NEW IDEAS
A parting shot in conversation sometimes rankles like the Parthian's
arrow. So it had been with Pease. Beth had said to him: "How can you
think you know life, when you live so much alone?"--words to that
effect. He had had no chance to defend himself to her, and in
consequence had been defending himself to himself ever since. Truly a
serious mind is a heavy burden.
Finally he had come down to Chebasset to get the matter off his mind; at
least, such was his real purpose. He coloured it with the intention of
"looking in at the mill," and gave Mather a few words at the office.
Mather had been working at his desk, as Mr. Daggett, the Harbour
Commissioner, had found and left him. Orders, Mather said, were piling
in too fast.
Pease smiled. "Enlarge, then."
"Delay in profits," warned Mather. "No dividend this quarter."
"Go ahead just the same," said Pease. "I hoped for this."
Mather began writing. "Come, leave work," invited Pease. "I'm going up
to the Blanchards'. Come with me."
"I'm ordering coal and material," said Mather. "We have plenty of ore,
but the new work must begin soon."
Pease struck his hand upon the desk. "Do you mean," he demanded, "that
you are writing about the enlargements already?"
"Plans were made long ago," answered Mather.
"What do you do for exercise?" cried Pease. "How do you keep well? I'll
not be responsible, mind, for your breakdown when it comes."
But he made no impression and went away alone, climbed the hill, and
found the Blanchards on their piazza. Ellis was more than he had
bargained for, and the Colonel had never been exactly to Pease's taste,
but they departed, leaving him alone with Beth. She presently noticed
the signs that he was endeavouring to bring the conversation to a
particular subject, as one becomes aware of a heavy vessel trying to get
under way. So she gave him the chance to speak.
"Miss Blanchard," he said, when he found that he might forge ahead, "you
said something the other day--other evening--against which I must defend
myself. That I live much alone."
She remembered at once, flashed back in her mind to that whole
conversation, and was ready to tease him. Tease him she did as he began
his explanation; she refused to be persuaded that he did not live alone.
He might enumerate dinners, might point to his pursuits, might speak of
the hundred people of all classes with whom he came in close daily
contact: she would not acknowledge that she had been wrong.
"You are your mind," she declared, "and your mind is aloof."
He would have grieved, but that he felt again, dimly as before, that she
was rallying him. And he was pleased that she did not fear him, nor call
him Sir--that title which causes such a painful feeling of seniority.
She gave him a feeling of confidence, of youthfulness, which had not
been his even in boyhood. He had been "Old Pease" then; he was "Old
Pease" to many people still. The respect in which young and old held him
was a natural, if very formal atmosphere. This defiance of Beth's came
upon him like a fresh breeze, bringing younger life. He threw off his
earnestness at last and laughed with her at himself.
"Upon my word!" thought the Colonel, on whose ears such laughter had a
new sound. He looked out of the window; Pease was actually merry.
"Second childhood," grinned the Colonel, as he returned to his writing.
Beth discovered that Pease was no fossil, and began to enjoy herself
less at his expense but more for other reasons. He could never lose the
flavour of originality, for his odd manner's sake. Even as he sat and
laughed he was upright and precise, though the twinkle was genuine and
the noise was hearty. Then she rose from the tea-table, and they went to
the piazza's edge together. There they discovered Judith returning with
Ellis.
"Come away," said Beth quickly; "there are places where we can go. They
have not seen us; take your hat."
This was wonderful, slipping with a girl away from other people, and
Pease felt the delight of it. Fleeing by passages he had never seen, in
a house he had never before entered, smacked of the youthful and
romantic. Beth brought him out behind the house, and thirty seconds put
them in shrubbery. She led the way, not suspecting that his mental
vision was dazzled by new vistas.
For Pease would have faced Ellis and Judith as a duty, borne with their
conversation, and returned home without a sigh for the wasted hour. Such
was his conception of life--to take what was sent, nor avoid the
unpleasant. It had gone so far that in some matters he did not consult
his own feelings at all, but gave his time to others, recognising
himself as a trustee for their benefit. The good which can be done in
such a way is enormous, in business or professional matters merely; but
Pease had carried the habit into his social scheme, and was therefore
the sufferer from his own good nature, the victim of every bore. It was
a revelation that one could exercise choice, and could flee (losing
dignity, but gaining in romance) from the unpleasant. So that boyish
thrill came over him, with a manly one besides as he felt the compliment
Beth paid him. It put them on a closer footing when, laughing and out of
breath, she sat in a garden seat and motioned him to take the place
beside her.
"Do you think me foolish?" she asked.
"Not at all!" he answered eagerly.
"But perhaps you wished to stay and meet Mr. Ellis?"
"Not for anything!" he averred.
Then she looked at him soberly. "What do you think of him?" She posed
him, for polite vagueness was his desire, and he could not find the
words.
"He is----" he hesitated, "very--er, pleasant, of course. Not my--kind,
perhaps."
"And you really do not like him," she stated, so simply and confidently
that in all innocence he answered "Yes," and then could have bitten his
tongue off.
"Neither do I," she acknowledged.
And so those two took the same important step which Judith and Ellis had
already taken--of showing true feeling to each other, and breaking rules
thereby. For Beth, while not reserved, chose her confidants carefully,
after long trial; and Pease's habit had been never to acknowledge
personal feeling against any one, least of all a business rival.
"Judith has encouraged him before," said Beth. "People talked of her
when she met him; they will do so the more now that she has asked him
here. Not that she will care for that, Mr. Pease, but I shall not enjoy
it."
"Of course you will not," he agreed.
They hovered on the verge of confidences for a moment, then Beth took
the plunge. She looked at Pease with a little distress in her eyes.
"Judith is headstrong," she said. "She is discontented, but does not
know what she wants. I have sometimes thought that George Mather, if he
only knew how, might----"
"Yes," said Pease, filling the pause. "I wish he did. He is not happy
himself, poor fellow. They have been intimate?"
"Till within a little while. But they are both too masterful. And yet I
sometimes think she has him always in mind, but as if defying him, do
you understand?"
"Indeed?" he murmured.
"I hope," said Beth, "that this acquaintance of hers with Mr. Ellis is
just a phase of that. If it is not, and if she should--Judith cares so
little for people's opinions, you know."
"It would be very--painful," murmured Pease. "But it has not come to
anything of that sort yet?"
"No, but I know Judith so well that I don't know what she'll do." And
Beth concluded her confidences in order to draw some from Pease. The
sort of man Ellis was: could he be called dishonest? He was not of
course a gentleman? Pease cast off restraint and answered frankly; she
found he had considerable power of defining his thoughts, saying that
Ellis had never been proved dishonest, but that his conscience seemed no
bar to questionable actions; that he was unrefined, good-natured when he
had conquered, rough in breaking his way. What his personal charms might
be Pease had never had the chance to determine. Mrs. Harmon seemed to
like him--but one must not judge by that, because--and silence fell for
a moment, as they looked at each other with understanding.
It seems simple and so commonplace, but this was one of the talks which
_accomplish_, bringing the speakers together as nothing else can do.
Such talks build human ties; Pease and Beth formed one now. By the time
they saw Ellis going away they had new feelings toward each other,
differing in degree and result--for Beth knew friendship well, but to
Pease it was altogether astonishing and momentous. When Ellis was well
away Pease also took his leave and followed down the winding road.
"Tell Mr. Mather to come," were Beth's last words to him.
So Pease went again to the mill, where Mather was still in the office.
Pease had little finesse, and went about his errand directly.
"Miss Jenks," he said, and the stenographer vanished.
"Anything?" asked Mather.
Pease put his hand on his shoulder. "Just a message," he answered. "Miss
Elizabeth Blanchard----"
"Oh, Beth, you mean," said Mather.
"Yes," replied Pease. "She told me to tell you to come and see them."
"Indeed?" asked Mather.
"She was particular about it," Pease urged. "She meant something by it."
"Thanks," was all Mather said. "Now these enlargements, Mr. Pease. You
meant what you said?"
"Yes, yes," answered Pease impatiently, and closed his hand on the
other's shoulder. "And I mean this: Take Miss Blanchard's advice. Good
day." He went to the door, and turned. "Ellis was up there this
afternoon."
On his way home he did little thinking, but he felt. He had touched
people's lives in a new way; he felt the breath of Mather's romance, and
warmed at the trust which Beth reposed in him. Odd quivers ran through
him, strange little impulses toward his kind, calling him to a youth
which his life had earlier denied him. It was not possible for him to
understand their meaning, but they were pleasurable.
In like manner Mather gave that evening to musings concerning persons
rather than things. To follow his new line of conduct with Judith, or
(now that Ellis had appeared again) to turn once more and earnestly
pursue her--which? Clearly he saw that Judith would go her own way,
would play with fire, would even burn her fingers for all that he could
do. He must wait, be her friend, and having once said his say, must
never again bother her with his warnings.
And Ellis, that evening, also mused upon the Blanchards, though his
thoughts were very definite. On leaving the house he had borrowed the
newspaper; the Colonel had asked him to post some letters in the city.
When in the train, Ellis turned the newspaper to the stock-market
reports and studied the Colonel's pencillings. Blanchard had underlined
the names of certain stocks usually considered skittish rather than
safe, and had made multiplications in the margin. When Ellis came to
post the letters, very deliberately he read the addresses. Some were
meaningless to him, but one bore the address of a broker whose
reputation was quite as uncertain as the value of the stocks he chiefly
dealt in. Ellis did not cast off thought until he reached his house.
Then he looked up at the Gothic building and scanned its various
projections. "Ornate?" he murmured. "Well, wait till the inside is
properly beautified!"
He spoke lightly, but when he entered the house his feeling changed. The
great hall was dim and shadowy; seldom aired, it seemed cold. In front
of him wound the huge staircase; to left and right were dusky apartments
which echoed his steps. Since he first built the place it had satisfied
him, but fresh from the influence of Judith, suddenly he saw the house
as it was. Empty, gloomy, it was but a vast artificial cave, without
life or warmth. For the second time a wistfulness, misunderstood, almost
bewildering, came over him, and he wondered if anybody--somebody!--would
ever brighten the house for him, and make it a home.