By eight o'clock in the evening the pain with which every day began
for Mrs. Mavering was lulled, and her jarred nerves were stayed by the
opiates till she fell asleep about midnight. In this interval the family
gathered into her room, and brought her their news and the cheer of
their health. The girls chattered on one side of her bed, and their
father sat with his newspaper on the other, and read aloud the passages
which he thought would interest her, while she lay propped among her
pillows, brilliantly eager for the world opening this glimpse of itself
to her shining eyes. That was on her good nights, when the drugs did
their work, but there were times when they failed, and the day's agony
prolonged itself through the evening, and the sleep won at last was a
heavy stupor. Then the sufferer's temper gave way under the stress; she
became the torment she suffered, and tore the hearts she loved. Most of
all, she afflicted the man who had been so faithful to her misery, and
maddened him to reprisals, of which he afterward abjectly repented. Her
tongue was sharpened by pain, and pitilessly skilled to inculpate and to
punish; it pierced and burned like fire but when a good day came again
she made it up to the victims by the angelic sweetness and sanity
which they felt was her real self; the cruelty was only the mask of her
suffering.
When she was better they brought to her room anybody who was staying
with them, and she liked them to be jolly in the spacious chamber. The
pleasantest things of the house were assembled, and all its comforts
concentrated, in the place which she and they knew she should quit but
once. It was made gay with flowers and pictures; it was the salon for
those fortunate hours when she became the lightest and blithest of
the company in it, and made the youngest guest forget that there was
sickness or pain in the world by the spirit with which she ignored her
own. Her laugh became young again; she joked; she entered into what
they were doing and reading and thinking, and sent them away full of the
sympathy which in this mood of hers she had for every mood in others.
Girls sighed out their wonder and envy to her daughters when they left
her; the young men whom she captivated with her divination of their
passions or ambitions went away celebrating her supernatural knowledge
of human nature. The next evening after some night of rare and happy
excitement, the family saw her nurse carrying the pictures and flowers
and vases out of her room, in sign of her renunciation of them all,
and assembled silently, shrinkingly, in her chamber, to take each their
portion of her anguish, of the blame and the penalty. The household
adjusted itself to her humours, for she was supreme in it.
When Dan used to come home from Harvard she put on a pretty cap for
him, and distinguished him as company by certain laces hiding her wasted
frame, and giving their pathetic coquetry to her transparent wrists. He
was her favourite, and the girls acknowledged him so, and made their
fun of her for spoiling him. He found out as he grew up that her broken
health dated from his birth, and at first this deeply affected him; but
his young life soon lost the keenness of the impression, and he loved
his mother because she loved him, and not because she had been dying for
him so many years.
As he now came into her room, and the waiting-woman went out of it with
her usual, “Well, Mr. Dan!” the tenderness which filled him at sight of
his mother was mixed with that sense of guilt which had tormented him at
times ever since he met his sisters. He was going to take himself from
her; he realised that.
“Well, Dan!” she called, so gaily that he said to himself, “No, father
hasn't told her anything about it,” and was instantly able to answer her
as cheerfully, “Well, mother!”
He bent over her to kiss her, and the odour of the clean linen mingling
with that of the opium, and the cologne with which she had tried
to banish its scent, opened to him one of those vast reaches of
associations which perfumes can unlock, and he saw her lying there
through those years of pain, as many as half his life, and suddenly the
tears gushed into his eyes, and he fell on his knees, and hid his face
in the bed-clothes and sobbed.
She kept smoothing his head, which shook under her thin hand, and
saying, “Poor Dan! poor Dan!” but did not question him. He knew that
she knew what he had come to tell her, and that his tears, which had not
been meant for that, had made interest with her for him and his cause,
and that she was already on his side.
He tried boyishly to dignify the situation when he lifted his face, and
he said, “I didn't mean to come boohooing to you in this way, and I'm
ashamed of myself.”
“I know, Dan; but you've been wrought up, and I don't wonder. You
mustn't mind your father and your sisters. Of course, they're rather
surprised, and they don't like your taking yourself from them--we, none
of us do.”
At these honest words Dan tried to become honest too. At least he
dropped his pretence of dignity, and became as a little child in his
simple greed for sympathy. “But it isn't necessarily that; is it,
mother?”
“Yes, it's all that, Dan; and it's all right, because it's that. We
don't like it, but our not liking it has nothing to do with its being
right or wrong.”
“I supposed that father would have been pleased, anyway; for he has seen
her, and--and. Of course the girls haven't, but I think they might have
trusted my judgment a little. I'm not quite a fool.”
His mother smiled. “Oh, it isn't a question of the wisdom of your
choice; it's the unexpectedness. We all saw that you were very unhappy
when you were here before, and we supposed it had gone wrong.”
“It had, mother,” said Dan. “She refused me at Campobello. But it was a
misunderstanding, and as soon as we met--”
“I knew you had met again, and what you had come home for, and I told
your father so, when he came to say you were here.”
“Did you, mother?” he asked, charmed at her having guessed that.
“Yes. She must be a good girl to send you straight home to tell us.”
“You knew I wouldn't have thought of that myself,” said Dan joyously. “I
wanted to write; I thought that would do just as well. I hated to leave
her, but she made me come. She is the best, and the wisest, and the most
unselfish--O mother, I can't tell you about her! You must see her. You
can't realise her till you see her, mother. You'll like each other,
I'm sure of that. You're just alike.” It seemed to Dan that they were
exactly alike.
“Then perhaps we sha'n't,” suggested his mother. “Let me see her
picture.”
“How did you know I had it? If it hadn't been for her, I shouldn't have
brought any. She put it into my pocket just as I was leaving. She said
you would all want to see what she looked like.”
He had taken it out of his pocket, and he held it, smiling fondly upon
it. Alice seemed to smile back at him. He had lost her in the reluctance
of his father and sisters; and now his mother--it was his mother who had
given her to him again. He thought how tenderly he loved his mother.
When he could yield her the photograph, she looked long and silently at
it. “She has a great deal of character, Dan.”
“There you've hit it, mother! I'd rather you would have said that than
anything else. But don't you think she's beautiful? She's the gentlest
creature, when you come to know her! I was awfully afraid of her at
first. I thought she was very haughty. But she isn't at all. She's
really very self-depreciatory; she thinks she isn't good enough for me.
You ought to hear her talk, mother, as I have. She's full of the noblest
ideals--of being of some use in the world, of being self-devoted,
and--all that kind of thing. And you can see that she's capable of it.
Her aunt's in a Protestant sisterhood,” he said, with a solemnity which
did not seem to communicate itself to his mother, for Mrs. Mavering
smiled. Dan smiled too, and said: “But I can't tell you about Alice,
mother. She's perfect.” His heart overflowed with proud delight in her,
and he was fool enough to add, “She's so affectionate!”
His mother kept herself from laughing. “I dare say she is, Dan--with
you.” Then she hid all but her eyes with the photograph, and gave way.
“What a donkey!” said Dan, meaning himself. “If I go on, I shall disgust
you with her. What I mean is that she isn't at all proud, as I used to
think she was.”
“No girl is, under the circumstances. She has all she can do to be proud
of you.”
“Do you think so, mother?” he said, enraptured with the notion. “I've
done my best--or my worst--not to give her any reason to be so.”
“She doesn't 'want any--the less the better. You silly boy! Don't you
suppose she wants to make you out of whole cloth just as you do with
her? She doesn't want any facts to start with; they'd be in the way.
Well, now, I can make out, with your help, what the young lady is;
but what are the father and mother? They're rather important in these
cases.”
“Oh, they're the nicest kind of people,” said Dan, in optimistic
generalisation. “You'd like Mrs. Pasmer. She's awfully nice.”
“Do you say that because you think I wouldn't?” asked his mother. “Isn't
she rather sly and hum-bugging?”
“Well, yes, she is, to a certain extent,” Dan admitted, with a laugh.
“But she doesn't mean any harm by it. She's extremely kind-hearted.”
“To you? I dare say. And Mr. Pasmer is rather under her thumb?”
“Well, yes, you might say thumb,” Dan consented, feeling it useless to
defend the Pasmers against this analysis.
“We won't say heel,” returned his mother; “we're too polite. And your
father says he had the reputation in college of being one of the most
selfish fellows in the world. He's never done anything since but lose
most of his money. He's been absolutely idle and useless all his days.”
She turned her vivid blue eyes suddenly upon her son's.
Dan winced. “You know how hard father is upon people who haven't done
anything. It's a mania of his. Of course Mr. Pasmer doesn't show to
advantage where there's no--no leisure class.”
“Poor man!”
Dan was going to say, “He's very amiable, though,” but he was afraid
of his mother's retorting, “To you?” and he held his peace, looking
chapfallen.
Whether his mother took pity on him or not, her next sally was
consoling. “But your Alice may not take after either of them. Her father
is the worst of his breed, it seems; the rest are useful people,
from what your father knows, and there's a great deal to be hoped for
collaterally. She had an uncle in college at the same time who was
everything that her father was not.”
“One of her aunts is in one of those Protestant religious houses in
England,” repeated Dan.
“Oh!” said his mother shortly, “I don't know that I like that
particularly. But probably she isn't useless there. Is Alice very
religious?”
“Well, I suppose,” said Dan, with a smile for the devotions that came
into his thought, “she's what would be called 'Piscopal pious.”
Mrs. Mavering referred to the photograph, which she still held in
her hand. “Well, she's pure and good, at any rate. I suppose you look
forward to a long engagement?”
Dan was somewhat taken aback at a supposition so very contrary to what
was in his mind. “Well, I don't know. Why?”
“It might be said that you are very young. How old is Agnes--Alice, I
mean?”
“Twenty-one. But now, look here, mother! It's no use considering such a
thing in the abstract, is it?”
“No,” said his mother, with a smile for what might be coming.
“This is the way I've been viewing it; I may say it's the way Alice has
been viewing it--or Mrs. Pasmer, rather.”
“Decidedly Mrs. Pasmer, rather. Better be honest, Dan.”
“I'll do my best. I was thinking, hoping, that is, that as I'm going
right into the business--have gone into it already, in fact--and could
begin life at once, that perhaps there wouldn't be much sense in waiting
a great while.”
“Yes?”
“That's all. That is, if you and father are agreed.” He reflected upon
this provision, and added, with a laugh of confusion and pleasure: “It
seems to be so very much more of a family affair than I used to think it
was.”
“You thought it concerned just you and her?” said his mother, with arch
sympathy.
“Well, yes.”
“Poor fellow! She knew better than that, you may be sure. At any rate,
her mother did.”
“What Mrs. Pasmer doesn't know isn't probably worth knowing,” said Dan,
with an amused sense of her omniscience.
“I thought so,” sighed his mother, smiling too. “And now you begin to
find out that it concerns the families in all their branches on both
sides.”
“Oh, if it stopped at the families and their ramifications! But it seems
to take in society and the general public.”
“So it does--more than you can realise. You can't get married to
yourself alone, as young people think; and if you don't marry happily,
you sin against the peace and comfort of the whole community.”
“Yes, that's what I'm chiefly looking out for now. I don't want any of
those people in Central Africa to suffer. That's the reason I want to
marry Alice at the earliest opportunity. But I suppose there'll have to
be a Mavering embassy to the high contracting powers of the other part
now?”
“Your father and one of the girls had better go down.”
“Yes?”
“And invite Mr. and Mrs. Pasmer and their daughter to come up here.”
“All on probation?”
“Oh no. If you're pleased, Dan--”
“I am, mother--measurably.” They both laughed at this mild way of
putting it.
“Why, then it's to be supposed that we're all pleased. You needn't bring
the whole Pasmer family home to live with you, if you do marry them
all.”
“No,” said Dan, and suddenly he became very distraught. It flashed
through him that his mother was expecting him to come home with Alice
to live, and that she would not be at all pleased with his scheme of
a European sojourn, which Mrs. Pasmer had so cordially adopted. He
was amazed that he had not thought of that, but he refused to see any
difficulty which his happiness could not cope with.
“No, there's that view of it,” he said jollily; and he buried his
momentary anxiety out of sight, and, as it were, danced upon its grave.
Nevertheless, he had a desire to get quickly away from the spot. “I hope
the Mavering embassy won't be a great while getting ready to go,” he
said. “Of course it's all right; but I shouldn't want an appearance of
reluctance exactly, you know, mother; and if there should be much of an
interval between my getting back and their coming on, don't you know,
why, the cat might let herself out of the bag.”
“What cat?” asked his mother demurely.
“Well, you know, you haven't received my engagement with unmingled
enthusiasm, and--and I suppose they would find it out from me--from my
manner; and--and I wish they'd come along pretty soon, mother.”
“Poor boy! I'm afraid the cat got out of the bag when Mrs. Pasmer came
to the years of discretion. But you sha'n't be left a prey to her. They
shall go back with you. Ring the bell, and let's talk it over with them
now.”
Dan joyfully obeyed. He could see that his mother was all on fire with
interest in his affair, and that the idea of somehow circumventing Mrs.
Pasmer by prompt action was fascinating her.
His sisters came up at once, and his father followed a moment later.
They all took their cue from the mother's gaiety, and began talking and
laughing, except the father, who sat looking on with a smile at their
lively spirits and the jokes of which Dan became the victim. Each family
has its own fantastic medium, in which it gets affairs to relieve them
of their concrete seriousness, and the Maverings now did this with Dan's
engagement, and played with it as an airy abstraction. They debated the
character of the embassy which was to be sent down to Boston on their
behalf, and it was decided that Eunice had better go with her father,
as representing more fully the age and respectability of the family: at
first glance the Pasmers would take her for Dan's mother, and this would
be a tremendous advantage.
“And if I like the ridiculous little chit,” said Eunice, “I think I
shall let Dan marry her at once. I see no reason why he shouldn't and I
couldn't stand a long engagement; I should break it off.”
“I guess there are others who will have something to say about that,”
retorted the younger sister. “I've always wanted a long engagement in
this family, and as there seems to be no chance for it with the ladies,
I wish to make the most of Dan's. I always like it where the hero gets
sick and the heroine nurses him. I want Dan to get sick, and have Alice
come here and take care of him.”
“No; this marriage must take place at once. What do you say, father?”
asked Eunice.
Her father sat, enjoying the talk, at the foot of the bed, with a
tendency to doze. “You might ask Dan,” he said, with a lazy cast of his
eye toward his son.
“Dan has nothing to do with it.”
“Dan shall not be consulted.”
The two girls stormed upon their father with their different reasons.
“Now I will tell you Girls, be still!” their mother broke in. “Listen to
me: I have an idea.”
“Listen to her: she has an idea!” echoed Eunice, in recitative.
“Will you be quiet?” demanded the mother.
“We will be du-u-mb!”
When they became so, at the verge of their mother's patience, of which
they knew the limits, she went on: “I think Dan had better get married
at once.”
“There, Minnie!”
“But what does Dan say?”
“I will--make the sacrifice,” said Dan meekly.
“Noble boy! That's exactly what Washington said to his mother when she
asked him not to go to sea,” said Minnie.
“And then he went into the militia, and made it all right with himself
that way,” said Eunice. “Dan can't play his filial piety on this family.
Go on, mother.”
“I want him to bring his wife home, and live with us,” continued his
mother.
“In the L part!” cried Minnie, clasping her hands in rapture. “I've
always said what a perfect little apartment it was by itself.”
“Well, don't say it again, then,” returned her sister. “Always is often
enough. Well, in the L part Go on, mother! Don't ask where you were,
when it's so exciting.”
“I don't care whether it's in the L part or not. There's plenty of room
in the great barn of a place everywhere.”
“But what about his taking care of the business in Boston?” suggested
Eunice, looking at her father.
“There's no hurry about that.”
“And about the excursion to aesthetic centres abroad?” Minnie added.
“That could be managed,” said her father, with the same ironical smile.
The mother and the girls went on wildly planning Dan's future for him.
It was all in a strain of extravagant burlesque. But he could not take
his part in it with his usual zest. He laughed and joked too, but at the
bottom of his heart was an uneasy remembrance of the different future he
had talked over with Mrs. Pasmer so confidently. But he said to himself
buoyantly at last that it would come out all right. His mother would
give in, or else Alice could reconcile her mother to whatever seemed
really best.
He parted from his mother with fond gaiety. His sisters came out of the
room with him.
“I'm perfectly sore with laughing,” said Minnie. “It seems like old
times--doesn't it, Dan?--such a gale with mother.”