“Then you think he does care for me?”
“Yes.”
“And you know he’ll come soon?”
“Yes.”
“To-morrow?”
“Yes, to-morrow.”
“O’Manda, O’Manda!”
XXX.
Lemuel had promised himself that if he could gain a little time he should be able better to decide what it was right for him to do. His heart lifted as he dropped the letter into the box, and he went through the chapters which Mr. Corey asked him to read, after he came in, with an ease incredible to himself. In the morning he woke with a mind that was almost cheerful. He had been honest in writing that letter, and so far he had done right; he should keep his word about going soon to see Statira, and that would be honest too. He did not look beyond this decision, and he felt, as we all do, more or less vaguely when we have resolved to do right, that he had the merit of a good action.
Statira showed herself so glad to see him that he could not do less than seem to share her joy in their making-up, as she called it, though he insisted that there had been no quarrel between them; and now there began for him a strange double life, the fact of which each reader must reject or accept according to the witness of his own knowledge.
He renewed as far as he could the old warmth of his feeling for Statira, and in his compunction experienced a tenderness for her that he had not known before, the strange tenderness that some spirits feel for those they injure. He went oftener than ever to see her, he was very good to her, and cheered her with his interest in all her little interests; he petted her and comforted her; but he escaped from her as soon as he could, and when he shut her door behind him he shut her within it. He made haste to forget her, and to lose himself in thoughts that were never wholly absent even in her presence. Sometimes he went directly from her to Jessie, whose innocent Bohemianism kept later hours, and who was always glad to see him whenever he came. She welcomed him with talk that they thought related wholly to the books they had been reading, and to the things of deep psychological import which they suggested. He seldom came to her without the excuse of a book to be lent or borrowed; and he never quitted her without feeling inspired with the wish to know more, and to be more; he seemed to be lifted to purer and clearer regions of thought. She received him in the parlour, but their evenings commonly ended in her little studio, whither some errand took them, or some intrusion of the other boarders banished them. There he read to her poems or long chapters out of the essayists or romancers; or else they sat and talked about the strange things they had noticed in themselves that were like the things they found in their books. Once when they had talked a long while in this strain, he told how when he first saw her he thought she was very proud and cold.
She laughed gaily. “And I used to be afraid of you,” she said. “You used to be always reading there in your little office. Do you think I’m very proud now?”
“Are you very much afraid of me now?” he retorted.
They laughed together.
“Isn’t it strange,” she said, “how little we really know about people in the world?”
“Yes,” he answered. “I wonder if it will ever be different. I’ve been wrong about nearly every one I’ve met since I came to Boston.”
“And I have too!” she cried, with that delight in the coincidence of experience which the young feel so keenly.
He had got the habit, with his growing ease in her presence, of walking up and down the room, while she sat, with her arms lifted and clasped above her head, forgetful of everything but the things they were saying, and followed him with her eyes. As he turned about in his walk, he saw how pretty she was, with her slender form cased in the black silk she wore, and thrown into full relief by the lifted arms; he saw the little hands knit above her head, and white as flowers on her dark hair. Her eyes were very bright, and her soft lips, small and fine, were red.
He faltered, and lost the thread of his speech. “I forgot what I was going to say!”
She took down her hands to clasp them over her laughing face a moment. “And I don’t remember what you were saying!” They both laughed a long time at this; it seemed incomparably droll, and they became better comrades.
They spent the rest of the evening in laughing and joking.
“I didn’t know you were so fond of laughing,” he said, when he went away.
“And I always supposed you were very solemn,” she replied.
This again seemed the drollest thing in the world. “Well, I always was,” he said.
“And I don’t know when I’ve laughed so much before!” She stood at the head of the stairs, and held her lamp up for him to find his way down.
Again looking back, he saw her in the undefended grace that had bewildered him before.
When he came next they met very seriously, but before the evening was past they were laughing together; and so it happened now whenever he came. They both said how strange it was that laughing with any one seemed to make you feel so much better acquainted. She told of a girl at school that she had always disliked till one day something made them laugh, and after that they became the greatest friends.
He tried to think of some experience to match this, but he could not; he asked her if she did not think that you always felt a little gloomy after you had been laughing a great deal. She said yes; after that first night when they laughed so, she felt so depressed that she was sure she was going to have bad news from Madeline. Then she said she had received a letter from Madeline that morning, and she and Mr. Berry had both wished her to give him their regards if she ever saw him. This, when she had said it, seemed a very good joke too; and they laughed at it a little consciously, till he boldly bade her tell them he came so very seldom that she did not know when she could deliver their message.
She answered that she was afraid Madeline would not believe that; and then it came out that he had never replied to Berry’s letter.
She said, “Oh! Is that the way you treat your correspondents?” and he was ashamed to confess that he had not forgiven Berry.
“I will write to him to-night, if you say so,” he answered hardily.
“Oh, you must do what you think best,” she said, lightly refusing the responsibility.
“Whatever you say will be best,” he said, with a sudden, passionate fervour that surprised himself.
She tried to escape from it. “Am I so infallible as that?”
“You are for me!” he retorted.
A silence followed, which she endeavoured to break, but she sat still across the little table from him where the shaded lamp spread its glow, leaving the rest of the room, with its red curtains and its sketches pinned about, in a warm, luxurious shadow. Her eyes fell, and she did not speak.
“It must sound very strange to you, I know,” he went on; “and it’s strange to me, too; but it seems to me that there isn’t anything I’ve done without my thinking whether you would like me to do it.”
She rose involuntarily. “You make me ashamed to think that you’re so much mistaken about me! I know how we all influence each other — I know I always try to be what I think people expect me to be — I can’t be myself — I know what you mean; but you — you must be yourself, and not let—” She stopped in her wandering speech, in strange agitation, and he rose too.
“I hope you’re not offended with me!”
“Offended? Why? Why do you — go so soon?”
“I thought you were going,” he answered stupidly.
“Why, I’m at home!”
They looked at each other, and then they broke into a happy laugh.
“Sit down again! I don’t know what I got up for. It must have been to make some tea. Did you know Madeline had bequeathed me her tea-kettle — the one we had at the St. Albans?” She bustled about, and lit the spirit-lamp under the kettle.
“Blow out that match!” he cried. “You’ll set your dress on fire!” He caught her hand, which she was holding with the lighted match in it at her side, after the manne
r of women with lighted matches, and blew it out himself.
“Oh, thank you!” she said indifferently. “Can you take it without milk?”
“Yes, I like it so.”
She got out two of the cups he remembered, and he said, “How much like last winter that seems!”
And “Yes, doesn’t it?” she sighed.
The lamp purred and fretted under the kettle, and in the silence in which they waited, the elm tree that rose from the pavement outside seemed to look in consciously upon them.
When the kettle began to sing, she poured out the two cups of tea, and in handing him his their fingers touched, and she gave a little outcry. “Oh! Madeline’s precious cup! I thought it was going to drop!”
The soft night-wind blew in through the elm leaves, and their rustling seemed the expression of a profound repose, an endless content.
XXXI.
The next night Lemuel went to see Statira, without promising himself what he should say or do, but if he were to tell her everything, he felt that she would forgive him more easily than ‘Manda Grier. He was aware that ‘Manda always lay in wait for him, to pierce him at every undefended hint of conscience. Since the first break with her, there had never been peace between them, and perhaps not kindness for long before that. Whether or not she felt responsible for having promoted Statira’s affair with him, and therefore bound to guard her to the utmost from suffering by it, she seemed always to be on the alert to seize any advantage against him. Sometimes Statira accused her of trying to act so hatefully to him that he would never come any more; she wildly blamed her; but the faithful creature was none the less constant and vigilant on that account. She took patiently the unjust reproaches which Statira heaped upon her like a wayward child, and remitted nothing of her suspicion or enmity towards Lemuel. Once, when she had been very bitter with him, so bitter that it had ended in an open quarrel between them, Statira sided with him against her, and when ‘Manda Grier flounced out of the room she offered him, if he wished, to break with her, and never to speak to her again, or have anything more to do with such a person. But at this his anger somehow fell; and he said no, she must not think of such a thing; that ‘Manda Grier had been her friend long before he was, and that, whatever she said to him, she was always good and true to her. Then Statira fell upon his neck and cried, and praised him, and said he was a million times more to her than ‘Manda Grier, but she would do whatever he said; and he went away sick at heart.
When he came now, with his thoughts clinging to Jessie, ‘Manda Grier hardly gave him time for the decencies of greeting. She was in a high nervous exaltation, and Statira looked as if she had been crying.
“What’s become o’ them art-students you used to have ‘t the St. Albans?” she began, her whopper-jaw twitching with excitement, and her eyes glaring vindictively upon Lemuel.
He had sat down near Statira on the lounge, but she drew a little away from him in a provisional fashion, as if she would first see what came of ‘Manda Grier’s inquisition.
“Art-students?” he repeated aimlessly while he felt his colour go.
“Yes!” she snapped. “Them girls ‘t used to be ‘t the St. Albans, ‘t you thought so wonderful!”
“I didn’t know I thought they were very wonderful!”
“Can’t you answer a civil question?” she demanded, raising her voice.
“I haven’t heard any,” said Lemuel, with sullen scorn.
“Oh! Well!” she sneered. “I forgot that you’ve b’en used to goin’ with such fine folks that you can’t bear to be spoken to in plain English.”
“‘Manda!” began Statira, with an incipient whimper.
“You be still, S’tira Dudley! Mr. Barker,” said the poor foolish thing in the mincing falsetto which she thought so cutting, “have you any idea what’s become of your young lady artist friends, — them that took your portrait as a Roman youth, you know?”
Lemuel made no answer whatever for a time. Then, whether he judged it best to do so, or was goaded to the defiance by ‘Manda Grier’s manner, he replied, “Miss Swan and Miss Carver? Miss Swan is married, and lives in Wyoming Territory now.” Before he had reached the close of the sentence he had controlled himself sufficiently to be speaking quite calmly.
“Oh indeed, Mr. Barker! And may I ask where Miss Carver is? She merried and living in Wyoming Territory too?”
“No,” said Lemuel quietly. “She’s not married. She’s in Boston.”
“Indeed! Then it was her I see in the Garden to-day, S’tira! She b’en back long, Mr. Barker?”
“About a month, I think,” said Lemuel.
“Quite a spell! You seen her, Mr. Barker?”
“Yes, quite often.”
“I want to know! She still paintin’ Roman boys, Mr. Barker? Didn’t seem to make any great out at it last winter! But practice makes perfect, they say. I s’pose you seen her in the Garden, too?”
“I usually see her at home,” said Lemuel. “You probably receive your friends on the benches in the Garden, but young ladies prefer to have them call at their residences.” He astonished himself by this brutality, he who was all gentleness with Miss Carver.
“Very well, Mr. Barker! That’s all right. That’s all I wanted to know. Never mind about where I meet my friends. Wherever it is, they’re gentlemen; and they ain’t generally goin’ with three or four girls ‘t the same time.”
“No, one like you would be enough,” retorted Lemuel.
Statira sat cowering away from the quarrel, and making little ineffectual starts as if to stay it. Heretofore their enmity had been covert, if not tacit, in her presence.
Lemuel saw her wavering, and the wish to show ‘Manda his superior power triumphed over every other interest and impulse in him. He got upon his feet. “There is no use in this sort of thing going on any longer. I came here because I thought I was wanted. If it’s a mistake, it’s easy enough to mend it, and it’s easy not to make it again. I wish you good evening.”
Statira sprang from the lounge, and flung her arms around his neck. “No, no! You sha’n’t go! You mustn’t go, Lem! I know your all right, and I won’t have you talked to so! I ain’t a bit jealous, Lem; indeed I ain’t. I know you wouldn’t fool with me, any more than I would with you; and that’s what I tell ‘Manda Grier, I’ll leave it to her if I don’t. I don’t care who you go with, and I hain’t, never since that first time. I know you ain’t goin’ to do anything underhanded. Don’t go, Lem; oh, don’t go!”
He was pulling towards the door; her trust, her fond generosity drove him more than ‘Manda Grier’s cutting tongue: that hurt his pride, his vanity, but this pierced his soul; he had only a blind, stupid will to escape from it.
Statira was crying; she began to cough; she released his neck from her clasp, and reeled backward to the lounge, where she would have fallen, if ‘Manda Grier had not caught her. The paroxysm grew more violent; a bright stream of blood sprang from her lips.
“Run! Run for the doctor! Quick, Lemuel! Oh, quick!” implored ‘Manda Grier, forgetting all enmity in her terror.
Statira’s arms wavered towards him, as if to keep him, but he turned and ran from the house, cowed and conscience-stricken by the sight of that blood, as if he had shed it.
He did not expect to see Statira alive when he came back with the doctor whom he found at the next apothecary’s. She was lying on the lounge, white as death, but breathing quietly, and her eyes sought him with an eagerness that turned to a look of tender gratitude at the look they found in his.
The doctor bent over her for her pulse and her respiration; then when he turned to examine the crimson handkerchief which ‘Manda Grier showed him, Lemuel dropped on his knees beside her and put his face down to hers.
With her lips against his cheek she made, “Don’t go!”
And he whispered, “No, I’ll not leave you now!”
The doctor looked round with the handkerchief still in his hand, as if doubting whether to order him away from her. Then h
e mutely questioned ‘Manda Grier with a glance which her glance answered. He shrugged his shoulders, with a puzzled sigh. An expression of pity crossed his face which he hardened into one of purely professional interest, and he went on questioning ‘Manda Grier in a low tone.
Statira had slipped her hand into Lemuel’s, and she held it fast, as if in that clasp she were holding on to her chance of life.
XXXII.
Sewell returned to town for the last time in the third week of September, bringing his family with him.
This was before the greater part of his oddly assorted congregation had thought of leaving the country, either the rich cottagers whose family tradition or liberal opinions kept them in his church, or the boarding and camping elements who were uniting a love of cheapness with a love of nature in their prolonged sojourn among the woods and fields. Certain families, perhaps half of his parish in all, were returning because the schools were opening, and they must put their children into them; and it was both to minister to the spiritual needs of these and to get his own children back to their studies that the minister was at home so early.
It was, as I have hinted already, a difficult and laborious season with him; he himself was always a little rusty in his vocation after his summer’s outing, and felt weakened rather than strengthened by his rest. The domestic machine started reluctantly; there was a new cook to be got in, and Mrs. Sewell had to fight a battle with herself, in which she invited him to share, before she could settle down for the winter to the cares of housekeeping. The wide skies, the dim mountain slopes, the long, delicious drives, the fresh mornings, the sweet, silvery afternoons of their idle country life, haunted their nerves and enfeebled their wills.
One evening in the first days of this moral disability, while Sewell sat at his desk trying to get himself together for a sermon, Barker’s name was brought up to him.
“Really,” said his wife, who had transmitted it from the maid, “I think it’s time you protected yourself, David. You can’t let this go on for ever. He has been in Boston nearly two years now; he has regular employment, where if there’s anything in him at all, he ought to prosper and improve without coming to you every other night. What can he want now?”
Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells Page 320
