Chapter 18

by William Dean Howells

　　"Well, hold on, now!" said Lapham. "What DO you want to talk about?I'm listening."His wife began, "Why, it's just this, Silas Lapham!" and then she brokeoff to say, "Well, you may wait, now--starting me wrong, when it's hardenough anyway."Lapham silently turned his whip over and over in his hand and waited."Did you suppose," she asked at last, "that that young Corey had beencoming to see Irene?""I don't know what I supposed," replied Lapham sullenly. "You alwayssaid so." He looked sharply at her under his lowering brows."Well, he hasn't," said Mrs. Lapham; and she replied to the frown thatblackened on her husband's face. "And I can tell you what, if you takeit in that way I shan't speak another word.""Who's takin' it what way?" retorted Lapham savagely. "What are youdrivin' at?""I want you should promise that you'll hear me out quietly.""I'll hear you out if you'll give me a chance. I haven't said a wordyet.""Well, I'm not going to have you flying into forty furies, and lookinglike a perfect thunder-cloud at the very start. I've had to bear it,and you've got to bear it too.""Well, let me have a chance at it, then.""It's nothing to blame anybody about, as I can see, and the onlyquestion is, what's the best thing to do about it. There's only onething we can do; for if he don't care for the child, nobody wants tomake him. If he hasn't been coming to see her, he hasn't, and that'sall there is to it.""No, it ain't!" exclaimed Lapham."There!" protested his wife."If he hasn't been coming to see her, what HAS he been coming for?""He's been coming to see Pen!" cried the wife. "NOW are yousatisfied?" Her tone implied that he had brought it all upon them; butat the sight of the swift passions working in his face to a perfectcomprehension of the whole trouble, she fell to trembling, and herbroken voice lost all the spurious indignation she had put into it. "OSilas! what are we going to do about it? I'm afraid it'll kill Irene."Lapham pulled off the loose driving-glove from his right hand with thefingers of his left, in which the reins lay. He passed it over hisforehead, and then flicked from it the moisture it had gathered there.He caught his breath once or twice, like a man who meditates a strugglewith superior force and then remains passive in its grasp.His wife felt the need of comforting him, as she had felt the need ofafflicting him. "I don't say but what it can be made to come out allright in the end. All I say is, I don't see my way clear yet.""What makes you think he likes Pen?" he asked quietly."He told her so last night, and she told me this morning. Was he atthe office to-day?""Yes, he was there. I haven't been there much myself. He didn't sayanything to me. Does Irene know?""No; I left her getting ready to go out shopping. She wants to get apin like the one Nanny Corey had on." "O my Lord!" groaned Lapham."It's been Pen from the start, I guess, or almost from the start. Idon't say but what he was attracted some by Irene at the very first;but I guess it's been Pen ever since he saw her; and we've taken upwith a notion, and blinded ourselves with it. Time and again I've hadmy doubts whether he cared for Irene any; but I declare to goodness,when he kept coming, I never hardly thought of Pen, and I couldn't helpbelieving at last he DID care for Irene. Did it ever strike you hemight be after Pen?""No. I took what you said. I supposed you knew.""Do you blame me, Silas?" she asked timidly."No. What's the use of blaming? We don't either of us want anything butthe children's good. What's it all of it for, if it ain't for that?That's what we've both slaved for all our lives.""Yes, I know. Plenty of people LOSE their children," she suggested."Yes, but that don't comfort me any. I never was one to feel goodbecause another man felt bad. How would you have liked it if some onehad taken comfort because his boy lived when ours died? No, I can't doit. And this is worse than death, someways. That comes and it goes;but this looks as if it was one of those things that had come to stay.The way I look at it, there ain't any hope for anybody. Suppose wedon't want Pen to have him; will that help Irene any, if he don't wanther? Suppose we don't want to let him have either; does that helpeither!""You talk," exclaimed Mrs. Lapham, "as if our say was going to settleit. Do you suppose that Penelope Lapham is a girl to take up with afellow that her sister is in love with, and that she always thought wasin love with her sister, and go off and be happy with him? Don't youbelieve but what it would come back to her, as long as she breathed thebreath of life, how she'd teased her about him, as I've heard Pen teaseIrene, and helped to make her think he was in love with her, by showingthat she thought so herself? It's ridiculous!"Lapham seemed quite beaten down by this argument. His huge head hungforward over his breast; the reins lay loose in his moveless hand; themare took her own way. At last he lifted his face and shut his heavyjaws."Well?" quavered his wife."Well," he answered, "if he wants her, and she wants him, I don't seewhat that's got to do with it." He looked straight forward, and not athis wife.She laid her hands on the reins. "Now, you stop right here, SilasLapham! If I thought that--if I really believed you could be willing tobreak that poor child's heart, and let Pen disgrace herself by marryinga man that had as good as killed her sister, just because you wantedBromfield Corey's son for a son-in-law----"Lapham turned his face now, and gave her a look. "You had better NOTbelieve that, Persis! Get up!" he called to the mare, without glancingat her, and she sprang forward. "I see you've got past being any useto yourself on this subject.""Hello!" shouted a voice in front of him. "Where the devil you goin'to?""Do you want to KILL somebody!" shrieked his wife.There was a light crash, and the mare recoiled her length, andseparated their wheels from those of the open buggy in front whichLapham had driven into. He made his excuses to the occupant; and theaccident relieved the tension of their feelings, and left them far fromthe point of mutual injury which they had reached in their commontrouble and their unselfish will for their children's good.It was Lapham who resumed the talk. "I'm afraid we can't either of ussee this thing in the right light. We're too near to it. I wish tothe Lord there was somebody to talk to about it.""Yes," said his wife; "but there ain't anybody.""Well, I dunno," suggested Lapham, after a moment; "why not talk to theminister of your church? May be he could see some way out of it."Mrs. Lapham shook her head hopelessly. "It wouldn't do. I've nevertaken up my connection with the church, and I don't feel as if I'd gotany claim on him.""If he's anything of a man, or anything of a preacher, you HAVE got aclaim on him," urged Lapham; and he spoiled his argument by adding,"I've contributed enough MONEY to his church.""Oh, that's nothing," said Mrs. Lapham. "I ain't well enoughacquainted with Dr. Langworthy, or else I'm TOO well. No; if I was toask any one, I should want to ask a total stranger. But what's theuse, Si? Nobody could make us see it any different from what it is, andI don't know as I should want they should."It blotted out the tender beauty of the day, and weighed down theirhearts ever more heavily within them. They ceased to talk of it ahundred times, and still came back to it. They drove on and on. Itbegan to be late. "I guess we better go back, Si," said his wife; andas he turned without speaking, she pulled her veil down and began tocry softly behind it, with low little broken sobs.Lapham started the mare up and drove swiftly homeward. At last hiswife stopped crying and began trying to find her pocket. "Here, takemine, Persis," he said kindly, offering her his handkerchief, and shetook it and dried her eyes with it. "There was one of those fellowsthere the other night," he spoke again, when his wife leaned backagainst the cushions in peaceful despair, "that I liked the looks ofabout as well as any man I ever saw. I guess he was a pretty good man.It was that Mr. Sewell."He looked at his wife, but she did not say anything. "Persis," heresumed, "I can't bear to go back with nothing settled in our minds. Ican't bear to let you.""We must, Si," returned his wife, with gentle gratitude. Laphamgroaned. "Where does he live?" she asked."On Bolingbroke Street. He gave me his number.""Well, it wouldn't do any good. What could he say to us?""Oh, I don't know as he could say anything," said Lapham hopelessly;and neither of them said anything more till they crossed the Milldamand found themselves between the rows of city houses."Don't drive past the new house, Si," pleaded his wife. "I couldn'tbear to see it. Drive--drive up Bolingbroke Street. We might as wellsee where he DOES live.""Well," said Lapham. He drove along slowly. "That's the place," hesaid finally, stopping the mare and pointing with his whip."It wouldn't do any good," said his wife, in a tone which he understoodas well as he understood her words. He turned the mare up to thecurbstone."You take the reins a minute," he said, handing them to his wife.He got down and rang the bell, and waited till the door opened; then hecame back and lifted his wife out. "He's in," he said.He got the hitching-weight from under the buggy-seat and made it fastto the mare's bit."Do you think she'll stand with that?" asked Mrs. Lapham."I guess so. If she don't, no matter.""Ain't you afraid she'll take cold," she persisted, trying to makedelay."Let her!" said Lapham. He took his wife's trembling hand under hisarm, and drew her to the door."He'll think we're crazy," she murmured in her broken pride."Well, we ARE," said Lapham. "Tell him we'd like to see him alone awhile," he said to the girl who was holding the door ajar for him, andshe showed him into the reception-room, which had been the Protestantconfessional for many burdened souls before their time, coming, as theydid, with the belief that they were bowed down with the only miserylike theirs in the universe; for each one of us must suffer long tohimself before he can learn that he is but one in a great community ofwretchedness which has been pitilessly repeating itself from thefoundation of the world.They were as loath to touch their trouble when the minister came in asif it were their disgrace; but Lapham did so at last, and, with asimple dignity which he had wanted in his bungling and apologeticapproaches, he laid the affair clearly before the minister'scompassionate and reverent eye. He spared Corey's name, but he did notpretend that it was not himself and his wife and their daughters whowere concerned."I don't know as I've got any right to trouble you with this thing," hesaid, in the moment while Sewell sat pondering the case, "and I don'tknow as I've got any warrant for doing it. But, as I told my wifehere, there was something about you--I don't know whether it wasanything you SAID exactly--that made me feel as if you could help us.I guess I didn't say so much as that to her; but that's the way I felt.And here we are. And if it ain't all right.""Surely," said Sewell, "it's all right. I thank you for coming--fortrusting your trouble to me. A time comes to every one of us when wecan't help ourselves, and then we must get others to help us. Ifpeople turn to me at such a time, I feel sure that I was put into theworld for something--if nothing more than to give my pity, my sympathy."The brotherly words, so plain, so sincere, had a welcome in them thatthese poor outcasts of sorrow could not doubt."Yes," said Lapham huskily, and his wife began to wipe the tears againunder her veil.Sewell remained silent, and they waited till he should speak. "We canbe of use to one another here, because we can always be wiser for someone else than we can for ourselves. We can see another's sins anderrors in a more merciful light--and that is always a fairerlight--than we can our own; and we can look more sanely at others'afflictions." He had addressed these words to Lapham; now he turned tohis wife. "If some one had come to you, Mrs. Lapham, in just thisperplexity, what would you have thought?""I don't know as I understand you," faltered Mrs. Lapham.Sewell repeated his words, and added, "I mean, what do you think someone else ought to do in your place?""Was there ever any poor creatures in such a strait before?" she asked,with pathetic incredulity."There's no new trouble under the sun," said the minister."Oh, if it was any one else, I should say--I should say--Why, ofcourse! I should say that their duty was to let----" She paused."One suffer instead of three, if none is to blame?" suggested Sewell."That's sense, and that's justice. It's the economy of pain whichnaturally suggests itself, and which would insist upon itself, if wewere not all perverted by traditions which are the figment of theshallowest sentimentality. Tell me, Mrs. Lapham, didn't this come intoyour mind when you first learned how matters stood?""Why, yes, it flashed across me. But I didn't think it could be right.""And how was it with you, Mr. Lapham?""Why, that's what I thought, of course. But I didn't see my way----""No," cried the minister, "we are all blinded, we are all weakened by afalse ideal of self-sacrifice. It wraps us round with its meshes, andwe can't fight our way out of it. Mrs. Lapham, what made you feel thatit might be better for three to suffer than one?""Why, she did herself. I know she would die sooner than take him awayfrom her.""I supposed so!" cried the minister bitterly. "And yet she is asensible girl, your daughter?""She has more common-sense----""Of course! But in such a case we somehow think it must be wrong to useour common-sense. I don't know where this false ideal comes from,unless it comes from the novels that befool and debauch almost everyintelligence in some degree. It certainly doesn't come fromChristianity, which instantly repudiates it when confronted with it.Your daughter believes, in spite of her common-sense, that she ought tomake herself and the man who loves her unhappy, in order to assure thelife-long wretchedness of her sister, whom he doesn't love, simplybecause her sister saw him and fancied him first! And I'm sorry to saythat ninety-nine young people out of a hundred--oh, nine hundred andninety-nine out of a thousand!--would consider that noble and beautifuland heroic; whereas you know at the bottom of your hearts that it wouldbe foolish and cruel and revolting. You know what marriage is! Andwhat it must be without love on both sides."The minister had grown quite heated and red in the face."I lose all patience!" he went on vehemently. "This poor child ofyours has somehow been brought to believe that it will kill her sisterif her sister does not have what does not belong to her, and what it isnot in the power of all the world, or any soul in the world, to giveher. Her sister will suffer--yes, keenly!--in heart and in pride; butshe will not die. You will suffer too, in your tenderness for her; butyou must do your duty. You must help her to give up. You would beguilty if you did less. Keep clearly in mind that you are doing right,and the only possible good. And God be with you!"