorry, with all my heart and soul, for this error; but I can’t blame myself, and I won’t deny myself the happiness I haven’t done anything to forfeit. I will never give you up. I will wait as long as you please for the time when you shall feel free from this mistake; but you shall be mine at last. Remember that. I might go away for months — a year, even; but that seems a cowardly and guilty thing, and I’m not afraid, and I’m not guilty, and I’m going to stay here and try to see you.”

  She shook her head. “It won’t change anything? Don’t you see that there’s no hope for us?”

  “When is she coming back?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. Mother wants father to come and take her out West for a while.”

  “She’s up there in the country with your mother yet?”

  “Yes.”

  He was silent; then he said desperately —

  “Penelope, she is very young; and perhaps — perhaps she might meet — —”

  “It would make no difference. It wouldn’t change it for me.”

  “You are cruel — cruel to yourself, if you love me, and cruel to me. Don’t you remember that night — before I spoke — you were talking of that book; and you said it was foolish and wicked to do as that girl did. Why is it different with you, except that you give me nothing, and can never give me anything when you take yourself away? If it were anybody else, I am sure you would say — —”

  “But it isn’t anybody else, and that makes it impossible. Sometimes I think it might be if I would only say so to myself, and then all that I said to her about you comes up — —”

  “I will wait. It can’t always come up. I won’t urge you any longer now. But you will see it differently — more clearly. Good-bye — no! Good night! I shall come again to-morrow. It will surely come right, and, whatever happens, you have done no wrong. Try to keep that in mind. I am so happy, in spite of all!”

  He tried to take her hand, but she put it behind her. “No, no! I can’t let you — yet!”