 | XVII. The rise of Silas Lapham |  |
XVII.
"What's the reason the girls never get down to
breakfast any more?" asked Lapham, when he met
his wife at the table in the morning. He had been
up an hour and a half, and he spoke with the severity
of a hungry man. "It seems to me they don't
amount to anything. Here I am, at my time of life,
up the first one in the house. I ring the bell for the
cook at quarter-past six every morning, and the
breakfast is on the table at half-past seven right along,
like clockwork, but I never see anybody but you till
I go to the office."
"Oh yes, you do, Si," said his wife soothingly.
"The girls are nearly always down. But they're
young, and it tires them more than it does us to get
up early."
"They can rest afterwards. They don't do anything
after they are up," grumbled Lapham.
"Well, that's your fault, ain't it? You oughtn't
to have made so much money, and then they'd have
had to work." She laughed at Lapham's Spartan
mood, and went on to excuse the young people.
"Irene's been up two nights hand running, and
Penelope says she ain't well. What makes you so
ashamed of?"
"I'll tell you when I've been doing anything to
be ashamed of," growled Lapham.
"Oh no, you won't!" said his wife jollily.
"You'll only be hard on the rest of us. Come
now, Si; what is it?"
Lapham frowned into his coffee with sulky dignity,
and said, without looking up, "I wonder what that
fellow wanted here last night?"
"What fellow?"
"Corey. I found him here when I came home, and
he said he wanted to see me; but he wouldn't stop."
"Where was he?"
"In the sitting-room."
"Was Pen there?"
"I didn't see her."
Mrs. Lapham paused, with her hand on the cream-jug.
"Why, what in the land did he want? Did
he say he wanted you?"
"That's what he said."
"And then he wouldn't stay?"
"No."
"Well, then, I'll tell you just what it is, Silas
Lapham. He came here"—she looked about the
room and lowered her voice—"to see you about
Irene, and then he hand't the courage."
"I guess he's got courage enough to do pretty
much what he wants to," said Lapham glumly.
"All I know is, he was here. You better ask Pen
about it, if she ever gets down."
"I guess I shan't wait for her," said Mrs. Lapham;
and, as her husband closed the front door
after him, she opened that of her daughter's room
and entered abruptly.
The girl sat at the window, fully dressed, and as
if she had been sitting there a long time. Without
rising, she turned her face towards her mother. It
merely showed black against the light, and revealed
nothing till her mother came close to her with successive
questions. "Why, how long have you been
up, Pen? Why don't you come to your breakfast?
Did you see Mr. Corey when he called last night?
Why, what's the matter with you? What have
you been crying about?
"Have I been crying?"
"Yes! Your cheeks are all wet!"
"I thought they were on fire. Well, I'll tell
you what's happened." She rose, and then
fell back in her chair. "Lock the door!" she
ordered, and her mother mechanically obeyed. "I
don't want Irene in here. There's nothing the
matter. Only, Mr. Corey offered himself to me last
night."
Her mother remained looking at her, helpless, not
so much with amaze, perhaps, as dismay.
"Oh, I'm not a ghost! I wish I was! You
had better sit down, mother. You have got to
know all about it."
Mrs. Lapham dropped nervelessly into the chair
at the other window, and while the girl went slowly
but briefly on, touching only the vital points of the
she sat as if without the power to speak or stir.
"Well, that's all, mother. I should say I had
dreamt it, if I had slept any last night; but I guess
it really happened."
The mother glanced round at the bed, and said,
glad to occupy herself delayingly with the minor
care: "Why, you have been sitting up all night!
You will kill yourself."
"I don't know about killing myself, but I've been
sitting up all night," answered the girl. Then, seeing
that her mother remained blankly silent again,
she demanded, "Why don't you blame me, mother?
Why don't you say that I led him on, and tried to
get him away from her? Don't you believe I did?"
Her mother made her no answer, as if these
ravings of self-accusal needed none. "Do you
think," she asked simply, "that he got the idea
you cared for him?"
"He knew it! How could I keep it from him?
I said I didn't—at first!"
"It was no use," sighed the mother. "You
might as well said you did. It couldn't help Irene
any, if you didn't."
"I always tried to help her with him, even when
I—"
"Yes, I know. But she never was equal to him.
I saw that from the start; but I tried to blind
myself to it. And when he kept coming—"
"You never thought of me!" cried the girl, with
a bitterness that reached her mother's heart. "I
for me!" The turmoil of despair, of triumph, of
remorse and resentment, which filled her soul, tried
to express itself in the words.
"No," said the mother humbly. "I didn't think
of you. Or I didn't think of you enough. It did
come across me sometimes that may be— But it
didn't seem as if— And your going on so for
Irene—"
"You let me go on. You made me always go
and talk with him for her, and you didn't think I
would talk to him for myself. Well, I didn't!"
"I'm punished for it. When did you—begin to
care for him?"
"How do I know? What difference does it
make? It's all over now, no matter when it began.
He won't come here any more, unless I let him."
She could not help betraying her pride in this
authority of hers, but she went on anxiously enough,
"What will you say to Irene? She's safe as far as
I'm concerned; but if he don't care for her, what
will you do?"
"I don't know what to do," said Mrs. Lapham.
She sat in an apathy from which she apparently
could not rouse herself. "I don't see as anything
can be done."
Penelope laughed in a pitying derision.
"Well, let things go on then. But they won't go
on."
"No, they won't go on," echoed her mother.
"She's pretty enough, and she's capable; and your
saying! She ain't equal to him, and she never was.
I kept feeling it all the time, and yet I kept blinding
myself."
"If he had ever cared for her," said Penelope,
"it wouldn't have mattered whether she was equal
to him or not. I'm not equal to him either."
Her mother went on: "I might have thought it
was you; but I had got set— Well! I can see it
all clear enough, now it's too late. I don't know
what to do."
"And what do you expect me to do?" demanded
the girl. "Do you want me to go to Irene and tell
her that I've got him away from her?"
"O good Lord!" cried Mrs. Lapham. "What
shall I do? What do you want I should do, Pen?"
"Nothing for me," said Penelope. "I've had it
out with myself. Now do the best you can for
Irene."
"I couldn't say you had done wrong, if you was
to marry him to-day."
"Mother!"
"No, I couldn't. I couldn't say but what you
had been good and faithful all through, and you had
a perfect right to do it. There ain't any one to
blame. He's behaved like a gentleman, and I can
see now that he never thought of her, and that it
was you all the while. Well, marry him, then!
He's got the right, and so have you."
"What about Irene? I don't want you to talk
about me. I can take care of myself."
"She's nothing but a child. It's only a fancy
with her. She'll get over it. She hain't really got
her heart set on him."
"She's got her heart set on him, mother. She's
got her whole life set on him. You know that."
`Yes, that's so," said the mother, as promptly
as if she had been arguing to that rather than the
contrary effect.
"If I could give him to her, I would. But he
isn't mine to give." She added in a burst of despair,
"He isn't mine to keep!"
"Well," said Mrs. Lapham, "she has got to bear
it. I don't know what's to come of it all. But she's
got to bear her share of it." She rose and went
toward the door.
Penelope ran after her in a sort of terror.
"You're not going to tell Irene?" she gasped,
seizing her mother by either shoulder.
"Yes, I am," said Mrs. Lapham. "If she's a
woman grown, she can bear a woman's burden."
"I can't let you tell Irene," said the girl, letting
fall her face on her mother's neck. "Not Irene,"
she moaned. "I'm afraid to let you. How can I
ever look at her again?"
"Why, you haven't done anything, Pen," said her
mother soothingly.
"I wanted to! Yes, I must have done something.
How could I help it? I did care for him from the
first, and I must have tried to make him like me.
Do you think I did? No, no! You mustn't tell
Irene! Not—not—yet! Mother! Yes! I did
head, and suddenly looking her mother in the face
with those large dim eyes of hers. "What do you
think? Even last night! It was the first time I
ever had him all to myself, for myself, and I know
now that I tried to make him think that I was pretty
and—funny. And I didn't try to make him think
of her. I knew that I pleased him, and I tried to
please him more. Perhaps I could have kept him
from saying that he cared for me; but when I saw
he did—I must have seen it—I couldn't. I had
never had him to myself, and for myself before. I
needn't have seen him at all, but I wanted to see
him; and when I was sitting there alone with him,
how do I know what I did to let him feel that I
cared for him? Now, will you tell Irene? I never
thought he did care for me, and never expected him
to. But I liked him. Yes—I did like him! Tell
her that! Or else I will."
"If it was to tell her he was dead," began Mrs.
Lapham absently.
"How easy it would be!" cried the girl in self-mockery.
"But he's worse than dead to her; and
so am I. I've turned it over a million ways,
mother; I've looked at it in every light you can
put it in, and I can't make anything but misery out
of it. You can see the misery at the first glance,
and you can't see more or less if you spend your life
looking at it." She laughed again, as if the hopelessness
of the thing amused her. Then she flew to
the extreme of self-assertion. "Well, I have a right
done anything to make her think he cared for her,
—and I know he hasn't; it's all been our doing,—
then he's free and I'm free. We can't make her
happy whatever we do; and why shouldn't I—
No, that won't do! I reached that point before!"
She broke again into her desperate laugh. "You
may try now, mother!"
"I'd best speak to your father first—"
Penelope smiled a little more forlornly than she
had laughed.
"Well, yes; the Colonel will have to know. It
isn't a trouble that I can keep to myself exactly. It
seems to belong to too many other people."
Her mother took a crazy encouragement from her
return to her old way of saying things. "Perhaps
he can think of something."
"Oh, I don't doubt but the Colonel will know
just what to do!"
"You mustn't be too down-hearted about it. It
—it'll all come right—"
"You tell Irene that, mother."
Mrs. Lapham had put her hand on the door-key;
she dropped it, and looked at the girl with a sort of
beseeching appeal for the comfort she could not
imagine herself. "Don't look at me, mother," said
Penelope, shaking her head. "You know that if
Irene were to die without knowing it, it wouldn't
come right for me."
"Pen!"
"I've read of cases where a girl gives up the man
that the man doesn't love. That might be done."
"Your father would think you were a fool," said
Mrs. Lapham, finding a sort of refuge in her strong
disgust for the pseudo heroism. "No! If there's
to be any giving up, let it be by the one that shan't
make anybody but herself suffer. There's trouble
and sorrow enough in the world, without making it
on purpose!"
She unlocked the door, but Penelope slipped
round and set herself against it. "Irene shall not
give up!"
"I will see your father about it," said the mother.
"Let me out now—"
"Don't let Irene come here!"
"No. I will tell her that you haven't slept. Go
to bed now, and try to get some rest. She isn't up
herself yet. You must have some breakfast."
"No; let me sleep if I can. I can get something
when I wake up. I'll come down if I can't sleep.
Life has got to go on. It does when there's a death
in the house, and this is only a little worse."
"Don't you talk nonsense!" cried Mrs. Lapham,
with angry authority.
"Well, a little better, then," said Penelope, with
meek concession.
Mrs. Lapham attempted to say something, and
could not. She went out and opened Irene's door.
The girl lifted her head drowsily from her pillow
"Don't disturb your sister when you get up, Irene.
She hasn't slept well—"
"Please don't talk! I'm almost dead with sleep!"
returned Irene. "Do go, mamma! I shan't disturb
her." She turned her face down in the pillow, and
pulled the covering up over her ears.
The mother slowly closed the door and went
downstairs, feeling bewildered and baffled almost
beyond the power to move. The time had been
when she would have tried to find out why this
judgment had been sent upon her. But now she
could not feel that the innocent suffering of others
was inflicted for her fault; she shrank instinctively
from that cruel and egotistic misinterpretation of
the mystery of pain and loss. She saw her two
children, equally if differently dear to her, destined
to trouble that nothing could avert, and she could
not blame either of them; she could not blame
the means of this misery to them; he was as innocent
as they, and though her heart was sore
against him in this first moment, she could still be
just to him in it. She was a woman who had been
used to seek the light by striving; she had hitherto
literally worked to it. But it is the curse of prosperity
that it takes work away from us, and shuts
that door to hope and health of spirit. In this
house, where everything had come to be done for
her, she had no tasks to interpose between her and
her despair. She sat down in her own room and let
her hands fall in her lap,—the hands that had once
been so helpful and busy,—and tried to think it all
out. She had never heard of the fate that was once
supposed to appoint the sorrows of men irrespective
of their blamelessness or blame, before the time
penalties; but in her simple way she recognised
something like that mythic power when she rose
from her struggle with the problem, and said aloud
to herself, "Well, the witch is in it." Turn which
way she would, she saw no escape from the misery
to come—the misery which had come already to
Penelope and herself, and that must come to Irene
and her father. She started when she definitely
thought of her husband, and thought with what
violence it would work in every fibre of his rude
strength. She feared that, and she feared something
worse—the effect which his pride and ambition
might seek to give it; and it was with terror
of this, as well as the natural trust with which a
woman must turn to her husband in any anxiety at
last, that she felt she could not wait for evening to
take counsel with him. When she considered how
wrongly he might take it all, it seemed as if it
were already known to him, and she was impatient
to prevent his error.
She sent out for a messenger, whom she despatched
with a note to his place of business: "Silas, I should
like to ride with you this afternoon. Can't you come
home early? Persis." And she was at dinner with
Irene, evading her questions about Penelope, when
answer came that he would be at the house with the
buggy at half-past two. It is easy to put off a girl
who has but one thing in her head; but though
Mrs. Lapham could escape without telling anything
of Penelope, she could not escape seeing how wholly
Irene was engrossed with hopes now turned so vain
of nothing but that dinner, and begging for flattery
of herself and praise of him, which her mother had
till now been so ready to give.
"Seems to me you don't take very much interest,
mamma!" she said, laughing and blushing at one point.
"Yes,—yes, I do," protested Mrs. Lapham, and
then the girl prattled on.
"I guess I shall get one of those pins that Nanny
Corey had in her hair. I think it would become
me, don't you?"
"Yes; but Irene—I don't like to have you go on
so, till—unless he's said something to show— You
oughtn't to give yourself up to thinking—" But
at this the girl turned so white, and looked such reproach
at her, that she added frantically: "Yes,
get the pin. It is just the thing for you! But
don't disturb Penelope. Let her alone till I get
back. I'm going out to ride with your father.
He'll be here in half an hour. Are you through?
Ring, then. Get yourself that fan you saw the
other day. Your father won't say anything; he likes
to have you look well. I could see his eyes on you
half the time the other night."
"I should have liked to have Pen go with me,"
said Irene, restored to her normal state of innocent
selfishness by these flatteries. "Don't you suppose
she'll be up in time? What's the matter with her
that she didn't sleep?"
"I don't know. Better let her alone."
"Well," submitted Irene.
| XVII. The rise of Silas Lapham | |