Chapter 2

by William Dean Howells

　　"How can I tell? He seemed just about as much struck up on me. Anyway,he paid me as much attention as he did her. Perhaps it's more the way,now, to notice the mother than it used to be."Lapham ventured no conjecture, but asked, as he had asked already, whothe people were.Mrs. Lapham repeated their name. Lapham nodded his head. "Do you knowthem? What business is he in?""I guess he ain't in anything," said Lapham."They were very nice," said Mrs. Lapham impartially."Well, they'd ought to be," returned the Colonel. "Never done anythingelse.""They didn't seem stuck up," urged his wife."They'd no need to--with you. I could buy him and sell him, twiceover."This answer satisfied Mrs. Lapham rather with the fact than with herhusband. "Well, I guess I wouldn't brag, Silas," she said.In the winter the ladies of this family, who returned to town verylate, came to call on Mrs. Lapham. They were again very polite. Butthe mother let drop, in apology for their calling almost at nightfall,that the coachman had not known the way exactly."Nearly all our friends are on the New Land or on the Hill."There was a barb in this that rankled after the ladies had gone; and oncomparing notes with her daughter, Mrs. Lapham found that a barb hadbeen left to rankle in her mind also."They said they had never been in this part of the town before."Upon a strict search of her memory, Irene could not report that thefact had been stated with anything like insinuation, but it was thatwhich gave it a more penetrating effect."Oh, well, of course," said Lapham, to whom these facts were referred."Those sort of people haven't got much business up our way, and theydon't come. It's a fair thing all round. We don't trouble the Hill orthe New Land much.""We know where they are," suggested his wife thoughtfully."Yes," assented the Colonel. "I know where they are. I've got a lotof land over on the Back Bay.""You have?" eagerly demanded his wife."Want me to build on it?" he asked in reply, with a quizzical smile."I guess we can get along here for a while."This was at night. In the morning Mrs. Lapham said--"I suppose we ought to do the best we can for the children, in everyway.""I supposed we always had," replied her husband."Yes, we have, according to our light.""Have you got some new light?""I don't know as it's light. But if the girls are going to keep onliving in Boston and marry here, I presume we ought to try to get theminto society, some way; or ought to do something.""Well, who's ever done more for their children than we have?" demandedLapham, with a pang at the thought that he could possibly have beenout-done. "Don't they have everything they want? Don't they dress justas you say? Don't you go everywhere with 'em? Is there ever anythinggoing on that's worth while that they don't see it or hear it? I don'tknow what you mean. Why don't you get them into society? There's moneyenough!""There's got to be something besides money, I guess," said Mrs. Lapham,with a hopeless sigh. "I presume we didn't go to work just the rightway about their schooling. We ought to have got them into some schoolwhere they'd have got acquainted with city girls--girls who could helpthem along.""Nearly everybody at Miss Smillie's was from some where else.""Well, it's pretty late to think about that now," grumbled Lapham."And we've always gone our own way, and not looked out for the future.We ought to have gone out more, and had people come to the house.Nobody comes.""Well, is that my fault? I guess nobody ever makes people welcomer.""We ought to have invited company more.""Why don't you do it now? If it's for the girls, I don't care if youhave the house full all the while."Mrs. Lapham was forced to a confession full of humiliation. "I don'tknow who to ask.""Well, you can't expect me to tell you.""No; we're both country people, and we've kept our country ways, and wedon't, either of us, know what to do. You've had to work so hard, andyour luck was so long coming, and then it came with such a rush, thatwe haven't had any chance to learn what to do with it. It's just thesame with Irene's looks; I didn't expect she was ever going to haveany, she WAS such a plain child, and, all at once, she's blazed outthis way. As long as it was Pen that didn't seem to care for society,I didn't give much mind to it. But I can see it's going to bedifferent with Irene. I don't believe but what we're in the wrongneighbourhood.""Well," said the Colonel, "there ain't a prettier lot on the Back Baythan mine. It's on the water side of Beacon, and it's twenty-eightfeet wide and a hundred and fifty deep. Let's build on it."Mrs. Lapham was silent a while. "No," she said finally; "we've alwaysgot along well enough here, and I guess we better stay."At breakfast she said casually: "Girls, how would you like to have yourfather build on the New Land?"The girls said they did not know. It was more convenient to thehorse-cars where they were.Mrs. Lapham stole a look of relief at her husband, and nothing more wassaid of the matter.The mother of the family who had called upon Mrs. Lapham brought herhusband's cards, and when Mrs. Lapham returned the visit she was insome trouble about the proper form of acknowledging the civility. TheColonel had no card but a business card, which advertised the principaldepot and the several agencies of the mineral paint; and Mrs. Laphamdoubted, till she wished to goodness that she had never seen nor heardof those people, whether to ignore her husband in the transactionaltogether, or to write his name on her own card. She decided finallyupon this measure, and she had the relief of not finding the family athome. As far as she could judge, Irene seemed to suffer a littledisappointment from the fact.For several months there was no communication between the families.Then there came to Nankeen Square a lithographed circular from thepeople on the Hill, signed in ink by the mother, and affording Mrs.Lapham an opportunity to subscribe for a charity of undeniable meritand acceptability. She submitted it to her husband, who promptly drewa cheque for five hundred dollars.She tore it in two. "I will take a cheque for a hundred, Silas," shesaid."Why?" he asked, looking up guiltily at her."Because a hundred is enough; and I don't want to show off before them.""Oh, I thought may be you did. Well, Pert," he added, having satisfiedhuman nature by the preliminary thrust, "I guess you're about right.When do you want I should begin to build on Beacon Street?" He handedher the new cheque, where she stood over him, and then leaned back inhis chair and looked up at her."I don't want you should begin at all. What do you mean, Silas?" Sherested against the side of his desk."Well, I don't know as I mean anything. But shouldn't you like tobuild? Everybody builds, at least once in a lifetime.""Where is your lot? They say it's unhealthy, over there."Up to a certain point in their prosperity Mrs. Lapham had kept strictaccount of all her husband's affairs; but as they expanded, and ceasedto be of the retail nature with which women successfully grapple, theintimate knowledge of them made her nervous. There was a period inwhich she felt that they were being ruined, but the crash had not come;and, since his great success, she had abandoned herself to a blindconfidence in her husband's judgment, which she had hitherto feltneeded her revision. He came and went, day by day, unquestioned. Hebought and sold and got gain. She knew that he would tell her if everthings went wrong, and he knew that she would ask him whenever she wasanxious."It ain't unhealthy where I've bought," said Lapham, rather enjoyingher insinuation. "I looked after that when I was trading; and I guessit's about as healthy on the Back Bay as it is here, anyway. I gotthat lot for you, Pert; I thought you'd want to build on the Back Baysome day.""Pshaw!" said Mrs. Lapham, deeply pleased inwardly, but not going toshow it, as she would have said. "I guess you want to build thereyourself." She insensibly got a little nearer to her husband. Theyliked to talk to each other in that blunt way; it is the New Englandway of expressing perfect confidence and tenderness."Well, I guess I do," said Lapham, not insisting upon the unselfishview of the matter. "I always did like the water side of Beacon.There ain't a sightlier place in the world for a house. And some daythere's bound to be a drive-way all along behind them houses, betweenthem and the water, and then a lot there is going to be worth the goldthat will cover it--COIN. I've had offers for that lot, Pert, twiceover what I give for it. Yes, I have. Don't you want to ride overthere some afternoon with me and see it?" "I'm satisfied where we be,Si," said Mrs. Lapham, recurring to the parlance of her youth in herpathos at her husband's kindness. She sighed anxiously, for she feltthe trouble a woman knows in view of any great change. They had oftentalked of altering over the house in which they lived, but they hadnever come to it; and they had often talked of building, but it hadalways been a house in the country that they had thought of. "I wishyou had sold that lot.""I hain't," said the colonel briefly."I don't know as I feel much like changing our way of living.""Guess we could live there pretty much as we live here. There's allkinds of people on Beacon Street; you mustn't think they're allbig-bugs. I know one party that lives in a house he built to sell, andhis wife don't keep any girl. You can have just as much style there asyou want, or just as little. I guess we live as well as most of 'emnow, and set as good a table. And if you come to style, I don't knowas anybody has got more of a right to put it on than what we have.""Well, I don't want to build on Beacon Street, Si," said Mrs. Laphamgently."Just as you please, Persis. I ain't in any hurry to leave."Mrs. Lapham stood flapping the cheque which she held in her right handagainst the edge of her left.The Colonel still sat looking up at her face, and watching the effectof the poison of ambition which he had artfully instilled into her mind.She sighed again--a yielding sigh. "What are you going to do thisafternoon?""I'm going to take a turn on the Brighton road," said the Colonel."I don't believe but what I should like to go along," said his wife."All right. You hain't ever rode behind that mare yet, Pert, and Iwant you should see me let her out once. They say the snow's allpacked down already, and the going is A 1."At four o'clock in the afternoon, with a cold, red winter sunset beforethem, the Colonel and his wife were driving slowly down Beacon Streetin the light, high-seated cutter, where, as he said, they were a prettytight fit. He was holding the mare in till the time came to speed her,and the mare was springily jolting over the snow, looking intelligentlyfrom side to side, and cocking this ear and that, while from hernostrils, her head tossing easily, she blew quick, irregular whiffs ofsteam."Gay, ain't she?" proudly suggested the Colonel."She IS gay," assented his wife.They met swiftly dashing sleighs, and let them pass on either hand,down the beautiful avenue narrowing with an admirably even sky-line inthe perspective. They were not in a hurry. The mare jounced easilyalong, and they talked of the different houses on either side of theway. They had a crude taste in architecture, and they admired theworst. There were women's faces at many of the handsome windows, andonce in a while a young man on the pavement caught his hat suddenlyfrom his head, and bowed in response to some salutation from within."I don't think our girls would look very bad behind one of those bigpanes," said the Colonel."No," said his wife dreamily."Where's the YOUNG man? Did he come with them?""No; he was to spend the winter with a friend of his that has a ranchin Texas. I guess he's got to do something.""Yes; gentlemaning as a profession has got to play out in a generationor two."Neither of them spoke of the lot, though Lapham knew perfectly wellwhat his wife had come with him for, and she was aware that he knew it.The time came when he brought the mare down to a walk, and then slowedup almost to a stop, while they both turned their heads to the rightand looked at the vacant lot, through which showed the frozen stretchof the Back Bay, a section of the Long Bridge, and the roofs andsmoke-stacks of Charlestown."Yes, it's sightly," said Mrs. Lapham, lifting her hand from the reins,on which she had unconsciously laid it.Lapham said nothing, but he let the mare out a little.The sleighs and cutters were thickening round them. On the Milldam itbecame difficult to restrict the mare to the long, slow trot into whichhe let her break. The beautiful landscape widened to right and left ofthem, with the sunset redder and redder, over the low, irregular hillsbefore them. They crossed the Milldam into Longwood; and here, fromthe crest of the first upland, stretched two endless lines, in whichthousands of cutters went and came. Some of the drivers were alreadyspeeding their horses, and these shot to and fro on inner lines,between the slowly moving vehicles on either side of the road. Hereand there a burly mounted policeman, bulging over the pommel of hisM'Clellan saddle, jolted by, silently gesturing and directing thecourse, and keeping it all under the eye of the law. It was whatBartley Hubbard called "a carnival of fashion and gaiety on theBrighton road," in his account of it. But most of the people in thoseelegant sleighs and cutters had so little the air of the great worldthat one knowing it at all must have wondered where they and theirmoney came from; and the gaiety of the men, at least, was expressed,like that of Colonel Lapham, in a grim almost fierce, alertness; thewomen wore an air of courageous apprehension. At a certain point theColonel said, "I'm going to let her out, Pert," and he lifted and thendropped the reins lightly on the mare's back.She understood the signal, and, as an admirer said, "she laid down toher work." Nothing in the immutable iron of Lapham's face betrayed hissense of triumph as the mare left everything behind her on the road.Mrs. Lapham, if she felt fear, was too busy holding her flying wrapsabout her, and shielding her face from the scud of ice flung from themare's heels, to betray it; except for the rush of her feet, the marewas as silent as the people behind her; the muscles of her back andthighs worked more and more swiftly, like some mechanism responding toan alien force, and she shot to the end of the course, grazing ahundred encountered and rival sledges in her passage, but unmolested bythe policemen, who probably saw that the mare and the Colonel knew whatthey were about, and, at any rate, were not the sort of men tointerfere with trotting like that. At the end of the heat Lapham drewher in, and turned off on a side street into Brookline."Tell you what, Pert," he said, as if they had been quietly joggingalong, with time for uninterrupted thought since he last spoke, "I'veabout made up my mind to build on that lot.""All right, Silas," said Mrs. Lapham; "I suppose you know what you'reabout. Don't build on it for me, that's all."When she stood in the hall at home, taking off her things, she said tothe girls, who were helping her, "Some day your father will get killedwith that mare.""Did he speed her?" asked Penelope, the elder.She was named after her grandmother, who had in her turn inherited fromanother ancestress the name of the Homeric matron whose peculiar meritswon her a place even among the Puritan Faiths, Hopes, Temperances, andPrudences. Penelope was the girl whose odd serious face had struckBartley Hubbard in the photograph of the family group Lapham showed himon the day of the interview. Her large eyes, like her hair, werebrown; they had the peculiar look of near-sighted eyes which is calledmooning; her complexion was of a dark pallor.Her mother did not reply to a question which might be consideredalready answered. "He says he's going to build on that lot of his,"she next remarked, unwinding the long veil which she had tied round herneck to hold her bonnet on. She put her hat and cloak on the halltable, to be carried upstairs later, and they all went in to tea:creamed oysters, birds, hot biscuit, two kinds of cake, and dishes ofstewed and canned fruit and honey. The women dined alone at one, andthe Colonel at the same hour down-town. But he liked a good hot mealwhen he got home in the evening. The house flared with gas; and theColonel, before he sat down, went about shutting the registers, throughwhich a welding heat came voluming up from the furnace."I'll be the death of that darkey YET," he said, "if he don't stopmaking on such a fire. The only way to get any comfort out of yourfurnace is to take care of it yourself.""Well," answered his wife from behind the teapot, as he sat down attable with this threat, "there's nothing to prevent you, Si. And youcan shovel the snow too, if you want to--till you get over to BeaconStreet, anyway.""I guess I can keep my own sidewalk on Beacon Street clean, if I takethe notion.""I should like to see you at it," retorted his wife."Well, you keep a sharp lookout, and may be you will."Their taunts were really expressions of affectionate pride in eachother. They liked to have it, give and take, that way, as they wouldhave said, right along."A man can be a man on Beacon Street as well as anywhere, I guess.""Well, I'll do the wash, as I used to in Lumberville," said Mrs.Lapham. "I presume you'll let me have set tubs, Si. You know I ain'tso young any more." She passed Irene a cup of Oolong tea,--none of themhad a sufficiently cultivated palate for Sou-chong,--and the girlhanded it to her father. "Papa," she asked, "you don't really meanthat you're going to build over there?""Don't I? You wait and see," said the Colonel, stirring his tea."I don't believe you do," pursued the girl."Is that so? I presume you'd hate to have me. Your mother does." Hesaid DOOS, of course.Penelope took the word. "I go in for it. I don't see any use in notenjoying money, if you've got it to enjoy. That's what it's for, Isuppose; though you mightn't always think so." She had a slow, quaintway of talking, that seemed a pleasant personal modification of someancestral Yankee drawl, and her voice was low and cozy, and so far frombeing nasal that it was a little hoarse."I guess the ayes has it, Pen," said her father. "How would it do tolet Irene and your mother stick in the old place here, and us go intothe new house?" At times the Colonel's grammar failed him.The matter dropped, and the Laphams lived on as before, with jokingrecurrences to the house on the water side of Beacon. The Colonelseemed less in earnest than any of them about it; but that was his way,his girls said; you never could tell when he really meant a thing.