 | X. The rise of Silas Lapham |  |
X.
It was late June, almost July, when Corey took
up his life in Boston again, where the summer slips
away so easily. If you go out of town early, it
seems a very long summer when you come back in
October; but if you stay, it passes swiftly, and,
seen foreshortened in its flight, seems scarcely a
month's length. It has its days of heat, when it is
very hot, but for the most part it is cool, with baths
of the east wind that seem to saturate the soul with
delicious freshness. Then there are stretches of grey,
westerly weather, when the air is full of the sentiment
of early autumn, and the frying of th grass-hopper
in the blossomed weed of the vacant lots on
the Back Bay is intershot with the carol of crickets;
and the yellowing leaf on the long slope of Mt.
Vernon Street smites the sauntering observer with
tender melancholy. The caterpillar, gorged with the
spoil of the lindens on Chestnut, and weaving his
own shroud about him in his lodgment on the brickwork,
records the passing of summer by mid-July;
and if after that comes August, its breath is thick
and short, and September is upon the sojourner
character of the town out of season.
But it must have appeared that its most characteristic
feature was the absence of everybody he
knew. This was one of the things that commended
Boston to Bromfield Corey during the summer;
and if his son had any qualms about the life he had
entered upon with such vigour, it must have been a
relief to him that there was scarcely a soul left to
wonder or pity. By the time people got back to
town the fact of his connection with the mineral
paint man would be an old story, heard afar off
with different degrees of surprise, and considered
with different degrees of indifference. A man
has not reached the age of twenty-six in any
community where he was born and reared without
having had his capacity pretty well ascertained;
and in Boston the analysis is conducted with an
unsparing thoroughness which may fitly impress the
un-Bostonian mind, darkened by the popular superstition
that the Bostonians blindly admire one
another. A man's qualities are sifted as closely in
Boston as they doubtless were in Florence or
Athens; and, if final mercy was shown in those
cities because a man was, with all his limitations, an
Athenian or Florentine, some abatement might as
justly be made in Boston for like reason. Corey's
powers had been gauged in college, and he had not
given his world reason to think very differently of
him since he came out of college. He was rated as
an energetic fellow, a little indefinite in aim, with
man from being commonplace. If he was not
commonplace, it was through nothing remarkable in
his mind, which was simply clear and practical, but
through some combination of qualities of the heart
that made men trust him, and women call him
sweet—a word of theirs which conveys otherwise
indefinable excellences. Some of the more nervous
and excitable said that Tom Corey was as sweet
as he could live; but this perhaps meant no more
than the word alone. No man ever had a son
less like him than Bromfield Corey. If Tom
Corey had ever said a witty thing, no one could
remember it; and yet the father had never said
a witty thing to a more sympathetic listener than
his own son. The clear mind which produced
nothing but practical results reflected everything
with charming lucidity; and it must have been this
which endeared Tom Corey to every one who spoke
ten words with him. In a city where people have
good reason for liking to shine, a man who did not
care to shine must be little short of universally
acceptable without any other effort for popularity;
and those who admired and enjoyed Bromfield Corey
loved his son. Yet, when it came to accounting for
Tom Corey, as it often did in a community where
every one's generation is known to the remotest degrees
of cousinship, they could not trace his sweetness
to his mother, for neither Anna Bellingham nor
any of her family, though they were so many blocks
of Wenham ice for purity and rectangularity, had
father, whose habit of talk wronged it in himself,
that they had to turn for this quality of the son's.
They traced to the mother the traits of practicality
and common-sense in which he bordered upon the
commonplace, and which, when they had dwelt upon
them, made him seem hardly worth the close inquiry
they had given him.
While the summer wore away he came and went
methodically about his business, as if it had been
the business of his life, sharing his father's bachelor
liberty and solitude, and expecting with equal
patience the return of his mother and sisters in the
autumn. Once or twice he found time to run down
to Mt. Desert and see them; and then he heard how
the Philadelphia and New York people were getting
in everywhere, and was given reason to regret the
house at Nahant which he had urged to be sold.
He came back and applied himself to his desk with
a devotion that was exemplary rather than necessary;
for Lapham made no difficulty about the brief
absences which he asked, and set no term to the
apprenticeship that Corey was serving in the office
before setting off upon that mission to South
America in the early winter, for which no date had
yet been fixed.
The summer was a dull season for the paint as
well as for everything else. Till things should brisk
up, as Lapham said, in the fall, he was letting the
new house take a great deal of his time. Æsthetic
ideas had never been intelligibly presented to him
that was very grateful to his imaginative architect.
At the beginning, the architect had foreboded a
series of mortifying defeats and disastrous victories
in his encounters with his client; but he had never
had a client who could be more reasonably led on
from one outlay to another. It appeared that
Lapham required but to understand or feel the
beautiful effect intended, and he was ready to pay
for it. His bull-headed pride was concerned in a
thing which the architect made him see, and then
he believed that he had seen it himself, perhaps conceived
it. In some measure the architect seemed to
share his delusion, and freely said that Lapham was
very suggestive. Together they blocked out windows
here, and bricked them up there; they changed
doors and passages; pulled down cornices and replaced
them with others of different design; experimented
with costly devices of decoration, and went
to extravagant lengths in novelties of finish. Mrs.
Lapham, beginning with a woman's adventurousness
in the unknown region, took fright at the reckless
outlay at last, and refused to let her husband pass a
certain limit. He tried to make her believe that a farseeing
economy dictated the expense; and that if he
put the money into the house, he could get it out any
time by selling it. She would not be persuaded.
"I don't want you should sell it. And you've
put more money into it now than you'll ever get out
again, unless you can find as big a goose to buy it,
and that isn't likely. No, sir! You just stop at a
cent beyond. Why, you're perfectly bewitched with
that fellow! You've lost your head, Silas Lapham,
and if you don't look out you'll lose your money too."
The Colonel laughed; he liked her to talk that
way, and promised he would hold up a while.
"But there's no call to feel anxious, Pert. It's
only a question what to do with the money. I can
reinvest it; but I never had so much of it to spend
before."
"Spend it, then," said his wife; "don't throw it
away! And how came you to have so much more
money than you know what to do with, Silas
Lapham?" she added.
"Oh, I've made a very good thing in stocks
lately."
"In stocks? When did you take up gambling
for a living?"
"Gambling? Stuff! What gambling? Who said
it was gambling?"
"You have; many a time."
"Oh yes, buying and selling on a margin. But
this was a bona fide transaction. I bought at forty-three
for an investment, and I sold at a hundred and
seven; and the money passed both times."
"Well, you better let stocks alone," said his wife,
with the conservatism of her sex. "Next time
you'll buy at a hundred and seven and sell at forty-three.
Then where'll you be?"
"Left," admitted the Colonel.
"You better stick to paint a while yet."
The Colonel enjoyed this too, and laughed again
with the ease of a man who knows what he is about.
A few days after that he came down to Nantasket
with the radiant air which he wore when he had
done a good thing in business and wanted his wife's
sympathy. He did not say anything of what had
happened till he was alone with her in their own
room; but he was very gay the whole evening, and
made several jokes which Penelope said nothing but
very great prosperity could excuse: they all understood
these moods of his.
"Well, what is it, Silas?" asked his wife when
the time came. "Any more big-bugs wanting to go
into the mineral paint business with you?"
"Something better than that."
"I could think of a good many better things,"
said his wife, with a sigh of latent bitterness.
"What's this one?"
"I've had a visitor."
"Who?"
"Can't you guess?"
"I don't want to try. Who was it?"
"Rogers."
Mrs. Lapham sat down with her hands in her lap,
and stared at the smile on her husband's face, where
he sat facing her.
"I guess you wouldn't want to joke on that
subject, Si," she said, a little hoarsely, "and you
wouldn't grin about it unless you had some good
news. I don't know what the miracle is, but if
you could tell quick—"
She stopped like one who can say no more.
"I will, Persis," said her husband, and with that
awed tone in which he rarely spoke of anything
but the virtues of his paint. "He came to borrow
money of me, and I lent him it. That's the short
of it. The long—"
"Go on," said his wife, with gentle patience.
"Well, Pert, I was never so much astonished in
my life as I was to see that man come into my
office. You might have knocked me down with—
I don't know what."
"I don't wonder. Go on!"
"And he was as much embarrassed as I was.
There we stood, gaping at each other, and I hadn't
hardly sense enough to ask him to take a chair. I
don't know just how we got at it. And I don't remember
just how it was that he said he came to come
to me. But he had got hold of a patent right that
he wanted to go into on a large scale, and there he
was wanting me to supply him the funds."
"Go on!" said Mrs. Lapham, with her voice
further in her throat.
"I never felt the way you did about Rogers, but
I know how you always did feel, and I guess I surprised
him with my answer. He had brought along
a lot of stock as security—"
"You didn't take it, Silas!" his wife flashed out.
"Yes, I did, though," said Lapham. "You wait.
We settled our business, and then we went into the
old thing, from the very start. And we talked it
all over. And when we get through we shook
much good to shake hands with anybody."
"And you told him—you owned up to him that
you were in the wrong, Silas?"
"No, I didn't," returned the Colonel promptly;
"for I wasn't. And before we got through, I guess
he saw it the same as I did."
"Oh, no matter! so you had the chance to show
how you felt."
"But I never felt that way," persisted the Colonel.
"I've lent him the money, and I've kept his stocks.
And he got what he wanted out of me."
"Give him back his stocks!"
"No, I shan't. Rogers came to borrow. He
didn't come to beg. You needn't be troubled about
his stocks. They're going to come up in time; but
just now they're so low down that no bank would
take them as security, and I've got to hold them till
they do rise. I hope you're satisfied now, Persis,"
said her husband; and he looked at her with the
willingness to receive the reward of a good action
which we all feel when we have performed one. "I
lent him the money you kept me from spending on
the house."
"Truly, Si? Well, I'm satisfied," said Mrs.
Lapham, with a deep tremulous breath. "The
Lord has been good to you, Silas," she continued
solemnly. "You may laugh if you choose, and I
don't know as I believe in his interfering a great
deal; but I believe he's interfered this time; and
I tell you, Silas, it ain't always he gives people a
been afraid you'd die, Silas, before you got the
chance; but he's let you live to make it up to
Rogers."
"I'm glad to be let live," said Lapham stubbornly,
"but I hadn't anything to make up to Milton K.
Rogers. And if God has let me live for that—"
"Oh, say what you please, Si! Say what you
please, now you've done it! I shan't stop you.
You've taken the one spot—the one speck—off you
that was ever there, and I'm satisfied."
"There wan't ever any speck there," Lapham
held out, lapsing more and more into his vernacular;
"and what I done I done for you, Persis."
"And I thank you for your own soul's sake, Silas."
"I guess my soul's all right," said Lapham.
"And I want you should promise me one thing
more."
"Thought you said you were satisfied?"
"I am. But I want you should promise me this:
that you won't let anything tempt you—anything!—
to ever trouble Rogers for that money you lent him.
No matter what happens—no matter if you lose it
all. Do you promise?"
"Why, I don't ever expect to press him for it.
That's what I said to myself when I lent it. And
of course I'm glad to have that old trouble healed
up. I don't think I ever did Rogers any wrong, and
I never did think so; but if I did do it—if I did—
I'm willing to call it square, if I never see a cent of
my money back again."
"Well, that's all," said his wife.
They did not celebrate his reconciliation with his
old enemy—for such they had always felt him to
be since he ceased to be an ally—by any show of
joy or affection. It was not in their tradition, as
stoical for the woman as for the man, that they
should kiss or embrace each other at such a moment.
She was content to have told him that he had
done his duty, and he was content with her saying
that. But before she slept she found words to add
that she always feared the selfish part he had acted
toward Rogers had weakened him, and left him less
able to overcome any temptation that might beset
him; and that was one reason why she could never
be easy about it. Now she should never fear for him
again.
This time he did not explicitly deny her forgiving
impeachment.
"Well, it's all past and gone now, anyway; and
I don't want you should think anything more about
it."
He was man enough to take advantage of the high
favour in which he stood when he went up to town,
and to abuse it by bringing Corey down to supper.
His wife could not help condoning the sin of disobedience
in him at such a time. Penelope said
that between the admiration she felt for the Colonel's
boldness and her mother's forbearance, she was
hardly in a state to entertain company that evening;
but she did what she could.
Irene liked being talked to better than talking,
or explicitly, referring to her for confirmation of
what she said. She was content to sit and look
pretty as she looked at the young man and listened
to her sister's drolling. She laughed and kept
glancing at Corey to make sure that he was understanding
her. When they went out on the veranda
to see the moon on the water, Penelope led the
way and Irene followed.
They did not look at the moonlight long. The
young man perched on the rail of the veranda, and
Irene took one of the red-painted rocking-chairs where
she could conveniently look at him and at her sister,
who sat leaning forward lazily and running on,
as the phrase is. That low, crooning note of hers
was delicious; her face, glimpsed now and then in
the moonlight as she turned it or lifted it a little,
had a fascination which kept his eye. Her talk was
very unliterary, and its effect seemed hardly conscious.
She was far from epigram in her funning.
She told of this trifle and that; she sketched the
characters and looks of people who had interested
her, and nothing seemed to have escaped her notice;
she mimicked a little, but not much; she suggested,
and then the affair represented itself as if without
her agency. She did not laugh; when Corey stopped
she made a soft cluck in her throat, as if she liked
his being amused, and went on again.
The Colonel, left alone with his wife for the first
time since he had come from town, made haste to
take the word. "Well, Pert, I've arranged the
satisfied to know that he owes me twenty thousand
dollars, and that I've got security from him to the
amount of a fourth of that, if I was to force his
stocks to a sale."
"How came he to come down with you?" asked
Mrs. Lapham.
"Who? Rogers?"
"Mr. Corey."
"Corey? Oh!" said Lapham, affecting not to
have thought she could mean Corey. "He proposed
it."
"Likely!" jeered his wife, but with perfect
amiability.
"It's so," protested the Colonel. "We got talking
about a matter just before I left, and he walked down
to the boat with me; and then he said if I didn't
mind he guessed he'd come along down and go back
on the return boat. Of course I couldn't let him do
that."
"It's well for you you couldn't."
"And I couldn't do less than bring him here to
tea."
"Oh, certainly not."
"But he ain't going to stay the night—unless,"
faltered Lapham, "you want him to."
"Oh, of course, I want him to! I guess he'll
stay, probably."
"Well, you know how crowded that last boat
always is, and he can't get any other now."
Mrs. Lapham laughed at the simple wile. "I hope
doesn't want Irene after all."
"Pshaw, Persis! What are you always bringing
that up for?" pleaded the Colonel. Then he fell
silent, and presently his rude, strong face was clouded
with an unconscious frown.
"There!" cried his wife, startling him from his
abstraction. "I see how you'd feel; and I hope
that you'll remember who you've got to blame."
"I'll risk it," said Lapham, with the confidence of
a man used to success.
From the veranda the sound of Penelope's lazy
tone came through the closed windows, with joyous
laughter from Irene and peals from Corey.
"Listen to that!" said her father within, swelling
up with inexpressible satisfaction. "That girl can
talk for twenty, right straight along. She's better
than a circus any day. I wonder what she's up to
now."
"Oh, she's probably getting off some of those yarns
of hers, or telling about some people. She can't step
out of the house without coming back with more
things to talk about than most folks would bring
back from Japan. There ain't a ridiculous person
she's ever seen but what she's got something from
them to make you laugh at; and I don't believe we've
ever had anybody in the house since the girl could
talk that she hain't got some saying from, or some
trick that'll paint 'em out so't you can see 'em and
hear 'em. Sometimes I want to stop her; but when
she gets into one of her gales there ain't any standing
she's got Pen there to help entertain her company.
I can't ever feel down where Pen is."
"That's so," said the Colonel. "And I guess
she's got about as much culture as any of them.
Don't you?"
"She reads a great deal," admitted her mother.
"She seems to be at it the whole while. I don't
want she should injure her health, and sometimes I
feel like snatchin' the books away from her. I don't
know as it's good for a girl to read so much, anyway,
especially novels. I don't want she should get
notions."
"Oh, I guess Pen'll know how to take care of
herself," said Lapham.
"She's got sense enough. But she ain't so
practical as Irene. She's more up in the clouds—
more of what you may call a dreamer. Irene's wide-awake
every minute; and I declare, any one to see
these two together when there's anything to be done,
or any lead to be taken, would say Irene was the
oldest, nine times out of ten. It's only when they
get to talking that you can see Pen's got twice as
much brains."
"Well," said Lapham, tacitly granting this
point, and leaning back in his chair in supreme
content. "Did you ever see much nicer girls anywhere?"
His wife laughed at his pride. "I presume
they're as much swans as anybody's geese."
"No; but honestly, now!"
"Oh, they'll do; but don't you be silly, if you
can help it, Si."
The young people came in, and Corey said it was
time for his boat. Mrs. Lapham pressed him to
stay, but he persisted, and he would not let the
Colonel send him to the boat; he said he would
rather walk. Outside, he pushed along toward the
boat, which presently he could see lying at her landing
in the bay, across the sandy tract to the left of
the hotels. From time to time he almost stopped in
his rapid walk, as a man does whose mind is in a
pleasant tumult; and then he went forward at a
swifter pace.
"She's charming!" he said, and he thought he
had spoken aloud. He found himself floundering
about in the deep sand, wide of the path; he got
back to it, and reached the boat just before she
started. The clerk came to take his fare, and Corey
looked radiantly up at him in his lantern-light, with
a smile that he must have been wearing a long
time; his cheek was stiff with it. Once some
people who stood near him edged suddenly and fearfully
away, and then he suspected himself of having
laughed outright.
| X. The rise of Silas Lapham | |