 | XIV. The rise of Silas Lapham |  |
XIV.
The Coreys were one of the few old families who
lingered in Bellingham Place, the handsome, quiet
old street which the sympathetic observer must
grieve to see abandoned to boarding-houses. The
dwellings are stately and tall, and the whole place
wears an air of aristocratic seclusion, which Mrs.
Corey's father might well have thought assured
when he left her his house there at his death. It is
one of two evidently designed by the same architect
who built some houses in a characteristic taste on
Beacon Street opposite the Common. It has a
wooden portico, with slender fluted columns, which
have always been painted white, and which, with the
delicate mouldings of the cornice, form the sole and
sufficient decoration of the street front; nothing
could be simpler, and nothing could be better.
Within, the architect has again indulged his preference
for the classic; the roof of the vestibule,
wide and low, rests on marble columns, slim and
fluted like the wooden columns without, and an
ample staircase climbs in a graceful, easy curve from
the tesselated pavement. Some carved Venetian
foot of the stairs; but otherwise the simple adequacy
of the architectural intention had been respected,
and the place looked bare to the eyes of
the Laphams when they entered. The Coreys had
once kept a man, but when young Corey began his
retrenchments the man had yielded to the neat
maid who showed the Colonel into the reception-room
and asked the ladies to walk up two flights.
He had his charges from Irene not to enter
the drawing-room without her mother, and he spent
five minutes in getting on his gloves, for he had
desperately resolved to wear them at last. When
he had them on, and let his large fists hang down
on either side, they looked, in the saffron tint
which the shop-girl said his gloves should be of,
like canvased hams. He perspired with doubt as
he climbed the stairs, and while he waited on the
landing for Mrs. Lapham and Irene to come down
from above before going into the drawing-room, he
stood staring at his hands, now open and now shut,
and breathing hard. He heard quiet talking beyond
the portière within, and presently Tom Corey came
out.
"Ah, Colonel Lapham! Very glad to see you."
Lapham shook hands with him and gasped, "Waiting
for Mis' Lapham," to account for his presence.
He had not been able to button his right glove, and
he now began, with as much indifference as he could
assume, to pull them both off, for he saw that Corey
wore none. By the time he had stuffed them into
descended.
Corey welcomed them very cordially too, but
looked a little mystified. Mrs. Lapham knew that
he was silently inquiring for Penelope, and she did
not know whether she ought to excuse her to him
first or not. She said nothing, and after a glance
toward the regions where Penelope might conjecturably
be lingering, he held aside the portière for the
Laphams to pass, and entered the room with them.
Mrs. Lapham had decided against low-necks on
her own responsibility, and had entrenched herself
in the safety of a black silk, in which she looked
very handsome. Irene wore a dress of one of those
shades which only a woman or an artist can decide
to be green or blue, and which to other eyes looks
both or neither, according to their degrees of ignorance.
If it was more like a ball dress than a dinner
dress, that might be excused to the exquisite effect.
She trailed, a delicate splendour, across the carpet
in her mother's sombre wake, and the consciousness
of success brought a vivid smile to her face. Lapham,
pallid with anxiety lest he should somehow disgrace
himself, giving thanks to God that he should have
been spared the shame of wearing gloves where no
one else did, but at the same time despairing that
Corey should have seen him in them, had an unwonted
aspect of almost pathetic refinement.
Mrs. Corey exchanged a quick glance of surprise
and relief with her husband as she started across
the room to meet her guests, and in her gratitude to
manner a warmth that people did not always find
there. "General Lapham?" she said, shaking hands
in quick succession with Mrs. Lapham and Irene,
and now addressing herself to him.
"No, ma'am, only Colonel," said the honest man,
but the lady did not hear him. She was introducing
her husband to Lapham's wife and daughter, and
Bromfield Corey was already shaking his hand and
saying he was very glad to see him again, while he
kept his artistic eye on Irene, and apparently could
not take it off. Lily Corey gave the Lapham ladies
a greeting which was physically rather than socially
cold, and Nanny stood holding Irene's hand in both
of hers a moment, and taking in her beauty and her
style with a generous admiration which she could
afford, for she was herself faultlessly dressed in the
quiet taste of her city, and looking very pretty. The
interval was long enough to let every man present
confide his sense of Irene's beauty to every other;
and then, as the party was small, Mrs. Corey made
everybody acquainted. When Lapham had not
quite understood, he held the person's hand, and,
leaning urbanely forward, inquired, "What name?"
He did that because a great man to whom he had
been presented on the platform at a public meeting
had done so to him, and he knew it must be right.
A little lull ensued upon the introductions, and
Mrs. Corey said quietly to Mrs. Lapham, "Can I
send any one to be of use to Miss Lapham?" as if
Penelope must be in the dressing-room.
Mrs. Lapham turned fire-red, and the graceful
forms in which she had been intending to excuse her
daughter's absence went out of her head. "She isn't
upstairs," she said, at her bluntest, as country people
are when embarrassed. "She didn't feel just like
coming to-night. I don't know as she's feeling very
well."
Mrs. Corey emitted a very small "O!"—very
small, very cold,—which began to grow larger and
hotter and to burn into Mrs. Lapham's soul before
Mrs. Corey could add, "I'm very sorry. It's nothing
serious, I hope?"
Robert Chase, the painter, had not come, and Mrs.
James Bellingham was not there, so that the table
really balanced better without Penelope; but Mrs.
Lapham could not know this, and did not deserve to
know it. Mrs. Corey glanced round the room, as if
to take account of her guests, and said to her
husband, "I think we are all here, then," and he
came forward and gave his arm to Mrs. Lapham. She
perceived then that in their determination not to be
the first to come they had been the last, and must
have kept the others waiting for them.
Lapham had never seen people go down to dinner
arm-in-arm before, but he knew that his wife was distinguished
in being taken out by the host, and he waited
in jealous impatience to see if Tom Corey would offer
his arm to Irene. He gave it to that big girl they
called Miss Kingsbury, and the handsome old fellow
whom Mrs. Corey had introduced as her cousin took
Irene out. Lapham was startled from the misgiving
hand through his arm, and he made a sudden movement
forward, but felt himself gently restrained. They
went out the last of all; he did not know why, but
he submitted, and when they sat down he saw that
Irene, although she had come in with that Mr.
Bellingham, was seated beside young Corey, after all.
He fetched a long sigh of relief when he sank into
his chair and felt himself safe from error if he kept
a sharp lookout and did only what the others did.
Bellingham had certain habits which he permitted
himself, and one of these was tucking the corner of
his napkin into his collar; he confessed himself an
uncertain shot with a spoon, and defended his
practice on the ground of neatness and common-sense.
Lapham put his napkin into his collar too,
and then, seeing that no one but Bellingham did it,
became alarmed and took it out again slyly. He never
had wine on his table at home, and on principle he
was a prohibitionist; but now he did not know just
what to do about the glasses at the right of his plate.
He had a notion to turn them all down, as he had
read of a well-known politician's doing at a public
dinner, to show that he did not take wine; but, after
twiddling with one of them a moment, he let them
be, for it seemed to him that would be a little too
conspicuous, and he felt that every one was looking.
He let the servant fill them all, and he drank out of
each, not to appear odd. Later, he observed that the
young ladies were not taking wine, and he was glad
to see that Irene had refused it, and that Mrs
know but he ought to decline some of the dishes, or
at least leave most of some on his plate, but he was
not able to decide; he took everything and ate
everything.
He noticed that Mrs. Corey seemed to take no
more trouble about the dinner than anybody, and
Mr. Corey rather less; he was talking busily to
Mrs. Lapham, and Lapham caught a word here and
there that convinced him she was holding her own.
He was getting on famously himself with Mrs.
Corey, who had begun with him about his new
house; he was telling her all about it, and giving
her his ideas. Their conversation naturally included
his architect across the table; Lapham had been
delighted and secretly surprised to find the fellow
there; and at something Seymour said the talk
spread suddenly, and the pretty house he was building
for Colonel Lapham became the general theme.
Young Corey testified to its loveliness, and the
architect said laughingly that if he had been able to
make a nice thing of it, he owed it to the practical
sympathy of his client.
"Practical sympathy is good," said Bromfield
Corey; and, slanting his head confidentially to
Mrs. Lapham, he added, "Does he bleed your
husband, Mrs. Lapham? He's a terrible fellow
for appropriations!"
Mrs. Lapham laughed, reddening consciously, and
said she guessed the Colonel knew how to take care
of himself. This struck Lapham, then draining his
wife.
Bromfield Corey leaned back in his chair a
moment. "Well, after all, you can't say, with all
your modern fuss about it, that you do much better
now than the old fellows who built such houses as
this."
"Ah," said the architect, "nobody can do better
than well. Your house is in perfect taste; you
know I've always admired it; and I don't think it's
at all the worse for being old-fashioned. What
we've done is largely to go back of the hideous
style that raged after they forgot how to make this
sort of house. But I think we may claim a better
feeling for structure. We use better material, and
more wisely; and by and by we shall work out
something more characteristic and original."
"With your chocolates and olives, and your
clutter of bric-à-brac?"
"All that's bad, of course, but I don't mean that.
I don't wish to make you envious of Colonel
Lapham, and modesty prevents my saying that
his house is prettier,—though I may have my convictions,—but
it's better built. All the new houses
are better built. Now, your house—"
"Mrs. Corey's house," interrupted the host, with
a burlesque haste in disclaiming responsibility for it
that made them all laugh. "My ancestral halls are
in Salem, and I'm told you couldn't drive a nail
into their timbers; in fact, I don't know that you
would want to do it."
"I should consider it a species of sacrilege,"
answered Seymour, "and I shall be far from pressing
the point I was going to make against a house of
Mrs. Corey's."
This won Seymour the easy laugh, and Lapham
silently wondered that the fellow never got off any
of those things to him.
"Well," said Corey, "you architects and the
musicians are the true and only artistic creators.
All the rest of us, sculptors, painters, novelists, and
tailors, deal with forms that we have before us; we
try to imitate, we try to represent. But you two
sorts of artists create form. If you represent, you
fail. Somehow or other you do evolve the camel
out of your inner consciousness."
"I will not deny the soft impeachment," said the
architect, with a modest air.
"I dare say. And you'll own that it's very
handsome of me to say this, after your unjustifiable
attack on Mrs. Corey's property."
Bromfield Corey addressed himself again to Mrs.
Lapham, and the talk subdivided itself as before.
It lapsed so entirely away from the subject just in
hand, that Lapham was left with rather a good idea,
as he thought it, to perish in his mind, for want of a
chance to express it. The only thing like a recurrence
to what they had been saying was Bromfield
Corey's warning Mrs. Lapham, in some connection
that Lapham lost, against Miss Kingsbury. "She's
worse," he was saying, "when it comes to appropriations
than Seymour himself. Depend upon it,
mind, now she's met you, from this out. Her
tender mercies are cruel; and I leave you to supply
the context from your own scriptural knowledge.
Beware of her, and all her works. She calls them
works of charity; but heaven knows whether they
are. It don't stand to reason that she gives the poor
all the money she gets out of people. I have my own
belief"—he gave it in a whisper for the whole table
to hear—"that she spends it for champagne and
cigars."
Lapham did not know about that kind of talking;
but Miss Kingsbury seemed to enjoy the fun as
much as anybody, and he laughed with the rest.
"You shall be asked to the very next debauch
of the committee, Mr. Corey; then you won't dare
expose us," said Miss Kingsbury.
"I wonder you haven't been down upon Corey to
go to the Chardon Street home and talk with your
indigent Italians in their native tongue," said Charles
Bellingham. "I saw in the Transcript the other
night that you wanted some one for the work."
"We did think of Mr. Corey," replied Miss
Kingsbury; "but we reflected that he probably
wouldn't talk with them at all; he would make
them keep still to be sketched, and forget all about
their wants."
Upon the theory that this was a fair return for
Corey's pleasantry, the others laughed again.
"There is one charity," said Corey, pretending
superiority to Miss Kingsbury's point, "that is so
your courageous invention."
"Yes?" said Miss Kingsbury. "What is that?"
"The occupation, by deserving poor of neat habits,
of all the beautiful, airy, wholesome houses that
stand empty the whole summer long, while their
owners are away in their lowly cots beside the
sea."
"Yes, that is terrible," replied Miss Kingsbury,
with quick earnestness, while her eyes grew moist.
"I have often thought of our great, cool houses
standing useless here, and the thousands of poor
creatures stifling in their holes and dens, and the
little children dying for wholesome shelter. How
cruelly selfish we are!"
"That is a very comfortable sentiment, Miss
Kingsbury," said Corey, "and must make you feel
almost as if you had thrown open No. 31 to the
whole North End. But I am serious about this
matter. I spend my summers in town, and I occupy
my own house, so that I can speak impartially and
intelligently; and I tell you that in some of my
walks on the Hill and down on the Back Bay,
nothing but the surveillance of the local policeman
prevents my offering personal violence to those long
rows of close-shuttered, handsome, brutally insensible
houses. If I were a poor man, with a sick child
pining in some garret or cellar at the North End, I
should break into one of them, and camp out on the
grand piano."
"Surely, Bromfield," said his wife, "you don't
the furniture of a nice house!"
"That is true," answered Corey, with meek conviction.
"I never thought of that."
"And if you were a poor man with a sick child, I
doubt if you'd have so much heart for burglary as
you have now," said James Bellingham.
"It's wonderful how patient they are," said the
minister. "The spectacle of the hopeless comfort the
hard-working poor man sees must be hard to bear."
Lapham wanted to speak up and say that he had
been there himself, and knew how such a man felt.
He wanted to tell them that generally a poor man
was satisfied if he could make both ends meet; that
he didn't envy any one his good luck, if he had
earned it, so long as he wasn't running under himself.
But before he could get the courage to address
the whole table, Sewell added, "I suppose he don't
always think of it."
"But some day he will think about it," said Corey.
"In fact, we rather invite him to think about it, in
this country."
"My brother-in-law," said Charles Bellingham,
with the pride a man feels in a mentionably remarkable
brother-in-law, "has no end of fellows at work
under him out there at Omaha, and he says it's
the fellows from countries where they've been kept
from thinking about it that are discontented. The
Americans never make any trouble. They seem to
understand that so long as we give unlimited opportunity,
nobody has a right to complain."
"What do you hear from Leslie?" asked Mrs.
Corey, turning from these profitless abstractions to
Mrs. Bellingham.
"You know," said that lady in a lower tone,
"that there is another baby?"
"No! I hadn't heard of it!"
"Yes; a boy. They have named him after his
uncle."
"Yes," said Charles Bellingham, joining in. "He
is said to be a noble boy, and to resemble me."
"All boys of that tender age are noble," said
Corey, "and look like anybody you wish them to
resemble. Is Leslie still home-sick for the bean-pots
of her native Boston?"
"She is getting over it, I fancy," replied Mrs.
Bellingham. "She's very much taken up with Mr.
Blake's enterprises, and leads a very exciting life.
She says she's like people who have been home
from Europe three years; she's past the most poignant
stage of regret, and hasn't reached the second,
when they feel that they must go again."
Lapham leaned a little toward Mrs. Corey, and
said of a picture which he saw on the wall opposite,
"Picture of your daughter, I presume?"
"No; my daughter's grandmother. It's a Stewart
Newton; he painted a great many Salem beauties.
She was a Miss Polly Burroughs. My daughter is
like her, don't you think?" They both looked at
Nanny Corey and then at the portrait. "Those
pretty old-fashioned dresses are coming in again.
I'm not surprised you took it for her. The others"
darkling on the walls—"are my people; mostly
Copleys."
These names, unknown to Lapham, went to his
head like the wine he was drinking; they seemed to
carry light for the moment, but a film of deeper
darkness followed. He heard Charles Bellingham
telling funny stories to Irene and trying to amuse
the girl; she was laughing, and seemed very happy.
From time to time Bellingham took part in the
general talk between the host and James Bellingham
and Miss Kingsbury and that minister, Mr. Sewell.
They talked of people mostly; it astonished Lapham
to hear with what freedom they talked. They discussed
these persons unsparingly; James Bellingham
spoke of a man known to Lapham for his business
success and great wealth as not a gentleman;
his cousin Charles said he was surprised that the
fellow had kept from being governor so long.
When the latter turned from Irene to make one
of these excursions into the general talk, young
Corey talked to her; and Lapham caught some
words from which it seemed that they were speaking
of Penelope. It vexed him to think she had not
come; she could have talked as well as any of them;
she was just as bright; and Lapham was aware that
Irene was not as bright, though when he looked at
her face, triumphant in its young beauty and fondness,
he said to himself that it did not make any
difference. He felt that he was not holding up his
end of the line, however. When some one spoke to
that seemed to lead to nothing; things often came
into his mind appropriate to what they were saying,
but before he could get them out they were off on
something else; they jumped about so, he could not
keep up; but he felt, all the same, that he was not
doing himself justice.
At one time the talk ran off upon a subject that
Lapham had never heard talked of before; but again
he was vexed that Penelope was not there, to have
her say; he believed that her say would have been
worth hearing.
Miss Kingsbury leaned forward and asked Charles
Bellingham if he had read Tears, Idle Tears, the
novel that was making such a sensation; and when
he said no, she said she wondered at him. "It's perfectly
heart-breaking, as you'll imagine from the
name; but there's such a dear old-fashioned hero
and heroine in it, who keep dying for each other all
the way through, and making the most wildly satisfactory
and unnecessary sacrifices for each other. You
feel as if you'd done them yourself."
"Ah, that's the secret of its success," said Bromfield
Corey. "It flatters the reader by painting
the characters colossal, but with his limp and stoop,
so that he feels himself of their supernatural proportions.
You've read it, Nanny?"
"Yes," said his daughter. "It ought to have been
called Slop, Silly Slop."
"Oh, not quite slop, Nanny," pleaded Miss Kingsbury.
"It's astonishing," said Charles Bellingham, "how
we do like the books that go for our heart-strings.
And I really suppose that you can't put a more
popular thing than self-sacrifice into a novel. We
do like to see people suffering sublimely."
"There was talk some years ago," said James
Bellingham, "about novels going out."
"They're just coming in!" cried Miss Kingsbury.
"Yes," said Mr. Sewell, the minister. "And I
don't think there ever was a time when they formed
the whole intellectual experience of more people.
They do greater mischief than ever."
"Don't be envious, parson," said the host.
"No," answered Sewell. "I should be glad of
their help. But those novels with old-fashioned
heroes and heroines in them—excuse me, Miss
Kingsbury—are ruinous!"
"Don't you feel like a moral wreck, Miss Kingsbury?"
asked the host.
But Sewell went on: "The novelists might be the
greatest possible help to us if they painted life as it
is, and human feelings in their true proportion and
relation, but for the most part they have been and
are altogether noxious."
This seemed sense to Lapham; but Bromfield
Corey asked: "But what if life as it is isn't amusing?
Aren't we to be amused?"
"Not to our hurt," sturdily answered the minister.
"And the self-sacrifice painted in most novels
like this—"
"Slop, Silly Slop?" suggested the proud father of
the inventor of the phrase.
"Yes—is nothing but psychical suicide, and is as
wholly immoral as the spectacle of a man falling
upon his sword."
"Well, I don't know but you're right, parson," said
the host; and the minister, who had apparently got
upon a battle horse of his, careered on ward in spite
of some tacit attempts of his wife to seize the bridle.
"Right? To be sure I am right. The whole
business of love, and love-making and marrying, is
painted by the novelists in a monstrous disproportion
to the other relations of life. Love is very
sweet, very pretty—"
"Oh, thank you, Mr. Sewell," said Nanny Corey,
in a way that set them all laughing.
"But it's the affair, commonly, of very young
people, who have not yet character and experience
enough to make them interesting. In novels it's
treated, not only as if it were the chief interest of
life, but the sole interest of the lives of two ridiculous
young persons; and it is taught that love is perpetual,
that the glow of a true passion lasts for ever;
and that it is sacrilege to think or act otherwise."
"Well, but isn't that true, Mr. Sewell?" pleaded
Miss Kingsbury.
"I have known some most estimable people who
had married a second time," said the minister, and
then he had the applause with him. Lapham wanted
to make some open recognition of his good sense, but
could not.
"I suppose the passion itself has been a good deal
changed," said Bromfield Corey, "since the poets began
to idealise it in the days of chivalry."
"Yes; and it ought to be changed again," said
Mr. Sewell.
"What! Back?"
"I don't say that. But it ought to be recognised
as something natural and mortal, and divine honours,
which belong to righteousness alone, ought not to be
paid it."
"Oh, you ask too much, parson," laughed his host,
and the talk wandered away to something else.
It was not an elaborate dinner; but Lapham was
used to having everything on the table at once, and
this succession of dishes bewildered him; he was
afraid perhaps he was eating too much. He now no
longer made any pretence of not drinking his wine,
for he was thirsty, and there was no more water, and
he hated to ask for any. The ice-cream came, and
then the fruit. Suddenly Mrs. Corey rose, and said
across the table to her husband, "I suppose you will
want your coffee here." And he replied, "Yes;
we'll join you at tea."
The ladies all rose, and the gentlemen got up with
them. Lapham started to follow Mrs. Corey, but
the other men merely stood in their places, except
young Corey, who ran and opened the door for his
mother. Lapham thought with shame that it was he
who ought to have done that; but no one seemed to
notice, and he sat down again gladly, after kicking
out one of his legs which had gone to sleep.
They brought in cigars with coffee, and Bromfield
Corey advised Lapham to take one that he chose
for him. Lapham confessed that he liked a good
cigar about as well as anybody, and Corey said:
"These are new. I had an Englishman here the
other day who was smoking old cigars in the superstition
that tobacco improved with age, like wine."
"Ah," said Lapham, "anybody who had ever
lived off a tobacco country could tell him better
than that." With the fuming cigar between his
lips he felt more at home than he had before. He
turned sidewise in his chair and, resting one arm on
the back, intertwined the fingers of both hands, and
smoked at large ease.
James Bellingham came and sat down by him.
"Colonel Lapham, weren't you with the 96th Vermont
when they charged across the river in front of
Pickensburg, and the rebel battery opened fire on
them in the water?"
Lapham slowly shut his eyes and slowly dropped
his head for assent, letting out a white volume of
smoke from the corner of his mouth.
"I thought so," said Bellingham. "I was with
the 85th Massachusetts, and I sha'n't forget that
slaughter. We were all new to it still. Perhaps
that's why it made such an impression."
"I don't know," suggested Charles Bellingham.
"Was there anything much more impressive afterward?
I read of it out in Missouri, where I was
stationed at the time, and I recollect the talk of
some old army men about it. They said that death-rate
was."
"About one in five of us got out safe," said
Lapham, breaking his cigar-ash off on the edge of
a plate. James Bellingham reached him a bottle of
Apollinaris. He drank a glass, and then went on
smoking.
They all waited, as if expecting him to speak, and
then Corey said: "How incredible those things
seem already! You gentlemen know that they happened;
but are you still able to believe it?"
"Ah, nobody feels that anything happened," said
Charles Bellingham. "The past of one's experience
doesn't differ a great deal from the past of
one's knowledge. It isn't much more probable;
it's really a great deal less vivid than some scenes
in a novel that one read when a boy."
"I'm not sure of that," said James Bellingham.
"Well, James, neither am I," consented his cousin,
helping himself from Lapham's Apollinaris bottle.
"There would be very little talking at dinner if one
only said the things that one was sure of."
The others laughed, and Bromfield Corey remarked
thoughtfully, "What astonishes the craven civilian
in all these things is the abundance—the superabundance—of
heroism. The cowards were the exception;
the men that were ready to die, the rule."
"The woods were full of them," said Lapham,
without taking his cigar from his mouth.
"That's a nice little touch in School," interposed
Charles Bellingham, "where the girl says to
you would be so proud of it,' and he reflects a while,
and says, `Well, the fact is, you know, there were
so many of us.' "
"Yes, I remember that," said James Bellingham,
smiling for pleasure in it. "But I don't see why
you claim the credit of being a craven civilian,
Bromfield," he added, with a friendly glance at his
brother-in-law, and with the willingness Boston men
often show to turn one another's good points to the
light in company; bred so intimately together at
school and college and in society, they all know
these points. "A man who was out with Garibaldi
in '48," continued James Bellingham.
"Oh, a little amateur red-shirting," Corey interrupted
in deprecation. "But even if you choose
to dispute my claim, what has become of all the
heroism? Tom, how many club men do you know
who would think it sweet and fitting to die for
their country?"
"I can't think of a great many at the moment,
sir," replied the son, with the modesty of his generation.
"And I couldn't in '61," said his uncle. "Nevertheless
they were there."
"Then your theory is that it's the occasion that
is wanting," said Bromfield Corey. "But why
shouldn't civil service reform, and the resumption of
specie payment, and a tariff for revenue only, inspire
heroes? They are all good causes."
"It's the occasion that's wanting," said James
glad of it."
"So am I," said Lapham, with a depth of feeling
that expressed itself in spite of the haze in which his
brain seemed to float. There was a great deal of the
talk that he could not follow; it was too quick for
him; but here was something he was clear of. "I
don't want to see any more men killed in my time."
Something serious, something sombre must lurk
behind these words, and they waited for Lapham to
say more; but the haze closed round him again, and
he remained silent, drinking Apollinaris.
"We non-combatants were notoriously reluctant
to give up fighting," said Mr. Sewell, the minister;
"but I incline to think Colonel Lapham and Mr.
Bellingham may be right. I dare say we shall have
the heroism again if we have the occasion. Till it
comes, we must content ourselves with the everyday
generosities and sacrifices. They make up in
quantity what they lack in quality, perhaps."
"They're not so picturesque," said Bromfield
Corey. "You can paint a man dying for his
country, but you can't express on canvas a man
fulfilling the duties of a good citizen."
"Perhaps the novelists will get at him by and by,"
suggested Charles Bellingham. "If I were one of
these fellows, I shouldn't propose to myself anything
short of that."
"What? the commonplace?" asked his cousin.
"Commonplace? The commonplace is just that
light, impalpable, aërial essence which they've never
who could interpret the common feelings of commonplace
people would have the answer to `the riddle
of the painful earth' on his tongue."
"Oh, not so bad as that, I hope," said the host;
and Lapham looked from one to the other, trying to
make out what they were at. He had never been so
up a tree before.
"I suppose it isn't well for us to see human nature
at white heat habitually," continued Bromfield Corey,
after a while. "It would make us vain of our
species. Many a poor fellow in that war and in
many another has gone into battle simply and purely
for his country's sake, not knowing whether, if he
laid down his life, he should ever find it again, or
whether, if he took it up hereafter, he should take it
up in heaven or hell. Come, parson!" he said, turning
to the minister, "what has ever been conceived
of omnipotence, of omniscience, so sublime, so divine
as that?"
"Nothing," answered the minister quietly. "God
has never been imagined at all. But if you suppose
such a man as that was Authorised, I think it will
help you to imagine what God must be."
"There's sense in that," said Lapham. He took
his cigar out of his mouth, and pulled his chair a
little toward the table, on which he placed his
ponderous fore-arms. "I want to tell you about a
fellow I had in my own company when we first went
out. We were all privates to begin with; after a
while they elected me captain—I'd had the tavern
never got to be anything more than corporal;
corporal when he was killed." The others arrested
themselves in various attitudes of attention, and
remained listening to Lapham with an interest that
profoundly flattered him. Now, at last, he felt that
he was holding up his end of the rope. "I can't say
he went into the thing from the highest motives,
altogether; our motives are always pretty badly
mixed, and when there's such a hurrah-boys as there
was then, you can't tell which is which. I suppose
Jim Millon's wife was enough to account for his
going, herself. She was a pretty bad assortment,"
said Lapham, lowering his voice and glancing round
at the door to make sure that it was shut, "and she
used to lead Jim one kind of life. Well, sir," continued
Lapham, synthetising his auditors in that form
of address, "that fellow used to save every cent of
his pay and send it to that woman. Used to get me
to do it for him. I tried to stop him. `Why, Jim,'
said I, `you know what she'll do with it.' `That's
so, Cap,' says he, `but I don't know what she'll do
without it.' And it did keep her straight—straight
as a string—as long as Jim lasted. Seemed as if
there was something mysterious about it. They had
a little girl,—about as old as my oldest girl,—and
Jim used to talk to me about her. Guess he done
it as much for her as for the mother; and he said to
me before the last action we went into, `I should
like to turn tail and run, Cap. I ain't comin' out o'
this one. But I don't suppose it would do.' `Well,
and he bust out crying right there in my tent. `I
want to live for poor Molly and Zerrilla'—that's
what they called the little one; I dunno where they
got the name. `I ain't ever had half a chance; and
now she's doing better, and I believe we should get
along after this.' He set there cryin' like a baby.
But he wan't no baby when he went into action. I
hated to look at him after it was over, not so much
because he'd got a ball that was meant for me by a
sharpshooter—he saw the devil takin' aim, and he
jumped to warn me—as because he didn't look like
Jim; he looked like—fun; all desperate and savage.
I guess he died hard."
The story made its impression, and Lapham saw
it. "Now I say," he resumed, as if he felt that he
was going to do himself justice, and say something
to heighten the effect his story had produced. At
the same time he was aware of a certain want of
clearness. He had the idea, but it floated vague,
elusive, in his brain. He looked about as if for
something to precipitate it in tangible shape.
"Apollinaris?" asked Charles Bellingham, handing
the bottle from the other side. He had drawn his
chair closer than the rest to Lapham's, and was
listening with great interest. When Mrs. Corey
asked him to meet Lapham, he accepted gladly.
"You know I go in for that sort of thing, Anna.
Since Leslie's affair we're rather bound to do it.
And I think we meet these practical fellows too
little. There's always something original about
the reward of his faith was coming.
"Thanks, I will take some of this wine," said
Lapham, pouring himself a glass of Madeira from a
black and dusty bottle caressed by a label bearing
the date of the vintage. He tossed off the wine,
unconscious of its preciousness, and waited for the
result. That cloudiness in his brain disappeared
before it, but a mere blank remained. He not only
could not remember what he was going to say, but
he could not recall what they had been talking about.
They waited, looking at him, and he stared at them
in return. After a while he heard the host saying,
"Shall we join the ladies?"
Lapham went, trying to think what had happened.
It seemed to him a long time since he had drunk
that wine.
Miss Corey gave him a cup of tea, where he stood
aloof from his wife, who was talking with Miss
Kingsbury and Mrs. Sewell; Irene was with Miss
Nanny Corey. He could not hear what they were
talking about; but if Penelope had come, he knew
that she would have done them all credit. He
meant to let her know how he felt about her behaviour
when he got home. It was a shame for her
to miss such a chance. Irene was looking beautiful,
as pretty as all the rest of them put together, but
she was not talking, and Lapham perceived that at
a dinner-party you ought to talk. He was himself
conscious of having talked very well. He now wore
an air of great dignity, and, in conversing with the
Some of them wanted him to go into
the library. There he gave his ideas of books. He
said he had not much time for anything but the
papers; but he was going to have a complete library
in his new place. He made an elaborate acknowledgment
to Bromfield Corey of his son's kindness
in suggesting books for his library; he said that he
had ordered them all, and that he meant to have
pictures. He asked Mr. Corey who was about the
best American painter going now. "I don't set up
to be a judge of pictures, but I know what I like,"
he said. He lost the reserve which he had maintained
earlier, and began to boast. He himself
introduced the subject of his paint, in a natural
transition from pictures; he said Mr. Corey must
take a run up to Lapham with him some day, and
see the Works; they would interest him, and he
would drive him round the country; he kept most
of his horses up there, and he could show Mr. Corey
some of the finest Jersey grades in the country.
He told about his brother William, the judge at
Dubuque; and a farm he had out there that paid
for itself every year in wheat. As he cast off all fear,
his voice rose, and he hammered his arm-chair with
the thick of his hand for emphasis. Mr. Corey
seemed impressed; he sat perfectly quiet, listening,
and Lapham saw the other gentlemen stop in their
talk every now and then to listen. After this proof
of his ability to interest them, he would have liked
to have Mrs. Lapham suggest again that he was
else. He surprised himself by his ease among men
whose names had hitherto overawed him. He got
to calling Bromfield Corey by his surname alone.
He did not understand why young Corey seemed so
preoccupied, and he took occasion to tell the company
how he had said to his wife the first time he saw
that fellow that he could make a man of him if he
had him in the business; and he guessed he was not
mistaken. He began to tell stories of the different
young men he had had in his employ. At last he
had the talk altogether to himself; no one else
talked, and he talked unceasingly. It was a great
time; it was a triumph.
He was in this successful mood when word came
to him that Mrs. Lapham was going; Tom Corey
seemed to have brought it, but he was not sure.
Anyway, he was not going to hurry. He made
cordial invitations to each of the gentlemen to drop
in and see him at his office, and would not be satisfied
till he had exacted a promise from each. He
told Charles Bellingham that he liked him, and
assured James Bellingham that it had always been
his ambition to know him, and that if any one had
said when he first came to Boston that in less than
ten years he should be hobnobbing with Jim Bellingham,
he should have told that person he lied. He
would have told anybody he lied that had told him
ten years ago that a son of Bromfield Corey would
have come and asked him to take him into the business.
Ten years ago he, Silas Lapham, had come to
was in debt for half the money that he had bought
out his partner with, and here he was now worth a
million, and meeting you gentlemen like one of you.
And every cent of that was honest money,—no
speculation,—every copper of it for value received.
And here, only the other day, his old partner, who
had been going to the dogs ever since he went out
of the business, came and borrowed twenty thousand
dollars of him! Lapham lent it because his wife
wanted him to: she had always felt bad about the
fellow's having to go out of the business.
He took leave of Mr. Sewell with patronising
affection, and bade him come to him if he ever got
into a tight place with his parish work; he would
let him have all the money he wanted; he had
more money than he knew what to do with. "Why,
when your wife sent to mine last fall," he said,
turning to Mr. Corey, "I drew my cheque for five
hundred dollars, but my wife wouldn't take more
than one hundred; said she wasn't going to show off
before Mrs. Corey. I call that a pretty good joke
on Mrs. Corey. I must tell her how Mrs. Lapham
done her out of a cool four hundred dollars."
He started toward the door of the drawing-room
to take leave of the ladies; but Tom Corey was at
his elbow, saying, "I think Mrs. Lapham is waiting
for you below, sir," and in obeying the direction
Corey gave him toward another door he forgot all
about his purpose, and came away without saying
good-night to his hostess.
Mrs. Lapham had not known how soon she ought
to go, and had no idea that in her quality of chief
guest she was keeping the others. She stayed till
eleven o'clock, and was a little frightened when she
found what time it was; but Mrs. Corey, without
pressing her to stay longer, had said it was not at
all late. She and Irene had had a perfect time.
Everybody had been very polite; on the way home
they celebrated the amiability of both the Miss
Coreys and of Miss Kingsbury. Mrs. Lapham
thought that Mrs. Bellingham was about the pleasantest
person she ever saw; she had told her all about
her married daughter who had married an inventor
and gone to live in Omaha—a Mrs. Blake.
"If it's that car-wheel Blake," said Lapham
proudly, "I know all about him. I've sold him tons
of the paint."
"Pooh, papa! How you do smell of smoking!"
cried Irene.
"Pretty strong, eh?" laughed Lapham, letting
down a window of the carriage. His heart was
throbbing wildly in the close air, and he was glad of
the rush of cold that came in, though it stopped his
tongue, and he listened more and more drowsily to
the rejoicings that his wife and daughter exchanged.
He meant to have them wake Penelope up and tell
her what she had lost; but when he reached home
he was too sleepy to suggest it. He fell asleep as
soon as his head touched the pillow, full of supreme
triumph.
But in the morning his skull was sore with the
taciturn. They had a silent breakfast. In the cold
grey light of the morning the glories of the night
before showed poorer. Here and there a painful
doubt obtruded itself and marred them with its
awkward shadow. Penelope sent down word that
she was not well, and was not coming to breakfast,
and Lapham was glad to go to his office without seeing
her.
He was severe and silent all day with his clerks,
and peremptory with customers. Of Corey he was
slyly observant, and as the day wore away he grew
more restively conscious. He sent out word by his
office-boy that he would like to see Mr. Corey for a
few minutes after closing. The type-writer girl had
lingered too, as if she wished to speak with him, and
Corey stood in abeyance as she went toward Lapham's
door.
"Can't see you to-night, Zerrilla," he said bluffly,
but not unkindly. "Perhaps I'll call at the house,
if it's important."
"It is," said the girl, with a spoiled air of insistence.
"Well," said Lapham, and, nodding to Corey to
enter, he closed the door upon her. Then he turned
to the young man and demanded: "Was I drunk
last night?"
| XIV. The rise of Silas Lapham | |