Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  “All right,” said Whitwell. “I suppose you know what you’re about.”

  “I do, father. Jeff would make a good landlord; he’s got ideas about a hotel, and I can see that they’re the right ones. He’s been out in the world, and he’s kept his eyes open. He will make Lion’s Head the best hotel in the mountains.”

  “It’s that already.”

  “He doesn’t think it’s half as good as he can make it.”

  “It wouldn’t be half what it is now, if it wa’n’t for you and Frank.”

  “I guess he understands that,” said Cynthia. “Frank would be the clerk.”

  “Got it all mapped out!” said Whitwell, proudly, in his turn. “Look out you don’t slip up in your calculations. That’s all.”

  “I guess we cha’n’t slip up.”

  XIII.

  Jeff came into the ugly old family parlor, where his mother sat mending by the kerosene-lamp which she had kept through all the household changes, and pushed enough of her work aside from the corner of the table to rest his arm upon it.

  “Mother, I want you to listen to me, and to wait till I get done. Will you?”

  She looked up at him over her spectacles from the stocking she was darning; the china egg gleamed through the frayed place. “What notion have you got in your head, now?”

  “It’s about Jackson. He isn’t well. He’s got to leave off work and go away.”

  The mother’s hand dropped at the end of the yarn she had drawn through the stocking heel, and she stared at Jeff. Then she resumed her work with the decision expressed in her tone. “Your father lived to be sixty years old, and Jackson a’n’t forty! The doctor said there wa’n’t any reason why he shouldn’t live as long as his father did.”

  “I’m not saying he won’t live to a hundred. I’m saying he oughtn’t to stay another winter here,” Jeff said, decisively.

  Mrs. Durgin was silent for a time, and then she said. “Jeff, is that your notion about Jackson, or whose is it?”

  “It’s mine, now.”

  Mrs. Durgin waited a moment. Then she began, with a feeling quite at variance with her words:

  “Well, I’ll thank Cynthy Whit’ell to mind her own business! Of course,” she added, and in what followed her feeling worked to the surface in her words, “I know ‘t she thinks the world of Jackson, and he does of her; and I presume she means well. I guess she’d be more apt to notice, if there was any change, than what I should. What did she say?”

  Jeff told, as nearly as he could remember, and he told what Cynthia and he had afterward jointly worked out as to the best thing for Jackson to do. Mrs. Durgin listened frowningly, but not disapprovingly, as it seemed; though at the end she asked: “And what am I going to do, with Jackson gone?”

  Jeff laughed, with his head down. “Well, I guess you and Cynthy could run it, with Frank and Mr. Whitwell.”

  “Mr. Whit’ell!” said Mrs. Durgin, concentrating in her accent of his name the contempt she could not justly pour out on the others.

  “Oh,” Jeff went on, “I did think that I could take hold with you, if you could bring yourself to let me off this last year at Harvard.”

  “Jeff!” said his mother, reproachfully. “You know you don’t mean that you’d give up your last year in college?”

  “I do mean it, but I don’t expect you to do it; and I don’t ask it. I suggested it to Cynthy, when we got to talking it over, and she saw it wouldn’t do.”

  “Well, she showed some sense that time,” Mrs. Durgin said.

  “I don’t know when Cynthy hasn’t shown sense; except once, and then I guess it was my fault.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why, this afternoon I asked her to marry me some time, and she said she would.” He looked at his mother and laughed, and then he did not laugh. He had expected her to be pleased; he had thought to pave the way with this confession for the declaration of his intention not to study law, and to make his engagement to Cynthia serve him in reconciling his mother to the other fact. But a menacing suspense followed his words.

  His mother broke out at last: “You asked Cynthy Whit’ell to marry you! And she said she would! Well, I can tell her she won’t, then!”

  “And I can tell you she will!” Jeff stormed back. He rose to his feet and stood over his mother.

  She began steadily, as if he had not spoken. “If that designin’—”

  “Look out, mother! Don’t you say anything against Cynthia! She’s been the best girl to you in the world, and you know it. She’s been as true to you as Jackson has himself. She hasn’t got a selfish bone in her body, and she’s so honest she couldn’t design anything against you or any one, unless she told you first. Now you take that back! Take it back! She’s no more designing than — than you are!”

  Mrs. Durgin was not moved by his storming, but she was inwardly convinced of error. “I do take it back. Cynthy is all right. She’s all you say and more. It’s your fault, then, and you’ve got yourself to thank, for whosever fault it is, she’ll pack—”

  “If Cynthy packs, I pack!” said Jeff. “Understand that. The moment she leaves this house I leave it, too, and I’ll marry her anyway. Frank ‘d leave and — and — Pshaw! What do you care for that? But I don’t know what you mean! I always thought you liked Cynthy and respected her. I didn’t believe I could tell you a thing that would please you better than that she had said she would have me. But if it don’t, all right.”

  Mrs. Durgin held her peace in bewilderment; she stared at her son with dazed eyes, under the spectacles lifted above her forehead. She felt a change of mood in his unchanged tone of defiance, and she met him half-way. “I tell you I take back what I called Cynthia, and I told you so. But — but I didn’t ever expect you to marry her.”

  “Why didn’t you? There isn’t one of the summer folks to compare with her. She’s got more sense than all of ‘em. I’ve known her ever since I can remember. Why didn’t you expect it?”

  “I didn’t expect it.”

  “Oh, I know! You thought I’d see somebody in Boston — some swell girl. Well, they wouldn’t any of them look at me, and if they would, they wouldn’t look at you.”

  “I shouldn’t care whether they looked at me or not.”

  “I tell you they wouldn’t look at me. You don’t understand about these things, and I do. They marry their own kind, and I’m not their kind, and I shouldn’t be if I was Daniel Webster himself. Daniel Webster! Who remembers him, or cares for him, or ever did? You don’t believe it? You think that because I’ve been at Harvard — Oh, can’t I make you see it? I’m what they call a jay in Harvard, and Harvard don’t count if you’re a jay.”

  His mother looked at him without speaking. She would not confess the ambition he taxed her with, and perhaps she had nothing so definite in her mind. Perhaps it was only her pride in him, and her faith in a splendid future for him, that made her averse to his marriage in the lot she had always known, and on a little lower level in it that her own. She said at last:

  “I don’t know what you mean by being a jay. But I guess we better not say anything more about this to-night.”

  “All right,” Jeff returned. There never were any formal good-nights between the Durgins, and he went away now without further words.

  His mother remained sitting where he left her. Two or three times she drew her empty darning-needle through the heel of the stocking she was mending.

  She was still sitting there when Jackson passed on his way to bed, after leaving the office in charge of the night porter. He faltered, as he went by, and as he stood on the threshold she told him what Jeff had told her.

  “That’s good,” he said, lifelessly. “Good for Jeff,” he added, thoughtfully, conscientiously.

  “Why a’n’t it good for her, too?” demanded Jeff’s mother, in quick resentment of the slight put upon him.

  “I didn’t say it wa’n’t,” said Jackson. “But it’s better for Jeff.”

  “She may be very glad t
o get him!”

  “I presume she is. She’s always cared for him, I guess. She’ll know how to manage him.”

  “I don’t know,” said Mrs. Durgin, “as I like to have you talk so, about Jeff. He was here, just now, wantin’ to give up his last year in Harvard, so ‘s to let you go off on a vacation. He thinks you’ve worked yourself down.”

  Jackson made no recognition of Jeff’s professed self-sacrifice. “I don’t want any vacation. I’m feeling first-rate now. I guess that stuff I had from the writin’ medium has begun to take hold of me. I don’t know when I’ve felt so well. I believe I’m going to get stronger than ever I was. Jeff say I needed a rest?”

  Something like a smile of compassion for the delusion of his brother dawned upon the sick man’s wasted face, which was blotched with large freckles, and stared with dim, large eyes from out a framework of grayish hair, and grayish beard cut to the edges of the cheeks and chin.

  XXIV.

  Mrs. Durgin and Cynthia did not seek any formal meeting the next morning. The course of their work brought them together, but it was not till after they had transacted several household affairs of pressing importance that Mrs. Durgin asked: “What’s this about you and Jeff?”

  “Has he been telling you?” asked Cynthia, in her turn, though she knew he had.

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Durgin, with a certain dryness, which was half humorous. “I presume, if you two are satisfied, it’s all right.”

  “I guess we’re satisfied,” said the girl, with a tremor of relief which she tried to hide.

  Nothing more was said, and there was no physical demonstration of affection or rejoicing between the women. They knew that the time would come when they would talk over the affair down to the bone together, but now they were content to recognize the fact, and let the time for talking arrive when it would. “I guess,” said Mrs. Durgin, “you’d better go over to the helps’ house and see how that youngest Miller girl’s gittin’ along. She’d ought to give up and go home if she a’n’t fit for her work.”

  “I’ll go and see her,” said Cynthia. “I don’t believe she’s strong enough for a waitress, and I have got to tell her so.”

  “Well,” returned Mrs. Durgin, glumly, after a moment’s reflection, “I shouldn’t want you should hurry her. Wait till she’s out of bed, and give her another chance.”

  “All right.”

  Jeff had been lurking about for the event of the interview, and he waylaid Cynthia on the path to the helps’ house.

  “I’m going over to see that youngest Miller girl,” she explained.

  “Yes, I know all about that,” said Jeff. “Well, mother took it just right, didn’t she? You can’t always count on her; but I hadn’t much anxiety in this case. She likes you, Cynthia.”

  “I guess so,” said the girl, demurely; and she looked away from him to smile her pleasure in the fact.

  “But I believe if she hadn’t known you were with her about my last year in Harvard — it would have been different. I could see, when I brought it in that you wanted me to go back, her mind was made up for you.”

  “Why need you say anything about that?”

  “Oh, I knew it would clinch her. I understand mother. If you want something from her you mustn’t ask it straight out. You must propose something very disagreeable. Then when she refuses that, you can come in for what you were really after and get it.”

  “I don’t know,” said Cynthia, “as I should like to think that your mother had been tricked into feeling right about me.”

  “Tricked!” The color flashed up in Jeff’s face.

  “Not that, Jeff,” said the girl, tenderly. “But you know what I mean. I hope you talked it all out fully with her.”

  “Fully? I don’t know what you mean.”

  “About your not studying law, and — everything.”

  “I don’t believe in crossing a river till I come to it,” said Jeff. “I didn’t say anything to her about that.”

  “You didn’t!”

  “No. What had it got to do with our being engaged?”

  “What had your going back to Harvard to do with it? If your mother thinks I’m with her in that, she’ll think I’m with her in the other. And I’m not. I’m with you.” She let her hand find his, as they walked side by side, and gave it a little pressure.

  “It’s the greatest thing, Cynthy,” he said, breathlessly, “to have you with me in that. But, if you said I ought to study law, I should do it.”

  “I shouldn’t say that, for I believe you’re right; but even if I believed you were wrong, I shouldn’t say it. You have a right to make your life what you want it; and your mother hasn’t. Only she must know it, and you must tell her at once.”

  “At once?”

  “Yes — now. What good will it do to put it off? You’re not afraid to tell her!”

  “I don’t like you to use that word.”

  “And I don’t like to use it. But I know how it is. You’re afraid that the brunt of it will come on ME. She’ll think you’re all right, but I’m all wrong because I agree with you.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Well, now, I’m not afraid of anything she can say; and what could she do? She can’t part us, unless you let her, and then I should let her, too.”

  “But what’s the hurry? What’s the need of doing it right off?”

  “Because it’s a deceit not to do it. It’s a lie!”

  “I don’t see it in that light. I might change my mind, and still go on and study law.”

  “You know you never will. Now, Jeff! Why do you act so?”

  Jeff did not answer at once. He walked beside her with a face of trouble that became one of resolve in the set jaws. “I guess you’re right, Cynthy. She’s got to know the worst, and the sooner she knows it the better.”

  “Yes!”

  He had another moment of faltering. “You don’t want I should talk it over with Mr. Westover?”

  “What has he got to do with it?”

  “That’s true!”

  “If you want to see it in the right light, you can think you’ve let it run on till after you’re out of college, and then you’ve got to tell her. Suppose she asked you how long you had made up your mind against the law, how should you feel? And if she asked me whether I’d known it all along, and I had to say I had, and that I’d supported and encouraged you in it, how should I feel?”

  “She mightn’t ask any such question,” said Jeff, gloomily. Cynthia gave a little impatient “Oh!” and he hastened to add: “But you’re right; I’ve got to tell her. I’ll tell her to-night—”

  “Don’t wait till to-night; do it now.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes; and I’ll go with you as soon as I’ve seen the youngest Miller girl.” They had reached the helps’ house now, and Cynthia said: “You wait outside here, and I’ll go right back with you. Oh, I hope it isn’t doing wrong to put it off till I’ve seen that girl!” She disappeared through the door, and Jeff waited by the steps outside, plucking up one long grass stem after another and biting it in two. When Cynthia came out she said: “I guess she’ll be all right. Now come, and don’t-lose another second.”

  “You’re afraid I sha’n’t do it if I wait any longer!”

  “I’m afraid I sha’n’t.” There was a silence after this.

  “Do you know what I think of you, Cynthy?” asked Jeff, hurrying to keep up with her quick steps. “You’ve got more courage—”

  “Oh, don’t praise me, or I shall break down!”

  “I’ll see that you don’t break down,” said Jeff, tenderly. “It’s the greatest thing to have you go with me!”

  “Why, don’t you SEE?” she lamented. “If you went alone, and told your mother that I approved of it, you would look as if you were afraid, and wanted to get behind me; and I’m not going to have that.”

  They found. Mrs. Durgin in the dark entry of the old farmhouse, and Cynthia said, with involuntary imperiousness: “Come in here
, Mrs. Durgin; I want to tell you something.”

  She led the way to the old parlor, and she checked Mrs. Durgin’s question, “Has that Miller girl—”

  “It isn’t about her,” said Cynthy, pushing the door to. “It’s about me and Jeff.”

  Mrs. Durgin became aware of Jeff’s presence with an effect of surprise. “There a’n’t anything more, is there?”

  “Yes, there is!” Cynthia shrilled. “Now, Jeff!”

  “It’s just this, mother: Cynthy thinks I ought to tell you — and she thinks I ought to have told you last night — she expected me to — that I’m not going to study law.”

  “And I approve of his not doing it,” Cynthia promptly followed, and she put herself beside Jeff where he stood in front of his mother’s rocking-chair.

  She looked from one to the other of the faces before her. “I’m sorry a son of mine,” she said, with dignity, “had to be told how to act with his mother. But, if he had, I don’t know as anybody had a better right to do it than the girl that’s going to marry him. And I’ll say this, Cynthia Whitwell, before I say anything else: you’ve begun right. I wish I could say Jeff had.”

  There was an uncomfortable moment before Cynthia said: “He expected to tell you.”

  “Oh Yes! I know,” said his mother, sadly. She added, sharply: “And did he expect to tell me what he intended to do for a livin’?”

  Jeff took the word. “Yes, I did. I intend to keep a hotel.”

  “What hotel?” asked Mrs. Durgin, with a touch of taunting in her tone.

  “This one.”

  The mother of the bold, rebellious boy that Jeff had been stirred in Mrs. Durgin’s heart, and she looked at him with the eyes, that used to condone his mischief. But she said: “I guess you’ll find out that there’s more than one has to agree to that.”

  “Yes, there are two: you and Jackson; and I don’t know but what three, if you count Cynthy, here.”

  His mother turned to the girl. “You think this fellow’s got sense enough to keep a hotel?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Durgin, I do. I think he’s got good ideas about a hotel.”