Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  I feel sometimes as if I could hardly live until my father-in-law rises from his chair and kisses his wife good-bye before going off to the factory. She always blushes so prettily when he kisses her — as if it were for the first time. Then everybody looks pained when Peter and I just nod at each other as he goes out — I cannot be affectionate to him before them — and then, thank Heaven! the rest of us escape from the dining-room.

  How Peggy, who has been away from home and seen and done things, can stand it there now as it is, is a continual wonder to me.

  Peggy is a dear little thing. Peter has always been awfully fond of her, but she doesn’t seem to have an idea in her head beyond her clothes and Harry Goward, though she’ll HAVE to have something more to her if she’s going to keep HIM. The moment I saw that boy, of course I knew that he had the artistic temperament; I’ve seen so much of it. He’s the kind that’s always awfully gloomy until eleven o’clock in the morning, and has to make love intensely to somebody every evening. What it must have been to that boy, after indulging in a romantic dream with poor little earnest, downright Peggy, to wake up and find the engagement taken seriously not only by her, but by all her relatives — find himself being welcomed into the family, introduced to them all as a future member — what it must have been to him I can’t imagine! Peggy has no more temperament than a cow — the combination of Maria and Tom, and Grandmother Evarts, and Billy with his face washed clean, and Alice with three enormous bows on her hair, all waiting to welcome him, standing by the pictorial lamp on the brown worsted mat on the centre-table, made me fairly howl when I sat at home and thought of it — and that was before I’d SEEN Harry.

  The family were, of course, quite “hurt” that Peter and I wouldn’t assist at the celebration. I cannot see why people WILL want you to do things when they KNOW you don’t care to!

  The next evening, however, we had to go, when Peggy herself came around and asked us. Of course Mr. Goward was with Peggy most of the time. They certainly looked charming together, but rather conscious and stiff. Every member of the family was watching his every motion. Oh, I’ve been there! I know what it is!

  Some of the neighbors were there, too. Peter hardly ever plays on the big, old-fashioned grand-piano, but that night he was so bored he had to. The family always THINK they’re very musical — you can know the style when I tell you that after Peter has been rambling through bits from Schumann and Richard Strauss they always ask him if he won’t “play something.” Well, after Peggy had gone into the other room with her mother to do the polite to Mrs. Temple, Mr. Goward gravitated over to where I sat in the big bay-window behind the piano; he had that “be-good-to-me,-won’t-you?” air that I know so well! Then we got to talking and listening in between whiles — he knows lots of girls in the Art League — till Peter began playing that heart-breaking “Im Herbst” from the Franz Songs, and then he said:

  “You’re going to be my sister, aren’t you? Won’t you let me hold your hand while your husband’s playing that? It makes me feel so lonely!”

  I answered, promptly, “Certainly; hold both hands if you like!”

  And we laughed, and Peter turned around for a moment and smiled, too. Oh, it WAS nice to meet somebody of one’s own kind! You get so sick of having everything taken seriously.

  That night, after we’d left the house, Harry caught up with us at the corner on his way to the hotel, and went home with us, and we all talked until three o’clock in the morning. We simply ate all over the house — goodness! how hungry we were! At Peter’s home it’s an unheard-of thing to eat anything after half-past six — almost a crime, unless it’s a wedding or state reception. We began now with coffee in the dining-room, and jam and cheese, and ended by gradual stages at hot lobster in the chafing-dish in the studio — the darky was out all night, as usual.

  Then Harry and Peter concluded that it was too late to go to bed at all — it was really daylight — so they took bath-towels and went down to the river and had a swim, and Harry slipped back to the house at six o’clock. He said we’d repeat it all the next night, but of course we didn’t. He’s the kind that, as soon as he’s promised to do a thing, feels at once that he doesn’t really want to do it.

  The next day Peter’s Aunt Elizabeth came on the scene, and of course we stayed away as much as we could. She loves Peter — they all do — but she hasn’t any use for me, and shows it. She thinks I’m perfectly dumb and stupid. I simply don’t exist, and I’ve never tried to undeceive her — it’s too much trouble. She always wants to tell people how to do their hair and put on their clothes.

  Miss Elizabeth Talbert is a howling swell; she only just endures it here. I’ve heard lots of things about her from Bell Pickering, who knows the Munroes — Lily Talbert, they call her there. She thinks she’s fond of Art, but she really doesn’t know the first thing about it — she doesn’t like anything that isn’t expensive and elegant and a la mode.

  The only time she ever came to see me she actually PICKED her way around the house when I was showing it to her — there’s no other word to use — just because there was a glass of jelly on the sofa, and the painting things were all over the studio with Peter’s clothes. I perfectly hated her that day, yet I do love to look at her, and I can see how she might be terribly nice if you were any one she thought worth caring for. There have been times when I’ve seen a look on her face, like the clear ethereal light beyond the sunset, that just PULLED at me. She is very fond of Peggy; I know she would never do anything to injure Peggy.

  Poor little Peggy! When I think of this affair about Harry Goward I don’t believe she ever felt sure of him; that is why she is so worked up over this matter now. I know there was something that I felt from the first through all her excitement, something that wasn’t quite happy in her happiness. I feel atmospheres at once; I just can’t help it. And when I get feeling other people’s atmospheres too much I lose my own, and then I can’t paint. I began so well the other day with the picture of that Armenian peddler, and now since Alice left I can’t do a thing with it; his bare yellow knees look just like ugly grape-fruit. I wish Sally was in. She can’t cook, but she can do a song-and-dance that’s worth its weight in gold when you’re down in the mouth.

  — Just then I looked out of the window and saw my mother-in-law coming in. For a minute I was frightened. I’d never seen her look like that before — so white and almost OLD; she seemed hardly able to walk, and I ran to the door and helped her in, and put her in a chair and her feet on a footstool, and got her my dear little Venetian bottle of smelling-salts with the long silver chain; it’s so beautiful it makes you feel better just to look at it. I whisked Peter’s shoes out into the hall, and when I sat down by her she put her hand out to me and said, “Dear child,” and I got all throaty, the way I do when any one speaks like that to me, for, oh, I HAVE been lonesome for Dad and Momsey and my own dear home! though no one ever seems to imagine it, and I said:

  “Oh, can’t I do something for you, Madonna?” I usually just call her “you,” but once in a great while, when there’s nobody else around, I call her Madonna, and I know she likes it, even if she does think it a little Romish or sacrilegious or something queer.

  But she said she didn’t want anything, only to rest a few minutes, and that there was something she wanted me to tell Peter. She couldn’t come in the evening to see him without every one wanting to know why she came. There was some terrible trouble about Peggy’s engagement. She flushed up and hesitated, and when I broke in to say, “You needn’t bother to explain, I know all about the whole thing,” she didn’t seem at all surprised or ask how I knew — she only seemed relieved to find that she could go right on. I never can be demonstrative to her before people, but I just put my arms around her now when she said:

  “It’s a great comfort to be able to come to you, Lorraine, and speak out. At home your dear grandmother considers me so much — she only thinks of everything as it affects me, but it makes it so that I can’t always show what I fe
el, for if I do she gets ill. All I can think of is Peggy. If you knew what it was to me just now when my little Peggy went away from me and locked herself in her room — Peggy, who all her life has always come to me for comfort—”

  She stopped for a minute, and I patted her. It was so unlike my mother-in-law to speak in this way; she’s usually so self-contained that it made me sort of awestruck. After a moment she went on in a different voice:

  “They all want me to tell Cyrus — your father — that Aunt Elizabeth has been trying to take Mr. Goward’s affections away from Peggy. I’m afraid it’s just what she has been doing, though it seems incredible that she should have any attraction for a young man. I was glad Elizabeth had gone away overnight, for Maria is in such a state I don’t know what might have happened.”

  “And don’t you want to tell — father?” I gulped, but I knew I must say it. “Why not, Madonna?”

  She shook her head, with that look that makes you feel sometimes that she isn’t just the gentle and placid person that she appears to be. I seemed to catch a glimpse of something very clear and strong. If I could paint her with an expression like that I’d make my fortune.

  “No, Lorraine. If it was about anybody but your aunt Elizabeth I would, but I can’t speak against her. It’s her home as well as mine; I’ve always realized that. I made up my mind, when I married, that I never would come between brother and sister, and I never have. Aunt Elizabeth doesn’t know how many times I have smoothed matters over for her, how many times Cyrus has been provoked because he thought she didn’t show enough consideration for me. I have always loved Aunt Elizabeth, and I believed she loved us — but when I saw my Peggy to-day, Lorraine, I couldn’t go and tell your father about Aunt Elizabeth while I feel as I do now! I couldn’t be just. If I made him angry with her—”

  She stopped, and I didn’t need to have her go on. My father-in-law is one of those big, kind, sensible, good-natured men who, when they do get angry, go clear off the handle, and are so absolutely furious and unreasonable you can’t do anything with them. He got that way at Peter once — but it makes me so furious myself when I think of it that I never do.

  “And, Lorraine,” Madonna went on, quite simply, “bringing all this home to Aunt Elizabeth and making her pay up for it really has nothing to do with Peggy’s happiness. It is my child’s happiness that I want, Lorraine. There may be a misunderstanding of some kind — misunderstandings are very cruel things sometimes, Lorraine. I cannot believe that boy doesn’t care for her — why, he loved her dearly! It seems to me far the best and most dignified thing to just write to Mr. Goward himself and find out the truth.”

  “I think so, too!” said I. “Oh, Madonna, you’re a Jim Dandy!”

  “And so,” she went on, “I want you to ask Charles Edward to write to-night. I’ll leave the address with you. As Peggy’s brother, it will be more suitable for him to attend to the matter.”

  Charles Edward! I simply gasped. The idea of Peter’s writing to Harry Goward to ask him the state of his affections! If Peter’s mother couldn’t realize how perfectly impossible it was for even ME to make Peter do a thing that — Well — I was knocked silly.

  Dear Madonna is the survival of a period when a woman always expected some man to face any crisis for her. All I could do was to say, resignedly:

  “I’ll give him the address.” And when she got up I went to the gate with her. She was as dear as she could be; I just loved her until she happened to say:

  “When I came in I thought you might be lying down, for I looked up and saw the shades were pulled down in your room, as they are now.”

  “Oh,” I said, “I don’t suppose anybody has been back in the room since we got up.” And I was downright scared, she looked at me so strangely and began to tremble all over. “What IS the matter?” I cried. “Do come into the house again!” But she only grasped my arm and said, tragically:

  “Lorraine, it isn’t POSSIBLE that you haven’t made your bed at four o’clock in the afternoon!” And I answered:

  “Oh, I always make it up before I sleep in it.” And then I knew that I’d said just the wrong thing. What difference it can make to ANYBODY what time you make your OWN bed I can’t see! She tried to make me promise I’d always make it up before ten o’clock in the morning. Why, I wouldn’t even promise to always feel fond of Peter at ten o’clock in the morning! I NEVER have anything to do with the family without always feeling on edge afterward. Why, when she was so sweet and strong about Peggy and Aunt Elizabeth and all the rest of it, WHY should she get upset about such a trifle?

  I stood there by the gate just glowering as she went off. I knew she thought I was going to perdition. I was sick of “the engagement.” What business was it of Peter’s and mine, anyhow? It had nothing to do with us, really. Then I thought of the time Peter and I quarrelled, and how DEAR Lyman Wilde was about it, and how he brought Peter back to me — just to say the name of Lyman Wilde always makes me feel better. I adore him, and always shall, and Peter knows it. If I could only go back to the Settlement and hear him say, “Little girl,” in that coaxing voice of his! He is one of those men who are always working so hard for other people that you forget he hasn’t anything for himself.

  Thinking of him made me quite chipper again, and I went in and got his picture and stuck it up in the mantel-piece and put flowers in front of it. When Peter came in I told him about everything, and of course he refused to write to Harry Goward, as I knew he would. He said it was all rot, anyway, and that Harry was a nice boy, but not worth making such a fuss over. He didn’t know that he was particularly stuck on Peggy’s marrying Harry Goward, anyway — but there was no use in any one’s interfering. Peggy was the person to write. Finally he said he’d telephone to Harry the next day to come out and stay at our house over Sunday, and then he and Peggy could have a chance to settle it.

  But Peter didn’t telephone. He was late at the Works the next day — though not nearly so late as he often is; but Mr. Talbert has a perfect fad about every one’s getting there on time; it’s one of the things there’s always been a tug about between him and Peter. I should think he’d have realized long ago that Peter NEVER will be on time, and just make up his mind to it, but he won’t. Well, Peter came back again to the house a little after nine, perfectly white; he said he’d never enter the factory again. . . .

  His father was in a towering rage when Peter went in; he spoke to Peter so that every one could hear him, and then — Oh, it was a dreadful time!...

  Alice told me afterward that Maria had found her father in the garden before breakfast. She insinuated, in HER way, all kinds of dreadful things about Harry Goward and Aunt Elizabeth, and there was a scene at the breakfast-table — and Peggy was taken so ill that they had to send for Dr. Denbigh. I don’t know what will happen when Aunt Elizabeth comes home.

  CHAPTER V THE SCHOOL-GIRL by Elizabeth Jordan

  Except for Billy, who is a boy and does not count, I am the youngest person in our family; and when I tell you that there are eleven of us — well, you can dimly imagine the kind of a time I have. Two or three days ago I heard Grandma Evarts say something to the minister about “the down-trodden and oppressed of foreign lands,” and after he had gone I asked her what they were. For a wonder, she told me; usually when Billy and I ask questions you would think the whole family had been struck dumb. But this time she answered and I remember every word — for if ever anything sounded like a description of Billy and me it was what Grandma Evarts said that day. I told her so, too; but, of course, she only looked at me over her spectacles and didn’t understand what I meant. Nobody ever does except Billy and Aunt Elizabeth, and they’re not much comfort. Billy is always so busy getting into trouble and having me get him out of it, and feeling sorry for himself, that he hasn’t time to sympathize with me. Besides, as I’ve said before, he’s only a boy, and you know what boys are and how they lack the delicate feelings girls have, and how their minds never work when you want them to. As for Aunt Eliza
beth, she is lovely sometimes, and the way she remembers things that happened when she was young is simply wonderful. She knows how girls feel, too, and how they suffer when they are like Dr. Denbigh says I am — very nervous and sensitive and high-strung. But she admitted to me to-day that she had never before really made up her mind whether I am the “sweet, unsophisticated child” she calls me, or what Tom Price says I am, The Eastridge Animated and Undaunted Daily Bugle and Clarion Call. He calls me that because I know so much about what is going on; and he says if Mr. Temple could get me on his paper as a regular contributor there wouldn’t be a domestic hearth-stone left in Eastridge. He says the things I drop will break every last one of them, anyhow, beginning with the one at home. That’s the way he talks, and though I don’t always know exactly what he means I can tell by his expression that it is not very complimentary.

  Aunt Elizabeth is different from the others, and she and I have inspiring conversations sometimes — serious ones, you know, about life and responsibility and careers; and then, at other times, just when I’m revealing my young heart to her the way girls do in books, she gets absent-minded or laughs at me, or stares and says, “You extraordinary infant,” and changes the subject. At first it used to hurt me dreadfully, but now I’m beginning to think she does it when she can’t answer my questions. I’ve asked her lots and lots of things that have made her sit up and gasp, I can tell you, and I have more all ready as soon as I get the chance.