 | XVI. The rise of Silas Lapham |  |
XVI.
The Nova Scotia second-girl who answered Corey's
ring said that Lapham had not come home yet.
"Oh," said the young man, hesitating on the
outer step.
"I guess you better come in," said the girl, "I'll
go and see when they're expecting him."
Corey was in the mood to be swayed by any
chance. He obeyed the suggestion of the second-girl's
patronising friendliness, and let her shut him
into the drawing-room, while she went upstairs to
announce him to Penelope.
"Did you tell him father wasn't at home?"
"Yes. He seemed so kind of disappointed, I
told him to come in, and I'd see when he would
be in," said the girl, with the human interest which
sometimes replaces in the American domestic the
servile deference of other countries.
A gleam of amusement passed over Penelope's
face, as she glanced at herself in the glass. "Well,"
she cried finally, dropping from her shoulders the
light shawl in which she had been huddled over a
book when Corey rang, "I will go down."
"All right," said the girl, and Penelope began
tumbled into a mass on the top of her little head,
setting off the pale dark of her complexion with a
flash of crimson ribbon at her throat. She moved
across the carpet once or twice with the quaint grace
that belonged to her small figure, made a dissatisfied
grimace at it in the glass, caught a handkerchief out
of a drawer and slid it into her pocket, and then
descended to Corey.
The Lapham drawing-room in Nankeen Square
was in the parti-coloured paint which the Colonel
had hoped to repeat in his new house: the trim of
the doors and windows was in light green and the
panels in salmon; the walls were a plain tint of
French grey paper, divided by gilt mouldings into
broad panels with a wide stripe of red velvet paper
running up the corners; the chandelier was of
massive imitation bronze; the mirror over the
mantel rested on a fringed mantel-cover of green
reps, and heavy curtains of that stuff hung from gilt
lambrequin frames at the window; the carpet was
of a small pattern in crude green, which, at the
time Mrs. Lapham bought it, covered half the new
floors in Boston. In the panelled spaces on the walls
were some stone-coloured landscapes, representing
the mountains and cañons of the West, which the
Colonel and his wife had visited on one of the early
official railroad excursions. In front of the long
windows looking into the Square were statues,
kneeling figures which turned their backs upon the
company within-doors, and represented allegories of
marble group of several figures, expressing an Italian
conception of Lincoln Freeing the Slaves,—a Latin
negro and his wife,—with our Eagle flapping his
wings in approval, at Lincoln's feet, occupied one
corner, and balanced the what-not of an earlier
period in another. These phantasms added their
chill to that imparted by the tone of the walls, the
landscapes, and the carpets, and contributed to the
violence of the contrast when the chandelier was
lighted up full glare, and the heat of the whole furnace
welled up from the registers into the quivering
atmosphere on one of the rare occasions when the
Laphams invited company.
Corey had not been in this room before; the
family had always received him in what they called
the sitting-room. Penelope looked into this first,
and then she looked into the parlour, with a smile
that broke into a laugh as she discovered him
standing under the single burner which the second-girl
had lighted for him in the chandelier.
"I don't understand how you came to be put in
there," she said, as she led the way to the cozier
place, "unless it was because Alice thought you
were only here on probation, anyway. Father hasn't
got home yet, but I'm expecting him every moment;
I don't know what's keeping him. Did the girl
tell you that mother and Irene were out?"
"No, she didn't say. It's very good of you to
see me." She had not seen the exaltation which he
had been feeling, he perceived with half a sigh; it
best so. "There was something I wished to say to
your father— I hope," he broke off, "you're better
to-night."
"Oh yes, thank you," said Penelope, remembering
that she had not been well enough to go to dinner
the night before.
"We all missed you very much."
"Oh, thank you! I'm afraid you wouldn't have
missed me if I had been there."
"Oh yes, we should," said Corey, "I assure you."
They looked at each other.
"I really think I believed I was saying something,"
said the girl.
"And so did I," replied the young man. They
laughed rather wildly, and then they both became
rather grave.
He took the chair she gave him, and looked across
at her, where she sat on the other side of the hearth,
in a chair lower than his, with her hands dropped in
her lap, and the back of her head on her shoulders
as she looked up at him. The soft-coal fire in the
grate purred and flickered; the drop-light cast a
mellow radiance on her face. She let her eyes fall,
and then lifted them for an irrelevant glance at the
clock on the mantel.
"Mother and Irene have gone to the Spanish
Students' concert."
"Oh, have they?" asked Corey; and he put his
hat, which he had been holding in his hand, on the
floor beside his chair.
She looked down at it for no reason, and then
looked up at his face for no other, and turned a
little red. Corey turned a little red himself. She
who had always been so easy with him now became
a little constrained.
"Do you know how warm it is out-of-doors?" he
asked.
"No; is it warm? I haven't been out all day."
"It's like a summer night."
She turned her face towards the fire, and then
started abruptly. "Perhaps it's too warm for you
here?"
"Oh no, it's very comfortable."
"I suppose it's the cold of the last few days
that's still in the house. I was reading with a
shawl on when you came."
"I interrupted you."
"Oh no. I had finished the book. I was just
looking over it again."
"Do you like to read books over?"
"Yes; books that I like at all."
"What was it?" asked Corey.
The girl hesitated. "It has rather a sentimental
name. Did you ever read it?—Tears, Idle
Tears."
"Oh yes; they were talking of that last night;
it's a famous book with ladies. They break their
hearts over it. Did it make you cry?"
"Oh, it's pretty easy to cry over a book," said
Penelope, laughing; "and that one is very natural
till you come to the main point. Then the naturalness
but I guess it's rather forced."
"Her giving him up to the other one?"
"Yes; simply because she happened to know that
the other one had cared for him first. Why should
she have done it? What right had she?"
"I don't know. I suppose that the self-sacrifice—"
"But it wasn't self-sacrifice—or not self-sacrifice
alone. She was sacrificing him too; and for some
one who couldn't appreciate him half as much as
she could. I'm provoked with myself when I think
how I cried over that book—for I did cry. It's
silly—it's wicked for any one to do what that girl
did. Why can't they let people have a chance to
behave reasonably in stories?"
"Perhaps they couldn't make it so attractive,"
suggested Corey, with a smile.
"It would be novel, at any rate," said the girl.
"But so it would in real life, I suppose," she added.
"I don't know. Why shouldn't people in love
behave sensibly?"
"That's a very serious question," said Penelope
gravely. "I couldn't answer it," and she left him
the embarrassment of supporting an inquiry which
she had certainly instigated herself. She seemed to
have finally recovered her own ease in doing this.
"Do you admire our autumnal display, Mr. Corey?"
"Your display?"
"The trees in the Square. We think it's quite
equal to an opening at Jordan & Marsh's."
"Ah, I'm afraid you wouldn't let me be serious
even about your maples."
"Oh yes, I should—if you like to be serious."
"Don't you?"
"Well not about serious matters. That's the
reason that book made me cry."
"You make fun of everything. Miss Irene was
telling me last night about you."
"Then it's no use for me to deny it so soon. I
must give Irene a talking to."
"I hope you won't forbid her to talk about you!"
She had taken up a fan from the table, and held
it, now between her face and the fire, and now between
her face and him. Her little visage, with
that arch, lazy look in it, topped by its mass of
dusky hair, and dwindling from the full cheeks to
the small chin, had a Japanese effect in the subdued
light, and it had the charm which comes to any woman
with happiness. It would be hard to say how much
of this she perceived that he felt. They talked
about other things a while, and then she came back
to what he had said. She glanced at him obliquely
round her fan, and stopped moving it. "Does
Irene talk about me?" she asked.
"I think so—yes. Perhaps it's only I who talk
about you. You must blame me if it's wrong," he
returned.
"Oh, I didn't say it was wrong," she replied.
"But I hope if you said anything very bad of me
you'll let me know what it was, so that I can reform—"
"No, don't change, please!" cried the young
man.
Penelope caught her breath, but went on resolutely,—"or
rebuke you for speaking evil of dignities."
She looked down at the fan, now flat in her
lap, and tried to govern her head, but it trembled,
and she remained looking down. Again they let
the talk stray, and then it was he who brought it
back to themselves, as if it had not left them.
"I have to talk of you," said Corey, "because I
get to talk to you so seldom."
"You mean that I do all the talking when we're
—together?" She glanced sidewise at him; but
she reddened after speaking the last word.
"We're so seldom together," he pursued.
"I don't know what you mean—"
"Sometimes I've thought—I've been afraid—
that you avoided me."
"Avoided you?"
"Yes! Tried not to be alone with me."
She might have told him that there was no reason
why she should be alone with him, and that it was
very strange he should make this complaint of her.
But she did not. She kept looking down at the
fan, and then she lifted her burning face and looked
at the clock again. "Mother and Irene will be
sorry to miss you," she gasped.
He instantly rose and came towards her. She
rose too, and mechanically put out her hand. He
took it as if to say good-night. "I didn't mean to
send you away," she besought him.
"Oh, I'm not going," he answered simply. "I
wanted to say—to say that it's I who make her
talk about you. To say I— There is something
I want to say to you; I've said it so often to myself
that I feel as if you must know it." She stood
quite still, letting him keep her hand, and questioning
his face with a bewildered gaze. "You must
know—she must have told you—she must have
guessed—" Penelope turned white, but outwardly
quelled the panic that sent the blood to her heart.
"I—I didn't expect—I hoped to have seen your
father—but I must speak now, whatever— I love
you!"
She freed her hand from both of those he had
closed upon it, and went back from him across the
room with a sinuous spring. "Me!" Whatever
potential complicity had lurked in her heart, his
words brought her only immeasurable dismay.
He came towards her again. "Yes, you. Who
else?"
She fended him off with an imploring gesture. "I
thought—I—it was—"
She shut her lips tight, and stood looking at him
where he remained in silent amaze. Then her
words came again, shudderingly. "Oh, what have
you done?"
"Upon my soul," he said, with a vague smile, "I
don't know. I hope no harm?"
"Oh, don't laugh!" she cried, laughing hysterically
herself. "Unless you want me to think you
the greatest wretch in the world!"
"I?" he responded. "For heaven's sake tell me
what you mean!"
"You know I can't tell you. Can you say—can
you put your hand on your heart and say that—you
—say you never meant—that you meant me—all
along?"
"Yes!—yes! Who else? I came here to see
your father, and to tell him that I wished to tell
you this—to ask him— But what does it matter?
You must have known it—you must have seen—and
it's for you to answer me. I've been abrupt, I
know, and I've startled you; but if you love me,
you can forgive that to my loving you so long before
I spoke."
She gazed at him with parted lips.
"Oh, mercy! What shall I do? If it's true—
what you say—you must go!" she said. "And
you must never come any more. Do you promise
that?"
"Certainly not," said the young man. "Why
should I promise such a thing—so abominably
wrong? I could obey if you didn't love me—"
"Oh, I don't! Indeed I don't! Now will you
obey."
"No. I don't believe you."
"Oh!"
He possessed himself of her hand again.
"My love—my dearest! What is this trouble,
that you can't tell it? It can't be anything about
yourself. If it is anything about any one else, it
wouldn't make the least difference in the world, no
show by any act or deed I could that nothing could
change me towards you."
"Oh, you don't understand!"
"No, I don't. You must tell me."
"I will never do that."
"Then I will stay here till your mother comes,
and ask her what it is."
"Ask her?"
"Yes! Do you think I will give you up till I
know why I must?"
"You force me to it! Will you go if I tell you,
and never let any human creature know what you
have said to me?"
"Not unless you give me leave."
"That will be never. Well, then—" She
stopped, and made two or three ineffectual efforts
to begin again. "No, no! I can't. You must
go!"
"I will not go!"
"You said you—loved me. If you do, you will
go."
He dropped the hands he had stretched towards
her, and she hid her face in her own.
"There!" she said, turning it suddenly upon him.
"Sit down there. And will you promise me—on
your honour—not to speak—not to try to persuade
me—not to—touch me? You won't touch me?"
"I will obey you, Penelope."
"As if you were never to see me again? As if I
were dying?"
"I will do what you say. But I shall see you
again; and don't talk of dying. This is the beginning
of life—"
"No. It's the end," said the girl, resuming at
last something of the hoarse drawl which the tumult
of her feeling had broken into those half-articulate
appeals. She sat down too, and lifted her face towards
him. "It's the end of life for me, because I
know now that I must have been playing false from
the beginning. You don't know what I mean, and
I can never tell you. It isn't my secret—it's some
one else's. You—you must never come here again.
I can't tell you why, and you must never try to
know. Do you promise?"
"You can forbid me. I must do what you say."
"I do forbid you, then. And you shall not think
I am cruel—"
"How could I think that?"
"Oh, how hard you make it!"
Corey laughed for very despair. "Can I make it
easier by disobeying you?"
"I know I am talking crazily. But I'm not
crazy."
"No, no," he said, with some wild notion of
comforting her; "but try to tell me this trouble!
There is nothing under heaven—no calamity, no
sorrow — that I wouldn't gladly share with you,
or take all upon myself if I could!"
"I know! But this you can't. Oh, my—"
"Dearest! Wait! Think! Let me ask your
mother—your father—"
She gave a cry.
"No! If you do that, you will make me hate
you! Will you—"
The rattling of a latch-key was heard in the outer
door.
"Promise!" cried Penelope.
"Oh, I promise!"
"Good-bye!" She suddenly flung her arms round
his neck, and, pressing her cheek tight against his,
flashed out of the room by one door as her father
entered it by another.
Corey turned to him in a daze. "I—I called to
speak with you—about a matter— But it's so
late now. I'll—I'll see you to-morrow."
"No time like the present," said Lapham, with a
fierceness that did not seem referable to Corey.
He had his hat still on, and he glared at the young
man out of his blue eyes with a fire that something
else must have kindled there.
"I really can't now," said Corey weakly. "It
will do quite as well to-morrow. Good night, sir."
"Good night," answered Lapham abruptly, following
him to the door, and shutting it after him. "I
think the devil must have got into pretty much
everybody to-night," he muttered, coming back to
the room, where he put down his hat. Then he
went to the kitchen-stairs and called down, "Hello,
Alice! I want something to eat!
| XVI. The rise of Silas Lapham | |