Chapter 19

by William Dean Howells

　　"Irene!" she said harshly, "there is something you have got to bear.It's a mistake we've all made. He don't care anything for you. Henever did. He told Pen so last night. He cares for her."The sentences had fallen like blows. But the girl had taken themwithout flinching. She stood up immovable, but the delicate rose-lightof her complexion went out and left her colourless. She did not offerto speak."Why don't you say something?" cried her mother. "Do you want to killme, Irene?""Why should I want to hurt you, mamma?" the girl replied steadily, butin an alien voice. "There's nothing to say. I want to see Pen aminute."She turned and left the room. As she mounted the stairs that led toher own and her sister's rooms on the floor above, her motherhelplessly followed. Irene went first to her own room at the front ofthe house, and then came out leaving the door open and the gas flaringbehind her. The mother could see that she had tumbled many things outof the drawers of her bureau upon the marble top.She passed her mother, where she stood in the entry. "You can cometoo, if you want to, mamma," she said.She opened Penelope's door without knocking, and went in. Penelope satat the window, as in the morning. Irene did not go to her; but shewent and laid a gold hair-pin on her bureau, and said, without lookingat her, "There's a pin that I got to-day, because it was like hissister's. It won't become a dark person so well, but you can have it."She stuck a scrap of paper in the side of Penelope's mirror. "There'sthat account of Mr. Stanton's ranch. You'll want to read it, Ipresume."She laid a withered boutonniere on the bureau beside the pin. "There'shis button-hole bouquet. He left it by his plate, and I stole it."She had a pine-shaving fantastically tied up with a knot of ribbon, inher hand. She held it a moment; then, looking deliberately atPenelope, she went up to her, and dropped it in her lap without a word.She turned, and, advancing a few steps, tottered and seemed about tofall.Her mother sprang forward with an imploring cry, "O 'Rene, 'Rene,'Rene!"Irene recovered herself before her mother could reach her. "Don'ttouch me," she said icily. "Mamma, I'm going to put on my things. Iwant papa to walk with me. I'm choking here.""I--I can't let you go out, Irene, child," began her mother."You've got to," replied the girl. "Tell papa ta hurry his supper.""O poor soul! He doesn't want any supper. HE knows it too.""I don't want to talk about that. Tell him to get ready."She left them once more.Mrs. Lapham turned a hapless glance upon Penelope."Go and tell him, mother," said the girl. "I would, if I could. Ifshe can walk, let her. It's the only thing for her." She sat still;she did not even brush to the floor the fantastic thing that lay in herlap, and that sent up faintly the odour of the sachet powder with whichIrene liked to perfume her boxes.Lapham went out with the unhappy child, and began to talk with her,crazily, incoherently, enough.She mercifully stopped him. "Don't talk, papa. I don't want any oneshould talk with me."He obeyed, and they walked silently on and on. In their aimless coursethey reached the new house on the water side of Beacon, and she madehim stop, and stood looking up at it. The scaffolding which had solong defaced the front was gone, and in the light of the gas-lampbefore it all the architectural beauty of the facade was suggested, andmuch of the finely felt detail was revealed. Seymour had pretty nearlysatisfied himself in that rich facade; certainly Lapham had not stintedhim of the means."Well," said the girl, "I shall never live in it," and she began towalk on.Lapham's sore heart went down, as he lumbered heavily after her. "Ohyes, you will, Irene. You'll have lots of good times there yet.""No," she answered, and said nothing more about it. They had nottalked of their trouble at all, and they did not speak of it now.Lapham understood that she was trying to walk herself weary, and he wasglad to hold his peace and let her have her way. She halted him oncemore before the red and yellow lights of an apothecary's window."Isn't there something they give you to make you sleep?" she askedvaguely. "I've got to sleep to-night!"Lapham trembled. "I guess you don't want anything, Irene.""Yes, I do! Get me something!" she retorted wilfully. "If you don't, Ishall die. I MUST sleep."They went in, and Lapham asked for something to make a nervous personsleep. Irene stood poring over the show-case full of brushes andtrinkets, while the apothecary put up the bromide, which he guessedwould be about the best thing. She did not show any emotion; her facewas like a stone, while her father's expressed the anguish of hissympathy. He looked as if he had not slept for a week; his fat eyelidsdrooped over his glassy eyes, and his cheeks and throat hung flaccid.He started as the apothecary's cat stole smoothly up and rubbed itselfagainst his leg; and it was to him that the man said, "You want to takea table-spoonful of that, as long as you're awake. I guess it won'ttake a great many to fetch you." "All right," said Lapham, and paid andwent out. "I don't know but I SHALL want some of it," he said, with ajoyless laugh.Irene came closer up to him and took his arm. He laid his heavy paw onher gloved fingers. After a while she said, "I want you should let mego up to Lapham to-morrow.""To Lapham? Why, to-morrow's Sunday, Irene! You can't go to-morrow.""Well, Monday, then. I can live through one day here.""Well," said the father passively. He made no pretence of asking herwhy she wished to go, nor any attempt to dissuade her."Give me that bottle," she said, when he opened the door at home forher, and she ran up to her own room.The next morning Irene came to breakfast with her mother; the Coloneland Penelope did not appear, and Mrs. Lapham looked sleep-broken andcareworn.The girl glanced at her. "Don't you fret about me, mamma," she said."I shall get along." She seemed herself as steady and strong as rock."I don't like to see you keeping up so, Irene," replied her mother."It'll be all the worse for you when you do break. Better give way alittle at the start.""I shan't break, and I've given way all I'm going to. I'm going toLapham to-morrow,--I want you should go with me, mamma,--and I guess Ican keep up one day here. All about it is, I don't want you should sayanything, or LOOK anything. And, whatever I do, I don't want youshould try to stop me. And, the first thing, I'm going to take herbreakfast up to her. Don't!" she cried, intercepting the protest onher mother's lips. "I shall not let it hurt Pen, if I can help it.She's never done a thing nor thought a thing to wrong me. I had to flyout at her last night; but that's all over now, and I know just whatI've got to bear."She had her way unmolested. She carried Penelope's breakfast to her,and omitted no care or attention that could make the sacrificecomplete, with an heroic pretence that she was performing no unusualservice. They did not speak, beyond her saying, in a clear dry note,"Here's your breakfast, Pen," and her sister's answering, hoarsely andtremulously, "Oh, thank you, Irene." And, though two or three timesthey turned their faces toward each other while Irene remained in theroom, mechanically putting its confusion to rights, their eyes did notmeet. Then Irene descended upon the other rooms, which she set inorder, and some of which she fiercely swept and dusted. She made thebeds; and she sent the two servants away to church as soon as they hadeaten their breakfast, telling them that she would wash their dishes.Throughout the morning her father and mother heard her about the workof getting dinner, with certain silences which represented the momentswhen she stopped and stood stock-still, and then, readjusting herburden, forced herself forward under it again.They sat alone in the family room, out of which their two girls seemedto have died. Lapham could not read his Sunday papers, and she had noheart to go to church, as she would have done earlier in life when introuble. Just then she was obscurely feeling that the church wassomehow to blame for that counsel of Mr. Sewell's on which they hadacted."I should like to know," she said, having brought the matter up,"whether he would have thought it was such a light matter if it hadbeen his own children. Do you suppose he'd have been so ready to acton his own advice if it HAD been?""He told us the right thing to do, Persis,--the only thing. Wecouldn't let it go on," urged her husband gently."Well, it makes me despise Pen! Irene's showing twice the characterthat she is, this very minute."The mother said this so that the father might defend her daughter toher. He did not fail. "Irene's got the easiest part, the way I lookat it. And you'll see that Pen'll know how to behave when the timecomes.""What do you want she should do?""I haven't got so far as that yet. What are we going to do aboutIrene?""What do you want Pen should do," repeated Mrs. Lapham, "when it comesto it?""Well, I don't want she should take him, for ONE thing," said Lapham.This seemed to satisfy Mrs. Lapham as to her husband, and she said indefence of Corey, "Why, I don't see what HE'S done. It's all been ourdoing.""Never mind that now. What about Irene?""She says she's going to Lapham to-morrow. She feels that she's got toget away somewhere. It's natural she should.""Yes, and I presume it will be about the best thing FOR her. Shall yougo with her?""Yes.""Well." He comfortlessly took up a newspaper again, and she rose with asigh, and went to her room to pack some things for the morrow's journey.After dinner, when Irene had cleared away the last trace of it inkitchen and dining-room with unsparing punctilio, she came downstairs,dressed to go out, and bade her father come to walk with her again. Itwas a repetition of the aimlessness of the last night's wanderings.They came back, and she got tea for them, and after that they heard herstirring about in her own room, as if she were busy about many things;but they did not dare to look in upon her, even after all the noiseshad ceased, and they knew she had gone to bed."Yes; it's a thing she's got to fight out by herself," said Mrs Lapham."I guess she'll get along," said Lapham. "But I don't want you shouldmisjudge Pen either. She's all right too. She ain't to blame.""Yes, I know. But I can't work round to it all at once. I shan'tmisjudge her, but you can't expect me to get over it right away.""Mamma," said Irene, when she was hurrying their departure the nextmorning, "what did she tell him when he asked her?""Tell him?" echoed the mother; and after a while she added, "She didn'ttell him anything.""Did she say anything, about me?""She said he mustn't come here any more."Irene turned and went into her sister's room. "Good-bye, Pen," shesaid, kissing her with an effect of not seeing or touching her. "Iwant you should tell him all about it. If he's half a man, he won'tgive up till he knows why you won't have him; and he has a right toknow.""It wouldn't make any difference. I couldn't have him after----""That's for you to say. But if you don't tell him about me, I will.""'Rene!" "Yes! You needn't say I cared for him. But you can say thatyou all thought he--cared for--me.""O Irene----""Don't!" Irene escaped from the arms that tried to cast themselvesabout her. "You are all right, Pen. You haven't done anything.You've helped me all you could. But I can't--yet."She went out of the room and summoned Mrs. Lapham with a sharp "Now,mamma!" and went on putting the last things into her trunks.The Colonel went to the station with them, and put them on the train.He got them a little compartment to themselves in the Pullman car; andas he stood leaning with his lifted hands against the sides of thedoorway, he tried to say something consoling and hopeful: "I guessyou'll have an easy ride, Irene. I don't believe it'll be dusty, any,after the rain last night.""Don't you stay till the train starts, papa," returned the girl, inrigid rejection of his futilities. "Get off, now.""Well, if you want I should," he said, glad to be able to please her inanything. He remained on the platform till the cars started. He sawIrene bustling about in the compartment, making her mother comfortablefor the journey; but Mrs. Lapham did not lift her head. The trainmoved off, and he went heavily back to his business.From time to time during the day, when he caught a glimpse of him,Corey tried to make out from his face whether he knew what had takenplace between him and Penelope. When Rogers came in about time ofclosing, and shut himself up with Lapham in his room, the young manremained till the two came out together and parted in theirsalutationless fashion.Lapham showed no surprise at seeing Corey still there, and merelyanswered, "Well!" when the young man said that he wished to speak withhim, and led the way back to his room.Corey shut the door behind them. "I only wish to speak to you in caseyou know of the matter already; for otherwise I'm bound by a promise.""I guess I know what you mean. It's about Penelope.""Yes, it's about Miss Lapham. I am greatly attached to her--you'llexcuse my saying it; I couldn't excuse myself if I were not.""Perfectly excusable," said Lapham. "It's all right.""Oh, I'm glad to hear you say that!" cried the young fellow joyfully."I want you to believe that this isn't a new thing or an unconsideredthing with me--though it seemed so unexpected to her."Lapham fetched a deep sigh. "It's all right as far as I'mconcerned--or her mother. We've both liked you first-rate.""Yes?""But there seems to be something in Penelope's mind--I don't know--"The Colonel consciously dropped his eyes."She referred to something--I couldn't make out what--but I hoped--Ihoped--that with your leave I might overcome it--the barrier--whateverit was. Miss Lapham--Penelope--gave me the hope--that Iwas--wasn't--indifferent to her----""Yes, I guess that's so," said Lapham. He suddenly lifted his head,and confronted the young fellow's honest face with his own face, sodifferent in its honesty. "Sure you never made up to any one else atthe same time?""NEVER! Who could imagine such a thing? If that's all, I can easily.""I don't say that's all, nor that that's it. I don't want you shouldgo upon that idea. I just thought, may be--you hadn't thought of it.""No, I certainly hadn't thought of it! Such a thing would have been soimpossible to me that I couldn't have thought of it; and it's soshocking to me now that I don't know what to say to it.""Well, don't take it too much to heart," said Lapham, alarmed at thefeeling he had excited; "I don't say she thought so. I was trying toguess--trying to----""If there is anything I can say or do to convince you----""Oh, it ain't necessary to say anything. I'm all right.""But Miss Lapham! I may see her again? I may try to convince herthat----"He stopped in distress, and Lapham afterwards told his wife that hekept seeing the face of Irene as it looked when he parted with her inthe car; and whenever he was going to say yes, he could not open hislips. At the same time he could not help feeling that Penelope had aright to what was her own, and Sewell's words came back to him.Besides, they had already put Irene to the worst suffering. Laphamcompromised, as he imagined. "You can come round to-night and see ME,if you want to," he said; and he bore grimly the gratitude that theyoung man poured out upon him.Penelope came down to supper and took her mother's place at the head ofthe table.Lapham sat silent in her presence as long as he could bear it. Then heasked, "How do you feel to-night, Pen?""Oh, like a thief," said the girl. "A thief that hasn't been arrestedyet."Lapham waited a while before he said, "Well, now, your mother and Iwant you should hold up on that a while.""It isn't for you to say. It's something I can't hold up on.""Yes, I guess you can. If I know what's happened, then what's happenedis a thing that nobody is to blame for. And we want you should makethe best of it and not the worst. Heigh? It ain't going to help Ireneany for you to hurt yourself--or anybody else; and I don't want youshould take up with any such crazy notion. As far as heard from, youhaven't stolen anything, and whatever you've got belongs to you.""Has he been speaking to you, father?""Your mother's been speaking to me.""Has HE been speaking to you?""That's neither here nor there.""Then he's broken his word, and I will never speak to him again!""If he was any such fool as to promise that he wouldn't talk to me on asubject"--Lapham drew a deep breath, and then made the plunge--"that Ibrought up----""Did you bring it up?""The same as brought up--the quicker he broke his word the better; andI want you should act upon that idea. Recollect that it's my business,and your mother's business, as well as yours, and we're going to haveour say. He hain't done anything wrong, Pen, nor anything that he'sgoing to be punished for. Understand that. He's got to have a reason,if you're not going to have him. I don't say you've got to have him; Iwant you should feel perfectly free about that; but I DO say you've gotto give him a reason.""Is he coming here?""I don't know as you'd call it COMING----""Yes, you do, father!" said the girl, in forlorn amusement at hisshuffling."He's coming here to see ME----""When's he coming?""I don't know but he's coming to-night.""And you want I should see him?""I don't know but you'd better.""All right. I'll see him."Lapham drew a long deep breath of suspicion inspired by thisacquiescence. "What you going to do?" he asked presently."I don't know yet," answered the girl sadly. "It depends a good dealupon what he does.""Well," said Lapham, with the hungriness of unsatisfied anxiety in histone. When Corey's card was brought into the family-room where he andPenelope were sitting, he went into the parlour to find him. "I guessPenelope wants to see you," he said; and, indicating the family-room,he added, "She's in there," and did not go back himself.Corey made his way to the girl's presence with open trepidation, whichwas not allayed by her silence and languor. She sat in the chair whereshe had sat the other night, but she was not playing with a fan now.He came toward her, and then stood faltering. A faint smile quiveredover her face at the spectacle of his subjection. "Sit down, Mr.Corey," she said. "There's no reason why we shouldn't talk it overquietly; for I know you will think I'm right.""I'm sure of that," he answered hopefully. "When I saw that yourfather knew of it to-day, I asked him to let me see you again. I'mafraid that I broke my promise to you--technically----""It had to be broken." He took more courage at her words. "But I'veonly come to do whatever you say, and not to be an--annoyance toyou----""Yes, you have to know; but I couldn't tell you before. Now they allthink I should."A tremor of anxiety passed over the young man's face, on which she kepther eyes steadily fixed."We supposed it--it was--Irene----"He remained blank a moment, and then he said with a smile of relief, ofdeprecation, of protest, of amazement, of compassion--"OH! Never! Never for an instant! How could you think such a thing? Itwas impossible! I never thought of her. But I see--I see! I canexplain--no, there's nothing to explain! I have never knowingly done orsaid a thing from first to last to make you think that. I see howterrible it is!" he said; but he still smiled, as if he could not takeit seriously. "I admired her beauty--who could help doing that?--and Ithought her very good and sensible. Why, last winter in Texas, I toldStanton about our meeting in Canada, and we agreed--I only tell you toshow you how far I always was from what you thought--that he must comeNorth and try to see her, and--and--of course, it all sounds verysilly!--and he sent her a newspaper with an account of his ranch init----""She thought it came from you.""Oh, good heavens! He didn't tell me till after he'd done it. But hedid it for a part of our foolish joke. And when I met your sisteragain, I only admired her as before. I can see, now, how I must haveseemed to be seeking her out; but it was to talk of you with her--Inever talked of anything else if I could help it, except when I changedthe subject because I was ashamed to be always talking of you. I seehow distressing it is for all of you. But tell me that you believe me!""Yes, I must. It's all been our mistake----""It has indeed! But there's no mistake about my loving you, Penelope,"he said; and the old-fashioned name, at which she had often mocked, wassweet to her from his lips."That only makes it worse!" she answered."Oh no!" he gently protested. "It makes it better. It makes it right.How is it worse? How is it wrong?""Can't you see? You must understand all now! Don't you see that if shebelieved so too, and if she----" She could not go on."Did she--did your sister--think that too?" gasped Corey."She used to talk with me about you; and when you say you care for menow, it makes me feel like the vilest hypocrite in the world. That dayyou gave her the list of books, and she came down to Nantasket, andwent on about you, I helped her to flatter herself--oh! I don't see howshe can forgive me. But she knows I can never forgive myself! That'sthe reason she can do it. I can see now," she went on, "how I musthave been trying to get you from her. I can't endure it! The only wayis for me never to see you or speak to you again!" She laughedforlornly. "That would be pretty hard on you, if you cared.""I do care--all the world!""Well, then, it would if you were going to keep on caring. You won'tlong, if you stop coming now.""Is this all, then? Is it the end?""It's--whatever it is. I can't get over the thought of her. Once Ithought I could, but now I see that I can't. It seems to grow worse.Sometimes I feel as if it would drive me crazy."He sat looking at her with lacklustre eyes. The light suddenly cameback into them. "Do you think I could love you if you had been falseto her? I know you have been true to her, and truer still to yourself.I never tried to see her, except with the hope of seeing you too. Isupposed she must know that I was in love with you. From the firsttime I saw you there that afternoon, you filled my fancy. Do you thinkI was flirting with the child, or--no, you don't think that! We havenot done wrong. We have not harmed any one knowingly. We have a rightto each other----""No! no! you must never speak to me of this again. If you do, I shallknow that you despise me.""But how will that help her? I don't love HER.""Don't say that to me! I have said that to myself too much.""If you forbid me to love you, it won't make me love her," he persisted.She was about to speak, but she caught her breath without doing so, andmerely stared at him. "I must do what you say," he continued. "Butwhat good will it do her? You can't make her happy by making yourselfunhappy.""Do you ask me to profit by a wrong?""Not for the world. But there is no wrong!""There is something--I don't know what. There's a wall between us. Ishall dash myself against it as long as I live; but that won't breakit.""Oh!" he groaned. "We have done no wrong. Why should we suffer fromanother's mistake as if it were our sin?""I don't know. But we must suffer.""Well, then, I WILL not, for my part, and I will not let you. If youcare for me----""You had no right to know it.""You make it my privilege to keep you from doing wrong for the right'ssake. I'm sorry, with all my heart and soul, for this error; but Ican't blame myself, and I won't deny myself the happiness I haven'tdone anything to forfeit. I will never give you up. I will wait aslong as you please for the time when you shall feel free from thismistake; but you shall be mine at last. Remember that. I might goaway for months--a year, even; but that seems a cowardly and guiltything, and I'm not afraid, and I'm not guilty, and I'm going to stayhere and try to see you."She shook her head. "It won't change anything? Don't you see thatthere's no hope for us?""When is she coming back?" he asked."I don't know. Mother wants father to come and take her out West for awhile.""She's up there in the country with your mother yet?""Yes."He was silent; then he said desperately--"Penelope, she is very young; and perhaps--perhaps she might meet----""It would make no difference. It wouldn't change it for me.""You are cruel--cruel to yourself, if you love me, and cruel to me.Don't you remember that night--before I spoke--you were talking of thatbook; and you said it was foolish and wicked to do as that girl did.Why is it different with you, except that you give me nothing, and cannever give me anything when you take yourself away? If it were anybodyelse, I am sure you would say----""But it isn't anybody else, and that makes it impossible. Sometimes Ithink it might be if I would only say so to myself, and then all that Isaid to her about you comes up----""I will wait. It can't always come up. I won't urge you any longernow. But you will see it differently--more clearly. Good-bye--no!Good night! I shall come again to-morrow. It will surely come right,and, whatever happens, you have done no wrong. Try to keep that inmind. I am so happy, in spite of all!"He tried to take her hand, but she put it behind her. "No, no! I can'tlet you--yet!"