A Modern Instance. William Dean HowellsЧитать онлайн книгу.
she's just been off, and couldn't stay!”
“That's because she thought he was here yet. But if he's gone, it won't be the same thing.”
“Well, we've got to fight it out, some way,” said the Squire. “It wouldn't do to give in to it now. It always was too much of a one-sided thing, at the best; and if we tried now to mend it up, it would be ridiculous. I don't believe he would come back at all, now, and if he did, he wouldn't come back on any equal terms. He'd want to have everything his own way. M-no!” said the Squire, as if confirming himself in a conclusion often reached already in his own mind, “I saw by the way he began to-night that there wasn't anything to be done with him. It was fight from the word go.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Gaylord, with gentle, sceptical interest in the outcome, “if you've made up your mind to that, I hope you'll be able to carry it through.”
“That's what I've made up my mind to,” said her husband.
Mrs. Gaylord rolled up the sewing in her work-basket, and packed it away against the side, bracing it with several pairs of newly darned socks and stockings neatly folded one into the other. She took her time for this, and when she rose at last to go out, with her basket in her hand, the door opened in her face, and Marcia entered. Mrs. Gaylord shrank back, and then slipped round behind her daughter and vanished. The girl took no notice of her mother, but went and sat down on her father's knee, throwing her arms round his neck, and dropping her haggard face on his shoulder. She had arrived at home a few hours earlier, having driven over from a station ten miles distant, on a road that did not pass near Equity. After giving as much of a shock to her mother's mild nature as it was capable of receiving by her unexpected return, she had gone to her own room, and remained ever since without seeing her father. He put up his thin old hand and passed it over her hair, but it was long before either of them spoke.
At last Marcia lifted her head, and looked her father in the face with a smile so pitiful that he could not bear to meet it. “Well, father?” she said.
“Well, Marsh,” he answered huskily. “What do you think of me now?”
“I'm glad to have you back again,” he replied.
“You know why I came?”
“Yes, I guess I know.”
She put down her head again, and moaned and cried, “Father! Father!” with dry sobs. When she looked up, confronting him with her tearless eyes, “What shall I do? What shall I do?” she demanded desolately.
He tried to clear his throat to speak, but it required more than one effort to bring the words. “I guess you better go along with me up to Boston. I'm going up the first of the week.”
“No,” she said quietly.
“The change would do you good. It's a long while since you've been away from home,” her father urged.
She looked at him in sad reproach of his uncandor. “You know there's nothing the matter with me, father. You know what the trouble is.” He was silent. He could not face the trouble. “I've heard people talk of a heartache,” she went on. “I never believed there was really such a thing. But I know there is, now. There's a pain here.” She pressed her hand against her breast. “It's sore with aching. What shall I do? I shall have to live through it somehow.”
“If you don't feel exactly well,” said her father “I guess you better see the doctor.”
“What shall I tell him is the matter with me? That I want Bartley Hubbard?” He winced at the words, but she did not. “He knows that already. Everybody in town does. It's never been any secret. I couldn't hide it, from the first day I saw him. I'd just as lief as not they should say I was dying for him. I shall not care what they say when I'm dead.”
“You'd oughtn't,—you'd oughtn't to talk that way, Marcia,” said her father, gently.
“What difference?” she demanded, scornfully. There was truly no difference, so far as concerned any creed of his, and he was too honest to make further pretence. “What shall I do?” she went on again. “I've thought of praying; but what would be the use?”
“I've never denied that there was a God, Marcia,” said her father.
“Oh, I know. That kind of God! Well, well! I know that I talk like a crazy person! Do you suppose it was providential, my being with you in the office that morning when Bartley came in?”
“No,” said her father, “I don't. I think it was an accident.”
“Mother said it was providential, my finding him out before it was too late.”
“I think it was a good thing. The fellow has the making of a first-class scoundrel in him.”
“Do you think he's a scoundrel now?” she asked quietly.
“He hasn't had any great opportunity yet,” said the old man, conscientiously sparing him.
“Well, then, I'm sorry I found him out. Yes! If I hadn't, I might have married him, and perhaps if I had died soon I might never have found him out. He could have been good to me a year or two, and then, if I died, I should have been safe. Yes, I wish he could have deceived me till after we were married. Then I couldn't have borne to give him up, may be.”
“You would have given him up, even then. And that's the only thing that reconciles me to it now. I'm sorry for you, my girl; but you'd have made me sorrier then. Sooner or later he'd have broken your heart.”
“He's broken it now,” said the girl, calmly.
“Oh, no, he hasn't,” replied her father, with a false cheerfulness that did not deceive her. “You're young and you'll get over it. I mean to take you away from here for a while. I mean to take you up to Boston, and on to New York. I shouldn't care if we went as far as Washington. I guess, when you've seen a little more of the world, you won't think Bartley Hubbard's the only one in it.”
She looked at him so intently that he thought she must be pleased at his proposal. “Do you think I could get him back?” she asked.
Her father lost his patience; it was a relief to be angry. “No, I don't think so. I know you couldn't. And you ought to be ashamed of mentioning such a thing!”
“Oh, ashamed! No, I've got past that. I have no shame any more where he's concerned. Oh, I'd give the world if I could call him back,—if I could only undo what I did! I was wild; I wasn't reasonable; I wouldn't listen to him. I drove him away without giving him a chance to say a word! Of course, he must hate me now. What makes you think he wouldn't come back?” she asked.
“I know he wouldn't,” answered her father, with a sort of groan. “He's going to leave Equity for one thing, and—”
“Going to leave Equity,” she repeated, absently Then he felt her tremble. “How do you know he's going?” She turned upon her father, and fixed him sternly with her eyes.
“Do you suppose he would stay, after what's happened, any longer than he could help?”
“How do you know he's going?” she repeated.
“He told me.”
She stood up. “He told you? When?”
“To-night.”
“Why, where—where did you see him?” she whispered.
“In the office.”
“Since—since—I came? Bartley been here! And you didn't tell me,—you didn't let me know?” They looked at each other in silence. At last, “When is he going?” she asked.
“To-morrow morning.”
She sat down in the chair which her mother had left, and clutched the back of another, on which her fingers opened and closed convulsively, while she caught her breath in irregular gasps.