 | XXI. The rise of Silas Lapham |  |
XXI.
Lapham was gone a fortnight. He was in a
sullen humour when he came back, and kept himself
shut close within his own den at the office the
first day. He entered it in the morning without a
word to his clerks as he passed through the outer
room, and he made no sign throughout the forenoon,
except to strike savagely on his desk-bell from time
to time, and send out to Walker for some book of
accounts or a letter-file. His boy confidentially
reported to Walker that the old man seemed to
have got a lot of papers round; and at lunch the
book-keeper said to Corey, at the little table which
they had taken in a corner together, in default of
seats at the counter, "Well, sir, I guess there's a
cold wave coming."
Corey looked up innocently, and said, "I haven't
read the weather report."
"Yes, sir," Walker continued, "it's coming.
Areas of rain along the whole coast, and increased
pressure in the region of the private office. Storm-signals
up at the old man's door now."
Corey perceived that he was speaking figuratively,
and that his meteorology was entirely personal to
vivid interest in the allegory, his mind being
full of his own tragi-comedy.
"Why, just this: I guess the old man's takin' in
sail. And I guess he's got to. As I told you the
first time we talked about him, there don't any
one know one-quarter as much about the old man's
business as the old man does himself; and I ain't
betraying any confidence when I say that I guess that
old partner of his has got pretty deep into his books.
I guess he's over head and ears in 'em, and the old
man's gone in after him, and he's got a drownin'
man's grip round his neck. There seems to be a kind
of a lull—kind of a dead calm, I call it—in the paint
market just now; and then again a ten-hundred-thousand-dollar
man don't build a hundred-thousand-dollar
house without feeling the drain, unless there's
a regular boom. And just now there ain't any boom
at all. Oh, I don't say but what the old man's got
anchors to windward; guess he has; but if he's
goin' to leave me his money, I wish he'd left it six
weeks ago. Yes, sir, I guess there's a cold wave
comin'; but you can't generally 'most always tell, as a
usual thing, where the old man's concerned, and it's
only a guess." Walker began to feed in his breaded
chop with the same nervous excitement with which
he abandoned himself to the slangy and figurative
excesses of his talks. Corey had listened with a
miserable curiosity and compassion up to a certain
moment, when a broad light of hope flashed upon
him. It came from Lapham's potential ruin; and
seemed so hopeless was clear enough, if another's
disaster would befriend him, and give him the
opportunity to prove the unselfishness of his constancy.
He thought of the sum of money that was
his own, and that he might offer to lend, or practically
give, if the time came; and with his crude
hopes and purposes formlessly exulting in his heart,
he kept on listening with an unchanged countenance.
Walker could not rest till he had developed the
whole situation, so far as he knew it. "Look at the
stock we've got on hand. There's going to be an
awful shrinkage on that, now! And when everybody
is shutting down, or running half-time, the
works up at Lapham are going full chip, just the
same as ever. Well, it's his pride. I don't say but
what it's a good sort of pride, but he likes to make
his brags that the fire's never been out in the works
since they started, and that no man's work or wages
has ever been cut down yet at Lapham, it don't matter
what the times are. Of course," explained Walker,
"I shouldn't talk so to everybody; don't know as I
should talk so to anybody but you, Mr. Corey."
"Of course," assented Corey.
"Little off your feed to-day," said Walker, glancing
at Corey's plate.
"I got up with a headache."
"Well, sir, if you're like me you'll carry it round
all day, then. I don't know a much meaner thing
than a headache—unless it's earache, or toothache,
or some other kind of ache I'm pretty hard to
the old man looked when he came in this morning?
I don't like to see a man of his build look yellow—
much."
About the middle of the afternoon the dust-coloured
face of Rogers, now familiar to Lapham's
clerks, showed itself among them. "Has Colonel
Lapham returned yet?" he asked, in his dry, wooden
tones, of Lapham's boy.
"Yes, he's in his office," said the boy; and as
Rogers advanced, he rose and added, "I don't know
as you can see him to-day. His orders are not to
let anybody in."
"Oh, indeed!" said Rogers; "I think he will
see me!" and he pressed forward.
"Well, I'll have to ask," returned the boy; and
hastily preceding Rogers, he put his head in at
Lapham's door, and then withdrew it. "Please to
sit down," he said; "he'll see you pretty soon;" and,
with an air of some surprise, Rogers obeyed. His
sere, dull-brown whiskers and the moustache closing
over both lips were incongruously and illogically
clerical in effect, and the effect was heightened for
no reason by the parchment texture of his skin;
the baldness extending to the crown of his head
was like a baldness made up for the stage. What
his face expressed chiefly was a bland and beneficent
caution. Here, you must have said to yourself, is
a man of just, sober, and prudent views, fixed purposes,
and the good citizenship that avoids debt
and hazard of every kind.
"What do you want?" asked Lapham, wheeling
round in his swivel-chair as Rogers entered his
room, and pushing the door shut with his foot,
without rising.
Rogers took the chair that was not offered him,
and sat with his hat-brim on his knees, and its
crown pointed towards Lapham. "I want to know
what you are going to do," he answered with sufficient
self-possession.
"I'll tell you, first, what I've done," said Lapham.
"I've been to Dubuque, and I've found out all
about that milling property you turned in on me.
Did you know that the G. L. & P. had leased the
P. Y. & X.?"
"I some suspected that it might."
"Did you know it when you turned the property
in on me? Did you know that the G. L. & P.
wanted to buy the mills?"
"I presumed the road would give a fair price for
them," said Rogers, winking his eyes in outward
expression of inwardly blinking the point.
"You lie," said Lapham, as quietly as if correcting
him in a slight error; and Rogers took the
word with equal sang froid. "You knew the road
wouldn't give a fair price for the mills. You knew
it would give what it chose, and that I couldn't
help myself, when you let me take them. You're
a thief, Milton K. Rogers, and you stole money I
lent you." Rogers sat listening, as if respectfully
considering the statements. "You knew how I
felt about that old matter—or my wife did; and
badly used. And you took advantage of it.
You've got money out of me, in the first place, on
securities that wan't worth thirty-five cents on the
dollar, and you've let me in for this thing, and that
thing, and you've bled me every time. And all
I've got to show for it is a milling property on a
line of road that can squeeze me, whenever it wants
to, as dry as it pleases. And you want to know
what I'm going to do? I'm going to squeeze you.
I'm going to sell these collaterals of yours,"—he
touched a bundle of papers among others that littered
his desk,—"and I'm going to let the mills go
for what they'll fetch. I ain't going to fight the
G. L. & P."
Lapham wheeled about in his chair and turned
his burly back on his visitor, who sat wholly unmoved.
"There are some parties," he began, with a dry
tranquillity ignoring Lapham's words, as if they had
been an outburst against some third person, who
probably merited them, but in whom he was so
little interested that he had been obliged to use
patience in listening to his condemnation,—"there
are some English parties who have been making
inquiries in regard to those mills."
"I guess you're lying, Rogers," said Lapham,
without looking round.
"Well, all that I have to ask is that you will not
act hastily."
"I see you don't think I'm in earnest!"
I'm fooling, do you?" He struck his bell, and
"William," he ordered the boy who answered it,
and who stood waiting while he dashed off a note
to the brokers and enclosed it with the bundle
of securities in a large envelope, "take these
down to Gallop & Paddock's, in State Street,
right away. Now go!" he said to Rogers, when
the boy had closed the door after him; and he
turned once more to his desk.
Rogers rose from his chair, and stood with his
hat in his hand. He was not merely dispassionate
in his attitude and expression, he was impartial.
He wore the air of a man who was ready to return
to business whenever the wayward mood of his
interlocutor permitted. "Then I understand," he
said, "that you will take no action in regard to the
mills till I have seen the parties I speak of."
Lapham faced about once more, and sat looking
up into the visage of Rogers in silence. "I wonder
what you're up to," he said at last; "I should like
to know." But as Rogers made no sign of gratifying
his curiosity, and treated this last remark of
Lapham's as of the irrelevance of all the rest, he said,
frowning, "You bring me a party that will give me
enough for those mills to clear me of you, and I'll
talk to you. But don't you come here with any
man of straw. And I'll give you just twenty-four
hours to prove yourself a swindler again."
Once more Lapham turned his back, and Rogers,
after looking thoughtfully into his hat a moment,
to the last his unprejudiced demeanour.
Lapham was not again heard from, as Walker
phrased it, during the afternoon, except when the
last mail was taken in to him; then the sound of
rending envelopes, mixed with that of what seemed
suppressed swearing, penetrated to the outer office.
Somewhat earlier than the usual hour for closing, he
appeared there with his hat on and his overcoat
buttoned about him. He said briefly to his boy,
"William, I shan't be back again this afternoon,"
and then went to Miss Dewey and left a number
of letters on her table to be copied, and went out.
Nothing had been said, but a sense of trouble subtly
diffused itself through those who saw him go out.
That evening as he sat down with his wife alone
at tea, he asked, "Ain't Pen coming to supper?"
"No, she ain't," said his wife. "I don't know as
I like the way she's going on, any too well. I'm
afraid, if she keeps on, she'll be down sick. She's
got deeper feelings than Irene."
Lapham said nothing, but having helped himself
to the abundance of his table in his usual fashion,
he sat and looked at his plate with an indifference
that did not escape the notice of his wife. "What's
the matter with you?" she asked.
"Nothing. I haven't got any appetite."
"What's the matter?" she persisted.
"Trouble's the matter; bad luck and lots of it's
the matter," said Lapham. "I haven't ever hid
anything from you, Persis, when you asked me, and
you what kind of a fix, if you think it'll do you any
good; but I guess you'll be satisfied to know that
it's a fix."
"How much of a one?" she asked with a look of
grave, steady courage in her eyes.
"Well, I don't know as I can tell, just yet," said
Lapham, avoiding this look. "Things have been
dull all the fall, but I thought they'd brisk up come
winter. They haven't. There have been a lot of
failures, and some of 'em owed me, and some of 'em
had me on their paper; and—" Lapham stopped.
"And what?" prompted his wife.
He hesitated before he added, "And then—
Rogers."
"I'm to blame for that," said Mrs. Lapham. "I
forced you to it."
"No; I was as willing to go into it as what you
were," answered Lapham. "I don't want to blame
anybody."
Mrs. Lapham had a woman's passion for fixing
responsibility; she could not help saying, as soon as
acquitted, "I warned you against him, Silas. I told
you not to let him get in any deeper with you."
"Oh yes. I had to help him to try to get my
money back. I might as well poured water into a
sieve. And now—" Lapham stopped.
"Don't be afraid to speak out to me, Silas Lapham.
If it comes to the worst, I want to know it
—I've got to know it. What did I ever care for
the money? I've had a happy home with you ever
long as you live, whether we go on to the Back Bay,
or go back to the old house at Lapham. I know
who's to blame, and I blame myself. It was my
forcing Rogers on to you." She came back to this,
with her helpless longing, inbred in all Puritan souls,
to have some one specifically suffer for the evil in
the world, even if it must be herself.
"It hasn't come to the worst yet, Persis," said
her husband. "But I shall have to hold up on
the new house a little while, till I can see where I
am."
"I shouldn't care if we had to sell it," cried his
wife, in passionate self-condemnation. "I should
be glad if we had to, as far as I'm concerned."
"I shouldn't," said Lapham.
"I know!" said his wife; and she remembered
ruefully how his heart was set on it.
He sat musing. "Well, I guess it's going to
come out all right in the end. Or, if it ain't," he
sighed, "we can't help it. May be Pen needn't
worry so much about Corey, after all," he continued,
with a bitter irony new to him. "It's an ill wind
that blows nobody good. And there's a chance,"
he ended, with a still bitterer laugh, "that Rogers
will come to time, after all."
"I don't believe it!" exclaimed Mrs. Lapham,
with a gleam of hope in her eyes. "What chance?"
"One in ten million," said Lapham; and her face
fell again. "He says there are some English parties
after him to buy these mills."
"Well?"
"Well, I gave him twenty-four hours to prove
himself a liar."
"You don't believe there are any such parties?"
"Not in this world."
"But if there were?"
"Well, if there were, Persis— But pshaw!"
"No, no!" she pleaded eagerly. "It don't seem
as if he could be such a villain. What would be the
use of his pretending? If he brought the parties to
you—"
"Well," said Lapham scornfully, "I'd let them
have the mills at the price Rogers turned 'em in on
me at. I don't want to make anything on 'em. But
guess I shall hear from the G. L. & P. first. And
when they make their offer, I guess I'll have to
accept it, whatever it is. I don't think they'll
have a great many competitors."
Mrs. Lapham could not give up her hope. "If
you could get your price from those English parties
before they knew that the G. L. & P. wanted to
buy the mills, would it let you out with Rogers?"
"Just about," said Lapham.
"Then I know he'll move heaven and earth to
bring it about. I know you won't be allowed to
suffer for doing him a kindness, Silas. He can't be
so ungrateful! Why, why should he pretend to have
any such parties in view when he hasn't? Don't
you be down-hearted, Si. You'll see that he'll be
round with them to-morrow."
Lapham laughed, but she urged so many reasons
his own faith a little. He ended by asking
for a hot cup of tea; and Mrs. Lapham sent the pot
out and had a fresh one steeped for him. After
that he made a hearty supper in the revulsion from
his entire despair; and they fell asleep that night
talking hopefully of his affairs, which he laid before
her fully, as he used to do when he first started in
business. That brought the old times back, and
he said: "If this had happened then, I shouldn't
have cared much. I was young then, and I wasn't
afraid of anything. But I noticed that after I
passed fifty I began to get scared easier. I don't
believe I could pick up, now, from a regular knockdown."
"Pshaw! You scared, Silas Lapham?" cried his
wife produly. "I should like to see the thing that
ever scared you; or the knockdown that you couldn't
pick up from!"
"Is that so, Persis?" he asked, with the joy her
courage gave him.
In the middle of the night she called to him, in a
voice which the darkness rendered still more deeply
troubled: "Are you awake, Silas?"
"Yes; I'm awake."
"I've been thinking about those English parties,
Si—"
"So've I."
"And I can't make it out but what you'd be just
as bad as Rogers, every bit and grain, if you were
to let them have the mills—"
"And not tell 'em what the chances were with the
G. L. & P.? I thought of that, and you needn't be
afraid."
She began to bewail herself, and to sob convulsively:
"O Silas! O Silas!" Heaven knows in
what measure the passion of her soul was mixed
with pride in her husband's honesty, relief from an
apprehended struggle, and pity for him.
"Hush, hush, Persis!" he besought her. "You'll
wake Pen if you keep on that way. Don't cry any
more! You mustn't."
"Oh, let me cry, Silas! It'll help me. I shall
be all right in a minute. Don't you mind." She
sobbed herself quiet. "It does seem too hard," she
said, when she could speak again, "that you have
to give up this chance when Providence had fairly
raised it up for you."
"I guess it wan't Providence raised it up," said
Lapham. "Any rate, it's got to go. Most likely
Rogers was lyin', and there ain't any such parties;
but if there were, they couldn't have the mills
from me without the whole story. Don't you be
troubled, Persis. I'm going to pull through all
right."
"Oh, I ain't afraid. I don't suppose but what
there's plenty would help you, if they knew you
needed it, Si."
"They would if they knew I didn't need it," said
Lapham sardonically.
"Did you tell Bill how you stood?"
"No, I couldn't bear to. I've been the rich one
I was in danger."
"Yes."
"Besides, it didn't look so ugly till to-day. But
I guess we shan't let ugly looks scare us."
"No."
| XXI. The rise of Silas Lapham | |