IT was a regular custom with the family in Washington Square to go and
spend Sunday evening at Mrs. Almond’s. On the Sunday after the
conversation I have just narrated, this custom was not intermitted and on
this occasion, towards the middle of the evening, Dr. Sloper found reason
to withdraw to the library, with his brother-in-law, to talk over a
matter of business. He was absent some twenty minutes, and when he came
back into the circle, which was enlivened by the presence of several
friends of the family, he saw that Morris Townsend had come in and had
lost as little time as possible in seating himself on a small sofa,
beside Catherine. In the large room, where several different groups had
been formed, and the hum of voices and of laughter was loud, these two
young persons might confabulate, as the Doctor phrased it to himself,
without attracting attention. He saw in a moment, however, that his
daughter was painfully conscious of his own observation. She sat
motionless, with her eyes bent down, staring at her open fan, deeply
flushed, shrinking together as if to minimise the indiscretion of which
she confessed herself guilty.
The Doctor almost pitied her. Poor Catherine was not defiant; she had no
genius for bravado; and as she felt that her father viewed her
companion’s attentions with an unsympathising eye, there was nothing but
discomfort for her in the accident of seeming to challenge him. The
Doctor felt, indeed, so sorry for her that he turned away, to spare her
the sense of being watched; and he was so intelligent a man that, in his
thoughts, he rendered a sort of poetic justice to her situation.
“It must be deucedly pleasant for a plain inanimate girl like that to
have a beautiful young fellow come and sit down beside her and whisper to
her that he is her slave—if that is what this one whispers. No wonder
she likes it, and that she thinks me a cruel tyrant; which of course she
does, though she is afraid—she hasn’t the animation necessary—to admit it
to herself. Poor old Catherine!” mused the Doctor; “I verily believe she
is capable of defending me when Townsend abuses me!”
And the force of this reflexion, for the moment, was such in making him
feel the natural opposition between his point of view and that of an
infatuated child, that he said to himself that he was perhaps, after all,
taking things too hard and crying out before he was hurt. He must not
condemn Morris Townsend unheard. He had a great aversion to taking
things too hard; he thought that half the discomfort and many of the
disappointments of life come from it; and for an instant he asked himself
whether, possibly, he did not appear ridiculous to this intelligent young
man, whose private perception of incongruities he suspected of being
keen. At the end of a quarter of an hour Catherine had got rid of him,
and Townsend was now standing before the fireplace in conversation with
Mrs. Almond.
“We will try him again,” said the Doctor. And he crossed the room and
joined his sister and her companion, making her a sign that she should
leave the young man to him. She presently did so, while Morris looked at
him, smiling, without a sign of evasiveness in his affable eye.
“He’s amazingly conceited!” thought the Doctor; and then he said aloud:
“I am told you are looking out for a position.”
“Oh, a position is more than I should presume to call it,” Morris
Townsend answered. “That sounds so fine. I should like some quiet
work—something to turn an honest penny.”
“What sort of thing should you prefer?”
“Do you mean what am I fit for? Very little, I am afraid. I have
nothing but my good right arm, as they say in the melodramas.”
“You are too modest,” said the Doctor. “In addition to your good right
arm, you have your subtle brain. I know nothing of you but what I see;
but I see by your physiognomy that you are extremely intelligent.”
“Ah,” Townsend murmured, “I don’t know what to answer when you say that!
You advise me, then, not to despair?”
And he looked at his interlocutor as if the question might have a double
meaning. The Doctor caught the look and weighed it a moment before he
replied. “I should be very sorry to admit that a robust and
well-disposed young man need ever despair. If he doesn’t succeed in one
thing, he can try another. Only, I should add, he should choose his line
with discretion.”
“Ah, yes, with discretion,” Morris Townsend repeated sympathetically.
“Well, I have been indiscreet, formerly; but I think I have got over it.
I am very steady now.” And he stood a moment, looking down at his
remarkably neat shoes. Then at last, “Were you kindly intending to
propose something for my advantage?” he inquired, looking up and smiling.
“Damn his impudence!” the Doctor exclaimed privately. But in a moment he
reflected that he himself had, after all, touched first upon this
delicate point, and that his words might have been construed as an offer
of assistance. “I have no particular proposal to make,” he presently
said; “but it occurred to me to let you know that I have you in my mind.
Sometimes one hears of opportunities. For instance—should you object to
leaving New York—to going to a distance?”
“I am afraid I shouldn’t be able to manage that. I must seek my fortune
here or nowhere. You see,” added Morris Townsend, “I have ties—I have
responsibilities here. I have a sister, a widow, from whom I have been
separated for a long time, and to whom I am almost everything. I
shouldn’t like to say to her that I must leave her. She rather depends
upon me, you see.”
“Ah, that’s very proper; family feeling is very proper,” said Dr. Sloper.
“I often think there is not enough of it in our city. I think I have
heard of your sister.”
“It is possible, but I rather doubt it; she lives so very quietly.”
“As quietly, you mean,” the Doctor went on, with a short laugh, “as a
lady may do who has several young children.”
“Ah, my little nephews and nieces—that’s the very point! I am helping to
bring them up,” said Morris Townsend. “I am a kind of amateur tutor; I
give them lessons.”
“That’s very proper, as I say; but it is hardly a career.”
“It won’t make my fortune!” the young man confessed.
“You must not be too much bent on a fortune,” said the Doctor. “But I
assure you I will keep you in mind; I won’t lose sight of you!”
“If my situation becomes desperate I shall perhaps take the liberty of
reminding you!” Morris rejoined, raising his voice a little, with a
brighter smile, as his interlocutor turned away.
Before he left the house the Doctor had a few words with Mrs. Almond.
“I should like to see his sister,” he said. “What do you call her? Mrs.
Montgomery. I should like to have a little talk with her.”
“I will try and manage it,” Mrs. Almond responded. “I will take the
first opportunity of inviting her, and you shall come and meet her.
Unless, indeed,” Mrs. Almond added, “she first takes it into her head to
be sick and to send for you.”
“Ah no, not that; she must have trouble enough without that. But it
would have its advantages, for then I should see the children. I should
like very much to see the children.”
“You are very thorough. Do you want to catechise them about their
uncle!”
“Precisely. Their uncle tells me he has charge of their education, that
he saves their mother the expense of school-bills. I should like to ask
them a few questions in the commoner branches.”
“He certainly has not the cut of a schoolmaster!” Mrs. Almond said to
herself a short time afterwards, as she saw Morris Townsend in a corner
bending over her niece, who was seated.
And there was, indeed, nothing in the young man’s discourse at this
moment that savoured of the pedagogue.
“Will you meet me somewhere to-morrow or next day?” he said, in a low
tone, to Catherine.
“Meet you?” she asked, lifting her frightened eyes.
“I have something particular to say to you—very particular.”
“Can’t you come to the house? Can’t you say it there?”
Townsend shook his head gloomily. “I can’t enter your doors again!”
“Oh, Mr. Townsend!” murmured Catherine. She trembled as she wondered
what had happened, whether her father had forbidden it.
“I can’t in self-respect,” said the young man. “Your father has insulted
me.”
“Insulted you!”
“He has taunted me with my poverty.”
“Oh, you are mistaken—you misunderstood him!” Catherine spoke with
energy, getting up from her chair.
“Perhaps I am too proud—too sensitive. But would you have me otherwise?”
he asked tenderly.
“Where my father is concerned, you must not be sure. He is full of
goodness,” said Catherine.
“He laughed at me for having no position! I took it quietly; but only
because he belongs to you.”
“I don’t know,” said Catherine; “I don’t know what he thinks. I am sure
he means to be kind. You must not be too proud.”
“I will be proud only of you,” Morris answered. “Will you meet me in the
Square in the afternoon?”
A great blush on Catherine’s part had been the answer to the declaration
I have just quoted. She turned away, heedless of his question.
“Will you meet me?” he repeated. “It is very quiet there; no one need
see us—toward dusk?”
“It is you who are unkind, it is you who laugh, when you say such things
as that.”
“My dear girl!” the young man murmured.
“You know how little there is in me to be proud of. I am ugly and
stupid.”
Morris greeted this remark with an ardent murmur, in which she recognised
nothing articulate but an assurance that she was his own dearest.
But she went on. “I am not even—I am not even—” And she paused a
moment.
“You are not what?”
“I am not even brave.”
“Ah, then, if you are afraid, what shall we do?”
She hesitated a while; then at last—“You must come to the house,” she
said; “I am not afraid of that.”
“I would rather it were in the Square,” the young man urged. “You know
how empty it is, often. No one will see us.”
“I don’t care who sees us! But leave me now.”
He left her resignedly; he had got what he wanted. Fortunately he was
ignorant that half an hour later, going home with her father and feeling
him near, the poor girl, in spite of her sudden declaration of courage,
began to tremble again. Her father said nothing; but she had an idea his
eyes were fixed upon her in the darkness. Mrs. Penniman also was silent;
Morris Townsend had told her that her niece preferred, unromantically, an
interview in a chintz-covered parlour to a sentimental tryst beside a
fountain sheeted with dead leaves, and she was lost in wonderment at the
oddity—almost the perversity—of the choice.
X
CATHERINE received the young man the next day on the ground she had
chosen—amid the chaste upholstery of a New York drawing-room furnished in
the fashion of fifty years ago. Morris had swallowed his pride and made
the effort necessary to cross the threshold of her too derisive parent—an
act of magnanimity which could not fail to render him doubly interesting.
“We must settle something—we must take a line,” he declared, passing his
hand through his hair and giving a glance at the long narrow mirror which
adorned the space between the two windows, and which had at its base a
little gilded bracket covered by a thin slab of white marble, supporting
in its turn a backgammon board folded together in the shape of two
volumes, two shining folios inscribed in letters of greenish gilt,
_History of England_. If Morris had been pleased to describe the master
of the house as a heartless scoffer, it is because he thought him too
much on his guard, and this was the easiest way to express his own
dissatisfaction—a dissatisfaction which he had made a point of concealing
from the Doctor. It will probably seem to the reader, however, that the
Doctor’s vigilance was by no means excessive, and that these two young
people had an open field. Their intimacy was now considerable, and it
may appear that for a shrinking and retiring person our heroine had been
liberal of her favours. The young man, within a few days, had made her
listen to things for which she had not supposed that she was prepared;
having a lively foreboding of difficulties, he proceeded to gain as much
ground as possible in the present. He remembered that fortune favours
the brave, and even if he had forgotten it, Mrs. Penniman would have
remembered it for him. Mrs. Penniman delighted of all things in a drama,
and she flattered herself that a drama would now be enacted. Combining
as she did the zeal of the prompter with the impatience of the spectator,
she had long since done her utmost to pull up the curtain. She too
expected to figure in the performance—to be the confidante, the Chorus,
to speak the epilogue. It may even be said that there were times when
she lost sight altogether of the modest heroine of the play, in the
contemplation of certain great passages which would naturally occur
between the hero and herself.
What Morris had told Catherine at last was simply that he loved her, or
rather adored her. Virtually, he had made known as much already—his
visits had been a series of eloquent intimations of it. But now he had
affirmed it in lover’s vows, and, as a memorable sign of it, he had
passed his arm round the girl’s waist and taken a kiss. This happy
certitude had come sooner than Catherine expected, and she had regarded
it, very naturally, as a priceless treasure. It may even be doubted
whether she had ever definitely expected to possess it; she had not been
waiting for it, and she had never said to herself that at a given moment
it must come. As I have tried to explain, she was not eager and
exacting; she took what was given her from day to day; and if the
delightful custom of her lover’s visits, which yielded her a happiness in
which confidence and timidity were strangely blended, had suddenly come
to an end, she would not only not have spoken of herself as one of the
forsaken, but she would not have thought of herself as one of the
disappointed. After Morris had kissed her, the last time he was with
her, as a ripe assurance of his devotion, she begged him to go away, to
leave her alone, to let her think. Morris went away, taking another kiss
first. But Catherine’s meditations had lacked a certain coherence. She
felt his kisses on her lips and on her cheeks for a long time afterwards;
the sensation was rather an obstacle than an aid to reflexion. She would
have liked to see her situation all clearly before her, to make up her
mind what she should do if, as she feared, her father should tell her
that he disapproved of Morris Townsend. But all that she could see with
any vividness was that it was terribly strange that anyone should
disapprove of him; that there must in that case be some mistake, some
mystery, which in a little while would be set at rest. She put off
deciding and choosing; before the vision of a conflict with her father
she dropped her eyes and sat motionless, holding her breath and waiting.
It made her heart beat, it was intensely painful. When Morris kissed her
and said these things—that also made her heart beat; but this was worse,
and it frightened her. Nevertheless, to-day, when the young man spoke of
settling something, taking a line, she felt that it was the truth, and
she answered very simply and without hesitating.
“We must do our duty,” she said; “we must speak to my father. I will do
it to-night; you must do it to-morrow.”
“It is very good of you to do it first,” Morris answered. “The young
man—the happy lover—generally does that. But just as you please!”
It pleased Catherine to think that she should be brave for his sake, and
in her satisfaction she even gave a little smile. “Women have more
tact,” she said “they ought to do it first. They are more conciliating;
they can persuade better.”
“You will need all your powers of persuasion. But, after all,” Morris
added, “you are irresistible.”
“Please don’t speak that way—and promise me this. To-morrow, when you
talk with father, you will be very gentle and respectful.”
“As much so as possible,” Morris promised. “It won’t be much use, but I
shall try. I certainly would rather have you easily than have to fight
for you.”
“Don’t talk about fighting; we shall not fight.”
“Ah, we must be prepared,” Morris rejoined; “you especially, because for
you it must come hardest. Do you know the first thing your father will
say to you?”
“No, Morris; please tell me.”
“He will tell you I am mercenary.”
“Mercenary?”
“It’s a big word; but it means a low thing. It means that I am after
your money.”
“Oh!” murmured Catherine softly.
The exclamation was so deprecating and touching that Morris indulged in
another little demonstration of affection. “But he will be sure to say
it,” he added.
“It will be easy to be prepared for that,” Catherine said. “I shall
simply say that he is mistaken—that other men may be that way, but that
you are not.”
“You must make a great point of that, for it will be his own great
point.”
Catherine looked at her lover a minute, and then she said, “I shall
persuade him. But I am glad we shall be rich,” she added.
Morris turned away, looking into the crown of his hat. “No, it’s a
misfortune,” he said at last. “It is from that our difficulty will
come.”
“Well, if it is the worst misfortune, we are not so unhappy. Many people
would not think it so bad. I will persuade him, and after that we shall
be very glad we have money.”
Morris Townsend listened to this robust logic in silence. “I will leave
my defence to you; it’s a charge that a man has to stoop to defend
himself from.”
Catherine on her side was silent for a while; she was looking at him
while he looked, with a good deal of fixedness, out of the window.
“Morris,” she said abruptly, “are you very sure you love me?”
He turned round, and in a moment he was bending over her. “My own
dearest, can you doubt it?”
“I have only known it five days,” she said; “but now it seems to me as if
I could never do without it.”
“You will never be called upon to try!” And he gave a little tender,
reassuring laugh. Then, in a moment, he added, “There is something you
must tell me, too.” She had closed her eyes after the last word she
uttered, and kept them closed; and at this she nodded her head, without
opening them. “You must tell me,” he went on, “that if your father is
dead against me, if he absolutely forbids our marriage, you will still be
faithful.”
Catherine opened her eyes, gazing at him, and she could give no better
promise than what he read there.
“You will cleave to me?” said Morris. “You know you are your own
mistress—you are of age.”
“Ah, Morris!” she murmured, for all answer. Or rather not for all; for
she put her hand into his own. He kept it a while, and presently he
kissed her again. This is all that need be recorded of their
conversation; but Mrs. Penniman, if she had been present, would probably
have admitted that it was as well it had not taken place beside the
fountain in Washington Square.