FATHER AND DAUGHTER
The winds of January had no better luck in shaking down the leaves of
the scrub oaks on the Porter hillside than their predecessors of
November and December. The snows came and went on the dull slopes, and
the canna beds were little blots of ruin in the gray stubble. The house
was a place of light and life once more, for Evelyn had obeyed her
father's wish rather than her own inclination in opening its doors for
frequent teas and dinners and once for a large ball. Many people had
entertained for her; she had never been introduced formally, but her
mother's friends made up for this omission; she went out a great deal,
and enjoyed it. Many young men climbed the hill to see her, and many
went to the theater or to dances with her at least once. The number who
came to call diminished by Christmas; but those who still came, and were
identified as frequenters of the house, came oftener.
Warry Raridan had raged at the mob, as he called it, which he seemed
always to find installed in the Porter drawing-room; but he raged
inwardly these days, save as he went explosively to Saxton for comfort;
he had stopped raging at Evelyn. He was at work more steadily than he
had ever been before, and wished the credit for it which people denied
him, to his secret disgust. He had idled too long, or he had too often
before given fitful allegiance to labor. Young women and old, who
expected him to pass tea for them in the afternoons, refused to believe
that he had experienced a change of heart. Those who had bragged of him
abroad, and who now lured the eternal visiting girl to town to behold
him, were chagrined to find that he was difficult to produce, and
mollified their guests by declaring that Warry was getting more fickle
and uncertain as he grew older, or took vengeance by encouraging the
rumor that he and Evelyn Porter were engaged.
Wheaton called at the Porters' often, but he did not go now with Warry
Raridan; he even took some pains to go when Raridan did not. He knew
just how much time to allow himself between The Bachelors' and the
Porter door bell in order to reach the drawing-room at five minutes past
eight. He was now considered one of the men that went out a good deal in
Clarkson; he was invited to many houses, and began to wonder that social
enjoyment was so easy. It seemed long ago that he had been a leading
figure in the ball of the Knights of Midas. Looking back at that
incident he was sensible of its poverty and tawdriness; he had
sacrificed himself for the public good, and the community shared in the
joke of it.
Porter had an amiable way of darting out of the library in the evenings
when he and Evelyn were both at home, to see who came in; not that he
was abnormally curious as to who rang the door bell, though he enjoyed
occasionally a colloquy with a tramp; but he was always on the lookout
for telegrams, of which he received a great many at home, and he
declared in his chaffing note of complaint that the people in the house
were forever hiding them from him. He sometimes brought home bundles of
papers and spent whole evenings digesting them and making computations.
Without realizing that Wheaton was in his house pretty often, he was
glad to know that his cashier came. When he found that Wheaton was in
the drawing-room he usually went over to talk to him in the interim
before Evelyn came down. Sometimes a bit of news in the evening paper
gave him a text.
"I see that they've had a shaking up over at St. Joe. Well, Wigglesworth
never was any good. They ought to have had more sense than to get caught
by him. Well, sir, you remember he was offering his paper up here. We
could have had a barrel of it; but when a man of his credit peddles his
paper away from home, it's a good thing to let alone. When they figure
up Wigglesworth's liabilities they will find that he has paper scattered
all over the Missouri Valley, and I'll bet the Second's stuck. The last
time I saw Wigglesworth he was up at the club one day with Buskirk. He'd
been in to see me the day before. I guessed then that he was looking for
help which they didn't think he was worth at home." And then, with a
chuckle: "Our people," meaning his directors, "think sometimes we're too
conservative, and I reckon I do lose a lot of business for them that
other fellows would take and get out of all right; but I guess we make
more in the long run by being careful. Banking ain't exactly stove
polish or vitalized barley, to put up in pretty packages and advertise
on the billboards."
Wheaton was honestly sympathetic and responsive along these lines. He
admired Porter, although he often felt that the president made mistakes;
yet he, too, believed in conservatism; it was a matter of temperament
rather than principle. This mingling of social and business elements
pleased and flattered Wheaton. He felt that his position in the Porter
bank gave him a double footing in the Porter house. Porter usually
ignored Evelyn's presence while he finished whatever he was saying. Then
he would go back to his chair in the library, where he could hear the
voices across the hall; but he never remained after he had concluded his
own talk with Wheaton.
Sometimes, however, when there were other men in the house, Porter would
come and stand in the door and regard them good-humoredly, and nod to
them amiably, usually with his cigar in his mouth and the evening
newspaper in his hand. When there was a good deal of laughing he would
go over and gaze upon them questioningly and quiz them; but they usually
felt the restraint of his presence. If they repeated to him some story
which had prompted their mirth, he was wont to rebuke them with affected
seriousness, or he would tell them a story of his own. He expected
Evelyn to receive a great deal of attention. He liked to know who her
callers were and where she herself visited, and it pleased him that she
had called on all her mother's old friends, whether they had been to see
her or not. He had a sense of the dignities and proprieties of life, and
he felt his own prestige as a founder of the town; it would have been a
source of grief to him if Evelyn had not taken a leading place among its
young people.
The theater was the one diversion that appealed to him, and he liked to
take Evelyn with him, and wanted her to sit in a box so that he might
show her off to better advantage. He could not understand why she
preferred seats in the orchestra; Timothy Margrave and his daughter
always sat in a box, and young men were forever running in to talk to
Mabel between the acts. Porter thought that this showed a special
deference to the Margrave girl, as he called her, and for her father
too, by implication, and he resented anything that looked like a slight
upon Evelyn. He was afraid that she did not entertain enough, and since
the girls who visited them in the fall had left, he had been insisting
that she must have others come to see her. He had made her tell him
about all the girls she had known in college; his curiosity in such
directions was almost insatiable. He always demanded to know what their
fathers did for a livelihood, and he had been surprised to find that so
many of Evelyn's classmates had been daughters of inconspicuous
families, and that the young women were in many cases fitting themselves
to teach. He had pretty thoroughly catalogued all of Evelyn's college
friends, and he suggested about once a week that she have some of them
out.
Sometimes, after Evelyn's callers had gone, she and her father sat and
talked in the library.
"I don't see what you young people can find to say so much about," he
would say; or: "What was Warry gabbling about so long?"
She always told him what had been talked about, with a careful
frankness, lest he might imagine that the visits of Wheaton or Warry, or
any one else, had a special intention. She crossed over to the library
one night after several callers had left, and found her father more
absorbed than usual in a mass of papers which lay on the large table
before him. He put down his glasses and lay back in his chair wearily.
"Well, girl, is it time to go to bed? Sit down there and tell me the
news."
"There isn't anything worth telling; you know there isn't much
information in the average caller." He yawned and rubbed his eyes and
paid no attention to her answer. He had asked a few days before whether
she cared to go to Chicago to hear the opera, and she had said that she
would go if he would; and he now wished to talk this out with her.
"The Whipples are going over to Chicago for the opera," he ventured.
"But you're not getting ready to back out! You ought to be ashamed of
yourself." She rose and went toward him menacingly, and he put up his
hands as if to ward off her attack.
"But you can have just as much fun with the general as you could with
me."
"No, I can't; and for another thing you need a rest. You never go away
except on business; the fact is, you never get business out of your
mind. Now, let me gather up these things for you." She reached for the
array of balance sheets on his table, and he threw his arms over them
protectingly.
"Please go away! I've spent all evening straightening these things
out." She retreated to her chair, and he began rolling up his papers.
"You'd better go with the Whipples, and Mrs. Whipple will help you do
your shopping. It doesn't seem to me that you have many clothes. You'd
better get some more."
"You can't buy me off that way, father. Either you go or I don't." He
turned toward her again when he had rolled his papers into a packet and
fixed a rubber band around them. She knew, as she usually did after such
approaches, that he wanted to say something in particular.
"You mustn't settle down too soon. You can't always be young, and you
can easily get into a rut here."
"Yes, but I haven't had time yet; I've hardly got settled. I want to get
acquainted at home before I go away. I'm afraid they still look on me as
a pilgrim and a stranger here."
"But they're all nice to you, ain't they?" he demanded sharply.
"They are certainly as kind as can be," she answered. "I haven't a
single complaint. I'm having just the time I wanted to have when I came
home."
"I don't want to lose you too soon, girl." It was half a question. She
wondered whether this could be what he had been leading up to.
"And I don't want you to lose me at all! I didn't come home after all
these years to have you lose me."
"Oh, I don't mean right away," he said. "But sometime--sometime you will
have to go, I suppose."
"I'm certainly not thinking of it." She was laughing and trying to break
his mood; but he was very serious, and took a cigar from his pocket and
put it in his mouth.
"You'll have to go sometime; and when you do, I want the right kind of a
man to have you."
"So do I, father."
"You are old enough to understand that a girl in your position is likely
to be sought by men who may--who may--well, who may be swayed somewhat
by worldly considerations."
"Isn't that a trifle hard on me? I hoped I was a little more attractive
than that, father."
"You know what I mean," he went on. "I guess we can tell that sort when
they come around. I've had an idea that you might choose to marry away
from here; you've been away a good deal; you must have met a good many
young men, brothers of your friends--"
"Yes, I met them, father, and that was all there was to it."
"I shouldn't like you to marry away from here. I've been afraid you
wouldn't like our old town. I guess we fellows that started it like it
better than anybody else does; but I can see how you might not care so
much for it." He waited, and she knew that he wanted her to disavow any
such feeling.
"Why, I've never had any idea of wanting to live anywhere else! I don't
believe I'd be happy away from here. It's home, and it always will be
home. I hope we can stay and keep the old house here--"
She sat forward with her arms on the curved sides of the chair. He did
not heed what she said. Older people have this way with youth when they
are intent on the impression they wish to make and count upon
acquiescence.
"I don't want you to sacrifice yourself for me out of any sense of duty;
the time will come when it will be all right for you to go, and when it
comes I want you to go to a man who's decent and square--" He paused as
if trying to think of desirable attributes. "I don't care whether he's
got much or not, but I like young men who know how to work for a living
and who've got a little common sense. I guess we don't need any dukes or
counts in our family; we've all been honest and decent as far as I know,
and I reckon Americans are good enough for us. I don't know that what
I've got would support one of those French counts more than a week or
two." His eyes brightened as they met hers. The idea of a titled
son-in-law amused him, and Evelyn laughed out merrily. She did not
altogether like the turn of the talk, but she was curious to know what
he was driving at.
"You understand I don't want to appear to dictate," he went on
magnanimously. "I don't believe in that. Nobody knows as well as a girl
whom she wants to marry. Sometimes girls make pretty bad breaks; but I
guess most marriages are happy. Men are not all good, and there are some
mighty foolish women, besides the downright wicked ones. I guess our
young men in Clarkson are as good as there are anywhere. Most of them
have to work, and that's good for them. I guess I appreciate family and
that kind of thing as well as the next man, but it ain't everything." He
was speaking slowly, and when he made a long pause here, Evelyn rose and
went over to the open grate and poked in the ashes for the few
remaining coals. He watched her as she stooped, noting, half
consciously, the fine line of her profile, the ripple of light in her
hair, the girlishness of her slim figure.
"No use of fooling with that fire," he said. She knew that he wished to
say more, and she put the poker in its brass rack and rose and stood by
the mantel.
"At my age, life gets more uncertain every day; I seem to be pretty
sound, but I was sixty-four my last birthday, and if I'd been in the
army they would have kicked me out of my job; but so long as I work for
myself I suppose I'll hang on until I can't stand up in the harness any
more."
"But that's a mistake, father," she put in. "Why shouldn't you take some
rest now? If there's no other way, why not close out your interest in
the bank and take things easier? You ought to travel; you've never been
out of the country, and there are lots of things in Europe that you'd
enjoy; the rest and change would do you a world of good. Can't we go
this summer, and take Grant? It would be nice for us all to go
together."
He shook his head with the deprecating air which men of Porter's type
have for such suggestions. "It would be mighty nice, but I can't do it.
Here's Thompson away, and no telling when he'll be back, and I have
other things besides the bank to look after; more than you know about."
She knew only vaguely what his interests were, for he never mentioned
them to her; he believed that women are incapable of comprehending such
things; and his natural secretiveness was always on guard. He even
entertained a kind of superstition that if he told of anything he was
planning he jeopardized his chances of success.
"No, I guess there ain't going to be any Europe for me just now. But I'd
be glad to have you and Grant go." He had been side-tracked in his talk,
and chewed his cigar while trying to find the way back to the main line.
Then he broke out irrelevantly:
"Warry doesn't seem to settle down. We used to think Warry had great
things in him, but they're mighty slow coming out."
"Well, he's still young," said Evelyn. "It takes a young man a long time
to get a start these days in the professions." Her father looked at her
keenly.
"I'm afraid it isn't lack of opportunity with Warry. If he'd ever get
after anything in real earnest he could make it go; but he seems to fool
away his time." He said this as if he expected Evelyn to continue her
defense, but she said merely:
"It's too bad if he's doing that when he has ability." She walked back
to her chair and sat down. She knew that Warry was really at work, but
she was afraid to show any particular knowledge of him.
"It's one of the queer things to me that young fellows who have every
chance don't seem to get on as well as others who haven't any backing.
Now, all Warry had to do was to stay in his office and attend to
business--or that's all he needed to do three or four years ago, when he
set up to practise; but now everybody's given him up. A man who doesn't
want an opportunity in this world doesn't have to kick it very hard to
get rid of it. Other fellows, who never had any chance, are watching for
the luckier ones to slip back. There are never any lonesome places on
the ladder. Now, there's Wheaton--" He again examined Evelyn's face in
one of those tranquil stares with which he made his most minute scrutiny
of people. "Wheaton ain't a showy fellow like Warry, but he's one of the
sort that make their way because they keep an eye open to the main
chance. Jim came into the bank as a messenger, and I guess he's had
pretty much every job we've got, and he's done them well." He had
lighted his cigar and was talking volubly. "When Thompson played out and
had to go away, we looked around for somebody on the inside who knew the
run of our business to put in there to help me. None of the directors
wanted to come in, and so we pulled Jim out of the paying teller's cage,
and he's just about saved my back. Now, Jim's not so smart, but he's
steady and safe, and that's what counts in business."
He leaned back in his chair and wobbled the cigar in his mouth.
"These young Napoleons of finance are forever chasing off to Canada with
other folks' money; they're too brilliant. I tell 'em down town that it
ain't genius we want in business, it's just ordinary, plain, every-day
talent for getting down early and staying at your job. That's what I
say. There was Smith over at the Drovers' National; he was a clear case
of genius. They thought over there that he was making business by
chasing around the country attending banquets and speaking at bankers'
conventions. I guess Smith's essays were financially sound too, for
Smith knew finance, scientific finance, like a college professor, and
used to come to the clearing-house meetings and talk to beat the band
about what Bagehot said and how the Bank of England did; but all the
time he was spending his Sundays over in Kansas City, drumming up
banking business by playing poker with the gentlemen he expected to get
for his customers. He's running a laundry now on the wrong side of the
Canadian border. Over at the Drovers' they ain't so terribly scientific
now, and their cashier don't have an expense fund to carry him around
the country making connections. Making connections!" he repeated, and
chuckled. He had the conceit of his own wisdom, and while he was always
generous in his dealings with his rivals, and had several times helped
them out of difficulties, he rejoiced in their errors and congratulated
himself on his foresight and caution.
"You oughtn't to laugh at the downfall of other people," said Evelyn;
"it's wicked of you." But she was laughing herself at his enjoyment of
his own joke, and was proud of the qualities which she knew had
contributed to his success. He felt baffled that he had not fully
concluded all he had intended to say about Wheaton and his merits, but
he did not see his way back to the subject, and he rose yawning.
"I guess it's time to go to bed," he said, and he went about turning off
the electric lights by the buttons in the hall. Evelyn went upstairs
ahead of him, and kissed him good night at his door.
"You'd better go to the opera with the Whipples," he called to her over
his shoulder, as he waited for her to reach her own door before turning
off the upper hall light.
"Not a bit of it," she answered through the dark.
The novel with which Evelyn tried to read herself to sleep that night
did not hold her attention, and after her memory had teased her into
impatience, she threw the book down and for a long time lay thinking.
She knew her father so well that she had no doubt of the current of his
thought and his wish to praise James Wheaton and disparage Warry
Raridan, and it troubled her; not because she herself had any
well-defined preferences as between them or in their favor as against
all other men she knew; but it seemed to her that her father had
disclosed his own feeling rather unnecessarily and pointedly.
Suddenly, as she lay thinking and staring at the walls, life took on new
and serious aspects, and she did not want it to be so. Because she had
been so much away from home the provincial idea that every man that
calls on a girl, or takes her to a theater in our free, unchaperoned
way, is a serious suitor had not impressed her. She had expected to come
home and enjoy herself indefinitely, and had idealized a situation in
which she should be the stay of her father through his old age, and the
chum and guide of her brother, in whom the repetition of her mother's
characteristics strongly appealed to her. There had been little trouble
or grief in her life, and now for the first time she saw uncertainties
ahead where a few hours before everything had seemed simple and clear.
She had felt no offense when her father spoke slightingly of Warry
Raridan; she knew that her father really liked him, as every one did,
and she would not have hesitated to say that she admired him greatly,
even in his possession of those traits which betrayed the weaknesses of
his character. She certainly had no thought of him save as a whimsical
and amusing friend, a playmate who had never grown up.
It was true that he had made love to her, or had tried to; but she had
no faith in his sincerity. She had first felt amused, and then a little
sorry, when he had gone to work so earnestly. He took the trouble to
remind her frequently that it was all for her, and she laughed at him
and at the love-making which he was always attempting and which she
always thwarted. Saxton did not come often to the house, but when he
came he exercised his ingenuity to bring Raridan into the talk in the
rare times that they were alone together. She knew why Saxton praised
her friend to her, and it increased her liking for him. It is curious
how a woman's pity goes out to a man; any suggestion of misfortune makes
an excuse for her to clothe him with her compassion. It is as though
Nature, in denying gifts or inflicting punishment, hastened to throw in
compensations. Saxton asked so little, and beamed so radiantly when
given so little; he received kindnesses so shyly, as if, of course, they
could not be meant for him, but it was all right anyway, and he would
move on just as soon as the other fellow came.
As for Wheaton, he was certainly not frivolous, and her father's respect
for him and dependence on him had communicated itself to her. He was so
much older than she; and at twenty-two, thirty-five savors of antiquity;
but he was steady, and steadiness was a trait that she respected. He was
terribly formal, but he was kind and thoughtful; he was even handsome,
or at least so every one said.
She lay dreaming until the clock on the mantel chimed midnight, when
she reached for the novel that had fallen on the coverlet, to put it on
the stand beside her bed. A card which she had been using as a mark fell
from the book; she picked it up and turned it over to see whose it was.
It was John Saxton's.
"Father didn't say anything about him," she said aloud. She thrust the
card back into the book and reached up and snapped out the light.