The silence grew so deep that the young Sewells talked together in
murmurs, and the clicking of the knives on the plates became painful.
Sewell kept himself from looking at Barker, whom he nevertheless knew
to be changing his knife and fork from one hand to the other, as doubt
after doubt took him as to their conventional use, and to be getting
very little good of his dinner in the process of settling these
questions. The door-bell rang, and the sound of a whispered conference
between the visitor and the servant at the threshold penetrated to the
dining-room. Some one softly entered, and then Mrs. Sewell called out,
“Yes, yes! Come in! Come in, Miss Vane!” She jumped from her chair and
ran out into the hall, where she was heard to kiss her visitor; she
reappeared, still holding her by the hand, and then Miss Vane shook
hands with Sewell, saying in a tone of cordial liking, “_How_ d'ye do?”
and to each of the young people as she shook hands in turn with them,
“How d'ye _do_, dear?” She was no longer so pretty as she must have once
been; but an air of distinction and a delicate charm of manner remained
to her from her fascinating youth.
Young Sewell pushed her a chair to the table, and she dropped softly
into it, after acknowledging Barker's presentation by Mrs. Sewell with a
kindly glance that probably divined him.
“You must dine with us,” said Mrs. Sewell. “You can call it lunch.”
“No, I can't, Mrs. Sewell,” said Miss Vane. “I could once, and should
have said with great pleasure, when I went away, that I had been
lunching at the Sewells; but I can't now. I've reformed. What have you
got for dinner?”
“Roast beef,” said Sewell.
“Nothing I dislike more,” replied Miss Vane. “What else?” She put on her
glasses, and peered critically about the table.
“Stewed tomatoes, baked sweet potatoes, macaroni.”
“How unimaginative! What are you going to have afterwards?”
“Cottage pudding.”
“The very climax of the commonplace. Well!” Miss Vane began to pull off
her gloves, and threw her veil back over her shoulder. “I will dine with
you, but when I say dine, and people ask me to explain, I shall have to
say, 'Why, the Sewells still dine at one o'clock, you know,' and
laugh over your old-fashioned habits with them. I should like to do
differently, and to respect the sacredness of broken bread and that
sort of thing; but I'm trying to practise with every one an affectionate
sincerity, which is perfectly compatible not only with the brotherliness
of Christianity, but the politeness of the world.” Miss Vane looked
demurely at Mrs. Sewell. “I can't make any exceptions.”
The ladies both broke into a mocking laugh, in which Sewell joined with
sheepish reluctance; after all, one does not like to be derided, even by
one's dearest friends.
“As soon as I hear my other little sins denounced from the pulpit, I'm
going to stop using profane language and carrying away people's spoons
in my pocket.”
The ladies seemed to think this also a very good joke, and his children
laughed in sympathy, but Sewell hung his head; Barker sat bolt upright
behind his plate, and stared at Miss Vane. “I never have been all but
named in church before,” she concluded, “and I've heard others say the
same.”
“Why didn't you come to complain sooner?” asked Sewell.
“Well, I have been away ever since that occasion. I went down the
next day to Newport, and I've been there ever since, admiring the
ribbon-planting.”
“On the lawns or on the ladies?” asked Sewell.
“Both. And sowing broadcast the seeds of plain speaking. I don't know
what Newport will be in another year if they all take root.”
“I dare say it will be different,” said Sewell. “I'm not sure it will
be worse.” He plucked up a little spirit, and added: “Now you see of how
little importance you really are in the community; you have been gone
these three weeks, and your own pastor didn't know you were out of
town.”
“Yes, you did, David,” interposed his wife. “I told you Miss Vane was
away two weeks ago.”
“Did you? Well I forgot it immediately; the fact was of no consequence,
one way or the other. How do you like that as a bit of affectionate
sincerity?”
“I like it immensely,” said Miss Vane. “It's delicious. I only wish I
could believe you were honest.” She leaned back and laughed into
her handkerchief, while Sewell regarded her with a face in which his
mortification at being laughed at was giving way to a natural pleasure
at seeing Miss Vane enjoy herself. “What do you think,” she asked,
“since you're in this mood of exasperated veracity--or pretend to be--of
the flower charity?”
“Do you mean by the barrel, or the single sack? The Graham, or the best
Haxall, or the health-food cold-blast?” asked Sewell.
Miss Vane lost her power of answering in another peal of laughter,
sobering off, and breaking down again before she could say, “I mean cut
flowers for patients and prisoners.”
“Oh, that kind! I don't think a single pansy would have an appreciable
effect upon a burglar; perhaps a bunch of forget-me-nots might, or a
few lilies of the valley carelessly arranged. As to the influence of a
graceful little _boutonnière_, in cases of rheumatism or cholera morbus,
it might be efficacious but I can't really say.”
“How perfectly cynical!” cried Miss Vane. “Don't you know how much good
the flower mission has accomplished among the deserving poor? Hundreds
of bouquets are distributed every day. They prevent crime.”
“That shows how susceptible the deserving poor are. I don't find that
a bowl of the most expensive and delicate roses in the centre of a
dinner-table tempers the asperity of the conversation when it turns upon
the absent. But perhaps it oughtn't to do so.”
“I don't know about that,” said Miss Vane; “but if you had an impulsive
niece to supply with food for the imagination, you would be very glad of
anything that seemed to combine practical piety and picturesque effect.”
“Oh, if you mean that,” began Sewell more soberly, and his wife leaned
forward with an interest in the question which she had not felt while
the mere joking went on.
“Yes. When Sibyl came in this morning with an imperative demand to be
allowed to go off and do good with flowers in the homes of virtuous
poverty, as well as the hospitals and prisons, I certainly felt as if
there had been an interposition, if you will allow me to say so.”
Miss Vane still had her joking air, but a note of anxiety had crept into
her voice.
“I don't think it will do the sick and poor any harm,” said Sewell, “and
it may do Sibyl some good.” He smiled a little in adding: “It may afford
her varied energies a little scope.”
Miss Vane shook her head, and some lines of age came into her face which
had not shown themselves there before. “And you would advise letting her
go into it?” she asked.
“By all means,” replied Sewell. “But if she's going to engage actively
in the missionary work, I think you'd better go with her on her errands
of mercy.”
“Oh, of course, she's going to do good in person. What she wants is
the sensation of doing good--of seeing and hearing the results of her
beneficence. She'd care very little about it if she didn't.”
“Oh, I don't know that you can say that,” replied Sewell in deprecation
of this extreme view. “I don't believe,” he continued, “that she would
object to doing good for its own sake.”
“Of course she wouldn't, David! Who in the world supposed she would?”
demanded his wife, bringing him up roundly at this sign of wandering,
and Miss Vane laughed wildly.
“And is this what your doctrine of sincerity comes to? This fulsomeness!
You're very little better than one of the wicked, it seems to me! Well,
I _hoped_ that you would approve of my letting Sibyl take this thing up,
but such _unbounded_ encouragement!”
“Oh, I don't wish to flatter,” said Sewell, in the spirit of her
raillery. “It will be very well for her to go round with flowers; but
don't let her,” he continued seriously--“don't let her imagine it's more
than an innocent amusement. It would be a sort of hideous mockery of the
good we ought to do one another if there were supposed to be anything
more than a kindly thoughtfulness expressed in such a thing.”
“Oh, if Sibyl doesn't feel that it's real, for the time being she won't
care anything about it. She likes to lose herself in the illusion, she
says.”
“Well!” said Sewell with a slight shrug, “then we must let her get what
good she can out of it as an exercise of the sensibilities.”
“O my dear!” exclaimed his wife, “You _don't_ mean anything so
abominable as that! I've heard you say that the worst thing about
fiction and the theatre was that they brought emotions into play that
ought to be sacred to real occasions.”
“Did I say that? Well, I must have been right. I--”
Barker made a scuffling sound with his boots under the table, and rose
to his feet. “I guess,” he said, “I shall have to be going.”
They had all forgotten him, and Sewell felt as if he had neglected this
helpless guest. “Why, no, you mustn't go! I was in hopes we might do
something to make the day pleasant to you. I intended proposing--”
“Yes,” his wife interrupted, believing that he meant to give up one
of his precious afternoons to Barker, and hastening to prevent the
sacrifice, “my son will show you the Public Garden and the Common, and
go about the town with you.” She rose too, and young Sewell, accustomed
to suffer, silently acquiesced. “If your train isn't to start very
soon--”
“I guess I better be going,” said Barker, and Mrs. Sewell now gave her
husband a look conveying her belief that Barker would be happier if they
let him go. At the same time she frowned upon the monstrous thought of
asking him to stay the night with them, which she detected in Sewell's
face.
She allowed him to say nothing but, “I'm sorry; but if you really
must--”
“I guess I better,” persisted Barker. He got himself somehow to the
door, where he paused a moment, and contrived to pant, “Well, good day,”
and without effort at more cordial leave-taking, passed out.
Sewell followed him, and helped him find his hat, and made him shake
hands. He went with him to the door, and, beginning to suffer afresh at
the wrong he had done Barker, he detained him at the threshold. “If you
still wish to see a publisher, Mr. Barker, I will gladly go with you.”
“Oh, not at all, not at all. I guess I don't want to see any publisher
this afternoon. Well, good afternoon!” He turned away from Sewell's
remorseful pursuit, and clumsily hurrying down the steps, he walked
up the street and round the next corner. Sewell stood watching him in
rueful perplexity, shading his eyes from the mild October sun with his
hand; and some moments after Barker had disappeared, he remained looking
after him.
When he rejoined the ladies in the dining-room they fell into a
conscious silence.
“Have you been telling, Lucy?” he asked.
“Yes, I've been telling, David. It was the only way. Did you offer to go
with him to a publisher again?”
“Yes, I did. It was the only way,” said Sewell.
Miss Vane and his wife both broke into a cry of laughter. The former got
her breath first. “So _that_ was the origin of the famous sermon that
turned all our heads grey with good resolutions.” Sewell assented with a
sickly grin. “What in the world _made_ you encourage him?”
“My goodness of heart, which I didn't take the precaution of mixing with
goodness of head before I used it.”
Everything was food for Miss Vane's laugh, even this confession. “But
what is the natural history of the boy? How came he to write poetry?
What do you suppose he means by it?”
“That isn't so easy to say. As to his natural history, he lives with his
mother in a tumbledown, unpainted wooden house in the deepest fastness
of Willoughby Pastures. Lucy and I used to drive by it and wonder what
kind of people inhabited that solitude. There were milk-cans scattered
round the door-yard, and the Monday we were there a poverty-stricken
wash flapped across it. The thought of the place preyed upon me till one
day I asked about it at the post-office, and the postmistress told me
that the boy was quite a literary character, and read everything he
could lay his hands on, and 'sat up nights' writing poetry. It seemed to
me a very clear case of genius, and the postmistress's facts rankled in
my mind till I couldn't stand it any longer. Then I went to see him. I
suppose Lucy has told you the rest?”
“Yes, Mrs. Sewell has told me the rest. But still I don't see how he
came to write poetry. I believe it doesn't pay, even in extreme cases of
genius.”
“Ah, but that's just what this poor fellow didn't know. He must have
read somewhere, in some deleterious newspaper, about the sale of some
large edition of a poem, and have had his own wild hopes about it. I
don't say his work didn't show sense; it even showed some rude strength,
of a didactic, satirical sort, but it certainly didn't show poetry. He
might have taken up painting by a little different chance. And when it
was once known about the neighbourhood that he wrote poetry, his vanity
was flattered--”
“Yes, I see. But wasn't there any kind soul to tell him that he was
throwing his time away?”
“It appears not.”
“And even the kind soul from Boston, who visited him,” suggested Mrs.
Sewell. “Go on, David.”
“Visited him in spite of his wife's omniscience,--even the kind soul
from Boston paltered with this plain duty. Even he, to spare himself
the pain of hurting the boy's feelings, tried to find some of the lines
better than others, and left him with the impression that he had praised
them.”
“Well, that was pretty bad,” said Miss Vane. “You had to tell him
to-day, I suppose, that there was no hope for him?”
“Yes, I had to tell him at last, after letting him waste his time and
money in writing more stuff and coming to Boston with it. I've put him
to needless shame, and I've inflicted suffering upon him that I can't
lighten in the least by sharing.”
“No, that's the most discouraging thing about pitying people. It does
them no manner of good,” said Miss Vane, “and just hurts you. Don't
you think that in an advanced civilisation we shall cease to feel
compassion? Why don't you preach against common pity, as you did against
common politeness?”
“Well, it isn't quite such a crying sin yet. But really, really,”
exclaimed Sewell, “the world seems so put together that I believe we
ought to think twice before doing a good action.”
“David!” said his wife warningly.
“Oh, let him go on!” cried Miss Vane, with a laugh. “I'm proof against
his monstrous doctrines. Go on, Mr. Sewell.”
“What I mean is this.” Sewell pushed himself back in his chair, and then
stopped.
“Is what?” prompted both the ladies.
“Why, suppose the boy really had some literary faculty, should I have
had any right to encourage it? He was very well where he was. He fed the
cows and milked them, and carried the milk to the crossroads, where the
dealer collected it and took it to the train. That was his life, with
the incidental facts of cutting the hay and fodder, and bedding the
cattle; and his experience never went beyond it. I doubt if his fancy
ever did, except in some wild, mistaken excursion. Why shouldn't he have
been left to this condition? He ate, he slept, he fulfilled his use.
Which of us does more?”
“How would you like to have been in his place?” asked his wife.
“I couldn't _put_ myself in his place; and therefore I oughtn't to have
done anything to take him out of it,” answered Sewell.
“It seems to me that's very un-American,” said Miss Vane. “I thought
we had prospered up to the present point by taking people out of their
places.”
“Yes, we have,” replied the minister, “and sometimes, it seems to me,
the result is hideous. I don't mind people taking themselves out of
their places; but if the particles of this mighty cosmos have been
adjusted by the divine wisdom, what are we to say of the temerity that
disturbs the least of them?”
“I'm sure I don't know,” said Miss Vane, rising. “I'm almost afraid to
stir, in view of the possible consequences. But I can't sit here all
day, and if Mrs. Sewell will excuse me, I'll go at once. Yes, 'I guess
I better be going,' as your particle Barker says. Let us hope he'll get
safely back to his infinitesimal little crevice in the cosmos. He's a
very pretty particle, don't you think? That thick, coarse, wavy black
hair growing in a natural bang over his forehead would make his fortune
if he were a certain kind of young lady.”
They followed her to the door, chatting, and Sewell looked quickly out
when he opened it for her.
As she shook his hand she broke into another laugh. “Really, you looked
as if you were afraid of finding him on the steps!”
“If I could only have got near the poor boy,” said Sewell to his wife,
as they returned withindoors. “If I could only have reached him where
he lives, as our slang says! But do what I would, I couldn't find any
common ground where we could stand together. We were as unlike as if we
were of two different species. I saw that everything I said bewildered
him more and more; he couldn't understand me! Our education is
unchristian, our civilisation is pagan. They both ought to bring us in
closer relations with our fellow-creatures, and they both only put us
more widely apart! Every one of us dwells in an impenetrable solitude!
We understand each other a little if our circumstances are similar, but
if they are different all our words leave us dumb and unintelligible.”