 | XII. The rise of Silas Lapham |  |
XII.
Mrs. Corey returned with her daughters in the
early days of October, having passed three or four
weeks at Intervale after leaving Bar Harbour. They
were somewhat browner than they were when they
left town in June, but they were not otherwise
changed. Lily, the elder of the girls, had brought
back a number of studies of kelp and toadstools,
with accessory rocks and rotten logs, which she
would never finish up and never show any one,
knowing the slightness of their merit. Nanny, the
younger, had read a great many novels with a
keen sense of their inaccuracy as representations of
life, and had seen a great deal of life with a sad
regret for its difference from fiction. They were
both nice girls, accomplished, well-dressed of course,
and well enough looking; but they had met no one
at the seaside or the mountains whom their taste
would allow to influence their fate, and they had
come home to the occupations they had left, with
no hopes and no fears to distract them.
In the absence of these they were fitted to take
the more vivid interest in their brother's affairs,
mind after the first hours of greeting.
"Oh, it seems to have been going on, and your
father has never written a word about it," she said,
shaking her head.
"What good would it have done?" asked Nanny,
who was little and fair, with rings of light hair that
filled a bonnet-front very prettily; she looked best
in a bonnet. "It would only have worried you.
He could not have stopped Tom; you couldn't,
when you came home to do it."
"I dare say papa didn't know much about it,"
suggested Lily. She was a tall, lean, dark girl, who
looked as if she were not quite warm enough, and
whom you always associated with wraps of different
æsthetic effect after you had once seen her.
It is a serious matter always to the women of his
family when a young man gives them cause to suspect
that he is interested in some other woman. A
son-in-law or brother-in-law does not enter the family;
he need not be caressed or made anything of; but
the son's or brother's wife has a claim upon his
mother and sisters which they cannot deny. Some
convention of their sex obliges them to show her
affection, to like or to seem to like her, to take her
to their intimacy, however odious she may be to
them. With the Coreys it was something more
than an affair of sentiment. They were by no
means poor, and they were not dependent money-wise
upon Tom Corey; but the mother had come,
without knowing it, to rely upon his sense, his
hitherto so indifferent to girls, had insensibly grown
to regard him as altogether their own till he should
be released, not by his marriage, but by theirs, an
event which had not approached with the lapse of
time. Some kinds of girls—they believed that they
could readily have chosen a kind—might have taken
him without taking him from them; but this generosity
could not be hoped for in such a girl as Miss
Lapham.
"Perhaps," urged their mother, "it would not be
so bad. She seemed an affectionate little thing
with her mother, without a great deal of character,
though she was so capable about some things."
"Oh, she'll be an affectionate little thing with
Tom too, you may be sure," said Nanny. "And
that characterless capability becomes the most intense
narrow-mindedness. She'll think we were
against her from the beginning."
"She has no cause for that," Lily interposed,
"and we shall not give her any."
"Yes, we shall," retorted Nanny. "We can't
help it; and if we can't, her own ignorance would
be cause enough."
"I can't feel that she's altogether ignorant," said
Mrs. Corey justly.
"Of course she can read and write," admitted
Nanny.
"I can't imagine what he finds to talk about with
her," said Lily.
"Oh, that's very simple," returned her sister.
to each other. I have heard people `going
on' on the hotel piazzas. She's embroidering, or
knitting, or tatting, or something of that kind; and
he says she seems quite devoted to needlework,
and she says, yes, she has a perfect passion for it,
and everybody laughs at her for it; but she can't
help it, she always was so from a child, and supposes
she always shall be,—with remote and minute particulars.
And she ends by saying that perhaps he
does not like people to tat, or knit, or embroider,
or whatever. And he says, oh, yes, he does; what
could make her think such a thing? but for his part
he likes boating rather better, or if you're in the
woods camping. Then she lets him take up one
corner of her work, and perhaps touch her fingers;
and that encourages him to say that he supposes
nothing could induce her to drop her work long
enough to go down on the rocks, or out among the
huckleberry bushes; and she puts her head on one
side, and says she doesn't know really. And then
they go, and he lies at her feet on the rocks, or
picks huckleberries and drops them in her lap, and
they go on talking about themselves, and comparing
notes to see how they differ from each other.
And—"
"That will do, Nanny," said her mother.
Lily smiled autumnally. "Oh, disgusting!"
"Disgusting? Not at all!" protested her sister.
"It's very amusing when you see it, and when you
do it—"
"It's always a mystery what people see in each
other," observed Mrs. Corey severely.
"Yes," Nanny admitted, "but I don't know that
there is much comfort for us in the application."
"No, there isn't," said her mother.
"The most that we can do is to hope for the best
till we know the worst. Of course we shall make
the best of the worst when it comes."
"Yes, and perhaps it would not be so very bad.
I was saying to your father when I was here in
July that those things can always be managed.
You must face them as if they were nothing out of
the way, and try not to give any cause for bitterness
among ourselves."
"That's true. But I don't believe in too much
resignation beforehand. It amounts to concession,"
said Nanny.
"Of course we should oppose it in all proper
ways," returned her mother.
Lily had ceased to discuss the matter. In virtue
of her artistic temperament, she was expected not
to be very practical. It was her mother and her
sister who managed, submitting to the advice and
consent of Corey what they intended to do.
"Your father wrote me that he had called on
Colonel Lapham at his place of business," said Mrs.
Corey, seizing her first chance of approaching the
subject with her son.
"Yes," said Corey. "A dinner was father's idea,
but he came down to a call, at my suggestion."
"Oh," said Mrs. Corey, in a tone of relief, as if
Corey had suggested the visit. "He said so little
about it in his letter that I didn't know just how it
came about."
"I thought it was right they should meet," explained
the son, "and so did father. I was glad
that I suggested it, afterward; it was extremely
gratifying to Colonel Lapham."
"Oh, it was quite right in every way. I suppose
you have seen something of the family during the
summer."
"Yes, a good deal. I've been down at Nantasket
rather often."
Mrs. Corey let her eyes droop. Then she asked:
"Are they well?"
"Yes, except Lapham himself, now and then. I
went down once or twice to see him. He hasn't
given himself any vacation this summer; he has
such a passion for his business that I fancy he finds
it hard being away from it at any time, and he's
made his new house an excuse for staying—"
"Oh yes, his house! Is it to be something fine?"
"Yes; it's a beautiful house. Seymour is doing
it."
"Then, of course, it will be very handsome. I
suppose the young ladies are very much taken up
with it; and Mrs. Lapham."
"Mrs. Lapham, yes. I don't think the young
ladies care so much about it."
"It must be for them. Aren't they ambitious?"
asked Mrs. Corey, delicately feeling her way.
Her son thought a while. Then he answered with
a smile—
"No, I don't really think they are. They are
unambitious, I should say." Mrs. Corey permitted
herself a long breath. But her son added, "It's
the parents who are ambitious for them," and her
respiration became shorter again.
"Yes," she said.
"They're very simple, nice girls," pursued Corey.
"I think you'll like the elder, when you come to
know her."
When you come to know her. The words implied
an expectation that the two families were to be
better acquainted.
"Then she is more intellectual than her sister?"
Mrs. Corey ventured.
"Intellectual?" repeated her son. "No; that
isn't the word, quite. Though she certainly has
more mind."
"The younger seemed very sensible."
"Oh, sensible, yes. And as practical as she's
pretty. She can do all sorts of things, and likes to
be doing them. Don't you think she's an extraordinary
beauty?"
"Yes—yes, she is," said Mrs. Corey, at some cost.
"She's good, too," said Corey, "and perfectly
innocent and transparent. I think you will like
her the better the more you know her."
"I thought her very nice from the beginning,"
said the mother heroically; and then nature asserted
itself in her. "But I should be afraid that she
range of ideas seemed so extremely limited."
"Yes, that's what I was afraid of. But, as a
matter of fact, she isn't. She interests you by her
very limitations. You can see the working of her
mind, like that of a child. She isn't at all conscious
even of her beauty."
"I don't believe young men can tell whether girls
are conscious or not," said Mrs. Corey. "But I am
not saying the Miss Laphams are not—" Her son
sat musing, with an inattentive smile on his face.
"What is it?"
"Oh! nothing. I was thinking of Miss Lapham
and something she was saying. She's very droll,
you know."
"The elder sister? Yes, you told me that. Can
you see the workings of her mind too?"
"No; she's everything that's unexpected."
Corey fell into another reverie, and smiled again;
but he did not offer to explain what amused him,
and his mother would not ask.
"I don't know what to make of his admiring the
girl so frankly," she said afterward to her husband.
"That couldn't come naturally till after he had
spoken to her, and I feel sure that he hasn't yet."
"You women haven't risen yet—it's an evidence of
the backwardness of your sex—to a conception of the
Bismarck idea in diplomacy. If a man praises one
woman, you still think he's in love with another.
Do you mean that because Tom didn't praise the
elder sister so much, he has spoken to her?"
Mrs. Corey refused the consequence, saying that
it did not follow. "Besides, he did praise her."
"You ought to be glad that matters are in such
good shape, then. At any rate, you can do absolutely
nothing."
"Oh! I know it," sighed Mrs. Corey. "I wish
Tom would be a little opener with me."
"He's as open as it's in the nature of an American-born
son to be with his parents. I dare say if
you'd asked him plumply what he meant in regard
to the young lady, he would have told you—if he
knew."
"Why, don't you think he does know, Brom
field?"
"I'm not at all sure he does. You women think
that because a young man dangles after a girl, or
girls, he's attached to them. It doesn't at all follow.
He dangles because he must, and doesn't know what
to do with his time, and because they seem to like
it. I dare say that Tom has dangled a good deal in
this instance because there was nobody else in town."
"Do you really think so?"
"I throw out the suggestion. And it strikes me
that a young lady couldn't do better than stay in or
near Boston during the summer. Most of the young
men are here, kept by business through the week,
with evenings available only on the spot, or a few
miles off. What was the proportion of the sexes at
the seashore and the mountains?"
"Oh, twenty girls at least for even an excuse of a
man. It's shameful."
"You see, I am right in one part of my theory.
Why shouldn't I be right in the rest?"
"I wish you were. And yet I can't say that I do.
Those things are very serious with girls. I shouldn't
like Tom to have been going to see those people if
he meant nothing by it."
"And you wouldn't like it if he did. You are
difficult, my dear." Her husband pulled an open
newspaper toward him from the table.
"I feel that it wouldn't be at all like him to do
so," said Mrs. Corey, going on to entangle herself in
her words, as women often do when their ideas
are perfectly clear. "Don't go to reading, please,
Bromfield! I am really worried about this matter
I must know how much it means. I can't let it
go on so. I don't see how you can rest easy without
knowing."
"I don't in the least know what's going to
become of me when I die; and yet I sleep well," replied
Bromfield Corey, putting his newspaper aside.
"Ah! but this is a very different thing."
"So much more serious? Well, what can you do?
We had this out when you were here in the summer,
and you agreed with me then that we could do
nothing. The situation hasn't changed at all.'
"Yes, it has; it has continued the same," said
Mrs. Corey, again expressing the fact by a contradiction
in terms. "I think I must ask Tom outright."
"You know you can't do that, my dear."
"Then why doesn't he tell us?"
"Ah, that's what he can't do, if he's making love
American plan. He will tell us after he has told
her. That was the way I did. Don't ignore our
own youth, Anna. It was a long while ago, I'll
admit."
"It was very different," said Mrs. Corey, a little
shaken.
"I don't see how. I dare say Mamma Lapham
knows whether Tom is in love with her daughter or
not; and no doubt Papa Lapham knows it at second
hand. But we shall not know it until the girl herself
does. Depend upon that. Your mother knew,
and she told your father; but my poor father knew
nothing about it till we were engaged; and I had
been hanging about—dangling, as you call it—"
"No, no; you called it that."
"Was it I?—for a year or more."
The wife could not refuse to be a little consoled
by the image of her young love which the words
conjured up, however little she liked its relation to
her son's interest in Irene Lapham. She smiled
pensively. "Then you think it hasn't come to an
understanding with them yet?"
"An understanding? Oh, probably."
"An explanation, then?"
"The only logical inference from what we've
been saying is that it hasn't. But I don't ask you
to accept it on that account. May I read now, my
dear?"
"Yes, you may read now," said Mrs. Corey, with
one of those sighs which perhaps express a feminine
rather than a personal discontent with her own.
"Thank you, my dear; then I think I'll smoke
too," said Bromfield Corey, lighting a cigar.
She left him in peace, and she made no further
attempt upon her son's confidence. But she was
not inactive for that reason. She did not, of course,
admit to herself, and far less to others, the motive
with which she went to pay an early visit to the
Laphams, who had now come up from Nantasket to
Nankeen Square. She said to her daughters that
she had always been a little ashamed of using her
acquaintance with them to get money for her
charity, and then seeming to drop it. Besides, it
seemed to her that she ought somehow to recognise
the business relation that Tom had formed with the
father; they must not think that his family disapproved
of what he had done.
"Yes, business is business," said Nanny, with a
laugh. "Do you wish us to go with you again?"
"No; I will go alone this time," replied the
mother with dignity.
Her coupé now found its way to Nankeen Square
without difficulty, and she sent up a card, which
Mrs. Lapham received in the presence of her
daughter Penelope.
"I presume I've got to see her," she gasped.
"Well, don't look so guilty, mother," joked the
girl; "you haven't been doing anything so very
wrong."
"It seems as if I had. I don't know what's come
now I don't seem to feel as if I could look her in
the face. He's been coming here of his own accord,
and I fought against his coming long enough, goodness
knows. I didn't want him to come. And
as far forth as that goes, we're as respectable as
they are; and your father's got twice their money,
any day. We've no need to go begging for their
favour. I guess they were glad enough to get him
in with your father."
"Yes, those are all good points, mother," said the
girl; "and if you keep saying them over, and count
a hundred every time before you speak, I guess
you'll worry through."
Mrs. Lapham had been fussing distractedly with
her hair and ribbons, in preparation for her encounter
with Mrs. Corey. She now drew in a long
quivering breath, stared at her daughter without
seeing her, and hurried downstairs. It was true
that when she met Mrs. Corey before she had not
been awed by her; but since then she had learned
at least her own ignorance of the world, and she
had talked over the things she had misconceived
and the things she had shrewdly guessed so much
that she could not meet her on the former footing
of equality. In spite of as brave a spirit and as
good a conscience as woman need have, Mrs. Lapham
cringed inwardly, and tremulously wondered
what her visitor had come for. She turned
from pale to red, and was hardly coherent in her
greetings; she did not know how they got to
things about her son's interest and satisfaction in
his new business, and keeping her eyes fixed on
Mrs. Lapham's, reading her uneasiness there, and
making her feel, in spite of her indignant innocence,
that she had taken a base advantage of her in her
absence to get her son away from her and marry
him to Irene. Then, presently, while this was painfully
revolving itself in Mrs. Lapham's mind, she
was aware of Mrs. Corey's asking if she was not to
have the pleasure of seeing Miss Irene.
"No; she's out, just now," said Mrs. Lapham.
"I don't know just when she'll be in. She went to
get a book." And here she turned red again, knowing
that Irene had gone to get the book because it
was one that Corey had spoken of.
"Oh! I'm sorry," said Mrs. Corey. "I had
hoped to see her. And your other daughter, whom
I never met?"
"Penelope?" asked Mrs. Lapham, eased a little.
"She is at home. I will go and call her." The
Laphams had not yet thought of spending their
superfluity on servants who could be rung for; they
kept two girls and a man to look after the furnace,
as they had for the last ten years. If Mrs. Lapham
had rung in the parlour, her second girl would have
gone to the street door to see who was there. She
went upstairs for Penelope herself, and the girl,
after some rebellious derision, returned with her.
Mrs. Corey took account of her, as Penelope
withdrew to the other side of the room after their
on the surface to the tests to be applied, and following
Mrs. Corey's lead of the conversation in her odd
drawl.
"You young ladies will be glad to be getting into
your new house," she said politely.
"I don't know," said Penelope. "We're so used
to this one."
Mrs. Corey looked a little baffled, but she said
sympathetically, "Of course, you will be sorry to
leave your old home."
Mrs. Lapham could not help putting in on behalf
of her daughters: "I guess if it was left to the
girls to say, we shouldn't leave it at all."
"Oh, indeed!" said Mrs. Corey; "are they so
much attached? But I can quite understand it.
My children would be heart-broken too if we were
to leave the old place." She turned to Penelope.
"But you must think of the lovely new house, and
the beautiful position."
"Yes, I suppose we shall get used to them too," said
Penelope, in response to this didactic consolation.
"Oh, I could even imagine your getting very fond
of them," pursued Mrs. Corey patronisingly. "My
son has told me of the lovely outlook you're to have
over the water. He thinks you have such a beautiful
house. I believe he had the pleasure of meeting
you all there when he first came home."
"Yes, I think he was our first visitor."
"He is a great admirer of your house," said Mrs.
Corey, keeping her eyes very sharply, however
the secret of any other great admiration of her son's
that might helplessly show itself.
"Yes," said the girl, "he's been there several
times with father; and he wouldn't be allowed to
overlook any of its good points."
Her mother took a little more courage from her
daughter's tranquillity.
"The girls make such fun of their father's excitement
about his building, and the way he talks it
into everybody."
"Oh, indeed!" said Mrs. Corey, with civil misunderstanding
and inquiry.
Penelope flushed, and her mother went on: "I
tell him he's more of a child about it than any of
them."
"Young people are very philosophical nowadays,"
remarked Mrs. Corey.
"Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Lapham. "I tell them
they've always had everything, so that nothing's a
surprise to them. It was different with us in our
young days."
"Yes," said Mrs. Corey, without assenting.
"I mean the Colonel and myself," explained Mrs.
Lapham.
"Oh yes—yes!" said Mrs. Corey.
"I'm sure," the former went on, rather helplessly,
"we had to work hard enough for everything we
got. And so we appreciated it."
"So many things were not done for young people
then," said Mrs. Corey, not recognising the early-hardships
don't know that they are always the better for it
now," she added vaguely, but with the satisfaction
we all feel in uttering a just commonplace.
"It's rather hard living up to blessings that you've
always had," said Penelope.
"Yes," replied Mrs. Corey distractedly, and
coming back to her slowly from the virtuous distance
to which she had absented herself. She
looked at the girl searchingly again, as if to determine
whether this were a touch of the drolling her
son had spoken of. But she only added: "You will
enjoy the sunsets on the Back Bay so much."
"Well, not unless they're new ones," said Penelope.
"I don't believe I could promise to enjoy
any sunsets that I was used to, a great deal."
Mrs. Corey looked at her with misgiving, hardening
into dislike. "No," she breathed vaguely.
"My son spoke of the fine effect of the lights about
the hotel from your cottage at Nantasket," she said
to Mrs. Lapham.
"Yes, they're splendid!" exclaimed that lady. "I
guess the girls went down every night with him to
see them from the rocks."
"Yes," said Mrs. Corey, a little dryly; and she
permitted herself to add: "He spoke of those rocks.
I suppose both you young ladies spend a great deal
of your time on them when you're there. At
Nahant my children were constantly on them."
"Irene likes the rocks," said Penelope. "I don't
care much about them,—especially at night."
"Oh, indeed! I suppose you find it quite as well
looking at the lights comfortably from the veranda."
"No; you can't see them from the house."
"Oh," said Mrs. Corey. After a perceptible pause,
she turned to Mrs. Lapham. "I don't know what
my son would have done for a breath of sea air this
summer, if you had not allowed him to come to
Nantasket. He wasn't willing to leave his business
long enough to go anywhere else."
"Yes, he's a born business man," responded Mrs.
Lapham enthusiastically. "If it's born in you, it's
bound to come out. That's what the Colonel is
always saying about Mr. Corey. He says it's born in
him to be a business man, and he can't help it." She
recurred to Corey gladly because she felt that she
had not said enough of him when his mother first
spoke of his connection with the business. "I don't
believe," she went on excitedly, "that Colonel Lapham
has ever had anybody with him that he thought
more of."
"You have all been very kind to my son," said
Mrs. Corey in acknowledgment, and stiffly bowing
a little, "and we feel greatly indebted to you. Very
much so."
At these grateful expressions Mrs. Lapham
reddened once more, and murmured that it had been
very pleasant to them, she was sure. She glanced
at her daughter for support, but Penelope was looking
at Mrs. Corey, who doubtless saw her from the
corner of her eyes, though she went on speaking to
her mother.
"I was sorry to hear from him that Mr.—Colonel?
—Lapham had not been quite well this summer.
I hope he's better now?"
"Oh yes, indeed," replied Mrs. Lapham; "he's all
right now. He's hardly ever been sick, and he don't
know how to take care of himself. That's all. We
don't any of us; we're all so well."
"Health is a great blessing," sighed Mrs. Corey.
"Yes, so it is. How is your oldest daughter?"
inquired Mrs. Lapham. "Is she as delicate as
ever?"
"She seems to be rather better since we returned."
And now Mrs. Corey, as if forced to the point, said
bunglingly that the young ladies had wished to come
with her, but had been detained. She based her
statement upon Nanny's sarcastic demand; and,
perhaps seeing it topple a little, she rose hastily, to
get away from its fall. "But we shall hope for
some—some other occasion," she said vaguely, and
she put on a parting smile, and shook hands with
Mrs. Lapham and Penelope, and then, after some
lingering commonplaces, got herself out of the house.
Penelope and her mother were still looking at each
other, and trying to grapple with the effect or pur
port of the visit, when Irene burst in upon them
from the outside.
"O mamma! wasn't that Mrs. Corey's carriage
just drove away?"
Penelope answered with her laugh. "Yes!
You've just missed the most delightful call, 'Rene.
So easy and pleasant every way. Not a bit stiff!
feel at all as if she'd bought me, and thought she'd
given too much; and mother held up her head as if
she were all wool and a yard wide, and she would
just like to have anybody deny it."
In a few touches of mimicry she dashed off a
sketch of the scene: her mother's trepidation, and
Mrs. Corey's well-bred repose and polite scrutiny of
them both. She ended by showing how she herself
had sat huddled up in a dark corner, mute with
fear.
"If she came to make us say and do the wrong
thing, she must have gone away happy; and it's
a pity you weren't here to help, Irene. I don't
know that I aimed to make a bad impression, but I
guess I succeeded—even beyond my deserts." She
laughed; then suddenly she flashed out in fierce
earnest. "If I missed doing anything that could
make me as hateful to her as she made herself to
me—" She checked herself, and began to laugh.
Her laugh broke, and the tears started into her eyes;
she ran out of the room, and up the stairs.
"What—what does it mean?" asked Irene in a
daze.
Mrs. Lapham was still in the chilly torpor to
which Mrs. Corey's call had reduced her. Penelope's
vehemence did not rouse her. She only
shook her head absently, and said, "I don't know."
"Why should Pen care what impression she
made? I didn't suppose it would make any difference
to her whether Mrs. Corey liked her or not."
"I didn't, either. But I could see that she was
just as nervous as she could be, every minute of the
time. I guess she didn't like Mrs. Corey any too
well from the start, and she couldn't seem to act
like herself."
"Tell me about it, mamma," said Irene, dropping
into a chair.
Mrs. Corey described the interview to her husband
on her return home. "Well, and what are
your inferences?" he asked.
"They were extremely embarrassed and excited
—that is, the mother. I don't wish to do her injustice,
but she certainly behaved consciously."
"You made her feel so, I dare say, Anna. I can
imagine how terrible you must have been in the
character of an accusing spirit, too lady-like to say
anything. What did you hint?"
"I hinted nothing," said Mrs. Corey, descending
to the weakness of defending herself. "But I saw
quite enough to convince me that the girl is in love
with Tom, and the mother knows it."
"That was very unsatisfactory. I supposed you
went to find out whether Tom was in love with the
girl. Was she as pretty as ever?"
"I didn't see her; she was not at home; I saw
her sister."
"I don't know that I follow you quite, Anna.
But no matter. What was the sister like?"
"A thoroughly disagreeable young woman."
"What did she do?"
"Nothing. She's far too sly for that. But that
was the impression."
"Then you didn't find her so amusing as Tom
does?"
"I found her pert. There's no other word for it.
She says things to puzzle you and put you out."
"Ah, that was worse than pert, Anna; that was
criminal. Well, let us thank heaven the younger
one is so pretty."
Mrs. Corey did not reply directly. "Bromfield,"
she said, after a moment of troubled silence, "I
have been thinking over your plan, and I don't see
why it isn't the right thing."
"What is my plan?" inquired Bromfield Corey.
"A dinner."
Her husband began to laugh. "Ah, you overdid
the accusing-spirit business, and this is reparation."
But Mrs. Corey hurried on, with combined dignity
and anxiety—
"We can't ignore Tom's intimacy with them—it
amounts to that; it will probably continue even if
it's merely a fancy, and we must seem to know it;
whatever comes of it, we can't disown it. They are
very simple, unfashionable people, and unworldly;
but I can't say that they are offensive, unless—
unless," she added, in propitiation of her husband's
smile, "unless the father—how did you find the
father?" she implored.
"He will be very entertaining," said Corey, "if
you start him on his paint. What was the disagreeable
daughter like? Shall you have her?"
"She's little and dark. We must have them all,"
Mrs. Corey sighed. "Then you don't think a dinner
would do?"
"Oh yes, I do. As you say, we can't disown
Tom's relation to them, whatever it is. We had
much better recognise it, and make the best of the
inevitable. I think a Lapham dinner would be delightful."
He looked at her with delicate irony in
his voice and smile, and she fetched another sigh,
so deep and sore now that he laughed outright.
"Perhaps," he suggested, "it would be the best
way of curing Tom of his fancy, if he has one. He
has been seeing her with the dangerous advantages
which a mother knows how to give her daughter in
the family circle, and with no means of comparing
her with other girls. You must invite several other
very pretty girls."
"Do you really think so, Bromfield?" asked Mrs.
Corey, taking courage a little. "That might do,"
But her spirits visibly sank again. "I don't know
any other girl half so pretty."
"Well, then, better bred."
"She is very lady-like, very modest, and pleasing."
"Well, more cultivated."
"Tom doesn't get on with such people."
"Oh, you wish him to marry her, I see."
"No, no—"
"Then you'd better give the dinner to bring
them together, to promote the affair."
"You know I don't want to do that, Bromfield.
it has a clandestine appearance. It isn't just to
them. A dinner won't leave us in any worse
position, and may leave us in a better. Yes," said
Mrs. Corey, after another thoughtful interval, "we
must have them—have them all. It could be very
simple."
"Ah, you can't give a dinner under a bushel, if I
take your meaning, my dear. If we do this at all,
we mustn't do it as if we were ashamed of it. We
must ask people to meet them."
"Yes," sighed Mrs. Corey. "There are not many
people in town yet," she added, with relief that caused
her husband another smile. "There really seems a
sort of fatality about it," she concluded religiously.
"Then you had better not struggle against it.
Go and reconcile Lily and Nanny to it as soon as
possible."
Mrs. Corey blanched a little. "But don't you
think it will be the best thing, Bromfield?"
"I do indeed, my dear. The only thing that
shakes my faith in the scheme is the fact that I first
suggested it. But if you have adopted it, it must
be all right, Anna. I can't say that I expected it."
"No," said his wife, "it wouldn't do."
| XII. The rise of Silas Lapham | |