Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  “I’m sure I don’t know,” said the minister, leaning back in his chair, and passing his hand wearily over his forehead.

  “Then send down and excuse yourself. Tell him you’re busy, and ask him to come another time!”

  “Ah, you know I can’t do that, my dear.”

  “Very well, then; I will go down and see him. You sha’n’t be interrupted.”

  “Would you, my dear? That would be very kind of you! Do get me off some way; tell him I’m coming to see him very soon.” He went stupidly back to his writing, without looking to see whether his wife had meant all she said; and after a moment’s hesitation she descended in fulfilment of her promise; or, perhaps rather it was a threat.

  She met Lemuel not unkindly, for she was a kind-hearted woman; but she placed duty before charity even, and she could not help making him feel that she was there in the discharge of a duty. She explained that Mr. Sewell was very unusually busy that evening, and had sent her in his place, and hoped soon to see him. She bade Lemuel sit down, and he obeyed, answering all the questions as to the summer and his occupations and health, and his mother’s health, which she put to him in proof of her interest in him; in further evidence of it, she gave him an account of the Sewell family’s doings since they last met. He did not stay long, and she returned slowly and pensively to her husband.

  “Well?” he asked, without looking round.

  “Well; it’s all right,” she answered, with rather a deep breath. “He didn’t seem to have come for anything in particular; I told him that if he wished specially to speak with you, you would come down.”

  Sewell went on with his writing, and after a moment his wife said, “But you must go and see him very soon, David; you must go to-morrow.”

  “Why?”

  “He looks wretchedly, though he says he’s very well. It made my heart ache. He looks perfectly wan and haggard. I wish,” she burst out, “I wish I had let you go down and see him!”

  “Why — why, what was the matter?” asked Sewell, turning about now. “Did you think he had something on his mind?”

  “No, but he looked fairly sick. Oh, I wish he had never come into our lives!”

  “I’m afraid he hasn’t got much good from us,” sighed the minister. “But I’ll go round and look him up in the morning. His trouble will keep overnight, if it’s a real trouble. There’s that comfort, at least. And now, do go away, my dear, and leave me to my writing.”

  Mrs. Sewell looked at him, but turned and left him, apparently reserving whatever sermon she might have in her mind till he should have finished his.

  The next morning he went to inquire for Lemuel at Mr. Corey’s. The man was sending him away from the door with the fact merely that Lemuel was not then in the house, when the voice of Mr. Corey descending the stairs called from within: “Is that you, Sewell? Don’t go away! Come in!”

  The old gentleman took him into the library and confessed in a bit of new slang, which he said was delightful, that he was all balled up by Lemuel’s leaving him, and asked Sewell what he supposed it meant.

  “Left you? Meant?” echoed Sewell.

  When they got at each other it was understood that Lemuel, the day before, had given up his employment with Mr. Corey, expressing a fit sense of all his kindness and a fit regret at leaving him, but alleging no reasons for his course; and that this was the first that Sewell knew of the affair.

  “It must have been that which he came to see me about last night,” he said, with a sort of anticipative remorse. “Mrs. Sewell saw him — I was busy.”

  “Well! Get him to come back, Sewell,” said Mr. Corey, with his whimsical imperiousness; “I can’t get on without him. All my moral and intellectual being has stopped like a watch.”

  Sewell went to the boarding-house where Lemuel took his meals, but found that he no longer came there, and had left no other address. He knew nowhere else to ask, and he went home to a day of latent trouble of mind, which whenever it came to the light defined itself as helpless question and self-reproach in regard to Barker.

  That evening as he sat at tea, the maid came with the announcement that there was a person in the reception-room who would not send in any name, but wished to see Mr. Sewell, and would wait.

  Sewell threw down his napkin, and said, “I’ll bring him in to tea.”

  Mrs. Sewell did not resist; she bade the girl lay another plate.

  Sewell was so sure of finding Lemuel in the reception-room, that he recoiled in dismay from the girlish figure that turned timidly from the window to meet him with a face thickly veiled. He was vexed, too; here, he knew from the mystery put on, was one of those cases of feminine trouble, real or unreal, which he most disliked to meddle with.

  “Will you sit down?” he said, as kindly as he could, and the girl obeyed.

  “I thought they would let me wait. I didn’t mean to interrupt you,” she began, in a voice singularly gentle and unaffected.

  “Oh, no matter!” cried Sewell. “I’m very glad to see you.”

  “I thought you could help me. I’m in great trouble — doubt—”

  The voice was almost childlike in its appealing innocence. Sewell sat down opposite the girl and bent sympathetically forward. “Well?”

  She waited a moment. Then, “I don’t know how to begin,” she said hoarsely, and stopped again.

  Sewell was touched. He forgot Lemuel; he forgot everything but the heartache which he divined before him, and his Christ-derived office, his holy privilege, of helping any in want of comfort or guidance. “Perhaps,” he said, in his loveliest way, — the way that had won his wife’s heart, and that still provoked her severest criticism for its insincerity; it was so purely impersonal,— “perhaps that isn’t necessary, if you mean beginning at the beginning. If you’ve any trouble that you think I can advise you in, perhaps it’s better for both of us that I shouldn’t know very much of it.”

  “Yes?” murmured the girl questioningly.

  “I mean that if you tell me much, you will go away feeling that you have somehow parted with yourself, that you’re no longer in your own keeping, but in mine; and you know that in everything our help must really come from within our own free consciences.”

  “Yes,” said the girl again, from behind the veil which completely hid her face. She now hesitated a long time. She put her handkerchief under her veil; and at last she said: “I know what you mean.” Her voice quivered pathetically; she tried to control it. “Perhaps,” she whispered huskily, after another interval, “I can put it in the form of a question.”

  “That would be best,” said Sewell.

  She hesitated; the tears fell down upon her hands behind her veil; she no longer wiped them. “It’s because I’ve often — heard you; because I know you will tell me what’s true and right—”

  “Your own heart must do that,” said the minister, “but I will gladly help you all I can.”

  She did not heed him now, but continued as if rapt quite away from him.

  “If there was some one — something — if there was something that it would be right for you to do — to have, if there was no one else; but if there were some else that had a right first—” She broke off and asked abruptly, “Don’t you think it is always right to prefer another — the interest of another to your own?”

  Sewell could not help smiling. “There is only one thing for us to do when we are in any doubt or perplexity,” he said cheerily, “and that is the unselfish thing.”

  “Yes,” she gasped; she seemed to be speaking to herself. “I saw it, I knew it! Even if it kills us, we must do it! Nothing ought to weigh against it! Oh, I thank you!”

  Sewell was puzzled. He felt dimly that she was thanking him for anguish and despair. “I’m afraid that I don’t quite understand you.”

  “I thought I told you,” she answered, with a certain reproach, and a fall of courage in view of the fresh effort she must make. It was some moments before she could say, “If you knew that some one — some one wh
o was — everything to you — and that you knew — believed—”

  At fifty it is hard to be serious about these things, and it was well for the girl that she was no longer conscious of Sewell’s mood.

  “ — Cared for you; and if you knew that before he had cared for you there had been some else — some else that he was as much to as he was to you, and that couldn’t give him up, what — should you—”

  Sewell fetched a long sigh of relief; he had been afraid of a much darker problem than this. He almost smiled.

  “My dear child,” — she seemed but a child there before the mature man with her poor little love-trouble, so intricate and hopeless to her, so simple and easy to him— “that depends upon a great many circumstances.”

  He could feel through her veil the surprise with which she turned to him: “You said, whenever we are in doubt, we must act unselfishly.”

  “Yes, I said that. But you must first be sure what is really selfish—”

  “I know what is selfish in this case,” said the girl with a sublimity which, if foolish, was still sublimity. “She is sick — it will kill her to lose him — You have said what I expected, and I thank you, thank you, thank you! And I will do it! Oh, don’t fear now but I shall; I have done it! No matter,” she went on in her exaltation, “no matter how much we care for each other, now!”

  “No,” said Sewell decidedly. “That doesn’t follow. I have thought of such things; there was such a case within my experience once,” — he could not help alleging this case, in which he had long triumphed,— “and I have always felt that I did right in advising against a romantic notion of self-sacrifice in such matters. You may commit a greater wrong in that than in an act of apparent self-interest. You have not put the case fully before me, and it isn’t necessary that you should, but if you contemplate any rash sacrifice, I warn you against it.”

  “You said that we ought to act unselfishly.”

  “Yes, but you must beware of the refined selfishness which shrinks from righteous self-assertion because it is painful. You must make sure of your real motive; you must consider whether your sacrifice is not going to do more harm than good. But why do you come to me with your trouble? Why don’t you go to your father — your mother?”

  “I have none.”

  “Ah—”

  She had risen and pushed by him to the outer door, though he tried to keep her. “Don’t be rash,” he urged. “I advise you to take time to think of this—”

  She did not answer; she seemed now only to wish to escape, as if in terror of him.

  She pulled open the door, and was gone.

  Sewell went back to his tea, bewildered, confounded.

  “What’s the matter? Why didn’t he come in to tea with you?” asked his wife.

  “Who?”

  “Barker.”

  “What Barker?”

  “David, what is the matter?”

  Sewell started from his daze, and glanced at his children: “I’ll tell you by and by, Lucy.”

  XXXIII

  A month passed, and Sewell heard nothing of Lemuel. His charge, always elusive and evanescent, had now completely vanished, and he could find no trace of him. Mr. Corey suggested advertising. Bellingham said, why not put it in the hands of a detective? He said he had never helped work anything up with a detective; he rather thought he should like to do it. Sewell thought of writing to Barker’s mother at Willoughby Pastures, but he postponed it; perhaps it would alarm her if Barker were not there; Sewell had many other cares and duties; Lemuel became more and more a good intention of the indefinite future. After all, he had always shown the ability to take care of himself, and except that he had mysteriously disappeared there was no reason for anxiety about him.

  One night his name came up at a moment when Sewell was least prepared by interest or expectation to see him. He smiled to himself in running downstairs, at the reflection that he never seemed quite ready for Barker. But it was a relief to have him turn up again; there was no question of that, and Sewell showed him a face of welcome that dropped at sight of him. He scarcely new the gaunt, careworn face or the shabby figure before him, in place of the handsome, well-dressed young fellow whom he had come to greet. There seemed a sort of reversion in Barker’s whole presence to the time when Sewell first found him in that room; and in whatever trouble he now was, the effect was that of his original rustic constraint.

  Trouble there was of some kind, Sewell could see at a glance, and his kind heart prompted him to take Lemuel’s hand between both of his. “Why, my dear boy!” he began; but he stopped and made Lemuel sit down, waited for him to speak, without further question or comment.

  “Mr. Sewell,” the young man said abruptly, “you told me once you — that you sometimes had money put into your hands that you could lend.”

  “Yes,” replied Sewell, with eager cordiality.

  “Could I borrow about seventy-five dollars of you?”

  “Why, certainly, Barker!” Sewell had not so much of what he called his flying-charity fund by him, but he instantly resolved to advance the difference out of his own pocket.

  “It’s to get me an outfit for horse-car conductor,” said Lemuel. “I can have the place if I can get the outfit.”

  “Horse-car conductor!” reverberated Sewell. “What in the world for?”

  “It’s work I can do,” answered Lemuel briefly, but not resentfully.

  “But there are so many other things — better — fitter — more profitable! Why did you leave Mr. Corey? I assure you that you have been a great loss to him — in every way. You don’t know how much he valued you, personally. He will be only too glad to have you come back.”

  “I can’t go back,” said Lemuel. “I’m going to get married.”

  “Married!” cried Sewell in consternation.

  “My — the lady that I’m going to marry — has been sick, ever since the first of October, and I haven’t had a chance to look up any kind of work. But she’s better now; and I’ve heard of this place I can get. I don’t like to trouble you; but — everything’s gone — I’ve got my mother down here helping take care of her; and I must do something. I don’t know just when I can pay you back; but I’ll do it sometime.”

  “Oh, I’m sure of that,” said Sewell, from the abyss of hopeless conjecture into which these facts had plunged him; his wandering fancy was dominated by the presence of Lemuel’s mother with her bloomers in Boston. “I — I hope there’s nothing serious the trouble with your — the lady?” he said, rubbing away with his hand the smile that came to his lips in spite of him.

  “It’s lung trouble,” said Lemuel quietly.

  “Oh!” responded Sewell. “Well! Well!” He shook himself together, and wondered what had become of the impulse he had felt to scold Barker for the idea of getting married. But such a course now seemed not only far beyond his province, — he heard himself saying that to Mrs. Sewell in self-defence when she should censure him for not doing it, — but utterly useless in view of the further complications. “Well! This is great news you tell me — a great surprise. You’re — you’re going to take an important step — You — you — Of course, of course! You must have a great many demands upon you, under the circumstances. Yes, yes! And I’m very glad you came to me. If your mind is quite made up about — —”

  “Yes, I’ve thought it over,” said Lemuel. “The lady has had to work all her life, and she — she isn’t used to what I thought — what I intended — any other kind of people; and it’s better for us both that I should get some kind of work that won’t take me away from her too much — —” He dropped his head, and Sewell with a flash of intelligence felt a thrill of compassionate admiration for the poor, foolish, generous creature, for so Lemuel complexly appeared to him.

  Again he forbore question or comment.

  “Well — well! we must look you up, Mrs. Sewell and I. We must come to see your — the lady.” He found himself falling helplessly into Lemuel’s way of describing her. “Just wri
te me your address here,” — he put a scrap of paper before Lemuel on the davenport,— “and I’ll go and get you the money.”

  He brought it back in an envelope which held a very little more than Lemuel had asked for — Sewell had not dared to add much — and Lemuel put it in his pocket.

  He tried to say something; he could only make a husky noise in his throat.

  “Good night!” said Sewell pressing his hand with both of his again, at the door. “We shall come very soon.”

  “Married!” said Mrs. Sewell, when he returned to her; and then she suffered a silence to ensue, in which it seemed to Sewell that his inculpation was visibly accumulating mountains vast and high. “What did you say?”

  “Nothing,” he answered almost gaily; the case was so far beyond despair. “What should you have said?”

  XXXIV.

  Lemuel got a conductor’s overcoat and cap at half-price from a man who had been discharged, and put by the money saved to return to Sewell when he should come. He entered upon his duties the next morning, under the instruction of an old conductor, who said, “Hain’t I seen you som’ere’s before?” and he worked all day, taking money and tickets, registering fares, helping ladies on and off the car, and monotonously journeying back and forth over his route. He went on duty at six o’clock in the morning, after an early breakfast that ‘Manda Grier and his mother got him, for Statira was not strong enough yet to do much, and he was to be relieved at eight. At nightfall, after two half-hour respites for dinner and tea, he was so tired that he could scarcely stand.

  “Well, how do you like it, as fur’s you’ve gone?” asked the instructing conductor, in whom Lemuel had recognised an old acquaintance. “Sweet life, ain’t it? There! That switch hain’t worked again! Jump off, young man, and put your shoulder to the wheel!”

  The car had failed to take the right-hand turn where the line divided; it had to be pushed back, and while the driver tugged and swore under his breath at his horses, Lemuel set himself to push the car.