"Don't you?" she returned mockingly. "When you do, you tell me. Do
you want any more coffee?"
"No."
"Well, then, you can ring for Alice when you've finished. I've got
some things to attend to." She rose abruptly, and left the room.
Lapham looked after her in a dull way, and then went on with his
breakfast. While he still sat at his coffee, she flung into the room
again, and dashed some papers down beside his plate. "Here are some
more things of yours, and I'll thank you to lock them up in your desk
and not litter my room with them, if you please." Now he saw that she
was angry, and it must be with him. It enraged him that in such a time
of trouble she should fly out at him in that way. He left the house
without trying to speak to her. That day Corey came just before
closing, and, knocking at Lapham's door, asked if he could speak with
him a few moments.
"Yes," said Lapham, wheeling round in his swivel-chair and kicking
another towards Corey. "Sit down. I want to talk to you. I'd ought
to tell you you're wasting your time here. I spoke the other day about
your placin' yourself better, and I can help you to do it, yet. There
ain't going to be the out-come for the paint in the foreign markets
that we expected, and I guess you better give it up."
"I don't wish to give it up," said the young fellow, setting his lips.
"I've as much faith in it as ever; and I want to propose now what I
hinted at in the first place. I want to put some money into the
business."
"Some money!" Lapham leaned towards him, and frowned as if he had not
quite understood, while he clutched the arms of his chair.
"I've got about thirty thousand dollars that I could put in, and if you
don't want to consider me a partner--I remember that you objected to a
partner--you can let me regard it as an investment. But I think I see
the way to doing something at once in Mexico, and I should like to feel
that I had something more than a drummer's interest in the venture."
The men sat looking into each other's eyes. Then Lapham leaned back in
his chair, and rubbed his hand hard and slowly over his face. His
features were still twisted with some strong emotion when he took it
away. "Your family know about this?"
"My Uncle James knows."
"He thinks it would be a good plan for you?"
"He thought that by this time I ought to be able to trust my own
judgment."
"Do you suppose I could see your uncle at his office?"
"I imagine he's there."
"Well, I want to have a talk with him, one of these days." He sat
pondering a while, and then rose, and went with Corey to his door. "I
guess I shan't change my mind about taking you into the business in
that way," he said coldly. "If there was any reason why I shouldn't at
first, there's more now."
"Very well, sir," answered the young man, and went to close his desk.
The outer office was empty; but while Corey was putting his papers in
order it was suddenly invaded by two women, who pushed by the
protesting porter on the stairs and made their way towards Lapham's
room. One of them was Miss Dewey, the type-writer girl, and the other
was a woman whom she would resemble in face and figure twenty years
hence, if she led a life of hard work varied by paroxysms of hard
drinking.
"That his room, Z'rilla?" asked this woman, pointing towards Lapham's
door with a hand that had not freed itself from the fringe of dirty
shawl under which it had hung. She went forward without waiting for
the answer, but before she could reach it the door opened, and Lapham
stood filling its space.
"Look here, Colonel Lapham!" began the woman, in a high key of
challenge. "I want to know if this is the way you're goin' back on me
and Z'rilla?"
"What do you want?" asked Lapham.
"What do I want? What do you s'pose I want? I want the money to pay my
month's rent; there ain't a bite to eat in the house; and I want some
money to market."
Lapham bent a frown on the woman, under which she shrank back a step.
"You've taken the wrong way to get it. Clear out!"
"I WON'T clear out!" said the woman, beginning to whimper.
"Corey!" said Lapham, in the peremptory voice of a master,--he had
seemed so indifferent to Corey's presence that the young man thought he
must have forgotten he was there,--"Is Dennis anywhere round?"
"Yissor," said Dennis, answering for himself from the head of the
stairs, and appearing in the ware-room.
Lapham spoke to the woman again. "Do you want I should call a hack, or
do you want I should call an officer?"
The woman began to cry into an end of her shawl. "I don't know what
we're goin' to do."
"You're going to clear out," said Lapham. "Call a hack, Dennis. If
you ever come here again, I'll have you arrested. Mind that! Zerrilla,
I shall want you early to-morrow morning."
"Yes, sir," said the girl meekly; she and her mother shrank out after
the porter.
Lapham shut his door without a word.
At lunch the next day Walker made himself amends for Corey's reticence
by talking a great deal. He talked about Lapham, who seemed to have,
more than ever since his apparent difficulties began, the fascination
of an enigma for his book-keeper, and he ended by asking, "Did you see
that little circus last night?"
"What little circus?" asked Corey in his turn.
"Those two women and the old man. Dennis told me about it. I told him
if he liked his place he'd better keep his mouth shut."
"That was very good advice," said Corey.
"Oh, all right, if you don't want to talk. Don't know as I should in
your place," returned Walker, in the easy security he had long felt
that Corey had no intention of putting on airs with him. "But I'll
tell you what: the old man can't expect it of everybody. If he keeps
this thing up much longer, it's going to be talked about. You can't
have a woman walking into your place of business, and trying to
bulldoze you before your porter, without setting your porter to
thinking. And the last thing you want a porter to do is to think; for
when a porter thinks, he thinks wrong."
"I don't see why even a porter couldn't think right about that affair,"
replied Corey. "I don't know who the woman was, though I believe she
was Miss Dewey's mother; but I couldn't see that Colonel Lapham showed
anything but a natural resentment of her coming to him in that way. I
should have said she was some rather worthless person whom he'd been
befriending, and that she had presumed upon his kindness."
"Is that so? What do you think of his never letting Miss Dewey's name
go on the books?"
"That it's another proof it's a sort of charity of his. That's the
only way to look at it."
"Oh, I'M all right." Walker lighted a cigar and began to smoke, with
his eyes closed to a fine straight line. "It won't do for a
book-keeper to think wrong, any more than a porter, I suppose. But I
guess you and I don't think very different about this thing."
"Not if you think as I do," replied Corey steadily; "and I know you
would do that if you had seen the 'circus' yourself. A man doesn't
treat people who have a disgraceful hold upon him as he treated them."
"It depends upon who he is," said Walker, taking his cigar from his
mouth. "I never said the old man was afraid of anything."
"And character," continued Corey, disdaining to touch the matter
further, except in generalities, "must go for something. If it's to be
the prey of mere accident and appearance, then it goes for nothing."
"Accidents will happen in the best regulated families," said Walker,
with vulgar, good-humoured obtuseness that filled Corey with
indignation. Nothing, perhaps, removed his matter-of-fact nature
further from the commonplace than a certain generosity of instinct,
which I should not be ready to say was always infallible.
That evening it was Miss Dewey's turn to wait for speech with Lapham
after the others were gone. He opened his door at her knock, and stood
looking at her with a worried air. "Well, what do you want, Zerrilla?"
he asked, with a sort of rough kindness.
"I want to know what I'm going to do about Hen. He's back again; and
he and mother have made it up, and they both got to drinking last night
after I went home, and carried on so that the neighbours came in."
Lapham passed his hand over his red and heated face. "I don't know
what I'm going to do. You're twice the trouble that my own family is,
now. But I know what I'd do, mighty quick, if it wasn't for you,
Zerrilla," he went on relentingly. "I'd shut your mother up
somewheres, and if I could get that fellow off for a three years'
voyage----"
"I declare," said Miss Dewey, beginning to whimper, "it seems as if he
came back just so often to spite me. He's never gone more than a year
at the furthest, and you can't make it out habitual drunkenness,
either, when it's just sprees. I'm at my wit's end."
"Oh, well, you mustn't cry around here," said Lapham soothingly.
"I know it," said Miss Dewey. "If I could get rid of Hen, I could
manage well enough with mother. Mr. Wemmel would marry me if I could
get the divorce. He's said so over and over again."
"I don't know as I like that very well," said Lapham, frowning. "I
don't know as I want you should get married in any hurry again. I
don't know as I like your going with anybody else just yet."
"Oh, you needn't be afraid but what it'll be all right. It'll be the
best thing all round, if I can marry him."
"Well!" said Lapham impatiently; "I can't think about it now. I
suppose they've cleaned everything out again?"
"Yes, they have," said Zerrilla; "there isn't a cent left."
"You're a pretty expensive lot," said Lapham. "Well, here!" He took
out his pocket-book and gave her a note. "I'll be round to-night and
see what can be done."
He shut himself into his room again, and Zerrilla dried her tears, put
the note into her bosom, and went her way.
Lapham kept the porter nearly an hour later. It was then six o'clock,
the hour at which the Laphams usually had tea; but all custom had been
broken up with him during the past months, and he did not go home now.
He determined, perhaps in the extremity in which a man finds relief in
combating one care with another, to keep his promise to Miss Dewey, and
at the moment when he might otherwise have been sitting down at his own
table he was climbing the stairs to her lodging in the old-fashioned
dwelling which had been portioned off into flats. It was in a region
of depots, and of the cheap hotels, and "ladies' and gents'"
dining-rooms, and restaurants with bars, which abound near depots; and
Lapham followed to Miss Dewey's door a waiter from one of these, who
bore on a salver before him a supper covered with a napkin. Zerrilla
had admitted them, and at her greeting a young fellow in the shabby
shore-suit of a sailor, buttoning imperfectly over the nautical blue
flannel of his shirt, got up from where he had been sitting, on one
side of the stove, and stood infirmly on his feet, in token of
receiving the visitor. The woman who sat on the other side did not
rise, but began a shrill, defiant apology.
"Well, I don't suppose but what you'll think we're livin' on the fat o'
the land, right straight along, all the while. But it's just like
this. When that child came in from her work, she didn't seem to have
the spirit to go to cookin' anything, and I had such a bad night last
night I was feelin' all broke up, and s'd I, what's the use, anyway? By
the time the butcher's heaved in a lot o' bone, and made you pay for
the suet he cuts away, it comes to the same thing, and why not GIT it
from the rest'rant first off, and save the cost o' your fire? s'd I."
"What have you got there under your apron? A bottle?" demanded Lapham,
who stood with his hat on and his hands in his pockets, indifferent
alike to the ineffective reception of the sailor and the chair Zerrilla
had set him.
"Well, yes, it's a bottle," said the woman, with an assumption of
virtuous frankness. "It's whisky; I got to have something to rub my
rheumatism with."
"Humph!" grumbled Lapham. "You've been rubbing HIS rheumatism too, I
see."
He twisted his head in the direction of the sailor, now softly and
rhythmically waving to and fro on his feet.
"He hain't had a drop to-day in THIS house!" cried the woman.
"What are you doing around here?" said Lapham, turning fiercely upon
him. "You've got no business ashore. Where's your ship? Do you think
I'm going to let you come here and eat your wife out of house and home,
and then give money to keep the concern going?"
"Just the very words I said when he first showed his face here,
yist'day. Didn't I, Z'rilla?" said the woman, eagerly joining in the
rebuke of her late boon companion. "You got no business here, Hen, s'd
I. You can't come here to live on me and Z'rilla, s'd I. You want to go
back to your ship, s'd I. That's what I said."
The sailor mumbled, with a smile of tipsy amiability for Lapham,
something about the crew being discharged.
"Yes," the woman broke in, "that's always the way with these coasters.
Why don't you go off on some them long v'y'ges? s'd I. It's pretty hard
when Mr. Wemmel stands ready to marry Z'rilla and provide a comfortable
home for us both--I hain't got a great many years more to live, and I
SHOULD like to get some satisfaction out of 'em, and not be beholden
and dependent all my days,--to have Hen, here, blockin' the way. I
tell him there'd be more money for him in the end; but he can't seem to
make up his mind to it."
"Well, now, look here," said Lapham. "I don't care anything about all
that. It's your own business, and I'm not going to meddle with it.
But it's my business who lives off me; and so I tell you all three, I'm
willing to take care of Zerrilla, and I'm willing to take care of her
mother----"
"I guess if it hadn't been for that child's father," the mother
interpolated, "you wouldn't been here to tell the tale, Colonel Lapham."
"I know all about that," said Lapham. "But I'll tell you what, Mr.
Dewey, I'm not going to support YOU."
"I don't see what Hen's done," said the old woman impartially.
"He hasn't done anything, and I'm going to stop it. He's got to get a
ship, and he's got to get out of this. And Zerrilla needn't come back
to work till he does. I'm done with you all."
"Well, I vow," said the mother, "if I ever heard anything like it!
Didn't that child's father lay down his life for you? Hain't you said
it yourself a hundred times? And don't she work for her money, and
slave for it mornin', noon, and night? You talk as if we was beholden
to you for the very bread in our mouths. I guess if it hadn't been for
Jim, you wouldn't been here crowin' over us."
"You mind what I say. I mean business this time," said Lapham, turning
to the door.
The woman rose and followed him, with her bottle in her hand. "Say,
Colonel! what should you advise Z'rilla to do about Mr. Wemmel? I tell
her there ain't any use goin' to the trouble to git a divorce without
she's sure about him. Don't you think we'd ought to git him to sign a
paper, or something, that he'll marry her if she gits it? I don't like
to have things going at loose ends the way they are. It ain't sense.
It ain't right."
Lapham made no answer to the mother anxious for her child's future, and
concerned for the moral questions involved. He went out and down the
stairs, and on the pavement at the lower door he almost struck against
Rogers, who had a bag in his hand, and seemed to be hurrying towards
one of the depots. He halted a little, as if to speak to Lapham; but
Lapham turned his back abruptly upon him, and took the other direction.
The days were going by in a monotony of adversity to him, from which he
could no longer escape, even at home. He attempted once or twice to
talk of his troubles to his wife, but she repulsed him sharply; she
seemed to despise and hate him; but he set himself doggedly to make a
confession to her, and he stopped her one night, as she came into the
room where he sat--hastily upon some errand that was to take her
directly away again.
"Persis, there's something I've got to tell you."
She stood still, as if fixed against her will, to listen.
"I guess you know something about it already, and I guess it set you
against me."
"Oh, I guess not, Colonel Lapham. You go your way, and I go mine.
That's all."
She waited for him to speak, listening with a cold, hard smile on her
face.
"I don't say it to make favour with you, because I don't want you to
spare me, and I don't ask you; but I got into it through Milton K.
Rogers."
"Oh!" said Mrs. Lapham contemptuously.
"I always felt the way I said about it--that it wa'n't any better than
gambling, and I say so now. It's like betting on the turn of a card;
and I give you my word of honour, Persis, that I never was in it at all
till that scoundrel began to load me up with those wild-cat securities
of his. Then it seemed to me as if I ought to try to do something to
get somewhere even. I know it's no excuse; but watching the market to
see what the infernal things were worth from day to day, and seeing it
go up, and seeing it go down, was too much for me; and, to make a long
story short, I began to buy and sell on a margin--just what I told you
I never would do. I seemed to make something--I did make something;
and I'd have stopped, I do believe, if I could have reached the figure
I'd set in my own mind to start with; but I couldn't fetch it. I began
to lose, and then I began to throw good money after bad, just as I
always did with everything that Rogers ever came within a mile of.
Well, what's the use? I lost the money that would have carried me out
of this, and I shouldn't have had to shut down the Works, or sell the
house, or----"
Lapham stopped. His wife, who at first had listened with
mystification, and then dawning incredulity, changing into a look of
relief that was almost triumph, lapsed again into severity. "Silas
Lapham, if you was to die the next minute, is this what you started to
tell me?"
"Why, of course it is. What did you suppose I started to tell you?"
"And--look me in the eyes!--you haven't got anything else on your mind
now?"
"No! There's trouble enough, the Lord knows; but there's nothing else
to tell you. I suppose Pen gave you a hint about it. I dropped
something to her. I've been feeling bad about it, Persis, a good
while, but I hain't had the heart to speak of it. I can't expect you
to say you like it. I've been a fool, I'll allow, and I've been
something worse, if you choose to say so; but that's all. I haven't
hurt anybody but myself--and you and the children."
Mrs. Lapham rose and said, with her face from him, as she turned
towards the door, "It's all right, Silas. I shan't ever bring it up
against you."
She fled out of the room, but all that evening she was very sweet with
him, and seemed to wish in all tacit ways to atone for her past
unkindness.
She made him talk of his business, and he told her of Corey's offer,
and what he had done about it. She did not seem to care for his part
in it, however; at which Lapham was silently disappointed a little, for
he would have liked her to praise him.
"He did it on account of Pen!"
"Well, he didn't insist upon it, anyway," said Lapham, who must have
obscurely expected that Corey would recognise his own magnanimity by
repeating his offer. If the doubt that follows a self-devoted
action--the question whether it was not after all a needless folly--is
mixed, as it was in Lapham's case, with the vague belief that we might
have done ourselves a good turn without great risk of hurting any one
else by being a little less unselfish, it becomes a regret that is hard
to bear. Since Corey spoke to him, some things had happened that gave
Lapham hope again.
"I'm going to tell her about it," said his wife, and she showed herself
impatient to make up for the time she had lost. "Why didn't you tell
me before, Silas?"
"I didn't know we were on speaking terms before," said Lapham sadly.
"Yes, that's true," she admitted, with a conscious flush. "I hope he
won't think Pen's known about it all this while."