Monday came and with it his final departure. All that could be done had
been done. Cowperwood said his farewells to his mother and father, his
brothers and sister. He had a rather distant but sensible and
matter-of-fact talk with his wife. He made no special point of saying
good-by to his son or his daughter; when he came in on Thursday,
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings, after he had learned that he was
to depart Monday, it was with the thought of talking to them a little
in an especially affectionate way. He realized that his general moral
or unmoral attitude was perhaps working them a temporary injustice.
Still he was not sure. Most people did fairly well with their lives,
whether coddled or deprived of opportunity. These children would
probably do as well as most children, whatever happened—and then,
anyhow, he had no intention of forsaking them financially, if he could
help it. He did not want to separate his wife from her children, nor
them from her. She should keep them. He wanted them to be comfortable
with her. He would like to see them, wherever they were with her,
occasionally. Only he wanted his own personal freedom, in so far as she
and they were concerned, to go off and set up a new world and a new
home with Aileen. So now on these last days, and particularly this last
Sunday night, he was rather noticeably considerate of his boy and girl,
without being too openly indicative of his approaching separation from
them.
“Frank,” he said to his notably lackadaisical son on this occasion,
“aren’t you going to straighten up and be a big, strong, healthy
fellow? You don’t play enough. You ought to get in with a gang of boys
and be a leader. Why don’t you fit yourself up a gymnasium somewhere
and see how strong you can get?”
They were in the senior Cowperwood’s sitting-room, where they had all
rather consciously gathered on this occasion.
Lillian, second, who was on the other side of the big library table
from her father, paused to survey him and her brother with interest.
Both had been carefully guarded against any real knowledge of their
father’s affairs or his present predicament. He was going away on a
journey for about a month or so they understood. Lillian was reading in
a Chatterbox book which had been given her the previous Christmas.
“He won’t do anything,” she volunteered, looking up from her reading in
a peculiarly critical way for her. “Why, he won’t ever run races with
me when I want him to.”
“Aw, who wants to run races with you, anyhow?” returned Frank, junior,
sourly. “You couldn’t run if I did want to run with you.”
“Couldn’t I?” she replied. “I could beat you, all right.”
“Lillian!” pleaded her mother, with a warning sound in her voice.
Cowperwood smiled, and laid his hand affectionately on his son’s head.
“You’ll be all right, Frank,” he volunteered, pinching his ear lightly.
“Don’t worry—just make an effort.”
The boy did not respond as warmly as he hoped. Later in the evening
Mrs. Cowperwood noticed that her husband squeezed his daughter’s slim
little waist and pulled her curly hair gently. For the moment she was
jealous of her daughter.
“Going to be the best kind of a girl while I’m away?” he said to her,
privately.
“Yes, papa,” she replied, brightly.
“That’s right,” he returned, and leaned over and kissed her mouth
tenderly. “Button Eyes,” he said.
Mrs. Cowperwood sighed after he had gone. “Everything for the children,
nothing for me,” she thought, though the children had not got so vastly
much either in the past.
Cowperwood’s attitude toward his mother in this final hour was about as
tender and sympathetic as any he could maintain in this world. He
understood quite clearly the ramifications of her interests, and how
she was suffering for him and all the others concerned. He had not
forgotten her sympathetic care of him in his youth; and if he could
have done anything to have spared her this unhappy breakdown of her
fortunes in her old age, he would have done so. There was no use crying
over spilled milk. It was impossible at times for him not to feel
intensely in moments of success or failure; but the proper thing to do
was to bear up, not to show it, to talk little and go your way with an
air not so much of resignation as of self-sufficiency, to whatever was
awaiting you. That was his attitude on this morning, and that was what
he expected from those around him—almost compelled, in fact, by his own
attitude.
“Well, mother,” he said, genially, at the last moment—he would not let
her nor his wife nor his sister come to court, maintaining that it
would make not the least difference to him and would only harrow their
own feelings uselessly—“I’m going now. Don’t worry. Keep up your
spirits.”
He slipped his arm around his mother’s waist, and she gave him a long,
unrestrained, despairing embrace and kiss.
“Go on, Frank,” she said, choking, when she let him go. “God bless you.
I’ll pray for you.” He paid no further attention to her. He didn’t
dare.
“Good-by, Lillian,” he said to his wife, pleasantly, kindly. “I’ll be
back in a few days, I think. I’ll be coming out to attend some of these
court proceedings.”
To his sister he said: “Good-by, Anna. Don’t let the others get too
down-hearted.”
“I’ll see you three afterward,” he said to his father and brothers; and
so, dressed in the very best fashion of the time, he hurried down into
the reception-hall, where Steger was waiting, and was off. His family,
hearing the door close on him, suffered a poignant sense of desolation.
They stood there for a moment, his mother crying, his father looking as
though he had lost his last friend but making a great effort to seem
self-contained and equal to his troubles, Anna telling Lillian not to
mind, and the latter staring dumbly into the future, not knowing what
to think. Surely a brilliant sun had set on their local scene, and in a
very pathetic way.