THE morning postman brought Mrs. Lapham a letter from Irene, which was
chiefly significant because it made no reference whatever to the writer
or her state of mind. It gave the news of her uncle's family; it told
of their kindness to her; her cousin Will was going to take her and his
sisters ice-boating on the river, when it froze.
By the time this letter came, Lapham had gone to his business, and the
mother carried it to Penelope to talk over. "What do you make out of
it?" she asked; and without waiting to be answered she said, "I don't
know as I believe in cousins marrying, a great deal; but if Irene and
Will were to fix it up between 'em----" She looked vaguely at Penelope.
"It wouldn't make any difference as far as I was concerned," replied
the girl listlessly.
Mrs. Lapham lost her patience.
"Well, then, I'll tell you what, Penelope!" she exclaimed. "Perhaps
it'll make a difference to you if you know that your father's in REAL
trouble. He's harassed to death, and he was awake half the night,
talking about it. That abominable Rogers has got a lot of money away
from him; and he's lost by others that he's helped,"--Mrs. Lapham put
it in this way because she had no time to be explicit,--"and I want you
should come out of your room now, and try to be of some help and
comfort to him when he comes home to-night. I guess Irene wouldn't
mope round much, if she was here," she could not help adding.
The girl lifted herself on her elbow. "What's that you say about
father?" she demanded eagerly. "Is he in trouble? Is he going to lose
his money? Shall we have to stay in this house?"
"We may be very GLAD to stay in this house," said Mrs. Lapham, half
angry with herself for having given cause for the girl's conjectures,
and half with the habit of prosperity in her child, which could
conceive no better of what adversity was. "And I want you should get
up and show that you've got some feeling for somebody in the world
besides yourself."
"Oh, I'll get UP!" said the girl promptly, almost cheerfully.
"I don't say it's as bad now as it looked a little while ago," said her
mother, conscientiously hedging a little from the statement which she
had based rather upon her feelings than her facts. "Your father thinks
he'll pull through all right, and I don't know but what he will. But I
want you should see if you can't do something to cheer him up and keep
him from getting so perfectly down-hearted as he seems to get, under
the load he's got to carry. And stop thinking about yourself a while,
and behave yourself like a sensible girl."
"Yes, yes," said the girl; "I will. You needn't be troubled about me
any more."
Before she left her room she wrote a note, and when she came down she
was dressed to go out-of-doors and post it herself. The note was to
Corey:--
"Do not come to see me any more till you hear from me. I have a reason
which I cannot give you now; and you must not ask what it is."
All day she went about in a buoyant desperation, and she came down to
meet her father at supper.
"Well, Persis," he said scornfully, as he sat down, "we might as well
saved our good resolutions till they were wanted. I guess those
English parties have gone back on Rogers."
"Do you mean he didn't come?"
"He hadn't come up to half-past five," said Lapham.
"Tchk!" uttered his wife. "But I guess I shall pull through without
Mr. Rogers," continued Lapham. "A firm that I didn't think COULD
weather it is still afloat, and so far forth as the danger goes of
being dragged under with it, I'm all right." Penelope came in. "Hello,
Pen!" cried her father. "It ain't often I meet YOU nowadays." He put
up his hand as she passed his chair, and pulled her down and kissed her.
"No," she said; "but I thought I'd come down to-night and cheer you up
a little. I shall not talk; the sight of me will be enough."
Her father laughed out. "Mother been telling you? Well, I WAS pretty
blue last night; but I guess I was more scared than hurt. How'd you
like to go to the theatre to-night? Sellers at the Park. Heigh?"
"Well, I don't know. Don't you think they could get along without me
there?"
"No; couldn't work it at all," cried the Colonel. "Let's all go.
Unless," he added inquiringly, "there's somebody coming here?"
"There's nobody coming," said Penelope.
"Good! Then we'll go. Mother, don't you be late now."
"Oh, I shan't keep you waiting," said Mrs. Lapham. She had thought of
telling what a cheerful letter she had got from Irene; but upon the
whole it seemed better not to speak of Irene at all just then. After
they returned from the theatre, where the Colonel roared through the
comedy, with continual reference of his pleasure to Penelope, to make
sure that she was enjoying it too, his wife said, as if the whole
affair had been for the girl's distraction rather than his, "I don't
believe but what it's going to come out all right about the children;"
and then she told him of the letter, and the hopes she had founded upon
it.
"Well, perhaps you're right, Persis," he consented.
"I haven't seen Pen so much like herself since it happened. I declare,
when I see the way she came out to-night, just to please you, I don't
know as I want you should get over all your troubles right away."
"I guess there'll be enough to keep Pen going for a while yet," said
the Colonel, winding up his watch.
But for a time there was a relief, which Walker noted, in the
atmosphere at the office, and then came another cold wave, slighter
than the first, but distinctly felt there, and succeeded by another
relief. It was like the winter which was wearing on to the end of the
year, with alternations of freezing weather, and mild days stretching
to weeks, in which the snow and ice wholly disappeared. It was none
the less winter, and none the less harassing for these fluctuations,
and Lapham showed in his face and temper the effect of like
fluctuations in his affairs. He grew thin and old, and both at home
and at his office he was irascible to the point of offence. In these
days Penelope shared with her mother the burden of their troubled home,
and united with her in supporting the silence or the petulance of the
gloomy, secret man who replaced the presence of jolly prosperity there.
Lapham had now ceased to talk of his troubles, and savagely resented
his wife's interference. "You mind your own business, Persis," he said
one day, "if you've got any;" and after that she left him mainly to
Penelope, who did not think of asking him questions.
"It's pretty hard on you, Pen," she said.
"That makes it easier for me," returned the girl, who did not otherwise
refer to her own trouble.
In her heart she had wondered a little at the absolute obedience of
Corey, who had made no sign since receiving her note. She would have
liked to ask her father if Corey was sick; she would have liked him to
ask her why Corey did not come any more. Her mother went on--
"I don't believe your father knows WHERE he stands. He works away at
those papers he brings home here at night, as if he didn't half know
what he was about. He always did have that close streak in him, and I
don't suppose but what he's been going into things he don't want
anybody else to know about, and he's kept these accounts of his own."
Sometimes he gave Penelope figures to work at, which he would not
submit to his wife's nimbler arithmetic. Then she went to bed and left
them sitting up till midnight, struggling with problems in which they
were both weak. But she could see that the girl was a comfort to her
father, and that his troubles were a defence and shelter to her. Some
nights she could hear them going out together, and then she lay awake
for their return from their long walk. When the hour or day of respite
came again, the home felt it first. Lapham wanted to know what the
news from Irene was; he joined his wife in all her cheerful
speculations, and tried to make her amends for his sullen reticence and
irritability. Irene was staying on at Dubuque. There came a letter
from her, saying that her uncle's people wanted her to spend the winter
there. "Well, let her," said Lapham. "It'll be the best thing for
her."
Lapham himself had letters from his brother at frequent intervals. His
brother was watching the G. L. & P., which as yet had made no offer for
the mills. Once, when one of these letters came, he submitted to his
wife whether, in the absence of any positive information that the road
wanted the property, he might not, with a good conscience, dispose of
it to the best advantage to anybody who came along.
She looked wistfully at him; it was on the rise from a season of deep
depression with him. "No, Si," she said; "I don't see how you could do
that."
He did not assent and submit, as he had done at first, but began to
rail at the unpracticality of women; and then he shut some papers he
had been looking over into his desk, and flung out of the room.
One of the papers had slipped through the crevice of the lid, and lay
upon the floor. Mrs. Lapham kept on at her sewing, but after a while
she picked the paper up to lay it on the desk. Then she glanced at it,
and saw that it was a long column of dates and figures, recording
successive sums, never large ones, paid regularly to "Wm. M." The dates
covered a year, and the sum amounted at least to several hundreds.
Mrs. Lapham laid the paper down on the desk, and then she took it up
again and put it into her work-basket, meaning to give it to him. When
he came in she saw him looking absent-mindedly about for something, and
then going to work upon his papers, apparently without it. She thought
she would wait till he missed it definitely, and then give him the
scrap she had picked up. It lay in her basket, and after some days it
found its way under the work in it, and she forgot it.