OLD HOPES The Conquest of Canaan | ||
3. OLD HOPES
THE door which Ariel had entered opened upon a narrow hall, and down this she ran to her own room, passing, with face averted, the entrance to the broad, low-ceilinged chamber that had served Roger Tabor as a studio for almost fifty years. He was sitting there now, in a hopeless and disconsolate attitude, with his back towards the double doors, which were open, and had been open since their hinges had begun to give way, when Ariel was a child. Hearing her step, he called her name, but did not turn; and, receiving no answer, sighed faintly as he heard her own door close upon her.
Then, as his eyes wandered about the many canvases which leaned against the dingy walls, he sighed again. Usually they showed their brown backs, but to-day he had turned them all to face outward. Twilight, sunset, moonlight (the Courthouse in moonlight), dawn, morning, noon (Main
And there were "Italian Flower-Sellers,'' damsels with careful hair, two figures together, one blonde, the other as brunette as lampblack, the blonde—in pink satin and blue slippers—leaning against a pillar and smiling over the golden coins for which she had exchanged her posies; the brunette seated at her feet, weeping upon an unsold bouquet. There were red-sashed "Fisher Lads '' wading with butterfly-nets on their shoulders; there was a "Tying the Ribbon on Pussy's Neck''; there were portraits in oil and petrifactions in crayon, as hard and tight as the purses of those who had refused to accept them, leaving them upon their maker's hands because the likeness had failed.
After a time the old man got up, went to his easel near a window, and, sighing again, began patiently to work upon one of these failures—a portrait, in oil, of a savage old lady, which he was doing from a photograph. The expression of the mouth and the shape of the nose had not pleased her descendants and the beneficiaries under the will, and it was upon the images of these features that Roger labored. He leaned far forward, with
"It's quitting-time, grandfather,'' she called, gently, from the doorway behind him.
He sank back in his chair, conscious, for the first time, of how tired he had grown. "I suppose so,'' he said, "though it seemed to me that I was just getting my hand in.'' His eyes brightened for a moment. "I declare, I believe I've caught it a great deal better. Come and look, Ariel. Doesn't it seem to you that I'm getting it? Those pearly shadows in the flesh—''
"I'm sure of it. Those people ought to be very proud to have it.'' She came to him quietly, took the palette and brushes from his hands and began to clean them, standing in the shadow behind him. "It's too good for them.''
"I wonder if it is,'' he said, slowly, leaning forward and curving his hands about his eyes so as to shut off everything from his view except the canvas. "I wonder if it is!'' he repeated. Then his hands dropped sadly in his lap, and he sank
"They're always beautiful,'' she said, softly.
"Ah, ah!'' he sighed.
"Now, Roger!'' she cried, with cheerful sharpness, continuing her work.
"I know,'' he said, with a plaintive laugh,—"I know. Sometimes I think that all my reward has been in the few minutes I've had just after finishing them. During those few minutes I seem to see in them all that I wanted to put in them; I see it because what I've been trying to express is still so warm in my own eyes that I seem to have got it on the canvas where I wanted it.''
"But you do,'' she said. "You do get it there.''
"No,'' he murmured, in return. "I never did. I got out some of the old ones when I came in this morning, some that I hadn't looked at for years, and it's the same with them. You can do it much better yourself—your sketches show it.''
"No, no!'' she protested, quickly.
"Yes, they do; and I wondered if it was only
because you were young. But those I did when
I was young are almost the same as the ones I
paint now. I haven't learned much. There hasn't
"'THEY'RE ALWAYS BEAUTIFUL,' SHE SAID, SOFTLY."
[Description: An illustration by
Lucius Hitchcock. A woman wearing a long, black
dress looking at some paintings propped up on a bench. She holds
several paint brushes in her right hand, and is wiping them with a
cloth. A palette and some tubes of paint lay on the bench.]
"Perhaps we will; you can't tell what may happen.'' It was always her reply to this cry of his.
"Paris—for just one month!'' he repeated, with infinite wistfulness, and then realizing what an old, old cry it was with him, he shook his head, impatiently sniffing out a laugh at himself, rose and went pottering about among the canvases, returning their faces to the wall, and railing at them mutteringly.
"Whatever took me into it, I don't know. I might have done something useful. But I couldn't bring myself ever to consider doing anything else— I couldn't bear even to think of it! Lord forgive me, I even tried to encourage your father to paint. Perhaps he might as well, poor boy, as to have put
"We don't need more,'' said Ariel, scraping the palette attentively. "It's healthier with only breakfast and supper. I think I'd rather have a new dress than dinner.''
"I dare say you would,'' the old man mused. "You're young—you're young. What were you doing all this afternoon, child?''
"In my room, trying to make over mamma's wedding-dress for to-night.''
"To-night?''
"Mamie Pike invited me to a dance at their house.''
"Very well; I'm glad you're going to be gay,'' he said, not seeing the faintly bitter smile that came to her face.
"I don't think I'll be very gay,'' she answered.
"I don't know why I go—nobody ever asks me to dance.''
"Why not?'' he asked, with an old man's astonishment.
"I don't know. Perhaps it's because I don't dress very well.'' Then, as he made a sorrowful gesture, she cut him off before he could speak. "Oh, it isn't altogether because we're poor; it's more I don't know how to wear what I've got, the way some girls do. I never cared much and— well, I'm not worrying, Roger! And I think I've done a good deal with mamma's dress. It's a very grand dress. I wonder I never thought of wearing it until to-day. I may be''—she laughed and blushed —"I may be the belle of the ball—who knows!''
"You'll want me to walk over with you and come for you afterwards, I expect.''
"Only to take me. It may be late when I come away—if a good many should ask me to dance, for once! Of course I could come home alone. But Joe Louden is going to sort of hang around outside, and he'll meet me at the gate and see me safe home.''
"Oh!'' he exclaimed, blankly.
"Isn't it all right?'' she asked.
"I think I'd better come for you,'' he answered, gently. "The truth is, I—I think you'd better not be with Joe Louden a great deal. ''
"Why?''
"Well, he doesn't seem a vicious boy to me, but I'm afraid he's getting rather a bad name, my dear.''
"He's not getting one,'' she said, gravely. "He's already got one. He's had a bad name in Canaan for a long while. It grew in the first place out of shabbiness and mischief, but it did grow; and if people keep on giving him a bad name the time will come when he'll live up to it. He's not any worse than I am, and I guess my own name isn't too good—for a girl. And yet, so far, there's nothing against him except his bad name.''
"I'm afraid there is,'' said Roger. "It doesn't look very well for a young man of his age to be doing no better than delivering papers.''
"It gives him time to study law,'' she answered, quickly. "If he clerked all day in a store, he couldn't.''
"I didn't know he was studying now. I thought I'd heard that he was in a lawyer's office for a few weeks last year, and was turned out for setting fire to it with a pipe—''
"It was an accident,'' she interposed.
"But some pretty important papers were burned, and after that none of the other lawyers would have him.''
"He's not in an office,'' she admitted. "I didn't
"Well-perhaps,'' he assented; "but they say he gambles and drinks, and that last week Judge Pike threatened to have him arrested for throwing dice with some negroes behind the Judge's stable.''
"What of it? I'm about the only nice person in town that will have anything to do with him— and nobody except you thinks I'm very nice!''
"Ariel! Ariel!''
"I know all about his gambling with darkies,'' she continued, excitedly, her voice rising, "and I know that he goes to saloons, and that he's an intimate friend of half the riffraff in town; and I know the reason for it, too, because he's told me. He wants to know them, to understand them; and he says some day they'll make him a power, and then he can help them!''
The old man laughed helplessly. "But I can't let him bring you home, my dear.''
She came to him slowly and laid her hands upon his shoulders. Grandfather and granddaughter were nearly of the same height, and she looked squarely into his eyes. "Then you must say it is because you want to come for me, not because I mustn't come with Joe.''
"But I think it is a little because you mustn't
"Oh, if you put it on that ground,'' the girl replied, her eyes softening, "I think you'd better come for me yourself.''
"Very well, I put it on that ground,'' he returned, smiling upon her
"Then I'll send Joe word and get supper,'' she said, kissing him.
It was the supper-hour not only for them but everywhere in Canaan, and the cold air of the streets bore up and down and around corners the smell of things frying. The dining-room windows of all the houses threw bright patches on the snow of the side-yards; the windows of other rooms, except those of the kitchens, were dark, for the rule of the place was Puritanical in thrift, as in all things; and the good housekeepers disputed every record of the meters with unhappy gas-collectors.
There was no better housekeeper in town than Mrs. Louden, nor a thriftier, but hers was one of the few houses in Canaan, that evening, which
That might not have been thought a cheerful feast for Joe Louden. The fatted calf was upon the board, but it had not been provided for the prodigal, who, in this case, was the brother that stayed at home: the fête rewarded the good brother, who had been in strange lands, and the good one had found much honor in his wanderings, as he carelessly let it appear. Mrs. Louden brightened inexpressibly whenever Eugene spoke of himself, and consequently she glowed most of the time. Her husband— a heavy, melancholy, silent man with a grizzled beard and no mustache—lowered at Joe throughout the meal, but appeared to take a strange comfort in his step-son's elegance and polish. Eugene wore new evening clothes and was lustrous to eye and ear.
Joe escaped as soon as he could, though not before the count of his later sins had been set before Eugene in detail, in mass, and in all of their depth, breadth, and thickness. His father spoke but once, after nodding heavily to confirm all points of Mrs. Louden's recital.
"You better use any influence you've got with your brother,'' he said to Eugene, "to make him come to time. I can't do anything with him. If he gets in trouble, he needn't come to me! I'll never help him again. I'm tired of it!''
Eugene glanced twinklingly at the outcast. "I didn't know he was such a roarer as all that!'' he said, lightly, not taking Joe as of enough consequence to be treated as a sinner.
This encouraged Mrs. Louden to pathos upon the subject of her shame before other women when Joe happened to be mentioned, and the supper was finished with the topic. Joe slipped away through the kitchen, sneakingly, and climbed the back fence. In the alley he lit a cheap cigarette, and thrusting his hands into his pockets and shivering violently—for he had no overcoat,—walked away singing to himself, "A Spanish cavalier stood in his retreat,'' his teeth affording an appropriate though involuntary castanet accompaniment.
His movements throughout the earlier part of that evening are of uncertain report. It is known that he made a partial payment of forty-five cents at a second-hand book-store for a number of volumes— Grindstaff on Torts and some others—which he had negotiated on the instalment system; it is also believed that he won twenty-eight cents play-
It was not to play eavesdropper upon any of these that the uninvited Joe had come. He was not there to listen, and it is possible that, had the curtains of other windows afforded him the chance to behold the dance, he might not have risked the dangers of his present position. He had not the slightest interest in the whispered coquetries that he heard; he watched only to catch now and then,
"You have changed, I think, since last summer,'' he heard her say, reflectively.
"For the worse, ma chérie?'' Joe's expression might have been worth seeing when Eugene said "ma chérie,'' for it was known in the Louden household that Mr. Bantry had failed to pass his examination in the French language.
"No,'' she answered. "But you have seen so much and accomplished so much since then. You have become so polished and so—'' She paused,
"No. I want you to say it,'' he returned, confidently, and his confidence was fully justified, for she said:
"Well, then, I mean that you have become so thoroughly a man of the world. Now I've said it! You are offended—aren't you?''
"Not at all, not at all,'' replied Mr. Bantry, preventing by a masterful effort his pleasure from showing in his face. "Though I suppose you mean to imply that I'm rather wicked.''
"Oh no,'' said Mamie, with profound admiration, "not exactly wicked.''
"University life is fast nowadays,'' Eugene admitted. "It's difficult not to be drawn into it!''
"And I suppose you look down on poor little Canaan now, and everybody in it!''
"Oh no,'' he laughed, indulgently. "Not at all, not at all! I find it very amusing.''
"All of it?''
"Not you,'' he answered, becoming very grave.
"Honestly—don't you?'' Her young voice trembled a little.
"Honestly—indeed—truly—'' Eugene leaned very close to her and the words were barely audible.
"You know I don't!''
"Then I'm—glad,'' she whispered, and Joe saw
Joe heard her little high heels tapping gayly towards the window, followed by the heavier tread of Eugene, but he did not watch them go.
He lay on his back, with the hand that had touched Mamie's scarf pressed across his closed eyes.
The music of that waltz was of the old-fashioned swingingly sorrowful sort, and it would be hard to say how long it was after that before the boy could hear the air played without a recurrence of the bitterness of that moment. The rhythmical pathos of the violins was in such accord with a faint sound of weeping which he heard near him, presently, that for a little while he believed this sound to be part of the music and part of himself. Then it became more distinct, and he raised himself on one elbow to look about.
Very close to him, sitting upon the divan in the shadow, was a girl wearing a dress of beautiful silk. She was crying softly, her face in her hands.
OLD HOPES The Conquest of Canaan | ||