Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  “Yes; the same fellow. But as to blackguard—”

  “Well, then, Matt, I don’t see how we can employ him. It seems to me it would be a kind of insult to those poor girls.”

  “I had thought of that. I felt that. But after all, I don’t think he knew how much of a blackguard he was making of himself. Maxwell says he wouldn’t know. And besides, we can’t help ourselves. If he doesn’t go for us, he will go for himself. We must employ him. He’s a species of condottiere; we can buy his allegiance with his service: and we must forego the sentimental objection. I’ve gone all over it, and that’s the only conclusion.”

  Hilary fumed and rebelled; but he saw that they could not help themselves, that they could not do better. He asked, “And what did their lawyer think of it?”

  “He seemed to think we had better let it alone for the present; better wait and see if Mr. Northwick would not try to communicate with his family.”

  “I’m not so sure of that,” said Hilary. “If this fellow is such a fellow as you say, I don’t see why we shouldn’t make use of him at once.”

  “Make use of him to get Mr. Northwick back?” said Matt. “I think it would be well for him to come back, but voluntarily—”

  “Come back?” said Hilary, whose civic morality flew much lower than this. “Nonsense! And stir the whole filthy mess up in the courts? I mean, make use of this fellow to find him, and enable us to find out just how much money he has left, and how much we have got to supply, in order to make up his shortage.”

  Matt now perceived the extent of his father’s purpose, and on its plane he honored it.

  “Father, you’re splendid!”

  “Stuff! I’m in a corner. What else is there to do? What less could we do? What’s the money for, if it isn’t to—” Hilary choked with the emotion that filled him at the sight of his son’s face.

  Every father likes to have his grown-up son think him a good man; it is the sweetest thing that can come to him in life, far sweeter than a daughter’s faith in him; for a son knows whether his father is good or not. At the bottom of his soul Hilary cared more for his son’s opinion than most fathers; Matt was a crank, but because he was a crank, Hilary valued his judgment as something ideal.

  After a moment he asked, “Can this fellow be got at?”

  “Oh, I imagine very readily.”

  “What did Maxwell say about him, generally?”

  “Generally, that he’s not at all a bad kind of fellow. He’s a reporter by nature, and he’s a detective upon instinct. He’s done some amateur detective work, as many reporters do — according to Maxwell’s account. The two things run together — and he’s very shrewd and capable in his way. He’s going into it as a speculation, and of course he wants it to be worth his while. Maxwell says his expectation of newspaper promotion is mere brag; they know him too well to put him in any position of control. He’s a mixture, like everybody else. He’s devotedly fond of his wife, and he wants to give her and the baby a change of air—”

  “My idea,” Hilary interrupted, “would be not to wait for the Social Science Convention, but to send this—”

  “Pinney.”

  “Pinney at once. Will you see him?”

  “If you have made up your mind.”

  “I’ve made up my mind. But handle the wretch carefully, and for heaven’s sake bind him by all that’s sacred — if there’s anything sacred to him — not to give the matter away. Let him fix his price, and offer him a pension for his widow afterwards.”

  XXI.

  Mrs. Hilary was a large woman, of portly frame, the prophecy in amplitude of what her son might come to be if he did not carry the activities of youth into his later life. She, for her part, was long past such activities; and yet she was not a woman to let the grass grow upon any path she had taken. She appointed the afternoon of the day following her talk with Matt for leaving the farm and going to the shore; Louise was to go with her, and upon the whole she judged it best to tell her why, when the girl came to say good-night, and to announce that her packing was finished.

  “But what in the world are we in such a hurry for, mamma, all of a sudden?”

  “We are in a hurry because — don’t you really know, Louise? — because in the crazy atmosphere of this house, one loses the sense of — of proportion — of differences.”

  “Aren’t you rather — Emersonian, mamma?”

  “Do you think so, my dear? Matt’s queer notions infect everybody; I don’t blame you, particularly; and the simple life he makes people lead — by leading it himself, more than anything else — makes you think that you could keep on living just as simply if you wished, everywhere.”

  “It’s very sweet — it’s so restful,” sighed the girl. “It makes you sick of dinners and ashamed of dances.”

  “But you must go back to them; you must go back to the world you belong to; and you’d better not carry any queer habits back with you.”

  “You are rather sphinx-like, mamma! Such habits, for instance, as?”

  “As Mr. Maxwell.” The girl’s face changed; her mother had touched the quick. She went on, looking steadily at her daughter, “You know he wouldn’t do, there.”

  “No; he wouldn’t,” said Louise, promptly; so mournfully, though, that her mother’s heart relented.

  “I’ve seen that you’ve become interested in him, Louise; that your fancy is excited; he stimulates your curiosity. I don’t wonder at it! He is very interesting. He makes you feel his power more than any other young man I’ve met. He charms your imagination even when he shocks your taste.”

  “Yes; all that,” said Louise, desolately.

  “But he does shock your taste?”

  “Sometimes — not always.”

  “Often enough, though, to make the difference that I’m afraid you’ll lose the sense of. Louise, I should be very sorry if I thought you were at all — in love with that young man!”

  It seemed a question; Louise let her head droop, and answered with another. “How should I know? He hasn’t asked me.”

  This vexed her mother. “Don’t be trivial, don’t be childish, my dear. You don’t need to be asked, though I’m exceedingly glad he hasn’t asked you, for now you can get away with a good conscience.”

  “I’m not sure yet that I want to get away,” said the girl, dreamily.

  “Yes, you are, my dear!” her mother retorted. “You know it wouldn’t do at all. It isn’t a question of his poverty; your father has money enough: it’s a question of his social quality, and of all those little nothings that make up the whole of happiness in marriage. He would be different enough, being merely a man; but being a man born and reared in as different a world from yours as if it were another planet — I want you to think over all the girls you know — all the people you know — and see how many of them have married out of their own set, their own circle — we might almost say, their own family. There isn’t one!”

  “I’ve not said I wished to marry him, mamma.”

  “No. But I wish you to realize just what it would be.”

  “It would be something rather distinguished, if his dreams came true,” Louise suggested.

  “Well, of course,” Mrs. Hilary admitted. She wished to be very, very reasonable; very, very just; it was the only thing with a girl like Louise; perhaps with any girl. “It would be distinguished, in a way. But it wouldn’t be distinguished in the society way; the only way you’ve professed to care for. I know that we’ve always been an intellectual community, and New-Yorkers, and that kind of people, think, or profess to think, that we make a great deal of literary men. We do invite them somewhat, but I pass whole seasons without meeting them; and I don’t know that you could say that they are of society, even when they are in it. If such a man has society connections, he’s in society; but he’s there on account of his connections, not on account of his achievements. This young man may become very distinguished, but he’ll always be rather queer; and he would put a society girl at odds with society. H
is distinction would be public; it wouldn’t be social.”

  “Matt doesn’t think society is worth minding,” Louise said, casually.

  “But you do,” returned her mother. “And Matt says that a man of this young man’s traditions might mortify you before society people.”

  “Did Matt say that?” Louise demanded, angrily. “I will speak to Matt about that! I should like to know what he means by it. I should like to hear what he would say.”

  “Very likely he would say that the society people were not worth minding. You know his nonsense. If you agree with Matt, I’ve nothing more to say, Louise; not a word. You can marry a mechanic or a day-laborer, in that case, without loss of self-respect. I’ve only been talking to you on the plane where I’ve always understood you wished to be taken. But if you don’t, then I can’t help it. You must understand, though, and understand distinctly, that you can’t live on two levels; the world won’t let you. Either you must be in the world and of it entirely; or you must discard its criterions, and form your own, and hover about in a sort of Bohemian limbo on its outskirts; or you must give it up altogether.” Mrs. Hilary rose from the lounge where she had been sitting, and said, “Now I’m going to bed. And I want you to think this all carefully over, Louise. I don’t blame you for it: and I wish nothing but your good and happiness — yours and Matt’s, both. But I must say you’ve been pretty difficult children to provide for. Do you know what Matt has been doing?” Mrs. Hilary had not meant to speak of it, but she felt an invincible necessity of doing so, at last.

  “Something new about the Northwicks?”

  “Very decidedly — or about one of them. He’s offered himself to Suzette.”

  “How grand! How perfectly magnificent! Then she can give up her property at once, and Matt can take care of her and Adeline both.”

  “Or, your father can, for him. Matt has not the crime of being a capitalist on his conscience. His idea seems to be to get Suzette to live here on the farm with him.”

  “I don’t believe she’d be satisfied with that,” said Louise. “But could she bear to face the world? Wouldn’t she always be thinking what people thought?”

  “I felt that I ought to suggest that to Matt; though, really, when it comes to the practical side of the matter, people wouldn’t care much what her father had been — that is, society people wouldn’t, as society people. She would have the education and the traditions of a lady, and she would have Matt’s name. It’s nonsense to suppose there wouldn’t be talk; but I don’t believe there would be anything that couldn’t be lived down. The fact is,” said Mrs. Hilary, giving her daughter the advantage of a species of soliloquy, “I think we ought to be glad Matt has let us off so easily. I’ve been afraid that he would end by marrying some farmer’s daughter, and bringing somebody into the family who would say ‘Want to know,’ and ‘How?’ and ‘What-say?’ through her nose. Suzette is indefinitely better than that, no matter what her father is. But I must confess that it was a shock when Matt told me they were engaged.”

  “Why, were you surprised, mamma?” said Louise. “I thought all along that it would come to that. I knew in the first place, Matt’s sympathy would be roused, and you know that’s the strongest thing in him. And then, Suzette is a beautiful girl. She’s perfectly regal; and she’s just Matt’s opposite, every way; and, of course he would be taken with her. I’m not a bit surprised. Why it’s the most natural thing in the world.”

  “It might be very much worse,” sighed Mrs. Hilary. “As soon as he has seen your father, we must announce it, and face it out with people. Fortunately, it’s summer; and a great many have gone abroad this year.”

  Louise began to laugh. “Even Mr. Northwick is abroad.”

  “Yes, and I hope he’ll stay there,” said Mrs. Hilary, wincing.

  “It would be quite like Matt, wouldn’t it, to have him brought home in chains, long enough to give away the bride?”

  “Louise!” said her mother.

  Louise began to cry. “Oh, you think it’s nothing,” she said stormily, “for Matt to marry a girl whose father ran away with other people’s money; but a man who has fought his way honestly is disgraceful, no matter how gifted he is, because he hasn’t the traditions of a society man—”

  “I won’t condescend to answer your unjust nonsense, my dear,” said Mrs. Hilary. “I will merely ask you if you wish to marry Mr. Maxwell—”

  “I will take care of myself!” cried the girl, in open, if not definite rebellion. She flung from the room, and ran upstairs to her chamber, which looked across at the chamber where Maxwell’s light was burning. She dropped on her knees beside the window, and bowed herself to the light, that swam on her tears, a golden mist, and pitied and entreated it, and remained there, till the lamp was suddenly quenched, and the moon possessed itself of the night in unbroken splendor.

  After breakfast, which she made late the next morning, she found Maxwell waiting for her on the piazza.

  “Are you going over to the camp?” she asked.

  “I was, after I had said good-by,” he answered.

  “Oh, we’re not going for several hours yet. We shall take the noon train, mamma’s decided.” She possessed herself of the cushion, stuffed with spruce sprays, that lay on the piazza-steps, and added, “I will go over with you.” They had hitherto made some pretence, one to the other, for being together at the camp; but this morning neither feigned any reason for it. Louise stopped, when she found he was not keeping up with her, and turned to him, and waited for him to reach her. “I wanted to speak with you, Mr. Maxwell, and I expect you to be very patient and tractable.” She said this very authoritatively; she ended by asking, “Will you?”

  “It depends upon what it is. I am always docile if I like a thing.”

  “Well, you ought to like this.”

  “Oh, that’s different. That’s often infuriating.”

  They went on, and then paused at the low stone wall between the pasture and the pines.

  “Before I say it, you must promise to take it in the right way,” she said.

  He asked, teasingly, “Why do you think I won’t?”

  “Because — because I wish you to so much!”

  “And am I such a contrary-minded person that you can’t trust me to behave myself, under ordinary provocation?”

  “You may think the provocation is extraordinary.”

  “Well, let’s see.” He got himself over the wall, and allowed her to scramble after him.

  She asked herself whether, if he had the traditions of a society man, he would have done that; but somehow, when she looked at his dreamy face, rapt in remote thought that beautified it from afar, she did not care for his neglect of small attentions. She said to herself that if a woman could be the companion of his thoughts that would be enough; she did not go into the details of arranging association with thoughts so far off as Maxwell’s; she did not ask herself whether it would be easy or possible. She put the cushion into the hammock for a pillow, but he chose to sit beside her on the bench between the pine-tree boles, and the hammock swayed empty in the light breeze that woke the sea-song of the boughs over them.

  “I don’t know exactly how to begin,” she said, after a little silence.

  “If you’ll tell me what you want to say,” he suggested, “I’ll begin for you.”

  “No, thank you, I’ll begin myself. Do you remember, the other day, when we were here, and were talking of the difference in peoples’ pride?”

  “Purse pride and poverty pride? Yes, I remember that.”

  “I didn’t like what you said, then; or, rather, what you were.”

  “Have you begun now? Why didn’t you?”

  “Because — because you seemed very worldly.”

  “And do you object to the world? I didn’t make it,” said Maxwell, with his scornful smile. “But I’ve no criticisms of the Creator to offer. I take the world as I find it, and as soon as I get a little stronger, I’m going back to it. But I thought you were rathe
r worldly yourself, Miss Hilary.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t believe I am, very. Don’t you think the kind of life Matt’s trying to live is better?”

  “Your brother is the best man I ever knew—”

  “Oh, isn’t he? Magnificent!”

  “But life means business. Even literary life, as I understand it, means business.”

  “And can’t you think — can’t you wish — for anything better than the life that means business?” she asked, she almost entreated. “Why should you ever wish to go back to the world? If you could live in the country away from society, and all its vanity and vexation of spirit, why wouldn’t you rather lead a literary life that didn’t mean business?”

  “But how? Are you proposing a public subscription, or a fairy godmother?” asked Maxwell.

  “No; merely the golden age. I’m just supposing the case,” said Louise. “You were born in Arcady, you know,” she added, with a wistful smile.

  “Arcady is a good place to emigrate from,” said Maxwell, with a smile that was not wistful. “It’s like Vermont, where I was born, too. And if I owned the whole of Arcady, I should have no use for it till I had seen what the world had to offer. Then I might like it for a few months in the summer.”

  “Yes,” she sighed faintly, and suddenly she rose, and said, “I must go and put the finishing touches. Good-by, Mr. Maxwell” — she mechanically gave him her hand. “I hope you will soon be well enough to get back to the world again.”

  “Thank you,” he said, in surprise. “But the great trial you were going to make of my patience, my docility—”

  She caught away her hand. “Oh, that wasn’t anything. I’ve decided not. Good-by! Don’t go through the empty form of coming back to the house with me. I’ll take your adieus to mamma.” She put the cushion into the hammock. “You had better stay and try to get a nap, and gather strength for the battle of life as fast as you can.”

  She spoke so gayly and lightly, that Maxwell, with all his subtlety, felt no other mood in her. He did not even notice, till afterwards, that she had said nothing about their meeting again. He got into the hammock, and after a while he drowsed, with a delicious, poetic sense of her capricious charm, as she drifted back to the farmhouse, over the sloping meadow. He visioned a future in which fame had given him courage to tell her his love.